Gladiator LNER/BR J6

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks Dave,

 

The photos that I am working to of 46206 most definitely still have the tank vents but I don't plan to fit the scoop itself as I am pretty sure that it would be long gone by 1960.

 

Should you need them there are a few more photos on my Flickr site.

[Rob Pulham]

Well, after all the discussion and mental hand wringing by yours truly I do believe that I have cracked it.

 

I soldered some scrap etch into each side of the front step of the tender and sods law dictates now that I have I will find suitable parts included (I confess that I didn't even check).

 

 

 

 

It's all dry fitted at this point and before soldering I do need to check that the tank vents will fit - I may have to straighten the curve a bit to create a flat ledge for the vents to sit on but if I do I will report back.

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

I was short of time last night so along with finding the step infill pieces (yes, I was right there were some, had I looked first, Oops!), I only managed to assemble the front coal plate and buffer beam.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Although I haven't posted anything this week things have been progressing  albeit slowly. 

 

The reason for the slow approach has been a  combination of a lot of other things intruding and the fact that I couldn't get my head around how the front coal plate shown in the last post attached to the tender front itself. While I pondered I moved along by fitting hand rail knobs to the tender sides and fitting lifting rings to the coal space sides and tank top/coal chute. I still haven't assembled the innards because I want all the sub assemblies ready and to have an understand of how things fit before committing myself.

 

Before getting started on anything last night I re-read the instructions and saw the wood for the trees and ended up with this. Still a bit more to do but I am happy with progress.

 

 

There is mention in the instructions of a strip 49mm (I think but I don't have the instructions to hand so I will edit the post later and confirm) x 4.5mm

but I couldn't find the part so I used a suitable piece of scrap etch to make the infill piece for the back which forms a shelf behind the coal plate.

 

 

 

 

 

Lastly although not needed for my build but needed for the revision of the instructions I made up the two dome options which are included a rectangular combined dome/filler and the separate dome.

 

 

On the round dome everything was a perfect fit whereas on the combined dome I had to take a sliver of the two half etched overlaps to get them to meet squarely a simple exercise that took moments to do with a pair of topiary scissors

 

[Rob Pulham]

The next job to tackle before starting to assemble everything was the flares and it proved a bit easier than anticipated. Having formed the curves I offered it up the tender and at first I was a little baffled (permanent state of mind at the minute) but quickly realised that I needed to trim the curved end of each side and then it would fit. 

 

I only got part of it soldered on before bed time last night so tonight I will finish that and then take photos.

[Rob Pulham]

As promised below are some photos of the flares as fitted. there is still much cleaning up and some filling of the corners with solder to do but so far I am very pleased with how they are going.

 

Starting with some shots after soldering on the flares but before starting to filling the corners with solder.

 

 

 

 

 

Then with the mostly filled in corners.

 

 

 

If they are of interest I also took a series of photos of my using my Proxxon vice with one soft jaw fitted to bend the curves on the flare strips.

[Rob Pulham]

Last Thursday evening I made much progress on the tender for the J6.

 

The coal plate is now in as is the front section of the tender. 

 

 

 

There is still a goodly amount of cleaning up to do and the sides of the coal space are still to solder in but I feel that I have broken it's back now.

[david.hill64]

Better redouble my efforts.......

[Rob Pulham]

More progress last night. Despite starting quite late I managed to get the two coal space sides in place. 

 

I had anticipated that one of them may not fit very well and might leave a gap that would in fairness be hidden by the coal but I was pleasantly surprised when after a little tweaking with pliers and a rub of some abrasive paper it went into place as it should. Just the details and coal rails to add now.

 

 

I am not sure why but I chose to use shiny sinks to clean it up after I finished instead of my usual Bar Keepers Friend and it turned all the solder black making it look to be worse than it is.

[Rob Pulham]

Further progress on the tender for the J6. Starting off with a slight backward step.

 

While struggling with the instructions I hadn't read the text when fitting the lifting eyes I just followed the drawing which unfortunately showed the wrong type of backing plate. Reading through the text late last week I saw my error and by coincidence David Hill of Gladiator pointed it out the day after on the Guild forum. 

 

My customer had seen the post and said it didn't matter if they didn't show too much but it was only a few minutes of a job with the microflame and a scalpel to take them off and swap them for the right ones.

 

 

 

Next I added the vacuum and steam heat pipes to the rear of the tender.

 

Then I started on the front.

 

 

 

The brake standard was one that I had in my spares box that was left over from the B16 build. The other levers are bent wire and scrap etch.

