Square water gauges

[Jon Nazareth]

Does anyone know where I can get square glass water gauges?  GRS has a GWR gauge which, I presume, has a square glass but, there is no picture and it's a white metal casting.  I spoke to someone on the phone and he said that he would try and get a picture to me next week.  He said that he only had one and that the chap who did his casting has now retired.

I would rather have cast brass and worry about how I was going to produce a square glass than have white metal.  I was thinking about having a go at making my own but, not very good at watchmaking although, I may improve with time.

Jon

[John Candy]

Jon,

GRS supply castings of square glasses (in whitemetal) with several of their loco kits (e.g. LMS 2F and 4F).
If you want a clear material, you could try casting in clear polyester resin.
Only problem is that you can only buy the materials in large quantities, so it would work out expensive.

I have the mould silicon but do not use clear resin, so could make you a mould but not the casting.
You could try using epoxy resin (i.e. Araldite) to cast the item.

I don't know if Mike has bought any clear resin, we have discussed it in the past?

Regards,
John.

[Jon Nazareth]

John

Is it a good casting?  I know that some whitemetal items on the market aren't that good.  The two halves of the mould don't match at all and it's the devil's own job to clean them up and detail can be lost.  I'll bare in mind your offer of the mould if I may and let you know later.

Jon

[John Candy]

Jon,

The examples I received with my GRS loco kits were nice clean castings but some castings supplied with GRS kits (particularly the wagon buffers) can be dreadful.

I know their long-standing "caster" gave up recently and they had problems finding a satisfactory replacement : I may have been lucky with my parts.

Suggest you ask for the type supplied with the LMS 3F and 4F kits in preference to GW type (Dean Goods, etc.) which are a different pattern.

Regards,
John.

[Jon Nazareth]

John

I'm trying to get something that looks like the water gauges on the Manning Wardle, Sir Berkeley.  If you have seen Sir Berkeley, do the LMS type resemble these?  Resemble is okay.

Regards
Jon

[MikeWilliams]

Since Jon's engine is a small one, is there anything available in the Gauge 1 market?  I know the Hobbyhorse fittings in 7mm can be over scale, so if any of the G1 fittings available commercially are also on the large side, they might do?

Anyone have knowledge of G1 suppliers?

Mike

[midnight miller]

Hello All

Roger at Wallsal is usualy very helpfull .


                                                              John

[MikeWilliams]

On another thread Midnight Miller suggested Slaters and that might be a great idea for this too, from a larger G1 loco.  I've been speaking to G1 friends and not found a supplier of anything suitable, but none suggested Slaters, so presumably they are not a big played in G1, but worth a try.

Mike

[midnight miller]

Hello All

Slaters don't list castings in a catolouge sense but if you know what you want , its usualy avalable .



                                                                    John

[Jon Nazareth]

Dear All

I've had a look at Walsall's square gauge glass and it's not quite what I want.  I also bought one from GRS but it is too big.  At the week end, I bought a lot of castings for other projects from Laurie Griffin and he gave me a brass square gauge and perfect in every way except one, it was too small.  I haven't tried Slaters yet but will give them a ring today. 

Thanks for everyone's help with this and there must be a suitable one out there somewhere.

Regards to all
Jon

[Jon Nazareth]

In the post from Slaters this morning was a square water gauge and it's the right size, hurrah!  All that I need now is a length of 4mm square clear acrylic.  There was also a set of clacks in G1 that I can use.  On the sprue are some unions and although I'm not sure what the original intention is for them, I think that I can use them all the same.  Walsall supply a G1 set of Salter's safety valve springs but I only discovered them after I had made my own so, not sure if these would suit the Manning Wardle.

Regards
Jon