Revisiting a Nu-Cast J15
Entry posted by 46444
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As some of you may know my main interest in railway modelling is the Kettering-Cambridge line. This interesting line ran for 32 miles and was known as the Varsity Line. In later years the main motive power from the Midland/Eastern Regions was the Ivatt 2MT Mogul and its BR Standard version from Kettering and Cambridge sheds respectively. Nevertheless old timers did make an appearance with Kettering providing Midland 2F's and Cambridge the GER J15.
If you want to model a J15 in 4mm scale there are three options. Either the Alan Gibson etched kit, the Nu-Cast white metal version or scratch build one. About 5 years ago I embarked on building a J15 from the second option having never built a white metal kit in my life. I did use some Alan Gibson parts such as the chimney and boiler backhead which were superior to the Nu-Cast parts however.
Of course not being too familiar with soldering at the time I went for the not recommended 'Super-Glue' method of construction.
Having come from aircraft modelling I was used to kits that almost fall together. Boy was I in for a shock. I fettled and filed lumps of metal to make something that resembled a J15. With this kit which I believe has it's origins with Stephen Poole I came across two major problems.
Firstly, I could never get the horizontal join line on the boiler flush even using copius amounts of filler. Secondly, my attempt at construcing a Comet gearbox was laughable and everything was seized. Needless to say this kit has languished in a box ever since.
Recently, Ivatt46403 rekindled the interest in J15's following his thread on the Buckden Station and I thought I might see what could do to it cosmetically before Bachmann bring out their RTR version in 2015 (So said the tea leaves).
When I built the kit I scratch built a cab from plasticard and here's the finished result also showing the Gibson backhead cut off to allow room for the Mashima motor. I have a set of etched wheels from Mainly Trains which will do for the screw reverser.
The wonk is due to the body not being fixed to the chassis.
Bodywork wise, the troublesome line where the boiler halves mated up was treated to more filler and and cleaning up with a glass fibre pen. It's still not perfect but without taking off the handrails it will have to do. Other areas to receive attention were the cab and tender sides which were pitted badly. I used Halfords primer filler followed by grey primer as a base coat. Halfords satin black was then sprayed on the loco and tender though I had masked off the cab and buffer beams following a coat of white primer.
I treated the smokebox, bunker and cab roof to a coat of Tamiya NATO black followed by spraying the loco and tender with Valejo black. A coat of Johnsons Klear then gave a suitable gloss finish to apply the Fox decals.
Working from protoype photos I decided to model 65390 which was a regular on the Kettering-Cambridge route.
All of this work has brought the loco to life. It is in no way perfect by all means but does capture the beauty of these engines. I couldn't resist hanging a tarpaulian over the rail on the tender as so often photographed.
Prior to this work I took the loco to Railex at Aylesbury and spoke to the chap from High Level. I showed him the J15 and he recommeded a SlimLiner+ gearbox. Any thoughts?
Other than the gearbox, a new set off buffers and brake shoes from Gibson may result in a J15 that works! Well thats what I'm telling myself.
It would be good to see this loco running as it's one of my favourite classes of engine.
Cheers,
Mark
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