Steve's Caledonian loco work bench

[Ruffnut Thorston]

Hi Steve....

 

PM received, read, and replied to too!

[Londontram]

Bit of a frustrating weekend where we had to go visits the relatives so with this and other things I've not had a chance to touch the loco. Anyway did a few necessary but not to visual jobs today. The first was to fix the rear of the body to the chassis and the easiest way was to drill through the back of the body where on the real loco the draw bar would go and after counter sinking the hole and drilling a hole in the chassis a self tapping screw holds the body in place nicely. The end result can be seen in this picture.

The other job tackled today was to do the pickups which on the later B12 consists of two brass strips with three tabs each rubbing on the back of the wheels, to keep these two brass strips in place there sandwiched between two plastic strips and screwed to the under side of the chassis, what I did was cut the center tabs away and cut and shut the back section complete with the tabs and soldered them to the front section of the strips so that the four remaining tabs now rubbed on the back of the driving wheels. Getting the whole thing together is one of those jobs you need three hands so after fiddling for ages it all of a sudden all fell in place and I quickly put a screw in and after tweaking and testing realized that I hadn't taken any pictures but I'm B--gered if I'm taking all that apart again so you'll just have to try and picture it from the description.

   The GBL T9 is out tomorrow so hope my order is there I can have a look at the tender and see if I can combine the GBL tank with the bogie chassis of the one I have now, mean while I'm going back to testing the loco now running up and down on its own with now wires clipped on.

                                                                     Thanks for looking in again Steve

Edited November 11, 2014 by Londontram

[Londontram]

Bit of a mixed bag today, made progress but had a minor set back. First job I tackled was to modify the Hornby draw bar to fit the White metal tender I have which as the chassis is shorter and its a non original tender meant putting a crank in the draw bar and re drilling a hole in the tender to get a close coupling I drilled the hole just far enough into the tender chassis so there's just a slight bit of weight on the back of the locomotive to help the driving wheels with grip, you can see this in the first two of today's pictures.

Number one the cranked draw bar.

Number two the loco and tender now joined together. I noticed on this picture there's still a slight nose up attitude on the body so I adjusted the hole for the rear fixing screw, it also looks like the smoke box is leaning forward that's because its only loosely fitted together and the smoke box wasn't pushed home on the boiler properly

Next job was to make some front steps, the Caley's one being a different shape and in a slightly different position than the T9 ones (which are poor weak things any way) these I made from brass strip and a round file and when bent to shape were super glued in place as can be seen in the next two pictures.

The first step and the brass strip it was made from.

and the step fitted, there both done now.

 

      Now the pick ups are done and so is the draw bar I couldn't resist the temptation to run it up and down on the test track and at first all went well the loco displaying only a slight slip going forward and no slip at all going backward but then it happened as it was running forward there was a slight hesitation and that tell tell high pitched wine of a slipping gear which soon got worse and worse. Yep the worm or gear has a flat spot. I think this was here all the time as some one had put a washer under the rear of the engine mount to "jack" the back up to make a closer mesh, still it was brought as a non running spares or repair for £12 so I cant really complain. any way I'll order a new gear set I think there about £3.50p to £4.50p off the shelf from all the usual places. So as I said some progress and a minor set back.

    A final picture of two B12 chassis one before and one after, on the before one you can see the original straight draw bar. You can also see how the front extension has been altered and how much has been removed from the motor mount.

Once again thanks for looking in. Steve

 

PS did try to put an order in with Caley coaches for a chimney, dome. westinghouse pump and safety valve last week but they haven't got back to me yet so will have to ring them tomorrow.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Londontram

[Nelson Jackson]

This is coming along rather well Steve, I'm sure it'll look great when done.

 

Sorry if you got a "misunderstanding" rating, I pressed it by accident but changed it afterwards.

[Londontram]

Thanks Nelson, no probs. I'm in that stage were you model away for a few hours and seem to have so little to show at the end like the front steps, you file away then check it then file some more and it takes an age but hay that's the fun of it.

    Thanks again for looking. Steve

[Londontram]

I'm having a little bit of trouble getting some of the detailing bits for the conversion as the supplier who quotes on his web site that all parts are available all of a sudden has nothing in stock so I'm looking else where, maybe Gibsons can help as they have a good list of bits. I have ordered the worm and gear which was only £4.20 including p&p so that should be with me soon. Any way in the mean time the GBL T9 has hit the shops and I was curious to see if this conversion would work on this body as well so one was taken apart and it was soon obvious the only real difference being the area between the frames on the GBL body was solid so using the Hornby body as a guide I cut out the solid section with a razor saw and craft knife to the same size as the Hornby one. The results shown here show that it works just as well with the GBL body as it does with the Hornby one. In these pictures the body is only loosely held together but it does show that it can be made to work. This body will come apart again and when its turn comes round will be converted into either a Dunalastair I or the slightly earlier Drummond class 66 I haven't decided yet.

