On the next Monday, I called St. Aubin and lo and behold, they had a Ruby kit in stock. I immediately ordered it and in just two days UPS delivered it.

On the top tray was a bag of smaller bags containing all the screws, bolts, nuts, E-clips, and necessary tools! Each individual bag is numbered in a way that corresponds to the kit instructions.

Following Thanksgiving weekend, I got up the courage to begin the assembly. The directions supplied by Accucraft are very complete with both photos and drawings.

The Styrofoam trays are neatly labeled with each part number in the order that they are to be assembled. To prepare for the assembly, I covered a card table with a cheap white paper tablecloth with vinyl backing and some rubberized shelf liner that I found at the Dollar Store. I also set up my halogen table lamp for improved lighting.

Frame assembly:

The first steps in assembly are the frame, the frame spacers and inserting the pre-assembled wheel sets. I made my first oops right away, failing to distinguish front vs. rear of the two side frames.

Clearly I had reversed everything. Disassembly was easy and the nice clean white table cloth helped to keep everything safe.

One thing I noticed right away: the frames are pre-painted and the screw holes as well as the slots for the wheel bearings need to be cleaned out. Fortunately, Accucraft included a tap for all the screw holes and it was a simple matter to run the tap in and out to clean up the threads. The axle bearing slots cleaned up easily with a hobby knife and a little fine emery cloth.

The next steps involve installing the boiler saddle, cylinders, valve boxes and side rods. I noticed that the screws I was using didn't seat completely in the saddle casting. Oops again! Wrong screws, too long.

A little study of the drawings indicated two screw lengths and a convention for labeling the little bags of parts to keep things separate and in order. Aha! Using the right length screws according to the drawing made everything fit nicely. The instructions also say to impregnate the gasket between the cylinders and valve boxes with 3 in 1 oil. I think I overdid this by actually dipping the gaskets into a puddle of oil in a small plastic cup. Everything went together smoothly.

Installing the side rods and main rod was a little trickier. The instructions recommend putting the side rods with the rounded surface inboard. No problem.

The next problem involved trying to install the cylinder pistons onto the main rods. Again the paint made it extremely difficult to slide the crosshead onto the cylinder piston end.

I scraped with a small drill bit and then made up a little roll of emery cloth to enlarge the crosshead hole so the cylinder piston end would slip on. The cylinder end has a small dimple on it for the set screw to fit into.

The next step is to install the reversing valve and "Johnson bar" assembly. I must be dyslexic, because I threaded the thing on backwards. The instructions say to set the 'throw' of the reversing valve using the pre-machined scribing on the valve to just meet the face of the valve box opening.

I was able to do this by just adjusting the "Johnson bar" stanchion screws. All right!

Tricky part; valve timing:

Next, and most importantly for the whole model assembly process, is the installation of the valves and valve timing. I assembled everything carefully according to the instructions and drawings. Setting the valves is pretty straight forward except for one thing: the valve rods are a touch too long to screw all the way into the valve pistons. So I got out my Dremel tool and cut off about a 16th of an inch from the threaded end.

Now, I could set the valve piston using the machined-in scribe mark without the valve piston going too far into the valve box. The last step in this process is to secure the eccentrics to the rear driver axle.

The instructions simply say to line up the set screw holes on each eccentric equidistant apart on the axle when looking at it from the bottom. Hmmm, is this critical I wonder? Relying on my human eyesight with lots of light, I did the best I could.

Voila! The completed chassis is ready for air-testing. I have a cheap little 2 gallon compressor that I use for air brad nailing.

How do I connect this to the steam inlet pipe? The instructions just say to do it somehow. Well, I lucked out. Using a airbrush hose, I found that the threaded end fit perfectly onto the steam pipe threads. Hooray!

With all my fingers crossed, I applied the recommended 20 lbs of air pressure to the chassis. A few spurts of oil, but nothing else happened. I turned up the pressure a bit, but still no movement. After disconnecting the air, I tried running the chassis back and forth on the wood strips I used to elevate the drivers off the ground. The whole thing seemed unusually stiff. Not a good sign.

So, very carefully, I removed the valves and valve rods (the little E-clips used to retain the valve rods to the rocker arm assembly are really tiny don't lose them!). I tried rolling the chassis back and forth again. Still terribly stiff. Time to go to bed and sleep on it.

The next morning, after the benefit of coffee, I looked at the chassis assembly again. Everything looked like the photos and drawings. Was there something in the cylinders, like too much oil? Courageously I removed the E-clips on each main rod and removed the rod and attached cylinder piston from each side. Not much oil evident but the chassis now rolled relatively smoothly. So, it must a problem with the cylinder itself.

