Battledown

I have finished the Black Hawthorn, including some weathering. It is built from a High Level kit and is a purely fictitious portrayal with an open cab. I have had, and still have, a notion to build a very small cameo diorama/layout called Alexandria Wharf, hence the loco is named after the Egyptian god of fertility and death (an ancient Jekyll and Hyde). Who knows the idea of Alexandria Wharf may fertilise or die a death. I actually built this about 15 years ago and have only just noticed from this photo that the cab front is out of kilter. Oh well, too late!

Main colours are now painted and ready for lining. The Black Hawthorn is a relatively simple livery so will be completed in fairly short time. The NBR Class R is a much more complicated livery for which I am awaiting specially commissioned lining transfers so will go on the back burner for now.

Interesting, I now use Acid 8 exclusively, sometimes straight from the aerosol can, sometimes via an old badger airbrush, and have had good results with a wide range of colours from my Iwata airbrush - eg LSWR pea green, NSR red lake and GER ultramarine blue, plus vermillion buffer beams & inside frames and tan cab interiors. Brush painted black areas take two, sometimes three thin coats.

And while we're about it, I've also stripped, cleaned and primed a High Level Black Hawthorn that I built many years ago and is long overdue a paint job.

All stripped down ready for painting ... ... and etch-primed.

I agree with all of the above but would also recommend Etched Locomotive Construction, an excellent book by the late Iain Rice that is long out of print but available from various online second hand and railway booksellers. It is very readable and covers all the basics really well, even though it was written in the 1980s and kit technology has moved on a lot since then.

Basic cab, tanks and bunker built up on the running plate. It's all gone together very well so far.

Thanks for the heads-up Adam. I am building No 232 as originally built for which there is a good photograph in Bradley's book on the Adams classes. I was wondering about the boiler and had read somewhere that the kit tube is too big. Bradley gives the boiler diameter as 4' 2". The tube in the kit is a scale 4'6" (18mm diameter). Cladding would have made the outer diameter larger so its probably not a lot out. I have some thinner wall brass tubing of 17.5mm o/d which may be better, plus I will make up the smokebox front from sheet brass. Luckily I have an Adams smokebox door from a Martin Finney radial tank I can use. I can cut the 'piano' cylinder cover from the kit smokebox front casting. That's the plan anyway. I only intend building up the cab, tanks, bunker and front splashers for now so I can check the chassis fits, so work on the boiler is some way off. I can see what you mean about the chassis, though. I reckon the frames are about the only bits I'll use. A lot of scratch building and raiding of the scrap box for this model methinks - I did say it the kit looks like the basis of a good model!

Next up is a Gibson LSWR O2 I picked up second hand. I'm waiting for horn blocks, motor and gearbox to arrive so have started on the body. The running plate goes together pretty easily, although there are no tabs or slots to help. It was all done by eye. There are, however, plenty of tabs and slots for assembling the cab and tanks. For an old kit it is surprisingly well designed for the builder. It has everything you need as the basis of a finescale model although some of the details in the kit are a bit basic and there is a need for some raiding of the scrapbook or scratch building of some items. Here's everything prepared and formed ready for fitting together.

At long last I have finished the North Stafford Class B tank loco - not perfect by any means and there are a couple of things that need attending to, but it's been a long haul and I'm bored of it now.

Now basically ready for painting.

Next up are the side tanks. These have curved tops for which half-etched lines are provided. They are fitted to the footplate, slots and tabs providing accurate positioning, then the cab assembly is fitted. After that comes the boiler. I omitted to take photos of this stage but it basically comprises some brass tube machined to the correct length from which I had to cut away the bottom half under the tank for motor/gearbox axis. The smokebox is formed by two wrappers, the inner going around the full circumference of the boiler tube and the other formed to fit the fold-up smokebox saddle. Underside view showing cutaway for motor. Top view showing the body basically complete and gaps filled in preparation for painting. There was a lot of drilling required all of which required careful measuring and marking. I am modelling No 225 circa 1901, at which time there was a lot of visible 'plumbing'. The holes on top of the boiler are for injector valves. These had long actuator arms running back to the cab and pipes running down through the running plate to injectors, which were visible below the running plate. More pipes fed back up through the running plate to clack valves mounted on the boiler sides. The upper hole in the smokebox is for a blower valve with another actuator rod feeding back to the cab through the handrail. The other holes in the smokebox are for lubricators. The other side is just as busy with the exhaust pipe from the Westinghouse pump mounted on the cab side feeding along the top of the tank to the smokebox. So there will be a lot of polished brass and copper on the finished model. Another interesting point about these locomotives is that they all seemed to have different lamp-iron arrangements, some had as few as three while others had up to six. No 225 had five and they weren't always mounted in the same positions. Some also had brackets for destination boards on the smokebox and cab rear. As is cruelly shown in these phots, there is a lot of cleaning up to do!

Next up is the 'body', starting with the running plate. This comprises a lower plate with fold-down valences and endplates to form a frame and a top plate that is sweated onto the lower frame. Buffer beam overlays complete the assembly. The cab is a separate subassembly - relatively straightforward but mainly butted together, so care is needed to ensure all is square and level. Certain parts and details are added before assembly, such as the strengthening ribs on the rear spectacle plate, inner toolboxes on the cab rear, rear toolboxes on the bunker backplate and inner splashers on the cab sides. The cab spectacles in the kit were over etched so I fabricated new ones from 0.3mm brass wire then filed flat. All is then assembled ready for mounting on the running plate. Digital photos can be very cruel but it all looks fine in in the flesh!

