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Red Damsel - A Super Detailed Slater's Quarry Hunslet in 16mm Scale


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The introduction

 

Ever since I got into railways I've always wanted a Quarry Hunslet. In particular I always wanted a cabless 009 one that wasn't a caricature, but sadly such a thing still does not exist. I looked at 7mm ones briefly, had an Agenoria one sat in a drawer for a while a long time ago before selling it on unmade - there was a lot of fiddliness in brass. Then I saw a photo by chance of the Slater's 16mm offering - and just wow! What a beautiful model it makes, truly the best representation of an Alice Class loco there has ever been. I had to have one! 

 

But by now you know me, I can't just build something as is, oh no, I need to fiddle! So rather than building Rough Pup as depicted, I decided I would build Red Damsel, and plonk it on a small (large compared to what I'm used to!) diorama of Lernion shed. 

 

Now at this point I realised I don't have an awful many photos of Red Damsel, so if anybody has any they could share, please do! 

 

The main detail difference is RD has an injector mounted on the tankside as per the Penrhyn equivalents, and the dumb buffers had extensions on the bottom.

 

Construction wise, obviously I need to incorporate the above differences, so the cast buffers will go in favour of some new ones which will likely be wood. All punched rivets will be replaced by real rivets or bolt heads as applicable. I plan on adding DCC too, so will need to accommodate the wiring for that, probably hidden in the bunker to avoid having to spoil the splitting arrangements. 

 

I plan to do the bulk of work on my 2 weeks off work at the end of February, but I'm just so excited at finally having a quality Hunslet I'll be making a start on cleaning up castings etc today! 

 

 

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Well today has been filled with research and a little cleaning up and dry assembling of castings.

 

I have worked out that there are many varied positions of things it's quite mind boggling! I may have to take a trip to Bala to confirm the injector positions as they have the tank, which has also previously been on Rough Pup and Velinheli assuming of course that there was only the one Alice Class boiler with bosses for the feed clacks on the boiler sides, the normal position for injectors being the backhead as supplied in the kit.

 

I also noted Cloister's tank was previously on Irish Mail, and that the Steam Turret has a few variations.

 

Then I turned my attention to cleaning stuff up. There is some awkward flash on some things, the smokebox door has a very strange patch between it and the hinge which will be fun to remove, and within the tank filler there was a big lump that I took off using a very large reamer twiddled around the edge until the top fitted. The firebox beading has been polished up and fit perfectly first time.

 

The chimney I didn't like that the changes in diameter were delineated by a rather soft edge, no doubt they are made by following a guide. I made up a mandrel that force fit inside the chimney and turned the joins square in my unimat - then spent a lot more time drilling out the mandrel which was a little too well fitting! I also polished it to remove as much of the turning marks as I could.

 

And there we have it for now,

 

post-21854-0-23313300-1485474934_thumb.jpg

 

post-21854-0-90992000-1485474937_thumb.jpg

 

post-21854-0-44343200-1485474940_thumb.jpg

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Hi, the Slaters Alice class is a joy to look at. I speak as a builder (I am on my 40th build now of a live steam Alice class www.wrightscale.co.uk)  The site and blog has a few pics that might interest you. 

They are a nightmare to get right.  At one time I had 3 variants for the pantograph mill for the mainframes, now I just build the first series Alice class.  You need to do a lot of research to get them spot on. The main points I took care over were 1)smokebox door - any radial rivets or not. 2)Smokebox side sheets repair patches.3) Roscoe lubricators 1, 2 or none 4) Furness lubriators on cylinder covers front yes or no.5) Sanding  tankside pots with linkage/no linkage removed usually  removed by 1950s.6)Fire iron solders yes or no and where on the tank....7).footplate side panels riveted or not /radius bend or not... 8)rear footplate panel. retaining latch or not etc. etc. More of a minefield than how many pipes from the front  lubricator of GWR King!

