Today the whistle valve was put together...it is the result of quite a few hours work, both in design and manufacture as the bits are tiny and at all angles. Trying to prepare a suitable setup for silver soldering was frustrating as I tend to go for a minimum of jigs to not waste heaps of time on that if not absolutely necessary...I tend to risk it moreso!
The body was silver soldered up in a very crude system. I suppose an old hand would spy out what went wrong first up, the very very light squeeze of the vice still bent the body of the valve once it was hot and silver soldered the angle underneath in the bent position! To fix it, a bit of bar was threaded and screwed into the end and the job reheated and straightened. A few fittings moved a little but were put back in place.
The lever clevis at the front end was made from a couple of scraps of 1/16" brass strip and silver soldered with a bit of 2mm brass spacing them apart. They were then profiled by hand and set up in the mill to drill the 1/16" hole.
It fits well on the smokebox, being secured by 12BA screws. The bulkhead fitting supplying the real whistle looks good and will not be noticable after the dummy whistle is fitted. The valve is a little over an inch long all up.
To assist the silver soldering I found it easiest to beat a stick flat and cut it in half with the tinsnips to bring it to a fine point.
Happy steaming!
Nigel
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