Juliet Castings

I've taken the plunge and have decided on Juliet 1 as a first locomotive. I see castings are supplied by a few different companies (ajreeves, kennion, blackgate). Is there any material difference between supplier, or are any of them adequate?

They are all long-established companies and I doubt there is any difference other than perhaps price. I don't know if they all buy from the same foundry.

Hi David.

I've sourced castings for my Juliet from Kennions and cylinders castings from Reeves. Both good quality but one of the cylinders got tiny blow holes and had to be bored oversize to get rid of them. If you're on facebook it's worth joining Juliet builders group for any advice you might need during your build.

Good luck with your project!

Tom

There is an active listing on ebay with castings for Juliet Link.

If you want to save some money consider fabricating some of the parts instead of buying castings for them. For example pump stretcher and axle pump can be easy made from bar stock.

Basically a good little loco; and my society built a 7.25" g version for its portable-track use. All fabricated.

However we made one improvement in an overhaul, but worth building from new, by replacing the one-sided swinging-link that supported the valve-rod clevis in the original design, with simple trunk-guides fitted to the pump stretcher.

I think from memory, LBSC also specified only one lifting-link per expansion link, but we fitted a pair to each (the normal practice).

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I am not sure what the drawings say about securing the tanks to the running-boards, but I suspect nuts and bolts. We fitted large-headed brass screws soldered through the tank floors, to act as studs. Better still, avoiding exposed threads vulnerable to damage, are screws up into blind bushes soldered into the tank floors. Both obviate having to seal potentially-leaky screw-threads - I am using tank bushes on my steam-wagon's brass water-tank.

We also made the superstructure in such a way that it comes off in four big chunks, having disconnected a few pipes and removed only a few screws, to assist servicing. The chunks are the spectacle-plate; the cab-roof plus cut-away bunker and side-panels, then each tank still on its entire running-board.

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Good Luck with it!

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I've joined the facebook group and it looks like a fantastic resource.