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Mamod SE3 G&G

In 1969 there was a special version made of the SE3. Griffin & George ltd required a steam engine to use for educational purposes. A hard solderd version of the SE3 was made at their request. Another difference with the standard SE3 was the missing regulator. There are aproximatly only 2000 G&G versions made, so this is quite a rare engine (not as rare as some flatbases though)

I bought a G&G SE3 on ebay for £49.00. This is what the engine looked like when I got it:

Mamod SE3 G&G

It needs quite a clean, it looks like it's had a hard life (wich is quite normal, because it's probably been at a school for many years.) The paintwork is totaly bubbled, so it's probably going to get some new paint. I got a box with the engine, although I'm not sure if this is the right box for it.

Mamod SE3 G&G box

It's going to take a while befor I do something on this engine, because I have some others that need work first.

Update 05-11-2006

Today I started restoring my SE3 G&G. I already had this engine for a few months, but didn't yet had the time to start working on it. From all the engines I restored, this is the most dirty and ugly engine. It seemed like it had a hard life. It will probably take me quite some weeks before I'm finished with this one. There are several things that needs atention: - the filler plug needs replacement. - whistle needs replacement, at least for the metal parts - the firebox is quite rusty, crap falls off everytime I touch it:

rusty firebox

So i've stripped it down for a repaint:

stripped down firebox

There are still same traces of the rust there was (like little holes/dents), I hope you don't see them anymore after the repaint. - the burner lost it's metal piece that's on top of the wadding, there where just some pieces of rusted metal left, that fell right out, I have to see what to do with it now, it still works perfectly, so I'll probablyonly give it a polish, but if there ever shows one up on ebay, I might replace it.

burner

- the baseplace was totaly bubbled, Chips of paint fell off everytime I moved it. What was wrong with it became clear after a stripping of the paint. I used a paint remover to do the job. This is realy nasty stuff (all kinds of warnings about permanent health damage on the outside of the can :shock: ) If you ever use it, wear potective clothing. Anyway, with this stuff the paint becomes soft, and you can just pull it off. FAter I did that, it became clear to me that the basepalte had a lot more rust than I expected:

stripped down baseplate

The piece at the right (where the firebox normaly is located) is how it should be looking. So this baseplate now needs a lot of sanding, and a fresh coat of paint. With all the engines I repainted before I used spray paint, with this one I am going to try to use just a can of paint, to see how that works out. Besides all the painting, there's ofcourse a lot of polishing to do. I've already started with the boiler:

dirty boiler

The faceplate is giving me a hard time, but with a few minutes of polishing everyday, It will get there.

Update 11-02-2007

It took me quite some time, but I've finaly finished restoring this engine.

SE3 G&G after restoration

In my update from 05-11-2006 is said I was going to paint the engine with traditional paint instead of spray paint.

I had several reasons to try this:

- Less mess (or so I thought)
- easyer (I thought)
- you can get it mixed for a exact color match
- cheaper

The posibility to get it mixed was great, I went to the shop with a baseplate, they had some kind of device that could tell which color code it was, and than mix paint to get that color, that was great, because you could get exactly the color you needed, unlike spray paint.

It was indeed a bit cheaper than spray paint, but not very much.
One of the reasons to use this kind of paint is because I thought it would be less messy. With spray paint you get all kind of red spickles around the garage (not that I mind, but my parent's are not very happy with it.) Well, this kind of paint wasn't less messy at all. You first have to mix the paint with a piece of wood everytime you use it. After every layer of paint you have to clean your brushes, so most of the time it was quite a mess.

It wasn't easyer too. At first you have to use a layer of primer. Drying took me 48 hours (while with spray paint about half an hour). After every layer you have to sand it lightly (you don't have to do that with spray paint)

So it took me more than a week to get the base plate of the SE3 painted. Although it took more time, and was more messy, the most important is ofcourse how it looks.

this was the result:

SE3 G&G hand painted baseplate

I just couldn't get a flat enough surface out if it. So after this expiriment I decided it all had to get off again, and I had to redo it using spray paint.

The result is in the first picture of this update. I'm pretty satisfied with it.

What Have I done to it:
- repainted the baseplate and firebox
- replaced the eyeleds holding the frame with screws (because I had to get it off for paint)
- polished everything
- replaced the whistle with a new one
- replaced the filler plug