Kit 14 - Boiler cladding & ashpan

Kit 14 arrived the other day but I have not made a start on it yet…. I am now realising that there are logistical considerations over the order that I do things…. I have a few parts from the past that I didn’t finish off fully, and I realise that I need to get the engine into its wheels and get rid of the wooden trolley before I press on.

That means I should now give the wheels their topcoats of paint and make an attempt at some lining of the wheels, and then I will get them on. After that I am going to try to fit the cladding and cleading, but I think there will be some cutting necessary to get it to fit. I had started to fit the weighshaft and the rear bracket and I was going to lap in the crankshaft , but I think I will wait. It looks to me that the cladding will be easier to fit without anything on the top of the boiler that could get in the way.

Also, the weather is warmer at the moment, so painting stuff is the way to go, I reckon.

Front wheels  - lined with the Beugler tool… I can’t decide whether to have a simpler look with just yellow on the wheels or whether to add some extra colours, maybe a red and a black…. I am thinking that it’s better to do a good job with a simple design, rather than mess it up with a more complicated design…. Haven’t decided yet .

I have been reading about other people’s experiences with the cladding and I must say, it’s not a job that I am looking forward to !  I am hoping it will be easier due to the fact that I haven’t yet installed the weighshaft and slide bars etc. etc., so maybe I will have more room to install the rear cladding. I will see how it goes with the dry fit. I need to get the engine onto its front wheels and put axle stands at the back and remove the wooden trolley from underneath before I start on the cladding. I hope to be at that point within a couple of weeks.

I am off and running with the cladding, so I thought I would post my experiences so far, in case it is useful for new builders and maybe some “old hands” will have some observations.  I have not yet permanently fitted the slidebars, weighshaft etc., so I think the trial fitting of the cladding should be easier. I started off with the 2 pieces next to the smokebox…. They both needed about 5mm taken off the front and any small gap will be hidden by the brass ring next to the smokebox.



The slots where the belly tank bracket (?) will be attached needed a fair bit of fettling and now the threaded holes are exposed - I don’t have the bracket yet, so I don’t know if this slot will need widening where I have marked it, as it is not central to the 2 holes, but we will see, when it arrives.



Next I started working on the rear piece of cladding. The first thing I did was take about 10-12mm off the area where it goes down next to the hornplates. I think I read this tip on another thread, but doing that should make it easier to fit without scratching the inside of the hornplates. I think I will need to cut some more metal (marked area) to allow the cladding to fit next to the square side on the firebox, but that’s a job for the weekend.

I have made some more progress with the trial fit of the cladding…I am not 100% happy with it yet, so there will be some more fettling tomorrow, but I think it’s moving in the right direction… I haven’t tried it with the cork underlay yet…also, I need the belly tank bracket to make sure I have enough clearance underneath…

My Belly Tank kit arrived the other day, so I was able to try the bracket on the underside of the boiler. I have the “modified” bracket which unfortunately is too big so Will is going to send me one of the original design brackets and I can then finalise the sizing of the cladding.

I have trial-fitted the Ashpan… the holes in the ashpan and at the bottom of the firebox were quite a bit out of alignment so a fair bit of filing was needed. I will take it off and give it some more paint, and I think I will blacken the bar at the back with my Frosts kit (which I bought for the firebox door parts)

Many of the pictures that I post are not particularly exciting for experienced people, but they are there for future reference in case new builders want to see what these parts look like….

I have started to paint the cladding with primer. I am happy with the fit  on the boiler, although I am waiting on the modified belly tank bracket to arrive so that I can be 100% sure of the cutouts underneath, so I will put all the cladding back on again when I get that. It occurred to me that the pieces of cladding are probably not fitting exactly, and imperfections are being hidden by the brass bands…..so it would be a mistake to just paint the lining parallel to the edges of the cladding when I get to that stage, as the lines might be a tiny bit off - but enough to be noticeable.

That might be obvious to some experienced readers, but I am posting my thoughts and experiences as a complete novice to steam, and I am hoping these thoughts will help future new builders when they read the threads. So my plan is to get them to the first topcoat stage, then fit them all and at that point I will mark where any lining should go, using the brass bands as reference - I am finding it not too difficult to do the fits and re-fits of the cladding because I have removed all the motion and brackets after trial fitting it.

Here is the cladding after primer and a couple of undercoats…. I still need the new belly tank bracket so that I can fine tune the cut-out on the underside. I feel like maybe it needs another brass band at the front of the cylinder to hold the cladding - I will look at some pictures to see if anyone ever fits 4 bands, although it might look a bit unbalanced with 4 bands.. I have marked the cladding with pencil lines at the edges of the brass bands, so that when I take it off again I can mask it up carefully to do the black undercoat. I haven’t put the cork on yet.

I have made some more progress with the boiler cladding and the topcoat has been rubbed down with 2000 and I have done some stripes. I will leave it a few days and then think about the varnish. One question that hopefully someone can help with:   The 4 holes on the right hand side piece of cladding - there were 2 brass plates that are supposed to go on the back of the cladding, but when I trial-fitted them before painting the cladding, I couldn’t get the cladding to sit properly, so I am thinking I will just put the 4 brass bolts in from the back and not use the plates. Can anyone say whether this will work ok or not ? Thanks very much.

Did you cut out a notch in the Cork lagging for the brass plates to fit into?

tef 20 wrote:Did you cut out a notch in the Cork lagging for the brass plates to fit into?

Thanks for your reply - Good point - I haven’t fitted the cork lagging yet… I think I have misunderstood the instructions and I couldn’t find any pictures of other peoples engines to see the fitting that goes on the outside of the cladding to help me figure it out ….and I haven’t got the kit with the fitting yet….. I am soon ready to fit the cladding - hopefully only ONCE , so I don’t want to get these plates/screws wrong.

I have now fitted the cork lining on the boiler and the next stage will be to fit the painted and varnished cladding - hopefully without damaging it. Then I can start to work on the mechanicals again, as I removed them before working on the cladding. I made a template for the cork cladding and then laid it on the piece of cork and cut the holes out properly - the lines drawn by the factory on the piece of cork were a long way out and the cut-outs were too small. You don’t want to be trying to cut bits and pieces off the cork when it’s lying on the boiler - you will tear it.

I have now got the painted cladding fitted and the brass bands are on. Now I can start to replace the mechanicals, which I dry fitted many months ago - and now I have forgotten how to do it - so I will take another look at the instructions .



I have made a cover out of an old towel so that if (when) I drop something whilst fitting stuff, it will hopefully not chip the paint and varnish.

Any tips for the studs that go through these brackets …. Should I use some PTFE tape around the threads ?

Yes ptfe tape and folac

Mark the spark wrote:Yes ptfe tape and folac

Thanks very much Mark.