Starlight Express

A wonderful sight to behold!

Congratulations.

Mark.

Hi Shane

Congratulations on first running. She looks wonderful.

BTW. Thanks for the code for the gate. You might want to change that.

Weel done Shane, what a great feeling that must be, I remember Blackbeard's first steaming very well. Lynn is currently staying with us in England at the moment so we watched your videos together. I see you can get steel toe capped flipflops in NZ too, be carefull. The whole world now knows your gate pass code to so I would put on extra security tonight

Hope you enjoy the rest of your summer, you just need that yellow road loco finished so you have someone to play with.

Cheers

Brian

PS: it's a bit quiet here now Blackbeard has goneto a new home. Going to miss him when the season starts until we get our big engine.

Thanks Guys. Not to worried about the gate code. Won't change it as taken me long enough to remember the current one!We only had the gate on electronic to keep our old dog inside the gate as she was deaf and had little traffic sense. Plus Lynn you will have the code if you decide to visit next Christmas. Brian I am sure you will have just as much enjoyment playing with the big boys toys at the shows. Only difference I expect is will be a long time between drinks as you will have spent all your discretionary funds on transporting your engine. Kindest regards Shane

Hi Shane
What a great feeling i remember my first steaming it was a proud day.. Congratulations and enjoy

Just a great day Saturday when Starlight came to life, quite emotional. She ran like a well-oiled sewing machine, well done Shane, not bad for a pen pusher Just a few more steaming’s to shake down any minor adjustments and then with Jim’s boiler test and blessing you will be ripping around the mount and Tauranga like a man possessed.

Lord Darby reached a milestone today by meeting the workshop floor for the first time.....



Fitting the wheels to the axle.....



Just waiting for my bloody cylinders to arrive so that I can progress the rest of the motion fitting

I can now see why your engines are painted in such bright colours... All that sunshine & beautiful weather just goes so well with your paint schemes!!

A truly wonderful sight! Thanks for putting videos up on the forum.. truly inspirational!!

The first true Showman "down under"!! ... (Well from the STW stable anyway!!)

Regards,
Tony

Looking forward to seeing more of the Wait and Sea paint scheme on your engine Phil, it will show off the oil and soot beautifully When will you paint the wheels?

Check out my thread soon

Thanks Phil for your kind words .Particularly liked the pen pusher bit. Great photos of your build. You must have found your mojo after Saturday and worked like a Trojan to have his majesty on it wheels. Another milestone to tick off with your build.

Tony, I have found huge inspiration and ideas from your build thread and really appreciate your support. From one showman to another I think I might have found away to minimise the smeech (if thats a real word)caused by the soot etc on the paint in the man stand when firing up the engines. Firstly grabbed a roll of tin foil from SWMBO's (she who must be obeyed) kitchen and wrapped some pieces around second shaft etc .Made sure did not get to hot to scorch the paint work and removed once fire was drawing. Secondly put my dusting gun connected to the compressor on very low pressure pointing upwards through a hole at the base of the card board chimney and had an able bodied assistant hold the trigger open for 5 seconds or so when the fire doors were opened . This created a little bit of extra draw so smoke minimised exiting through fire hole doors when opened to re fuel. Was really careful to keep pressure down and create no forced draw which could have damaged the boiler. Trigger pulled max of 5 x. Seemed to work as little or no smeech in man stand to clean off. Kindest regards Shane.

Thank you Shane for information, that all makes perfect sense! However I think realistically I'm just going to have to accept the engine's going to get a bit of "crud" on it & the "working clothes" appearance will add to the "realism" of the engine!... I actually burn coal on stoves in my house here, it's a Chinese Anthracite, which is pretty much smokeless & very clean burning, so might use that & see how I get on. Everyone over here seems to "swear by" the Welsh dry steam coal as being about the best to use, but I have a huge heap of anthracite so I'd be daft not to try it out in the engine first!... Clean coal, clean engine???... I doubt it!!.. But one has to try!!

Regards,
Tony

If you look on page 6 of Thetford Works Cornwall thread (Pictures) I have made a brass plate, painted black to divert the smeech back over the axle casing instead of all over the rear spectacle plate. It's really difficult to clean with all the pipes etc and needs T Cut to get rid of it. I am hoping this helps, it's also pretty unobtrusive. The left & right hand edge are bent down to add rigidity & stop the smoke going sideways!

I'll report later on whether it works, either way it's not going to make it worse.

