Highland Bodgery

[uax6]

Todays installment is cab related, I took a T9 cab into work and put it against the plans, but sadly the splasher shape isn't correct, so out with the 20thou sheet and some careful measuring, from both the drawing, the model and the T9 watercart tender (which will be the Castles tender after suitable mods) produced this:

 

I got a shock from lining up the tender with the model, the tender sat 2mm lower than the loco. But with reference to the drawing I discovered that the tender is at fault, the HR version sits higher up, so that can be corrected to match the loco later.

 

 

After checking again (and I've probably still got it wrong!) I cut the side sheet out:

 

(note the old red Hornby wheel, used to get the curves on the splasher)

 

I next laid this sheet on top of the T9 cab so you could see the difference in shape:

 

 

Then mass production started. The template was lain on the sheet of 20 thou and drawn round, this gives two basic shapes, but too large. I laminated them all together and then filed them to the same shape, finally splitting them off when done:

 

 

Then I measured where they should sit on the running plate and bingo:

 

 

Then I started the cab front, that was measured out and drawn on the 20 thou sheet again, the holes for the windows being made by filing them out to shape (not easy making a round hole!), and then I thought about the frames. Colin Parks (and his amazing southern EMU builds (what you've not seen them, go and check them out straight away)) makes any amazing array of little bits and bobs out of plasticard, so I thought I would have a go too. I used some 5 thou sheet, and marked out the circle 1mm larger than the hole in the front. Filed it to be a circle, and have stuck it over the hole (somewhere near concentric with the hole underneath!). It's been stick in place and left to harden overnight, so today I will be opening it out. Fingers crossed!

 

 

Lastly a shot of the motor in the cab situation, it's not bad, the shorty Hornby motor is in the boiler, but the mounting is still in the cab, this will have to be removed soon, so a strip down of the chassis will take place soon:

 

I looked at the WON (weekly operating notice) for next weekend, and noticed that we have single line working, so that probably puts paid to some building on this, but we'll see.

 

Andy

 

 

[uax6]

Another day, another bit of progress. I don't seem to make much headway, but anything done is a bit less to do.

 

I started by opening out the windows, the result is quite pleasing, but maybe a little on the thick side. I'm sure Colin would take them off and do them again, but I'm not so daring. Maybe I'll kick myself later on, I'm not sure!

 

 

I then filled in the coupling rod splashers, 5 thou plasticard again (to get the bend). Tricky and fiddly, an hour alone was taken up with these!

 

 

Then I did something which I should have done days ago, I put the valance underneath the footplate on. You will note that it is straight at present, thats because until I get the chassis sorted I don't know what the height of the footplate will be, and therefore the depth of the bufferbeam and therefore the curve behind it. This was just two striaght bits of 10thou by 1mm:

 

 

At this point I put the boiler on to see where we were at (I cemented the front of the cab in at this point too I think!) :

 

 

Then I attempted to put the tops on the front of the cab splashers. Tricky to measure, as I didn't quite know how to cut around the boiler, so I've left them wide, to be shaped later on. 5 thou again:

 

 

Today I'm going to either make some lock-up safety valves, or cut the chassis up again!

 

Andy

[uax6]

Strange day in work yesterday, didn't feel quite myself, but sat down to get some work done on the chassis. I cut a slot in the rear of the chassis block to take a tang from the footplate, the first stage in getting rid of the lump in the cab.

 

The first shot is a reminder of the state of the block before this second set of cutting:

 

The slot cut and the tag added:

 

Then I went hunting for some cast backheads that I knew I had in my locker in work, they took and hour to find and the enforced tidy-up cost the rest of the modelling time and after all that they aren't big enough!

 

Never mind, this morning I have found a bit of time (after tightening up the tie-bar on the Moggy Van, it rattles enough with loose bits adding to it!), so the chassis was measured and screwed to a piece of wood (the chopping block for the fire) so that cutting could start.