Sorry if some of you have seen these pictures before on the GBL thread, picture one the Hornby body and the GBL one and in this you can see how the GBL one is solid between the frames.

and then two views of the GBL body on the B12 chassis.

The final shot shows the boiler off so you can see the motor.

Once again thanks for looking. Steve

Edited November 14, 2014 by Londontram

[Londontram]

While waiting for bits for the loco (and as I type the new worm and gear has dropped through the letter box) I thought I would have a look at the tender. I had a white metal kit tender as shown in earlier post but it was like a brick and if I wanted the loco to do any useful work I needed to get rid of some weight, so the tender which had been glued together was stripped down and the tank sides cut off the frames which were re assembled this time with solder. The tank was cut off a spare GBL tender and the coal rails remover this left a gap where the molded coal was so the deck was replaced with one from plasticard and fitted out to look like the Caley one using the double fillers from the original Caley tender (In the picture the tool box is yet to be fitted) The tank was glued on to the white metal frame with super glue and has been put aside to set. I also used the steps from the GBL tender as there finer than the white metal ones.

The bogies which were screwed together were a bit loose so I used the self tapping screws that held the GBL body and tender together to overhaul these and they will go back on when the tender is set. Although this seems like a strange exercise having already got the complete tender but if you could feel the weight of it and knowing the loco is now a 4-4-0 without traction tyres you would understand why, doing this has removed two thirds of the tenders weight but left a useful bit low down in the chassis.

Picture one shows the two tenders before starting.

and this one shows the white metal one dis assembled

The next two show the GBL body on the white metal kit chassis with the new plasticard deck

Thanks for looking. Steve

Edited November 17, 2014 by Londontram

[Londontram]

The tender is now back on its bogies with new screws and BA bolts holding them all together with just a dab of superglue to stop anything coming apart again.

Now the new worm and gear has come I'm going to take the front driving wheels off to replace it but not looking forward to the quartering I find its one of those jobs that go right first time or not, the moved back axle was a not and took age's to get right. Any way here's the tender back on its wheels with the loco

The problem I have is the company that I was going to get the dome and chimney from for some reason are unable to supply these and other items despite advertising being able to do so on there web site so I'm looking around for alternative sources so if I could enlist your help guys and girls can you have a look at this picture and see if you can think of a dome and chimney I can use that are a close match to these

Thanks for your help. Steve

[uax6]

They Look a bit like the HR 0-6-4T ones to me:http://www.2mm.org.uk/layouts/inversnecky/photo-05.jpg

 

Can you belive I can't find an image of one on the net? That model one above is about the only one I can find!

 

How about a HR Castle one? http://www.torquayheraldexpress.co.uk/PETER-GRAY-Aboard-workhorse-Highlands/story-19406603-detail/story.html

 

Or a HR small Ben :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Railway#mediaviewer/File:Dingwall_with_ex-Highland_Railway_%27Ben%27_class_4-4-0_geograph-2748280-by-Ben-Brooksbank.jpg

 

Now JCL of this parish has the latter two avaliable as 3d prints here:http://www.shapeways.com/model/2790790/highland-railways-assorted-chimneys-4mm-scale.html?materialId=60

 

or as Castle parts here: http://www.shapeways.com/model/2837774/highland-railway-castle-parts-4mm-scale.html?materialId=60

 

Andy G

[Londontram]

The castle set looks very promising. thanks Andy

[Londontram]

The Dunalastair III has slowed down while waiting to acquire bits some of which as you might gather from above are proving to be a bit hard to get hold of. Any way in the mean time I've been looking at the GBL T9 seen in one of the previous posts with a view to turning it into a Scottish 4-4-0 as well. The choice for this one is a Dunalastair I to hopefully complement the Dunalastair III

 

At this point I would like to give a brief history of Caledonian loco affairs to help put the Dunalastairs in the place within the great scheme of things.