A good starting bible "Quarry Hunslets of North Wales" by Cliff Thomas I am sure you have probably seen/have this. There are also some interesting pics on the web, many that are not in the common scources (just put in the name etc)  When I measured one up it too was at Bala Lake in the early 1980s.  They had one stripped right down so there were no excuses not to get it right. Your observation about 4mm scale Alice class is not exactly correct. Brian Madge used to produce a lovely little kit that ran like a Swiss watch at slow speed and when built carefully and some parts replaced with turnings produced a model that rather than passing the 3 foot test could pass the 6 inch test.  Alas he is not well now and the supply has dried up.

post-10830-0-96480600-1485531032_thumb.jpg

 

The photo is of my handbuilt prototype for the batch built Alice class models

I would conclude by observing no matter how good the model, a Quarry Hunslet HAS TO HAVE A DRIVER PERCHED ON THE REAR RAiL

post-10830-0-52401600-1485532408.jpg

This is a Hunslet ,16mm scale live steam, full valve gear, I made 30 years ago, The driver helps the illusion!

 

or else it just looks absolute pants! One detail that is rarely modelled are the inside frame splashers over the wheels, they might be in the kit?? Are you going to put in the Stephenson valve gear? Between the frames is very busy, again probably the kit has this in it. All the best with your build

Edited by M Wright
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Now at this point I realised I don't have an awful many photos of Red Damsel, so if anybody has any they could share, please do! 

 

 

I don't have many either, but I will list what I do have

 

1.  Early LHS view of unknown date with quarry workers.  Still has sandbox on tank side but unfortunately one worker is standing in front of the position where the injector might be at the rear of the tank side.  However the boiler clack valve is just about visible and the pipework in the cab seems to confirm that it was fitted with side mounted rather than backhead injectors.

 

2.3.  Two views, one each side, taken on 26.6.1956, presumably on the same group visit as the Ivo Peters photo in the Quarry Hunslets of North Wales book

        (I also have another view showing the loco and train outside the loco shed on Lernion - shows the area surrounding the shed)

 

4.  RHS view taken on 10.9.1956 - loco taking water from the tank at the rear of the loco shed.

 

I can't post any of them here for copyright reasons, but I could send them as attachments to a PM if required.

 

RED DAMSEL seems to have been unique, at least in later years, among the 'Alice' Class locos in having side (tank) mounted injectors and clack valves instead of backhead mounted combination injectors.  Don Townsley published a drawing in the Model Railway News magazine - later republished in the Quarry Hunslets of North Wales book - which shows side mounted injectors, presumably based on original Hunslet drawings, but apart from RED DAMSEL I haven't seen any photos which show that such injectors were fitted to other 'Alice' Class locos in quarry service.

 

I used to be quite familiar with this loco (or what actually remained of it) as ELIDIR on the Llanberis Lake Railway as I used to drive regularly on Sundays from the start of operations in 1971 to 1996, and of the three working locos ELIDIR was the most preferred - DOLBADARN had a rather stiff regulator and the extended cab on WILD ASTER/THOMAS BACH made it more awkward to attend to the fire through the rear cab doors. 

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I don't have many either, but I will list what I do have

 

1.  Early LHS view of unknown date with quarry workers.  Still has sandbox on tank side but unfortunately one worker is standing in front of the position where the injector might be at the rear of the tank side.  However the boiler clack valve is just about visible and the pipework in the cab seems to confirm that it was fitted with side mounted rather than backhead injectors.

 

2.3.  Two views, one each side, taken on 26.6.1956, presumably on the same group visit as the Ivo Peters photo in the Quarry Hunslets of North Wales book

        (I also have another view showing the loco and train outside the loco shed on Lernion - shows the area surrounding the shed)

 

4.  RHS view taken on 10.9.1956 - loco taking water from the tank at the rear of the loco shed.

 

I can't post any of them here for copyright reasons, but I could send them as attachments to a PM if required.

 

RED DAMSEL seems to have been unique, at least in later years, among the 'Alice' Class locos in having side (tank) mounted injectors and clack valves instead of backhead mounted combination injectors.  Don Townsley published a drawing in the Model Railway News magazine - later republished in the Quarry Hunslets of North Wales book - which shows side mounted injectors, presumably based on original Hunslet drawings, but apart from RED DAMSEL I haven't seen any photos which show that such injectors were fitted to other 'Alice' Class locos in quarry service.