Firstly the front of the block was made level, so that the footplate could be made level under the boiler:

 

Then the block was repositioned so that the rear could be attacked. The overhang was removed first:

 

I tried the motor bracket in and that gave this shape:

 

Next I cut back the wedge on top a bit more, so that it would be infront of the position for the back head:

 

Then it was the motor brackets turn to be shortened:

 

Giving an overall shape of:

 

In all about 7 grams of weight has been lost. The new boiler weighs about 15 grams and I have quite a bit of space to stuff that with lead, so should should still be able to pull something (I hope she will be a good runner and puller after all this effort. Need to get as much lead as I can in the cab area, so the backhead might be stuffed with sheet lead to help along a bit.

 

Hopefully the surgery will not have gone wrong, so now I can start with the cab details, and I must sort out the boiler fit soon too!

 

Andy

Edited April 16, 2013 by uax6

[uax6]

When I got to work I got on with chassis work. As the thing was apart I thought that one of the first jobs to do would be to file the oil filler down on the con-rods from the pistons from the rediculous Hornby sized lumps:

 

I then filed down the backs of the pins that go through the middle driving wheels, so that they would sit closer to the rear of the drivers. As they where a slight sloppy fit (note to self, don't drill them out next time!) I superglued them in (and almost glued my left hand up to, got to that just in time!), left to set and then reassembled the motion:

 

Then to get the footplate at the right height I added some plasticard at the front to pack it against the 'new' cut down chassis:

 

And at the rear spaced the tag down by 10thou, so that the coupling rods clear the footplate:

 

The overall effect is to left the body up slightly higher than it should be, but not noticably so:

 

Then I removed the 5 thou bits infront of the cab, as I now want to get the boiler inplace and add them after. The boiler, well the firebox part of it, is a pain to get lined up both hieght wise and centrally, so although I took the photo so it looks like it's fitted, it's not. That will be done on the next day I can spend on it, which happens to be on the weekend. Single line working isn't going to happen, so I get both Saturday and Sunday (hopefully) with no trains, so I should be able to get on a bit.

 

 

Andy

 

[jessy1692]

Great bit of 'proper' moddeling going on here, right up my street this!

looking forward more updates Andy

all the best

james

[Portchullin Tatty]

It is certainly looking like a castle!

 

Here are some pictures of castles that will be free of copyright:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Colin parks]

Hi Andy,

 

Just been catching up on your excellent and interesting plasticard loco build.  

 

There are a couple of tips that might help you:

 

This first one is a thechnique that was used by Mike Peascod when bending plastic sheet.  Brush enough solvent to dampen the surface on the inside face of the piece to be curved.  Once touch-dry, the bending can take place.  Mike Peascod used this mostly for the forming of coach side tumblehomes (for this, amazingly, he used his fingers to manipulate the plastic), but it would be equally effective on splasher tops etc.  I take my hat off to you in using 5 thou. sheet, I just can't get on with it.   I tend to view anything less than 20 thou. as untrustworthy in its stability unless laninated!

 

The other thing that came to mind was for the specacle plate round bezels or whatever they are called (as in post #52), you could gently sand them down if you find them too thick.  It is much easier to apply flat details made of 10 thou. sheet then sand down to the required thickness the wrestle with the 5thou. stuff. A pair of dividers can be useful for forming circles of plastic sheet, digging one point into the sheet and rotating the dividers, using the 'free' point to scribe the circle.  Once the disc is attached and hardened, the dividers can be used again with the points reduced in span to scribe the inside edge of the 'ring', using the original centre mark to guarantee that the ring is concentric.

 

When you get to the painting stage, make sure there is a coat of paint on all plastic sufaces - inside ones wherever possible.  This should help avoid any tendency of the plastic to 'bow'.

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[uax6]

Colin,

 

The 5 thou for the cab front ones I wasn't happy with, so will probably go back to 10 thou, and try Mikes tip. Sounds like a good one. The Bezels actually worked quite nicely, and i found 5 thou quite easy to work with for that, The thickness I was referring to was the in the circular instead of depth. They are a tad wide, maybe the next Castle will get thinner ones!

 

The dividers trick is one that didn't occur to me. I'll have to see if I can find my old Rotaring set.

