Garden Railway Forum

My green loco retains its original cylinders/pistons & I fitted the RWM displacement lubricator together with the SV & regulator. The 460 grade steam oil seals the clearance space better than 3 in 1 oil. Steam oil has improved the performance of my Mamod SR1 steam roller that I purchased in 1962. I have a Hornby 3.5" gauge G100 Stephenson's "Rocket". Gearbox 80 oil was originally recommended for cylinder lubrication, but steam oil is better for that as well. If you are a member of the https://www.16mm.org.uk/ your local group will likely have members who would be willing to help you with a boiler insert.

My local group is West Herts.

JULY 14TH, 2018
WHAG’s Steam-up for
16mm Association Members at
Brambleton MRC. Harpenden
The West Herts Group invite members only of the
16mm Association to join us for an All-day Steam-up on
the Brambleton Model Railway Club’s extensive outdoor
32mm lines in Harpenden Hertfordshire

http://www.brambleton.co.uk/

A lubricator's looking more and more like a good idea then...

Many thanks - and also for the prompt to join the Association, which. I have now done!

I can't promise rapid developments, but hopefully there will be some to report some time.

Marvellous. A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.

The lubricator installation instructions say "If the smokebox is not riveted...".

Mine is riveted. Is it a case of drilling out the rivet and replacing with a suitably-sized self-tapping screw?

(I do love the way that the cottage-industry nature of garden railway supply* keeps coming through in the supplied instructions, which never seem to relate exactly to the product actually supplied or to be modified!)

*other than live steam locomotives themselves.

Yes, gently drill out the rivets perpendicular to the boiler. It's an empty space in there. Self tappers will be necessary to secure the oil reservoir to the smoke box. I just stuck a length of copper wire through the holes & bent down the ends, on the basis that I'll always be tinkering & my reservoir is in the cab.

Did you continue to fettle your Mamod? Did the Isopropanol help?

I've an SL1. New boiler, upgraded safety valves, meths burner. But the performance is lack luster at best. I won't do a loop of my fairly flat track. Part of me wants to get it working, but also it's already cost me quite a lot of money to not really get anywhere.

sjrixon wrote: ↑Sun Jan 12, 2020 9:04 am Did you continue to fettle your Mamod?

Confession time: not yet. To be honest I've barely done anything with the garden railway in the last year and more. That said, I did have friends round on a couple of afternoons and I have to say I must have got lucky with my SL3: it's a rather good performer (although I don't load it up much). The real transformation was when I replaced the wheelsets with new from RWM - the original wheels had come loose on the axles so I suppose it's little surprise!
You can see some recent pictures of it - unchanged! - in the Garden Railway Inspection thread. (I'm sure you'll spot that I saved time by not steaming. Cheating, eh?)
Never say never, though! I still fancy stripping, repainting and fitting a lubricator... no idea when it'll happen, though.

I'm going to have another crack in the summer at getting mine to run better....

sjrixon wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2020 5:40 pm I'm going to have another crack in the summer at getting mine to run better....

I hope you'll report on the results here! One day I hope to do the same...