This was the first of my Rail Mounted Teapots. It was designed to fit on a standard 5 inch gauge model railway. This particular design went through a number of iterations before finally emerging in the form seen here. The original plan was to use cast aluminium side panels that were quite bulbous in shape. The aluminium was recovered from cans. Unfortunately getting a good cast proved difficult due in part to using can aluminium rather than proper casting aluminium.

I had a few old laser printers that I had recovered from various electronic graveyards and these yielded some good panels to use. Having decided to fabricate the bogies from sheet metal and waste plate steel, the design came together quite quickly. All axles were from printer parts, and the wheels were waste steel pipe.

I made use of waste wood recovered from an old windowsill for the cradle uprights, while the cradle pivot is a repurposed SPD pedal from my bike. I think the bearings were getting pretty shot.

I was well pleased with the final result.