When you have it all nicely fixed, turn on the gas and light your blow-pipe, immediately work the bellows with your foot, and by either pushing in the glass tube D, or drawing it slightly out, you can regulate the shape of the flame as required.
Then bring the flame to bear on the joint, well supplied with the borax, and soon you will find the brass wire melt and run into the joint like water. It must then be neatly filed up, and the join will be scarcely visible.
Having made this useful tool, I will mention a few others you should get before commencing work; they will not cost much.
A centre punch or pointed steel spike for marking metal for drilling, etc., and a small riveting hammer, three or four files of different degrees of fineness, a screw plate and taps, and also a small hand-drill with a set of drills to fit, will be most useful; and of course very little can be done without a good firm vice.
If you have a lathe, so much the better; it will enable you to save lots of odd coppers for turning various parts. Curves for bending metal on you can easily make from pieces of bar iron, holding them in the vice when working on them.
When you have your tools ready, the materials are required you intend working on, which will consist of several sheets of brass and copper, the castings and various-sized screws and bolts; and having got these all together, we can set to work on our locomotive.
I think it would be better to first give you directions for making a simple one of about fifteen inches, and then to proceed to a more perfect model after.
In a [previous article] you will find a description of the action of the steam in the cylinder, and although that is in a marine engine, the action is precisely the same in the cylinders of a locomotive, and you should therefore read the description carefully and thoroughly understand it; there is also given a method of turning the cylinders, and hence I shall not describe the process again, but consider that you already know sufficient about it, should you wish to make your cylinders in preference to buying them ready finished.
