The Wilesco D18 was my first toy steam engine. I bought it of the german ebay while it was brand new. [img=d18_05.JPG]Wilesco D18[/img] I choose this engine because I wanted a slide valve engine, and because this one had a dynamo on it wich seemed like fun at the time. The light bulb it had to power was realy a pain to get in, something they didn't think about when they where engineering this engine I think. [img=d18_03.JPG]Wilesco D18 slide valve[/img] A nice detail is the water drain, you can get the exces steam that comes out of the cylinders removed just by emtying this resevoir, at least that's better than removing it from al around the area after running a engine :) [img=d18_04.JPG]Reservoir for steam exhoust[/img] The quality of these engines is a little less than the older Mamod engines. They're using a lot of bended metal, wich is a real pain if you're ever goint to try to restore one of these I believe. You can see the bended metal construction on the image below: [img=d18_01.JPG]Wilesco D18 bend metal construction[/img] Another quality related issue is the soldering of these engines. I tried running this engine on meths, because it's a lot cheaper, and doesn't smell as bad as esbit. This might not have been such a good idea because the pipe to the cylinder blew: [img=d18_06.JPG]Wilesco D18 broken pipe[/img] I had to send it back for repairs twice (they didn't attach the boilder to the frame the first time, and there was no way I could do it myself)

I've had some driving models with this wilesco, but sold them after a while (decided I liked the engines more than the tools). [img=d18_07.JPG]Wilesco driving models[/img] After all, this is a nice runner, my only slide valve engine at the time, but not the best quality.