Martin Finney 7mm LNER A3

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Might be a candidate for the 3-D printed brakeshoes that ModelU do?

 

Thanks Jeff,

An interesting web site. Some  good stuff on there.

I don't doubt the logic of what you say, but if printed brakes shoes can't short if they touch the wheels, they are still touching the wheels. Surely it is better to ensure that the brake shoes are not touching the wheels, in which case it doesn't matter what material they are made of? Each to his/her own though.

 

Somebody on Western Thunder made  the  same  point and  pointed me  to this  website, which also has some  good stuff for 7mm applications. 

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/otr?section=7mm+Scale&s=0

 

​Cheers,

Peter

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So, I've left the tender chassis for now and pressed on with the next subsection which is the tender frames.

Here they are fettled up. It's quite a complex shape with lots of edges to de cusp, but fortunately the cusp is very slight. The spacers are built in and it all folds up.  

The next step is to punch the rivet detail. I don't have a rivet press so I use an automatic center punch with the tip re profiled with a grinding disc. The force of the punch can be adjusted with a screw on the end which release the spring.
Here's the left hand frame after punching. As can be seen it has distorted.

 

However, I then "counter punch" the rivets with a beading tool and small hammer which flattens the work piece. You simply place the business end of the beading tool over each rivet and give a light tap with the hammer. The beading tool can be seen at the top. It's a punch for cutting small discs from metal foil. The business end is concave and the rim is sharp. I have a whole set that I got from a Jewelry tool supplier and have blunted the ends of a couple for counter punching rivets.  

This is the business and of the tool.  

Next there are some tiny bracket to cut out, rivet in the centre and then solder in place over the center rivets in the group of 5 above. When fitting these, I placed them over the relevant rivets on the frame then tapped them with the beading tool to get them to sit flush over the rivet underneath. Needless to say, at @ 2mm X 1mm I did not attempt to de cusp. I just cut them out with a sharp blade to leave as little of the tab as possible. There is also a long strip to punch out the rivets, but in this case the counter punch doesn't work as well and the strip needs to be straightened by hand afterwards .

 
Here are the tiny brackets in place and one rivet strip applied. The tops of the support brackets for the tank are folded at 90 degrees. The bottom of the brackets is on the rivet strip (not yet folded). I was able to solder from the top edge to avoid getting the risk of soldering the folds and it's also easier to clean up. Yes I know, far too much solder on the middle cross member, needing the scraper before a quick rub with the fibre brush.

 
Here we are with the other rivet strip in place, the bracket folds all made and the infill pieces being added. The back edge of the piece with the tab showing was filed before fitting.

 
The instructions suggest folding the frames before fitting the etched strip, but I preferred to add the strip and make up the tank support brackets in the flat and fold afterwards. I couldn't use the hold and fold because of the tank supports, but my brother has some hefty folding bars, which could be fitted above the supports to make the folds. Here's the  piece clamped ready for  the  first fold.

 

1st fold.

 

2nd fold

 
The tightening bolt at one end was then removed to release the frames.

 
 
And placed on the chassis.

 
I'm really impressed with the fit of the parts so far. The kit is certainly living up to my expectations and the reputation that they have.

 

Here it  is  with the drag beam overlays added, plus the  buffer beam overlays and support webbing. It needs a bit more  cleaning up, but  I ran out of time.

 

 

 

Cheers,

Peter
 

Edited February 3, 2018 by PAD

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I've been pressing on slowly over the last few days and have now got the bulk of the tender done.

 

The axleboxes, springs and hangers are excellent white metal castings but all separate parts (4 per wheel), so time consuming to apply. The foot steps have also been added as have the brake pipe and steam heat castings.

 

There's no way the buffers can be added with the frame ends right behind the hole. Mr. Finney suggests elongating the holes inwards but I will pass on that. I'll leave them off for now until I decide what to do. That's the frames done for now so on with the tank and bunker. The bulkheads are laminates with a mix of half etched rivets and punch out ones.

 

This is the rear plate with the steps, handrails and lamp irons added.

 

And the inside with the half etch rivet overlay.

 

The tank top is a laminate also. This is the underside.

 

And the top. The lifting rings and brackets also added.