 

 

The bucket is one of Jim McGeown's castings that I had sat on my desk for a long time after I had made a bit of a mess of trying to hollow it out.

 

I took it back into the workshop to see if I could do anything with it after being informed that the hole in the left hand side was for a bucket. I then remembered the collets that I had made for drilling the valve guide castings on the Streamlined Duchess and used one of them to tidy up the inside of the bucket top using a dental burr and lastly soldered a handle on from scrap etch.

 

[Rob Pulham]

I didn't seem to make much visible progress in last night's session but I got the lamp irons on and hopefully you can see why I prefer to replace etched versions with cast ones where possible.

 

 

 I have also fitted one inside the side sheet at the front of the tender but alas the camera decided to focus on the nearside so the added lamp iron came out so blurred you couldn't see it. 

 

I will try again when I next take photos.

 

I did manage to add the tank filler though so another detail bites the dust.

 

 

Coal rails next I think.

[Rob Pulham]

Because we stayed in Wakefield this weekend it gave me an extra evening at the bench - usually I am worn out by the time we get to Bishop Auckland and rarely do anything once I arrive on Friday evening.

 

As luck would have it I was able to finish work early too so I had around 5 hours at the bench which saw off the remaining upper works details.

 

The coal rails were too long and I had to split them at the rear of the tender. I think that this is a result of the cut out in the tender flare for the hand grip which is a feature of this type of tender.

 

I followed David Hill's example and soldered half round beading over the coal rails and what an improvement it's made.

 

I also put half round beading in one the inside of the front hand grip sections to make it a round profile. and you can see the additional lamp bracket too which wouldn't focus on my last photo session.

 

I also got around not fitting a nut to secure the front of the tender top by tapping a piece of tube and soldering it in when the nut should be.

 

This just leaves me with the chassis which I have made a start on.

[Rob Pulham]

Yesterday saw the tender completed apart from wiring the pick ups and setting the ride height which will be done towards the end of the build.

 

 

 

You will note that I have added an extra frame spacer. I did this because I am using the tender for pick ups and wanted to ensure that there was no flexing which might affect them - The brass spacer was a scaled up P4 spacer from the spares box which I cut down to fit.

 

 

Back onto the loco next.

[Shez]

Will you just rely on the tender pick ups, or will there be any on the loco?  What do you use as the connector for the wires? 

[Rob Pulham]

Will you just rely on the tender pick ups, or will there be any on the loco?  What do you use as the connector for the wires? 

 

Hi Mark,

 

This one will be tender pick up only because I doubt that there will  be room up front after fitting the inside motion. I have some mini plugs from China via eBay that will use for the connection between loco and tender

[bgman]

Hi Rob,

 

I'm interested to see you're using the tender for the main power pick-up.

 

I've decided to do a similar thing with a Warren Shepard Dean Goods that is close to completion ( famous last words ! ). I see from your photograph that you have fitted Slaters ? plungers, I'm certain you've already addressed the spring pressure on the wheels, may I ask if you have encountered any binding or wheels not rotating ? I only ask as they are obviously smaller and not driven as the loco is.

I hope that makes sense!

 

I'm assuming that the tender is also of a good weight to help.

 

ATB

 

Grahame

[bgman]

Hi Rob,

 

I'm interested to see you're using the tender for the main power pick-up.

 

I've decided to do a similar thing with a Warren Shepard Dean Goods that is close to completion ( famous last words ! ). I see from your photograph that you have fitted Slaters ? plungers, I'm certain you've already addressed the spring pressure on the wheels, may I ask if you have encountered any binding or wheels not rotating ? I only ask as they are obviously smaller and not driven as the loco is.

I hope that makes sense!

 

I'm assuming that the tender is also of a good weight to help.

 

ATB

 

Grahame

 

 

Answered elsewhere by you Rob,

 

Thank you

 

G

[Rob Pulham]

I spent 2 and 1/2 hours last night preparing the cradle for the foot plate which contains the valances....

 

Some this was my own fault because it's quite thick nickel silver and like David found out when he built one recently, you need to file a lot out of either side of the fold lines to allow the valances to sit vertical.  I had attempted to fold up one side some time ago which needs a bit of brute strength but then found that it wouldn't come to 90 degrees.

 

The first job was to straighten the side already bent enough to allow me to file out the fold line. I did this by annealing with the microflame and then using the vice to squash the etch back almost flat. Once I had filed the fold lines, I bent it as far as I could with one of the sides off a set of bending bars and then used a rubber mallet to bash it to the final 90 degree fold while the middle section was firmly gripped in a second set of bending bars to ensure that it stayed flat.

