Agenoria RSH 0-6-0 in 4mm

[Arthur]

Two of the Y.E. versions are preserved,  1951 built 2498, ex Samuel Fox, Stocksbridge (United Steel Co.), that's the one at Quainton Road, and 1952 built 2521, ex Appleby Frodingham (United Steel Co.), owned by the National Mining Museum and based at Barrow Hill roundhouse.

 

Of 38 of these YE locomotives built between 1947 and 1954, 36 were supplied to various branches of the United Steels Companies and one, 2499 of 1951, was supplied to the Lancashire Steel Corporation for use at their Irlam works. 2511 of 1952 was exported to Peru. The first two built, in 1947, had cabs and smokeboxes of the original RSH design, the design was changed in the light of experience.

 

Arthur

 

 

[Beagle1]

Many years ago I believe an example of the Yorkshire engine version was donated to Scunthorpe Parks department from Normanby Park steelworks (Lysaghts?) Unfortunatley cannot find any pictures on t'internet.

[James]

Many years ago I believe an example of the Yorkshire engine version was donated to Scunthorpe Parks department from Normanby Park steelworks (Lysaghts?) Unfortunatley cannot find any pictures on t'internet.

 

What has happened to it?

 

And yes, Normanby Park was John Lysaught's works. But there seem to be very few photos of the works on the net though and virtually no signs on the ground that iut ever existed really.

[Arthur]

Many years ago I believe an example of the Yorkshire engine version was donated to Scunthorpe Parks department from Normanby Park steelworks (Lysaghts?) Unfortunatley cannot find any pictures on t'internet.

If that's the case it would never have worked for Lysaghts as such.  It would have been an ex United Steels/Appleby Frodingham locomotive. The British Steel Corporation began to work all three of Scunthorpes integrated works as one from 1967 so it's possible that one would have been transfered there.  However, by then, I would have thought all of the works steam locomotives had long since gone?

 

 

Arthur

 

 

[James]

If that's the case it would never have worked for Lysaghts as such.

 

But names have stuck for a long time in Scunny!

 

I worked on the Corus site for a while as my previous company had the p-way contract and there were some odd names still used - references to companies that had long disappeared!

[Beagle1]

The loco in question for the Scunny Bunnies on here lived in Jubilee park for many years, but I guess when the park was bulldozed for a new school she went under the Scrapmans Torch?

[James]

but have yet to see an actual photo of an RSH example

 

Would this help?

 

 

I bought it a little while ago. I can send you a higher-res copy if you wanted too.

 

The loco in question for the Scunny Bunnies on here lived in Jubilee park for many years, but I guess when the park was bulldozed for a new school she went under the Scrapmans Torch?

 

That would be a shame - wonder if the IRS would know?

[jukebox]

Would this help?

 

 

I bought it a little while ago. I can send you a higher-res copy if you wanted too.

 

 

Brilliant, James! . I'd love a larger copy - can you PM me with a file? Over on the Preservation forum, 5XP has steered me to his photo of the hulk of an RSH version at Tanfield. Its' cab looks to be non original, and while it may just be the angle, the saddle tank appears to meet the cab front. Either way, it means I am on my own now!

 

As hinted, just some detailing work this week. I added the fillers to the sandbox tops, builders plates to the sandbox sides, and the three washout plugs to the firebox. This last exercise was amusing - the instructions suggested drilling out the plugs and feeding some 1mm wire through the hole, and soldering these to the firebox. Looked great on paper, but the plugs were 0.6mm wide mircodots... but they actually had some relief on them, so they were used as is.

 

Here they are on the etch:

 

 

Feeling like a challenge, the last thing I did was have a go at making the double wheeled lubricator controls.

 

They started off in the flat like this:

 

 

That's the second smallest broach in the Mainly Trains set; I opened the central holes out from 0.3mm to 0.45mm - the smaller wire did not seem stiff enough to be durable.

 

Next, I soldered a short lenth of wire into the centre holes while the wheels were still attached (easier to handle that way):

 

 

I paid I visit to Richard Johnson up at DCC Concepts last weekend, and on his recommendation am trying some of his Sapphire solder - it comes in a 0.8mm wire, so is a lot easier to get small quantities on the tip of the soldering iron. Despite living in one of the world's most isolated capitol cities, I count myself very lucky to have such ready access to Richard - he's a DCC guru, and a great source of knowledge, hints, and advice. He is always encouraging people to have a go, and do things that little bit better. That mentoring is priceless.

