4 1/2” Burrell Showmans

Here we have a rather impressively sized, and indeed generally impressive looking 4 1/2" scale Burrell Showman's engine.  You may know this engine from Keith Appleton's YouTube channel, as Keith has owned and worked on this one for the past few years. The more eagle eyed of you will of course spot that she is based upon a 4 1/2"" Plastow Burrell SC agricultural tractor, and dressed rather convincingly in full on Showman's clothing!  Not therefore the full on real deal complex double crank compound engine that authenticity would direct,..... but certainly an extremely well executed balance between the image of the real deal without the complexity and cost!

Interestingly the boiler is a solidly built copper, silver soldered one (which we will obviously supply with a full 4 year fresh hydraulic certificate and a fresh annual steam test so she's ready to play).  Copper is rare on a model this large, not least because of the sheer cost of such a lot of copper and silver solder, but also because when you get up as big as 4" scale models, the weights involved are so much that Steel is often necessary to take the forces.  This engine however has been successfully rallied and enjoyed for a good number of years without any detrimental effects.  Indeed, with a copper boiler, once the model has run for a season and the copper has had the chance to work harden, there is no reason why copper boilers shouldn't be as strong as Steel,..... leaving purely the benefits of copper boilers over the rust prone steel ones to be self evident!  In short,.... the boiler is a good un!

Mechanically everything is tight and if you have a scroll through Keith's YouTube channel you'll see numerous accounts of some of the more recent work that Keith's done to make the engine the lovely, usable, and dare we say 'famous' machine that it is today.