Engine bench test

The cleaned up boiler is wrapped in a fibreglass(?) sheet then then brass, which holds the cloth and gives the height required for the burner wrapes around this. On top of that goes a set of mahogany strips for decoration and extra insulation. These are held in place with brass boiler bands.

The bands come predrilled but I found them to be too long and loped 5mm of one end of each, re-drilled the hole and then prebent them around a can. Bolting the ends together is less fiddly than expected, helped by the strips being stuck to a strip of masking tape.

The baseplate has to be drilled to start the screws that hold the cylinder in place. 3 holes are also made for brass rods that retain a copper "dish" for the fuel. The idea is that the boiler slips over these and is held in place. Fine, except that they are too close the dish and splay out. I redrilled them so that the posts were vertical and everything fitted together.

According to the instructions, the fuel to be used is something called "Sterno". This is a flammable jelly used in hand warmers apparently. It's not available in the UK as far as I can tell so I had to experiment.



With the engine complete and on the bench in the garage I started with the little meths burner I made up to power my plank. This heated the water but wasn't man enough to get it to the boil.

Next I tried bits of firelighter. Much better if I could keep them lit. A squirt of meths into the dish seemed to help as the meths would burn well and keep the firelighter going. It's then that I managed to get the results in the film you can see in this post. OK so the duration wasn't impressive at around 5 minutes but I was mesmerised by my own working steam engine and spent the rest of the evening messing around with various combinations of fuel to no great effect.

I've always felt that one of the best things a modeller can do is build a locomotive chassis and run it up and down a test track. The pleasure of watching something you have made actually working is immense. The steam engine gives the same, not thrill but deep sense of satisfaction. I'd recommend it for anyone.