Highland Bodgery

[uax6]

Being a HR fan and in the hope that one-day I'll have space for a layout of the HR main line set in the '20's and '30's I need to make a start on getting some locos sorted. I've got some ebay Banking tanks that are slowly getting a make-over to get them at least square (!) and to add some decent trailing bogies, and these will be making appearances on here every now and again, but the idea of this thread is (hopefully) to show that the art of bodgery is not dead!

For the era mentioned above I need some Crabs, Black Fives, Rivers, Castles, Clans, Jones Goods and Lochs. The Crabs are covered by the old Lima ones (I've had two for years, not bad looking, but those flanges need sorting!) and the Fives by the old tender drive Hornby models (again that will need some work at some point). The rest are going to have to be made, but as I'm no metalworker I'll be doing it the old fashioned way... Getting a chassis and building around that.

Now Ebay is very dangerous, I've managed to get, for pennies, some triang B12 chassis and five 2-6-2T chassis. These will be the basis for the builds! The driving wheels are triang B12 steam roller stylies which are roughly about the correct size for all the above HR classes, give or take a mm here or there. The motors will be the XO4's that fit the chassis (we've all got some in use haven't we?).

 

The reference materials will be the odd article that has appeared in MRC or RM plus Peter Tatlows book on HR Engines, which gives drawings of all the locos, and the two part 'Locos of the Highland Railway' by the RCTS.

 

Don't get too excited about rapid progress on the construction of the fleet, as I'm going to use this thread as a work in real time progress and as my modelling time and budget are limited, it may not get updated very often, but I hope that it will act as insperation to all those too freightened to tackle an expensive kit, and show that you too can have a model that will work at the end of the day (Have many kits are out there that don't run for some chassis constructional reason?) without having to spend a fortune.

 

Andy G

 

[micknich2003]

I was not a "Metalworker" until I tried it. Give it a go, you will be surprised with what you can achieve. Mick.

[uax6]

To give an idea of some of the components here are some piccys:

 

The triang 2-6-2T chassis, stripped of its bits:

 

The triang B12 wheelsets, seen from behind. The one on the right is the insulated one (minus it's central insulating bush) before a visit to a lathe. The one on the left is the uninsulated one after the first visit to the lathe to turn down the flange and to make the back-to-back closer to 14.5mm. The tyre still needs bonding back on and the front overlap of the tyre removing. (I'll give a blow by blow account of this later):

 

The effect of the reprofiling on the above two wheelsets:

 

Andy

 

[Ben Alder]

Very interesting- nothing wrong with a bit of bodging- my modelling career has been based around it and without a blending of R-T-R chassis and kit bodies wouldn't be where I am today, and for a period where it is most unlikely for there even to be that option, then scratchbuilding is the only way forward. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with much of the old Triang range as a basis for this, and improving the wheel profile will sort out most of the problems arising from coarser standards. And it is "proper" modelling to boot- no waiting for the latest release here!; Look forward to more in this thread.

[uax6]

Other things are being collected for use in this collection of interesting modelling, lengths of 20mm conduit are available for boilers, there is a stack of 10 and 20 thou plasticard, a fresh bottle of plastic weld, odds and ends of valve gear and other bits that are kicking around.

 

The present job is to finish the wheel reprofiling, while I've got access to a lathe, I want to have them all done in one hit (thats 26 pairs). Today I spent about 2 hours turning 17 wheels. I also made up a holder to allow the insulated side to be held tightly to allow the tyres to be turned up. I'm not due back there tomorrow, but will hopefully be back on Thursday, so I'll take my camera and get some 'action' shots. I was surprised how I got into a rythmn.

 

I'm going to have to secure the rims in their new location with some sort of epoxy, loctite or araldite, which sadly will remove the electric path through the un-insulated side (Does anyone know if plastic metal conducts?) so will probably have to have pick-ups on both sides of the drivers.....

 

If you have any of these B12 wheels kicking around in your spares box, is there any chance I could have them please? I'm in need of at least 12 more pairs of flanged wheels!

 

The chassis has been measured up, and it looks like it will have to run backwards, with the motor pointing forwards into the boiler, so that the cab is clear. The wheelbase is a bit of a compromise (The whole build will have compromises!) but as it will only be about 2mm, I don't consider this to be a problem.

 

As for the front bogie I have some new Hornby M7 bogies in stock, which are lovely as they have pick-ups on both sides, just add some wires and Bob's your Uncle!

