Over the last twelve months we’ve had lots of requests for drawings and castings for “Stafford” – it’s not something, until now, we’ve supplied – too busy producing complete, ready-to-run engines.

However, now that we have parts for the locomotive on the shelf, a demonstrator in the shed if anybody wants to see what they’re getting themselves into and a bit of an idea of how they go together if you get really stuck, we think we’re in a position to offer something by way of a “fast build project”, allowing an engine to be put together in probably a third of the time a conventional scratch build would take. It categorically isn't a "bolt together fully-machined kit" - in its basic form you will do as much machining as we do when we build an engine (although see below for what we can offer by way of fully-machined parts). What you do get is a thoroughly-sorted design, conceived from the outset as a fast-build engine capable of hard work with minimal maintenance.

The basic kit of parts listed below includes pretty much everything apart from stock material and paint that you need to build the locomotive: castings, over fifty laser-cut parts which “tab & slot” together, boiler, all fittings – everything down to the pressure gauge. If you grub around for some steel and a few feet of copper pipe and are able to tackle the machining yourself, the engine could be completed at little or no additional cost. If you would like to take a few shortcuts – either to avoid jobs you don’t like or which won’t fit on your machinery, then we can supply machined parts to help the project along, anything from a pair of wheels or set of machined cylinders to a complete set of valve gear.  

Castings are from our own patterns, by a foundry we settled on after much searching (and not a few dud castings from other places). They are a small outfit, care passionately about what they do and, most important for us when machining up production quantities of parts, produce excellent quality castings, free of hard spots and porosity. It goes without saying that we would replace any defective casting but so far, touch wood, we've had a zero percent scrapping rate in the workshop here.

Facilities-wise – you need a lathe capable of swinging seven inches (for the wheels), although  much of the remaining turning is small stuff. A milling machine will save a huge amount of time, not least in machining up the cylinders. A decent welder – either MIG or stick (we have a 300 amp Eland MIG, although something smaller would do the job) – is required for sticking the chassis together (alternatively we can do it for you, it’s priced as an option below).

In addition to a set of drawings and operator’s manual for the completed engine, we are happy to offer advice on how to machine the bits and how they go together – emails are the best way to get a considered answer, telephoning the workshop when we’re in full cry is not so good.

The kit below currently ships ex-stock, packed onto a pallet. All up weight is a bit over 400 pounds – you’re more than welcome to come and collect (and there are usually a few engines sitting about you can look at for inspiration), alternatively, as with everything else on the website, we can ship worldwide.  

Once completed, if required we can check your engine over (including the  valve setting) and conduct a steam test to ensure that your engine turns out peforming exactly the same as one that we build ourselves.

Note that prices below are excluding VAT, which must be added (currently 17.5%, due to go up to 20% in January) for all sales in the EU (so our friends in Australia and the USA save some money, which in some way offsets the cost of getting it to them).