Garden Railway Forum

Having just brought one it is hard to do mentaly. Will I spoil it? Well it is easy drill the two front water tank black pot rivets both sides. Then the back cab support rivets near buffer beam. Undo the oil cap right side and the two brass scres either side of the sight glass. (NOT the sight glass cover screws) Thats it ease it up jiggle don't force. I found by doing this alone I could fit all I wanted. AS it moved up by 45 degrees. If you want it seperated you will have to release the oil to piston pipe. I did not. Hope this helps. Could not up load pic. for some reason any thoughts?

I don't think you can upload photos, but you can post links to hosted ones.

Thanks for the details on this, and I think it goes back to Chris C's comments on the use of rivets vs. hardware. Not only for modification, but also for future service needs.

steamie1 wrote:Could not up load pic. for some reason any thoughts?

If you use the 'Attach File' option just below the Message body box it will put a copy of your photo in the 'Gallery' but it does not always last long in there. Occasionally I've found this upload method does not always work. So you need to store your photo on-line in somewhere like Photobucket, Flickr, Imageshack, etc. and put a link to your image in your posting.

The problem with the current Mamod bodywork (Golden Jubilee, William, Mark I & II locos) is the side tanks are held onto the cab sides by spot/tack welding which is very difficult to separate without doing some damage to the bodywork. The exception appears to be the William II where these 2 parts are held together by super glue which I have successfully separated on my example. They are then held together by mounting the forward cab handrails (of course the Mark I & II locos have no forward cab handrails fitted).

And what do you do after you have removed the bodywork? With no-one in the after market offering any alternatives so far (like there was for the old Mamod SLs) then you are limited to making up your own. You may have seen the 'bodges' that John Rogers has done to the Mark I & II locos as featured in 'Garden Rail' but I'm not a fan of his unique form of styling and the 'as long as it is in black' option!

The introduction of the Thomas Telford locomotive which Mamod have been quoted as saying is also aimed 'at the cheaper end of the garden railway market' is their opportunity to introduce a screw/bolt & nut constructed locomotive. How many rivets are used in the construction of their competition - the RWM Janet, the Roundhouse Millie, Sammie & Bertie, or the Accucraft Ruby & Ragleth?

Chris Cairns.

Chris-

I have given some thought to the comment about the lack of Mamodifications out there for the William and Mk lines.

If you look at the modifications out there for RH and Accucraft locos, most are basic: domes, fire irons, improved buffer beams, etc. Even Tag's "Workshop" book was mostly cosmetic improvements, with his constant mantra of not having too much brass or shiny bits, which would be easy to "load on" as the market is full of them!

I have been surprised, espeically with RH kits and Accucraft chassis being sold, that more body kits have not been made available.  There are a few to "7/8th-ize" locos, but that is the majority of the market.  Example, a Decauville body for a RH Katie chassis? German outline cab and tender (Henchel) for the Fowler chassis?

Enter Mamod, first it has 30 year old origins, and many are willing to make improvements to make them look more like proper locos.  This has always been a tinker's market.

Thoughts?

Garrett,

It is actually a very involved subject which would take pages of Topics to clear up properly.

Mamods have never been sold as a Garden Railway locomotive, whereas Roundhouse & Accucraft have/are. The original SL range arrived when the Garden Railway community was just developing so offered a very cheap alternative to the limited market (Roundhouse did not start until 1982). Thus what we refer to as Mamodification is actually several processes which are used to turn a toy steam locomotive into a decent garden railway locomotive.

Hence a lot of Mamodification of the SL range is getting it up to that spec, with higher pressure boilers & safety valves, water filler valves, meths or gas burners and decent wheels, etc. However the current William II & Mark I & II locos have most of these (Mamod are now putting a 2nd boiler insert on their locos to allow a water filler valve to be fitted). Where they fail to make the grade is the toy steam bodywork which is riveted and spot/tack welded together.

And who actually produces new bodywork for the Mamod SLs that you are tinkering with? Actually now no-one - RWM Steam does say their Janet cab back and optional Janet cab conversion will fit a Mamod, IP Jane, etc. but does not list them on their Mamod & IP Jane upgrade web page (listed in the RWM Steam locos upgrade web page).

