This is a collection of some “side” projects, not necessarily directly on the locomotive, but that come when dealing with a steam engine.
I’d like to recommend you, to also take a look at the end of the articles – most of them will include a download section where you can find CAD-files and drawings to get inspired or even build the thing your own.
A day in steam doesn’t last forever, and sooner or later the fire gets removed. Besides a good amount of ash in the fire and the smokebox, the fire tubes are also covered with soot.
The engineer’s little helper to get things started. Starting out this hobby nearly from scratch, a steam raising blower was needed for the Feldbahn 0-6-0. As of so often there are many offers to be found on the internet – and just as reliable, either they don’t fit the engine or the engineer’s purse. And so it starts – an own 12V DC steam raising blower project. BTW, this blower should also fit a Stafford or General Gordon.
After I’d seen pictures of other Feldbahns on the internet with having derailing bars attached to them, I thought to myself it might be wise to have one too. I figured the most vulnerable parts must be the cylinder drain cocks because they were pretty much the lowest – and additionally – one of the more “fragile” parts on the loco. So in case of a derailment, it would be very likely that they would be damaged. This also meant that the derailing bar had to come down pretty low to serve its purpose. Some measurements were taken and after a CADing session, I had a plan that could be put into action. Conveniently, the bar could be cut out of some stock material – to be more precise: a 50x50x4 mm L-Profile, 380 mm long. After I bit the shape out of the steel and applied a coat of red paint, the result looked like the thing had always been on there – mission accomplished.
As an engineer of a steam engine, one must be able to feed and keep up with a well-set fire – or even start one at first. Unfortunately, since the 7¼" Feldbahn 0-6-0 is my very first steam locomotive, I’m not equipped with such tools. Even after hours and hours of extensive search through the internet I couldn’t find firing irons that satisfied my needs. I wouldn’t say there weren’t any, but either they had the wrong dimensions or they were far too expensive for the purpose for which they were intended for. So finally I found myself in a position where I had to come up with my own design.