wookey

And job done, couplers added and touch up’s made, pretty happy with how it’s come out, the paint finish on the boiler is a little rough if viewed right up close but otherwise I’m fairly satisfied. I must admit I’m a little envious of the folks of North America for having a standard type of coupler on 1:1 stock that can look both realistic and operate automatically in model form! Maybe I’ll put together some skeleton log cars and a caboose at some stage to give it something to pull, but for now, very much time to get back to what I was working on previously! 1331 has had the electronics stripped back out and is being readied for painting, the saddletank/boiler assy is in primer and the frame/cab is due to be given a good clean up before I spray this too, unsure yet as to whether I will topcoat the upperworks first or get the chassis to primer stage as well and then topcoat everything at once, quite a bit of dismantling to do to get the chassis ready for paint. looking forward to getting stuck into it either way with some renewed confidence - the painting process had been putting me off for a while but I think it will come out ok.

short clip.

Well here we are in 2024! And my resolution to only complete current projects fell by the wayside early on! I felt like I needed to get a bit of practice in with the Airbrush and some more experience in painting and finishing before I attempt to complete No 1331 so I kept an eye out on eBay over the Christmas period for something suitable to build and decorate, and as I’ve always had something of a fascination with geared steam locomotives and I fancied something a bit unusual - I put in a cheeky bid on an MDC shay kit, and to my surprise I won the auction - so just after Christmas, my parcel arrived and I started out right away on putting the kit together. The positive news is that I have managed to rediscover some focus and have finished the kit all the way through in one go, which I’m pleased about, it has taken a bit longer than I’d have liked, but as I’ve only had 3 or 4 hours per session on four weekday evenings (plus the occasional weekend daytime) I feel like I haven’t done too badly. Interesting kit to build, curious to experience how the Americans do it (or did, at least - I know the kit goes back quite a long way) Not much soldering to do, which is a bit of a change, a mixture of well moulded plastic and die cast parts, the kit has a bit of a reputation for being a challenge to build into a decent runner, with plenty of fettling required- and this proved to be pretty accurate. My own biggest challenge was in the setting up of all the layshaft and drive gears - in particular the worm gears for the drive axles were all split, so I had to spend a lot of time reaming the holes out to eliminate the stress/expansion when pushed onto the axles and rely on loctite to hold them in place - I also chose to build some of my own universal joints as the ones in the kit were a bit clunky and didn’t run particularly smoothly, other than that all the kit parts were serviceable, although I did use a more modern 6 pole motor purely out of preference. As anticipated, I was a bit rusty when it came to painting and finishing - but after a bit of frustration and some experimenting on old loco bodies I managed to settle into airbrushing again and I think it turned out reasonably well in the end, although the lettering in individual pressfix transfers was the devils own task to finish! Unfortunately I didn’t take very many photos of this one, especially early on, but I shall include what I have, Basic bogie moulding - I had to make some brass spacers up as I hadn’t noticed the kit was the on3 version!) With drive components in place - including those dastardly worm gears ! Chassis starting to come together - building the 3 cyl engine unit and lay shafts Can motor as supplied with kit; One of the worm shafts out of its truck A bit of a white metal solder filling to repair a small casting fault on the main chassis member. The repaired article. Boiler/cab assembly with all the detail parts fitted first impressions of broadly completed assembly Replacement motor and starting the wiring. first decals, tender and 3rd truck fitted and set up. Tedious and fiddly! Ready for final assembly, Test running main chassis assembly getting ready to fit the tender assy First of several photos of completed loco ( just couplers and final details still to fit. hope that was of some interest to you all, I know it’s a bit off piste compared to our primary interests but thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless!

I got round to finishing the dean goods chassis in the end, so apart from painting of the chassis and a few last bits of detailing on the body, she’s pretty much done. I did make life a little harder for myself as per usual! I had noticed some time ago that high level gearboxes now feature a final drive gear that secures to the axle via a boss with a clearance groove machined into the centre section to clear the adjacent gear wheel, which avoids the old system of having to Loctite the final drive gear to the axle and the extra inconvenience involved in removing the gearbox for maintenance etc. I quite fancied incorporating this new feature as I had already gone to quite a lot of trouble making sure the pick-ups, brake gear, hornblocks, compensation beams, etc were all easily removable for access, but this did mean rebuilding the gearbox because, - Firstly, the new final drive gear is broader than the old type so the gearbox which had been built to its slimmed down 00 configuration had to be restored to full width (and the bearings and hornblocks thinned down instead). - And secondly, because the pitch between the intermediate gear and drive axle centres is slightly greater in the newer system, so requiring the repositioning of the axle bearings in the gearbox sides. So it was with some amount of frustration and occasional cursing that I disassembled and remade the gearbox, but I’m glad I went to the extra effort in the end as it is much improved for disassembly and maintenance purposes, and runs a little better too. I will leave a few pics and a video clip of her progress so far, - the usual compliments to High Level! really big fan of their products, pretty much my go to choice for OO drive components now.