 

Thanks

 

Andy

Edited April 19, 2013 by uax6

[Physicsman]

Great work Andy. This kind of thing isn't in my realm at all, but excellent progress - more so as it's your first attempt at a project like this.

 

Jeff

[uax6]

Well with no trains to play with today, I've sat down to make progress on the Castle. Now because it's getting to the stage where details have to be considered, I have got out my copy of the RCTS Highland Locomotives Book 2, to find which loco was where, when. As I' intend to be modelling somewhere around the early years of the grouping upto when the first Hikers arrived, I'm using the 1935 LMS Allocation table in the Appendix (Also this is the earliest LMS one there is!).

 

Now as this is a Series 1 Castle, I see that 14677 (Dunrobin Castle)  and 14682 (Beaufort Castle) were at Aviemore, Inverness had 14675 (Taymouth Castle), 6 (Ballindalloch Castle),9 (Blair Atholl), 85 (Dunvegan Castle) and Perth had 14678 (Brahan Castle) and 84 (Duncraig Castle).

 

As I Quite like the name, and there is a picture of the old girl as the frontispiece in the book (in Lined LMS red) I'm going to do this one as 14682 Beaufort Castle. So I need to find the following fittings: Flat dome, short chimney (off a Big Ben) and a small westinghouse pump. This boiler has lock-ups too.

 

Andy

[uax6]

Results today:

 

I first of all started by making some brackets (which I didn't photograph) to hold the body square on the chassis. Temporary at the minute, until I build the chassis extensions. This allows the boiler to be fettled to get a square fit. The boiler was marked up for fittings and was also filled in the places I won't be able to get to later.

 

I marked up a front plate for the smokebox and fitted it to the boiler:

 

 

Which made the boiler look thus:

 

I could then see that the splashers could be finished now. So the inside uprights were made:

 

And then the splasher tops were added from 10thou, bent round as suggested by Colin (above) which worked really well:

 

Then with the boiler on:

 

So looking a bit more Castle like:

 

At this point I started to look at the cab, so made a back head (which I didn't take of) and started on the cab lockers/splashers:

 

Those lockers, and the false cab floor, look like good places to hide some lead, to help balance out the rear of the loco.

 

More tomorrow. Oh and to prove that I had no trains today:

 

 

Andy

Edited April 20, 2013 by uax6

[uax6]

Today has been another trainless one...... so no excuse for not doing some bodging!

 

So I got to work and did some metal work. In this case lead work, as I am hopeing that this thing will actually be able to pull something I though a bit of weight would help. So out with a sheet of lead and some cutters, file and hacksaw to fill the two cab lockers:

 

 

and the backhead:

 

The little piece shown with this goes under the false floor in the cab.

 

I then started to make other little details. Firstly another cylinder, as I suppose one of the next jobs will be fitting those:

 

Just a length of 10mm pipe with one end closed off, this will need drilling to take the (other) castle slidebars. This picture can also be used for the dome, only this time I closed the end off with 20thou (not 10).

 

The dome for this loco is a big, fat, flat one, something like this:

 

Again I packed it with lead:

 

And then cemented it in place. The boiler has had a bit more filler applied (to cover the over-long motor cut out).

 

I then rolled some lead to go in the boiler:

 

The tools to do so are shown, the spanner is my own that I use on the gates, the company supplied adjustable catches on the ironwork, so is more or less useless! In total there is about 5.5 onces of lead being added, so hopefully with the chassis block and the other weight of plastic she'll be ok.

 

I then went looking for bits to start the bogie at the front. Again I'm using a Hornby M7 / T9 one, as this has pickups, and a lovely spring to keep it on the track:

Needless to say the spring is tucked away until it is required!

 

Then I got distracted by something else I found:

 

 

And who could resist the charms of this little beast? I started it about 3 years ago, and couldn't work out why the buffers were at the wrong height, but looking again today the reason is that the terrier has the wrong sized wheels for a Brighton one, closer to the Lochgorm one, so I just need to pack the body up a bit and fit the buffer beams back again, oh and find the cab! This one might find itself being worked on in odd moments.

