thegreenhowards

Thanks Tony and Mike, I’ve heard of the issue with lead shot and PVA which is why I was asking for advice. I’m not sure how I could get araldite into the front of the boiler through that little hole. The Cerrobend seems expensive to buy and to post, so I would prefer to find an alternative. I’m thinking I might squeeze in a lot of UHU contact adhesive and then poke in strips of lead cut from roofing lead or pour lead shot. Does that sound like it might work? Andy

I’d never heard of Cerrobend but, having looked it up, it looks like a possibility. Do you use a soldering iron to melt it for pouring? And is there any difference between using this and low melt solder? Andy

I've made some progress on a V2 over the last couple of days, This is a Jamieson body bought ready built off eBay and a Comet chassis again bought off eBay, but in this case with an old Bachmann body on top. I've discarded the Bachmann body (eBay in due course!) and made one good engine out of the two parts. As far as I can see the body has been well built apart from the drain holes on the firebox which are wonky and will need redoing. I have a question for any experts out there on how to ballast the loco. The body is pretty light and will need stuffing with lead. However the boiler only has a small hole through which to access the front as below. I could pour liquid lead through the hole, but how would I seal it? I've heard that PVA will react with the lead and expand over time. Does anyone have any suggestions? Andy

Beware of Humbrol Matt Varnish. I have had all sorts of problems with it drying opaque so I never use it now. My approach to Modelmaster transfers is to apply them on a gloss surface - generally obtained from Halfords gloss car paints. I then seal them with Testor's dullcote directly over the transfers. This is superb stuff which never causes me any problems. One coat leaves the surface satin, a second coat will turn it matt. On less gloss surfaces or if I have any silvering a light coat of Microscale Liquid decal Film gets under the transfer and holds it in place as well as removing any silvering. I use this routinely on CCT transfers as I think John put me onto it originally (correct me if I'm wrong John). Andy

Gilbert, If it’s any consolation, when running the sequence on Gereskley Jn, I fLund my headboards often slipped and I generally didn’t spot it until looking at the photos. Sometimes, I reran and rephotographed the train but it wasn’t always possible. What do you use too attach them? I find black tac best, but getting a big enough ‘blob’ to hold it on, but not so big as to be visible is a difficult balance. Andy

I’ve prepared a summary of the highlights from running through the sequence here. If you don’t like ‘Musak’ then you’d better turn the volume down! It provided another way to put off doing any work on the layout - tomorrow I will start. Andy

Indeed, and all I’ve done today is play around with valve gear and tender pick ups - I’m easily distracted onto rolling stock!

I have built my own valve gear (with some help from Tony). But I’ve only done it twice, and I think I’d need to do it several times in close succession to really embed the learning. Thanks for your comments on my Gresley Jn train sets. My favourites are the Elizabethan and the three sleeper trains (Car sleeper, Aberdonian and Night Scotsman). What’s wrong with the O2 - is it just because it’s RTR?

Many thanks to everyone who’s offered advice on my A1 valve gear. It proves what a remarkable resource RMWeb and this thread in particular is. I’ve fastened up (hard) the tiny nut at the bottom of the drop link which was loose on both sides. This seems to stop it flopping about. I’ll solder it firmly in place once I’ve fully test run it for a few weeks. The eccentric crank was very loose so I had to dismantle that part and resolder. That also seems to have worked and the while valve gear now looks fine when running. I have to say it’s very confusing with lots of different terminology not all matching Tim’s excellent diagram. I begin to see why people are attracted to the GWR ‘Russian Dolls’! Now onto Tony’s other home work which should be straightforward!

Hi Tony, That looks an interesting rake. I can’t find any mention of the tourist twin SO in the CWN. is your rake based on a photo and, if so, can you point me in the right direction? Andy

As a summary of the sequence, I think I ran 87 trains over about three months and featured 77 different locos which is the vast majority of my fleet. The main locos which didn't get used were trip freight/ ECS engines such as J50s, J52s, Class 16 diesels etc. I need to find some additional moves to keep them busy. A spotter at Gresley Jn would have seen the locos below (although admittedly s/he would have needed a time machine to do so given the range of years covered). I'm not planning to run through the sequence again any time soon as I found it took a lot of my modelling time. Instead I will concentrate on making some progress with the layout and will post updates as and when there's something significant to show. I will also run a few of my pre war LNER trains. Now I have to decide whether to start on ballasting, track laying (connecting the third tunnel mouth), building the station building or signal construction.

