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

Here we have a Weeden No 1, introduced in 1884 in Youth's Companion magazine and made up until 1905.  The engine came to me missing its smoke stack, chimney and the shaft on the balance wheel was wobbling badly.  Also, the top mech was loose and easily removed.  It came with its original box but no top but that is okay the label is wonderful and allows me to date the engine from 1885 to 1890.  The engine top boiler isn't stamped with "Engine No. 1 / Patent" - as all others I have seen (including No 2 & No 3) but the box's label has Patent 1885.  The label has on the left adverts about their banks, which Weeden stopped offering in 1890.

First off was to disassemble as much as possible and give it a light cleaning with soapy water.  I made new seals with 1mm gasket material for the pressure valve and mech.  Then I needed to get the shaft centered and secured to the hub of the balance wheel.  I fussed about the direction to go, soldering or JB-Weld.  In the end I decided I didn't want to risk heading up the balance wheel and used JB-Weld. 

The next issue as the balance wheel return the piston to its bottom position, it bottomed out into the back of the cylinder.  Someone had had it apart and the connecting rod was to far out, making the piston rod to long.  Though they likely didn't remove the connecting rod end but it likely came loose and just didn't get it re-attached correctly.

I am using a reproduction ball weight from my No. 2 and the smoke stack from No. 3.  The smoke stack for this engine I am pretty sure should be painted like the tank/knobs.



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Very nice, write-up and presentation, Richard..!!

Thank you for sharing it here.

Gil

Thank you Gil!  Half the fun, for me, is researching and learning tidbits.  I think I scored a nice little gem here and rather surprised no one else bid put in a eBay bid.

I hope to one day get a smoke stack but these #1, #2, & #3 stacks are the smallest (in dimeter) of Weeden's stacks.  I have actually taken the stack off one of my boats and put it on my #1, as it is the correct reddish color but even its dimeter is slightly to large (and a bit to short too).  The likely hood of finding a donor where the engine itself isn't worth repairing/restoring is very low.  As we all know, the smoke stacks are often the first to be lost to time

So that is a little hint, anyone that has a actually spare, please let me know :-)

Very nice addition to an ever-improving collection, that has already been fully awesome for quite some time now!