I'm getting better at these ex-JE deflectors, the ones I fitted to my Clan conversion kit ended up having a lot of superglue rather than solder. These for the 2-8-2 are 100% soldered and I'm real happy with them. You just can't beat the right solder and flux (thanks Eilleen's!)
I ignored the instructions and soldered the handrails with the deflectors flat, then formed the curve after. It works for me!
Also note lovely Comet buffers replacing the horrid puny Hornby ones.
Now, wh
Take one bit of 1/8" diameter tube (bought at Trains4U last Sunday), drill a 0.6mm hole through the end, elongate this hole with the drill so that two 0.45mm brass wires will pass through. Bend said wires inside so that a 0.7mm wire will pass between them axially down the tube. Repeat at the other end and solder up. Afer cleaning up the ends of the 0.45mm wire you get this
cut excess 0.7mm wire off the long end and flatten with a pair of pilers. Solder to RHS weighshaft bracket (burning
Well, the Duke is ready for lining. All the detail painting is done including some picked out pipework and the cab has a few touches of paint around steam pipes and the gauges are picked out in white with black pointers.
Tender is also ready, so there's really no excuse not to get the pressfix out is there?
After a very productive evening last night we have this fabrication
I've used Comet's LS35 LMS/BR steps etch as a basis, adding a strip of spare etch from the JE deflectors to join them together and two further thin strips of etch to make the support straps. I've basically made something that resembles the old Crownline design. Should be good and strong and resist the odd knock etc.
Here's the finished article epoxied to the body
more like driven batty
The Accentric links proved to be the most troublesome of the motion rods to lengthen. Due mainly to the fact that they are a single etch and not laminated from two etches.
Long and short of it is that I had to lengthen them by approx 5mm so some re-inforcement was needed. Good job I have some 5 thou' phosphor bronze sheet to hand. The three bits of the lengthened rod was soldered to the sheet then the whole thing cut out and trimmed up.
Two rods done, two ho
Managed to get the left hand side rods soldered up last night
and here's a shot showing how they are articulated
The photos are very cruel in showing up the joins etc. They don't look this bad in real life. I will put some more work in with the files and 1000 grit before they are finished though!
I've also fitted the motor/gearbox to the chassis. There is a problem here because as designed there is no side play in the Comet gearbox or drive extender. Result is that as it st
Whohoo! apart from shed and numberplates it's about done. Still need to add coal, take a little off the tender weight to get the body to sit right down and the power wires betwixt loco and tender need re-soldering but basically it's ready for weathering
The loco will have an extensive photoshoot before hand-over to it's owner, I'll post some here
Well, now the chassis is basically powered and on it's drivers the time has come to think about all the bits that will fit to it!
Firstly the front bogie has been assembled and a mounting fabricated from scrap Kemilway etch (you can still see the "KEM")
Must get that nut soldered back on for the weighshaft/motion support bracket!
The boiler lower has been trimmed up and placed on the chassis.
As the lower will need to be fitted to the chassis before the bodywork I thi
After a short spell with a hacksaw and 8BA tap we have the following arrangement
I've lost the whole section of chassis from underneath where the body fixing sticks out, so the drawbar pin and it's carrying plate plus the whole lump that supported the flangeless pony wheel has gone to make room for the swinging rear pony.
The exisiting pony fixing hole was drilled out 1.8mm and tapped 8BA to take a triang/Hornby bogie screw. A conventional 8BA cheesehead screwed into the tapped hole
I've set the tender aside for now, fall plate might need adjusting once connected to the loco, but that is to come ...
Bodyshell was fettled and filed, this took much longer than the tender, but then it is a much more complicated casting. It cleans up really easily and what initially looks like a bit of a dogs breakfast very quickly looks the business.
The blower and duct/tunnel cover was scraped off with my trusty Swann Morton #10 and smoothed off. The cab backhead etc was epoxied in pl
Some may say that the recent server outage has lead to a jump in progress, but really I just found the time at home
So, armed with nothing more than a couple of bits of scrap etch soldered back to back, a file and an 0.85mm drill I started to fashion new union links for the 2-8-2.
note filed down fingers!
A quick go with the razor saw, unsoldering and final fettle gave me two nice new links
Took about an hour, as do most jobs with this build ...
Here's a photo of
Tender is now black and waiting it's red buffer beam and lining out
Actually, the loco body is done too, as are the bogies and deflectors. Time to start stripping down the chassis methinks
EDIT:
Deflectors are now on
B)
Continuing the series of photos of blackness - here's the chassis so far. Cylinders are also painted but will be lined and varnished before the masking is removed.
now where's that pressfix .....
