Garden Railway Forum

If its a slide valve engine then the valves may have fallen off the valve face and got stuck, its usually a simple fix by taking the covers off and pushing them back on tha face with some fresh oil. The other cause as you have said could be the o rings in the pistons.

You weren't that bad Laurence, it was an improvement on last years mood

My standard MSS used to run for about 8 mins with 4 wagons on tablets but they weren't the MSS ones. IT ran like that for about 4 months untill the camping shop closed and i changed to a meths burner.

As Jim said, a meths burner gives a massive boost in heat and therefore steam generation. It is possible to fit 1.5 tablets into the normal burner by bending the tabs in the centre flat, this should give you a bit of a boost. Give that a try, if not I have a lot more ideas

Over the winter I have been repainting the 1.5" scale Allchin that lives here. The initial plan was to do a bit of a tidy and retouch the paint, this quickly escalated when the new tin of paint was a different colour to the old tin. In the end, the entire engine has been repainted and lined as ...

Here you go, My Bertie has Hackworth but you should be able to use the same lever position.






Before you ask yes, the wheels are double flanged

I've got my reversing lever in the cab door way on the same side as the gas tank. I will get a picture later.

As Christopher has said, a flow from the chimney would suggest either the piston rings are no longer sealing or for some reason a valve has got stuck off its face. As the valve chest covers are readily accessible on a Billy checking to see if the valves are off the face or the timing is out shouldn'...

Is there any beat to the exhaust or is it constant flow of steam ?

I would guess that a special crank pin for the rear axle will need making and the eccentric rod may need to be replaced with either the short one if its not already in the kit or a special one making. It should be a relatively easy conversion, accuracy is key with valve gear.

Have a read of this, taken from Chris Bird's website http://www.summerlands-chuffer.co.uk/78ths-betty/4577588091 I've done the Hackworth conversion which does need a small addition to the frames however, apart from a couple of carefully positioned holes I cant see any major issues with fitting the k...

84mm tall from the top of the rail.

16mm scale is in a very unusual position in the modeling world as it covers a huge variety of skills and interests. Since starting this hobby I've learnt gardening, landscaping, carpentry and metalwork aside from the usual modeling practices. Its also one of the few scales where real materials can b...

I've never heard of anyone taking one as hand luggage though I think the words gas tank might cause the issue. As for running on a layout you can always Email the show director and see if he can be of help, I think its possible to book slots on the modular layout to run but check first.

Try these, they are slightly smaller than 1mm but might be the closest you can get. Can't help with the small snaps I'm afraid but it may be possible to make some.

I've got one of the sound cards from Acme engineering for my small diesels.

http://www.acmesteam.wiserhosting.com/sounds.html

It possible to do by the method Jim has mentioned but I usually end up taking the body off the chassis. However, I would leave the reversing block where it is and take the cylinders off, that way you can see all the passage ways and look through the reversing valve. If it hasn't been run for a long ...

Steph, I've got about 9ft of 15mm, 0.8mm wall pipe that was removed from the house when a new boiler was put in a little over ten years ago. If it helps I have two of Keith's locos that he built, both of them have the thinner wall tube for the flue. EDIT: A quick search says that old imperial pipes ...

How much do you need, might have some in the workshop

I've got a Bob Moore pen that I have used on a few of my engines. I use warmed Revell paints in mine. It takes a little while to get the action right, I've got a bit of sheet metal sprayed with some left over paint that I practice on.