Phil Mortimers 7mm WorkBench - Mercian Vivian Style Garratt

[Simond]

Congratulations, I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun!

 

S

[Giles]

You will indeed....! I went down the Stepcraft route, which mills brass and nickel-silver very nicely, and accurately enough for me - but I have no doubt a proper mill type such as this is superior in many respects.

I look forward to seeing your results!

[steveNCB7754]

On 23/03/2020 at 00:43, PhilMortimer said:

 

This is currently sitting in my living room awaiting a stand for me to install it on, so it won't be a problem for me in the future!

 

 

Simon, its all your fault - the discussion of mills a while back eventually prompted this!

 

 

Wow, now I feel jealous!

 

Actually, when I saw the fabricated top feed you had made, my first thought was -  ideal subject for 3D printing.  On the other hand (apart from the necessary skill(s)), you would obviously have to be careful that all hot soldering was finished, if it was printed in plastic, rather than metal!

 

Brilliant work though - always look forward to your latest posts.

 

Steve

 

[PhilMortimer]

Thanks All,

 

Yes. I'm very happy with the purchase. It's a LMS branded Sieg Mill, which some people can be a bit sniffy about, but with some work they can come up nice. And I really don't need anything larger. (In fact it may be more than I really need). Unfortunately it has been a bit busy since the last update, so the mill is still in the crate. However, I have a bench down in the basement ready for assembly, so hope to get it out and set up within the next few days. Diane purchased me a lathe from the same supplier (LittleMachineShop.com) back in January, which is also a Sieg manufactured lathe and again, after a bit of work setting it up, is now working nicely.

 

 

Sorry, the work bench was a bit crowded when i took the photo as i was tidying up (!!). I actually picked this up from a model engineering exhibition in Lebanon PA (about an hour and a half away) back in January and there were some wonderful models there. Although not relevant to this thread, I took a few pictures if anyone is interested.

 

Anyhow, back to the build.

 

I finally got round to adding the oil reservoirs to the rear sheet of the front tanks. These are three feed oil feed castings from Laurie Griffin, which I modified slightly. Once soldered into place with the RSU, the front tanks got a good clean, allowed to dry and then sprayed with rattle can grey primer both inside and out.

 

 

I have just noticed that one of the rivets on the topside of the LH tank is missing. This will be glued in and touched up with paint. The grey primer really shows the extra detailing added to the tanks (lifting eyes, oil reservoirs, vent pipe, sandboxes, and rows and rows of bloody rivets!) which shows that all the work was worth it.

 

After the paint had dried and hardened, the tanks were attached to the power units.

 

 

And finally, the obligatory side on view of the whole loco assembled again.

 

 

We're finally getting there!

Edited April 5, 2020 by PhilMortimer

[PhilMortimer]

OK, time to deal with the exhaust pipe that runs from the rear unit to the smokebox. This lies under the boiler cradle and is quite visible when viewed from the side. In the kit, this is supplied as two whitemetal parts that joint together (like the prototype) using a joint that is situated to the rear of the brake mechanism support brackets. This joint in the kit is represented by a white metal casting that is attached to the steam brake cylinder. I wasn't happy with the quality and shape of the pipe castings and decided to replace them with brass rod. The steam brake / pipe joint casting was also rough, but was retained and cleaned up as best possible. It isn't that visible under the loco, so the roughness of the casting won't be too obvious.

 

So, the steam brake / joint casting was first cleaned up and fitted to the brake mechanism supports, using photo's of the real thing. Getting the positioning correct was difficult due to no positioning aids being present. In addition, soldering in place was complicated due to the limited access available to get the soldering iron tip in, but success was achieved in the end. The photo below shows the joint in place. The steam brake is hidden by the brake mechanism brackets.

 

 

The next job was to form the pipework. This was done in two parts in the same manner as the cast parts supplied with the kit. I used 1/8" dia brass rod for this. This is fractionally undersize compared to that shown in the plans, but not significantly and is the same size as the cast whitemetal parts, (which probably used 1/8" rod as the casting former anyhow!). The shape of the front part of the pipe as supplied by the cast part is incorrect - it should have a shallow slope down towards the rear from the smokebox rather than being parallel to the axis of the boiler. So this was a good opportunity to get the shape correct as well. The brass rod was annealed at the correct points and then bent to shape, repeatedly fitting the part on the loco and adjusting the fit until it was correct. The front part of the pipe fits into a hole drilled into the bottom of the smokebox, that took forever to drill (by hand) due to the hardness of the brass and the multiple layers of brass forming the smokebox.

