Welcome

Live steam model on 7¼" gauge of the Württembergische T3 no 924

Welcome to this blog. It will inform you about the progress of designing and building live steam model locomotives. The blog contains the description of a model Würrtembergische T3 on 7¼" gauge (built between 2006 and 2017), the wagons for this loco (built between 2018 and 2022)  and a 5" gauge model of a Great Eastern Railway Y14 class loco (started in 2020)

On the left you'll find the index where you can browse through the different articles and on the right you'll find all the extra's. On the top tabs you'll find a brief description of my other locos.

 

 

Click for the direct link to start of construction series below 
T3 7¼" steam locomotive 
 
Enjoy this site. Erik-Jan Stroetinga. The Netherlands. Europe.

 

 

 

Sunday 10 February 2013

The smokebox

The smokebox
This is a classical design, with the flared out front plate. The Stroudley A1 Terrier locomotive has the same kind of smokebox shape.  That loco was from the same period (1880’s).



 I used a piece of steel pipe (160mm diameter) on which the front plate is silver soldered. 
The door is a combination of a steel turned disk and a curved steel plate, also silver soldered on. I’ve used the standard dart design for closing the door, because I couldn’t figure out how this worked on the original Württ. T3.



The base of the chimney is formed by fly cutting with a boringhead. This is set to the radius of the smokebox.



After leaving the milling machine, the outer shape was turned in the lathe.


Although a extreme long overhang from the chuck, boring out the chimney was done in this set-up. Easy does it! :-)



In three steps the inner conical shape was turned.


The rotating center in the tail stock is inside the chimney, when the out side was turned. For both operations (in and outside) the cross slide was set to an angle of a few degrees.


Drilling holes for mounting the smokebox on the frame


The smokebox saddle consists of two strips of mild steel


Finishing the hinge by hand



      
The hinge is made from a steel bar, that was first reduced to thickness of 2 mm in the shaping machine. You’ll see in the photo the 8mm square lumps, that became the eye of the hinge. This job has been done by filing.  



The complete assembly.