 

I used to be quite familiar with this loco (or what actually remained of it) as ELIDIR on the Llanberis Lake Railway as I used to drive regularly on Sundays from the start of operations in 1971 to 1996, and of the three working locos ELIDIR was the most preferred - DOLBADARN had a rather stiff regulator and the extended cab on WILD ASTER/THOMAS BACH made it more awkward to attend to the fire through the rear cab doors. 

 

I'd love to see the pics if you could, Anything that shows what I'm up against!

 

You know I was studying that drawing over the issue of chimney height and never noticed the injectors! d'oh! Do you happen to know which issue of MRN the drawings were in? It'd be nice to have another copy as the scale in the book version is a bit iffy. There is a picture of Velinheli in Boyd NGINCv3 with the side mount injectors, but the posture of the footplate crew obscure all the details of how it was plumbed in at the back! 

 

 

Hi, the Slaters Alice class is a joy to look at. I speak as a builder (I am on my 40th build now of a live steam Alice class www.wrightscale.co.uk)  The site and blog has a few pics that might interest you. 

They are a nightmare to get right.  At one time I had 3 variants for the pantograph mill for the mainframes, now I just build the first series Alice class.  You need to do a lot of research to get them spot on. The main points I took care over were 1)smokebox door - any radial rivets or not. 2)Smokebox side sheets repair patches.3) Roscoe lubricators 1, 2 or none 4) Furness lubriators on cylinder covers front yes or no.5) Sanding  tankside pots with linkage/no linkage removed usually  removed by 1950s.6)Fire iron solders yes or no and where on the tank....7).footplate side panels riveted or not /radius bend or not... 8)rear footplate panel. retaining latch or not etc. etc. More of a minefield than how many pipes from the front  lubricator of GWR King!

A good starting bible "Quarry Hunslets of North Wales" by Cliff Thomas I am sure you have probably seen/have this. There are also some interesting pics on the web, many that are not in the common scources (just put in the name etc)  When I measured one up it too was at Bala Lake in the early 1980s.  They had one stripped right down so there were no excuses not to get it right. Your observation about 4mm scale Alice class is not exactly correct. Brian Madge used to produce a lovely little kit that ran like a Swiss watch at slow speed and when built carefully and some parts replaced with turnings produced a model that rather than passing the 3 foot test could pass the 6 inch test.  Alas he is not well now and the supply has dried up.

attachicon.gifhunslet jpeg.jpg

 

The photo is of my handbuilt prototype for the batch built Alice class models

I would conclude by observing no matter how good the model, a Quarry Hunslet HAS TO HAVE A DRIVER PERCHED ON THE REAR RAiL

attachicon.gifblog size hun.jpg

This is a Hunslet ,16mm scale live steam, full valve gear, I made 30 years ago, The driver helps the illusion!

 

or else it just looks absolute pants! One detail that is rarely modelled are the inside frame splashers over the wheels, they might be in the kit?? Are you going to put in the Stephenson valve gear? Between the frames is very busy, again probably the kit has this in it. All the best with your build

 

Lovely locos, one day I may have a live steam one! 

 

 

On to the model! 

 

I have so far drilled all the holes in the resin parts, and made an extra one through the tank and into the boiler in order to lock their relative positions. With that done I marked and drilled for the clack valves. Casting cleanup continues, the cylinders are done and one slidebar/crosshead assembly has been set up with the other in progress. The basics of the steam turret have been done, though I will need to alter fittings because of the injector feeds. The real thing has a bewildering array of possible options for fitting the whistle, blower and pressure gauge so I will need to be very careful to get it right. 

 

So overall it doesn't look really any different to the last photo!

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I'd love to see the pics if you could, Anything that shows what I'm up against!