 

The following two photo's shows the cast whitemetal pipework and the newly made brass parts.

 

 

 

It's difficult to see in the photo's, but the forward part of the brass pipework (seen on the RHS) is angled down correctly. The two parts of the brass rod are joined by a spigot that was turned on the lathe, that locates into a hole drilled in the rear pipe. Well, might as use the lathe since I have it.

 

So the forward part of the rod was soldered into place. With the first loco I did, the joint between the two parts of the pipe was in the steeper dogleg section beyond the joint and was soldered together, which then needed cleaning up to make an invisible joint. For the second loco, I was smarter and was able to make the joint so that it was located within the cast WM joint. The rear pipe was then loctited to the front pipe and so the joint was invisible and needed no cleaning up. The position of this second joint is shown in the photo below. The spigot can just be seen located in the WM cast joint seen to the right of the brackets on the RHS side of the photo.

 

 

 

The rear section of the pipe runs under the center of the ashpan to the rear power unit. The ashpan has a W shaped cross section and the pipe runs under the central raised part. However, It hangs under the ashpan rather than being directly attached to it. On the model, it needs some form of support at the rear, otherwise it would only be supported where it connects to the front pipe, thus making it vulnerable to damage. To do this, a non-prototypical bracket was fabricated and located within the rear of the ashpan to support the rear of the pipe. This is seen in the photo below. The support is hidden within the ashpan and is not visible on the loco from normal viewing angles.

 

 

The rear pipe was then attached to the front (with loctite) and the rear of the pipe soldered to the support, as shown below. The rear pipework extends beyond the ashpan and under the rear power unit, as seen in the photo's below.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally a side-on shot of the re-assembled loco, showing the exhaust pipe located under the loco, showing it running from the rear power unit to the smokebox.

 

 

As you can see, it runs down from the smokebox to the rear of the loco at a shallow angle, before making a dog-leg and running down under the ashpan towards the rear power unit. The non-prototypical support bracket is not visible.

 

Finally, I'm working on getting the mill set up. It has been living in its crate for the past few weeks whilst I built and varnished a bench for it to sit on. Today, Diane and I managed to get it upstairs and onto the bench. To get it upstairs, we had to take the table off to lower the weight, but it has now been replaced. I've since been adjusting the various gibs to ensure accurate, but easy movement.

 

 

I still need to bolt it down to the bench, but its looking good. I'm looking forward to using it.

 

Next up, the brake pull mechanism.

 

 

Edited April 19, 2020 by PhilMortimer

[PhilMortimer]

Well, Simon's post in the Standard Gauge Industrial section has prompted me to get my finger out and post an update.

 

Today's entry focuses on the brake pull mechanism and the cab steps. These complete the major assemblies on the boiler section, with just some detailing to follow (backhead, roof (which will be glued on after painting), smokebox door (to be glued on after painting) and some miscellaneous parts.

 

So to the break pull mechanism. Firstly, to complicate matters, these differ in detail on the two loco's. One, which is to represent the Sneyd Colliery loco, is more conventional looking, whilst the loco for me (to represent the Baddesley loco "William Francis" has a more complex arrangement. Neither is represented well with the casting from the kit, which is closer in design to the former loco, consisting of a whitemetal casting that represents the pivot and the brake pull adjusters.

 

 

Aside from not looking great, I could not see how to securely attach the pull rods that go off to the power units to the WM pivot casting. So it was to be replaced. I spent a great deal of time looking at photo's of both the preserved loco and the Sneyd loco, as well as any drawings I could find, to see how everything worked. This was a bit difficult when you're halfway round the world from the extant loco and the repository of the various drawings, but eventually I think I figured things out and how to come up with a representation of the brake pull mechanism. SPOILER - the results are going to be a bit representative and I make no claims to true accuracy. However, they are good enough for me.

 

So for the first loco  (which was the simpler of the two to deal with), the brake pulls are operated by a split yoke shaped crank that pivots at the bottom of the frames pointing down from the main part of the boiler cradle. The brake pull rods that run off to the power units connect to this crank either above or below the main pivot point and the action of the brake cylinder rod on this crank causes its rotation about the main pivot, which causes movement of the brake pull rods and hence applies or releases the brakes. Simple really. The hand brake operating mechanism gets involved somewhere to also apply the brakes when stationary, but its hidden away and we won't be dealing with that. So firstly, I made a split yoke shaped crank from some brass strips, drilling, filing and sanding them to shape, before joining them together and bending to shape.