 

Andy

[uax6]

I've been at the lathe again today, and discovered I hadn't taken the camera with me! Anyway I brought the mandarel home so you can have a piccy of it:

 

 

I used it today to turn the first of the insulated side up. Having got them home and put them together on an axle and tried them on some SMP track, with the flanges set to the turned down rear of the wheels. Umm, that's not quite right, sits too far out (guess correct for EM), so the tyres will have to be pulled back onto the rims a bit. Doh!

I'll have to sit down with a ruler and work out how far they sit back, so that I can correct it on the ones that remain to be turned.

This piccy shows what I mean:

 

 

Now time for a guest appearance or two, yeap it's those Struan Bankers. These two are Sutherland Kits, bought on Ebay last year. The Green one is put together with araldite, and as the photos below show, it's not square!

 

 

And here is a picture of the bogie and it's M7 replacement

 

As you can see, the original has tiny wheels which are not the correct size, whereas the Hornby M7 replacement has the correct size wheels, correct wheelbase and more importantly pickups!

 

My other one is in the middle of being repaired, it arrived with the front end in dire need of 'doing something with'. It is put together with superglue, so it has had the front removed. I discovered that the smokebox had been put on back to front! This will be corrected on reassembly. It is being stripped of it's paint as I type, but it will keep its number 15307 but will be in lined LMS red (I'm going to have to practised with a lining pen for this.) The other one might stay HR green.

 

 

Andy

[Portchullin Tatty]

Andy,

 

If you are pulling apart wheels, it is quite important to get the back to pack settings correct when you reassemble them.  You will struggle with running through pointwork if you don't; even in OO.

 

The best way would be use a back to back gauge but the rather old chassis you are using might not quite match a more modern gauge.  As you are obviously proficiant with a lathe you can quite easily make one?

 

One further point to take care of when reassembling wheels is to get them square onto the axle.  Otherwise you will find gauge correct at one point and wrong at another.  You can get wheelpresses but using a vice and making sure things are square prior to squeezing the vice closed and thus pushing the wheel onto the axle is a pretty good technique.

 

Good luck with the banking tank they are rather fine beasties; I take it you have found mine on my thread?  I think I have some prototype photos of these that I can publish - I will hunt around over the weekend as I do intend to get back to my banking tank soon.  If per chance there are more than one safety valve bonnet in your assortment of kits, I would welcome a spare as the castings in my kit were right rubbish!

Edited February 7, 2013 by Portchullin Tatty

[uax6]

The wheel turning (which is taking an age, but then I am trying to get them all turned at once so that I get in the flow) is almost complete now. I've decided to remove the internal boss so that the wheels can be moved further up the axle so that I can have thinner flanges and the tyres can be pushed on square to the back of the wheel. I've only done three pairs so far, just to check that it will work. I will have to shorten the axles, but that shouldn't be too difficult. The insulated side rim has been put back on with varnish to stick it in place. For the uninsulated side I intend to mix some metal filings into the varnish, so hopefully they won't become insulated too!

 

I've also started to mod the 2-6-2T chassis, buy drilling a new axle hole to bring the wheelbase closer together. You can see the new hole on the right:

 

And a before and after shot of the wheelbase:

 

The old hole will be filled with araldite later. I'm going to start planing the cuts to the chassis this week.

 

 

I've also done some more work to the banker...

 

The smokebox front plate needs filing down to fit the smokebox. The front end looks much better now. I'll have to do some filling, but the next thing is going to be the rear bogie, which I'm looking forward too. I also need to find a pair of steps for the front footplate, anyone got any spare?

 

Andy

 

 

[uax6]

I started to build the rear bogie mounting for the banker last night. So I think it's time to have a look at my method. I can't add photos at the minute, but I have taken some which I'll add when I'm not in work.

 

Firstly I use the modern Hornby M7/T9 bogie. It's the correct wheelbase for most HR locos, and has the correct size wheels too. It comes complete with a coil spring for forcing it down onto the track, and a long pin that has a push fit collar for securing it in place. Most importantly it has pick-ups on both sides, which will make a big improvement to the running.

 

Now what is a bogie for on a loco? Mainly it is there to carry weight, to allow longer boilers and also to guide the loco into curves. Now as part of the guiding function they are mounted on a pivot, this pivot is usually somewhere near the center of the bogie (some HR locos had offset bogie pivots, usually towards the rear of the bogie.). Now imagine your loco is just like the Banker, so it has a fixed coupled wheelbase of 15' 6" plus a 6' 6" bogie wheelbase. The gap between the trailing coupled wheel and the leading bogie wheel is 5' 3". (it might help to draw this out on a piece of paper!) With the bogie pivot in the center of the bogie, the effective wheelbase is 27' 3". Ok there is a little bit of flex on the bogie and mabye some sideplay in the drivers, but try getting that wheelbase around a tight corner. (cut your paper to the overall dimension and on another sheet draw a curve, and see what the effect is of trying to follow the curve. It doesn't quite work does it?)