 

You know I was studying that drawing over the issue of chimney height and never noticed the injectors! d'oh! Do you happen to know which issue of MRN the drawings were in? It'd be nice to have another copy as the scale in the book version is a bit iffy. There is a picture of Velinheli in Boyd NGINCv3 with the side mount injectors, but the posture of the footplate crew obscure all the details of how it was plumbed in at the back! 

 

I'll scan the photos and send later.  Don Townsley's drawing was in the November 1966 issue of Model Railway News but its to 7mm scale, even smaller than the version in the Quarry Hunslets book - which is approx 8mm scale.  I do have a larger scale side elevation which seems to originate from that drawing, I shall scan that as well and the details may be a little clearer.

 

Don's drawing in the MRN is attributed to VELINHELI, so with the photo in Boyd it seems to confirm that some of the earliest locos were fitted with side mounted injectors.  It seems odd that RED DAMSEL alone retained hers despite several boiler changes.  From quarry records RED DAMSEL had a new boiler in 1923; a new boiler in 1932; this was condemned in 1953 and a replacement boiler fitted at Lernion.

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I'll scan the photos and send later.  Don Townsley's drawing was in the November 1966 issue of Model Railway News but its to 7mm scale, even smaller than the version in the Quarry Hunslets book - which is approx 8mm scale.  I do have a larger scale side elevation which seems to originate from that drawing, I shall scan that as well and the details may be a little clearer.

 

Don's drawing in the MRN is attributed to VELINHELI, so with the photo in Boyd it seems to confirm that some of the earliest locos were fitted with side mounted injectors.  It seems odd that RED DAMSEL alone retained hers despite several boiler changes.  From quarry records RED DAMSEL had a new boiler in 1923; a new boiler in 1932; this was condemned in 1953 and a replacement boiler fitted at Lernion.

 

It is my suspicion that there was only the one complete set of side injector parts - I.E. Boiler, Injectors and tank fittings, which would have ended up on whichever loco they were needed. Quite a few locos seem to have a telltale hole in the front of the cab sheets for the pipes, water tank feeds coming out of the side rather than the bottom as well as blanked off tappings in their steam turrets. 

 

Where did you find the quarry records? Are they at Caernarfon Archives or are they held by the Slate Museum?

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Where did you find the quarry records? Are they at Caernarfon Archives or are they held by the Slate Museum?

 

Information was taken from a ledger at the Gilfach Ddu Workshops in 1967.  Whether that has survived and if so where it is now I've no idea.

 

I've sent the drawing and four photos via PMs, let me know if you get them OK.

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Information was taken from a ledger at the Gilfach Ddu Workshops in 1967.  Whether that has survived and if so where it is now I've no idea.

 

I've sent the drawing and four photos via PMs, let me know if you get them OK.

 

All arrived, most useful, thank you.

 

I've begun on Red Damsel-ifying the model:

 

post-21854-0-36399500-1485641270_thumb.jpg

 

Here's the whistle take off being drilled to take the RHS Injector shut off.

 

post-21854-0-80350200-1485641272_thumb.jpg

 

And here's the tank bracket with the lower rivet removed. The other side will need to match. You can see the good fit of chimney and base after the turning that took place the other day, as supplied there was a visible groove between them. 

 

post-21854-0-44250500-1485641266_thumb.jpg

 

That was the cylinder packing gland being drilled in the lathe - the woodworking bit allowed it to fit between the slidebars where a normal 2mm bit would have been too short. Unbeknown to me it drilled undersize, and much clearing with a reamer resulted on that side. On the otehr side I went in with a 2.2mm bit instead and it came out just nice, no filing of slidebars or crosshead was necessary and it runs smoothly already.

 

Both slidebar sets have now been blackened, and can be seen in front of the loco:

 

post-21854-0-74961600-1485641275_thumb.jpg

Edited by Quarryscapes
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One detail that is rarely modelled are the inside frame splashers over the wheels, they might be in the kit?? Are you going to put in the Stephenson valve gear? Between the frames is very busy, again probably the kit has this in it. All the best with your build

 

I forgot to address this earlier. I'll confess I've never seen the splashers on the real thing, there are none included in the kit that I can discern. Yes there will be Valve gear, but it is supplied as cosmetic only. I'm not sure whether I'm up to fabricating working eccentrics but I may investigate the possibility once I have the dummy ones made up for examination. 

