2” Burrell water Gauge – new builders note

Having fired my engine up a number of times now I still have no confidence in the water guage supplied as standard. Cannot get the frame to stay on and it leaks which gave a false reading and I ended up running out of water and must have been close to blowing the plug so decided to invest in a 3 cock valve as Bungle and a few others I have seen had done. This has the added advantage of being able to shut the valves off if you break the glass.

Returned from midlands show with nice shiny 3 cock valve only to realise that as the lower valve drain cock was silver soldered to the body which meant that I couldn’t remove it and it wouldn’t screw in as this part fouled the horn plates. This has resulted in a major strip down!
At the same time I decide to fit a hand pump so purchased one and now need to decide where to place it. I think amongst the coal would be the best place but where to run the flow pipe is a poser. Any suggestions appreciated.

The reason I publish this was to give advance notice to new builders who are at the stage of fitting the horn plates to the boiler as this is the stage to change the gauge to avoid later strip down. Believe me you don't want to do this,it's a b****y nightmare!
Al

Big Al wrote:Having fired my engine up a number of times now I still have no confidence in the water guage supplied as standard. Cannot get the frame to stay on and it leaks which gave a false reading and I ended up running out of water and must have been close to blowing the plug so decided to invest in a 3 cock valve as Bungle and a few others I have seen had done. This has the added advantage of being able to shut the valves off if you break the glass.

Returned from midlands show with nice shiny 3 cock valve only to realise that as the lower valve drain cock was silver soldered to the body which meant that I couldn’t remove it and it wouldn’t screw in as this part fouled the horn plates. This has resulted in a major strip down!
At the same time I decide to fit a hand pump so purchased one and now need to decide where to place it. I think amongst the coal would be the best place but where to run the flow pipe is a poser. Any suggestions appreciated.

The reason I publish this was to give advance notice to new builders who are at the stage of fitting the horn plates to the boiler as this is the stage to change the gauge to avoid later strip down. Believe me you don't want to do this,it's a b****y nightmare!
Al

Is this a common problem ? If so where could i get a 3 cock valve ?

Thanks

Eyup Al'

I've managed to "aquire" a second hand air cylinder which will fit just nicely on the engine, the location? Not quite certain as yet but I feel I'll be stickin it on the "inside left" tender panel between the bunker and the firebox, there's plenty of room there and the water will be easyish to get at, as for where I'm thinking of putting the pumped water, I'm considering a t-off from the waterpump to boiler feed pipe with a non-return valve in place. Any thoughts?

LilyJack

Al,

Where did you get your water gauge from ??? and can you give me details of the hand pump that you bought .
I see that there are triple cock water gauges in the Polymodels catalogue but dont know if they will fit or not!!
Can anyone help ??

Cheers


Malcolm

Do not despair about your gauge glass, they are a pain on real time boilers too. At one power station I worked at, it was decided to leave all the gauge glasses isolated as more time was being spent fixing them only for them to fail again. The electronic reading was so good we were allowed to leave the gauge glasses isolated.

Frostie

Got mine over the counter at Blackgate engineering from Midlands Model exhibition, It was a 3/8 x 32 thread and the small version with left hand cocks(originally designed for the winston steam engine) with a 5mm glass. the body on this one is smaller than standard and looks better. There are other suppliers who do a similar style, Bungle got one from M J Engineering I think, but had to wait about 3 months till it got built

You will need to engineer an adapter for the top fitting.
You will also need a small piece of pipe for the drain as it is quite small.

I will endeavour to get a photo on site of mine to show the adaptor. The protector gauge STW supply seems to fit this guage as well

Shame we haven't got an eletrical sensor and could do away with it !

Al

Cheers Al

I see that Polymodel do a gauge (winson) to the same specs, I think that I will look around for the best option, then get a triple cock gauge, having said that I dont see why an electrical sensor cant be fitted !!! I am at the stage that this could well be possible, I wonder what the boiler steam test examiner would say if an elecktrickery one was fitted !!!!
I would appreeciate any pics you could get showing your installation mate.
How big is your hand pump ???

thansk for youe help

Malcolm (Frostie)

Hi guys
This thred has intred me a lot Have you beeable to get a pic yet .

Hugh,

Are you using the kit supplied watergauge ??

Malc

YEs I am it has busted the glass 3 times .But that my of been my set up {mostlikly}

But my engin is now not working as the whisel has blowen and will not work at all?

