Packing material

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Bill Shields
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Re: Packing material

Post by Bill Shields »

You are probably going to have to pack and mash a couple of times before you get it right.
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Greg_Lewis
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Re: Packing material

Post by Greg_Lewis »

Bill Shields wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 10:20 am there is a blacksmith's solution to most everything with a loco....

I've heard that in the days of steam, if you saw some guys wandering around the shop with sledge hammers, those were the locomotive machinists. :shock:
Greg Lewis, Prop.
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Bill Shields
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Re: Packing material

Post by Bill Shields »

No ..they were tool and die makers.

The machinists were rolling the OXY acetylene torches and tanks around
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Greg_Lewis
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Re: Packing material

Post by Greg_Lewis »

:lol:
Greg Lewis, Prop.
Eyeball Engineering — Home of the dull toolbit.
Our motto: "That looks about right."
Celebrating 35 years of turning perfectly good metal into bits of useless scrap.
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Fender
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Re: Packing material

Post by Fender »

Bill Shields wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 10:20 am getting the old stuff out (whatever it is) -> not always that bad. Picking and blowing with air from the outside is not always the most productive.

Suggest:

pull the packing glands all the way back out of the way
……
lightly pressurize the boiler with air. A few PSI is all you need.

Open throttle slowly.

takes longer to describe than do.

there is a blacksmith's solution to most everything with a loco....
Many years ago, I was watching a friend repack the gland on a 36” gauge 0-4-4, and he used this exact method. When the old packing blew out, it sounded like a cannon! The owner of the loco came out running, wanting to know what blew up!
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Bill Shields
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Re: Packing material

Post by Bill Shields »

Emphasis on low pressure air :mrgreen:
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kcameron
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Re: Packing material

Post by kcameron »

The other big point is first getting it aligned right and then locking everything down so nothing can move at all. That's the key to having the packing be the part that must move. If anything else can move, it will try and that would be bad.
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Bill Shields
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Re: Packing material

Post by Bill Shields »

Hense the dowel or screwdriver in the spokes.... :mrgreen:
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jscarmozza
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Re: Packing material

Post by jscarmozza »

Holy cow, I saw devils trying to get the steam cylinder follower glands off, the steam chest glands were a piece of cake. I couldn’t get on the nuts with anything but an open end wrench and then I couldn’t get a turn on them once I did. I wound up making a swivel socket from an Allen head cap screw and a piece of plastic tubing, 6 hours to get the job done. I bought graphite tape but used the PTFE, I’m looking for something that will last a long time because I don’t want to do this job again for a long time!
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Bill Shields
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Re: Packing material

Post by Bill Shields »

Welcome to the world of ''do not worry about future maintenance when designing and building "
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James Powell
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Re: Packing material

Post by James Powell »

Bill, in these days of Youtube, I'd refer to that as a "Future Matt" problem. (from SuperFastMatt, who has converted a Jag to electric, and built a few other things...hes building a land speed car now...)

In the past, dad and I managed to totally mess up with a pump on Thing, that was held down by bolts which were too long (why didn't I shorten them?) and had to be done with alternating swings of the 5BA wrench for 15 degrees per go. 2/4 of the bolts were fine, but the other two were NOT. We couldn't get the socket onto them, they were a total swine, and the pump never worked right. ever. So eventually was replaced. The pump was a vertical pump, with the checks vertical as well, which didn't work in favor of the suction valve. Only something like 1/4x 3/16", so not much fluid per stroke. Live and learn...
flavinny
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Re: Packing material

Post by flavinny »

Hello Marty, I have just finished installing a boiler on my Allen Ten Wheeler that you built for me back ~2017. I fired it up on the test stand today and the throttle rod leaked terribly. I had repacked it with cotton/graphite string . I removed the gland and the string turned rock hard. I don't remember what I used on the original boiler but it lasted ten years.
Reading through this thread I see PTFE and other things mentioned but the graphite sounds interesting I have never used it.
Would it work for this application and how is it installed? Just wrap it around the rod and screw the nut down?
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