 

 

 

The yoke shape of the crank is to allow it to surround around the steam return pipe from the rear power unit under the boiler cradle.

 

The was installed in the brake frame with a brass pivot rod turned up in the lathe and carefully soldered in to place so that it was free to move. The picture below shows it installed on the loco, with the WM casting as a comparison.

 

 

The brake pull mechanism on the second loco is more complex (and I don't know why - there was probably a good reason for it). It consists of two yoke shaped cranks, that are linked together. Instead of pivoting at the bottom of the boiler frame as with the Sneyd loco, they appear to pivot higher up and the bottom of both of these yoke shaped cranks move back and forth in opposite directions to each other. This mechanism was made in a similar way to the first one, except it consist of two yoke shaped cranks, which were joined together with a small rod using lace pins. Careful soldering ensured that everything was free to move.

 

 

And installed on the loco.

 

 

Please note that this mechanism is a little bit representational and not fully accurate. bit it is a lot better than the WM casting supplied. One thing that is not correct is that the front hanger uses the pivot point on the vertical frames as the attachment point, whereas it should actually be a slide mechanism. However, the visual difference is minor and this helped me get everything correctly aligned. If you can see the difference in their under the gloom when the loco in on the track, your nose is too close to my loco!

 

I have to say that making the rake pull mechanisms above was quite tricky and time consuming, but visually are worth it.

 

The brake pull rods that run front and rear from the actuating mechanism to the power units were made from 1mm NS rod with 1/16" square tube acting as the terminators that connect to the brake cranks. (I'm mixing my measurement units I know......). The NS rod was threaded at one end. The 1/16" square tube was first drilled at one end (to enable a lace pin to be fed through to act as the pivot pin that connects the pull rod to the operating crank) and then was slit lengthwise using a cutting disk mounted in the mill. Photo's showing the construction are given below.

 

 

 

The drilled and split square tube was cut to length, tapped to accept the NS rod and everything assembled with a nut threaded on to represent the adjuster. This gives us......

 

 

These rods will be fitted to the operating crank using a lace pin, but have not yet been permernantly fitted at this stage, as i have yet to figure out how to mount them to the brake pull beams on the power units without hindering the rotation and articulation of the power units relative to the central cradle. As a result, I have left the pull rods over long at the moment and have started on assembling the power unit brake gear.

 

The brake shoes were assembled months ago, when i fitted the brake hangers to the power units. But the brake gear has never been fully assembled, as I didn't like the instructions in the kit which specified to use wire as the brake spreader beams. Looking at the drawings, it appears that shallow diamond center pull brake spreader beams were used on the actual locos and so this would not look right. I ordered some nice cast versions from Laurie Griffin, but because of the time it took for them to get here (I'm overseas), I moved onto other things. But now I need to finish assembling the brake gear so that I can work out how to affix and support the outer end of the brake pull rods.

 

A start has been made on cleaning up the cast spreader beams and this work is ongoing.

 

Raw castings

 

 

All cleaned up and drilled (for the pull rods) ready for assembly to the brake droppers (located in the container at the top of the picture). The completed brake gear will spring into the chassis brake hangers and will be fitted after painting.

 

 

 

To give myself a rest from the brakes (which were HARD work), I assembled the cab steps and fitted them to the cradle. These are pretty conventional, but you do have to make them accurately, as the main crank pin and valve gear return crank is located behind them. So sufficient clearance needs to be present to allow the wheels to rotate, especially as the power unit will rotate relative to the boiler cradle. To accommodate this, the steps are cranked outwards, but there is a balance between making them sufficiently wide to allow operation and making them wide to the loading gauge. My steps are currently a scale 1.5 inches too wide to gauge, which I can live with at the moment, but may have to tweak if they go anywhere near close clearances. The nut on the return cranks was also thinned down as much as possible and carefully soldered (so that the return crank could still rotate), in order to gain as much clearance as possible. I can run the locos through a standard Peco point with no problems, so I'm happy with how things stand.

 

Initial assembly of all four sets of steps

 

 

And bent to shape with reinforcing added to the rear of the tops of the steps.

 

 

It should be noted that the steps are pretty vulnerable when handling the boiler cradle, so care is needed. the Reinforcement to the rear of the top steps is nessecary, especially as the brass is quite soft. The steps are added to the cradle, being space back from the valance using coffees stirrers.

 

And finally, the complete loco with the brake cranks and steps fitted showing the current state of play.

