Andrew Barclay

We have to now take stuart at his word, and offer him any help he asks for, his first port of call has to be to fellow Andrew Barclay owners to get as much information as he can, track down any unwanted spares that he can either use, or swop for bits he can use. it will be a good learning experience for him,
Just out of interest,are these small industrials copies of any other manufacturer's design because i can remember reading that some designs were " common" patterns ?

 

(deleted dupicate)

 

I think you'll find that even the smallest standard gauge loco boiler is larger than the largest British traction engine boiler, which are generally under 3' diameter, however things are a lot better now than say 40 years ago, with many more boilermakers making flanged and riveted parts, and the availability of new boiler fittings is very good, via various suppliers with traceable paperwork etc. how this will be affected by Brexit I do not know, but this is how more and more 'hopeless case' restorations and new builds improve the supply/demand situation.

 

I did say I didn't think it would be much bigger than a traction engine boiler, but as an alternative suggestion, the Wisscassett & Waterville people in the USA have built their own flanging machine and are making their own plates for a boiler they are building.

 

I came across that website a while ago. Their flanging machine (built to an original design) is a serious and impressive chunk of kit! Herewith, a link to an ATR&RM article:

https://www.atrrm.org/blog/2016/12/wwf-builds-a-flanging-machine/

 

Just amazing home built piece of equipment. If I have understood it right, it is not even shure if this design has been used before. They built it from a patent document.
More pictures of work and result.
http://forum.wwfry.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=c275c76b43c940fc6d0ee44d0ebefde6&topic=2760.45
Hope other may follow, it looks as a very cost efficient metod. But cold forming sounds tricky!

 

The real point is that with some ingenuity and determination what seem to be daunting costs can be cut to a significant extent, particularly if a number of groups were to get together and build such a machine for shared use.

 

Ok so does anyone know of any spare parts available that would fit a 14" cylindered andrew Barclay 2352

 

Need

Motions
Crosshead and slide bar
Tube plate and tubes
Smokebox and door
Cab fittings

This is all I can think at the moment

 

Don't mind the condition either

 

Rough price ?

 

It's really finding someone who can make those parts for you , you won't get them off the shelf or secondhand I'd wager. That means cultivating contacts in the Industry, a list of likely suppliers was given earlier in the thread as I recall. You need to make all the contacts you can in the preservation world too. There's lots of help out there, but you'll need to have good communication skills to persuade people to help you

 

10" Barclay boiler is about the same size as the one from a big Fowler single cylinder ploughing engine - but a 10" Barclay is about as twee as standard gauge steam gets, while a ploughing engine is road steam's answer to the QE2 (or at least it feels like it steering one in a tight space!).

Railway boilers are generally easier to work on than traction engine boilers (more room, no pesky cylinder block and bearing housings to worry about aligning, no evil hard to caulk edges round the hornplates/crownsheet joint), but can be more time consuming as there is just so much more of everything (stays, rivet, distances to weld...).

The four coupled Barclay's have a very straightfoward simple design of boiler, with a square parallel sided firebox with girder stays, and pretty conventional design everywhere - very easy shape, no particular nasty bits to work on, no complicated staying, no difficult order of assembly. The only rather annoying thing is having to get the tubeplate so far down the barrel because they decided to skimp and make the smokebox one with the barrel.

 

Oh, and rough prices:

Boiler for your loco ready to steam - £60-85K depending mainly on how you want it made

Kit of pressings/other big bits to build your own boiler £20K, but there is quite a lot of time (and a reasonable bit of cash) it putting it together from that...

 

Ok thanks

Mainly need for boiler

Inner firebox
Tube plate and tubes
Throat plate
I think it's the ashpan
Smokebox and smokebox door

 

Bear in mind all of that will have to be made, and not needed right now, boiler parts can wait, but what you will need before the boiler are the motion parts, connecting rods, eccentrics, ok these are all rough castings, and you will need to find if anyone has the patterns, but hopefully some parts may come to life, there must be some motion parts sat in someones shed somewhere, spares that they got years ago, but have forgotten about, its a case of making the contacts, you need to, if you have not already join the industrial locomotive society, and try to get over to places like foxfield and other such sites, who will have the contacts you will need.

 

The archives for Andrew Barclay are held by Glasgow University Archive Services. These contain various details including Works Photos, Drawings, Order Details, Etc. It might be worth making contact to see if they hold anything that might assist you.