Sold July 2013 Back to Archive

A particularly nicely made 1 1/2 inch scale Allchin, the work of a time-served engineer who, in addition to a well-equipped home workshop, had the use of his works facilities at an engineering company in Essex specialising in gear-cutting. The gears, as you might imagine, are his own work, beautifully made. The rest of the work is well done, he tended to make jigs and fixtures for everything he did - so the finely-formed perch bracket with lamp irons you see rivetted beneath the smokebox is the product of the large three-piece press tool in the last picture. One has to admire the determination to get the job right that has a day's work - and about twenty pounds of steel - to produce this one tool.

Rest of the work comprises a silver-soldered copper boiler made to a good standard, hornplates erected with steering gear, crankshaft, second and third shafts with all gearing, back axle with differential, machined back hubs, front and rear rims (taken from the solid) and spokes and a variety of smaller parts. Gunmetal cylinder has been bored. There is a large quantity of unmachined castings which looks to be most of that required to complete the engine, winch wire, works plates and a quantity of tooling including a boiler holding fixture, wheel building jig and tool for forming strakes to the correct curve to fit the rims.

Complete with a set of drawings and copy of Hughes' book "Building the Allchin".