Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Charlie, thanks for the tip on the paint. Not knowing any better, I repainted this one with Rustoleum red engine paint. It looked good at first, but now seems to have lost some of its original gloss. The color looks ok to me, though my bright LED shop lights give an orangish cast. I will try the Krylon next time.

Wayne, thanks for your input. I agree with you about the original heater, so I don't steam this one very often. And I always keep a paper towel handy to mop up any stray drippings. Of the three Empire engines I've acquired, only one had a working heater, and one had no heater at all!

The sight glass fittings on this engine consist of a spherical “elbow” with a compression fitting for the sight glass on the top side, and a 1/4-40 threaded hole in the side. A 1/4” OD x 1/2” long nipple, threaded 1/4-40 at each end connects the fitting to the boiler:

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

I have found that (2) 1/4” ID x 3/8” OD O-rings do a nice job of sealing the sight glass tube to the fitting.

In the case of this engine, the nipple for the lower sight glass fitting had corroded to such an extent that it broke off, leaving the male end of the nipple in the spherical elbow. By using a small Dremel cutter, I was able to cut the broken portion in the elbow into several pieces to remove them. Here is the busted nipple with one of the removed pieces of the threaded end:

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

I made a new nipple from a piece of 1/4” OD brass pipe (from PM Research), threading the ends with a 1/4-40 die. The threaded joints are best sealed with Loctite 542. Allow the Loctite to set up overnight before steaming. Here is a view of the repaired lower sight glass fitting (the strong solvents used to disassemble the corroded parts removed most of the nickel plating, so I just polished the remaining brass):

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

The whistle cap used on these engines is a fragile affair, consisting of .010” drawn brass. It seems that few of these survive any kind of rough or careless handling, and this engine was no exception. I was able to remove the broken stub of the whistle cap by slitting it up one side with a Dremel cutter. Here is what was left:

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

I made a new cap from 9/32” OD stainless, drilled out to fit the existing whistle base, and guessing at the height. A file was used to cut the notch in the side. It’s important to locate the notch directly above the flat on the whistle valve base. I polished the outside to resemble the nickel plating on the rest of the engine:

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

(to be continued…)