County loco build 4-4-2T

Entry posted by Neal Ball in Loco construction March 20

307 views

This is the new page for my County loco build.

This blog will describe the build of a Great Western County 4-4-2 tank loco. The chassis is by SE Finecast which will sit under a body from a Dean Sidings / Phoenix kit - the latter being a Resin based model. The instructions suggest you use the chassis from a Hornby 4-4-0 County loco, but by going for the SE Finecast option, I am hoping for a better loco.

As an aside the Hornby County 4-4-0 loco is going for something like £70 on eBay - of course it needs to be the loco driven model, not the tender drive.

The prototype:

These locos were built around 1904-1912 in 3 batches, with only 30 built in total. They were built around the same time as the County 4-4-0 tender locos. Both had driving wheels of 6ft 8 1/2" and were reputedly rough riders.

This is from the site: http://www.gwr.org.uk/no4-coup-tanks.html its about 3/4 way down the page.

Swindon 2221 Class

Built between 1905 and 1912 with Standard No 2 boilers, these were tank versions of the 4-4-0 Counties, and were therefore known as the 'County tanks'. They were built to work the growing number of faster suburban services from Paddington. The first two batches had square dropdown frames at the front, the third (and last) batch having the later curved style, and cylinders set lower. They were fitted with bi-directional water scoops. The initial shape of the brake hangers on the driving wheels was curved, following closely the perimeter of the wheel, but was soon changed for a 'straight down' style as seen in the pictures here. The class was an early recipient of ATC, the first locos being fitted in 1908, with most of the rest of the class in 1915–1916. (At that time, the equipment was still known by its original name of 'Audible Cab Signalling', a term remaining in use, and latterly supplemented by 'Automatic Train Control', well into the 1920s.)

The last loco was withdrawn in 1934

This photo is from the Russell vol 1 loco book and shews 4-4-2T no 2237 at Reading in the 1920's. This loco was based at this time at Reading and regularly worked the branch to Henley-on-Thames.

There is a new build project for a full size 4-4-0 tender loco: https://www.churchwardcounty.org.uk The loco is being built at Tysley and will be based at the Gloucester, Warwickshire Railway when finished.

Why build this kit?

It will be something different to the usual Collett standard GWR locos and will be another case of stretching my skills. This will be the second loco I have built.

The loco build:

These are the etches for the frames, with the resin body behind:

At this stage, it's a case of reading the instructions and identifying the parts. (There is a lot of surplus etch here, as the spacers are also for EM and P4).

When cutting the parts from the etch, do not cut on your trusty cutting mat. Instead use a piece of plywood.

As can be seen, my ply, also has holes drilled through the wood.

In the photo above, you can see the frames and the holes cut out for the axles. These need to be opened out a little to get the bearings to fit.

The tool in the foreground is a 5 sided broach reamer (Squires sell them as a set of 5) I thought I would only use them once, for my Metro loco build.... when in fact I use them all the time.

Place the required hole on the plywood and over one of the drilled holes (in the ply) and gradually work the reamer round until the axle bearing fits.

Note: Please do not file or drill these holes - you will possibly end up with a distorted hole. Only use the broach reamer.

I now use this method when making up my bogies for my carriages and it is making a huge difference to the way they run.

________________

The black art of Soldering:

Practice makes perfect.... I use a 25w iron, nothing fancy... together with DCC concepts solder and DCC concepts flux.

I have soldered seemingly for ages and connecting wires together hasn't really been an issue. But soldering up a Brass carriage can take a lot of practice. I still have my first carriage kit (from about 30 years ago) where I struggled to heat the brass, piling more solder onl which became an unsightly mess. The only solution at that time was to get someone to make it for me, which is what happened.

The jury is still out with regards to the "Poppy's jig" in the photo below. During the Metro build, I found it a bit of a nuisance and couldn't initially get the frames square.

However, the first frame spacer that was soldered in for the County tank was the spacer that sits under the front running plate. (The screw-in spacers were already in position). At that point the loco was put into the jig. (For this loco, the front spacer brings the frames together, almost into a bow shape, like a boat!)

With the frames in the jig, I could solder up all the various spacers with relative ease.

I started work around 1:30pm and put the loco aside about 5pm or so and couldn't resist putting the wheels on.

