The Gumz Turret Valve takes its name from its designer Dave Gumz. Dave is a life member of the Golden Gate Live Steamers and is one of the good guys. One of those fellows that is always ready to help if ask but would not interfere by venturing the un-requested opinion. He has retired from “hernia gauge” but is still ready to help with his great experience in steam engineering.

Dave is a meticulous builder whose career in scientific systems made him a very precise designer and machinist. When Dave started building his first locomotive, a narrow gauge Mason 2-6-6, he need a turret valve. Working in the science discipline he was familiar with Hoke Teflon sealed valves and used a simplified version of them in a turret array. That 4 valve array was installed in 1981 and has not required any maintenance in the 4300 miles he put on the locomotive. Click Here for a picture of that original valve array.

Below is a drawing for the basic valve and both a 4 and 5 valve manifold. Click Here if you would like a pdf.

I made enough parts for 4 valve clusters at the same time so I tried to optimize batch work. But my description is focused doing all the operations on one part at a time rather than groups of parts.

If you click on each of these pictures it will take you to a page with a larger image and a description of the steps involved.

Valve Bodies	Valve Manifold	Brazed Manifold	Valve Stems	Squaring Stem
Valve Seal	Parting Bonnet	BonnetTop	BrazedBonnets	Final Assembly

This is a picture of the finished 5 valve turret.