 

Amazing how much time can be filled doing little tasks that don't seem to get you any further forward, but still need doing.

 

Andy

Edited April 21, 2013 by uax6

[uax6]

Now I'm on early turns (which I find don't allow much modelling to be done) I thought I'd play with our wee friend from above.

 

Looking over what I had done I could see that there was still a lot left to do, and the added complication of the fact that I now have more info on the loco than I did when I started. Looking at the cab it was clear that the toolbox on the rear would have to go, but that then left the gap on the footplate. Looking at photos, the cab was at the rear of the frame, hard up to the bufferbeam. This lead to a couple of solutions:

 

1) lengthen the bunker

2) lengthen the boiler

3) re-make as 'Lochgorm' which had a reduced height section infront of the cab, reveiling the top of the boiler, and with a coal bunker on one side of it.

 

Option one I didn't like, as the photos show a really small bunker, option two was looked at seriously, but I think that the motor might catch on the mods, and when I did the original conversion I filled the top of the boiler down so that I could fit the tank top to it. So that left option 2, which would allow this conversion to continue in it's quick and dirty form.

 

The cab had the toolbox removed, and was then perched at the end of the footplate which relieved that only 5mm of extra tank was required. So the razor saw came out and removed the back head from the boiler, which was glued to the cab (note the square cab windows):

 

and then the extra tank area was constructed. At this point I took the opportunity to fill the extra space under the tank top with some lead, and I also put some more in the new bit of tank too:

 

This was then closed up and filler applied for the corners. The cab steps were cut off and relocated back under the cab doors. Giving a picture something like this (the filler needs to be filed down to allow everything to fit):

 

I've also primed the first banker:

which shows up the areas that need more filler and cleaning up (why is it always the bits that will be almost impossible to get to that need the most work?)

 

While I had the red oxide out I sprayed this wagon too:

This needs quite heavy work, the ironwork needs to be blackend, and the inside dirtied to show that it is a loco coal wagon, it will be fully lettered HR loco coal, but then distressed to show that it hasn't had a coat of paint for many a year. (I am modelling in the late 20's early 30's).

 

I though did occur to me about my second banker: It could become a G&SW 0-6-2T which was shedded at Blair Atholl in the 30's. Not much to chop about, just the cab doorway and the bunker. I wonder....

 

Andy

[uax6]

Today I have filed down the 'Wee Friend' and then applied more filler to build up (again!). The wheels have been filed and refilled too, so hopefully they will be ready to recieve their wire spokes next time. Heres some piccys of her sat on the train register:

 

 

I have started on the sloping smokebox front, but haven't take a photo yet.

 

When I got home I did some more on the wagon, the black being applied, and the inside has had a brown added, which will get weathered to a coaley colour at some point:

 

Just noticed that I've missed a bit of red on the axleguard, but that will get weathered down, so I'm not worried.

 

Andy

Edited April 25, 2013 by uax6

[N15class]

Photos are a good way to show up all the missed parts and c##k ups. It is all fine looking work.

[uax6]

After doing two and a half hours of naming files in my archive (thats over 600 out of the present 1200 files done) I needed to do something else, so I sat in front of Mulan with the family and got on with the terrier.

 

The results are quite pleasing, although I have brush painted her in black, the tanks still need some work:

 

 

But having got her back on her wheels and with the cab (resting) in place she looks the part:

 

 

The wheels are a pain, but they will have to do.

 

Does anyone have a fine filler that they can recommend so that I can get those tanks sorted out??

 

Andy

[uax6]

As I'm now back on late turn, which is when I find I can do some modelling, I have dug the Castle out again. Yesterday I made a start on the front frames and bogie pivot.

