Kit build 2015 Challenge Entry - DJH S&DJR 7F 53803

[Ian J.]

Here is the placeholder thread for my DJH S&DJR 7F kit build of 53803 for the RMweb 2015 10th Birthday Challenge. Updates, which I'm guessing will be variously infrequent, erratic and furious,will appear as and when

Edited March 17, 2015 by Ian J.

[Ian J.]

Being careful of my back which isn't entirely comfortable right now, I've reassembled the table I use for modelling and dragged my workbench box kicking and screaming out of my 'storage' area. The bits of the 7F are now out on the table, albeit still in their packaging:

 

 

There appears to be a fair amount of flashing on the parts, so the first job will be to clean everything up and then make some decisions on whether I should source brass replacements for the less well defined parts. I think the whistle will definitely get a replacement anyway, but the chimney and dome are candidates, and maybe the safety valves as well. I wouldn't mind putting sprung buffers on as well, if it can be a straightforward enough job.

[Ian J.]

After a bit of examination of the smaller parts, I think I'm going to need to get turned brass replacements for the:

• Stanier chimney
• Ross pop safety valves
• whistle
• tender tank ventilators
• buffers

I think some of these are done by Alan Gibson, but the others I'm not sure of where I could get them. I'll be going to Ally Pally on 28th/29th March, so hopefully I can find the bits I need there.

[Ian J.]

The boiler/firebox, after clean up:

 

 

I now need to clean my files of white metal, and I can't remember how to do that!

 

Something I'm not sure about. The pipe on the side of the boiler (related to reversing gear?) is moulded on. It's quite a different representation to the one Bachmann did on their model of 53809, seems to be 'accurate' to the prototype 53803, but even so I'm toying with the idea of removing it and using a separate piece of brass or copper instead:

 

[Horsetan]

You need one of those brass brushes to clean out the whitemetal filings from your files.

[Ian J.]

Ta. I remembered I'd used a suede shoe brush in the past not long after I'd posted. With a bit of help from a gas powered soldering iron and its burner attachment to help soften the whitemetal, the files are now clean. in future I will use chalk to help stop the gumming up, as I don't like subjecting the files to heat on a regular basis.

[Ian J.]

A bit more progress. The footplate is cleaned up, I've part assembled the chassis with motor in place to see how it would fit under the body, and some extra whitemetal from the underside of the boiler had to be removed to let the gearbox slip into place. All seems to be going together okay at this point:

 

The footplate:

 

The initial test assembly for motor fit:

[N15class]

Shame about the gearbox showing, can it be fitted to a rear axle and point into the firebox?

[Horsetan]

Shame about the gearbox showing, can it be fitted to a rear axle and point into the firebox?

 

On the face of it, there's enough space in there to reverse the motor position for a 3rd axle drive. Don't have to slavishly follow the XO4 cutout in the frames.

[Ian J.]

With the gearbox/motor provided there's no way to mount it to the fourth axle as the backhead would be compromised. The third axle is notionally where it could go, but then the motor shows beneath the boiler. So no, unless I were to source a completely different gearbox, it has to show something between boiler and footplate.

 

TBH, I'm not worried. The kit in and of itself doesn't bear comparison to the Bachmann model, so as long as it runs OK and looks OK, then I'm prepared to accept the compromises.

[Ian J.]

While I'm not worried about the gearbox showing, I have looked into what's available that could replace it and allow the gap under the boiler to be clear. I think a combination of High Level 'HighFlier' and D1 'DriveStretcher' would be able to get the motor high enough so it would be in the boiler pointing forwards with the drive to the third axle from the front. I'm not quite sure whether the gearbox would have clearance against the backhead as the D1 will move it backwards a bit. I'll have a look at the gearboxes on High Level's stand at Ally Pally at the weekend. Cost is another factor too, but I'll work that out later. If I can get a suitable replacement axle gear for my Bachmann 7F then it's more likely I can get a gearbox. If not, then the cost of Bachmann's entire wheelset takes out any cash I'd have spare for such a gearbox.

[Ian J.]

As I now face up to the rigours I put my back through yesterday (masked by co-dydramol for the most part), I can assess the results of my visit to Ally Pally yesterday.

