Webb Engineering

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Meteor House, Culmhead Business Centre, Culmhead, Taunton Somerset , UK, TA3 7DY Tel / Fax 01823 601602

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King Richard 111

Building the boiler for a 5" gauge king

King Richard 111

My 5" Gauge king class locomotive was completed in 1997 after a ten year construction period. Since then she has been used on a regular basis hauling passengers at Taunton Model engineers club track at Vivary Park and attended many steam rallies around the country. The model was constructed long before I ran my own business with the most rudimentary tools in a small corregated iron shed at the bottom of my garden. Whilst building the boiler I took a series of photos illustrating the way it was built and show them here in the hope they may be of interest to those doing similar.

Flanged plates

Above the firebox tubeplate and the smokebox tubeplate, both made in 1/8" copper have been flanged and drilled and are now ready for assembly.

Firebox
Fitting the crownstays

The tubeplate has been soldered in with Easiflow silver solder, the assembly cleaned up and the crownstays are being fitted.

The firebox wrapper has been folded and is being fitted to the tubeplate

Soldering the crown stays
Soldering the crownstays

Silver soldering. The firebricks are used to help retain the heat

Using a large propane torch the crownstays are soldered in place.

Firebox assembly

Inside the firebox

Firebox assembly

All the tubes have been soldered in and the assembly has been cleaned up and is now ready for fitting into the outer wrapper.

Inner assembly completed

Outside the firebox. The smokebox tubeplate, at the bottom of the picture, has been pushed on to hold the tubes in line

Bronze welded outer wrapper

The outer wrapper and barrel have been fitted.The barrel is made from a single sheet that has been rolled and joined using Sifbronze weld.

Chain drilling throat plate

The outer wrapper throat plate has been flanged and chain drilled before removing the central section.

Pickle tank
Outer shell

The completed outer wrapper assembly

Right, the soldering and bronze welding of the outer wrapper have been completed and the assembly is now dipped into a dilute sulphuric acid solution to clean it.

Drilling for the stays

Above the inner and outer sections have been put together and the foundation ring is held in place with a few rivets.
Drilling the holes for the side stays is in progress.

Slodering the side stays

The outside ends of the side stays have been silver soldered, and now with the aid of an assistant to feed the solder we tackle the difficult task of sealing up the inside ends of the side stays.

Final assembly

The firebox door plate is held in place prior to soldering using some old toolmakers clamps.The picture also shows clearly the structure of the boiler and the location of the various stays.

What health and safety!
Final heating

All the soldering having been completed the boiler has its final dip into the pickle tank. The construction phase completed the testing can now begin.

Almost there! The backhead has been fitted and the flux applied prior to soldering in place.

This series of photos may shed a little light on the work involved in building a boiler for a large 5" gauge locomotive, although many aspects are left uncovered because I didn't have my camera to hand at the time. The construction time covers a period of about a year and would not have been possible without the encouragement and active help from many of my friends in Taunton Model Engineers.

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