 

 

I would like to acknowledge the use of Phil Parkers' excellent set of photo's from when William Francis was at Manchester, which were most helpful for not only aiding my understanding and construction of the brake operating mechanism, but throughout this build.

 

Right, back to building the brake gear.

 

(Oh and I continue to work on bringing the mill up to scratch, having fitted finer thread screw mechanisms (0.050"/turn), eliminated most of the backlash and trammed the thing. All good fun.)

 

[PhilMortimer]

Just a few more pictures showing progress with the brake assemblies. All eight of the crossbeams have now been fitted to the links holding the brake shoes and have been temporarily clipped into the frames. The break pull rods that connect the crossbeams are now being fabricated.

 

 

 

 

 

[PhilMortimer]

Finally, an update! My appologies - life has been a bit busy recently.

 

Anyhow, after much faffing around, I have finished the brakes and they have been installd on the power units. These took a long time and a lot of work to finalize and get working correctly. The big problem to be overcome was the long pull-rod that runs from the brake crank pivot support frame under the boiler, to the front power unit. The pull rod to the front power unit is very visible and exposed below the main boiler unit frame. The pull rod is fixed to the the boiler unit main frame at one end and connects to the brake cross-beams on the front power unit at the other. However, it has to accomodate the flexing and rotation of the front power unit with respect to the main frame of the boiler unit. The pullrod cannot be unsupported at the power unit end, as it would be vulnerable to damage and bending. So, I had to devise a method in which the outer end of the pull rod is supported, but accomodate the movement of the power unit with respect to the boiler unit. In the end, I came up with a telescopic arrangement as is shown in the pictures below. It's non-prototypical, but being hidden under the power unit frame and between the wheels, its not that obvious. It should be noted that this flexible telescopic arrangement is not nessecary for the rear power units, as the pull rod can be supported under the firebox. Therefore, there is no telescopic arrangement on the brake units for the rear power unit.

 

So, here is the final arrangement of the brakes for the front and rear power units. Each completed brake unit consists of a pair of pre-assembled crossbeam / brake shoe assemblies that are linked by a pull rod. The pull rod is pinned to the cross beam in a way that allows the crossbeam to rotate relative to the pull rod. The assembly for the front power unit also has the telescopic reciever pinned to the pull rod, which also rotates relative to the pull rod. This flexibility aids fitting of the complete brake assembly to the power unit, as well as preventing any restriction to the movement of the power unit relative to the main frame.

 

I hope that makes sense to you!

 

Before painting.

 

 

And after painting.

 

 

The brake assemblies are mounted to onto the power units by clipping into the brake hangers previously fitted to the power unit chassis. I used a smear of supoerglue to keep them fitted into place.

 

So here is the brake assembly fitted to the front power unit, which is seen fitted to the main boiler unit. In the picture, it can be seen that the pull rod from the main frame has been fitted into the telescoping unit of the brake unit fitted to the front power. This telescopic arrangement provides flexibility and allows relative movement between the main frame and the power unit, without restriction. Fitting this lot together takes some coordination and agility!

 

 

And the final picture shows the complete underside of the fully assembled loco, with the brake assemblies in place on both power units.

 

 

Since then, I have completed some tidying up of the main boiler units, filling gaps in preperation for painting. I still have to give both boiler units a good clean, but am looking to get both primed in the next week or two.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2020 by PhilMortimer

[Simond]

Hi Phil,

 

haven’t touched mine for a few weeks, had a brief holiday (and got back pre-quarantine) and have assembled a greenhouse for MrsD, so trains are on the back seat at the mo.

 

the telescopic brake rod is filed away for unashamed copying in due course...

 

atb

Simon

[steveNCB7754]

7 hours ago, PhilMortimer said:

 

 

 ... And the final picture shows the complete underside of the fully assembled loco, with the brake assemblies in place on both power units.

 

 

 

Great work Phil, but at this rate, it might have been easier to build a full-size one!  

 

 

[PhilMortimer]

7 hours ago, steveNCB7754 said:

 

 

Great work Phil, but at this rate, it might have been easier to build a full-size one!  

 

 

 

You ain't kidding!

 

[PhilMortimer]

OK!! Another installment in the long saga of "Phil builds a couple of garratts"! In this case, the section should be entitled "Fixing one's previous mistakes!" . All of which were of my own making. I think that when Phil Parker built one of his models of this loco, he remarked somewhere that one should fix problems when they occur, as they WILL come back to bite you later and fixing them can be tricky. I should have listened........