In the early 1880s the Caledonian railway was in a dire situation with its locomotives with few if any modern designs that were unable to meet increasing traffic demands. In 1882 Dugald Drummond was appointed CME and set about fixing the problems with the loco fleet, He was credited with two out standing designs the 0-6-0 Jumbo a strong simple freight engine able to handle the Caledonians needs with its mineral and goods commitments. The other design was a modern 4-4-0 the 66 class for the top passenger trains that went on to revolutionize the passenger service on the London to Scotland trains building the foundations for the famous "Race to the North" series of runs in the 1890s. The 66 class was by all accounts an outstanding design with generous bearings and a good free steaming front end set up. When John McIntosh became CME in 1895 he saw the need to improve the situation by providing locomotive of a sound design but with a big boiler giving the locos not only pulling power but staying power with enough steam to fulfill the needs of the newer larger and heavier trains then coming into service.

Thus was born the Dunalastair class marrying the sound chassis and motion design of Drummonds 66 class and the bigger good steam producing boiler of his own design. The abilities of the McIntosh Dunalastair designs became legendary at the end of the 19th century.

So renowned was there reputation that one class the Dunalastair II was even sold and license built in Belgium for the Belgium state railways. McIntosh developed the design over four successive classes the last the Dunalastair IV being superheated and lasting in service until nationalization. The major changes in the different classes was the size of the boiler with the later locos being slightly longer to accommodate these larger boilers, they were hansom engines with distinctive wings to the smoke box the first ones carrying over the splasher mounted sand boxes from the Drummond locos the later ones gaining a vary majestic 8 wheel bogie tender.

All the classes were painted in the traditional Caledonian blue which as a general guide is similar to the mid blue of the Scottish flag. Unfortunately none have been preserved though one of the license built Belgium engines has been preserved.

Two views of Dunalastair class locos, the first a Dunalastair I and the second the final incarnation the Dunalastair IV

The loco in the first part of this thread is the building of a Dunalastair III and also from here on the construction of a Dunalastair I as well.

The GBL T9 was taken apart and as seen in an earlier post was cut and modified to except the modified B12 chassis as seen in the previous post.

 

The first job was to shorten the loco by about 2mm the Dunalastair I being shorter than later models. This was done by cutting the boiler off the smoke box and then removing 2mm before re attaching the smoke box, the foot plate was cut at the point where the smoke box was mounted and again 2mm was remove. The smoke box was also shortened.

The whole lot was re assembled and left to set as seen in the second picture here.

I;ll carry on with the project in the next post. Regards Steve

[Londontram]

Once the glue had set and the loco was safe to handle I could put it along side an unaltered T9 so one could see how effective removing the 2mm was as you will see in the first two pictures.

 

Now I had a bit of a dilemma as to the best way to handle this problem of the Dunalastair I being shorter than the T9 and later Dunalastair and many would argue that 6 inches or 2mm in 00 was hardly worth the effort but when you look at pictures of the early ones they do seem to have a more "squat" look about them compared to the later Dunalastair locos and I wanted to catch that look. I guess if I was just building the Dunalastair I on its own one could get away with leaving it as it was but as its going to be seen alongside the Dunalastair III the difference in length or in this case the lack of difference would be noticeable. So leaving well alone was not an option but as well as being shorter in the boiler they were also shorter in the frames mainly between the driving wheels. Using my B12 method to motorize these locos is as I've said before a compromise and I had to work hard to keep the motors intrusion into the cab to a minimum and if I shortened the wheel base it would have the effect of pushing the motor further back into the cab with all the associated mounting problems with essential screw holes being lost etc. So I decided to make the cut between the bogie and front driving wheel and the 2mm could be lost by moving the bogie back slightly.

While reassembling the loco you can see I made and added the smoke box wing plate which sits behind the valve chest cover and as the running plate had been cut I wanted to get as much strength back into the body as I could anyway here's the first two pictures of the model along side an original GBL T9

You an see the difference in the boiler and overall length in the second picture

Thanks for looking in and sorry if I've been waffling on a bit in the last two posts. Steve

[Londontram]

Just incase any one wants to see it here's a picture of the license built Belgium Dunalastair that's been preserved, I think it has been shown on this forum a long while back but here it is if you've never seen it before.

[JCL]

Hi Steve,

 

I didn't know much about Scottish locos until I started talking to Andy about them, but I find them really quite elegant. Although I don't think there's a place for them on my layout (unless there were Scottish excursions to Skegness), I appear to have a T9 waiting for my next trip back to England. I'm really enjoying reading this thread.