 

The build calls for two wheels to be spaced on the shaft. I did this by slipping a section of business card over the first wheel, and soldering the second down on it like so:

 

 

Cut the card away, and you are left with a twin wheeled lubricator shaft, ready to trim up and install in the side of the lubricator boxes on the footplate once all the painting is done:

 

[James]

Brilliant, James! . I'd love a larger copy - can you PM me with a file?

 

PM me with your e-mail address and let me know how big a copy you'd like and I'll re-scan it for you!

[jukebox]

It's been a long weekend here done under - Anzac Day, a public holiday commemorating the sacrifices of the men and women of the Australian and New Zealand military at Galipolli in WWI in particular, but all our ex-and-current servicemen. A sombre day, considering how many of my countrymen have given their lives in conflicts everywhere but never on our own soil. After spending some time yesterday watching the local memorial march and service, I had a little time to prepare all the etches for the smokebox and boiler. Here they are before being cleaned up:

 

 

And this is Agenoria's instructions for this section:

 

 

And so, this morning, I gave the workboard a bit of a tidy up and got down to business:

 

 

The smokebox wrapper and tank come pre-rolled, and have a centreline etched on them, so it is simply a matter of lining up the marks and "spot welding" with solder...

 

 

Of course by the time comes to push the wrapper around the reverse curves, a good bit of finger pressure is needed close to the spot while the heat is applied. Needless to say I'm nursing some toasted fingers tonight.

 

The smokebox has formers front and back:

 

 

No problems or surprises - just a case of working steadily through it, making sure to keep the former as close to flush as possible.

 

The saddle tank was the same construction - tack the top centreline, check that it is flush and square, then tack each side. ("F for Front" makes its return! - the formers are different shapes front and rear, as one fits over the firebox...)

 

 

Here's the tank tacked-soldered down the broad curve, before I fold in the overhang (you can see the pretty nasty pre-formed bend on the lower part of the tank - more about this in a minute):

 

 

The overhang has half-etched lines along it to help form the tight radius bend.

 

 

I spotted some solder on the edge of the formers, and held the side in place then applied heat to get the solder to make the join. Once the tank looked reasonably close to shape, I then soldered the smokebox assembly to it. You can see Part (51) in the instructions - this locks into the front and passes through the rear of the smokebox, and forms a ledge for the tank to sit on. No more action shots from here on in - my hands were getting covered in flux and muck, the sort of stuff not welcome near a camera!

 

Here's the end assembly, all cleaned up:

 

 

The instructions mention the need to sand the tank if the tight-bend overhang section forms into facets rather than a smooth curve. The pre-form bend here is too tight, too high, so I actually did a bit of work with a file then wet and dry, but can still feel under my fingers where the shape seems a bit ropey. It's one of those times I might just give the assembly a shot of undercoat (or Mr Surfacer) to see what the result is going to look like under enamel, because once the unit is soldered onto the footplate, that area will be virtually inaccessable.

 

Of course having the last major assembly complete, the temptation was too great not to sit it on the chassis and see how it looks...

 

 

Things seem a bit wonky because it's not soldered down and I have some fettling to do to make it fit (for instance, those slidebars are too long and are sitting splayed outwards, but I dont want to trim them until I fix the location of hangers, that are fouling the front flanges right now), but I'm certainly happy that it's starting to look a lot like the real thing:

 

[5XP]

Nice work Scott, your getting close now and it looks really neat.

 

I've been away from NZ a while now and embarrassingly I forgot all about Anzac Day.

 

regards,

 

Darren.

[Gordon A]

Scott,

 

Keep up the good work.

 

I am following this thread with a lot of interest as I have one to build to P4.

 

Gordon A

Bristol

[jazz]

Referring to the slop on the piston, when I encounter this problem (which is rare), I always use a suitable brass tube to make a full length sleeve for the rod.