 

This is where bogie sideplay comes in. Having even 6" of sideplay on the bogie reduces the total fixed wheelbase. Now cut your wheelbase paper so that the bogie is detatched. Place the main wheelbase on the curve and now add the bogie at a scale 6" offset. You'll see that it goes around a much sharper curve. So how do we recreate this in model form?

 

Well Hornby (and others) have used the 'drag link' which interposes two pivots between the coupled wheels and the bogie. This works very well, and allows your average loco to goe round a right angle corner. Sadly this method stopsone of the main functions of the bogie, it now no longer guides the fixed coupled wheels into the curve. For a good demonstation of this has a look at Ben Alders blog here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/62/entry-3478-kyleskus-black-fives/ which also shows a method of getting that arrangement to do some work.

 

In reality the bogie itself will have a sliding center with springs to make sure that the center always returns to the mid point of the bolster. Heres a piccy of a BR standard one :http://britanniabuilder.com/GCRvisit2.htm Note that leaf springs are also used for this purpose. These springs are Bogie Side Control Springs.

 

So that leads to what I do in model form. As the bogie on the Banker has a pivot pin, the frames require a hole. I drill one just the correct size so that the pivot moves freely, but without any forward/backwards slop. I then mark up 2mm either side of the edge of the hole (that not front to back, but side to side) and file out sidewides to that mark, but making sure that the hole doesn't enlarge back to front. This is the amount of side play the bogie is allowed.

 

Now for the control springs. I use .45mm brass handrail wire. These are bent to cross the pivot hole so that when the bogie pivot is in place you can lift them over the pivot and they will push the pin towards the center line. (The photos will make this clearer, trust me!) all very simple, and it works nicely too!

 

Andy

[uax6]

As promised last night here are some photos of what I am prattling on about:
 
Firstly a couple of pictures showing the rear bogie on the banker:


 
The bogie looks at home under the bunker, it seems to be a tad too big, but I get the feeling that the loco is a couple of mm's short in the body. The second image above shows the swing (and sideplay) as it goes round a curve.
 

This picture shows the frame of the loco. You can see the slotted hole that pivot pin of the bogie fits in. Note that the slot is only side to side, no front to back play wanted here. Also to be seen are the side control springs. Note how they cross over each other. When you put the bogie in place these two are lifted over the pin so that they do not cross each other and instead bear against the pin.
 

A not very useful shot, but does show the Hornby coil spring which is used to push the bogie down onto the track.
 

This is an end shot showing the side control springs in there final positions. The retaining ring at the top of the pivot is quite useful as it stops the side control springs from jumping over the top of the pivot.
 

This shows the springs in their plastikard retainer. This is just superglued to the frames and body. The springs actually are continuous, they 'loop' through the plastikard.
 

This is a better shot of the arrangement shown on my Clan chassis (one day I'll finish it!).
 

This is the underside of the Clan, showing the springs in their normal position, note they are not crossed.
 
Andy
 
Edited to put the correct photos in!

Edited February 14, 2013 by uax6

[uax6]

Moving away from the Bankers for a post, I've cut down the old triang 2-6-2T chassis to give me the bare bones of the Castle chassis this morning. It's quite a chop job as you can see:

 

Before:

 

After:

 

Sadly with most things life is a compromise and for the Castle (and for most of the locos I'm going to build) I've had to make a choice between cab details or daylight under the boiler. I took the Cab details. This forces the triang chassis to a life of running backwards, with the motor pointing towards the smokebox. This suits me as I can then fill the back of the boiler with steel to give some weight over the coupled wheels. Until I have started cutting the boiler I'm not sure if the XO4 will be able to be retained, as I'm not sure how tight it will be against the inside of the boiler. This may well involve a slight lift to the boiler, but hopefully that won't spoil the character any, we'll see.

 

The un-insulated wheels tyres were mounted this morning too, using some of the filings that came from the sawing. This was mixed with varnish and the tyres pressed home. I'm hoping the filings will keep the electrical continunity.

 

Progress is slow, but steady at the minute. I'm going to be making three Castles, so this one is very much a prototype to see how things fit. I'll then duplicate for the other two. I'd rather cock one up than all three!