The next step will be getting the wheels to run freely and for this, they will be placed on a section of track which gets lifted at one end, whereupon the chassis should easily run down the elevated track.

Day 2 build - 21st December 2023:

With the chassis complete, I needed to ream one axle position only.

Note: In order to have consistency, from this point on, keep all the wheels together, only remove one side and mark the wheels up so they always go back into the same axle. (When working on the loco, I always keep it in the same direction as the instructions.)

The front wheels spin nicely, the rear wheels didn't, so need to be reamed. This is the reaming tool in action.

It didn't need much to get both sets of wheels spinning nicely. They were then tested on a short length of track, which was supported at one end by a pair of pliers - they happily free-wheeled down the track.

Its not a great photo, but you can see that the incline is minimal:

Next I made up the bogie - I've got pin-point wheels in at the moment - the correct wheels were out of stock at Wizard models.

The whitemetal sides were superglued to the metal frame - however, with the fixing bolt and spring in place (The spring is a bit tight), it's going to be very difficult to get the nut onto the thread....

I think for the time being, I will force a piece of plastic sleeving onto it. At least that way when I am working on the chassis, it wont keep dropping out!

This is what it looked like at the end of the day - it felt as if there wasn't much to show and progress was slow.

edit: Friday 22nd December 2023:

Today I have been working on the cylinder parts - the photos are self explanatory:

The Brass items still need fettling before they can fitted:

Final shot for today shows the loco loosely placed onto the chassis. It needs fitting at the back properly.

I now need to retrace my steps and continue working on the chassis, setting the cylinder details aside for the time being.

However, I will do the modification with the bogie fixing that discussed in the comments below. I will then move onto the gearbox assembly (Roadrunner Plus) and also look at the rear fixings and the fixing of the rear radial truck.

Continued Thursday 28th December 2023:

A quick 5 minute job today 😄 It was going to be very easy and straightforward....

Re: Brake rigging

The County etch is set up with brakes at the rear of the wheels.... which seems to be the way the County 4-4-0 tender locos were set up.

The County 4-4-2T always had the brake blocks on the front face of the wheels.

In trying to check the details; it was obvious the tank locos always had their brake rigging on the inside of the frames, with the County tender locos having a mix of brake gear on the inside and outside. (Its seemed to change at will.)

Out came the TD set and with the aid of the dividers, I marked up the points to drill. On the drawings for the kit, the two sets of brake gears are shown as having a different height... but this is now looking wrong on the model.

I need to check it again before carrying on.

Friday 29th December 2023

Progress has been slow over Christmas and no doubt will continue to be slow over the New Year period as well.

I marked out the brake rigging (for the brakes to be in front of the wheels) and drilled 4 holes in the correct place - it later turned out that, 2 were not in the correct place. 😠 But sometimes, that is just the way it is - its only 2 holes in the wrong place and no-one will know 😎

This is the chassis being marked out for the brake rigging, using the existing holes as a guide:

It turns out that the pilot holes for the brakes on the front wheels are set lower than those on the rear drivers. I faithfully copied the holes on the frames and put them into the new position....

I then trawled through all the photos I could find of both County tank locos and County tender locos and can not see any that have a differing height for the brakes. Whilst brakes changed position during the respective locos life, they were always in the same plane. Not to worry, I just need to drill 2 fresh holes.

I then turned my attention to the coupling rods:

These were adjusted by use of the 5 side reamer broach until they ran smoothly.

At each stage, they were checked on my elevated piece of track to see if they moved of their own accord. It's a fiddly process, but worth taking time over. For this test, I used a piece of track that was higher on the left than the right - It was longer for this test, so the elevation was gentler.

The other side of the loco was done, until eventually I was happy with the movement. I will put together a short video shortly to show this working.

Checking how the loco looks:

Inevitably in a project like this you want to see how its coming along, I can never resist the temptation to put the body on the chassis.

In checking it over with the drawings I am working from, I reckon its about 1mm too high... (Looking at the photos, it also seems to be higher at the front).

I've recently been looking at the pony truck at the rear and need to do a side-by-side comparison. The one that comes with the kit is a whitemetal item - whereas Wizard do a lovely etched brass kit: https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/shop/locomotive/ls2/ It will come down to the mounting point and the space that I have. (I decided against as the white metal will have a bit more weight.)