 

There are two issues here, and they are different for each loco that I'm building. But they both relate to what I believe are the circular mudhole covers on the shoulder of the firebox. Lets take each loco in turn to illustrate the problems and how they were fixed.

 

For the model that I'm building for myself, the problem was with the whitemetal castings that were supplied and which i had  previously affixed to the firebox. My model will represent the final loco of the quartet of BP Vivian style garrats, William Francis of Baddesley colliery. These castings had previously been fitted to the firebox and are see in the following photo's.

 

 

 

Note that these covers are assymetrically located on the firebox, as are the washout plugs.

 

The castings are nice, but when compared with the real thing, as shown in Phil parkers pictures of the real loco, they appear to be of too small a diameter and also too deep. Please see the following link : (Picture copyright Phil Parker)

 

 

A slight difference I think you'll agree.

 

So what to do? The castings had always bugged me from the moment that I'd fitted them. I could have ignored it, but it was going to bug me forever if I didn't do something about it. In the end, I had a go at making replacements and I think they came out rather well.

 

From the photo's I guestimated that the size of the real cover approximatd to 1/4" in diameter in 7mm scale. So I obtained some 1/4" brass rod and popped it in to the (new) mill. The radius of the firebox shoulder was approximated at 5/16" diameter following some test cuts, and so after centering the rod to the mill, a 5/16" diameter radius was milled into the end of the rod.

 

Picture below shows the rod held in he chuck after centering and with a light test cut to confirm centering of the rod. And yes, for the engineering specialists, I know that I should have held the brass rod with softjaws, but I don't have any at the moment. Still kitting out the new mill at the moment.

 

 

Looking good, so on with the milling.

 

 

Which gives this - a 5/16" radius milled into the end of the rod which will match the curvature of the firebox shoulder.

 

 

 

With a nice radius milled centrally into the rod, it was over to the lathe to tidy up the edges.

 

 

The end was parted off at a suitable depth to yield the rough finished item. Both covers are seen in the photo below, showing both the top and uderside of the parts.

 

 

As expected, the upperside looks a little rough, due to the parting off from the brass stock. The photo makes the series of cocentric markings look worse than they are in actuality, but they will be dealt with. The central spigot remaining from the parting operation will eventually be cut back to mimic the central cover retaining bolt.

 

So back to the lathe the parts go. In this case, I made a mandrel from 1/4" ID aluminium tube to hold the newly made brass covers for the lathe operations. The aluminium tube was slit with a piercing saw on approximately 120 degree angles and thus could be clamped down onto the brass parts. This allows the brass parts to be held securely in the lathe chuck without a risk of them being marked by the chuck jaws. Hopefully the pictures will show what I mean. The newly made brass covers were carefully inserted into the mandrel and clocked to check that the front face was at 90 degrees to the axis of the lathe. It was then a simple job to face the outer surface of the brass parts to give a nice smooth face.

 

 

A finished part is shown below together with its couterpart awaiting final finishing. I think you'll agree it was worth the extra effort to do the final surfacing.

 

 

The newly made parts are the compared with the whitemetal castings as currently fitted to the loco.

 

 

 

Hopefully you'll agree that the new parts are much more representative of the real things on the actual loco.

 

So then it was a case of unsoldering the existing whitemetal fittings and repalcing them with the newly made brass replacements. Some careful alignment was used to ensure that the parts were in the correct place, as the new parts had no location spigot. I could have added one, but I wasn't convinced that the alignment holes in the firebox shoulder were correctly situated, so careful measurement and alignment was used instead. The new brass parts were sweated into place using 100 degree solder and the RSU.

 

The following photos show the previous whitemetal casting and the newly made brass substitutes as fitted to the left hand side of the firebox.

 

 

 

Hopefully you'll agree that this is a significant improvement and worth the time and effort to do.

 

For the other model, which is to represent the Sneyd Colliery loco, the problem was rather different. In this case, photo's show that this loco was not equipped with these large mudhole covers. Unfortunately, when I originally made the replacement outer firebox wrappers, i didn't notice this on the photo's of this loco and so merrily drilled the hole of the locating spigot in the new wrapper and eventually fitted the cast white metal mudhole covers. And then I saw a nice enlarged photo of this loco in service that clearly showed no mudhole covers. Checking through my photo's of this loco confirmed that.

 

" Oh bother!!" said I. Actually I said something different, but it was still 6 letters, started with the letter B and ended with the letter R.

