LBSC 440 Virginia

[Roy BirchParticipant @roybirch29994]

Hello Dieseldaz

I have learnt that there are errors in whatever you build and nothing is perfect in the Model steam loco builds, I am just going to plough on with help from the forum and post pictures of progress at each stage so that someone can spot an error before I move on and lets be honest by the questions I am asking there is bound to be errors, as long as these are not in expensive components I will be happy.

Kind Regards

Roy

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Posted by Roy Birch on 25/10/2021 12:06:07:

I am going to change to working springs and dispense with the castings, does anyone know where I can get the steel to make the working springs?

Reeves2000 and Blackgates both list spring steel as no doubt other suppliers do.

While the drawing suggests 26g spring steel strip the write up says spring steel 'as used in gramophone motors' with no indication of size.

While I have read that LBSC was building a Virginia at the time of his death he had not done so at the time the design was published so I should try to contact someone who has made the working leaf springs to see whether the thickness on the drawing works. Certainly the description of 'three or four laminations per leaf' suggests some experimentation might be necessary!

Other methods include slotting out the spring steel and using tufnol instead of steel.

[Roy BirchParticipant @roybirch29994]

A quick search brings up an article from popular science from some years ago that indicates the gauge of steel as being 20g.

[BazParticipant @baz89810]

When I was an apprentice the Forman was building a Virginia, he had done a beautiful Juliet before and Virginia was his second loco build, most of it being done at work. I distinctly remember him going into town one lunchtime and coming back with about half a dozen refills for very small steel tape rules, these were no more then a quarter inch wide. He spent the afternoon soaking them in chemiclene and then setting fire to them, all the lettering disappeared and he had strips of beautiful spring steel. Next day he made up punches and dies and made the sets of leaves, by the end of the week he had beautiful sets of springs. Small steel tapes are still available, Stanley 1metre powerlock 39-133 if you want to go that route, often seen on checkouts in builders merchants.

[Roy BirchParticipant @roybirch29994]

I am going to try spring steel from a commercial provider, the only problem is 5 leaves from 20 gage spring steel will not quite fit the hole in which they are housed, I did see a picture of Polly in 3 1/2g with working springs and that one used leaves that were doubled up into pairs so each spring has 10 leaves in 5 matching pairs, perhaps the drawings are open to quite a bit of interpretation as they only show 5 single leaves per spring. I have tried to contact a gramophone restorer to see if they can tell me the gauge of steel on gramophone governors.

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