 

Cheers

 

Jason

[Londontram]

Ah Jason I'm glad you posted I was going to give you a pm about your chimney and domes Andy says they could be the answer to my problem.

Your right there is something about the British 4-4-0 I think there the epitome of elegance and sum up the Victorian railway era completely and the Scottish ones had an individual style all of there own. I've always thought the GNSR/LNER D40 was a particularly hansom one and would make an easy conversion from a wide cab Hornby T9, they were long lasting right through to 1958 plus one is preserved so with a bit of modeler license you could even run it as a rail tour loco on a modern image layout. It's not one I know a lot about but hay in LNER days they might have been tried around the York Skegness area.

Anyway thanks for looking in and I'll pm you about your range of loco fittings

Steve

Edited November 19, 2014 by Londontram

[Londontram]

Next job was to make the splasher mounted sand boxes I elected to make these out of solid plasticard I can't remember what thickness but it was just right for this job. The basic square was cut out and after offering up to the splasher a line was drawn for the shape to be cut, this was rough cut with a razor saw then dressed with a half round file until the shape was reached. When happy a copy was made for the other side and both were glued in place and when dry were filled and sanded smooth.

Having a bit of supply dilemma with some of the fittings and as a way to keep costs down I thought I would see if I could do anything with the T9 stove pipe. using the gasket whole punch set I cut some discs of various sizes and building them up in an order to get the basic shape and then filler was applied and when dry rubbed down to get the profile right. I'm not 100% sure but might put some paint on it to see what it looks like. Working from a small pin drill upwards a hole was drilled in the top until I was happy with the size I wanted.

I think I might leave the dome even though its just slightly further back than it should be but only about 1mm so its not to bad what I did do was remove the safety valves and fill the hole left in the top.

Here's a picture of the body so far next to an unaltered T9

I'm now changing the worm and gear on the converted chassis so that should be up and running again soon. Thanks for looking in again Steve

[Londontram]

Not a lot to report except that the new worm and gear is now fitted to the modified chassis and it run lovely, while it was stripped down I also removed the back axle and if you recall it was tad sloppy so I put a plastic washer behind both wheels which took up the slack nicely. I did say I wasn't looking forward to quartering them but would you credit it both axles went on right first time. I also took the opportunity to trim back and tidy up some of the wires. The next job on the chassis now is to fit the sand boxes and brake gear. Steve

[JCL]

Hi Steve

 

Quartering - how's it done? Other than by fluke I mean.

 

cheers

 

Jason

[Londontram]

More luck than judgement I'm afraid, though one thing I do use is a bit of blue tack (Not sure what its called over your side buts its the stuff you use to stick posters up on the wall etc. I get one wheel on the axle and get the big end hole set straight in line with the axle center on the next axle and then use a blob of blue tack to hold the wheel steady against the chassis while I turn the chassis over and line the other wheel up quarter of a turn out then push the wheel on the axle - dose that make sense?

Steve

 

PS remember to note which wheel is leading before removing them ie. the right hand wheel quarter of a turn ahead of the left or what ever it should be.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Londontram

[Londontram]

Spent an amusing hour with the razor saw cutting the GBL tender down and sorting out an under frame for it. I had in my spares box an old incomplete Millholme models Fowler tender and I stripped that down and cut off the two side frames these will need the elliptical holes filling in and oval holes doing instead but the axle spacing is about right and once the drop hanger mountings were cut away the springs and axle boxes took on a more Caley look (I bet this looks familiar Andy)The whole of the under frame detail was cut away from the GBL tender and after measuring it against the Caley loco book 12mm was cut out of each side and the two parts were glued together, once dried the joints were filled and has been left to dry.

The pictures show the tender tank and the two white metal frame sides and the other shows the tender with an original GBL one behind.

Just to remind you here's the Dunalastair I with its tender

Thanks for looking. Steve

Edited November 20, 2014 by Londontram

[Londontram]

I am reusing the side frames from an old Fowler tender kit as its got nice axle box and spring details and will add just the right amount of weight to the completed tender. The only problem being the Fowler tender had two elliptical openings which you can see in the first picture in the last post, where as the Caledonian tender has oval holes as can also be seen in the last picture in the last post and I've been mulling over ways to fill in the openings so I can re-drill them for the new holes. Plastic plugs would have been fiddly to make and would still need filling and just filler alone would have been too brittle so I took a chance and filled them with solder. Looking through my stocks of solder I had four types from multiecored down to white metal sticks and found a roll of plumbers solder which has a low melting point. using a low power iron I tinned round the apertures to be filled and clamped the sides down to a strip of wood and started to melt the solder into the holes which were very quickly filled and after cooling were filed flat leaving a solid strong area ready to drill the new holes which I'll do tomorrow. Here's a picture of the sides after filing I also used this method to extend them at one end as well which you can just about make out in the picture

Worth taking a chance but I feared it could have all ended up a great big melted blob but in the end the solder had a lower melting point than the white metal sides and I ended up with a nice pool of liquid solder that I could spread around with the tip of the iron.