Bottom line is basic materials are so expensive now, and with a very limited market (apart from me who else wants to get a William II or Mark I & II locomotive bodywork modified?), they cannot be offered at an attractive price whilst still making a profit for the vendor.

In 1981 the Mamod RS1/2 sets had an RRP of £49.95 (allowing for inflation approx £180 in 2012) when savings accounts attracted 10% interest. The equivalent 2012 Passenger Coach set from MSS has an RRP of £397.13 when savings accounts now barely make 3% interest.

Enjoy your tinkering!

Chris Cairns.

I think your right Chris.

To modify to run, is what was. They work well now, so do we just accept the toyish charm and nodd to history, or do we bling them up.
I for one have just put on some hand rails and buffers and in doing so ask is it any better? The only thought I can make is it is personal. I like a better smoke dart and so will try to fit a Roundhouse one.
So perhaps we should say well done mamod for fixing them up to run and all we do now is personalisation!

Very true on all your points Chris, but a clarification on one that I made.

No, there is no Mamod bodywork either, I was more wondering why we have not seen it in in general in the hobby.  

The hobby seems to be in two sections and no, nothing wrong with either aspect, just an observation:

a) The open the box and let it run group and any maintenance issues are handled by the mfgr or someone like Rhos Hyleg or the like.

b) The full workshop/machinists that build nice locos out of very few, if any, commercial bits.

The "middle", other than some cosmetic bits, does not have a lot of options now. And if there is no demand, then no economic reason for anyone to go down that route. Alan tried it for a while with some Mamod stuff, unfortunately, that was short lived.

And yes, the Mamodification aspect was to get things running back in the day, as it was reallly the only cheap option.  So the Chaney, Sidestreet, Shirley, etc items were the way to go.  Otherwise, in the early 1980s a RH loco such as Dylan when adjusted for inflation would be more than the RH "Millie" now, and the products are nearly technically identical excluding meths to gas firing.  

I also suspect that the pricing advantage to the SL line back in the day was volume, one that Mamod may not be seing now.  Case in point, the saddle tank loco in the video you posted is #14.

Me?  I have often wonered about building a loco out of some basic components that are available with some sheetmetal work.  For example, using DS/RWM/Mamod cylinders to make an outside frame loco chasis?

Or, if you want something a bit more involved, look at The Association's website for this month:

http://www.16mm.org.uk/newsite/motm/mom2012-11.html

More food for thought.

And Steamie/Eric, agreed, now we do have a solid runner by the looks of it.  So it is left for us to "bling" them up.  Thank you Mamod, now to decide on which one I wish to buy next.

A tip on darts, look at DJB, I used them on my two locos, and are BA6 thread, so maybe they will work in the Mk/William holes?

http://www.djbengineering.co.uk/fittings.html

(Wow, they updated their website!)

Using those was a tip from Peter "superbiker UK".

Happy steaming!

The main problem today is it is very difficult for a one man operation to survive in this economy, so whereas we did have body work for SL locos from the likes of Kenversions & Salem Steam in the 1980s, as you say the current low volume sales of Mamod locomotives does not give a viable market.

Just looking at my 'Mamod - The Story of Malins Models' book gives the following figures. From 1980 until production finished in 1989 a total of 14,883 SL1 to SL6 locomotives were built (including the SL1K kits), plus an additional 18,994 railway sets as well. Explains why they seem to be flooding evilbay recently. The current Mamod produced 500 Golden Jubilee's, 50 Harry the Rocket's, and as you rightly point out Diamond Jubilee No.14 was featured on their video.

Sadly I never got to take metal work at school all those years ago (no teacher available) and I lack the workshop & tools to produce my own bodywork.

The DJB Engineering smoke box dart will indeed fit as it is a 6BA thread on the front of the boiler. For steamie1's info I obtained a 2nd set of cab hand rails & spectacle brass rings from Mamod, and fitted these to my Mark I locomotive, along with a dead leg lubricator from Dream Steam, and the smoke box, dart and brass chimney cowl sold by Steam4Fun. As I have not mastered silver soldering yet I just fitted the exhaust steam pipe on the outside of the boiler into the false chimney.



Chris Cairns.

Clicking on the above link takes me to a Skydrive Log In page.

Chris Cairns.