Anyone else fiddling with their mamods?

In 1968 my parents bought me this toy steam traction engine. It is the only remaining toy that I own from my childhood, and has languished in the attic for much of its 50 year life. The last time I steamed this up was about 25 years ago, for my then young children. For want of something to fiddle with, I have started to dismantle it, and the photo shows it dismantled as far as is possible without tools. Beyond this, I will now have to drill out rivets which hold the rest together. The 'peened' dimpled hub caps design are no longer available, so I need to fabricate a tool to remove them in order to take off the wheels. The copper pipework is soldered in places.

At this stage I have no real plans of what to do once it is dismantled. Initially, I will wait to see what parts survive!

This model is a 1968 Mamod TE1a. It was an upgrade from the TE1, in that it introduced a reversing function.

Not had one of those since I nearly set my bedroom on fire in 1962 !!!

I guess the obvious question is ' why have you stripped it apart ? '

It looks to be in quite good played with condition which is how many people like them , as opposed to the complete

strip down and repaint to ' as new ' condition without any character alternative . I think that your best bet is to clean

up the various bits to remove any corrosion etc and rebuild complete with memories . I have experienced this problem

myself on several projects and after completing them still thought that something was ' missing ' ........... I had removed

the all important patina that sometimes takes years to acquire . Once you start drilling out those pop rivets

you will be on a slippery slope with no going back !

If it's not broken then leave as is! These are great, more mini-engineering than toys!

Give it a gentle clean & put it back together with some new seals at the ready. I have lots of fun with my 2 boys and our TE1. I use wet chain lube on the cylinder face for a good seal & fill with boiling water to save on boiler heat up time. Usually runs for over 5mins with the taps wide open.

Did Mamod partner with Meccano on a steam engine?
I have one lurking somewhere - might have to dig it out

Appears they did. Between 1965 and 1972 Mamod made an engine that was compatible with Meccano bits.

The first photo does not really show some of the issues I want to address. The boiler, smoke stack, and canopy are indeed in very good condition for its age, apart from the chimney which has come loose from the front smoke box. This is best glued back on, but first requires the smoke box to be removed by extracting the relevant rivets.

Secondly as can be seen in the photos below, the firebox is very corroded. The corrosion has started to swell around the drain plug and canopy rear support bracket. These support brackets are difficult to come by apparently, and so I feel it could do with being rescued now before it deteriorates any further. Again this requires the removal of the firebox rivets, and wheels.





Once the firebox is apart I feel that it needs the rust removing, and then re enamelled. The chromed/tinned panel of the firebox is open to later review. I could leave as is, get it re chromed, or simply enamel it, depending on what I find once dismantled. The rear scuttle box is also very corroded, and much of the paint flaking off. Again I feel this needs to have the rust removed, leaving little option but to re enamel it.

The burner flame had become uncontrollable and would flare up through the whole firebox, presumably because the cotton wadding had deteriorated. I am going to replace that, along with all the fibre seals which were failing.

Despite this being my only remaining childhood toy, I have no particular emotional attachment to it. Without dismantling it, I suspect I would simply put it back up in the attic, where it will languish again.

Still fiddling with no regrets yet.

Really like the bare metal look, but will have to paint the firebox as a minimum because it is just mild steel. The firebox has rusted through in places but still usable. Looking to rebuild using allen head bolts, where I can, rather than rivets, but will need to 'secret in' nuts to capture the bolts. Bolts just dropped in on current photo.
The standard speed control knob was tacky red plastic which I so dislike. Have cut the lever down, and fitted a PCB stand off post that i had lying around. The original photos do not show how poor the standard of paintwork was (from new), nor the rough sharp edges everywhere caused by parts being stamped out of sheet metal, nor the excess flash everywhere on the moulded parts. Have filed all that back, and it has given the model much more of an engineered appearance than that of a cheap toy. Pock parts from cleaned up corrosion etc still give this some sense of 'patina'.

Never in public
(I did once and I've only just been released)