I also cut a new deck for the 6 wheel tender from plasticard and fitted the double fillers recovered from the two GBL tenders and made the back plate for the coal area, here's a picture of the tender top along side the bogie tender for comparison.

Thanks for looking in. Steve

Edited November 21, 2014 by Londontram

[Londontram]

There seems to be loads of little jobs to do that arn't very glamorous so I wont bore you with anything that I've covered before. But I drilled out the axle hole on the second chassis and checked it was free running with the rods on - it wasn't and took a little bit of fettleing  to get it right basically I drilled the new hole a fraction to far back but a few rubs with a needle file so had it sorted, the chassis need cutting but its a bit to wet, dark and cold to go down to the shed to get my big vice and hack saw tonight so that can wait. For those that have been following this thread will know the GBL body was shortened by 2mm and I said I would move the front bogie back by 2mm to compensate for this, I did this by simply filing the mounting arm slightly thinner and soldering a piece of brass on it and re drilling the hole in the brass 2mm nearer the bogie and filing off the excess length, I ll take a photo tomorrow to show you what I mean. .

    I did try to drill the oval slots out in one of the tender sides but the drill slipped and the hole went a bit wonky so while the iron was hot I re filled it with solder and will try again later.

 

   A couple of people have asked me how I quarter the wheels and some people seem to think it one of the dark art that only Harry Potter and his like can perform so here's my simple way of doing it, if I can I only do one axle at a time and try to keep the others wheels on as a guide but sometimes all the wheels need to come of so make a note of which wheel is leading. But if your just taking one axle off say to change a worm and gear (A frequent need with Hornby) they can be quartered by this method.

     With one wheel and axle inserted in the axle hole I line it up with the other axle/s with say the crank pin forward and hold then in place with blue tack as shown in the first Picture.

I use a straight edge to check its all in line through the crank pins and axle centers as seen in the second picture

and when happy flip the chassis over and pop the second wheel on so as it matches the one already fitted as seen in the third picture.

It works (well most of the time) this was only done to check the connecting rods the wheels are back off ready for the chassis to be cut.

 

  As I said I've done lots of other little jobs which eat away the time but had to be done.

                                                         Thanks for looking in again Steve                                  

Edited November 23, 2014 by Londontram

[Londontram]

Hi all. I was just working on a second chassis yesterday and as I was re drilling the new axle hole a thought struck me to bring the height of the back of the motor down I might be possible to drill the new axle hole about 2mm higher up in the chassis and thus tilting the back end down giving more clearance to the motor.
As one is cutting off the rear of the chassis there's no fear of it "dragging" A big file would soon take some of the bottom of the chassis off if you wanted to it all depends how much you wanted to bring the back end down.
Just a thought but could be useful if you wanted to convert it to a loco with a lower pitched boiler.

[garethashenden]

Hi all. I was just working on a second chassis yesterday and as I was re drilling the new axle hole a thought struck me to bring the height of the back of the motor down I might be possible to drill the new axle hole about 2mm higher up in the chassis and thus tilting the back end down giving more clearance to the motor.

As one is cutting off the rear of the chassis there's no fear of it "dragging" A big file would soon take some of the bottom of the chassis off if you wanted to it all depends how much you wanted to bring the back end down.

Just a thought but could be useful if you wanted to convert it to a loco with a lower pitched boiler.

Won't that raise the front? The space between the footplate and bogie would increase quite a bit as the whole chassis will pivot around the front driver.

[Londontram]

Won't that raise the front? The space between the footplate and bogie would increase quite a bit as the whole chassis will pivot around the front driver.

True but the front end extension on the B12 chassis is a steel flat bar which is screwed onto the front of the chassis and it would be easy to put a slight compensating bend in this and as the front of the body sits on this extension it should keep the body height down, like wise the front bogie arm could be bent down too, on mine you will notice I moved the front extension from above the chassis to below any way so there are ways round it.

  As I said it was just a thought but one worth looking at if you needed to lower the back of the motor.