 

The frames were cut from plasticard to allow the bogie wheels to clear them and a slotted piece was cut which is the actual pivot and allows some side play:

 

Then welded together gives:

 

They were then welded to the underside of the running plate which gives us:

 

As per the Banker, I used my usual side control springing arrangement of a bent bit of 0.45 handrail wire:

 

So with the boiler mounted it gives this (you can just see the end of the springs in this shot too):

 

I then added the cylinder on one side to see how it would fit:

 

Sadly as you can see on the first picture above the scale cylinder doesn't sit out far enough to stop the con-rod fouling on the crankpins. I'm not sure at the minute what the answer to this is, maybe slightly smaller cylinders? (And here was I thinking it would be easier with narrow 00 guage wheel spacing!).

 

The terrier is in the middle of having multiple layers of paint added to it, being sanded back between coats to act as a filler. It seems to be working, but it is taking a long time! Hopefully it will be finished soon.

 

And then this turned up:

 

Can you tell what it will become with a slight bit of butchery (not much in this case, a slight wheel spacing modification, the dome needs to move, and the cab needs making bigger)???

 

Andy

 

[uax6]

Having worked out how to fix the cylinders on sunday (but forgetting to take the camera!) I made up and fixed the second cylinder yesterday. The cylinder itself is a length of 9mm tube, with the ends blanked off. The motion guides are Hornby 28xx ones (more GW stuff!). The cylinders are mounted on a small bit of 20thou so that they can move outside the running plate valance.

 

 

With one cylinder fixed:

 

 

with both fixed:

 

The pickup wires from the front bogie were begin to do my nut in, so they were secured to the underside of the body, and a hole drilled to bring them up behind the splashers. The wires were secured with a dash of plastic weld, hopefully the insulation has survived!

 

 

The chassis block had a slot filed into it to clear the wires:

 

8477 from the other day has had a bit of work done on it (I know I should finish one thing before starting on another!) and the chassis has been replaced with another that was converted to romfords, with a moderen motor. I have put the correct sized wheels on, but haven't altered the spacing just yet:

 

The body that was shown last time has been put away (it is almost to good to cut!) and another crappier one obtained. Sadly the chimney is missing from this one. Never mind, it does mean I can carve it up and not worry! The results of a bit of butchery leave ths shell thus:

 

 

At this point the heavens opened and I just managed to catch this:

 

There still something quite magical about a rainbow isn't there?

 

Andy

[uax6]

Yesterday I did a bit more on the Castle, but I think I'll have to start duplicating parts soon, before I start sticking stuff together permanantley. That'll be a bit boring to watch, and for me to do!

 

Anyway I made the lock-up safety valves. A circle of plasticard with two bits of cotton-bud stem cemented to it. The stems need filling and filling flat, but they look ok:

 

 

I then decided to have a go at the smokebox door. A circle of 15mm of 20thou was cut and filled to a shape. The dome was done by filing around the edge until I was happy. The result is quite pleasing:

 

 

filling the door took the best part of my modelling time, but still it's a bit more done!

 

Andy

[Earlswood Nob]

Good morning all on a foggy day in Surrey

This is an interesting thread as I am using plasticard to build unusual prototypes.

The filler that I have found the best is:

Delux Materials Plastic Putty. Its not the cheapest at around a fiver for a dumpy tube, but is very fine, dries quickly, easy to shape, and is white, so you can't see the join when applied to plasticard. It also comes with an applicator for getting filler into small spaces, but I use a small spatula to place it.

I do not have any connection with the supplier, but just recommending it through personal experience.

Earlswood Nob

[uax6]

Humm thats interesting, I've got to go to B&Q at the weekend, so I'll have a look at that. I use Everbuild permanant woodfiller. This comes in a tub, and dries out quickly, but I found that by mixing it with water it comes back to life! Can dry quite grainy though.

 

Thanks

 

Andy

[Earlswood Nob]

Hiya Andy

I've only seen the Delux Plastic Putty in model shops.

I found it (or rather the owner pointed it out to me) in my nearest model shop (30mins bus ride away). I have tried wood filler from Homebase, but you can't get a fine enough finish.

Earlswood Nob

[uax6]

my mistake, I misread it as dulux!

 

Andy

[N15class]

Why not use the plastic as the filler by diluting it in solvent?

[uax6]

I've tried this, but it seemed to come out as a sticky glupy mess. Am I not diluting it enough or too much?

 

Andy g