Garden Whistle Mar 2012 - Sandman.org.nz

The Garden Whistle - March 2012The loco was built using 6 mm bore x 13 mmOD ball races, I have a plentiful supply of them,so 6 mm silver steel was used for all the shafting.Besides the crankshaft, the big-end is alsoball raced. The loco is worm driven, I made myown, it was a real mission, but still enjoyable. Ithought the motor would guzzle steam at a greatrate with the gearing (nearly twice the volumeof steam as a RH loco with wheels the same diameter)so I made the boiler as big as possible.As the motor exhaust doesn't go up the funnel asmoke box wasn't needed. The boiler is a twinburner gas fired affair with a central internal uptakeflue with water all around it.The bodywork is all 0.6 mm steel, and as it'salmost a one-piece lift off structure now, is quiterigid. It's all soft soldered together, I am a fanof soft soldering now that I have a 80 W ironand the right flux.The bodywork lifts off to reveal the works.Initially I couldn't bring myself to paint it, andhad been contemplating naming the loco "SilverLady". But now the loco is resplendent in NZRblack.As the loco has a short-stroke single cylinder,and the flywheel is now rather inaccessible, anelectric starter was made for it. The loco runsnicely at a slow crawl, and the exhaust note isfantastic.This video shows various clips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovv5efZS7yYThis video shows the starter being used:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK6Q2RrAL8IPage 11