Steam failure.

casey jones snr

casey jones snr

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We had a serious failure with one of the Accucraft locomotives.
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As can be seen the banjo bolt sheared entirely. Luckily it occurred whilst it was in the steam up bay.
 
Failure of Accucraft's brass fittings is nothing new - it's down to poor material quality. It happened to my £4000 Royal Hudson, in full flow with eight cars behind it, as the axle pump banjo bolt disintegrated. A call to Graham Langer or David Mees will sort you out.
 
Oh $h1!….that would definitely upset me.
 
tac foley said:
Failure of Accucraft's brass fittings is nothing new - it's down to poor material quality. It happened to my £4000 Royal Hudson, in full flow with eight cars behind it, as the axle pump banjo bolt disintegrated. A call to Graham Langer or David Mees will sort you out.
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I have read somewhere that Accucraft are now engineered in Japan by Aster and only assembled and painted in China. Perhaps matters such as this has been improved. :wondering:
 
Paradise said:
I have read somewhere that Accucraft are now engineered in Japan by Aster and only assembled and painted in China. Perhaps matters such as this has been improved. :wondering:
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That is also what I've been told. However, both my Hudson and the model Paul showed us date from the time when components were made in China. I have a little bag full of less-than-I-expected-quality brass-like components dating back over twenty years.
 
Would I be right in thinking that those who do not run their loco's very often, may never encounter this problem?

Will it be exacerbated by the use of 'unquenched' de-ionised water? - De-zincification, is the term, I believe?

Having recently acquired a little dragon, I am now having to consider all this..

PhilP
 
PhilP said:
Would I be right in thinking that those who do not run their loco's very often, may never encounter this problem?

Will it be exacerbated by the use of 'unquenched' de-ionised water? - De-zincification, is the term, I believe?

Having recently acquired a little dragon, I am now having to consider all this..

PhilP
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Unknown, but I only use water from my de-humidifier and thus far have had no such problems. Even so called safe filtered rainwater can contain acid from pollution.
 
PhilP said:
Would I be right in thinking that those who do not run their loco's very often, may never encounter this problem?

Will it be exacerbated by the use of 'unquenched' de-ionised water? - De-zincification, is the term, I believe?

Having recently acquired a little dragon, I am now having to consider all this..

PhilP
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I've been told deionized water is a no-no, but I know someone who's used it for years. If this is what could be the result, it's quite worrying, especially as that loco looks fairly new (is it one of the Pecketts)
 
Paul M said:
I've been told deionized water is a no-no, but I know someone who's used it for years. If this is what could be the result, it's quite worrying, especially as that loco looks fairly new (is it one of the Pecketts)
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Yes, it is a no-no as it leaches the missing ions from the container, it needs to be distilled, a totally different process.
 
Banjo union bolts are inherently weak, due to the way they are drilled. Looks to me like a classic case of over-torquing the nut to me. " Weeping from banjo union?* - *just give the nut another tweak*.

G
 
It does look like it had PTFE tape to seal it, as a qualified high pressure system engineer (6000 lbs +) and pressure system testers (BSI Competent) the use of PTFE tape MUST only be used on taper threads where the taper is the means of sealing, parallel treads must use the approved sealing washer for the system. PTFE tape causes the parallel thread to bind before the sealing faces have sealed, however sometimes (by goodl uck) the tape seals the joint, but when it weeps tightening the joint will often not allow the faces to seal, this leads to the fracture. As mentioned as banjos are weaker due to the design, these are even more prone to fracture, and imagine 6000lbs of hydraulic spraying in your face :(
 
casey jones snr said:
As can be seen the banjo bolt sheared entirely
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I had that happen to me, and Cliff (in CA, I'm in the USA,) sent me a couple of replacements. I still have a spare or two, so if Accucraft UK can't find one, let me know. Shipping can't be too bad on a padded envelope!
 
Looking at this thread again it reminded me of a Merlin Banjo Bolt that dis a similar thing on me when I was tightening it up, tought m a valuable lesson about tightening the things. Luckily I got a replacement as Merlin was still ance at the time. He used copper washers for the interface between bits, presumably they seal with a bit less preasure bening a softish metal. I learnt to finger tight then a very short add on tighten with a ba spanner..
 
dunnyrail said:
Glad I only have UK and German built quality puffers.
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As we have said before, the problems with outsourcing manufacture to China lies with managing the production. The Chinese will make whatever you ask - however, if you do not ask, or do not specify, then they will assume and provide what they think ;);)

They are quite capable of producing suitable quality brass, if you specify and pay for it :nod::nod:

Chinese manufacturing is no different from any form of sub-contracting, and the problems of sub-contracting have been known for at least 2,000 years.

St John ch 10 v 13 - I rest my case m'lud :nod::nod:
 
Fred2179G said:
I had that happen to me, and Cliff (in CA, I'm in the USA,) sent me a couple of replacements. I still have a spare or two, so if Accucraft UK can't find one, let me know. Shipping can't be too bad on a padded envelope!
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It depends on who is sending it. A few years back I had a Swedish rifle front sight sent to me by a well-known spare parts dealer on the East Coast - it was about the same bulk as the banjo bolt. They charged me $24 for the smallest US Mail padded envelope and it STILL took three weeks to get here.
 
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