 

Andy

Edited February 15, 2013 by uax6

[Castle]

Hi Andy,

 

I am glad to hear about all these Castles you are going to build but I can't fathom why Mr Collett's finest would be in the Highlands and not on the GWR...*

 

On a more sensible note, this and the sort of hack and slash to get what you want really appeals to me - the ability to see the finished item in your head in something else already built is quite a skill and I always enjoy reading this type of thread. Kit and RTR bash away good sir!

 

All the best,

 

Castle

 

*I do know really and I can't help but feel I am going to be slightly disappointed in the prototype choice but the modelling will more than make up for that!

[uax6]

There will be no polished copper locos in Scotland!   Funny enough I have taken delivery of 6 pairs of Hornby Castle weels for my HR Rivers, but they will be a couple of years off at least!

 

It's going to be a long slog to get to the end (I haven't even thought about the tenders yet, I wonder what the LSWR water carts are like dimensionally to the HR versions...... Anyone got one they can measure for me please?) but hopefully once the chassis is complete the rest is just plastic hacking!

 

I may get the footplate mocked up tomorrow, good old cornflake packets!

 

I hope that you will stay with me for the long haul, and don't be afriad to tell me where I'm going wrong, or to point out stuff about motors or castings etc, I'm open to use anything from anyone bit's box!

 

A flattered Andy G

[Portchullin Tatty]

 

I am glad to hear about all these Castles you are going to build but I can't fathom why Mr Collett's finest would be in the Highlands and not on the GWR...*

 

 

I dare say this would make you smirk............................I am afraid Mr Collet's finest have infiltrated the west coast of the highlands already!

 

 

This is the sign coming into Strathcarron from the west..............it made me shudder!

 

 

Edited February 17, 2013 by Portchullin Tatty

[sixteen 12by 10s]

I dare say this would make you smirk............................I am afraid Mr Collet's finest have infiltrated the west coast of the highlands already!

 

DSC_0477.jpg

 

This is the sign coming into Strathcarron from the west..............it made me shudder!

i must of driven past that sign umpteen times and never noticed, i suppose, the nearest thing to a western engine that got that far was D1015 a few years ago, waiting now for the photo of a pannier tank at Kyle!

 

Gary

[Castle]

I dare say this would make you smirk............................I am afraid Mr Collet's finest have infiltrated the west coast of the highlands already!

 

This is the sign coming into Strathcarron from the west..............it made me shudder!

Hi Mark,

 

Seeing such lovely Western engines sends a tingle down my spine too - brilliant aren't they?

 

It is annoying when people don't do their homework on these things though - they could have only done worse historically by making it a picture of a Union Pacific Big Boy! That being said, there is a Scottish driver at 81E who is a HUGE Western fan - perhaps the Clan Swindon is making inroads in the highlands? As I have said before on this forum however, steam is steam, no matter where it comes from - thankfully there are still enough of them around in all sorts of different shapes, heritage and sizes for us all to enjoy and where they didn't make it, their memory can be kept alive by us miniature makers.

 

All the best,

 

Castle

[Sandy Harper]

i must of driven past that sign umpteen times and never noticed, i suppose, the nearest thing to a western engine that got that far was D1015 a few years ago, waiting now for the photo of a pannier tank at Kyle!

 

Gary

There are plenty of photo's of GWR Pannier tanks on the far north line when they were sent to Helmsdale to cover for the failed local ex Highland engines!! Not sure about brass bonnets though.

Sandy

Edited February 18, 2013 by Sandy Harper

[sixteen 12by 10s]

Andy, sorry we have gone of on a tangent, from the original thread. I was aware that panniers escaped up the far north line, but Mark (Mr Tatty) now that you have proved by your own photographic evidence that such brass toped creations traveled on the Kyle line, when do we expect to see one at Portchulin, or will you use the old excuse that the Highland fuel is the wrong kind of coal.

 

Gary

[uax6]

Today I took the opportunity of there being a saturday service in work (well it is saturday you know!) and managed to make a bit of progress on the Castle.

 

The footplate was cut:

 

And I made a start on the boiler. As this needed a cut out to clear the motor this was done as below, firstly chain drilled in the correct place:

 

Then opened out:

 

Then the edges thinned:

 

I found that to work out where the motor would be I needed to cut into the top of the boiler:

This wasn't as drastic as it seemed, as it allows me to see what is going on at the top, and it can be covered over with a wrap of 5thou card.