More cab detailing. Handrails are fitted, which took a couple of goes to get them right. The knobs are really old stock that I bought at least 20 years ago and the last four. The Gibson ones I bought recently were far too long, hey ho!
I've also provided somewhere for the fireman to rest between shovelfulls out of 1mm plastcard. The driver's seat is part of the casting so won't arrive until the driver is fitted (a long time yet!)
Don't think much more will be done before Mickle
I thought I'd get a quick update in before the server goes down ...
Both bodies are now blue, the Lima one is well on the way to getting it's Fox transfers applied. I'll post pics once we are on the new server.
Airbrushed the Dapol body today and I'm pretty pleased. Think it might do with another quick waft. My proper airbrush arrived today, don't think I'll be able to use it until my birthday in June though
Might get this loco done for the Nottingham Show yet
Thanks to Ramrig for the loan of a tender drive brit (so the frames I make will fit the Hornby body) I now have a "comic" for the 2-8-2 frames.
It's a hybrid of 3 different sources, the Hornby Brit chassis, the original cox drawing of the 2-8-2 and Comet's Brit frames for the better front end and cylinder mountings.
Plan is to tidy it up and glue a copy to some PCB material and cut out 3 sets, drilling the pilot holes for the axles in one go to provide a jig (the 3rd copy) for the c
As the title says, a quick update on this weekend's progress. Chassis has been modified so it sits inside the Dapol body. I intend to keep as much of the original fuel tanks and weight as possible so more shaping etc is required to get the body sides fitting correctly.
Once the chassis frames are done I'll sort out some fixing lugs inside the body so that the original screw fixings can be used. After that I need to find some way of holding the body sides to the chassis as they tend to b
Enough fiddling, it's ready for paint! I've shot a quick Youtube vid so you can view in it 360 degrees. At least in it's unpainted state you can see where I've been
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN_LS_eDpVc
Don't let SWMBO find out what I've been doing with her rotating spice rack
Soldered the first three spacers onto the frames last night, although the back one might have to move as I need a mounting point for the rear pony ....
Guess what I've got to assemble next then? yep, the rear pony. Same applies to the motion bracket, I need to at least fold up the main etch so that I can determine where the fixing screw for that will be, then put a frame spacer in the right place.
This make it up as you go along design and build is not as easy as you think
Cyl
So the much hinted at etched valve chest covers from Pete Harvey of PH Designs arrived on Saturday, I've folded one up as a test and rested it on top of the Golden Arrow resin version for comparison.
Looks like Pete got them spot on, there's even a half etched lip at the rear of the lower edge to allow the cover to sit on the top of the cylinder body to give a slight overhang as the prototype
Big thanks to Pete for offering to do these without me asking, a real credit to Pete and t
71000 is getting ready for his before primer photo shoot
I've drilled out the chimney and finally sorted the air bubble holes with some gel type cyano (Screwfix Mitre bond - who says doing the kitchen can't help with the modelling )
and I've bit the bullet and fashioned the cab partitions behind the driver and fireman out of plasticard, also a representation of the fireman's seat. The driver as usual comes with a cast in seat
So, just waiting for the buffers from Golden A
I know it's me just being picky, but the cast pipework provided in the kit for the LHS of the firebox just was not good enough for me. So I took a mold off the Comet Exhaust Ejector valve from my 2-8-0 build and cast one in resin. Pipework completed from a good photo of a late fifties DoG with remnants of an old Comet detailing pack and some stripped bell wire gave this:
The RHS is not so troublesome, although I'll end up enhancing that too with more bits of wire no doubt
Ok, the plan to use ndm/pacer couplings on the dev coach was a non starter. They were too long by about 5mm to give a consistent distance with the other cars. Here’s the dev coach to ndm compared with the tgf…..
So the tgf couplings received a 2.5mm hole drilled as close to the blade end as possible
and then shaped to approximate the ends. Here’s an untouched one and one I’ve attacked next to it. A lot shorter
Fi
Progress at last. The Con-rods are connected to the cross-slides and cranks so the little beast has had a preliminary run in "GWR" mode
As is usual with an OO loco that needs to negotiate tighter than protypical curves much of the crank end washers have had to be filed away to provide the necessary clearance behind the cross slides. As usual I had to resolder at least one following the filing down process.
It will have a quick oiling and proper running in tonight on the rollers b