By the end of the day, I had made good progress - but something still bothered me. Namely parts no A13 (see drawing below) - I couldn't work out how they fitted onto part B6.

A13 should be the sides of the firebox, with a gap inside for the power pick-ups..... I have soldered B6 into the frames as per the diagram - however - What I have now realised is that B6 shouldn't go where I have got it, it needs to go to the bottom of the frames.

Unfortunately the way the lines are drawn, it looks as if they need to go into the top aperture, but clearly they don't!

I will therefore fettle up a piece to go at the bottom of the frames to solder in the firebox and the pick-ups. Then at the same time, I am going to fettle up a piece to fix the pony truck into.

I then need to fettle up the brake rodding in it's new position.....

Happy New Year

Wednesday 3rd Jan 2024 update:

Yesterday the brake rigging was finally drilled into the correct position... meaning a few extra holes were drilled in the frames - check before drilling etc. The old holes have been filled to avoid confusion when everything gets sprayed.

Work then moved onto setting up the cylinders and slidebars, with the last job being soldering the connecting rod together.

Issues:

1. In folding up the cylinder block to go onto the frames, the instructions say don't solder - why? It's all held together with slots in the frames that then slot into the cylinder block. The sliderbar supports, also slot into slots in the frames - likewise surely they should be soldered.... The last section supports the vacuum pump and is always falling off! - so that is definitely going to be soldered. (The pump itself has a rod going through to the crosshead and that will need to be superglued as its small whitemetal casting.)

2. In fitting the slidebars on, obviously they don't get painted, so need to be masked when spraying - but that means the area behind them on the frames wont get sprayed.

In typing this, I realise that I will probably need to finish off as much as the chassis as possible. Then once that is done, I need to bring the chassis into the lounge for a couple of days to warm up, then give it a couple of coats of primer, then black. Then re-assemble and paint the body as a separate entity....

3. Or start work on the body, so that can also be sprayed.

Thursday 4th January 2024.

Work has continued on a few fronts today - I have soldered the cylinder etch / box square - but not soldered it to the frames yet. The sliderbar support has been soldered to the frames though, plus, I have soldered up the gearbox.

At the same time, I soldered onto the frames the support for the vacuum pump.... only to find that it fouls the body and in fact you cant see it in any of the photos I have! (It has been removed).

Saturday 6th Jan 2024

I have moved the position of the motor, originally, I set it from the front driving wheels, with the motor projecting into the boiler:

Unfortunately, this put the weight onto the front bogie, lifting slightly the rear drivers. Eventually this will be cured with extra weight.

By deciding to change the motor round, I had to move the angle / position of the gearbox:

The advantage of using the Roadrunner plus gearbox is that you can set it at (almost) any angle you want. Essentially by changing it round, whilst changing the weight distribution, I was able to set it in such a way as I avoided a cross-bracing section on the underframe:

With this change, I powered the motor up to 12v DC and reassembled the wheels and valve gear and for the first time, we have a running model:

The wheels rotate nicely at all power levels.

This is how the motor sits - the right way round!

At this stage, in testing the wheels etc. everything is held on by the use of small plastic bits of tubing. Hence the white ends!

Saturday 13th January 2024:

It's been a bit quiet with the County 4-4-2T project over the last week or so. That changed this afternoon as I started work on more of the body detailing items. Whitemetal items, together with the handrails were all applied:

The smokebox dart is from Comet models.

The front steps are being glued to the front running plate and at the same time I have found a couple of buffers in the spares box. the ones with the kit are correct for the Dean loco, but one of the heads is smaller than the rest. I have seen photos of the larger buffers on County locos.

Next to it is the backhead - recently @MAP66 has been working on a backhead for his 48xx project at Tyteford Halt. You wont be able to see this detail, but we will all know it's there!

The detail will be picked out once its had primer applied.

Wednesday 17th January 2024:

It's coming together nicely.... electrical pick-ups have been added today. The wires were as supplied in the chassis kit. These have been soldered to a PCB, which in turn has been soldered to the frames.

The loco was then tested on 12v DC and it successfully ran up and down on a metre of track.

The remaining items have been added to the body; which has included forming the handrail round the smokebox. It's not perfect, but it's not bad. Lamp irons have also been fitted (I've forgotten to put the lamp irons on for the spare lamps - tomorrow!).