 

Again, what to do? As I keep telling my students, it is important to do one's research properly before starting work, otherwise fixing a mistake is going to be far more embarrasing and time consuming. I must listen to my own advice.

 

I thought long and hard about how to fix this issue, as there was a strong chance that I could make things sigificantly worse in trying to rectify the problem. Do I ignore it? Do I own up to the customer as to my stupidity? Do I need to remove the boiler and make new wrapper (again!).

 

After thinking about it for a few weeks, I convinced myself that I could remove the white metal casting, plug the resultant hole with some brass rod and sand down the excess rod flush and smooth with the surface of the wrapper. And in fact that is what I did. But before trying it on the actual model, I remembered that I had some spare firebox wrappers from when I was making the replacements for the incorrect orignals as supplid in the kits. So I experimented with one of these first, which convinced me that I could achieve a good final result.

 

Photo showing result of test plugging the hole in the spare wrapper from the front.

 

 

The excess rod is visible inside the forebox, but has been cut off and sanded down on the exterior side so that it is flush wiith the surface and so virtually invisble. The fingernail test shows no perceptable surface roughness.

 

And from the side - can you see the rod plugging the hole?

 

 

Looks OK to me.

 

So, on a wet and windy day last weekend with no demands on my time and more importantly, no distractions, I plucked up my courage and set to with plugging the hole.

 

So here is the casting in place to start with.

 

 

 

With the casting removed., the hole was enlarged slightly to accept a piece of 3/32" brass rod. The edges of the hole were chamferred slightly to allow for the solder to penetrate, and then both the edges of the hole and the brass rod were then liberaly  tinned with solder.

 

 

The steel screws are there to prevent the inner washout plug fittings from desoldering during the various heating and soldering operations that are in close proximity to them.

 

With a liberal application of flux, the rod was inserted in the hole. At this point it won't slide in. However, heating the rod (not the wrapper) with my 100W iron allowed the solder to melt and thus the rod could be inserted. Working the rod back and forth slightly whilst the solder is molten ensures that both the inner and outer surfaces of the rod / wrapper join are well coated with solder to ensure a good joint. The joint was then allows to cool, leaving the rod firmly soldered into the firebox wrapper, as shown below.

 

 

The excess rod was cut off close to the wrapper using a fine piercing saw and then over the course of a couple of hours carefully filed and sanded back flush with the existing wrapper to eventiually make an invisible joint. This yields the final result below.

 

 

(The grey circle is the solder ring where it penetrates the joint between the wrapper and the rod / plug - the surface is indeed flush nd no imperfection can be felt using the fingernail test).

 

And on the other side....

 

 

Much less visible here.

 

All in all, a worthwhile task, abeilt a bit nerve wracking. If only I'd looked at the photo's properly when making the new wrappers, I wouldn't have had to do any of this. Oh well........

 

I have since given both loco''s a good scrub abd brush up to remove much of the tarnishing.

 

I'm just making up the displacement lubricator that is attached to the cradle above the reverser, and then the boiler unit then will be prepared for painting. However, the making of the lubricator will be for another segment.

 

Adios!

Edited September 8, 2020 by PhilMortimer
Typo

[Simond]

Nice work Phil.

 

mine resides in a siding on the layout, the workbench is littered with micro milling machine and accessories, and the backing plates to support the buffers.  And has been since the first week of July, when we went boating for a couple of weeks.  
 

No mojo.  

 

Then again, I have been to work every day, and built a rather large greenhouse, so I suppose I have an excuse!

 

Mr mojo will return as evenings get shorter!

 

atb

Simon

[PhilMortimer]

Thanks Simon,

 

I have to say that these loco's are now starting to drag a bit. My mojo is severely lacking at the moment. I would like to get them finished and move on to something else (and hopefully a bit easier). Its not been helped by the fact that I've been so darned busy since Covid took off - Work has been intense and I've also been volunteering as an unpaid grounds man at the farm where I volunteer, so I've essentially been working two jobs, in addition to taking care of things at home. Hence Mr Mojo has deserted me. but as you see, Captain Cockup visited instead! That should make Mickoo on WT happy that CCU is annoying someone else for a bit!

 

I would not have been able to make these parts easily without the machine tools so I'm very grateful to Diane for buying them for me. I do like machining and its good to relearn how to do things.

 

This most recent episode was definitely a case of "problem solving" and that is something I'm good at. But my nerves can't take the strain!

