Is the Clishay a successful loco?

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David Powell
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Location: Pickering Ontario Canada.

Is the Clishay a successful loco?

Post by David Powell »

I have undertaken to complete a partially built Clishay for a fellow modeller. The parts which I have seem well made, and to closely follow the drawings. The owner intends that he will use the engine for regular passenger hauling on a club track. Some design and construction details seem capable of improvement without unreasonable extra effort. Please can builders and users of these models comment and perhaps save me from unnecessary extra work, or from disappointment when the engine is complete? Regards David Powell.
jtdute
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Re: Is the Clishay a successful loco?

Post by jtdute »

David,
I built a Clishay back in the mid 1980's, I recommend a couple of improvements.
1. Build a conventional fire tube boiler.
2. Change the gear reduction to increase your track speed. This will do a couple of things. let the engine run slower so it doesnt shake everything apart. and wont hold traffic up on the main line.
Even though I dont own my clishay anymore, A friend of mine does, and it still gets out from time to time.
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steamin10
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Re: Is the Clishay a successful loco?

Post by steamin10 »

I agree. Vert firetube boiler, easier to build and maintain. Steel or copper. I have a steel boiler for stationary engine I will try first.If you dont have the actual engine built, upsize it, and reduce the gearing. I am using steel blocks for the cylinders.

This is a stalled project for me, a Gold Bug for 4 3/4 track now simpled to 4 wheel 7.5 track woods engine.
Big Dave, former Millwright, Electrician, Environmental conditioning, and back yard Fixxit guy. Now retired, persuing boats, trains, and broken relics.
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of Smart. My computer beat me at chess, but not kickboxing
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bcody
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Re: Is the Clishay a successful loco?

Post by bcody »

I would add Stevenson valve gear to that list. Eliminate the "transmission", they have a tendency to jump in and out of gear on deceleration, sounds like a machine gun.


Bill
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steamin10
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Re: Is the Clishay a successful loco?

Post by steamin10 »

Ya, forgot that part. Not hard to add a pair of eccentrics and the slides. Pretty basic stuff.
Big Dave, former Millwright, Electrician, Environmental conditioning, and back yard Fixxit guy. Now retired, persuing boats, trains, and broken relics.
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of Smart. My computer beat me at chess, but not kickboxing
It is not getting caught in the rain, its learning to dance in it. People saying good morning, should have to prove it.
boomerralph
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Re: Is the Clishay a successful loco?

Post by boomerralph »

A guy in our group has a Clishay built many years ago by Jeff Dute (often on this board). At a run day, we tried to see how many cars that we could pull. I do not remember the exact number, but greater than 15. Many with riders. The engine handled it fine! If properly built, and set up, a Clishay can be a workhourse.
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bcody
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Re: Is the Clishay a successful loco?

Post by bcody »

If you don't want to eliminate the transmission you could change the way the Johnson bar is connected. As designed the link from the transmission to the Johnson bar is in compression in FORWARD and as a result the additional force generated on deceleration can easily bend the link resulting in the gears being forced out of engagement, hence the machine gun sound.

If you were to change the set-up to where the link was in tension in forward you would eliminate the link bending which allows the gears to disengage. I no longer have my Clishay so I can't verify the idea but I think you can turn the transmission around to where you would pull it to the rear for forward. It could be done where the link would be totally under the deck plate and you would not have to slot the deck for the Johnson bar link.

On gear ratio change. I am totally for it. Change the gearing to make the engine work, not just run steam through it with most of the energy going up the stack. Case in point. I run a Bill Conner Beam Engine with 4.375" diameter drive wheels driven by 2x2.75" cylinders through a 20% overdrive. I use the steam, not just running it through the cylinders and out the stack. With my 12" diameter propane fired boiler with 306 .375" diameter fire tubes I never run short of steam. I usually run at about 50% fire, more than enough.

You can see a picture of me on my Clishay taken at Ken Schroeder's track in the construction book currently available from LSOR. BTW - Mine has a 10" diameter fire tube boiler, propane fired.


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johnpenn74
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Re: Is the Clishay a successful loco?

Post by johnpenn74 »

I have inherited a clishay project where the builder decided to use a pair of slip eccentrics and no transmission.

I am not thrilled with this arrangement and plan to redo the eccentrics and build the transmission. Has anyone played with putting a high low transmission or is it getting to complicated?

The thread has suggested lowering the gearing, can anyone recommend the some gear ratios in the transmission?

JP
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2 Mich-Cal Shays
Allen 4-4-0 Narrow Gauge Conversion
Two Reading A5a Camelback 0-4-0
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David Powell
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Re: Is the Clishay a successful loco?

Post by David Powell »

I have a vertical boilered 0-4-0 in 4 3/4. It has a constant mesh 2 speed transmission, with dog clutches to engage gear. The transmission has been very successful. I have recently fitted a new boiler( copper instead of the Stainless steel one which few liked) and added slip eccentric reverse but have not yet steamed it so cannot report on its performance. With the old boiler I came in dead last in the efficiency trials--- but made the last lap at about 12 mph with the engine revving really hard. regards David Powell.
ElWet
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Re: Is the Clishay a successful loco?

