Gladiator 7mm Stanier Duchess

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Here's the bogie completed with the addition of the bearing plates. It will also need some shim washers on the axle but that can wait. I could have moved the brass bushes outwards but the dummy equalising beams have to rest on them.

 

Next I modified the front mounting hole for fixing the chassis to the body. As designed there's a forward extension to the cylinder mounting spacer which has a slotted hole for the 6BA mounting bolt. There's a gap between this and the underside of the running plate, so when the bolt is tightened it flexes. Not good.

However there are a couple of spare spacers which I decided to use instead, one for mounting purposes and one to beef up the frames behind the buffer beam. Here's the original mounting and the spacers, one of which has had the hole slotted.

 

I used the original mount to line up the slot in the spacer before soldering.

 

And the right way up with the front spacer added and the original slotted tab cut of with the slitting disc.

 

Then I turned my attention to the mounting of the bogie. The instruction are a bit scant on this but it's easy to work out. Here are the parts. I added the slot to the mounting stud which is tapped 6 BA at the top.

 

A 6BA bolt is first soldered into the mounting spacer.

 

The tapped stud is then fitted up into the bogie and the washer placed over the stud followed by the spring. The stud is the screwed on to the 6BA bolt in the spacer.

 

Next the cylinders, which come as a fold up front and rear plate separated by the top plate, plus two wrappers. You fold the front and rear at 90 degrees to the top and add the half etch wrappers. Simple.

 

And slotted into the frames.

 

And with the body and bogie in place.

 

Beginning to look like a Duchess I think.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[dikitriki]

Beginning to look like a Duchess I think.

 

 

Not until the deflectors go on

 

I find the Duchess unbalanced without the deflectors, and heartily dislike them in LMS guise. As soon as they are on....wow!

 

Joking aside, it's a lovely build.....as I would expect.

 

Richard

[JeffP]

I know it's regarded as sacrilege, but that's how I feel about an A3....German smoke deflectors, or the front looks unbalanced.

 

Sorry.

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Not until the deflectors go on

 

I find the Duchess unbalanced without the deflectors, and heartily dislike them in LMS guise. As soon as they are on....wow!

 

Joking aside, it's a lovely build.....as I would expect.

 

Richard

Some people are never satisfied! Hahaha.     How about this?

 

Joking aside, I would agree. Some commentators prefer the original un-streamlined Duchesses (single chimney and all), but each to his own. Thanks for the comment on the build, and seeing as how you have been living and breathing Duchesses of late, if you spot any errors, please let me know.

 

Jeff,

Sorry I don't agree. Although the German style deflectors look like they belong on 01 Pacifics and the like, on the A3 they look like an afterthought to me. However, if they had put "Peppercorn" A1/A2 types on that would be a different story. I think they tried something similar on Humorist in the 30s ????

As I said, each to us own.

Cheers,

Pete

[Black Country Mon]

Peter,

 

The Coronation is coming along beautifully.

 

Thanks for putting up so many photos especially those with the little snags you've found they are a huge help.

 

As an EM gauge modeller my build of the Gladiator kit will be a one off in 7mm, so i'm conscious of not making too many errors. I've been reluctant to do anything to the resin firebox as its a pretty complex shape to form from brass and as you only get one shot at it i certainly didn't want to muck it up, even though i'm sure David would've sold me another if i'd needed it.. But seeing you're resolution has given me confidence to tackle the kit as a whole.

 

Keep the photos coming.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

 Some commentators prefer the original un-streamlined Duchesses (single chimney and all), but each to his own. 

 

 

 That's me  

Mine will be Duchess of Buccleuch when first built.

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Hi Dave,

I'm glad you're enjoying it and find it helpfull. If you can build in 4mm EM you should have no problem with 7mm.

 

If you haven't seen it already, have a look at Dikitriki's build of the Finney Duchess over on Western Thunder. Totally different design concept of course,

but there's lots of usefull information that can be helpfull in building a better model from the Gladiator kit. Plus it must be one of the finest Duchess models ever built in 7mm.

