I would have to change too much to make it work and I couldn't think of a good way of doing it. So now I have a complete
water gauge spare - come in handy for the next engine? The bottom hole has been blanked off, but I think I might use the
top hole to take a bracket to hold the vacuum brake gauge.I've never liked the size of the brake pedestal and it also became very obvious that it was much too high and got in the way when reaching for the regulator handle. So I shortened it by 4". Not an easy job as the outside and the bored hole inside were tapers. On top of that it was cast aluminium and I've no means of welding the parts together. I got round it by fitting an internal taper plug, which was bored through, and riveting it in place as well as a drive fit. Ergonomically it's much better, but it does look a bit stumpy!
At the moment I don't like the firedoor handle; I had to bend it to miss the pedestal and I also had to make it longer to dodge the site glass. The water gauge on the side tank looks OK but it would have been better placed in the middle, except it fouled the tap inside.
This just shows the position of
the oilers. I made the mistake of setting it too low on my Kerr Stewart and I have to get off the loco to see what's
happening.
The inline clacks for the oil
feed. The ball size is 1/8".
I finished the front, left side. The oil clack is tipped at an angle just for ease of fitting. The water feed from the
injector is fitted but not the injector yet. The top pipe is for the blower. The copper tubing came in 3 foot lengths
and I found from the front to the backhead was about 3 feet 6 inches!
It's surprising just how long it takes to do this job, especially when you've under-estimated the length of tube required
and you have to wait for the new order to come!
This is what it looks like after a week's work. Hate the joint I've made on the oil feed pipe where 3ft wasn't long enough.
I'll have to do something else. The connections through the footplate were very restricted for space and I still have to
fit in one more for the steam supply to the left hand injector.
This last picture shows the underside of the footplate where the pipes pass through. Somewhat congested. The boiler
blowdown valve fouled the rod for the draincocks, but I managed to get round it by a bit of bending. The original Romulus
has one blowdown on the back, which is impossible to get at, so I've fitted one on either side. One is lined up with the
front of the firebox and the other with the rear. This should help blow out any muck which might collect. I was lucky
in that the connectors for the two tubes to the oil tank passed on either side of the draincock rod and the bypass tap
wire. The open ended tube protruding is the siteglass blowdown.
I've ended up with having to make all manner of nuts because some of the threads I chose weren't available commercially.
One of the problems at the moment is finding a pressure gauge which is the right size. Everybody seems to sell 2" as
the biggest and this looks much too small. As I can't find a 3" I'll have to make do. The next size up seems to be 4"
which looks very over-sized. Vacuum gauges are easily obtained but look too modern so I had a look on Ebay and as the
only bidder for this one, I got it for 99p. The black surround probably put people off. I cut this off and made a
brass bezel instead. The size - 2" - is OK. and it doesn't look too bad.
The last piping up job was the brake system, with the ejector and the gauge. I had quite a job finding a place to put
the gauge and it was quite a fiddle to fit in the pipework. The waste exhaust steam just goes through the footplate
towards the track. I didn't bother with piping it through to the smokebox; too far. Perhaps in the future I should
think more about standardizing threads and nut sizes as I seemed to spend quite a lot of time making different nuts
and nipples to suit. I'm not happy about the gauges but I think it will look much better when I find a larger pressure
gauge and the vacuum doesn't dominate.
I made a protector for the siteglass. It is much narrower than can be seen on some narrow gauge engines, but this
looks reasonably neat and is a tight fit. Rather than glass inserts I used acrylic partly because I would have had to
use 2mm glass which is a bit thin. Full size look nice with their beveled edged glass but I felt this not quite within
my capabilities.
So that just about completes the basic engine. The only thing left to do is the handles. I've
seen quite a few narrow gauge engines spoilt with badly designed handles that don't suit. So I'm going to leave them
for a while and have a think and make a few experimental ones.
It's amazing just how long all these little jobs have taken me.
The engine is ready for a boiler test but the running season has ended and boiler test day is next March, so I've got
until then to build a driving truck. I will be adding that to my web site. There are quite a few things I would like
to add like a lamp, fluting the driving gear, possibly having another look at those terrible wheels.
Between now
and next season I want to strip and re-furbish my Kerr Stewart. I just don't have space for three 7-1/4 engines and
their driving trucks and trailer. So, regrettably, the time has come to sell the Kerr Stewart.
It doesn't look much like my original drawing.