The front running plate has not been fixed in place yet.

Tomorrow, I will solder in the rest of the electrics and sort out the DCC decoder and stay-alive.

(edit 16/2/24 I have just found this video on the Missenden page about forming handrails: https://www.missendenrailwaymodellers.org.uk/index.php/virtual-missenden-bending-gwr-handrails/

Thursday 18th January 2024 - a minor setback ☹️

Today see's a minor setback... that is a nuisance!

Yesterday in running the loco, one of the pins holding the valve gear in place caught on the motion bracket and everything stopped for a while. Unfortunately, the two halves of the Roadrunner plus gearbox came apart and have been glued overnight.

With the motor removed, the two gears in the above photo should rotate freely - they don't. Individually they are fine, rotating freely.

At first I thought I might have bent the rod on the topmost gear, hence the larger rod pin there at the moment. It's not that, it makes no difference. Although that top gear in the photo looks a bit wonky - but thats not it as I have poked and prodded them, they don't want to move :-(

I have emailed Highlevel kits to see of they can suggest anything. I might have to remove the glue between the two parts and see if that makes any difference. (27th March - at this point, I still have not had a reply.)

To be continued.....

On the positive side:

I have now fixed the running plate back to the main loco body. There is a small piece of brass folded in 90 degrees under the plate, that goes up behind the cylinders. Currently all being glued together....

It's a new impact adhesive that allows movement for 3 minutes and cures completely in 24 hours. There is a small piece of electrical tape underneath to (hopefully) avoid it also setting to the chassis!

It was a b*$*$r to get together and it looks like I have moved the handrail again!

The backhead has had a paint - yesterday it had a coat of white primer - today it's black. Then obviously onto detailing Brass; Copper; White and Red in hopefully the right places.

When it's in the loco, it seems to be set so far back from the cab doors, you wont see any of it.... (27/3/24 - it's now had to come out to get more weight into the loco!)

Saturday 27th January 2024 update:

Today, we start with how we finished last Thursday - with the backhead - now with the pipework picked out. Plus the first wheel with painted rim, all of the wheels will be done before the loco is finished.

I have had a few issues with the gearbox..... to cut a long story short it turned out one of the gears had got some superglue on it - not recommended.

It's all fixed now and I am pleased to say the gearbox and motor are working very well now. Seen here under test with a screwdriver playing the part of an axle! Compare this set-up with how it was originally done - its all reversed, which puts the weight of the motor over the driven wheel.

Seen here in place - more testing - more fettling and finally we get the gearbox and motor in the chassis.

Finally - it's getting there!

It has taken a lot to get it to this stage in trying to get the chassis to fit into the loco body, then the addition of the front running plate to try and get that right.

At this stage the loco isn't wired.... the pickups are done and the motor is wired up, but at the moment they aren't connected as I am waiting until I spray the chassis and I will then wire in the decoder.

I had it happily running up and down on the layout, holding onto a 9v battery!

There is a short video of the testing phases of the loco build on Youtube:

Testing process for the loco:

Running the chassis up and down on track set to a slight incline.

Checking weight distribution - in this case, it was obvious that the motor was lifting the rear drivers. Only slightly, but enough to be an issue.

The combined chassis and loco body are still very light (@150 grams) so will need a lot of extra weight packing inside.

I will try to cram as much weight into the void within the chassis around the area of the drivers. I am hoping to get it up to 200grams or so.

Run for a while on the rolling road, testing the slower speed steps.

The complete loco was then tested on the layout using a 9v battery. At this stage it is not wired up for DCC.

The completed loco will have a Zimo decoder and 10,000 uf Stay-alive.

The McKinley video is here:

Tuesday 13th February 2024:

The loco has had a spray of black inside, together with the chassis etc. Previously it had all had 2 coats of white primer.

Sunday 18th Feb 2024:

The loco had it's first coat of Railmatch green yesterday:

This afternoon it has had it's second coat.

The reveal:

Friday 23rd February 2024: Whilst work has been progressing on the body, the chassis is being put back together. The motor and gearbox are now back in; the wheels have had their rims painted (primer & two coats of black):

Transfers have now been applied to the loco. The buffer beams needed another coat of red and will have their numbers applied tomorrow. The Great Western is from Fox, with the plates being Railtec.