THE SUMMERLANDS CHUFFER

Here Wolf Schlegel has fitted a Summerlands Chuffer to his Cheddar Riesa. Wolf's photos and captions provide a visual journey through the fitting process.

"The photo left shows the materials and items used:

  * first and foremost, Riesa herself
  * the chuffer and instructions provided by Summerlands
  * chemicals used for blackening the chuffer.

To make the chuffer less eye-catching, it can be chemically blackened using the blue solution provided by Regner. Before blackening the chuffer, it needs to be thoroughly cleaned as the oxide layer produced by the blackening agent is likely to wear off otherwise. Wolf has used benzine for this purpose, spirit and lighter fuel should do the job as well. The result is shown right.

When working with any kind of chemicals, always refer to the instructions for use and always wear eye and skin protection.

As Riesa did not come with an exploded drawing, it was not clear how best to access the exhaust pipe. In order to gain access to the pipework, Wolf dismantled the front buffer beam.

The displacement lubricator is attached to the smokebox, so in order to remove the smokebox the lubricator has to be disconnected from the pipework first. The respective nut is highlighted by the red circle (left).

However, the nut cannot be properly accessed from the front of the engine. In hindsight, removing the buffer beam is not required for fitting the chuffer.

Keeping screws in a tin lid (right) prevents them from going for a walk. The front buffer beam is sufficiently large not to hide on the workbench though.

Again, removing the buffer beam is not required for fitting the chuffer.

Photo left shows the connection to separate from underneath. As the nut cannot be accessed from underneath either, Riesa's cab has to be removed as well (right).

Removing the cab is a step in the right direction but does not yet result in sufficient clearance to unscrew the pipe that leads to the displacement lubricator (c.f. the red circle left) .

Photo right shows the next step - a cabless Riesa without boiler. Removing the boiler requires one to detach the vertical pipe from the steam dome (red circle) as well as removing a bold cross-head screw that secures the boiler from underneath. The cross-head screw is located in the area indicated by the yellow circle. With both connections unfastened, the boiler can be slid backwards out of the smokebox and put aside.

Without the boiler in place, separating the displacement lubricator from the steam valve is a piece of cake. Once more, the red circle (left) indicates the nut to undo.

Photo right shows Riesa without smokebox. The original chuffer is simply slid onto the exhaust pipe and can be removed without further ado.

Photo left: Determining at which level to cut the exhaust pipe. Follow the instructions coming with the Summerlands Chuffer to get the clearances right.

Photo right: This may hurt! A piece of cloth protects Riesa when cutting the exhaust pipe with a miniature cutting disc

Photo below left: After re-assembling the smokebox, displacement lubricator and boiler Riesa is ready for a test run. It is a good idea to conduct the test run before fitting the cab as the boiler may have to be removed again to fix any major leakages in the pipework.

Photo right: Finally, a view from the top. Compared to the brass bands and valves, the blackened chuffer is visually rather unobtrusive.

Fitting Riesa with the Summerlands Chuffer took about 90 minutes, some 60 minutes longer than fitting the chuffer to a Roundhouse Katie or a Regner Lumberjack. This is due to the fact that the best way to gain access to the exhaust pipe was not clear upfront. Instead, it had to be determined in the course of the conversion.

As with Katie and Lumberjack, the chuffer does what it says on the tin and provides a very nice audible experience".