With our current donkey project seeing some light at the end of the tunnel it is time to plan for the next live steamer. One option would be "Betsy" from the Madera Sugar Pine lumber company see
http://www.gearedsteam.com/other/images/madera_sugarpine_co-dwg-thunder.jpg geared for low speed, ugly, weird, unique and fairly easy to build. I intend to build the locomotive from scratch (again). For the boiler design I need some input: As I am very happy with the ceramic burners (at least with vertical boilers) I would like to stick with this design, so a simple single flue boiler like the Accucraft does not seem to be the optimal choice. On the other hand a full blown locomotive boiler would be ideal, as the radiant heat of the burner is effectively absorbed by the fire box. Though we build such a boiler right now for David's Garrat I would prefer something more. Any suggestions ? I am familiar with the different pot/Smithies/D/J/type designs, but none of them seems to be optimized for ceramic burners. Another question: For gaskets I used a material I bought many years ago in Europe. It is called "Klingerit". Googling revealed, that this material contains asbestos and has long been banned. Is there a replacement for this stuff ? It should be black, somehow like hard rubber and withstand steam. I don't like the paper-like material as used e.g. on the Mamod, as it disintegrates after a couple of assembly/disassembly cycles. By the way, the donkeys and also Betsy have some cone shaped sheet metal parts. If someone is interested, I have an Excel spread sheet which calculates the dimensions/diameters of the flat sheet metal to fabricate the cones. Regards Henner
