Has anyone ever bought something and had second thoughts afterwards. Well last year my implosive nature got the better of me and I purchased a wonderful 5in gauge Sterling Single at auction. The price I paid for the engine did not reflect the time taken to make the engine or material cost, they never do unless the engine has won gold at the prestigious Model Engineering Exhibition. People at my model engineering club thought it was not a wise decision to buy a locomotive without a valid certificate especially if one does not have any experience on working on 5in gauge locomotives which in my case was true. My next plan of action was to have my club carry out a pressure test on the boiler by one of their boiler inspectors but was politely told that no one in the club could do this as there was no provenance with the boiler. At this point my second thoughts were kicking in and I was beginning to think that I had made a huge mistake and was the owner of an expensive piece of scrap copper. my next port of call was The Steam Workshop who kindly offered to do a pressure test on the loco for me which they don’t normally doe on other peoples locomotives. Like eagerly waiting for test results to come back to your GP I phoned them a couple of weeks later to receive the bad news that it had failed the pressure test and that I might need a new boiler made. At this stage I felt like I was dealing with a sick patient and I was not going to abandon my patient no matter how much it was going to cost in time and money. I now found myself looking for reputable boiler makers who could make me a new boiler and decided to go to the Harley street of boiler makers, Western Steam for advice. I asked Helen of Western Steam if she could take a look at the boiler for me and give it another pressure test and see if she could fix the leaks that were showing. She kindly obliged but the boiler would have to be removed from the locomotive with all its fittings removed. I felt I had set myself a challenge here having only worked in 4mm scale before but was up for the challenge. Taking something apart is often easier than putting it back together I thought so I was meticulous in taking photos as I proceeded with the exercise. This is where forums like this one really come to the aid for someone like myself where I was able to post questions if I got stuck and needed advice. Also being a member of an engineering club also helps and there are plenty of people there willing to give you advice if you need it.
I finally was able to separate the boiler from the locomotive ready to be taken down to Western Steam. Luckily Burnham-on-Sea is not to far way for me to get to and in the process I got to see seaside town and Helen’s wonderful workshop that reminded me of some of the wonderful back street workshops you see in the city of Rome. The day after I got a miss call from Helen. I phoned her back fearing the worst and thinking I might have to put down a deposit for a new boiler. To my surprise she had passed the boiler which only needed the tightening of one of the fixings I had left on the boiler.

The next stage is to fit the boiler back onto the locomotive but before I do that I thought I would take advantage of giving the boiler a good clean and descaling which I have done. The boiler will need another pressure test at one and a half times the working pressure and so it is important that all the fittings that go back on the boiler are water tight. This is where I could do with some advice with regards to what I put on the threads. There seems to be several schools of thought regarding this and I am inclined to use gasket sealant although there are other products such as ptf tape and special loctite gasket sealant. My concern is some of these sealants set after awhile and if you need to tighten the nuts up you could brake the seal so should I go for a flexible one. The gauge glass might need to be replaced but for some reason it is a strange size, 5.5mm in diameter. I could fit a 6mm one in but it would be a tight fit and have been advised this is not a good idea. The chimney will need painting  and the running boards will need a colour change to black. Any thoughts on these issues would be most appreciated and welcomed.