The Shay kit that was sold by Steamlines in the 1990s was accompanied by a VHS cassette showing how to build it. There are also paper instructions – mostly on A3 – with some guidance, but a lot is left to the interpretation of the builder.
The quality of the video is not great by today’s standards, but was presumably par for the course in the 1990s when it was made. I had it digitised so I can watch it on a laptop (I have never owned a video cassette player).
Maybe this was also par for the course in the 1990s, but I was rather surprised to see the presenter with a lit cigarette whilst discussing how the gas tank works. To be fair, he does explain that you should never do this … but later in the video he repeats the exercise whilst the burner is burning.
The video answers one of my earlier questions: what type of U-joint is used on the flexible couplings. It seems that the later models used a simpler U-joint rather than the prototypical one with outer rings.
Justin – 6 May 2022