Edited September 8, 2020 by PhilMortimer

[steveNCB7754]

17 hours ago, PhilMortimer said:

 

... I have to say that these loco's are now starting to drag a bit. My mojo is severely lacking at the moment. I would like to get them finished and move on to something else (and hopefully a bit easier).

 

 

We've all 'been there', as modeler's, at one time or another.  Towards the end of my last aircraft modelling period (some years ago now), I couldn't decide which of two 1:48 scale BAC Canberra jets to model, so I decided to do both -  at the same time!  Made sense - any faults or corrections I found during the build, would get done there and then and I used the building of two, to justify building a jig to get the wing dihedral angle not only correct, but the same on both models.  Eventually though, having to do everything twice (including scratch-building missing detail and non-standard fit parts) got to me and they never got beyond closing-up the fuselages and fitting the wings and tailplanes.  They ended up in a large box, when I decided to give aircraft modelling a break for a bit (years ago now and they are still in there).  Took a quick look in the box the other day, after I retired and moved to (not so sunny Wales) -  I see that one of the cockpits has split open along the glue seam, I just hope that it has been caused by mechanical/heat+cold stress related issues, and not something 'chemical' going on!

 

Next time, I will build one and leave the other for another day (that's if I ever get back to aircraft modelling, of course).

 

'Keep the faith'

 

[PhilMortimer]

 

Well, we have reached a significant (and possibly momentous) step - the boiler units are complete and are in primer. Actually, they are not quite complete, but everything that will be added now will be glued on after painting. So after a good look, they were scrubbed up with BKF, sonicated, rinsed and allowed to dry. Saturday morning was nice and warm, and so I took the opportunity to give them several coats of light grey primer, before jheading off to do barn and farm chores.

 

The locos are now touch dry, but I will allow the paint to harden before flatting down to get a smooth finish, ready for top coating. I still need to source some top coat paint. We have deccided that for the loc destined to be Sneyd #2, Midland Madder Lake will be close enough (escpescially under all the grime!). However, I'm having difficulty sourceing some. The nearest automotive equivalent that I can find is British Leyland Damask red, but that is not easy for me to source, with me currently being based in the US. The search continues!.

 

The top photo shows the loco that is desitined to become Baddesley colliery garratt William Francis. The two locomotives up until now have been built in parallel, but now I will probably finish them individually. They have a number of differences, including different brake pull rods, different top feed and William Francis having large circular fittings on the firebox shoulders. (It is nice to show that with the application of the primer coat, the plugs I made to fit in the locoating holes for these large circular fittings on the Sneyd Loco are indeed invisible, as I'd hoped. Phew!).

 

Whilst the primer hardens, I will in the meantime work on the smokebox door and back head fittings, readu for gluing on after final painting.

 

Here are a coupole of other photos of the two looco's.

 

A slight front view of the Sneyd Loco.

 

 

And a rear three quarter view of the same Sneyd Loco.

 

 

Cheers,

 

PM

[PhilMortimer]

Flatted down the primer on both boiler units with 2000 Wet and dry (used wet) as per Giles description on painting.

 

Hopefully in the next few days, I can get the basic block colour on both loco's.

 

 

[PhilMortimer]

 

We have colour!

 

After considerable procrastination, I was finally able to get round to applying the main colour coat to the first of the two garratts. I hate painting and often mess it up, so approached this with considerable reluctance. Some considerable experimentation was conducted to find the right shade of red and see how it would apply to various test pieces before proceeding, but eventually I settled on Testors gloss dark red as being a close approximation to Midland Lake. This comes in the form of small spray cans that deliver a fine coat that dries rapidly without obliterating detail, so whilst expensive, proved the best way to proceed with this particular colour.

 

First the interior of the cab was sprayed black using the airbrush. Pictures of the surviving garratt show that the cab interior was black rather than a lighter colour on the upperworks, as for many loco's. Once the interior coat had dried and hardened for several days, the model was masked up and with the gloss red. Red can be a difficult colour to apply evenly, so multiple coats were required. The following pictures show the painting in process.

 

 

Boiler unit marked up and being sprayed. Cocktail sticks inserted into the washout plugs to keep the threads clear.

 

 

 

Tanks being sprayed - mounted on cocktail sticks to raise them above the surface.

 

 

 

Boiler Unit after removal of the masking

 

 

 

Boiler Units and tanks after masking removal.

 

 

 

And the loco temporarily reassembled.