 

I started work on the necessary new water feed parts:

 

post-21854-0-71320500-1485729783_thumb.jpg

 

Injectors based on the Townsley drawing and photographs. I will need to get an accurate profile of the tank, for which I propose to scan the tank and draw over it in Sktehcup. The resulting CAD will be 3D printed and used for Lost wax casts. 

 

Oh and if drilling the whistle plug wasn't fiddly enough, I have now drilled the displacement lubricator for 0.4mm feed wire. THAT was nerve wracking! 

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Got the tank and boiler scanned in to get an idea of the curvature needed for the brackets and clacks, and his is the result. The injectors were tweaked a little too to bring the water shut off off the steam nozzle centre line. Just the Operating valves to go. 

 

post-21854-0-21432200-1485790674_thumb.jpg

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Hi, you are doing some very nice work getting the loco as near as possible spot on. I find the only enjoyable part of making los now is researching the prototype.  It is amazing what knowledge is out there, PGH on these posts is a gold mine of information.  He seems similar to a friend of mine who has photos and film of narrow gauge railways back into the late 40s and 50s. Not only did he photograph with his box brownie the locos and the stock but also the track , the fences etc  I hope someone can persuade these guys to make sure their mental archive and the physical one is recorded for the future.

 

I wish I had your facility with new technology.  Did mastering how to 3d scan and 3D draw take a long time?  I admit to being a little defeatist in my attitude these days.  My background had nothing to do with engineering so learning how to use Freehand/ Illustrator  to produce etches was enough of a climb.   I have just puchased a laser cutter that apparently works easily with Corel Draw. The disc is here, I hope it behaves like the packages I am familiar with.  My son built me the workshop PC , all solid state drives so no excuse to get a cup of something while the program loads!

Edited by M Wright
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Hi, you are doing some very nice work getting the loco as near as possible spot on. I find the only enjoyable part of making los now is researching the prototype.  It is amazing what knowledge is out there, PGH on these posts is a gold mine of information.  He seems similar to a friend of mine who has photos and film of narrow gauge railways back into the late 40s and 50s. Not only did he photograph with his box brownie the locos and the stock but also the track , the fences etc  I hope someone can persuade these guys to make sure their mental archive and the physical one is recorded for the future.

 

I wish I had your facility with new technology.  Did mastering how to 3d scan and 3D draw take a long time?  I admit to being a little defeatist in my attitude these days.  My background had nothing to do with engineering so learning how to use Freehand/ Illustrator  to produce etches was enough of a climb.   I have just puchased a laser cutter that apparently works easily with Corel Draw. The disc is here, I hope it behaves like the packages I am familiar with.  My son built me the workshop PC , all solid state drives so no excuse to get a cup of something while the program loads!

 

Thanks - it is my intention to get it to match as closely as I can to the condition in one of the pics PGH kindly sent me. In it the left bunker is almost entirely devoid of paint and the tank is full of plugged holes. It's a challenging little loco as there's an awful lot of detail differences. I am however incredibly grateful that 16mm is a size that allows me to get the level of detail I crave with relative ease, things like the feed line on the lubricator just wouldn't be possible in my usual 4mm scale. 

 

I've been working with CAD since I was in school, gradually building up my skills over the last 20 years. Moving to 3D has been a challenge, which started about 5 years ago. The industry is slowly changing and Vector graphics are now preferable to CAD drawings, things like Corel draw completely baffle me, as do newer drafting packages which seem to have been designed in a similar style. I use TurboCAD Pro 12 which is ancient for 2D work and Sketchup for 3D. Even though Sketchup is the simplest 3D software it still took a while to grasp, but now with a suite of plugins I can create pretty much most things I can think of. Some geometry is still awkward to create, but I'm getting there. Every week I learn a new way of doing something or find a new plugin that adds an extra capability. 

