A friend of mine in our village is building a Connoisseur G5 as his first loco kit and I am helping him by sharing advice and making a few components along the way.

Last week we were discussing we were discussing what Jim describes as blower valve castings in his kit which I suggested would be much better in brass than the whitemetal casting supplies.

These are the offending items taken as snips from photos that I have taken of preserved locos at the NRM.

This one is from BR Built J72 Joem

This is from the D17 at Shildon. Note that the fitting is further back on the smokebox on the D17 and it seem N9 tank engines which have a similar arrangement with a front extension to the hand rail.

Some time ago Ian Middleditch (@Ian@StEnochs) and I were discussing making globe lubricators and I had made a form tool to turn them when Ian suggested that I use brass ball bearings drilled through instead. So I ordered some in a couple of sizes from China for about £3 or so for 50. At the time I drilled a couple of the smaller ones out, made a pair of lubricators and put the rest away in a drawer. So I thought I would dig them out to see if I could make some blower valves.

First I dug out a few lengths of tube to see if I had any suitable to hold the brass balls for drilling. I had a vague idea that last time I had used a length of copper tube and it seems that my memory served because the only length of copper tube that I had was perfect.

So I popped it in the lathe and used a countersink bit to falr the end slightly before cutting a slit with a piercing saw to allow the chuck jaws to tighten and hold the ball for drilling.

Next I did the same at the other end but this time I used a slitting disk to widen the slot that it would accept a 0.9mm rod in the slot (my friend had pre drilled his hole in the smokebox 0.9mm.

Then I drilled the first hole 10 1.2mm deep

Next I soldered in a length of 0.9mm nickel rod

Then it went back in the lathe to cross drill at right angles

Finally some nuts with a hole in one end for the end of the handrail and a setm on the other to go into the brass ball were added to complete the fitting. The photos do show an oval base but this was left off initially to see how it fit height wise with the handrail. a base could be files up from thin shim stock if there is room.

As you can see I made one for my friend and a few more for stock while I was set up. last night I had a quiet count up of the ex NER engines in the queue that require them and I think I need another half a dozen. So I will do those this morning while it’s all fresh in my mind.