 

Rob Pulham,

Single chimney and no deflectors? There's only one answer to that. You're weird mate! Haha.

 

Who's kit is it by the way?

 

Anyway, back to the build. Here's the laminates for the front frames ready for soldering.

 

And the smokebox saddle/steam pipes casting. I scored the lines for the joints and added some scale hardware rivets as this detail was missing.

 

Here's the frame laminated and in place. The inside cylinder cover had been added. It's a bit long and this shot shows it after I removed about 2mm from the rear. If you don't do this the casting won't sit down. Alternatively, you could file the bottom of the casting at the front.

 

Here it is with boiler back on and the buffer beam laminated and fitted. The saddle/steam pipes casting has now been epoxied in place.

 

And another broadside view. I have corrected a slight downward slope of the extended rear frames. This has levelled the body and the cab rear is now vertical instead of leaning back slightly. That said the wide angle lens on my phone put a lot of distortion into the image.

 

Starting to look like a Duchess now.

 

Whoops! I shouldn't have said that. Don't start Richard.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[dikitriki]

Hi Peter,

 

The scoring of the front support and added rivets is very effective, something I forgot to do before attaching my support. I too found the cylinder cover far too long, and consequently quite difficult to form. I thought I must have done something wrong - or that my blend of F7 firebox and boiler with the DA smokebox had introduced errors I was unaware of! Yours is sitting very nicely.

 

Richard

[Dave Holt]

This is looking very nice indeed. I hope I'm not being too picky, but it does look as if the top of the inside cylinder cover isn't quite straight and slopes up towards the back rather than being truly horizontal and parallel with the top edge of the frames.

Regards,

Dave.

[Park]

Storming along nicely, you will be past my build stage on the tender by ths time next week   

 

When you come to your tender build could you linger a bit longer on the shaping of the sides and the hopper. Those look to be the hardest part and the most critical to the appearance. Checked my build this morning and I can see the things I am reading are working for me. The minimum amount of solder and done from the inside where possible and clean up. I did spend the dosh and bought one of those Solderpro jobbies and must say it is far better at getting the solder to flow than the 50W iron

 

At this rate Dave won't have to re-write the instructions for this kit quite so soon, just add a link to your build in his addendum   

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Hi Richard,
Yes the cylinder cover is a little tricky to fit. If your boiler is not fixed yet you may be able to mark the lines for the front cover and fit some rivets. Not so easy if the smokebox is in place though. It's easy to miss these little details, and as I said earlier, your Finney build has a host of fine detail information that will help to improve the Gladiator build. I've seen things on there that have got me looking closer at the prototype photos.

I note that there is an extra inspection cover on the running plate on the F7 one. Saw this on City of Birmingham so I assume it's standard for the class. Also the cylinder cover on the F7 has two small covers either side in front of the smoke box, as well as a bolted on plate at the front where the piston tale rod covers are. I'm guessing this was so they could get access to the cylinders without taking the whole cylinder cover off After close examination of my photos of CoB, I note that it to has the inspection covers but not the bolt on plate. Looking in the various books on the class I think the inspection covers were standard, but the bolt on plate only on some of the class. More research is required.

Dave,
Thanks for the comments on the cylinder cover. There is only one word for that (well several actually)!
You are of course correct. Don't know how I missed that and now that I have glued on the steam pipe casting on it won't be easy to correct. The thinking cap is now on but I'll have to get back to my day job first.

Park,
Not exactly storming but moving forward (back a bit now that Dave has pointed out the error on the cylinder cover).
I'll be sending a cheque to David Hill.   

Cheers,
Peter

[david.hill64]

I'll be sending a cheque to David Hill.   

[david.hill64]

Peter,

 

I guess that resolving this may well result in damage to the whitemetal saddle. I am sure you will be able to relocate the cylinder cover. I will be back home in 10 days and as it happens, plan to be casting Duchess parts then.

 

Chin up: it's looking good.