Post by ElWet »

Bob Maynard designed the Clishay as a beginner model. He was extremely proud that anyone with basic machine shop skills and a good degree of common sense would be able to make a reliable, easy to use, work horse. Also, there was no sacred design. Everyone was free to use whatever they had at hand. But he claimed the best was the proven design that was published. Bob use to say the Clishay was designed to run and run by anyone and then be thrown in the trunk (of the car).
Bob said the Clishay was modeled after “Susan”. (Susan is the freelance locomotive he…”built back when dinosaurs roamed the earth” as he used to say.) Susan is a great locomotive. She runs and runs and runs. Not much to look at, but practical, powerful and easy to operate.

The transmission on Susan and the Clishay was an idea borrowed from the lead screw gearing on an Atlas or similar lathe. (Sorry. Don’t clearly remember the brand, but know it was an engine lathe.) I asked him about the high speed of the engine. Bob said the Clishay was intended to always go slow, there is no reason to go tearing around the track. But, Bob said he would add a dual speed gearing if he had it to do again: a low speed gear for heavy hailing and going down and up hills; a high speed gearing for flat, level track.

Bob acknowledged the problem with the transmission slipping and bending. I am sorry. I cannot remember his definition of the root causes. But, I do remember that it was easily and simply corrected during building.

Again, the boiler was designed for a beginner to build. Bob acknowledged the short comings but firmly stood behind the design as meeting the beginner skill set. There were several at the track that had the water tube design. They would constantly pop-off while working full speed and at full load. The boiler is a steam making machine and it makes a lot of steam. I saw many, many times going from cold water to rolling out the steaming bay in 20 minutes, with no damage to the boiler. But, the water tube boilers have a short life on untreated water or with coal fires. Treated water and water management is a must! There is no good way to pull out scale and they scale easily. Coal soot was a pain to clean. Propane fires were great. Oil was ok, but still required a once every 2 year cleaning, which involves removing the boiler to properly clean. Bob claimed the watertube boiler he designed would withstand the most severe beginners abuse, and had dozens of reasons why. But he also said a submerged tube vertical boiler was his approved option for the serious Clishay owner. It is heavier, gives more traction and longer lived, but at the expense of slightly less efficiency. Susan has a vertical fire tube boiler, but is not submerged tube. Every time I cleaned her tubes, Bob commented that he needed to make a submerged tube boiler for her in the Winter. Of course Susan went 30+ years on her vertical tube boiler.

Another improvement Bob recommended was an inconspicuous tender car. At the Cinder Sniffers, Dayton and Indiana tracks the on-board capacity of the Clishay was fully adequate. These are / were relatively small tracks. But Bob suspected, although to my knowledge did not have proof, the capacities would be inadequate at the larger Western tracks. So, Bob had sketches of a ride-on incognito tender. I never saw the sketches but he described them in one of our late night BS sessions.

It is hard to go wrong with a Clishay. I have seen extremely crude to almost Sandia Labs built gold plated Clishays. They all haul extremely well. But each one is different and has different reliability.

Bob used to say: The Clishay is not a NYC Hudson. It is a beginner project to get out and get a taste for steam. Then, hopefully the owner will want to get an NYC Hudson and the Clishay will move to the next in line beginner.

Finally, Bob was committed to encouraging new blood to the hobby. He really believed the Clishay was that key.
Pontiacguy1
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Re: Is the Clishay a successful loco?

Post by Pontiacguy1 »

Have seen many of these running down here at Mid-South, including the original one by Mr. Maynard and many copies. With our grades and the length of our track, you will definitely need some extra water capacity. Most that I saw had some type of water tank on the engineer's riding car, which gave them plenty of capacity. A gondola with a water tank sitting down inside of it right under the engineer's seat was fairly common for these and for the Conner beam engines, If I recall correctly.

The CliShays that I've seen running were all good runners and steamers, and had good power for their size and weight. They did tend to be a little bit slow, but that's not too big of a deal for most tracks and conditions. Never saw anyone having a lot of trouble with them.

One thing that I always thought was neat about the transmission setup: You could simply drop it into neutral and then turn on the engine and let it run if you needed to pump some water into the boiler while you were sitting still. Saw that done several times with locomotives that had a pump that drove directly off the engine crankshaft. Was about like having a steam-driven pump on your locomotive.
David Powell
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Re: Is the Clishay a successful loco?

Post by David Powell »

I do not think the slide valves as drawn will give an economical and powerful engine. Firstly the exhaust cavity is shown to be 7/16 " long whereas the distance across the inside edge of the ports is 1/2" thus we have 1/32" inside lap each end holding the exhaust in far longer than necessary. Secondly the valves are shown as 7/8" overall length. This gives a cut off in the region of 90% !!. BY increasing the valve length to 0.950" the cut off drops off to about 70%, still rather a long one for efficiency but I think necessary for power and certain starting. So far I am only at the stage of assembling one cylinder and testing it before adding the second. I will report further later. Did anyone else spot these points and make changes,? if so please tell us what you did. regards David Powell.
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