Boiler Transplant
After waiting like....three months or more. FINALLY new boiler and cylinders for my steam engine have arrived. MUCHOS FAFF in fitting them.
The new boiler - silver soldered made from extruded copper - makes the previous example c.1980 by Mamod look like a coke can. Really thin walls and cheeply made. This new boiler is rated upto 60psi (!) but the safety valve blows at 40psi. So yeah seriously over-engineered. The old Mamod boiler could go upto about 29-30psi with the orginal toy safety set to 14psi. New, thicker boiler takes ages to warm up. It took about 20 mins of standing idle for the safety to actually blow. And when it did it was like a volcano erupting! FWOOOOSHHH!!! I just have to literally crack the regulator open a fraction for the loco to move. It happily putters around at 12ish psi, anad at full pressure....eh gad.And that is with a bit of a steam leak on the main steam pipe. Just need to silver solder that joint up this evening.
Ravage did his usual "helping" and chasing the engine as it puttered around the back yard. One of these days I am expecting him to sit on one of the trucks and have a ride. I would not put it past him.
I am also trying to politely write in academic style that the pseudo-Official British "Historian" of the Crimean War is a muppet. A W Kinglake was a Tory,High Churchman and incredibly antagonistic to NApoleon III after losing a fight for the hand of Lizzie Howard as his mistress. Napoleon won, Kinglake didnt and she basically bank-roilled his 1848 Election bid to be President of the Republic.
Kinglake states that:
*Napoleon was ugly with a big nose and small narrow eyes. He did have a big nose but Kinglake's langauge is all negative and attacking, trying to make Napoleon sound like an ugly little scheming machiavellian figure upto no good.
*Napoleon III "endevoured to make himself appear like his esteamed Uncle". i.e. Napoleon III tried to make himself look like Napoleon I. Well, erm, he didnt. Ever. He is usually photographed in every day clothes and seldom wore a uniform at all.
*Napoleon III was illegitimate because he didn't look like Napoleon I. No, he wasnt illegitimate but the gossip and tittle-tattle of the Royalist opposition to Napoleon used the fact he didnt look like his father, Louis to mean he was illegitimate. Napoleon III was certainly his mother's son in facial features but definately a Bonaparte physically - average height, big head (making him look short) and a long back and short legs which again made him appear short, which is why in public he often appeared on horseback because he DID look very good mounted.
*The Empress Eugenie manipulated her husband and was a reactionary ultra Catholic. No, she didnt and no she wasnt. She was very much a Liberal Catholic by standards of her day.
And finally....now get this...Napoleon III not only contrived to start the Crimean War but engineered the whole thing, from beginning to end, to suit his own means. And by that Kinglake suggests Napoleon was skint and needed money, France was skint and a war was good for business, Napoleon was unpopular and a war was good for his popularity and national esteem and he tricked Britain in to going to War with Russia.
Kinglake also goes on to suggest that the French army always always always fought in Column and only used Line formation after seeing the British use it at the Battle of Inkerman. Um.....the French fought in Line according to the 1791, 1813, 1830 and 1852 Drill Manuals. They manoeuvred in column yes but fought in line. He also gets the origins of the Zouaves wrong - he calls them an "Arab native levy"...excuse me but they were Frenchmen?
Basically, Kinglake is a gossip and rumour mongerer, who goes to extraordinary lengths to attack Napoleon III ( annd basically the entire Bonaparte family) and vindicate Lord Raglan (whose widow commissioned his work). His work when first published in 1863 was considered to be more journalism than history and to be, well, crap. By the 1880s when his last volume was produced he was lauded in the Press and considered the de-facto historian of the Crimean War. The pendulum swung back to mistrust around 1910 but he is still seen by the enthusiastic amateur historian as the de-facto source. And its this type of crap that is in print and taken "as gospel" that makes it fucking hard work even for a proper historian like myself to dispel these errors both Academically and in more popular mediums.
The new boiler - silver soldered made from extruded copper - makes the previous example c.1980 by Mamod look like a coke can. Really thin walls and cheeply made. This new boiler is rated upto 60psi (!) but the safety valve blows at 40psi. So yeah seriously over-engineered. The old Mamod boiler could go upto about 29-30psi with the orginal toy safety set to 14psi. New, thicker boiler takes ages to warm up. It took about 20 mins of standing idle for the safety to actually blow. And when it did it was like a volcano erupting! FWOOOOSHHH!!! I just have to literally crack the regulator open a fraction for the loco to move. It happily putters around at 12ish psi, anad at full pressure....eh gad.And that is with a bit of a steam leak on the main steam pipe. Just need to silver solder that joint up this evening.
Ravage did his usual "helping" and chasing the engine as it puttered around the back yard. One of these days I am expecting him to sit on one of the trucks and have a ride. I would not put it past him.
I am also trying to politely write in academic style that the pseudo-Official British "Historian" of the Crimean War is a muppet. A W Kinglake was a Tory,High Churchman and incredibly antagonistic to NApoleon III after losing a fight for the hand of Lizzie Howard as his mistress. Napoleon won, Kinglake didnt and she basically bank-roilled his 1848 Election bid to be President of the Republic.
Kinglake states that:
*Napoleon was ugly with a big nose and small narrow eyes. He did have a big nose but Kinglake's langauge is all negative and attacking, trying to make Napoleon sound like an ugly little scheming machiavellian figure upto no good.
*Napoleon III "endevoured to make himself appear like his esteamed Uncle". i.e. Napoleon III tried to make himself look like Napoleon I. Well, erm, he didnt. Ever. He is usually photographed in every day clothes and seldom wore a uniform at all.
*Napoleon III was illegitimate because he didn't look like Napoleon I. No, he wasnt illegitimate but the gossip and tittle-tattle of the Royalist opposition to Napoleon used the fact he didnt look like his father, Louis to mean he was illegitimate. Napoleon III was certainly his mother's son in facial features but definately a Bonaparte physically - average height, big head (making him look short) and a long back and short legs which again made him appear short, which is why in public he often appeared on horseback because he DID look very good mounted.
*The Empress Eugenie manipulated her husband and was a reactionary ultra Catholic. No, she didnt and no she wasnt. She was very much a Liberal Catholic by standards of her day.
And finally....now get this...Napoleon III not only contrived to start the Crimean War but engineered the whole thing, from beginning to end, to suit his own means. And by that Kinglake suggests Napoleon was skint and needed money, France was skint and a war was good for business, Napoleon was unpopular and a war was good for his popularity and national esteem and he tricked Britain in to going to War with Russia.
Kinglake also goes on to suggest that the French army always always always fought in Column and only used Line formation after seeing the British use it at the Battle of Inkerman. Um.....the French fought in Line according to the 1791, 1813, 1830 and 1852 Drill Manuals. They manoeuvred in column yes but fought in line. He also gets the origins of the Zouaves wrong - he calls them an "Arab native levy"...excuse me but they were Frenchmen?
Basically, Kinglake is a gossip and rumour mongerer, who goes to extraordinary lengths to attack Napoleon III ( annd basically the entire Bonaparte family) and vindicate Lord Raglan (whose widow commissioned his work). His work when first published in 1863 was considered to be more journalism than history and to be, well, crap. By the 1880s when his last volume was produced he was lauded in the Press and considered the de-facto historian of the Crimean War. The pendulum swung back to mistrust around 1910 but he is still seen by the enthusiastic amateur historian as the de-facto source. And its this type of crap that is in print and taken "as gospel" that makes it fucking hard work even for a proper historian like myself to dispel these errors both Academically and in more popular mediums.