 

David

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Hi David,

I meant to say I'd be sending you  a  bill!  You  can send me the cheque. Haha.

 

I'm pretty sure  I can correct it  without touching the casting.  I can get at the cover from beneath, so I plan to score along the  joint/scrape/desolder  the  horizontal edges, push down until straight and re-solder. That's the plan.

 

Not sure how I did that though, apart from being bloody careless. The frames were too tall and stood higher than the running plate when they should  be  flush. I did not  realise until they were soldered in place so filed in situ. It does mention this  in the  instructions, so no excuses. Looks like  if I  had fitted the  top horizontal instead of  sloping, then maybe the  casting would have sat down with minimal filing.  As it  was it  needed quite a bit filing off,  so I went for  the  quicker option and cut the  plate with a slitting disc instead. 

 

Cheers,

Peter

[Rob Pulham]

 

Rob Pulham,

Single chimney and no deflectors? There's only one answer to that. You're weird mate! Haha.

 

Who's kit is it by the way?

 

 

 

Oh yes, weird that's me, but having met me you will know that first hand

 

Re the kit, I was lucky enough to have a Finney Kit bought as a Christmas present about 12 months before Martin sold up.

 

I also have a DA streamlined version which will no doubt have the same underpinnings as your has.

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Hi Rob,

A Finney and a DA version. You lucky man.

 

Any way, after going directly to jail, I managed to get out using the method mentioned above. Thanks again to Dave for mentioning the error whilst it was still possible to correct it.

 

 

Next I removed some metal from the bottom of tbe cylinder back plate to clear the rear bogie wheels.

 

I then turned my attention to the footplate, backhead and the drag beam.

The cast backhead is quite nice but has a very prominent ridge at the top which needs rubbing down. Here it is part done.

 

 

Here it is in the cab after fitting the footplate and drag beam parts.

 

The backhead is too tall also so i filed about 2.5mm of the bottom edge. I need to take a bit more off to straighten it.

 

After fixing the cylinder cover I then cleaned up the excess epoxy from around the steam pipe casting. I've added some 16 BA bolts to the saddle bit at the rear to represent the fixings but managed to melt one corner. If it can't be made good I'll cut them off and replace in brass. In any case I will cut a short slot at the front of each saddle piece so I can push it up against the smokebox and make it snug.

 

And a couple of gratuitous shots to finish the post.

Edited July 7, 2017 by PAD

[N15class]

Looking good Peter. I did not realize how big these Pacifics are in 0 until I saw one at Telford.

[dikitriki]

Yes the cylinder cover is a little tricky to fit. If your boiler is not fixed yet you may be able to mark the lines for the front cover and fit some rivets. Not so easy if the smokebox is in place though. It's easy to miss these little details, and as I said earlier, your Finney build has a host of fine detail information that will help to improve the Gladiator build. I've seen things on there that have got me looking closer at the prototype photos.

 

 

I have made the firebox/boiler/smokebox detachable. The F7 firebox is designed to be screwed in place in any event, and my adaption of the smokebox is per the attached pic:

 

 

I don't think you have the thickness in the firebox wall to make it screw in........ So I shall be able to scribe the panel joints on the steam pipe casing.

 

I also found it a lot of work to fit the firebox nicely. Again, screw in.

 

 

You will find the rear bogie wheel is a menace with the cylinders and leading brake gear. I restricted the sideplay on the rear bogie axle using 2 lengths of wire off the rear of the bogie engaging in holes in the stretcher near the front axle. It makes a big difference.

 

Richard

[Horsetan]

I have made the firebox/boiler/smokebox detachable. The F7 firebox is designed to be screwed in place in any event, and my adaption of the smokebox is per the attached pic:

 

P1010318.JPG

 

...

 

It's probably an optical illusion but is the smokebox wrapper proud of the boiler cladding?

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Hi Richard,

Like yours, my smokebox is screwed to the running plate, albeit with a central bolt only. As you say it's not possible to screw fit the firebox as the casting is too thin to take a self tapper. I'm wondering if I can come up with something that will allow the firebox, boiler and smokebox to be removable. That would make the painting and lining easier. We'll see.