 

 

The curve at the top of the sides was made using the bending bars. The inside has 5 or 6 half etch guidelines and I started the curve by making a slight bend on the lowest line, followed by the the next two. I then reversed the piece and completed the curve from the top line. No witness marks on the outside despite the half etch lines.

 

Here's the bunker after punching out the rivets, making the folds and soldering.

 

With these parts prepared the tank can be assembled. Here is where I got to.

 

I've made a start on the front bulkhead. Here it is just placed between the sides and with the tank screwed to the frames.

 

 

 

The reinforcing brackets for the bunker sides and the mountings for the front lifting rings have also been soldered in place and cleaned up. I'll add the rings before attaching the front while the access is still good.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[david.hill64]

Does anybody do self-contained buffers for these?

 

Looking excellent as always.

[Deano747]

Peter, you make it look so effortless, and lovely clean work as usual!!

 

Regards, Deano.

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Does anybody do self-contained buffers for these?

Looking excellent as always.

Thanks David.

 

Over on Western Thunder Mickoo has described how to convert the buffers to be self contained. I might give it a go.

Cheers,

Peter

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Before fitting the front bulkheads I added various small parts in the flat. Here they are ready to go in, with the brake and water scoop handles etc., plus the footplate etchings.

 

Here's the bulkheads and footplate after fitting.

 

And from the other side after fitting the vent pipes, lifting rings and front fairing.

 

And with the fairing added to the rear bunker bulkhead and rear tank plate.

 

Here's a shot with the castings placed in their mounting but not soldered yet.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[Bucoops]

Looks amazing

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The final details have now been added to the tender, just leaving the buffers and draw bar to complete it.

 

I beefed up the mounting brackets on the scoop and brake standard with some waste etch, and added the water level indicator and spare lamp bracket to the inside of the left hand side sheet.

 

And the water filler.

 

I also cut out some circles of 10 thou plastic sheet to convert the spoke wheels to discs. I used a couple of spring bow dividers to cut the circles by just scribing with the needles. I will stick them over the spokes later with super glue.

 

I've left the tender for now and made a start on the loco chassis. Here are the frames with the wheels added. The front and rear axles will be fixed, with the middle one allowed some vertical movement controlled by a simple wire spring.

 

Before going further with the chassis, I thought it would be good to get the coupling rods on. Here they are after laminating and fettling.

 

And on the wheels.

 

I'm pleased but not surprised to say, that the wheels turned without the slightest hint of a bind. So with that confirmed I removed the wheels and completed the soldering of the spacers. I then refitted the front and rear wheels, spaced them centrally with cut up strips of card, and soldered the bearings slightly proud of the frames. There is now minimal side play front and rear and no need for any axle washers. 

On the right hand frame there are two fold down brackets. The rear most one can be folded without problem, but as can be seen in the photos, the front one will foul the wheel if folded at 90 degrees. I need to check the instruction further on to suss out why that is.

 

As a parting shot I cut out and fettled up the frame for the cartazzi truck. 

 

I slotted in the truck to check the fit. It will need a little bit of fettling to get it sliding freely, but not much. Again the fit of the parts is excellent.

 

Cheers,

Peter

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Here's the chassis on test on a slight incline.

 

 

Cheers,

Peter

[DougN]

Pad, you really need to do something about the table! 

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Pad, you really need to do something about the table! 

The table's fine. It's the floor that slopes.

[david.hill64]

Here's the chassis on test on a slight incline.

 

https://youtu.be/2b2nMEx4f2M

 

 

 

Cheers,

Peter

I find it very satisfying when this happens. Great build as usual.

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Since  getting  the  chassis up and running, I have  now elongated the  middle  bearing holes and added the  springs. After re-assembling a further  test on the  "inclined table" showed that all is  still well and  it  still runs smoothly. With that sorted I have added the dummy horn block etchings  to the  inside of  the frames, and  the  front  lubricator rod fixing bracket  has been modified to clear the  wheel.

 

 

 

 

Next the  rear inner frame for  the cartazzi axle box was folded up and fitted to the  rear spacer.

 

 

 

And  with the  axle box fitted. It's held in place  with a  length of 0.8mm NS wire  which also offers some  degree of  side  control.

 

The  bogie splashers and  front sand boxes have  also been added, as have lengths of  1.8mm copper wire to represent the  middle sand box filler pipes.

