Mel Harris (of Harris Locomotive Works) & Ray Bennet on our maiden voyage .... blowing the 3 chime Buckeye whistle! Boy does it sound wonderful!!!! Without these 2 guys we couldn't have done this project!
11/28/98 Today, Ray Bennett & I twisted 5 foot long (the length the 28 fire tubes) stainless steel strips 15/16th's of an inch wide & 24 gauge. We put 3 twists into each strip & placed them into the top 3 rows of fire tubes to slow & spin the flame out against the pipe & heat the water more effeciently - I read about this technic in Live Steam Magazine. We left the 2 bottom rows empty since the flame will be slowed in the upper tubes & be forced through the lower tubes. I want to thank my very good friend, Jim Goff for cutting & donating the strips to our project. Below see a photo of Ray placing one of the strips in a fire tube & some of them already in place. The first 2 pics are of the engine with the new bell on & the funnel smoke stack in place, and the sand dome in place (which I chromed later)
Below you can see a photo of a Hawaii Plantation Engine ... Our engine looks similar .. although ours is not built to any scale. But at least you can see there were small gauge trains with larger cabs ... some scale purists turn their noses up at trains like ours that are not an exact scale copy of a full sized one from the past. Ours is an original .. used our own plans from scratch so is a 1999 working steam locomotive.
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