Rand Society of Model Engineers
RSME Newsletter
Jan 2012
From the editor 2
Notes on using shims 2
Model Engineering on the Internet 3
Vlooimark 4
For your diary.
1st Sunday of each month – club day
3rd Sunday each month – family day
On both days members and their friends are welcome to visit the club and participate in running locomotives or just enjoying a picnic . The public are also welcome.
2012 National Steam Meet at Centurion Society of Model Engineers.
The steam meet will be held at Centurion society’s venue at Kwikkie Crescent, Centurion Lake Ext 1 (Zwartkop) over the period 27 April to 1 May.
From the editor......
I think we all had a very enjoyable 2011. Cas Badenhorst and I had a lot of fun learning to operate and maintain a model loco after he bought the well built Simplex from Brian Armstrong.
I believe there are a number of you out there with interesting projects under construction. Please let me know. Write something down, send me photo or two and we all can enjoy it with you.
You can also see our newsletter in full colour on the club website www.rsme.co.za . Please send contributions, comments and stories to me at or phone me at 018 290 5780.
I wish you all a very prosperous New Year, great success and a lot of fun with your projects. Full steam ahead towards 2012.
Notes on using Shims.
A Shim is a thin piece of Metal placed between two surfaces to adjust an alignment. If it is to be a permanent part of the machine, it becomes a Packer. It is NOT a Gasket.
Good practice is to NEVER have more than three shims installed – this is because Shims are usually thin and it is difficult to get them flat. When they are not flat they act like a spring between the two surfaces. No matter how tight the bolts are made, they will not completely flatten a bent or creased Shim. When you get to four Shims take them out measure each one separately add it up, and find a single Shim of that thickness and carry on. When your alignment is correct again measure your Shims individually, total them up, and machine a single Packer of the correct thickness and install it.
In high quality work, current practice on local Power Stations is to use Stainless Steel Shims which are commercially produced, carefully packaged and marked with their thickness. They have a Slot for the Holding down Bolts, Rounded Corners and a Tab for removal, cost a fortune, but save hours of time. Any that get bent are discarded. Even so a Single Packer is made up, cut to shape, drilled, and the thickness corrected using a Surface Grinder.
For a Model Engineer a Packer is best made from a suitable length of Bar, one end of which is shaped to suit, has the hole drilled, then milled down to thickness, finally cut off to length, and de-burred.
Shim is commercially available in many thicknesses but it is not cheap and you may not be able to buy small quantities.
At Home try: -
Aluminium Cooking Foil 0.001” But it creases easily!
Cool Drink Cans 0.004” But it is hard to get flat.
Sheet Metal Measure it!
Be careful of using Card – it compresses.
Ideally one needs 1 of 0.001”
2 of 0.002”
1 of 0.005”
1 of 0.010”, in a sequence the same as a Chemical Balance.
When you make a shim, slot the bolt hole, leave the end opposite the slot over length so you can loosen the bolt and pull it out!
Peter Glanville.
12 June 2008.
Rev. 1 31 October 2011
Model Engineering on the Internet
Tienie Jonker
Whether we like it or not, the computer and lately the internet has become part and parcel of our daily lives. Even our more historical hobby did not escape this tendency. Almost every model engineering society has its own website, you can buy materials and components from suppliers on the internet and even model engineering magazines can be read on and printed from the internet. If you want to explore this further, just use the well known search engine “Google” and do some searches with key words like “model engineering”, “live steam models”, “model engineering supplies”, etc. and you will be surprised with what comes up.
Just to whet your appetite I will report below briefly on some of the websites I have visited.
Sinsheim indoor model engineering exhibition
http://www.northernsteam.com/Sinsheim.htm
This was sent to me by Brian Norris and describes one of the worlds largest indoor steam events. This takes place every year in Germany in January in the town of Sinsheim on the E50 just South-East of Heidelberg. This is a site with plenty of nice pictures and information. Not to be missed.
Model Engineering Website
http://modelengineeringwebsite.com
This is a free electronic model engineering magazine. Of course, nothing commercial can survive on fresh air alone. They make their money from sponsoring companies advertising on their site.
On this site there is a wealth of articles on a variety of subjects. The content is best described by the window on the right copied from their site.
Model Engineer and Model Engineer’s Workshop
http://model-engineer.co.uk
Model Engineer is probably one of the best known magazines in our hobby. Many of our loco’s and other projects appeared as a series of articles in this magazine. Model Engineer’s Workshop is a somewhat younger filly from the same stable with a wealth of “how-to” articles and other goodies to make your workshop smarter. We all used to or are still buying these magazines from our local news agency. Sometimes they are more than 3 months old and cost an arm and a leg.
There is a single website for both these magazines with a wealth of free information. The good news however, is that you can now also subscribe online for digital versions of these magazines. You get a PIN code (like a bank card) and then are allowed to read your magazine on the computer in full colour. The cost is around GBP30 for a full year’s subscription. That is about R390 in our language. The subscription also gives you access to some back issues. In the case of ME you can go back from 2001 – 2007 and with MEW from 1990 to 2006.
If you want to try a free test ride, go to the website above and click on the green button “Extra”. Scroll down until you see “Sample Model Engineer Magazine” or the equivalent of MEW. Click on the magazine covers to open the magazines.
As there is a lot of info, you need to exercise patience as it takes some time to download it all. You change the pages by click and holding on the top right (or left) hand corner and drag your mouse to the left (right). Just the same way as you would turn a paper page. You can enlarge the page by just clicking on it. On the enlarged page you will see a button “Print this page”. If you click on this button, you will be surprised.
To give you an idea - the last two pages in this newsletter were printed from this website.
(083 417 4182) or
e-mail:
Wanted: Pressure gauge, 19mm diameter, 120 -150 lbs/sq.inch. Suitable for 5” loco. Tienie Jonker 083 417 4182 or 018 290 5780
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