Thanks Andrew, very useful. There does seem to be a tiny bit of movement in the joint where the drop link attaches to the cross head (if I’ve understood the correct parts!). Is that something which we just ignore in 4mm scale? Andy

Many thanks Tim. I think I’ll pin that to my workbench. Andy

Thanks Tony, I always know I’m going to get some homework when I post on here! In fact that’s one of the benefits for an unobservant modeller like myself. Once you point these things out it’s obvious, but frustratingly I don’t see them for myself. The Cartazzi frames were easy to fix. Although you would have had a triumphant ‘told you so’ moment when one of them came off in my hand because the glue failed! It’s now soldered back on. I find the whole valve gear business very confusing with lots of names which I have to look up so please excuse my ignorance and can I check that I understand your comments? The union link was loose on both sides and is held in with a tiny bolt. Is that supposed to be done up so tightly that it can’t move? As for the return crank, is that the small rod which connects the main pin on the centre driver to the eccentric rod (Wikipedia call it the eccentric crank)? If so, am I right to assume that when the main coupling rod is top dead centre, the return crank should point at c. 5’o'clock as in the picture below? And on the opposite side it should point to c. 7’o’clock? Thanks Andy

As this is a soldering thread, I thought I’d share my experience of a recent purchase. I managed to drop and break my Xytronic soldering station just as the lockdown started. As this was my only soldering iron and with a fair bit of kit building lined up, a new iron was a priority. There’s quite a selection online, but the Xytronic which I had seems to be discontinued and replaced with one with a higher minimum temperature. So I asked a couple of people at my club what they had done and they’d both bought a Holife station from Amazon and been happy with the results. I found it on Amazon for £36, and at that price, despite never having heard of the company, I took the plunge. I set up up today and tried it out and first impressions are very favourable. It is easy to adjust and tells you what temperature it’s at as well as the target. It goes from 90-480 C and comes with five bits. The link is here if anyone’s interested. No connection etc.... https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07F3G44YJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Andy

Thanks for the advice on here about roller bearing axleboxes. My A1 is now complete and I think the washers worked well when rounded off. I also added the four rivets on each axle box cover with a pin and PVA. She is now the designated power for the Night Scotsman on Gresley Jn. There are pictures of the complete train on my Gresley Jn thread if anyone’s interested:

And now the final move of the sequence. This is definitely a case of last but not least as The Night Scotsman is one of my favourite rakes and here it is headed by A1, 60154, Bon Accord. This time is now 23:59 so very much the end of the day. The loco is a DJH kit bought second hand and converted to one of the roller bearing examples. The two Gateshead roller bearing A1s monopolised the Night Scotsman through much of the 1950s working south one night and returning north the following night. I'm assuming that continued into 1958 although I'm not sure exactly when the working finished. My eventual aim is to model the 1958/9 winter SX service which was formed BG, SLSTP, SLSP, SLSP, SLF, SLF (twin), SLF (twin), SLF, SLF, BG. However this requires another twin SLF (which is on my workbench) and the Thompson 'interlocking' berth SLSPs for which no kit or brass sides is available and will need scratchbuilding. So for now I've modelled the Summer 1958 SO service which had three seated Mark 1s at the front and then SLF(twin), SLF, SLF, SLSTP, SLSTP, SLSTP, BG. I'm short of one SLSTP, but otherwise the formation is correct. The six sleepers are all scratch/ kit built and have featured on my workbench thread over the last year or so. Here are some pictures of the sleepers. And here is the video. Andy

