Garden Railway Forum

This is my entry into garden railways. I like the looks of it, so I won't change much. Some nuts and bolts will be replaced and/or removed, philips heads just look wrong and I see no reason why the roof of my loco should have nuts and bolts on it. An extra pair of handrails on the cabin would be nice also. Maybe I'll add or remove some other things also, who knows?

Currently the loco doesn't have a burner, but that's ok I don't have any track to run it on anyway. I'm going to make an alcohol burner for it, I don't like the noise gas burners make.

Only the poker style gas burners make any noise. My Brunel and my Mk11 for example, with a ceramic burners, are virtually silent.

Mike

Ok, that's something to keep in mind. A controllable gas flame is of course more convenient than an alcohol burner.

The problem with an alcohol burner is, as I found to my cost, if the loco derails and tips over, the alcohol can spill and burn with an almost invisible flame.

Gas of course has its own dangers.

Mike

Occasionally I do set things on fire when I steam a toy steam engine, setting my garden on fire is a different story. Fire is an excellent weed killer, but I don't want to burn down my Christmas tree. I planted it myself to put lights in it and now 3 years later it's almost big enough. I definitely have to think of putting some safety in the alcohol burner, a wick running through the whole lenght of the tube should stop alcohol gushing out in case of an accident.

Looks like a Salem Steam Models bunker on the rear although smaller in size to the one I have and a different centre buffer coupling as well - http://gardenrails.myfreeforum.org/about690.html

As you will be aware the Mamod/MSS boiler is all soft soldered so you need to be careful when gas firing them. Do not allow the water level to get too low, and watch out for the poorly soft soldered joint on the bottom of the boiler. Even keeping the water level at a good level may not prevent a melted sight glass plastic due to the higher temperature than solid fuel firing, and that can equally apply to using a meths burner (I've had at least one melted sight glass plastic using a meths burner despite the water level being watched like a hawk).

I've found that using the ceramic wood burning stove rope as wick material helps to seal the meths burner tubes and thus reduces the likelihood of a spill when the locomotive derails and ends up on its side (it is not case of will it derail but rather when will it derail). You also need to ensure that the top of the wick tubes are at or above the maximum level of the meths in the tank, which is not the case where a remote filler tube has been fitted (you end up flooding the wick tube with the resultant fireball).

Chris Cairns.

I quite like the 2-4-2 setup. What happened with the loco, did you make the modifications?

It is still in my 'Projects Pending' section and is on display in my lounge. I've still to decide which format it will finally take, but I need to improve my painting skills before then.

Been spending too much time on my Mamod/MSS collection recently so my focus is on other 16mm-ish projects just now.

Chris Cairns.

Chris Cairns:86785 wrote:Looks like a Salem Steam Models bunker on the rear............

Yes - definately. Here is one one of the SLK1's I have owned (now sold). I do have another of these bunker set-ups for another of my projects.

So that's why the two connection point on my bunker is a bit flimsy, it supposed to be mounted to the rear plate of the cabin!

Still I think the open cabin looks nicer. Maybe I'll add a plate so that I can fill the bunker with coal. No doubt that the driver and fireman won't be happy about that, the severly limited living space means that their table and chairs have to go.

The Denying Dutchman:86804 wrote:Maybe I'll add a plate so that I can fill the bunker with coal. No doubt that the driver and fireman won't be happy about that, the severly limited living space means that their table and chairs have to go.

I'd put a "coal greedy" in front of the front spec' sheet and let 'em keep their patio set in the cab

Narrow Minded:86805 wrote:

The Denying Dutchman:86804 wrote:Maybe I'll add a plate so that I can fill the bunker with coal. No doubt that the driver and fireman won't be happy about that, the severly limited living space means that their table and chairs have to go.

I'd put a "coal greedy" in front of the front spec' sheet and let 'em keep their patio set in the cab

The patio part I did understand, but you lost me on the coal greedy and the front spec'

Thanks to the generosity of Chris Cairns my loco now has the missing cab handles, thanks again Chris!


Looks a whole lot better in my opinion. The Salem bunker is mounted a bit too high, but I'll fix that when I've made a burner.

Culd you tell us, please, by how much in mm, the Salem addon extends the frames by?

About 15mm I think, a bit hard to measure since I don't have a back plate.

That's an interesting figure....thankyou very much DD