Another Superpig flys...76010 ready to roll
Entry posted by brightspark
690 views
Hi all,
Superpig number ten (73010) is now complete.
In the month or so since the last blog (actually a bit longer than that as I take a few days to write up this nonsense) I have managed to find a few quiet hours to complete number ten.
Lets have a look a look around the loco and I will describe what has been done.
Pipework, made out of various gauges of copper wire has been applied using a copy of a BR drawing obtained from NRM at York. (See previous blog entries). Basically it shows where all the pipes go and how they connect.
The various boiler fittings are from Alan Gibson. These are cast brass items, the only complaint that I have is that they are really hard to drill into.
The safety valves come from Branchlines and are included in their conversion kit.
The clack valves on this model are from Markits. I am still undecided about them. They are much larger the home-spun ones that I used on 76009. They now look a little weedy. Has anyone got a drawing, or happen to be able to measure one?
The plastic regulator rod has been replaced by a brass wire. The actuating lever on the side of the boiler was also made up from scrap metal. I think an improvement on the Dapol offering, which seems to be not as crisp as the older mouldings from Rosebud and Airfix.
The loco spent an hour or so circulating the test track at ExpoEM. So it is well run in and proven. The only fault that came up was an annoying clicking noise with the loco in reverse. Investigation found this to be the speedometer touching its crank that had got out of position after I had removed and replaced the body to show off the motor installation.
Anyway the crew are happy with it and can’t wait to try it out in service.
A little peek inside the cab shows that in addition the crew I have put a bit more detail into this model. It certainly seems to add ‘weight’ to the appearance of the model. 76009 will now have to be upgraded to match.
The crew are my own white metal castings. I wanted to see what I could do with casting, and I am very pleased with the results. My aim was to produce some figures in more natural poses based on published photos.
A little gimmick I am trying out on this loco is a mechanism hidden in the tender to facilitate uncoupling the AJ anywhere on the layout. This is a simple lever with a paperclip on it arranged so that when I place a magnet onto the coal in the tender, it pushes the AJ down and so uncouples.
Here it is, doing its thing.
There isn’t much movement, so don’t get too excited. The pencil is pushing the paperclip up by the way.
Of course there are a few errors. I am unsure about the position of some of the handrail knobs, pipes that are not quite at the correct angle etc. But I think that I am seeing more errors than really matter besides which you have to stop somewhere. My old art teacher used to say that many of her students used to ruin their artwork by stopping too late. With that thought in mind I will stick to the “three foot rule” and move onto the next project.
The last picture shows 76010 ready to go into action with its Bournemouth Headcode.
Moving on is to the DJH standard class 5. This was mentioned in the last entry.
I won’t go into too much detail here, as I have entered this into the build a loco kit challenge, and you can read all about it there. But suffice to say that progress is happening and I am hopeful of completing it on time. Although it will have to have some major surgery.
After that there is yet another Superpig, number 11. The chassis is still sat in its packet waiting to be opened.
I am also pleased to report that we have two invites for Swaynton. So I had better get the standard 5 ready not just by the end of the year but for the Farnham and District show in October. The other show is a tentative invite in late 2016. Which reminds me that I had better update the Swaynton website and start creating a layout thread here on RM Web so that it can appear in the layout directory.
As the layout hasn’t been out for over a year, it has been decided that a debugging session is required. So a hall has been booked in August so that it can be assembled and tested. More about this soon hopefully in layouts, if not here.
Cheers
Andy
-
2
2 Comments
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now