Missenden Spring 2013 - A family affair
Entry posted by GWMark
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The weekend of the 8th, 9th and 10th of March saw the running of the Missenden Spring Weekend, the 31st year of the Missenden weekends. Daniel and I were lucky enough to have once again received the weekend as a Christmas present from my wife - I suspect this is partially so that she can get rid of us for the weekend and partially because she knows we both enjoy the weekend and it is a present that does bring "more junk" into the house!
Normally we are unique amongst the modellers that attend, being the only father and son combination, this year we were joined n the Abbey Barn by another father and son duo also doing the "smaller scale" loco construction under the tutorship of Tim Watson. Although both of them clearly had more experience than both Daniel and I put together.
My decision on which project to work on this time was once again the Mallard Duke. One of the things I had discovered was that the gearbox I built last time, to replace the first one that fouled the backhead, was preventing the body sitting down on the frames. I had therefore sourced a third gearbox, a High Level Kits Roadrunner+, this had the advantage of a very small final drive, allowing it to fit under the cab floor. Therefore Friday evening consisted of building this new gearbox, followed on the Saturday morning by fitting pickups, refitting the body and watching it run. Or rather spin its wheels mostly. Although fairly well balanced there is not enough weight over the rear driven wheels to allow that pair to drive the loco. The good news however is that the 1020 motor leaves space at the rear of the firebox into which extra weight can be added almost over the driving wheels. Adding the coupling rods will of course help as well.
The rest of the weekend was taken up with adding detail to the tender, the beading strips, valances, tender side extensions, water filler, brake gear and water scoop. Perhaps not a very long list, but there were other distractions, such as great demonstration on painting from the master himself, Ian Rathbone, looking at other modellers projects, the coffee breaks, food and not to mention talking and drinking the real ale!
The loco body now sits down correctly on the chassis, and the motor disappears nicely into the firebox. Pickups have been fitted to the top surface of the chassis for the front driving wheels and another set in the dragbox for the rear drivers. Everything is nicely hidden, with just a small slither of the gearbox visible if you look from a low enough view.
Once again this weekend Daniel had planed to work on his High Level Hunslet, however not for the first time, we had the wrong wheels. He therefore switched back to the project he started at the last weekend in the Autumn of 2012, a High Level 14xx chassis. This still needed a good deal of construction, he had added the dummy inside motion last time, but still needed to complete the non-driven wheel arrangement, build the brake gear, add yet more detail and build the gearbox. All this he achieved, plus he built the gearbox for his Hunslet. He left on the Sunday afternoon with a complex chassis fully built, just in need of paint, final reassembly and attachment of pickups, something he could be proud of, even if most people will not actually see all that detail once it is placed under a 14xx body.
So now another Missenden weekend is over for us, these weekends are something we both enjoy and is unusual in that it gives us an environment to do something we both enjoy without any distractions or family disagreements. It also gives us a chance to catch up with all those habitual attendees that we now call friends, plus meet those that come along for the first time. Hopefully we will be allowed to attend the October weekend and we will continue our association with the Missenden Modellers, if nothing else these weekends give our projects an enormous boost.
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