It's been a little while since my last entry about the BR Standard Class 2 2-6-2 tank. This has now been painted and lined and is in the process of being weathered by my good friend David Clarke.
Whilst this is underway, I've been doing a few slightly different things, for me, anyway. First, I've assembled a Lanakshire Models tender sprung chassis and fitted it to a Brassmasters outer frames and footplate unit to go under a Bachmann ex-LMS Fowler 3500 gallon tender, destined for a Crab.
Well, it's cooled down somewhat recently and I've finally got down to a bit more modelling after nearly two month hiatus. The final details still outstanding were the lamp irons and fixing the smokebox front. I actually did the latter a couple of weeks ago during the hot weather and failed to spot that some Araldite has squeezed out and covered some of the rivets round the top half of the wrapper. I have been worrying about what to do about this and had come to terms with leaving it for fear of
Phew! Superb weather but rather too nice to be stuck indoors doing any modelling. Even now (ten past eight), my modelling room is uncomfortable as it gets the sun all afternoon and evening. So, I've been mainly out in the garden reading and having my meals al fresco. Looks like this might carry on for a few more days. However, I did make some further progress with the Standard 2 tank before it got so hot. Using the second batch of custom etched parts from Rumney Models, I've made the cab roof, l
Progress on my Standard Class 2 tank is at a temporary standstill, awaiting the final etched components. In the meantime, I've been fitting the injectors to a model Crab belonging to a good friend. What I anticipated being a very straight forward detailing exercise proved to require rather more tricky and extensive work to achieve the required outcome. The loco consists of a Bachmann body on a Comet chassis, built to P4 standards. Interestingly, its one of the rotary cam poppet valve fitted exam
Yes, I have made some progress with the Standard 2 tank, but it seems to be at a glacial rate. Various details have been added but it has also involved re-fitting bits I've managed to knock off (probably not very well attached in the first place) or having to move existing parts that interfered with new, additional items and in a couple of cases, removing new bits because they prevented re-assembly of the whole thing. Definitely a case of two steps forward and one and a half back! Some of the ne
Friend, David Clarke, has weathered two more of my locos. These have been built some time and were painted and lined by Ian Rathbone but never weathered. As passenger locos and, in the case of the Fowler tank, something of a pet at Lees shed, they have been give only a lightish dusting so as not to obscure the hand lining (with cream line!). I now have no excuse not to complete the Fowler by cab glazing, coal and a crew. Oh, and fixing the cab roof on a bit better than two blobs of bluetac. The
I'm slowly working through the remaining details needed to finish the body on this model. The current work has been on the push-pull vacuum control valves and steam pipes and the vacuum brake ejector. On these locos, these items are quite distinctive and are a major visual feature. Unfortunately, the items provided in the kit leave much to be desired, needing a lot of fiddly work to get anywhere near the right look. The cast steam pipes and push-pull valves were grossly out of proportion. The on
My Caprotti Black 5, 44741, of Longsight depot, is now finished. The last job was to add plain boiler bands to the firebox and some extra weathering to bring it more to the condition these locos seemed to exhibit in regular service, i.e. filthy. This work was done, as was the whole painting, lining and weathering, by good friend and fellow P4 modeller, David Clarke. I have to say, I'm extremely pleased with the finished loco, which I think really captures the rather ungainly appearance of these
In anticipation of a visit on Monday (tomorrow) by some friends to view and play with the layout, I've had each board out and set up on trestles to clean the track. To my slight surprise, I discovered that on two of the boards, the rail heads still had paint on - Halfords grey primer and rust coloured enamel. I'd completely forgotten that I had never cleaned the paint off after ballasting and re-doing the rails. Just shows how long it is since these particular boards have been out. Boy, did it t
Following a request, and for those who are interested in such detail, here a some further photos of the chassis components.
First, the frames. Nothing particular to note really. Suspension is a centre rocking point for the front axle and twin beams for the centre and rear. Horn blocks are London Road Models cast items. Pickups bearing on the tops of the wheel treads, hidden behind the tanks and the valve gear.
Three views of the keeper plate. This has now become permanently entangle
Having recently completed three larger types - a Crab, Jubilee and Stanier Caprotti 5, all potential holiday excursion locos but not really true to prototype, my thoughts have shifted to the next project. I have two part built Class 2, 2-6-2 tanks, one Ivatt and a BR standard type. In real life, these were used on the regular push-pull passenger trains in the last years of operation, in the mid 1950's. Both are in running condition but incomplete. A state they've been in for umpteen years whilst
My Caprotti Black 5 has gone for some finishing details and David Clarke has kindly sent me some rather enlarged views of the loco, prior to the work. Overall, I think the model stands up quite well to these larger than full size photos, although there are a few blemishes and omissions apparent.
Best wishes for Christmas and New Year,
Dave.
I took my three latest completed locos to pose on Clarenden at the Leamington Club, last night. Here they are being serviced in the loco shed after arriving with excursion trains from the North and also seen departing for home with a return working. Hopefully, they look better here than on the shelf in my modelling room!
