After a fairly heavy couple of months making 2mm scale tube railways I thought a change of size was needed. Some remedial work was needed on the cab side sheets following a mishap.
Sir Sagramore has now been dismantled to fit the ashpan and grate.
There has been a huge amount of head scratching to work out how it all dismantles and fits. Obviously, the boiler came off, but so also did the smokebox, steam pipes, mechanical oiler and reversing linkage.
The ashpan is complicated by straddling the back axle
It is also complicated by having two dampers and a bottom emptying flap on the model.
Once
in situ everything gets very crowded, in this view the dampers and flap are closed.
Here we see the bottom flap and front damper open.
The bottom flap will be good for emptying ash and manoeuvring the grate into the firebox - for sure it will need a special tool made for the job. The front and rear dampers will also need robust linkages to work well. These will need to be threaded in to the space behind the wheels, brakes and axle driven mechanical pump plumbing. That is not too difficult, the challenge is how to bring the control linkage into the cab and also make it dismount-able for servicing and repairs.
Oh well, at least it gives the little grey cells something to think about…
Tim