Kit 7 : Steam pipes and reversing lever
Kit 7 includes
Cylinder lagging
Drain cock lever
Blast pipe and nozzle
Steam Tee & various steam pipes and nuts
Oil check valve
Reach rod
Reversing lever with latch, handle, etc.
Reversing stand
Latch plates
Various pivot bolts and spacers
The usual collection of nuts & bolts, etc.
I've loosely assembled the reversing gear to see how it goes together, and also to see what needs painting.
The bottom of the reversing lever looks a bit square, so I attacked it with a file. Here is the result, which looks much better. It's not perfect, but at least it doesn't catch the eye like the square end did. I haven't decided what to do about the top end, if anything.
Here is the reversing lever stand painted and fitted. I needed to shorten the bolts that secure it.
The next job is to assemble the reversing lever so I can set the valve gear.
I decided to loosely assemble the steam and blast pipes, to see if there were any problems lurking. It actually went OK, but it's going to take a bit of fiddling to get the blast pipe central.
I assembled the reversing lever and set the valve gear. Not much you can photograph about setting the valve gear, but here is a photo of the assembled reversing lever and reach rod. Setting the valve gear is a fiddly job, make and adjustment, measure, turn the wheels, measure, repeat until you finally decide that it's impossible to get it perfect, but close enough will do. The instructions are quite good about how to do this. I'm going to paint the reach rod black now that it's adjusted. The rod fork end is a shiny zinc finish which is really out of place on a steam locomotive. It won't stand out once it's had a coat of black paint.
Now the valve gear is set I finally fitted the steam & blast pipes, along with the oil check valve. I found that the blast pipe wouldn't hold itself upright, but Andy at Polly assured me that this was normal. It's held firmly once the smoke box is fitted and the gap between the blast pipe and the hole in the bottom of the fire box is filled with a fire cement or something similar.
You can also see the steam chest covers are fully bolted down. There is a scrap of masking tape over the oil check valve to stop any crud getting in it. The top of the steam pipe has also been covered in tape.
Finally here's a picture of Polly as she stands at the moment. I haven't painted the cylinder cover plate. I shall leave all the plate work painting until a later date. This will probably be done once I return to the UK as I don't have facilities to do a decent spray job where I am at the moment.
The drain cock lever has also been fitted. Although this looks a bit long and whippy, it actually works perfectly well. So I guess I'm going to have to take it off and paint it now. I hadn't bothered painting it as I thought it would have to be replaced.
I've managed to test the engine on compressed air now. Initially it wouldn't work. This turned out to be because one of the valve nuts was a little tight and something was not quite square. This resulted in the front of the valve being held off the port face, and all the air simply went straight up the blast pipe. I filed the valve nut so that the valve would sit down on the port face properly. I opened the valve and away the engine went. Big joy :o) Until, that is, I realised it was going backwards. Reversing lever forwards, wheels going backwards :o( It turns out that I'd got the central axle in backwards. Nice of the instructions to omit this tiny detail. Grrrrrr...... Anyway, it took me about an hour to remove the connecting and coupling rods, eccentric straps and axle block keeps, turn the axle over, and re-assemble everything. I haven't tried it since, but it should still work. I don't think the valves will need setting up again. I'll take a short video when I try it again and post it here.
Here is a video of Polly running on air. This is after I how long she runs for with the compressor air bottle full. I didn't have the compressor running as it's very noisy.
I almost forgot to take out the 3mm ply packing from the suspension........
This completes kit 7, apart from the drain cocks, as I'm still waiting for a replacement drain cock to arrive.
Current weight : 26.5 Kg