Greetings Noel, and as the builder of 3 7/4 in gauge Winson/Modelworks kits (A3, A4 and a Brit),I wish you joy.

There is no doubt that the quality of design, machining and selection of materials is poor, but with a bit of effort a competent Model Engineer, such as yourself, can make a fine loco out of most of the bits.

Modelworks produced no drawings for issue, just poor building instructions.  the threads were all metric, except for those on the boiler which were ME threads to match the purchased, as well as home made fittings.

They usually only supplied one lubricator which had a split feed to the cylinders.

I understand that as many as 100 5 in gauge models may have been sold as kits, how many running, I am not sure, the 71/4 kits were produced I much smaller numbers, usual batch size of 25.

your boiler number is very early and may have been made by contracted coppersmiths rather than Modelworks staff.

Hope that helps,

Regards

Brian B in (not) sunny E Norfolk

A single functioning cylinder lubricator (sometimes with a second, dummy, one for fidelity) on a miniature locomotive is common, but of course the other faults you mention are probably a mixture of Winson errors, and ones by the particular kit’s original builder.

The company’s advertising seemed to imply it particularly invited customers who wanted a live-steam model but had limited experience and even less facilities. Though there probably were buyers who found the project beyond them, the proprietors really had only themselves to blame for the poor quality reputation.

It would be interesting to know how many Winson kits did end up as fully-operable machines, and how many were abandoned in despair. That despair though is likely true of many projects as builders went out of their depth, or external forces like illness stopped the music. The second-hand stalls at the exhibitions usually have assorted, forlon rusty wrecks and orphaned castings for unknown engines, and those can’t all be ex-Winson.

Hello fellow Winson 9f owners… welcome to the therapy thread it would seem!

So im the proud owner of an early Winson 9f that has been worked over covering but not limited to the following:

• New valve steam chests in cast iron
• “New” piston valves.. now being replaced
• Multiple fittings changed out, essentially everything except the hand pump and axle pump.. but they may go eventually
• Tender adapted for ground running
• Lubrication system replaced and updated to a lubricator per side
• Extensive changes to cladding, running boards, cab and other details.

I have a YouTube channel that follows the works, there are plenty of them with the main focus on the valves and the very irregular set up of the valve bobbins.

Cheers Gary

Not for the 9F but as I imagine there are shared standard parts might be useful, at the Midlands ME today I saw that The Engineers Emporium have copies, presumably reprints, of the instruction manual for the Winson Brit and were selling them on their stand. Might have the 9F manual as well.

Dave

Hello Noel,  I have just joined the forum and came across your post.  First of all, can I just say, even with a Winson engine you get a hack of a lot of engine for your money!  I had to go down to Winsons one day so I took a freind with me for company.  We ent own to look at the new BR 16 ton mineral wagon but that was by the by.  The had just got the first 9F up and running and were very proud to show us it.  The problem was that it was hobbling along like a man on two sticks and it was on a stand with an oil bath beneatch it, but the bath was 1/2 ince deep in oil and to say it was running, It certailny wouldn’t have been to my satisfaction.  We were asked to build five Winson Britannias but we never had any 9Fs through our books. I would agree with Garry the you do not need any pumps as they went out in the 1800s, but just use two injectors.  I would suggest you talk to John Holroyd about those, at the Steam Workshop.  I have two of his on my BR 4MT.  I would also recomment two Jim Ewins lubricators, one each side as Gary also said.  The cab was made from the same material as the tender frames but again if you try the St Works again for that.

Hi All

So work on my 9F continues, having had an ok running loco she had a bad turn earlier in the year, this has led to a number of things been made and have just started to machine up new piston valve bobbins, all cast iron as my 9F has a singke modified valve liner, single piece with increased ports to aid steam flow.

I have however run into an issue in that one of my combination levers has bent and deformed! Now i do the other side to go off… but i could be adding in any errors and having researched this a bit, an error in the spacing can multiply quickly and impact valve travel significantly!

So does anybody have the dimensions of the combination levers and specifically the distance between centres of the three holes? 

Hi Noel
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Think i can help with the return from the axle pump question but im not sure its a Winson set up! I have a bypass valve on the RH side of my footplate to return the pump water to the tender, i believe this is a modification but would need to look at other 9Fs. So essentially the bypass either feeds into the boiker or back into the tender. I will look tomorrow and send over some pictures etc for you to help give a steer.</p>
On mine i have two injectors, axle pump and hand pump so it gets a bit complicated in places, im also looking to sort out the pipework around the injectors as it looks awful! Nothing like the prototype and thats a very prominent feature on the big locos when viewed from that side