Building the Churchward 45xx Part Six
Entry posted by Coombe Barton
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The Cab
This week’s purchase was an A4 cutting mat from The Works for three quid. This may seem a little unnecessary as I’ve already got a couple of A2 size, one atop the workbench and one for extra space. I did notice that as I was cutting small items off the frets and cutting up solder that one small area was getting significantly more wear then the rest, so an A4 mat chopped into an A5 and two A6 portions will allow me to chop and discard when necessary. OK, I could just buy another A2 but they’re quite a bit costlier and not as readily available.
Cutting it was interesting – as it self-heals it grabs the knife blade, so it was a score-and-bend.
So back to the kit. Part 22 is the cab floor. It resides within one of the parts already used and was put into one of the small glass jars, I think during part one of this blog.. The jars were labelled, but the manufacturers of the new labels we bought for the purpose had been economical with the glue, so the labels had fallen off. Luckily they’re all in the project box and I’d numbered the parts as I cut them out, so a little time had to be spent with a permanent marker re-labelling the jars. So much for being careful and methodical – the stationers let you down!
The cab floor is a drop in, clamp and solder job. Clamp by bent sprung hairclip (sourced from a hairdresser and beauty suppliers – if you can stand the funny looks when you go in – ‘cos they’re a darned sight cheaper than buying them from the model trade.)
And now we’ve reached the end of the first paragraph, all four lines of it, of the two we started out on in the previous blog entry.
“Fit cab seats and bunker sliding door in place”, it says. Bit of guesswork here as the drawing has suffered, it appears, repeated photocopying. Would it be too much to ask that manufacturers put PDFs of their instructions on their websites? It would be much clearer. Some do, I know, but most don’t. And as the Churchward range has passed to Phoenix Precision I don’t think that we’ll be seeing that option anytime soon.
Bunker sliding door proved interesting in clamping – it wouldn’t as there wasn’t much form round the back – so a sharp pointy stick was employed. And then a scraper when the solder flowed where it shouldn’t have. I should mention I tinned the rear of the bunker door first. Cab seats are a bit of a puzzle – should they be up or down. The drawing has them up, but the fixing slot mates up with them in the down position. I also consulted the assembly instructions from the 44xx Mitchell kit hoping for more enlightenment – there was none. So off to search for photos.
But there are none – but I did find some GWR Journals (16 and 17) and two MRJ Compendia (1 and 3) which helped considerably. There’s also some other MRJ stuff. Reading Brian Williams’ article in MRJ Compendium 3 I find he had the same difficulties I’m having. I’m also looking at his modifications, which include the window protection for the bunker. The etches on the kit are for six bars, but prototype pix of 4555 in BR days and the GA drawing of November 1923 all show 5. I’m not happy with the flat nature of the etch anyway. As 4555 was one of the twenty locos built in 1924 I think I’m fairly confident in assuming that all of this batch had five bars to protect the glass. The best pic I have available for this is that from GWRJ no 17 Page 60, which was taken in 1967. From what I can see the 4575 and 55xx series had six bars, but given the quality of some of the pix anything’s possible. Anyone know the diameter of those bars?
As I don’t trust myself to refashion the back of the cab without having a lot of time, the sum of today’s work was to fix the cab floor, bunker door in closed position, seats and inner tanks, all in the cab. I bought some dinky sized clothes pegs, only an inch long, for clamps and only managed to set fire to two. That lot takes some cleaning up and so it’s currently sitting in a nice warm alkaline bath awaiting the attention of a toothbrush. And getting into the crooks and nannies of the cab to clean it out will be interesting.
I have also referred to the previous workbench by Rich Pedder (The Fatadder) http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/47117-building-a-modelex-gwr-45xx/ who build the same kit. The last comment on that was by Ivan (Horsetan), who I had the pleasure of meeting at Scaleforum last year, about the use of V-blocks for bending. Good job I read stuff from Guy Williams and got some a while ago.
Back to the loco – I’m going to model the bunker doors open and maybe also the roof. (cover of GWRJ no 16 shows both open) so that the incredible detail (I wish!) that’s going in the cab remains somewhat visible. The cab roof will be removable – don’t know how yet, have to work on that. The cab front has two options, one with spectacles and one without. In the last days of service they were absent, but interestingly the latest rebuild of the preserved 4566 appears to show them. Mine will be without.
So next it’s bashing the cab.
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