Garden Railway Forum

Just a thought, maybe a ptfe seat in the needle valve could be a solution?

You may be right about the gearing, but now the cranks are drilled and pinned it’s a pain to change it unfortunately. I deliberately geared it low as my little line has some nasty gradients on it. I’m hoping as it runs in and loosens up it’ll be a bit more efficient, and hopefully some burner tweaks...

Been chipping away at the Elle and got the bodywork and rc install done. It works but not 100% happy, it’s a bit reluctant to get started, as you can see in the video there’s exhaust up the chimney before it starts moving, I’m thinking the tolerances in the Chinese reversing valve may not be up to s...

Wow, that was some speedy painting!

Many thanks for the measurements, much appreciated. Any chance you could take one up inside the firebox? Looking forward to seeing this come together should be interesting!

I’m not looking to copy the design directly, just considering modifications to a different design and it’d be handy to have reference from something that I know works

It’d be handy to know the dimensions and positions of the flues, as well as the firebox including material thickness if possible? Not too bothered about imperial or metric, whichever comes naturally to you!

Looking forward to seeing this come together! Any chance you could post some detailed photos and maybe some measurements of the boiler when it arrives…?

So, things suddenly progressed quite quickly with this due to some enforced time at home due to that pesky virus that’s doing the rounds. Luckily I managed to get the boiler tested before going down with it. 5B7A1691-5535-4411-88A8-F2536F826E06.jpeg Then over the last 2 days made up the firebox and ...

Coaches are looking great, as is the loco! Really need to get round to getting down to give the 4f a proper run in!

Managed to get the boiler finished up yesterday, it’s a standard Ellie boiler with the addition of some heat exchange pins as advocated by tony bird. I also changed some of the bush threads to allow me to fit a water top up valve and wee bee safety without the need for an adaptor. 3B7C9C0F-BA41-47AB...

I’m genuinely excited to see this beauty in steam! If it’s any help I used a tenmille etch to speed up the building of my blower, seems to work quite nicely

Got the burner/meths tank made up and painted with vht the other day. Pretty much as per the book but with slightly bigger tubing and a threaded insert to retain it in the chassis as I didn’t like the idea of trying to wiggle a pin in there. 0BAFEF4A-C87A-4AD7-B6F6-950474FD01BB.jpeg 60D6002A-FB7E-44...

It’s a nice design that lends itself to modifications, be interesting to see how they all turn out. Trevor, I did think about trying to build a reversing valve into the port block, but I’m a bit limited on tooling so decided to have it separate and will most likely be off the shelf to save a bit of ...

I haven’t bothered posting this up until now as it seemed like there was plenty of Ellie builds on the go, but now it’s reached an interesting stage I thought I’d share it. The other half bought me the Ellie build book for my birthday. I started off by building the motor, pretty much as designed usi...

bessytractor wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 9:49 am Top stuff Gareth

Its Matt by the way

Hi Matt, should have guessed you’d be on here somewhere!

Jimmyb wrote: ↑Mon Dec 27, 2021 8:58 am I use ordinary car engine oil, SAE 10W 40, I think it is. For the moving parts most oils will do as long as it is done regularly. However, if this is incorrect, I would be happy to be corrected

Ditto, I’d say maybe stay away from anything too heavy and sticky like 3 in 1 though

Cheers for the positive comments, it was a bit stressful running end to end on track with gradients as it kept trying to escape which is why there’s not masses of video! A few minor tweaks to make before next run but happy overall.The wagons are northern finescale kits I’ve been working my way throu...

Visited a mate who has a 45mm line with some nice long straights so finally managed to give her a test run. Would go round the curves at either end though so did a bit of end to end chasing which was entertaining! Tender bearings could do with a drop of oil as you can hear… https://youtu.be/t-eQXtRw...

The Elstow engineering design looks similar and no resin you couldn’t leave out the axle pump and fit a water top up valve instead?