A Castle !?!?
Some time ago, probably last year, at a club roadshow, we commented that there were no GWR live steam locos on the club layout. After some thought, I decided to try and convert an A3 into a Castle, based around an old Hornby Dublo cast body. I've finally made a bit of progress, so here are some photos etc.
I started the tender first, but the Hornby boiler is too tall/wide to fit into the Dublo casting. I bought some 25mm copper tube (Hornby boiler is 32mm) and added a set of live steam parts to convert it into a smaller/longer boiler that stood a chance of fitting inside the Dublo tender once I had machined it out as much as I dare.
I haven't bothered with a new frame to space the wheels correctly, but just cut down the Hornby plastic and threw away the trailing axle. It wil…
A quick photo to show the progress since the demise of the old forum pages....
The double slidebar/crossheads are now in place, which took some considerable time. Not just finding a way of fixing both the upper & lower ends of the slidebars, but also dealing with the lack of clearance to the connecting rod fixing on the front wheels. It's very tight for space in there and the Hornby tolerances (lack of) on the connecting rods doesn't help.
The circuit board is in - it's an A4 one cut down slightly with the lights moved further away. I had a short circuit which took ages to find - hopefully fixed now.
I put it all together for a check on the rolling road...
...but there were two steam leaks that I now need to fix. One is a pin-hole in my soldering on the boiler and the other is the very short flexible hose.
Given the impending Christmas hiatus, it may be a while before I get it all together.
I still need to find some way of fitting the whistle in and also need to finish the cosmetic valve links in front of the cylinders.
David