We used to have a jar/tin containing methylated spirit and charcoal for the first stage (easy lighting), layer of dry charcoal then stove esse coal (almost no wastage) when charcoal was alight.

Hi Ian, thanks for the comment. It's good to hear your encouragement and enthusiasm for these videos. I know how you feel about hobby shows it's similar round here. Exhaust should be taken care of by the designed length of the slide valve and how it covers the ports. Get the inlet working and the exhaust follows.

Thanks for the comment. Good to hear you build steam locos too.

Hi, yes I built it myself. There are more videos on my channel describing and showing some of the building process.

Thanks for the comment. It's 16mm equals a foot or 1 in 19 scale so it runs on 32 mm gauge track ( O gauge) representing 2 foot gauge.

Welsh steam coal is a form of anthracite. Low ash and high calorific value the only problem is it takes more heat to get going and If you forget to turn the blower on after shutting the throttle it will go out quickly. Get a good fire going and it generates a lot of heat. I mix some soft coal in with the anthracite to give a more forgiving fire but try what you've got and see how it works out.

I've mixed anthracite but not Welsh anthracite with steam coal. Is this OK?

1/2 to 3/4 of a glass is good, no fuller because you need to leave space for expansion of the water as it heats.

I did that and you can see it steaming well in this video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h8xknrmip53Gdo0.html

Here are several suppliers of boiler fittings. You have to be careful when you get a new one that fit the thread in the boiler bushes.

I'll take you advice Andrew, next time I try a steaming.

Hi thanks, for your comment. No, I'm not an engineer but I did do metalwork at school.

Hi matt, it was a completely new gauge glass with all the fittings ready made bought off Ebay.

Yeah. Those cheap fire logs made of sawdust and paraffin, Duraflame is one brand. Genius, aye?

I've changed it now to charcoal socked in paraffin, much better. The other was some compressed sawdust and paraffin you could buy in US.

Could be a few things, like not enough air being sucked through the fire box by the electric blower or the steam jet up the chimney. Easy fix, put bigger batteries in your auxiliary blower and/or make the steam blower jet smaller. Do you have a petticoat pipe on the chimney? That can help. If the coal is hard like anthracite it needs a very high temperature to get going. Try some softer coal. And finally make sure the material you're starting the fire with is getting hot enough before you start piling on the coal. Otherwise the coal will just put it out.

Creeper Army there's a hole under the cab that sucks oxygen as it burns, but that's big loco stuff. A small (very) one may be built if you posses the skill

It's on the side board at home waiting for some more tests.

Gandy Dancer Productions coolio

The coal had burn through so there wasn't any smoke and it was only for a few circuits. I did leave the basement door open and I don't intend to do this too often.

It's 11 cm wide over the cylinders and 32 cm long over the buffer beams.

@@GandyDancerProductions Okay thank you! I was just wondering because I am designing my own steam locomotive around the size of yours so I was just needing a base idea for how big it should be. Oh and one more question how tall is Russell because I forgot to ask in my first question!

@@timbaghurst4066 It's 14.6 cm from the rail head to the top of the cab and the same for the chimney. Good luck with your build.

@@GandyDancerProductions Thanks!

Hi, I've changed over to using charcoal soaked in paraffin much better. Hope you've seen my recent video running Russell here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h8xknrmip53Gdo0.html

There are look at the other videos in my channel.

@@GandyDancerProductions I'll check it out thank you