Entry posted by Buckjumper
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Off we go at a tangent. Get used to it...
One of the locos on the bench which is a whisker from completion is a Great Eastern shunting engine of the R24 class (LNER J67 in the low tongue). This is based on one of the Connoisseur J67 kits (now discontinued) with quite a bit of scratchbuilding and a fair number of alterations to backdate it to 1912 condition. This was started a couple of years ago, just before an enforced hiatus from modelling, and I've only recently picked it up again.
Because of the backlog of work at the time, and the need to get things moving along, I omitted taking lots of photos of the build, so here is a very abridged catchup of work to date.
This is the kit as it comes. In the past, Big Jim has released a limited number of these discontinued kits, and I snapped up quite a number. You might gasp at the price - £75 was very cheap in 7mm terms, but there is quite a lot of work to do, even if built in the intended post-LNER J67 guise. For me, the main thing is that they are a good canvas upon which to work, despite the fact that I chuck half of it away before I even begin...
The running plate is solid underneath the boiler, so the first thing to do is cut that away, then solder the valences and buffer beams into place. Apart from a brief period in the 1870s, the GER used flush-rivets, stopped-up before painting, so the rivet press can remain packed away. In the past I have been known to press out the rivets then hammer them back into place...
With the running plate now mounted on a block of wood the superstructure you can see below was tack soldered together, the smokebox soldered up and the boiler slotted into place. I don't like the way the tank fronts protrude into the boiler cladding, so the curve of the boiler was marked off, the tank fronts removed and cut to shape, and the boiler received an inner skin behind the slots which was filled with a number of thin layers of Holts Cataloy knifing putty from Halfords which was later sanded back. The castings in the photo are placed on the model decoratively. The chimney is a replacement brass casting from Alan Gibson (AG) - the kit only comes with the LNER cast chimney, whereas the GER used a fabricated stovepipe. I removed the LNER banana-shaped height extension pieces from the cab front and rear weatherboards to give the earlier GER single-arc profile appropriate for a wooden roof.
The cab front and rear weatherboards are short, and don't extend to the floor. In fact there is no cab whatsoever included in the kit, so one has to be scratchbuilt. And in Blue Peter fashion, here's one I made earlier...
Boiler backplate, controls and brake standard from AG, lever reverse from Ragstone Models (excuse the blutak!). The crew were supplied ready-painted by my client. I designed the cab interior to be a once-only fit; there was enough flex in the metal to pinch it through the roof, and as it hit the floorpan would snap into place and not come out again.
I made alterations to the boiler and smokebox to accommodate the early three individual handrails and the separate blower valve on the right hand side. The smokebox door casting was discarded and an early pressed type from Laurie Griffin (LG) substituted, but required my making and fitting hinges from nickel strip, wire and bolts. Coupling hooks are from LG, as are the tank top filler lids, which are much finer than the whitemetal ones supplied. LG also supplied the tapered handrails which look a bit wobbly in this photo, but were fixed. Connoisseur can supply upgraded replacement brass clack valves with copper pipe, and these have been fitted. The toolbox has been moved over to the fireman's side, and sits on wooden baulks, the placement of which allows the ubiquitous conical jack to sit on the driver's side. The two-column Ramsbottom valve seat and shroud is from Ragstone - brass valves will be dropped in after painting. Finally, I've filled in the coal bars on the rear windows - these were fitted from circa 1895, but appears to have been rather slow in implementation, particularly for the shunting members of the class. The whole lot was primed with grey etch primer (before I discovered the black stuff), though not before masking off certain brass and copper parts with Maskol.
The body has now been painted with cellulose black and the bufferbeams with vermilion. Transfers on the tank sides and buffer beams and number plates on the bunker are from Guilplates. The Maskol has been scraped off the boiler/smokebox joint ring, the clack valves, the spectacles, and the whistle and safety valves have been added. Buffers are from AG. The interior has been painted tan, and a wooden roof constructed from a double thickness of brass sheet, strip and L angle, with an interior lip so it fits in the style of a snuff-box. The coupling hook and links have been chemically blackened.
The body and chassis are given a light weathering, with the grime wiped off the tank and bunker side sheets to simulate some deft work with the cotton waste and tallow. The body and chassis are reunited and at last it begins to look like the loco it's supposed to represent....we're on the home stretch, but there's still some detailing to be finished.
The wheels are by Alan Harris, but I'm unhappy about the crankpin retainers as supplied - they're too plain.
The retainers are stainless steel and threaded 10BA.
CPL can supply scale retaining nuts (they're GWR pattern, but who's to know...shhhh!) cast in nickel silver.
After sawing one from the sprue, I ran it through a 10BA die (a new one as my old one simply disappeared into the wormhole near my bench). However, this stopped cutting the thread before it reached the end, which meant the castings wouldn't screw in fully. What to do...?
I took my piercing saw to the casting, cut the heads off and trued the backs with a file and wet & dry, roughened the stainless steel retainer and Araldited one to the other.
So that's where I'm at. Once the Araldite has set and the rods are back on there's a little more weathering to do to the chassis, a little more coal in the bunker then a test run and it'll be ready for delivery.
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