Restoring "Butch" 5" 0,6,0 tank loco

[Doug]

Getting ready for steam again. So my butch hasn’t steamed for quite a few years so I am dismantling it and getting it ready, last time it ran it had a few issues and some design problems so I am upgrading the sight glass and valves, I have a commercial sight glass and some globe valves I made from castings changing them should make things a bit safer as they all have captive spindles I am also swapping the check valve balls for silicon nitride ones. All in it should make for a less leaky system.

Obviously the old check valves are a bit rough after several years of sitting.
Also dismantled the loco to get the boiler off

All the blackhead fittings are larger than my new ones so lots of adapters need to be made.

Had to strip the blackhead as every thing touches everything else (very tight) also had to strip and rebuild the regulator and flatten the valve surface to try stop any leaks, oh and it had seized solid so not great.
Anyway just a few fittings and a pressure test away from a rebuild. So I can have a good run this at the track year.

[Doug]

Thought I should update this thread a bit. So I spent quite a bit of time making new valves for the blackhead and had stripped the boiler down for hydraulic pressure test and steam test so I could have a year of driving it but fate had other plans and my wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer so the loco got stood down and I have put it on display instead.
Below is the work I managed to get done before disaster struck.

With the loco standing for years the clacks were in a real mess so they all came off and got dunked in acid. The balls all got swapped for silicon nitride ones.

[Doug]

Boiler and all bits cleaned/ removed and lubricant added where required.

The boiler was stripped and plugged up, then also found the regulator was seized solid so had to strip,rebuild that and polish the surfaces.

New valves fitted and pipework all redone to make the blackhead a bit more presentable.

All the valves replaced with captive spindle globe valves. This is about when thugs all went a bit sideways so I ended up putting it all back together and decided to have it on show as there’s absolutely no chance of getting any time to run it when I am nursing my wife. Maybe one day I will get it back out and try again but I have my speedy to finish off and that will be a much easier thing to steam up when finished.
So for now this is it, you never really finish building/refurbishing these things so one day I will get to see it back in steam.