Kit five – Cylinders
Kit five in a series of 12 – Building a Polly Model Prairie Tank Locomotive
This kit arrives in a small but heavy box. The box contained the cylinders, two very accurately machined castings along with most the associated parts to enable locomotive propulsion. It might sound rather strange, but I found the cylinders and ends quite beautiful. The instructions do require you to use cutting paste and tool on the face where the crosshead block slides, a few passes to the cylinder blocks and then washing the past off with paraffin. I did not take a photo of this process, to be honest, there was not much to see.
All parts needed a small amount of preparation and cleaning before paining and assembly. I painted the cylinders and the 2 end caps. Other engineers have left the ends bare, there is no right or wrong, it’s your loco your way. Looking back at the images of the cylinder block, some of the edges are still quite “Sharpe”. I don’t mean that you will cut yourself on them, if the edge is too sharp and not rounded, the paint will not stay in place; it would like trying to get paint to stick on a sharp knife.
I did need to spend time “de-burring” the crosshead caps and oilers, this was to make them fit and run smoothly; the oiler was quite long and needed some work to ensure it was flush and didn’t foul the guide bars.
Once panted, assembly was straight forward, I did however find it tricky to bolt the cylinders in place; a combination of big hands and a lack of space between the fames to get tools in. I am glad they are held in with hex bolts, regular bolts would have taken a lot longer.
This website and blog should be seen as information only, I will be document building the 12 kits, if you need expert advice, please contact Polly Model Engineering.
Need tools – tools I used are listed here…
Kit five
This is kit 5 of 12. This builds the cylinders on the Polly Model Engineering Prairie Tank locomotive. This kit is not yet complete, so please check back to see my progress.
Materials
- Front Cylinder Covers
- Cylinder Blocks
- Rear Cylinder Covers
- Slide Valves
- Front and Rear Gasket
- Piston Rings
- Piston Rods and Heads
- Piston Stuffing Nuts
- Packing Material
- Cross Head Body
- Crosshead Bearings
- Cross Head Caps & Oilers
- Crosshead Pins & L/H Crosshead Nut
- Draincock Operating Assembly
Tools
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- Bahco 9770 BE-9770 1.5 - 10mm Hex Key Set
- Magnusson Hex Key Set 30 Pieces
- Bahco S290 Socket Set, Metric 1/4" Drive, 29 Pieces
- Bahco BH59/S100BC 100 Pcs Bit Set
- Bahco S240 1/2″ Drive 24 Piece Metric Socket Set 10 – 32mm
- 5 Piece Metric Combination Spanner Set, Mini/Small Sizes, 3.2mm, 3.5mm, 4.0mm, 5.0mm & 5.5mm
- Laser 7132 BA Spanner & Socket Set 1/4"D 17pc
- AojSup 17Pcs Metal File Set, Professional Files Tools
- AFA Tooling Deburring Tool Kit
- Draper 98521 Storm Force 230V Rotary Multi-Tool Kit, 135W
- White spirit, thinners and sandpaper for surface preparation
- Black-it kit 4 x 500ml bottles
- LOCTITE 603
- Steam Oil 1000 grade ½ litre
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Instructions
1. The contents of kit 5, I took a range of close up views, they can be found in the gallery for this kit.
2. For starters, here is an image of one of the Cylinders. It has been cleaned up and ready to be painted.
3. Prior to the painting, the instructions describe lapping the top of the cylinder using the slide valve and grinding paste, the parts should be washed with paraffin; I didn’t take any photos of this process. Thes images are after the parts have been primed and top coated.
4. A cylinder cover before it was painted, I decided to paint the whole part.
5. Cylinder front cover, again before painting.
6. Piston with the “Rubber ‘o’ Ring fitted, the front cover and gasket has also been put in place.
7. A different angle, you can see the piston stuffing nut in place, holding the packing material in place.
8. Piston being put into the cylinder block; I used plenty of 1000 Grade steam oil.
9. The crosshead body is now in place, this did need a lot of de-burring to ensure a good fit that did not impede operation.
10. The crosshead caps and oilers needed to have the oiler body filing back to be flush with the bottom with the crosshead cap.
11. This image shows the main components assembled, read to be installed on the frames.
12. The cylinder fitted to the chassis; this was quite a challenge. There are several large hex bolts that hold the cylinders in place. The space and access are limited, I do not help having large hands. I was happy once they were installed.
13. The draincock assembly was given the “Black-it” treatment. Protects the item and keeps the part in a freely moveable state.
14. The draincock assembly fitted to the frames.
15. An image of the draincock assembly fitted in place, ready for the connecting rod to be fitted.
Recommended Products
I make no formal recommendation, I make no gain from this item what so ever, these links are provided for information only!