 

Inside view:

 

View sat on the frames and motor:

 

View along showing the sticky out bits:

 

Sadly the XO4 didn't allow the boiler to sit low enough, so I got out the modern B12 replacement motor:

 

After removing the top of the cast block at the outer end and modding the chassis a bit so that it fitted, the result was better:

 

The top view of how it fits:

 

On the way home I thought about what the result would be if I turned the chassis the correct way round and used the new motor, with the cast retainer block replaced with mastic. This would allow the motor to be hidden in the firebox and still not intrude into the cab. This will allow the daylight to be visable under the boiler. It will still be tight around the top of the firebox, but by wrapping around with 5 thou I will be able to get a nice smooth side into the lower firebox fabric. I'll have a play tomorrow (on a Sunday Timetable!) and see what I come up with.

 

When I got home I discovered this waiting for me:

Many thanks to 'Ben Alder' for this! Funny enough the tank is pretty much spot on for a HR one, the main difference being the wheelbase, the tank filler, the tool boxes, and the handbrake wheel. Sadly I now have to make the rest of the Castle match this. I'm not sure I can!

 

Andy G

 

 

 

Edited February 23, 2013 by uax6

[uax6]

The Sunday service has allowed some work to happen.

 

I have dismantled the new motor braket, removing the weight/motor support, this brings the beast down to roughly half the XO4 length, and so loosing it in the firebox looks quite easy (famous last words there!), I still need to remove the bottom bit of the bracket and to chop the chassis again but the result was this:

 

So with this in mind a new footplate was constructed:

 

I then started on the boiler (again!). This was yet another length of 20mm plastic electrical conduit (I have enough to make about 600 boilers I think!). It was cut to an over sized length, which can be adjusted later.

It was then slotted to clear the motor and again I cut holes in the top so that I could get it to sit down as low as the real thing:

 

 

This left the problem of the boiler being 2mm too thin. So a quick wrap with 10thou plasticard shown that the size would become about correct showed the way forward. As I was concerned that plasticweld wouldn't bond to both the PVC and the styrene, I decided to make sure that the sheet was a nice tight fit. To that end another short length of tube was cut and the sheet wrapped around it with insulation tape (I found that in the back of the van!) and then dropped into my tea mug, with boiling water poured over the lot:

 

After leaving for about 10 mins or so, the result was a nice matching curved piece of sheet. This was then slipped over the boiler shell, after that had been flooded with plasticweld. It was then bound again to set.

 

For the smokebox I did exactly the same thing, and glued it to the front of the boiler (over the top of the other sheet).

 

For the firebox end I decided that to get a flowing shape, I could do it in one hit, so this time an oversized sheet was cut, put into my mug and boiled to make soft:

 

It was then taken out and glued to the boiler and then bound to get it to stick. with the bindings removed it looked like:

 

I then put the frame in and clipped it up with a bulldog clip to harden up again:

 

I ran out of time then!

 

So not much done, but hopefully a bit further on, and begining to have the shape of a loco a bit now.

 

I need to re-drill the chassis, and get the wheels sorted (and order a 40:1 gearset for it) so that I can see if the thing might run!

 

Andy

Edited February 24, 2013 by uax6

[aberdare]

Hi Andy

 

It's been a while since I last looked in on here and I am impressed by what you have achieved so far, I love all the Kit/RTR bashing stuff as I did a bit many years ago and have some more to do so I will be following what you do and how you did it, I might need to know.

 

Iv'e started to follow it now so I don't forget again.

 

Jim

[Portchullin Tatty]

What livery do you propose to do this in?  I see from your embankment thread you have the big period 1 sleeper, so it is obvious in LMS days - red or black?

 

Mine will be going in red and I intend to get back onto it tomorrow, so I will put some pictures up either tomorrow night or in the week.

[ChrisN]

Andy,

I am reading this and thinking, 'Perhaps I could build a small Seagull'  (Cambrian and Furness Railways small Sharp Stewart 4-4-0).  I will look out for some drawings.  Not sure I will ever have anything to run it on.

 

Chris

[uax6]

I'm going to put this Castle in LMS red, but at the moment I'm not sure what colour the other two will go....

 

Chris, I have in my archive a scan of two FR Pettigrew 4-4-0 (built by Sharp Stewart) and Cambrian 4-4-0's. Would you like a copy? (PM me please).

 

I've not forgotten about the build, I've been working out what castings are available, and have realised that the Struan Bankers chimney and dome are pretty good matches for Castle ones. All I need to do now is work out how to make a mould and cast them!

 

Andy

[Castle]

I'm going to put this Castle in LMS red, but at the moment I'm not sure what colour the other two will go....

Hi Andy,

 

Ironically something that could have happened to my sort of Castle in real life!

 

I'll get my GWR coat...

 

All the best,

 

Castle