Another great day was had by yours truly and a gaggle of advisers including Phil (lord Darby)No problems with my engine until the gauge glass broke. With assistance from Phil was able to turn the cocks off and replace. The small towel which I always carry in the bunker was very useful particularly in trying to find the bottom cock which the steam had totally obscured. The videos below tell the story. A big thanks to Murray the boat builder who quietly tapes all the action without you knowing. So please excuse any inappropriate comments.





Cheers ,Shane

Well done Shane.

She looks lovely and sounds brilliant. We can't do that here. That is it would be blue murder if we ventured out in public without a boiler ticket and insured to the hilt.

Or have I missed the certification?

Anyway. Congratulations on your engine coming alive and I look forward to driving her next year all being good.

Thanks Lynn, All the paper work is signed off and just waiting on the steam accumulation test which will be fine. You are however correct and I will wait for my formal piece of paper. The area you saw in the videos is hopefully where we will have some sort of play pen/arena for the traction engines to run around at our convention. Quite scenic with the harbour in the back ground. There is also a bit of a hill to play on as the attached video taken by Murray shows. Would be great if you and any others interested can make it down under for our convention in early Jan 2016



Cheers Shane

Hi STW builders and others interested. Sorry I have been a bit remiss in posting my progress of late. I am still waiting for the sign writing to be completed on my canopy. I have engaged an old school sign writer to do the lettering in circus style. Can't wait to see the results and will post as soon as the canopy is returned together with some construction photos.

I have been cogitating for some time on the placement of the circuit board and the volt  and amp meters on the engine. I accept the current design follows the full size but in my mind doesn't compliment the engine quite as I would have liked. With my model engineering background I therefore decided to do some down under freelancing. Space very limited but have managed to incorporate most of the functions in my design. For those interested the shunt is inside the tube between the two instruments. I have no electrical back ground but have had lots of advice from a number of electricians in my model engineering club. They suggest I incorporate fuses for each circuit. Hope you like the photos.

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Cheers Shane

Disappointed you couldn't have made just a bit more brass to polish, Shane.

Tim

I've never seen anything like this before Shane.. Truly "innovative"!!.... Totally in keeping with the rest of your engine.. remarkably "unique"!!
Can't wait to see your finished canopy!!

Regards,
Tony

Hi Tim and Tony ,
Thank you for your kind words .Small scale traction engine owners are pretty thin on the ground in NZ and the feed back on our build threads has given me heaps of encouragement and advice. I'm pleased the build is almost done and have enjoyed the process immensely .I'm not sure however that I could put the same energy and effort into building another 4" scale showmans. A different story however if STW towers decided to produce a half scale showmans.
Kind regards Shane

Hi Shane.

Yes same comments from me. Lovely job done. Starlight is bright.

If STW produce a 1/2 size it will cause major problems on the rally field.

Hi STW builders and others interested. I collected my canopy from the painters Saturday morning after the final coat of clear (with an anti graffiti additive to protect paint from oil, smeech etc)was applied over the  freehand sign writing and pin striping. I would of attempted to paint the canopy if I had a spray booth big enough. I couldn't have done the sign writing and pin striping however (circus style) no matter how hard I tried. The guy I used is a real artist and is about to retire from his business so I was fortunate to be able to engage his services. Very pleased with the result. Still heaps to do with the fitting of wires and light bulb holders. Hope you like the photos.

The first one is without the canopy a couple of weeks ago when the sun made a brief appearance  . You will note the local council has picked up my colour scheme on the engine for its play ground equipment. I appreciate that the polo shirt I am wearing clashes with the colour scheme of my engine but I am modelling (without any photoshop) the shirt that people can order in if they decide to attend our national model engineering convention being held in Tauranga NZ from the 7th to 11th Jan 2016.

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My workshop is not anywhere near as clean as when I started the build

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Max has a friend down under. The whole house revolves around this little monster. She is a 9mth old wire haired Jack Russell who barks at anything that's noisy or moves. I think the my better half's theory was that the acquisition of this little pocket rocket would get me out of the workshop. She has achieved this quite easily .

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View of the motion works through the hatch.

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And some pin striping under the canopy

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And finally one happy builder.Thankyou STW, Lynn and all the others who have helped with advice during my build. Also a big thank you to Murray(the boat builder) with the woodworking (and fibre glassing)of my canopy and the photos posted today.

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Will post a video when next out and about.

Cheers (and roll on summer)Shane

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Have you filled the belly tank yet?

Phil,All in good time my friend and boy they had better not leak. When are we going to have an update on your build thread of all the excellent work you have been doing on your engine? We also need to view photos of your specially made chariot to covey Lord Darby amongst his subjects. Cheers Shane.