 

Your mods to the bogie and the back plate have already been noted from your F7 build. I also noted the side control spring locating into a hole in the front plate on the rear truck.

 

Horsetan,

The smokebox wrappers on mine is certainly not proud of the boiler.

 

On Dikitriki's, no doubt he will reply, but it looks OK to me. He has added a bolier band. Is that what you mean?

 

Cheers,

Peter

Edited July 9, 2017 by PAD

[Horsetan]

....The smokebox wrapper on mine is certainly not proud of the boiler.

On Dikitriki's, no doubt he will reply, but it looks OK to me. He has added a bolier band. Is that what you mean?...

That's the bit I'm looking at. On the monitor screen here, the wrapper and the boiler band appear to share one seamless level and then there is a bit of a step down to the boiler.

 

I'm wondering if my screen needs adjustment.

[dikitriki]

That's the bit I'm looking at. On the monitor screen here, the wrapper and the boiler band appear to share one seamless level and then there is a bit of a step down to the boiler.

 

I'm wondering if my screen needs adjustment.

 

I don't think the dissimilar materials help. I'm sure that neither the resin boiler nor the smokebox are perfectly round, and there may be discrepancies. However, the smokebox boiler band is separately applied, and there is a step down between the boiler band and the boiler. I would also point out that the rivets adjacent to the boiler band may 'lift' the apparent diameter of the smokebox. It's packed away till the next holiday so I can't put the vernier on it, but I'm sure when painted it will be fine.

 

Richard

 

Richard

[dikitriki]

This a grab from an earlier photo which shows the different levels and the separate band:

 

 

Richard

 

 

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Looks good to me.

 

I see that the running plate has the large inspection cover behind the smokebox on the DA version. I'll need to add that as the Gladiator kit only has the smaller forward one. I'll be cutting a slot at the front edge of the saddle so it will push up snug against the smokebox, and also filling the gap at the bottom.

 

Cheers,

Peter

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Morning all.

 

I've now  added the missing inspection covers to the  running plate and  inside cylinder valve chest cover. I could  have  added overlays from thin brass sheet, but  decided to score them instead to match the  existing etched one. Here's the  first one.

 

And the  other  side after adding the  hinge from 0.45 mm brass rod.  There should be some tiny rivets either side of the hinge for  fixing it, but I passed on those. I scraped away the etched hinge on the  smaller plate and  added that from wire so they would match. In this view  you can also see the  razor saw cut in the  saddle to allow it  to be  pushed up against the smokebox. I chipped the  top corner so will have to repair  that.

.

 

Next the  valve chest cover.  This  was a bit  trickier scoring the grooves due  to the  restricted space but  I got  there in the  end. Two very small pins were used to represent the  handles ( the footplate ones don't have any).  An overlay of  thin brass sheet was also added before the  piston tail rod covers. Some  Duchesses have it and  some don't. 

 

Moving back to the  running plate I added the  rivet strips around the  splashers

.

 

Before moving  on to the  tender for  a while, I got  the cab roof formed and  fitted with some  temporary clips. Not  sure how  I will eventually fit it, soldered would  be  preferred, depending on whether the  completed back plate can be  go in or not after painting. Here's the underside with the  clips.

 

And the  topside  with the  roof vents fitted. The small etch on the fret is  meant to represent the safety valves. I won't be adding that and will get some proper cast  ones from Ragstone.

 

For now I've attached the  inner cross member to the cab sides, but  may change that to the roof, depending on how I finally fix it.

 

And with the roof on.

 

Now the tender. Here's the  parts for the  first stage laid out after preparing.

 

The bunker supports and 6 BA retaining nuts added to the base plate.

 

The inside of  the  rear plate. The steps are folded at 90 degrees, put through slots and the tabs soldered on the inside so you don't get solder on the out face.

 

And finally a shot of  the  loco with roof on.

 

 

Cheers,

Peter