 

I agree with you on the availability of photo archives. It is a real struggle to find anything really in depth on Dinorwig's rail system, if it wasn't for PGH I wouldn't have a clue what the left side oft he loco looked like. 

 

Now today I discovered the downside of the size of 16mm components, soldering the 3 pieces of the steam turret together took minutes using my 75W Iron. Plugging up the extra holes I accidentally made in the boiler just wasn't happening at all, so I'm going to have to look at a gas torch of some kind to get some serious heat into the parts. 

 

Oh, and I did the take offs for the injectors, round handwheel for the RHS, T handle on the LHS.

 

post-21854-0-66478300-1485816465_thumb.jpg

 

Edited by Quarryscapes
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Where did you find the quarry records? Are they at Caernarfon Archives or are they held by the Slate Museum?

As a slight aside When my dad was needing bits for his quarry Hunslet 'Alice' (the real one) he got in touch with the museum of wales who were custodians of the quarry equipment, archive etc and they allowed him to use the original wooden patterns which at the time were stored the museum in llanberis, he went there with a copy of the original Hunslet factory drawings and cross referenced the part numbers on the drawings with the bits which were still stored under their original part numbers, he managed to get everything he needed in one visit, mainly things like pipe work elbows, joints etc, as part of the deal he got them cast in wales (rhuddlan foundry)

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As a slight aside When my dad was needing bits for his quarry Hunslet 'Alice' (the real one) he got in touch with the museum of wales who were custodians of the quarry equipment, archive etc and they allowed him to use the original wooden patterns which at the time were stored the museum in llanberis, he went there with a copy of the original Hunslet factory drawings and cross referenced the part numbers on the drawings with the bits which were still stored under their original part numbers, he managed to get everything he needed in one visit, mainly things like pipe work elbows, joints etc, as part of the deal he got them cast in wales (rhuddlan foundry)

 

I'll have to get in touch, would be nice to be able to see some of the works notes regarding Red Damsel. I believe they also have the pattern for the nameplate lurking about too, which I'd like to measure up for a brass casting, I don't think an etching will be capable of the necessary relief. 

 

Speaking of castings, just ordered the necessary fittings via shapeways, so they should arrive in time for my 'big build' week!

 

In the meantime, the rest of today has consisted of drilling lots of small holes...

 

In the firebox top (washout plugs perhaps?) as well as for the various backhead fittings.

post-21854-0-41536500-1485884561_thumb.jpg

 

and in the footplate - there is an omission on Slater's part here as Rough Pup should also have the rivets in the footplate ahead of the smokebox, but there is no half etched locator for them. Those in the buffer beam I did by taping the overlay with the half etch dimples over the main footplate and drilling through in one go. 

 

post-21854-0-06866900-1485884557_thumb.jpg

post-21854-0-00643200-1485884565_thumb.jpg

 

I'ver also done the first bit of gluing - the threaded inserts into the firebox and smokebox and the regulator guide on the backhead.

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Rivets ordered and most holes in etches now drilled. Broke every 0.8mm bit I have in the process. 

 

Also I missed out some extra fittings I'd be needing. The kit provides etched eyes for the rear shackles, but I think in 16mm we can do better than that, so I'll get some 3D printed ones. They are still small, 1/8" square base. 

 

post-21854-0-99732000-1485909369_thumb.jpg

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Shapeways have reminded me why they annoy me so much - cancelled the Left injector but are happy to do the right one, same with the shut off valves, despite in both  cases them being mirror images of the accepted parts! Oh well, it gave me the chance to add the shackles into the order.

 

I have been drilling yet more holes today and have exhausted my supply of drill bits, there is still more to be drilled once stocks are replenished. The frames have some incorrect rivets and are missing a few more, most conspicuous the very large headed fitted bolts that hold the crossmember in place on the real thing, I have marked out and drilled them. 

 

Besides drilling, I have also been soldering today - both frames are now assembled, as is the rear buffer beam, although the latter needs to be drilled for yet more rivets and bolts! 

 

Here are the frames as they stand:

 

post-21854-0-18650900-1485965414_thumb.jpg

 

and a close up of the RHS frame showing the fitted bolts in position. 