I quite understand where you are coming from, it’s just difficult to suspend disbelief if there is a honking great coupling sticking out of the front/rear! I think I’m happy with the plan I’ve arrived at, firstly I am intending to complete what OO items have been started - which will leave me with the Dean goods, the 43xx, and the two industrials, and when they are all finished I can pack them up safely and I have just enough goods and passenger stock so that If I do decide to revisit any ideas of a 4mm scale layout in future, I will have everything I need on that front to go ahead. Once that’s done, I can concentrate solely on getting my 7mm stock together and built. Aside from 1331, I have a few secondhand GW wagons to tidy up/repaint, a pre grouping 4-4-0 to build, and 4 bogie coaches in varied states of part completion to finish building, so that should keep me occupied for the foreseeable! Then once we have settled down (looking at moving house in the next year or so) I can think about how a layout could work. The Dean goods chassis is the item currently being worked on, I’m in the process of adding pickups and have recently changed the motor from one of the little square 6 pole 6v minbea motors to a 12v coreless, the old motor was fitted with micro radio control in mind, and was a nice runner but with consistency in mind and the limitations of OO, I’ve decided to complete it as a conventional 12v Dc/dcc ready model. With the added benefits of the possibility of fitting a modest flywheel and have a little more room generally around the motor. Below are a few snaps of the current state of play, hope to have a bit more progress on this soon so I can get a decent idea of the final running quality.

Aha, one of these was tempting me for a very long while! I didn’t go for it in the end as I have enough uncompleted projects on the go, but looking forward to seeing how the rest of your build goes, good start, that tank does look tricky!

Ah I’ve not tried csb myself, something has always just put me off the idea, I suppose I just like the straightforward nature of 3 point compensation. I do very much enjoy 7mm now that I’m involved, certainly you do have to think about the cost aspect a little more carefully, but there’s just something very pleasing and substantial about the scale that I don’t feel In 4mm, Building a layout isn’t really on the cards for the foreseeable, as you say it’s very labour intensive (been looking at your efforts on Balmoral Road btw, beautiful layout!) For the moment I’m happy building up stock that takes my interest and one day will take the plunge I’m sure!

Thanks John, very kind of you to say so, Regarding compensation, this one is sprung on the leading and trailing driving axles with a floating middle axle, I don’t really like coil springs for this purpose but back when I built it I hadn’t really found my way yet, These days for a six coupled (assuming gearbox drives the rear axle), I would usually go for either a solid rear axle with beam compensation between the two front axles or solid rear and a rocking front axle with lightly sprung. (PB wire) middle axle. Indeed! I absolutely love the high level stuff, I’ve always been highly tempted by one of the industrial kits, but it’s outside of my focus area at the moment so I’m being strict with myself!!! (If Chris did 7mm etches I think I’d be in real trouble!)

short running clip,

Hello all, hope everyone is well as we find ourselves hurtling toward Christmas! Just a quick update as I did say I was going to try and keep up some semi regular progress, I haven’t been faring very well modelling wise recently, what with work and other commitments, and more recently a bout of Covid to deal with! But I have managed to get a little bit of time in to progress one or two projects, so I will run through one of them briefly now, Quite a few years ago my dad gave me an old mainline dean goods of his that had been tucked away in a box in the loft, not being fully satisfied with the running and the noise from the tender drive, I started on a journey to detail and improve the locomotive and replace the chassis with a high level models one. At the time I wasn’t really experienced enough to construct this chassis kit, as it is quite detailed and clearances are very tight for the motor and drive line so (unusually sensible for me!) I decided to put the project to one side and practice on something a little more straightforward. So having done a little research I bought a mainline 43xx for next to nothing online, and a comet models chassis kit and set to putting it all together, my inexperience notwithstanding, it all seemed to go together pretty nicely, and I was happy with the rolling chassis, but never fully satisfied with the running quality, I can’t remember quite what the gearbox I first used was, but it was a basic, single stage, fine worm affair around the 40:1 mark and was noisy, difficult to get a satisfactory gear mesh on, and inconsistent, and eventually the model got put away in a box and semi forgotten about. Recently i recovered it from its long slumber and determined to finally get it running properly. Happily it hasn’t taken too much to put right, I have used a high level gearbox that i had In My drawer of spares (I think a roadrunner +) and a mashima motor, which is generally a reliable combination to work with, and this has brought the running standard up considerably, it’s not quite perfect, the gears were slightly tired as the box has been employed as a test bed on quite a few projects since I got it and suffered a lot of heavy handling and assembly/disassembly, but with a bit of running in installed in its final home it’s not too bad now. It did give me the runaround for a couple of frustrating evenings mind, although the running was pretty good the drive just sounded very…. Clunky.. rattly.. kind of like a badly meshed or out of true gear, and I spent hours chasing the problem, stripping, rebuilding, fettling the box, checking the wheels and gearing rotated freely, trying different worms and gears, it was driving me crazy - and then eventually as I was looking at the chassis from above I noticed the end cap of the motor was oscillating around very slightly as the model ran… i often disassemble my motors to shim them out and remove some of the end float, and i must not have quite crimped the end cap back on this one sufficiently tightly - needless to say, once the end cap was held down tightly again and the bearing wasnt wandering all over the place, things quietened down significantly! 🤦‍♂️ As OO is not really my focus these days the plan was to get the loco mechanically finished and assembled to a decent runnnig state and then move it on to someone who had the enthusiasm to get everything painted, detailed and finished - this hasn’t worked very well, as now I’ve put all the effort in to get it running to a standard that I am satisfied with, I’m loath to get rid of it! So I may end up stripping it back down again and finishing it for myself, we will see! anyway a few pictures, hope you enjoy, Hopefully there will be an update on this project or one of the others before too long!

