You can in fact get a good idea of when it was made just by a few clues.
First off, it is the early type of much sought after Puffin. It uses what they called 'investment castings' in the manufacture. These are very good and high quality bronze castings, and should last a lifetime if kept well oiled. My engine has at least a 1000 hours running time, maybe a lot more, and the castings show no signs of wear. The only wear items are the viton piston rings, and the bottom cylinder cover/piston rod bearing. Mine ran for half it's life before it required new ones making. The big ends seem to be bomb proof.
If you look at the close up side shot, you can see the springs that hold the cylinders against the faces. If you notice, there are two different types. The one on the left is a bronze spring and suffered from fracturing and distortion. The RHS has the later stainless replacement spring, which cured the problem. So I would suggest get a new pair of springs. It won't cause problems, but you might have a spring failure at an inopportune time.
The other clue is the pin sticking out of the rear crank disc. On later engines of this type, it is double the length of yours. This allowed the easy bolt on fitting of a small oscillating water pump.
The boiler you have is the early pattern one. A very good steamer, should be 5 to 6 minutes from cold to ready to go. It uses the earlier horizontally placed ceramic burner with piezo ignition. The burner suffered if any water went down the chimney from spurts from the oil/water condenser, or you overfilled the boiler allowing water to sit on top of the boiler, under the top cover and find its way down to the burner via the vertical boiler tubes while the boiler was cold. It made the ceramic burner top face disintegrate over time, and so become very inefficient.
I don't know if your boiler has the same fault as mine had with the sight glass fittings. I think they were made of an inferior grade of bronze, or even brass, and so corroded very badly. Luckily, my boiler bushes were large enough to re-tap to the next size up and correct bronze fittings fitted. As mentioned before, the safety valve is very basic, and uses an easily replaced viton o-ring. But it worked and worked well and never caused me any problems. It is still fitted to my old boiler.
Just a few clues give such a lot of information. If I remember rightly, sometime around the mid 80's to just a couple more years later at the latest.
I have had a few of this casting design Puffin thru my hands, but I still prefer the old version I have, which is the same as yours. Before the 'plant' became available as a set, you could buy the 'investment castings' kit under the name of 'Isis' I think, to make your own engine. £38 a set rings a bell.
I suppose one day it will become a collectors item.
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Topic: Cheddar Models - Pelican (Read 30867 times)