Blog- Ullypug's tales from the tinking table - Ivatt 2MT Tank in P4 - Part 2 valve gear

RSS Fetcher · December 27, 2018

Merry Christmas and festive compliments of the season (whatever they are - that's a moist turkey etc.) to you all.
Following some sound and appreciated advice, I turned with some trepidation towards the Walschaerts valve gear on the 2MT.
But, as was predicted, I took things steadily and didn't really have any problems at all (Thanks Dave!). In fact I enjoyed it. So much so I want to do another one!
I've used a 16BA nut and bolt to join the two halves of the valve gear on the expansion link pivots. Not prototypical but it will allow disassembly should it ever be required.
I used the rather lovely Markits milled crosshead and valve rod. I'm not completely sure that it's exactly right for this engine, but it's as close as I care about, more refined than the lost wax Comet one and a joy to use. I'll be using these again for sure.
The grooves for the slide bars have to be opened out a bit but that's no bother. The return cranks are Gibson, tapped 14BA to screw onto the crank pins.
I took advice from John Brighton's Steamline blog to halve the connecting rod at its joint with the cross head and did my usual trick of halving the leading coupling rod boss. The Comet chassis have been clearly thought through for the wider gauge modeller and I had no problems with clearances at all. I've spaced out the connecting rod with a couple of washers to keep its orientation roughly parallel to the chassis side frames and all appears well. Certainly everything rolls round as its pushed up and down the work bench, though I haven't tried it under power yet.
I did blacken everything with gun blue but I didn't like the effect and removed most of it off again with a scratch brush.
The cylinders need a bit of filler and detailing to finish, but all in all I'm a happy boy.

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