 

Unfortunately, it wasn't as fruitful as I'd hoped. It appears that the 'village' of specialist suppliers has now dwindled so much that in effect it no longer exists, so many of the specific detail parts I'd hoped to get simply weren't there. I wonder if this means that only the very specialist shows are now frequented by the detail suppliers and shows such as AP are really now just bigger versions of purely regular shows. That's a shame for one of the bigger events on the exhibition calendar.

 

Anyhoo, it's not the end of the world, I'll just have to get those bits by internet order in the future as the specialist shows are out of my reach. I did get a gearbox from Chris at High Level that will hopefully do the job of being invisible once the 7F is built, and I now have replacement buffers (which I hope are of the right type).

[Hippo]

Hi Ian, sorry to head O/T a little but I couldn't agree more and Ally Pally. I went yesterday morning for a couple of hours with a shoping list, got home and spent most of the afternoon trying to order the stuff online.

 

Which High level gearbox did you go for ?

 

Good luck with the build.

 

 

Owen

[Ian J.]

There was no single one that was correct. We discussed it a bit and Chris reckoned the RoadRunner+ with narrow D3 stretcher would be the best option. It gives a 28mm height from centre-line of axle to centre-line of motor armature, which at full stretch is pretty much spot on to get the motor centre-line to the boiler centre-line, and allows the stretcher to fit between the kit's frames (for which nothing else he had would). However there's a compromise with the way the RR+ and D3 fit together as instead of one being entirely outside the other, they have to sit off-centre from each other. I'll have to pack them out a bit to get stability.

[Horsetan]

...I wonder if this means that only the very specialist shows are now frequented by the detail suppliers and shows such as AP are really now just bigger versions of purely regular shows.....

I think you may be right there. I've never attended big shows such as AP since the admission charges frighten me, even though I live only a few miles away. Warley is another one which I attended once and decided never again.

 

To get the specialist bits I want, it's basically RailEx and Scaleforum, both conveniently at Stoke Mandeville.

[Ian J.]

Can anyone recommend a supplier for turned brass parts for the Stanier chimney, boiler dome, water pick up dome on tender and water filler cap on tender? The whitemetal ones I've seen just don't seem to be of good enough quality.

[Horsetan]

Can anyone recommend a supplier for turned brass parts for the Stanier chimney, boiler dome, water pick up dome on tender and water filler cap on tender? The whitemetal ones I've seen just don't seem to be of good enough quality.

Try Alan Gibson workshop - quite a few parts from AGW's own 7F kit are available separately.

[Ian J.]

Try Alan Gibson workshop - quite a few parts from AGW's own 7F kit are available separately.

 

Unfortunately most of the parts are noted as being either lost wax brass castings or whitemetal. I'm after turned brass parts.

[Horsetan]

In that case, I think you might struggle.

[Ian J.]

I might be able to make it to Railex this year if I can get the rail tickets I've looked up for the price displayed, so I'm holding off on getting the bits and pieces until at least then. If there are whitemetal versions of some parts, and I can check them for moulding alignment being true, then I will probably opt for whitemetal parts for the chimney, dome and tender dome and water filler. The smaller details I will hopefully be able to pick up as turned brass.

[Ian J.]

I've managed to get a number of the turned brass parts via Markits (either directly or from other suppliers) so the build will look a little better that it would have with the misaligned whitemetal parts. The only thing I'm not sure about is the chimney I've acquired. I think it might be a little wide, possibly representing the earlier Fowler chimney rather than the later Stanier. However, I'm not going to attach it via solder. I'm going to use a little superglue for it, and hopefully if I feel that it needs replacing I wouldn't have too much difficulty doing so after 'completion'.

[Ian J.]

As I feared might happen, my landlord has given me notice to move (something that had been in the offing for quite a while) so all modelling is cancelled. I now have to try and find a safe harbour for me and my belongings, something which for someone on the dole and with no savings of any kind is going to be a near if not impossible problem.

[Ian J.]

Rising from the cold (and sometimes not so cold) storage, this loco may now get a chance to be worked on again, just over three years later. I am now in a new house (rented) with enough space for a workbench, and it's something I'd like to dig out of the storage boxes and see if I can do a little on it even though I do have much else to occupy my time (sifting through all my stuff to see what can be discarded in some way to help make moving easier in future; picking up learning orchestral composition from where I was interrupted; and a friend of mine wants to read the (currently unwritten) third book of my book series, even though I don't really want to bother writing it for sooo many reasons).