 

Regarding the problems you had with the brakes. I set the shoes at the minium clearance from the tyre and at the furthest point fron the flange but not forward of the rim. Also I have virtually no side play on the axles. If the shoes are too close to the tyre I file a little off the shoe to give sufficient clearance. (You only the thicknesss of a post card on a well built chassis.)

 

An old trick is to smear expoxy on the shoe to give an electrical barrier on really tight for space wheel sets.

 

I have never built a 4mm Angenoria but I have had the pleasure of building many of Pete's in 7mm and find them to be superb kits. I am watching your progress with interest.

 

Here's one on my layout, as you can see, the brake shoe clearance is very small and no problems encountered in running as the wheels have no side play and the lead axle is also sprung. The lead shoes have be filed back a touch to allows the wheels to move vertically on the springs.

[jukebox]

Referring to the slop on the piston, when I encounter this problem (which is rare), I always use a suitable brass tube to make a full length sleeve for the rod.

 

Regarding the problems you had with the brakes. I set the shoes at the minium clearance from the tyre and at the furthest point fron the flange but not forward of the rim. Also I have virtually no side play on the axles. If the shoes are too close to the tyre I file a little off the shoe to give sufficient clearance. (You only the thicknesss of a post card on a well built chassis.)

 

An old trick is to smear expoxy on the shoe to give an electrical barrier on really tight for space wheel sets.

 

I have never built a 4mm Angenoria but I have had the pleasure of building many of Pete's in 7mm and find them to be superb kits. I am watching your progress with interest.

 

Here's one on my layout, as you can see, the brake shoe clearance is very small and no problems encountered in running as the wheels have no side play and the lead axle is also sprung. The lead shoes have be filed back a touch to allows the wheels to move vertically on the springs.

 

Hi Jazz;

 

Nice build!

 

I've been a regular visitor to your workbench thread, and did see you have worked on the Agenoria kits before. They certainly are well thought out - the things that have tripped me up on this build have not been significant, and most importantly, the major pieces all drop into place nice and square with the slot-and-tab fit that makes it idiot-proof.

 

Being an 0-6-0, I've followed the kit advice and filed down the shoulders on the centre axle bearings to allow some side play, but your comments on brake block location are sound, and they will get some "tweaking" when I am on the final leg.

 

-- * --

Looking at the completed smokebox/tank assembly, I was surprised how visible the bottom of the boiler is at low angles. The kit provides an etched boiler bottom - which I will attach after adding the fittings to the tank - but what it does mean is I cannot drive the centre axle without the mechanism being visible (and slicing up that boiler-bottom etch). So rear axle drive it has to be. The positive to come from this is that it seems the frames under the boiler will be quite visible, so they'll get the black-outside-red-inside treatment at the paintshop, to add some interest in the shadows between the frames.

 

My work days have had me home before sunset all this week, so no opportunity to proof-paint the tank. There's sunshine on the way for the weekend, and that will give me a chance to use some Mr Surfacer on the tank to check its finish. Once that is done, I can get on with gluing smokebox doors, domes and chimneys on.

[jukebox]

Scott,

 

Keep up the good work.

 

I am following this thread with a lot of interest as I have one to build to P4.

 

Gordon A

Bristol

 

Thanks Gordon.

 

Today's post is about dealing with a couple of clearance issues that, depending on how you go about setting up the chassis, you may actually avoid by virtue of the wider back-to-back flange distance. But if you intend to ditch the kit spacers, and spread the frames, these parts that are hung from the frame will still need to be approached with care.

 

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I stopped work on the chassis when I had had fitted the motion brackets and brackets that support the lubricator actuating mechanism and found they clashed with the front wheel rim:

 

 

You can't quite see it in the photo above (I had desoldered the motion bracket at this point) but when it is set in place correctly, that fillet that comes down to support the bracket in real life leaves no clearance for the wheel flange at the 2 o'clock position.

 

This view below shows how the lubricator bracket clashes with the top of the flange as well. A little file work close in near the frame and I soon had running clearance:

 

 

Because the motion brackets are not load bearing, I desoldered them (the are not on a stretcher, but individually slot into tabs each

side of the frame) and filed off the fillet. I slipped them back in, and with a spot of flux, nipped them back up clear of the flange. Just.