 

I want to leave the paint to fully harden for a week or so, before polishing and smoothing the paint using Gile's techniques. I'm actually really pleased with the way the main red colour has applied without any significant problems. I still need to apply the black to the cradle frames and undersides, and am in two minds as to weather to brush paint this (less masking) or to mask it up and spray it. More experimentation is required before proceeding. The red currently looks a little bright, but once the weathering is applied, it will tone down.

 

I'm still awaiting a delivery of the same manufacturer's dark blue paint to do the other loco (which will be William Francis). This may take a few days to arrive, so progress on that loco will be delayed until that arrives.  However, the cab interiors have already been sprayed black in preperation for the main colour coat to go on when it arrives.

 

Edited November 27, 2020 by PhilMortimer

[Guest Isambarduk]

Your loco is starting to look the part now, Phil - well done!

 

On the black parts, I spray them first and then mask off everying for the body colour, just as you did - was there some reason for not doing this, given that you first sprayed black inside the cab?

 

Yes, red is a 'difficult' colour, I agree, but all that is needed is a good undercoat (essential, I would say): red oxide, brown, grey - or even black may be used to good effect with dark reds, such as yours.

 

On a conventional loco, I go about it this way:

• prime all over
• undercoat buffer planks (red oxide)
• red on buffer planks
• internal cab colour
• mask off buffer planks
• mask off internal cab colour
• black on all non livery parts
• mask off black
• undercoat for livery colour
• livery colour

When all the masking is off then comes, what is to me, a critical part. With a lining pen, I sharpen up all the boundaries between the different colours so that there are crisp lines.

 

David

[Giles]

I was just trying to remember what I did with mine..... Looking it up, it was sprayed black overall, and then red. In the past I've ever used a dark green as an undercoat, which was quite nice!

 

Its all looking lovely and familiar! It's really nice to see some good builds of these things.....

[Simond]

Phil,

 

I’ve not seen these before.  Cracking photos.

 

 

might be helpful!

 

atb

Simon

[PhilMortimer]

Thanks guys,

 

Sorry for the late reply - we have been without internet for the past few days, which actually has been rather pleasant - no news is good news in my book!

 

Anyhow, thanks Simon for the additional pictures. I had seen a couple of these before when I lived in Swansea. I agree that these may be publicity shots, though I've seen pictures of the Vivian garratt later in its life and it was still relatively clean - definitely in far better external condition to the two that ended up with the NCB. What I find interesting is that I can actually pinpoint the location of most of the pictures, though much has changed in the Tawe valley these days. However, when i was still there (mid 90's to early 2000's), the remains of the engine shed were still visible down by the river.

 

As has been noticed, the Vivian garratt ha some differences to the other loco's, namely being vac brake equipped with ejector pipe to the smokebox on the RHS, different cab rear (door to bunker in rear cab sheet),  squared off upper and lower buffer edges, different top feed to garratt #4 (but the same as #'s 2 and 3), lubricator on front RHS of power units, smaller grab handles on front LHS of power units. I'm sure there are many other differences, but these are the ones that I can rattle off the top of my head.

 

As for the painting sequence, thanks for the suggestions. The order I have chosen basically fits with how I see the most logical order that I can see for this particular loco. I like to get the main color on first, as that has the biggest impact and so if I screw it up and have to strip the loco, I haven't wasted time on doing the details. Also, in this particular case, since on my loco's, the boiler and cab are soldered and permernantly affixed to the cradle, it is easier to paint the boiler first and then mask the boiler and cab to do the black of the cradle foot plate and side plates. I still may brush these - will be doing some experimenting tonight on some hidden areas to see how it comes out.

 

Good to see the progress on all these loco's. We really need to get them all together at some point! I spent yesterday evening buffing the paint work to give it a worn look, ready for weathering. I think the client wants this loco more heavily weathered than Giles loco, i.e. as seen in the pictures towards the end of its life (which is when he remembers it from), so that may hide a multitude of sins!

[Giles]

I don't think your locos have much in the way of 'sins', Phil!

Edited November 30, 2020 by Giles

[Michael Edge]

Some years ago I built this model of the Vivian's Garratt in EM from the Backwoods kit.

Superbly painted by Dave Studley.

[PhilMortimer]

Oh Rats, that’s gorgeous! I think I'll go and sob in a corner having seen that - it looks just too wonderful and there is no way I can meet that standard!

 

I always wanted to build this kit for my OO scale empire. Unfortunately, with Pete's retirement, it looks increasing ly unlikely that I will ever get to build it (or any of his other kits either).

Edited November 30, 2020 by PhilMortimer