Stuart Victoria Blog

Finishing the Steam Cut-Off Valve

I made the core of the valve quite a while ago and now all that was left to do was to add the threaded connectors so it could actually be used.

Whats going here is that I’ve made two small stubs from 1/4 inch brass rod,  drilled them through 1/8 inch then gently made the narrow end concave to fit the barrel of the valve using a 12mm milling cutter.  The 1/8th steel rod is used to align the components for silver brazing.

The usual comment,  before attempting any soldering or brazing,  the surfaces to be brazed need to be scrupulously cleaned and painted with flux,  keeping the flux tidy to the area to braze.   The other key point is not to apply the heat directly to the joint or the rod,  but let the heat conduct into the joint and the braze will flow wonderfully into the joint.

To remove the steel aligning bar (which was not cleaned or fluxed!) hold the body of the valve and rod the rod until its free to move,  then slide the rod out.

Once all that’s done,  it’s just a case of threading the short stubs 1/4 x 40 TPI and the valve is ready to use.  (A part from a good clean and polish of course).

When you put all those bits together,  it looks like this !

I’ve soft soldered the copper pipe work,  and some of the pipe lengths need tweaking as things are not quite right. You can also see in this picture,  the 10BA screws I used to “dress” the flanges.   I bought the steam hand valve form EKP Supplies and it seems very nice.   Next job is to make the lever that connects the flyball mechanism to the rod that drives the steam cutoff valve and the joining piece between the drive rod and the spindle of the valve itself.

October 1, 2010 - Posted by Steve Withnell | Uncategorized | dampfmaschinen, live steam, steam pipe, stuart models, stuart steam, stuart turner, Stuart Victoria