Today I feature a full on parcels train (class C rather than class A like the 2245). This is the 2310 from King’s Cross which the carriage workings suggest was a hotch potch of different B’s, BZ,s, BG’s and vanfits for destinations as varied as Skegness, Durham, Manchester and Bradford - seemingly one van per destination. I imagine that, in practice, it would have varied on a daily basis depending on the traffic on offer. Therefore I haven’t tried to match it directly, but just put out my ‘mixed’ parcels train. I thought this was another V2 type of train, so here is double chimneyed 60862. This is a Bachmann body on a Comet chassis with Mashima motor. I bought it off eBay c.6 months ago but it needed valve gear and pickups sorting out and a ‘curly six’ front number plate all of which I did on Friday - the benefits of ‘lockdown’! I hoped to use it on the 14 coach train yesterday, but despite being packed with lead, the wheels just span, so I resorted to 60835 for that. I’ve worked out how to reduce my image sizes. When I upload the photos RMWeb prompts me for ‘image size’ and one can choose small, medium or large. I don’t remember seeing that before. Anyway, I’ve chosen ‘medium’. Let me know if the resolution is too poor. Here is the video.

So it is - in a senior moment I completely forgot about that photo. You must have a very good filing system!

Tony, I have three K3s on Gresley Jn, which is probably more than I need - but I love them! One is Bachmann with a little detailing and weathering, one is the Wills body you sold me on a Bachmann chassis which I showed on here relatively recently (probably just a couple of hundred pages back!). I won't bother putting them on here though they featured recently working on my Gresley Jn thread if anyone's interested. The third is my pride and joy which is a SE Finecast kit. I've shown you this before, but I'm not sure whether it has featured on the thread, certainly not recently. I bought it off eBay with wheels and motor and someone had made a start on it, but apart from the frames (which luckily were square) not much had been done. I based her on an example picture in working steam- LNER 2-6-0s. I do think the SE Finecast kit is brilliant. it certainly makes you learn about K3 variants with all the options they provide. This one, like most of my kits, is painted with Halfords rattle cans and finished with Modelmaster decals. Here is a video of her on an up fish train on Gresley Jn. Andy

We’re getting right to the end of the day now. This is the 2245 from King’s Cross to Leeds/ Bradford/ Hull and Doncaster which seemed to be a parcels train with some passenger accommodation included. There a couple of passenger coaches for Leeds and Bradford with the back six going to Doncaster only. Hull just got a BG. The train took a bit of putting together as I had to raid my parcels trains to find enough BGs, and then realised that some of the roofs were still in ‘Bachby plastic’, so the roof dirt paint came out yesterday! The formation is the 1960 one, but it didn’t seem to change much over the years. As it’s 14 coaches long not many of my engines will haul it. I decided this was a likely role for a V2, and only one was up to the job - my namesake 60835, The Green Howard (although it’s the Deltic which attracted me to the name). This is a Nucast kit stuffed with lead and fitted with a mashima. I acquired it from Tony Wright who was disposing of it for someone else - ex Gamston Bank I think. Here is the video.

Tony, Thanks for the K3 pictures - all very informative. How about a ‘book of the K3s’ to follow your B1 tomes?! Andy

Tony, Sorry about the confusion. I did think 'how did he miss that bl...y obvious coach' - now I understand! My general principal on such things is that if it states it should be a certain way round in the carriage workings then I follow it. This is often true for catering cars - Kitchen South End or similar. Otherwise I assume it was random. I guess for the Lizzie, once it was marshalled a particular way round, it stayed like that for a long period even if there was no plan as such. Anyway, I'm glad you've found some counter examples as I use 'Wright' couplings on this rake, so turning it round would mean remaking them. Now if only I used tension locks...………….. Andy

Tony, Mine is the up service. The FK-LRR is at the south end next to the BG - coach number 2. The SK-LRR is coach number 7 towards the north end. When the train was shortened, this SK-LRR was lost to the Heart of Midlothian and the Thompson SK in the Aberdeen portion took its place. I have never managed to track down a copy of ‘What’s on the Lizzie’ so I’m ignorant about what worked in each year. I’m building No.9 at the moment, so when that’s complete it can take 13’s place. Silver Fox is also planned at some stage, but I will never have 60022 (or 60103) - too much of a cliche! Andy

Tony, You show me yours...and I’ll show you mine! Here’s a video of my Elizabethan rake on Gresley Jn I hope you’re a year out in saying that the buffet was gone from 1957. I think the full rake was repainted for the Summer 1957 season and the buffet and SK with LRR were moved for the 1958 season. I think I got that from the Banks and Carter book. The rake above is the 1957 formation with special SK (coach 7) and buffet (coach 8). Andy