 

 

Here are the  rear outside frames and  drag box under preparation. The  frames need the  rivets punching and then bending to shape.

 

The  text part of the  instructions are printed on A4 sheets folded into a  booklet so are  easy to handle. The  various diagrams (drawn to 7mm/ft scale) are on A3 sheets, so to avoid clutter  on the  workbench I tape  these  to the  wall during construction to keep them handy  but  out  of  the  way.

 

Cheers,

Peter

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I have now added the splayed out framing to the rear of the chassis. I managed to bend and fit the the left hand side first time, but the right hand one needed two or three corrections to get it to fit correctly. The two sides are identical so that was down to me not the part. Once the sides were on, the remaining spacer/drag box was fitted.

 

And with the axlebox keeps fitted.

 

And a view from the rear. The spring that holds the cartazzi slider in place and gives some side control can be seen.

 

I switched back to the tender as I wanted to see if I could make the buffers self contained as outlined by Mickoo on one of his threads. I felt the biggest challenge would be to drill vertically through the buffer head accurately. This proved to be the case as although I have a vertical drill stand for the mini drill, the machine vice I have would not hold the buffer dead vertical. So I went to plan B which involved a compromise by moving the buffer inwards slightly as suggested in the instructions. Fortunately I had a spare pair of buffers so was able to press on.

 

First the buffer beam holes were elongated with a round file and the buffer modified as below.

 

Next the spigot on the buffer housing was cut off and filed flush, and the retaining nut had a flat filed on to it.

 

The nut can be held with a finger whilst the buffer head is screwed in. The flat on the nut then slides on the inside of the tender frame when the head is compressed . Here they are after fitting.

 

The steam heating and brake pipe are provided as coil springs, but I don't like them so I made my own from suitable brass tube.

 

First the coil effect is made by adding a thread using an 8BA die. Then I anneal the tube to aid bending. In this case the bore of the tube was too small to fit on the spigot on the brake swan neck and steam heating valve, so had to be drilled out to widen the diameter.

 

The brake pipe was soldered to the top spigot after the bottom one had been cut off. I then bent in at the bottom and soldered it to the lower fixing. The steam heating pipe had to be drilled at both ends as there is casting for the joint at the bottom which has a loop for the storage chain. The chain was made from twisted copper wire.

 

And a closer view.

 

Moving back to the loco frames I thought I'd complete the detailing on the cartazzi frames. Here are the parts after preparing. 14 etched parts, 2 cast NS and 2 WM castings, so it was quite a while before I needed to fire up the iron.

 

I added the steps and the tiny etched rivet strips first, cleaned up then added the axlebox. This latter item has a mounting spigot on the rear which locates in a hole in the frame, so I was able to solder it in place with 145 from the rear. This makes cleaning up easier as you can give it some stick with the scraper without risking any damage to the casting. The spigot needs to be filed flush to avoid fouling the trailing wheel. Afterwards the springs/hangers were added. These are only soldered at the shackles at the bottom of the hangers. There is a central spigot that locates in the top of the axlebox and I will run some super glue in later. Finally the "U" shaped safety brackets for the springs were added.

 

Here's a view from the underside.

 

To complete this area, the front lower firebox was added, along with the boiler drain/wash out tap casting. The corner wash out plugs are made from 1mm square rod.

 

Here's the tap and wash out plugs on the right hand side. On the left there are only the two wash out plugs.

 

 

Cheers,

Peter

Edited February 24, 2018 by PAD

[david.hill64]

The Finney kits are rather nice aren't they!

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Hi David,

Yes, they certainly  do what it  says on the tin!

Cheers,

Peter

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First up was a correction to the left hand trailing axlebox spring. I noted in one of the earlier photos that it was not seated correctly in the box.

 

Then on with the driving wheel springs which are 3 part etched laminates. I've seen some builds where these have been replaced with cast items from Ragstone or Hobbyhorse, as they are a bit lacking as the come. However, I decided with a little modification they would be OK. Here's one prepared ready to fit, with the three laminates next to it.

 

As can be seen, the retaining nuts on the shackles are represented on the etchings which is the main deficit in the parts. After laminating, I filed off the "nuts" when cleaning up. Here are the first 3 fitted to the left hand side.

