Garden Railway Forum

Gremlin:92874 wrote:Oh that all looks very nice, quite mean and workman like, how close are you to lighting up?

Still waiting on the painting to be finished on left/right mounting brackets which will hold the R/C, servo's and battery and also the chassis plate to mount the all important boiler.

Can't wait to light her and clag the garden air up!

Final bits ordered from RH so by the weekend will have everything I need to get this build moving!

Usual fast postage by RH has got me this far today:





You can see you have to modify the boiler wrapper for the Riverdale boiler to fit over the firebox.

I like the dome that came with the Lady Anne body kit so I might fit one on my SL (the filler valve need changing though as it's taller than the Lady Anne one).

I have the extra boiler bands for the boiler so should finish it off nicely. Next stage is to get it all painted and assemble properly with the R/C gear for an air test.

Steamy Clare eagerly awaits her sister to be built and running to help out on the RWLR

Nice work, good to see this coming together now. Looks like you should have it finished in plenty of time for the summer

Cannot wait to see this beauty running tom! Great work so far! What body are you planning to put on her?

Looking good. Would be brilliant to see this at a kent meet!

Hopefully Matt you can make it to my steam up in the summer to see it running.




The BBQ paint I used for the boiler was not very hard wearing so I repainted it with the same stuff that I have used on the boiler cover and smoke box (Rustoleum).

Although the boiler is black I might still go for another colour with the body. At least this way I can get the girl in steam and not have to paint both the body and boiler at the same time with the same colour so it will match.

Well I would like to make that meet.

Common practice for a locomotive to have a black boiler and the loco to be a different colour. Especially in narrow gauge.

when do you think you'll be at a stage to fire her up?

Mattyrallye:97014 wrote:
Common practice for a locomotive to have a black boiler and the loco to be a different colour. Especially in narrow gauge.

I found examples of this with European locos, however, could not find UK narrow gauge versions (not that it matters)

Going to try and have a big push with the build over the weekend weather permitting as I can have a break from exams after passing first one this week (Microsoft).

tom_tom_go:97129 wrote:I found examples of this with European locos, however, could not find UK narrow gauge versions (not that it matters)

Black boilers can be found on some saddle tanks (Linda and Blanche, for example) but then you cannot really see the boiler anyway. Similarly, the Vale of Rheidol locos have black boilers, but usually with a body-colour dome, and again you cannot see them except from above. I'm struggling to think of any others in the UK but blue Darjeeling locos have black boilers...

Personally I don't think you'll like how it looks with a black boiler and a different-coloured body. When I built my engine I assembled it for testing the boiler without the boiler jacket, which was still drying because I got fingerprints in the first attempt to paint it. The boiler was black under the jacket and I did not like how the engine looked with the black boiler and red body.

Thanks Tony for the picture, if only we could get our little engines to look like that

I guess Keith we are use to the boiler being the same colour as the body so it is not to everyone's liking, however, I think it will work well with blue although I might go for a paler colour that will blend with the dullness of the boiler paint:

tom_tom_go:97443 wrote:Thanks Tony for the picture, if only we could get our little engines to look like that

It is possible...!

tom_tom_go:97443 wrote:I guess Keith we are use to the boiler being the same colour as the body so it is not to everyone's liking, however, I think it will work well with blue although I might go for a paler colour that will blend with the dullness of the boiler paint:

Here's one I prepared about 25 years ago. Meths-fired so it had to have a black boiler as the blue discoloured...

I think the blue and black is a winner.

Tony, it would be good to achieve a hard wearing finish but the same result as Steph’ Hicking’s ‘Sylvia’ loco:



7/8ths demons are calling me again...

Progress!



Dome and pipework now painted and installed.  Firebox door now complete with brass rod in place to be connected to a servo later on for R/C damper


In the smoke box you can see the exhaust pipe at the front (nozzle still to be fitted) and the blower pipe to the rear.  The brass screws are temporary and will be replaced with painted hex bolts


Smoke box now painted using a different high temp paint to offset from the boiler colour

Nice. I now agree that the engine will look good with blue body on a black boiler. I am quite envious of this build. Luckily for my bank account, Riverdale refuses to ship boilers to Canada. If I seriously could justify the purchase, that would really piss me off.

Interesting that the boiler has only two flues rather than more smaller ones. I wonder why they chose to do that.

Mr. Bond of the DVLR:97855 wrote:Interesting that the boiler has only two flues rather than more smaller ones. I wonder why they chose to do that.

I suspect there'd be too much flue and not enough water space (remembering that scale boiler tubes would never keep clear) - there's got to be enough water space so the boiler will steam for a good few minutes before needing to be topped up.

I noticed that as well, another thing which surprised me is how high up the tip of the blast pipe is going to be once finished. I would have thought that the blast pipe and blower would follow full scale firing principles and finish half way up the smokebox?