Here they're seen on shed in various poses:
44741 and 45701 are seen double heading a return working past Scrubbs Lane West Box:
Dave.
I've made some reasonable progress in the past couple of weeks with the various locos under construction. First the Crab had a front AJ coupling added and a shed plate, which I had somehow overlooked, a crew in the cab and coal in the tender. Since then, I've almost finished the Jubilee, the latest jobs being coal in the tender, cab glazing and fixing the roof after adding a crew. Just waiting for the glue to fully dry in the tender before reconnecting loco and tender. The Caprotti Black 5 (loco
The replacement side has now been affixed to the tender using Araldite Rapid. I'm pleased to say that the new side is completely flat, with no visible ripples or indentations. In fact, it's better than the other side, so should paint up nicely. Phew! That was all a lot easier and quicker to put right than I had feared. The new side is shown below:
side on, and
at an angle, hopefully showing the side completely flat.
Dave.
A problem has been identified with the right hand side of the tender for my Caprotti Black 5. The whole kit is a Comet product and the tender sides for this part welded type are very thin and rather flimsy, due to being half etched to provide the rivet pattern. During assembly of the second (RH) side, I pressed a bit too firmly to hold it against the internal structure for soldering. The result was a rippled effect where the lines of the framework showed through. Considerable time was spent tryi
My Jubilee, 45701, Conqueror, has now been weathered by friend, David Clarke, ready for me to finish off. Cab glazing, crew and DCC chip to be fitted, the tender coaled up and the cab roof fixed. For some reason I haven't yet identified, it has developed an intermittent short when running forward which it didn't have previously. A quick check of loco brakes and sand pipes hasn't shown anything out of place, so some further investigation will be necessary. Here she is in her current state:
Further to my last posting, the motor has now been fitted and the DZ126 chip fitted and all wired up. Pleasingly, the loco ran the correct way, so there was no need to change CV29. After changing the chip address to 4741 (loco number 44741) I've set the acceleration to 20 (out of 31) and deceleration to 3 (out of 31). This enables a fairly smooth acceleration whilst retaining good control over slowing and stopping. Experience has shown that excessive deceleration values makes fine control on a d
The chassis for my Caprotti Black 5 has now been painted and re-assembled, apart from fitting the motor and DCC chip. The latter will be a Digitrax DZ126, a tiny, fully encapsulated item, which will be held to the motor with some Bluetack. A couple of similar looking shots of the painted chassis are shown below:
Close examination reveals one of the twin rear equalising beams and the single front one extending from the front coupled axle to the centre of the front bogie. The gearbox
I recently had a near disaster with the Caprotti Black 5 when I accidentally knocked off and nearly lost part of the rather delicate lubricator drive mechanism at my local club meeting. Fortunately, a colleague spotted the missing parts under a table - I was convinced it had come off at home whilst packing the body up, otherwise quite a bit of extra work would have been necessary. Anyway, it turned out not to be as hard to put right as I had feared and, indeed, the repaired drive is both stronge
Now that the Jubilee has gone off to be weathered, I've started to prepare my Stanier Caprotti Black 5 for painting. This entails stripping it down for degreasing and to give access for painting. The disassembly is quite complicated and has to be done in a specific sequence to get access to various fixing screws. Due to the short cab sides and exposed, open type steps, the pipework under the cab has had to be split between the footplate unit, the chassis mainframes and a separate carrier plate a
The sea-side holiday excursion which departed Delph (Holt) last week behind Jubilee 45701 returned today with its load of happy holiday makers, refreshed and ready for the mills to restart next Monday. On this occasion, the train was hauled by ex-LMS 2-6-0 Crab, No. 42713. The train has run almost to the buffer stop to get the maximum number of coaches alongside the platform. Once all the passengers have got off, the loco will push the stock back, clear of the cross-over, run round its train and
Not too much progress with the layout or locos recently, although I have painted the cobbled area in the goods yard. I've been putting this off, fearing I'd wreck all the effort of hand scribing the setts. The initial results confirmed my fears had been well founded, but a couple more washes with very diluted black have blended the patches in a bit. I'm still not completely happy but hope it doesn't look too bad to others. In the lull, I've posed my Jubilee on the part of the layout currently er
My Brassmasters Jubilee, 45701, Conqueror, has been painted and lined by good friend, David Clarke. It's now come back to me to be re-assembled and various smaller items attached before it goes back to David to be weathered. The attached, very poor quality, photos show the re-assembled loco ready for some test running prior to the weathering.
Dave.
Wow! It looks like I haven't posted anything since last December. I suppose that's because there hasn't been much to share of late. I finally finished the construction of my Jubilee, which is now away being painted and I have also recently finished off the Caprotti Black 5. The last items on this one being the sand pipes and their support brackets. This loco is now ready for painting and is shown below.
As for the layout, sadly there's been almost no progress since I completed embossing
