Often during kit bashing, upgrading or scratch building new cylinders are needed. In some cases, they can be modified from kit or spare parts, but they may have to be made. A table top builder and frequent MER contest winner, Robin Love, devised an ingenious method based on brass tubing and cut out sheets.
Front and rear faces are laid out from scale elevations, marking rod centers. Tight clearance holes for four tubes are drilled at the centers, then faces are cut out. Four pieces of tubing, the next telescoping size up, are cut to a length of the face distance minus the 2 face thicknesses, then slipped over the smaller tubes followed by the face pieces on either end. The smaller tubes should have excess length, which will be trimmed when heads and details are added.
Although they could be ACC'ed together, solder is better. Carefully align and solder with a high temperature alloy using a torch or resistance soldering. This will hold them together, when lower temperatures are used for detailing. The holes in the tubes will accommodate the rods later.
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Basic assembly before adding saddle and seat plate.
By wrapping it around smoke box, a sheet of paper or thin card stock template may be used to determine saddle arc length. The saddle is laid out on sheet stock, drilled in center to clear or possibly tapped, for boiler mounting screw. Then it is ROLLED to fit. With boiler, cylinders, saddle and frame, check boiler hight and level. Correct, before fastening saddle. A drilled and tapped, brass bottom plate is fitted for frame seat mounting. Where possible, cylinders should be mounted to frame with separate screws, other than the boiler mounting screw, to permit testing without boiler.
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