 

Hopefully I will get the footplate shaped and soldered on tonight so I will take photos after that.

[david.hill64]

I am beginning to suspect that the etching company made an error with one set of etches and used material that was too thick. I found last week that I had two thicknesses of etch: the thicker one went into the recycling bin. The thicker one is better for the frames though.

[Rob Pulham]

I am beginning to suspect that the etching company made an error with one set of etches and used material that was too thick. I found last week that I had two thicknesses of etch: the thicker one went into the recycling bin. The thicker one is better for the frames though.

 

That might explain it David, I must confess it has been a bit of a challenge but I am almost there with the foot plate almost soldered on. Somehow I must have had a slight twist because about 20mm of one side won't go into the half etched slot at 90 degrees while still held in the cradle so as I finished last night I had cut one side away and got part way through the second side which might get finished tomorrow - I have had a really long day at the day job so too cream crackered to do any modelling tonight. 

 

I find that modelling when too tired just means work to redo the next day so these days I don't bother.

[Rob Pulham]

Despite being head cook and bottle washer at the minute I have found a little time to pick up the J6 again.

 

The cab of the J6 has half round beading both around the cab opening and, after studying photos closely, around the front of the cab too. - On the cab etch there is a half etched lip for both and initially I thought that the one at the cab front was to allow for the front to fit better but realised that on the other side were half etched dimples in rivet locations which meant that the half etch would be on the outside not the inside where it would need to be if the cab front sat in it. This lead me to have a look at the photos more closely and note the beading on the front. Despite seeing Tony's recent build I was doubting myself.

 

The kit has options to build both the Ivatt and the Gresley versions of the J6 and I am building the latter. The kit has two wrap over cab etches and two etched beads, (because the cab openings were a lot bigger on the Ivatt version). Having seen  Tony's build I elected to follow his lead and use half round soft brass wire instead of the etch supplied to give more shape and definition to the bead.

 

Because of the need to shape the bead around the cab openings I added it while the cab was still flat. the half etched guide on my cab was slightly over etched in places so it made for an interesting job but enjoyable task. Despite carefully finding the centre and measuring the start of each bend I still needed to do quite a bit of adjusting of the bend before it sat nicely on the front.

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

Not much to show for two evenings work, but I have completed the sandboxes.

I did the same as Tony and removed the fold over top plate to shape and fit as a separate item. I didn't have any brass channel to replace the front section so I scored the back with an Olfa cutter and then folded it as designed.

The first one went together without much trouble but I had to have a couple of goes at the second one before I was happy with it. The fillers are the etches provided sat on a short section of brass tube which I squashed into an oval with some pliers.
 

 

 

 

[davelester]

4 hours ago, Rob Pulham said:

Not much to show for two evenings work, but I have completed the sandboxes.

 

 

 

 

Rob,

 

That's a good job on the splasher/sandbox!

 

Three points about the cab:

 

1. The cabs for 601-610 (GN numbers; add 3,000 for early LNER numbers) have a slightly higher cutout and 3" higher horizontal cab handrail. This is because they were skip-looted at Doncaster from scrapped A4 Ivatt Singles.
2. As usual -- for the GNR -- there is beading on the inside of the cab all the way around. Also, as usual for Doncaster, this beading is a squashed half-round section, 2" wide and 5/8" high.
3. I have the 4mm version, and found it difficult to get the cab sitting correctly. I'm now considering building it as a separate unit, and then screwing or soldering to the footplate and boiler. You can use a base plate since the actual cab floor is raised above footplate level. Also, note that the real cab side sheets were constructed in two parts with a seam at the top.

Edited October 10, 2020 by davelester
typos

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks Dave,

 

I had posted an update of the J6 build over on the Guild forum and Malcolm Stelfox beat Dave to pointing out that all GNR engines had beading on the inside of the cab opening as well as the outside so last night's session was to add the internal beading. Oddly it only took an hour to ad the beading with the cab made up and I am sure it took longer than that to add it to the outside while the cab was flat.

 

 

 

 

This one is to be finished as 64206 (ex3557).

 

Thanks for the note on the seating of the cab - I haven't tried it since adding the internal beading but it sat quite well before that, with only a small gap at one side at the front which I plan to fill with a piece of rod.

 

When you say that there was a seam at the top do you mean in the middle of the roof?

[brossard]

Glad to see you back Rob.

 

John