Hugh,

What the heck happened to your whistle, and how come you cant isolate it and use the engine ?
I am just about to order a stack of bits from Polymodel including a new water gauge, I hope that Al can post some pics of his water gauge installation soon so that I know what I will have to adapt, Roll on the 15th when I get back home to continue the build

Malc

Here are the photos I promised

The top one shows the adaptor I had to make, the top part of the guage with the 3/8 x 32 thread has a flat face and as the pipe connecting it to the boiler has a conical fit the 2 would not meet, also the original had a locking ring on it and there is not enough thread to get a lock ring and method to attached a steam tight fitting to the boiler pipe

I managed to make an adaptor that not only fits up against the top guage seal but also is tight enough to hold the top assembly rigid against the mounting bracket using a very thin washer

I had to put a slight bend in the boiler pipe as it protruded too far with the adaptor fitted so I angled the elbow from the boiler round a bit and re shaped the pipe

The bottom fitting you may need to shorten a bit to get it all to line up

As you can see by the second image, as the drain pipe cock is soldered to the bottom body you cannot just wind it on the the extention, It a whole hornplate removal which is why it looks a bit scratched and will have to be beautified again.

The whole lot can be done for under £100 as you will need to silver solder a smaller diameter pipe to the drain valve and buy the taps and dies if you haven't got any. Mine are up for loan if anyone wants

I also got a hand pump and I'll upload that later. It is a 1/2 " bore which I was told should be enough

cheers

Alan

Frostie wrote:Hugh,

What the heck happened to your whistle, and how come you cant isolate it and use the engine ?

Malc

Hi Will all was going well My club did the tests and also a frend did a lot of work
And in the end he came over and we ran my engine for the first time .
BUt not so long ago now I ran just by my self.......HUM
Well all was going well the prescher vavle went off .Big shock well it is doing ti's job .
But then the wisel let all the steam go ?????????? but did not whisel .So it is off and took apart.
I do not get it put together as book ,pluss cheked it, but still not working ....

So I have give STW a bell and maybe send it in the post..
Ho yes I bet it is something small

Hi AL

Thanks for the pics it looks tight in there on the ball vavle but do like it good luck on the
butfing job

Hi,

Has anyone spoken to the factory about these gauges. Even though i want my engine to work correctly ( when i finally get round to doing some more on it ) part of me feels that the money i have paid should obtain me all the bits to build a safe and correctly working engine.

I was just interested to get STW's thoughts on this becuase if the gauges are defective i would expect them to be replaced rather than having to source one from elsewhere.

Regards

Andy

Andy
It's not a question of them being defective. The protection guage is not a very good fit though and if exposed it is easy to break the glass and with no cock valves the whole steam pressure is lost. With cock valves if you break the glass at least you can shut off the steam. The glass supplied has no line on it to assist with levels and I was just not happy with the readings i was getting. There's nothing to say I wont have the same problem with the new one but it does look better.

Al

Hi,

We have several miniatures in the family and what i have noticed, on the 1" and 2" engines especially, is that you have to blow the gauges down very frequently to obtain accurate water level readings. Also the water level will appear higher in the glass when the engine is working hard so i try to keep 3/4 of a gauge of water whilst the engine is working, which normally settles to about 1/2 glass when stationary. Therefore if you are showing 1/4 gauge when working the crown of the fire box can actually be exposed, ie no water in the glass when stationary. Hope i have explained that in a form that makes sense ?.

Regards

Andy

I have ordered a new triple cock (LH ) from Poly models, unfortunately they are on back order and not expected to arrive for about three weeks,, this has the knock on effect that I am now delayed in doing a lot of construction on other parts :-(
I am hoping that the wait will be worth it.. It might even make me leave the garage /workshop over the Xmas period !!!!
Merry Christmas builders !!!

Frostie.

Hi
Merry Christmass
And keep posting

From my experiance of running my locomotives keep blowing the gauge glass down thats what the blow down is for. my gauge protector fits fine I have bent up a piece of thin brass with curled up side edges this snaps onto the back of the protector round the brass rods. this is also painted black and white stripes to help see the water. it also holds the protector on if it does come off but i found you just need to move a flat on the bottom gland so the screw can get a good grip on it.

just a heads up if the gauge does break no matter what gauge you have you wont be able to get near it to turn those cocks. I had a gauge break with the same three cock gauge and I couldnt get them shut off due to the steam and and hot water even with my gauge having a ball bearing in the bottom cock valve to so say "plug" the hole to stop hot water exiting. just be carefull though and all will be good.

Having removed the dust an got my engine ready for an Easter steaming, I remembered the problem of retaining the water gauge cover in place. Having taken some measuremunte I discovered that the assembly was 2 to 3 mm short to fit as designed and the screw which is meant to hold the cover in place didn't. I have cut new glasses(plastics) 3mm longer than the ones supplied , Job done tightens up perfectly. Ferro Rocher chocolate box is the correct thickness and you get the added pleasure of eating the chocolates.