 

After fitting all 6, I then drilled a shallow hole into the base of each shackle , and soldered in a short length of 14 BA bolt and a nut. Here they are after cleaning up.

 

I think they are more than acceptable tucked away behind the wheels. I scored a line just above the shackle on each hanger to represent the joint.

 

Next the break rigging.

 

The hangers, shoes, cross beams and pull rods are made up from half etch lamination so are a bit one dimensional. I thought about replacing these with Ragstone cast items, but decided to save the cash and see what I could make of the etchings.

 

The connecting pins for the brake blocks and pull rods are represented by punch out rivets. I thought that drilling these out and replacing with brass rod would go a long way to improving the appearance.

 

Here are the hangers and shoes ready for fitting. The small etchings are the hanger brackets.

 

The cross beams and pull rods require 18 holes to be drilled, so are more time consuming. As the pull rods are only half etched they are very thin, so I decided to beef them up by laminating lengths of brass strip to the upper edges. Here they are after laminating the cross beams. The top left pull rod already has a length of brass strip soldered in place on the side touching the mat.

 

 

Here's a view from the other side with the added strip now bottom left. Before laminating the pull rods, I drilled out the rivets on this side. Afterwards I drilled all the way through to fit the 0.7mm rod for the connecting pins.

 

The whole unit was placed on a length of wood, and the pins added one at a time after drilling into the wood through each hole.

 

After soldering, the pins were snipped to the same length using a simple "gauge" bottom right in this photo. It's just a suitable thickness of waste etch with a hole drilled near the end to fit over the rod. Then push down tight and snip with side cutters.

 

Here they are all snipped to length but not yet cleaned up.

 

After cleaning up the unit was carefully prised out of the wood, snipped on the other side and cleaned up.

 

I think it's a big improvement and will pass muster when viewed from normal viewing angles.

 

Here it is all fitted.

 

To complete the brake rigging I made some L shaped brackets to fit over the pivot rods on the front and middle brakes.

 

And added the front pull rods, cranks and brake cylinders. Not sure if the cylinders will foul the bogie wheels, but will find that out later.

 

I've checked and found that I can get the wheels in and out past the brakes, even set relatively close to the wheels.

 

As the chassis is now well advanced, I decided to move on to the running plate for a bit of a change.

 

Here are the valances prepared for folding on the integral jig.

 

The rear of the valance is folded inwards before folding up the drag beam. It needs to be curved so I sanded a suitable piece of wood to the radius on the drawing to assist making the bend.

 

The folded assembly.

 

And after adding the running plate.

 

The state of play so far.

 

I picked up some cast bogie springs plus the injectors from Ragstone at Kettering yesterday. Surprisingly these parts were not included by MF, but from speaking to the F7 boys learned that the springs will be when they reintroduce the kit. The injectors are mostly hidden behind the rear frames under the cab, but my Acme A4 has them so I'm not leaving them off this baby!

 

Cheers,

Peter

Edited March 4, 2018 by PAD

[Horsetan]

Lovely.

[Petebe]

Hi Peter

 

Got to say what a great build, as per.

 

Sorry I missed you at Kettering, was looking forward to meeting you and the Duchess. 

 

Pete

[Horsetan]

Loads of transferable methods for the 4mm version here too.

[DougN]

Why Horse, is this getting the soldering iron itchy? By the above it sounds like you have the time and inclination to open that green box and have a go! 

 

Must admit sitting here at work reading and looking at the great work that PAD is doing is making me want to finish the V2 I started years ago! Well the tender is finished....the boiler rolled and the foot plate has been started but not final tweeked to the right profile. 

[Horsetan]

Why Horse, is this getting the soldering iron itchy? By the above it sounds like you have the time and inclination to open that green box and have a go! .....

 

It's already open, and some prep work was done ages ago. Biggest problem was getting hold of clear photos of Flying Scotsman's bare frames, as I didn't want to put rivets in the wrong place.

[Nimbus]

Biggest problem was getting hold of clear photos of Flying Scotsman's bare frames, as I didn't want to put rivets in the wrong place.

Hey! That's my excuse!!

 

The Nim.

 

(Now we have to worry whether Riley's added or removed what was there from BR days...)

[DougN]

I thought that they would have been fully welded now doing away with all the problems....   then again I thought that there was a A3 shape under a tarp out the back of Riles that is marked for scrap....