Now comes the difficult part. As the diagram you posted shows, the valve lap is 73 thou on the HP and 102 thou on the LP, can anyone tell me what the valve travel should be in Full Gear and in Mid Gear? The valve gear as built looks to be symmetrical so I suppose the valve travels' will be equal, bu...

A friend of mine makes injectors and wants to build a new test boiler for them rated at 200 psi and we thought it would be a good idea to make the boiler big enough to power this engine so that we don't have to just use compressed air. Can any of you recommend a suitable design? He has the steel tub...

Thank you for the info. To stop me asking any more dumb questions I have ordered the book from ebay.

Thank you Dietrich that clears that point up. I will therefore not be using those fixing points.
What are the items in the third picture please?
Martyn

Whilst waiting for the cast iron for the new piston valves I rang Reeves, having heard about Hugh Mothersole, to find out exactly what they have in the way of drawings. Basically the answer is that apart from a general arrangement drawing they have lost them which is why they no longer offer parts o...

Jack, thanks again for the info. Unfortunately Reeves no longer sell any bits for the engine but most importantly have no drawings either. That's why I asked you where you got yours from. Marking tdc and bdc should be ok as I am used to doing that on steam locomotives. It's strange that the lap is d...

Jack, Thank you for the information and diagram. Where can I find a copy of these diagrams as I only have a few of the original sheets, the rest are hand drawn? The piston valves are made of cast iron as of course are the cylinders. I have ordered some more cast iron to make the new ones and this dr...

Thank you all for the feedback. I have taken the thing apart and done some testing. First problem is that the cranks are not set at exactly 90 degrees but 88. At this point I am not going to do anything about it but if I can get it to run and the beats are too uneven I will cut the centre main in ha...

It has only been run on compressed air so far. There are 4 tapped holes in the cylinders and I have just ordered 4 pressure gauges to fit in these to give me a clue as to what is happening.
Martyn

Here are a couple more. You can see that the steam is connected to the top of the high pressure piston valve which I find unusual but is as Gordon Cheape drew it. I have not tried to run the engine yet as the parts are only loosely connected but the previous owner said that it owner dais that it did...