 

post-21854-0-70952900-1485965409_thumb.jpg

 

These are 14BA cheesehead screws with the heads filed down. 

 

I plan on making the motion bracket a screw on unit, and have drilled out it's bolt head locations on the fret. Once assembled it can be trial fitted using it's locating tag and the frames drilled. I then plan on building the motion in place, and removing it again as a unit to paint. 

 

I also plan on adding the angles at the front and rear of the frames that attach the buffer beams, which will be from 4mm brass angle. 

 

 

This is turning into a lovely build, very enjoyable - far better than anything I've done in 4mm! 

 

 

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I am reallly enjoying this build a great deal!

 

The Slaters 16 mm models are something that gnaw at me constantly and many is the time I have contemplated a cameo layout using this Hunslet and a few slate wagons at the top of an incline.

 

If you keep this up I just might wind up indulging.

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

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I am reallly enjoying this build a great deal!

 

The Slaters 16 mm models are something that gnaw at me constantly and many is the time I have contemplated a cameo layout using this Hunslet and a few slate wagons at the top of an incline.

 

If you keep this up I just might wind up indulging.

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

 

You wouldn't regret it I'm sure! I'm already saving up for a second...and a third...maybe a fourth, how many Hunslets  did Dinorwig have again? 

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Made a bit of a boob today...

 

post-21854-0-63942900-1486044414_thumb.jpg

 

14BA screws going in...

 

...and now they're back out! They had a larger head than the ones I put in the other side, and looked a bit silly once I flipped it over. They have now been removed, and I am putting in some filed down 1.8mm domed rivets instead, which are much better. 

 

Also rivet related...

 

post-21854-0-30907600-1486044418_thumb.jpg

 

And WHilst waiting for the postman to bring me my rivets I started on the inside motion:

 

post-21854-0-92253900-1486044421_thumb.jpg

 

And now I'm off for more mind numbing reaming out of holes to fit the rivets in the frame - 1 down, 15 to go! 

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A testament to the design of this kit, none of this is actually fixed, the whole lot is a dry assembly:

 

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The smokebox is nosediving because there is no spacer between the frames yet to support it. The front buffer beam will get folded down once I've finished putting rivets etc into the footplate as it's easier to file the backs down flush like this. I think the real rivets look good. 

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Small bit of progress this morning, I'm off to work now for the weekend so that'll pretty much be it for a while. 

 

Bunker built, here showing the rivet tails being used to line the two parts up - the bunker isn't quite long enough to fit where it should in relation to the cab sheet, no big deal, no one will ever notice. (You can't see from this angle anyway, only from directly overhead)

 

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And the frames have finally had their axlebox keep nuts added - an interesting thing here, the instructions refer to 10BA and 10BA nuts and bolts are supplied, but do not fit, the holes being too small to pass a 10BA screw through and positioned such that a 10BA nut will not sit against the frame and remain central overt the hole even if said hole is enlarged to fit. I've replaced with 12BA from stock which fit perfectly, although I'm one nut short. 

 

Speaking of BA nuts and bolts - I ordered some 14BA from Eileen's as I had a feeling that's where my previous ones used as frame rivets came from and sure enough, yes, the Eileen's ones have the small heads. Something worth remembering for the future. So both frames now had the axlebox rivets in place and the crossmember rivets added. Still do do are the RHS brake rod cross shaft bush rivets, which will need to wait till I have restocked on 0.8mm drill bits, as will drilling for the motion bracket bolts I plan on adding, you may be able to discern the centre pop of their positions in the pics below. 

 

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I reassembled, adding the front crossmember this time fort the pics so it sits nice and level. I am planning on modifying the chassis so that the footplate can be removed from the frames assmembly for painting as it will make it that much easier to clean and paint the chassis without the footplate in place. For this I plan on adding the missing front angles, soldered to the front buffer beam which is part of the footplate, and use 14BA screws in pace of the rivets passing through the front of the frame. At the rear I'll use some more of the angle soldered to the inside of the frames and try and hide countersunk screws under the firebox. if there's room.

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