 

 

If you compare this shot to the first, you'll see the bracket has a straight lower line now. I might have gotten away with taking only part of the fillet off, but the clearance as it stands is still a concern, and I'm going to be taking a close look to be short it can't short before a decoder goes anywhere near her.

 

This shot shows the difference in the two brackets - but before you ask, that top one isn't soldered in place! What you see there is the natural angle it needs to take to clear the flange when it is slotted in with modification. This view shows what I mean about the tight fit - you see the tyre is lcear, but the flange near the green arrow as very little gap. But being behind the crosshead, the leading axle has no sideplay, so a small gap should be all I need.

 

 

The moral to this story is that the parts should have been attached to the chassis while the wheel sets were in place. That way I would have spotted the problem immediately. Having said that, I'm glad I took a break - it was not hard to sort out and now means the chassis is complete.

 

I did a little work on the tank too; the Mr Surfacer showed up some faceting, so it was back out with a fine triangular file, then wet and dry paper to blend the worst of it. There are a few tiny areas where I will use filler on joins that are not quite 100% but they are the sorts of things that may well get hidden by the surface tension of the paint coats, on only show up under the critical eye of a close up photo. But get done, they will. I would only be vexed if they showed through after the fact!

 

I need to weight a typical RTR 0-6-0 and see what amount of ballast to add inside the tank before I close it up; the kit came with a Mashima 12/20 can, no flywheel, and ultrascale 38:1 gears. I'm a little wary of adding too much weight with such a small motor: does anyone have any formula or advice on this?

 

Fox Transfers did their usual brilliant job sending my order of diagonal wasp stripes - posted on Monday, arrived in Australia on Friday (no international date line jiggy-pokery, either - that was an honest 4 1/2 day transit time!). I had the foresight to take a photocopy of the saddle tank formers before I built the tank, so it should be a simple matter of using one of those as a mask to cut around, to get a set of stripes for the front of the tank. Pity I dont plan everything else that well!

[Gordon A]

Scott,

 

The clearances on the slide bar brackets are tight - thanks for bringing that to our attention.

Quainton Road's info sheet on Chislet show the driving wheels as 3ft 8ins (14 - 15mm), what size driving wheels are you using.

 

The Mashima 1220 is a good little motor used by a lot of kit builders in 0-6-0s.

 

I would not be happy with a 38:1 gearbox however - I would prefer something somewhere between 60 to 80 to 1 reduction.

Have a look at High Level's web site(http://www.highlevelkits.co.uk/), in particular their gearbox planner - I am just a very satisfied user of High Level products.

Their gear boxes fold up easily and most of the gears are of a nylon type material and run very nicely.

 

Also the Quainton Road site has a front three quarter black and white photograph of Chislet which can be saved and enlarged for right hand side details.

 

Gordon

[Kits from Somerset]

The loco in question for the Scunny Bunnies on here lived in Jubilee park for many years, but I guess when the park was bulldozed for a new school she went under the Scrapmans Torch?

 

Do you mean RSH 7037 of 1940 if so as far as I know it is on the Tanfield Railway.

[jukebox]

Sorry about the lack of updates - it has been a quiet two weeks, and what I have done, has been in short stints that haven’t warranted photos (yet). I have been waiting for a couple of things to arrive in the mail: refills for my burnishing pencil, and disposable pipettes to measure my paint as I mix the yellow ochre for the tank.

 

With the paint, I could just slop it together till I am happy with the shade, but would like a "recipe" I can follow if I need to replicate it later (I'm thinking there may be other industrial locos in my future... and if that is the case, a consistent livery may be needed).

 

I airbrushed the frames last weekend; etch primer first, then signal red on the insides, and a black/deep brown on the outer. The wheels have been etched primed, ready for a coat of colour on the balance weights, then black for the spokes. Once they are done, I can get the mechanical side of things working.