Removable brake assembly Rolling chassis - the driving wheels are temporary ones with EM profile. I also made up dummy inside motion plate, slide bars and cylinder faces. They will hardly be noticeable on the completed model but I still think it better than a void between the frames under the boiler. Chassis with motor/gearbox fitted - it needs tidying up but is basically complete apart from pick-ups. It's going to be tight fit for my favoured top wipers with the compensation beams but I have a plan!

Thanks for the heads up Jol. I'll try it, although it seems to run ok at the moment.

So, a lot of time has passed since I last posted, mostly due to family illness, then Christmas, then I had my own health issue. The NSR Class B tank loco is almost complete - just awaiting transfers for the buffer beam numbers, then I can varnish and reassemble it. Photos to follow. In the meantime I have been getting on with another loco; a North British R Class 4-4-0T. This is another former Riceworks kit from London Road Models. It was his second loco kit and whilst it is an improvement on the GER E22/J65, it still retains some of its awkward idiosyncracies. That said, it all fitted and went together but could have done with more tabs and slots for the cab and tank assemblies to make life a bit easier. I strayed from the kit design and instructions in a couple of areas. It is designed to have a fixed rear axle with compensation between the leading driving axle and bogie. I changed this to twin beam compensation for both driving axles with a fixed mounting for the bogie. This has worked well for me on 4-4-0s in the past. I also made the dummy springs and brakes removable to enable me to drop the driving axles out - once fitted to the axles and quartered there is no need to separate them. Bogie assembly - this has a rocking axle but the bogie itself is on a fixed mounting Frame assembly showing scratch-built compensation beams between driving axles The coupling rods in the kit are a single laminate. I added bushes to the front to make them look more prototypical. Dummy springs cut from frames and fitted to removable spacer

Don't you just love it when you drop a small part and it bounces more unpredictably than a Shane Warne googly. I'm always finding bits I dropped months ago, but never seconds ago!

If we are in pursuit of excellence with accurate fine detail, then even the best kits could be considered as just an aid to scratch building. I have even resorted to adding additional scratch built details to Martin Finney kits. Yes, the quality of kits varies greatly and some won't get me past Stage 4 of Mikemeg's decision chain, but I am grateful that LRM still has a good range that, with care and attention, build into nice models that can authentically replicate the original prototype in miniature - which is a good thing as I still have a few sitting on my to-do shelf!

I have a copy of the Loco Illustrated 136 but have never actually looked closely at that photo until just now. As you say it is very clear - as is my mind now!

I was going by what is in Nigel Digby's chapter on the North Stafford in Volume 3 of his Liveries of the Pre-Grouping Railways. Assuming he is right, I suspect vermilion would not show up on orthochromatic photo plates used in the pre-grouping era. That said, it would hardly show up against the 'Madder Lake' main colour, especially in 4mm. Your superb work on Mike Edge's loco looks right to me, so I shall forget the vermilion. As ever, thanks for the advice.

Next up is the North Stafford B Class 2-4-0T. So far I have etch-primed, sprayed the buffer beams and inside frames vermillion, the outer frames black and the main body colour, which is my own mix of red, yellow and black. This one is a lot more challenging from a lining point of view. I really am going to have to master the lining pen for this one - the tank sides and bunker rear are panel lined black-vermillion-straw-vermillion-black, with a vermillion-lined black border. Cab sides, rear and front and toolboxes are lined vermillion and straw with black borders. Boiler bands are are body colour lined straw and vermillion with a broad black border. Deep joy!

At long last I have completed painting the E22, reassembled it and got it running. Modern digital photos taken on a smart phone are very cruel and show up every minor blemish - and there are plenty on this model. Believe me when I say the naked eye and normal viewing distances are much kinder.

I have to confess that I am terrible at taking photos after each session, preferring to just get on with modelling and keeping clear of the computer. Hence the tardiness in updating this thread and the gap between the various stages of construction. Anyway, the E22 is now basically complete, although there is still some work to do on tidying the chimney, dome and safety valve seatings and some minor filling between the valences and footplate. Some of the polished items, such as copper pipework and clack valves, are only placed on the model temporarily and will be removed again before final cleaning up ready for the paintshop. I also have a North Staffordshire Railway B Class 2-4-0T that has been waiting for the paint shop for a couple of years so am going to be quite busy with the airbrush and lining pens for a while!

Final sequence for today shows the cab roof which I made removable. The rain strips are made from 0.45mm wire filed flat. The kit only caters for the later steel roofs and not the original wooden ones. Finally, I fitted the coal rails - a bit fiddly but I got there in the end. Pity about the LH spectacle - that will need to be straightened!

So, moving onto the body, much progress has been made. I have to say that while the kit is generally accurate it does show the age of its design. Firstly, there is virtually no tabs or slots with assembly mainly relying on butt joints - more like the old Sayer-Chaplin kits than current practice. Anyway, I now have the basic cab, bunker and tank superstructure complete. Again, I deviated from the instructions which suggest assembling one side straight onto the footplate then working your way around the bunker, other side and tank fronts. I chose to assemble everything away from the footplate, using some an engineer's square and pane of glass to make sure everything was square and flat, before then offering the whole assembly up to the footplate and soldering it in place - well, it worked for me. The basic structure just placed on the footplate and chassis to check motor clearances. Then soldered in place. Tank tops fitted. You will also see that the cab interior is about 1.5mm further back than it should be. This is due to there being no diagrams in the instruction to show how it all goes together, so I only discovered my error after I had soldered the whole structure together. I can live with this as once the cab roof is on and the backhead fitted it won't really show. I certainly wasn't going to take the whole thing apart and start again!