Then I re-read the instructions and drawings one more time. It says to line up the holes in the gaskets when installing the valve box onto the cylinders. I thought I did that. But, just in case, I unscrewed the assembly and peeked carefully at the gaskets. Sure enough the holes were lined up for the screws, but not for the steam ports between the valve box and cylinder on one side. The gasket was installed backwards! A little rearranging of the gasket to properly orient it to the holes and I screwed the assembly back together, carefully reinstalled the main rods and cylinders, and suddenly the chassis seemed to roll back and forth much more easily!

Time to retest with the air compressor. Again I set it at the recommended 20 lbs of pressure and to my delight the wheels moved! Let's try it in reverse. Runs backwards, too. But a small problem. At dead center on the stanchion, the engine still wants to run. There seems to be no "off" position.

Magnifico! It runs forward and reverse at about the same speed and stops with the lever in the middle position. I can see though, that this will perhaps be problematic later, as there is a lot of springiness and play in the reversing valve rod. Running on air seems to help to break things in a bit as well as giving you the feeling of what minute adjustments do to both the valves and the eccentrics.

I fiddled a bit with the eccentrics trying to be sure that they didn't rub against each other and that the set screw holes were in fact equidistant. The chassis seems now to be running fairly smoothly and with equal speed in both forward and reverse. I could vary the air pressure and even get some slower speed running turning the compressor down to almost 10 lbs. air pressure. By now, the whole chassis is pretty oil-soaked, but that's probably a good thing.

So I took it to the club meeting to show it off. Still pretty stiff running gear. I was then interrupted by a need for an emergency trip to San Jose to take care of the grand kids as my daughter in law was having emergency abdominal surgery. A whole week lost, away from home.

Boiler, steam piping: On to the boiler. Easy assembly of the pressure valve and filler plug. The throttle was next and went according to instructions. But next came the fun part of installing the steam line and lubricator.

Put on the front boiler support saddle next. Then to install the boiler itself. The instructions say to loosely screw the rear support on through the chassis and then to install the front to the saddle. Just open the smokebox door and fit the screws down through the stack opening.

I went ahead and installed the side tanks and assembled the removable cab. Now to get some distilled water, butane fuel, and borrow some steam oil.

Distilled water by the gallon was easily found at my local Safeway store. Had to go to the hardware store to find the butane. Bob generously gave me 1/3 quart of heavy steam oil. That stuff must be at least 300 weight.

The inaugural run:

On Dec. 23rd, the sun came out in the afternoon.

I cleaned off all the leaves on an elevated loop of track and we were ready for the first steam run. I invited Santa (my wife) to participate in this historic moment. First, fill the boiler with 80 ml of distilled water.

Opened the smoke box door and used a BBQ lighter to light off the burner. Pop, and it instantly came to life.

Adjusted the flame a little (the burner wants to sing a little when it is cold) and, as promised, in five minutes or so, a nice little plume of steam comes out through the pop-off valve. Open the steam valve just a bit, then just a bit more, give the engine a little shove and off she goes! Chugged downgrade quickly and then came to a stop; the burner fire went out. Relit the burner and readjusted it, and soon it was making steam again.

Bob had warned me that it might spit some hot water at first and to have a rag handy. This is due to the first displacement of air in the cylinders when they are cold. But only a very small bit and then nice steady steaming.

Warning! Every part of the engine gets hot! The saddle tanks make a nice pair of handles to lift and move the engine.

The second run seemed even smoother and a bit longer. Even Santa was impressed.

With the sun fading late in the afternoon we celebrated our successful first run and brought Ruby inside and wiped her down with a clean rag.

The only thing I noticed was that the paint on the outside of the smoke stack had bubbled and deformed.

Probably from the heat from the butane burner going up the stack when first fired up. Everything else: works just as advertised! Accucraft deserves a lot of praise for designing such a neat and affordable live steam kit.

Now I can read with increased interest all the kit bashing articles that are on line. Even one to make it into a Forney; I'd love to correspond with other Ruby runners.

Ruby Photo Article

Mike, I was just thinking about getting my Ruby that has been set aside running and ran into your article. Inspirational to get me going and preparing me for a few "adjustments" along the way! Thanx, Chas

Chas Boodro - 07/22/2008 - 15:39

Radio control for ruby

After you have fun running and adjusting your Ruby the next challenge is radio control. I bought a low cost two channel system and a couple of micro servos to control speed and direction. I just made up the mounts from some 3/8" angle aluminum and put the receiver and batteries on a trailing flat car. The first thing you will want to play with is the servo controlling direction as it also can help smooth out the speed, too. If you buy the system from an R/C shop, they can install the ratchets on the transmitter toggles so you can get very fine control of both speed and the directional J-bar.

Mike Evans - 12/24/2008 - 03:56

Ruby Article

Mike: Great article, after collecting electric run "G" steam engines for 25 years, I may have to look at live steam.

Jim O'Connor - 12/24/2008 - 12:32

Ruby live Steam

Enjoyed the article. How do you get hold of a Ruby Live Steam.... Kitset???

Bill McGavin - 12/28/2008 - 19:03

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