A Wonderful sight indeed 😃 https://www.facebook.com/100064531456449/posts/686950956799280/?app=fbl

Thanks for the kind remarks John, I’m glad I persevered with the valve gear, back when I only had half the set and was getting a bit frustrated I nearly decided to only put in a static representation, but it has been very satisfying to complete it properly, and building up the crank axle gave me a reason to learn to silver solder too so that’s a useful side effect. Indeed! I hope you find it as useful as I have! I may try and get hold of a more professional unit myself at some point…. or I may just finesse mine up a bit, it does the job, even if it wouldn’t win any beauty pageants!

Ah actually sorry, haven’t quite got rid of me yet! I would just add that the one tool that really helped get me underway again on this project was my slightly… Agricultural.. Resistance soldering unit, Previously the soldering gear from my 4mm projects struggled a bit on the heavier components of a 7mm kit, and made the experience a little bit down-heartening, which nearly put me off completely. Thankfully having seen a few videos on YouTube regarding RSU’s, I Cobbled this monstrosity together and it really changed my kit building experience, it gets some serious heat in there quickly, and once I got used to adding solder separately and where best to apply the heat to draw the solder in once it melted, I flew along in comparison to before. And it was a joy to finally be able to Tin parts and then laminate them onto the main assembly without getting solder everywhere!! So yes, for anyone who has ever wondered about trying out an Rsu, I can wholeheartedly recommend giving it a go, still need an iron for some jobs of course, but it certainly helped me no end!

Hello everyone, A few of you may have seen my previous postings regarding the model of a Liverpool and Manchester Samson class loco that I’ve been beavering away on recently, And I thought that you may enjoy a brief look at some of the other little projects that have been vying with it for my attention over a considerable length of time! I thought firstly I’d introduce you to my Agenoria GWR 1331, l bought this kit quite a few years ago now, my very first item of 7mm stock, and in fairly short order built up the running plate and cab/bunker assy, then I hit a few snags and there it stayed for a long time! Unfortunately a number of castings and half the inside motion set never arrived with the kit originally and despite quite a few exchanges with the manufacturer, I eventually gave up, and this long hiatus was the result, thankfully when I eventually revisited it, the chap from Ragstone models, the new owner of the range, was very helpful in locating the remaining castings I needed to get the project moving again. This is how the loco looked when I first restarted construction earlier this year And then as it looked as some of the first larger assemblies started coming together, (getting the saddle tank built gave me a real confidence and enthusiasm boost that helped get me back into the swing of things) And this is how it looks now… Really happy with how she has turned out, runs pretty nicely, looks good, pleasure to put together, and has brought together a few design philosophies that I can see myself following in future, coreless motor, decent helical drive gearbox, deltang radio control with onboard battery, (managed to put together a triangular 3 cell li-ion pack that fits beautifully snugly into the saddletank) and then wires under the cab floor and into the bunker where the reciever and charging port live. Very nearly there construction wise now, just a couple of boiler fittings and the backhead to install and I can start to think about painting, I imagine this may take a while as I am really keen to do a decent job on this. Well I think that’s enough from me for a bit!! I shall endeavour to go through the other half finished projects in the collection in turn and keep you all up to date as I hopefully start to work through them and tick them off the list!!! all the best Daniel.

And a little bit more, getting somewhere now, pretty happy with the overall effect, but will be kind of nice to get back to making bits of detail that arn’t required to move!!