 

I did source some cheap (40p each) glass fibre refills off the internet, but when they arrived, they were about as rigid as a nylon brush. I had seen them for £3 each, but baulked when other places were significantly less: The lesson is you get what you pay for, I guess. A bit more work, and I stumbled up on a large jewellers supply store that has offices in most of our capitol cities - including Perth, amazingly - and so I paid them a visit at lunchtime Monday. Talk about a kid in a candy store... this place was full of files, and scrapers, and polishing creams, solder, wire, magnifiers... like a hardware store for hobbyists. All sorts of stuff kit builders might not think they need till they see it. They did have the refills, which I was able to see and touch to check they were the real McCoy, and at a very fair price (60p) so I was back underway this week.

 

I have started adding handrails to the tank. It's been almost 10 years since I last threaded handrail knobs onto wire, and this exercise reminded just how much my 42 year-old eyesight has deteriorated in that time: Despite light on a gooseneck at under 12" away, I could not clearly see the holes in the knobs. They way have only been 0.35mm, but I swear I used to be able to thread the handrail wire with ease. This week, it really was done by feel. I can see a magnifying visor in my near future.

 

I'll add the last pair of handrails to the smokebox this week, and then have to add some weight to the tank before I solder the boiler bottom on and then the assembly will be ready to solder to the chassis. I'm going to wait till then to attach the boiler top castings (dome, chimney etc), to make sure it all looks vertical.

[Garrattfan]

Hi Scott,

 

I stumbled over your posts today. Great work! Your original fears for the chassis may have subsided by now. As you've found out, there are a thousand ways for things to get wrong, and there are at least a thousand and one ways to get around it B) . I'm now building my third kit and I'm gradually getting the hang of it.

Keep on doing it, every following will be you teacher!

[jukebox]

Hi Scott,

 

I stumbled over your posts today. Great work! Your original fears for the chassis may have subsided by now. As you've found out, there are a thousand ways for things to get wrong, and there are at least a thousand and one ways to get around it . I'm now building my third kit and I'm gradually getting the hang of it.

Keep on doing it, every following will be you teacher!

 

 

Hi Garrattfan - welcome, thanks for the encouragement, and I hope you enjoy the ride!

 

A couple of short nights since my last post: Yesterday I epoxied a layer of lead shot into the inside of the tank. I'm targetting 175-200g total weight, and put in 2/3 of the shot yesterday. There is plenty of room for the rest, but I may just see how it goes for now. Having gotten used to handling the loco from "in the flat", even with only part of the ballast in, she now feels really heavy. Tommorrow I'll get my Bachmann J72 out and see how that compares.

 

With the shot dry tonight, I soldered the boiler bottom in place. Again, Agenoria do well, with a tab on the end of the part, that sits at the back of the smokebox. I soldered that up, then packed the inside of the boiler with blu-tack to lift to to the correct location. A couple of solder tacks on the open firebox end, the I pulled out the blu-tack, and ran a seam of solder along the butt join with the tank. In reality, I could have left this, as unless you turn the loco over you cant see it, but I wanted to be sure the boiler bottom stays put.

 

 

Confession time: It's about here that I can see this little lady is going to have an "okay" side and a better side. With so many sub assemblies and laminations, there are some sight lines where things are not 100% square or not perpendicular. Not enough to spoil it, but they are there. The tank itself is the biggest offender - while I can still see the set out marks so know the top formers are true, there's a touch of twist where the sides have not been formed/soldered symmetrically. Even being careful, those tiny errors that creep in can add up.

 

Here's where she's at right now:

 

 

I haven't soldered the boiler to the footplate yet, so the gap under the smokebox is larger than life, but you can see that there's not long to go now. (I do love the flash of red petticoat under the tank, too; Just the effect I was hoping for!)

[Gordon A]

Scott,

 

Looking very good.

 

Gordon A

[jukebox]

Another useful weekend of modelling has passed; I do envy those of you in retirement, beavering away. I seem to spend way too much time setting up, and cleaning up and packing up, after each session of soldering.

 

Having lined the boiler with shot, I went back on Friday night, and filled the front of tank/boiler, all the way to the front baffle. This left the rear half of the tank free for a decoder. I have settled on using TCS decoders because of their goof-proof warranty, and because they come in a good range of sizes/features that mean I don't pay for something I don't need. I grabbed a TCS T1 to see how it would fit; The T1 is a 2-function decoder that comes at the give away price of £11.50 from here (no connection, just a satisfied customer etc etc), and is small enough to fit in most places. Most places except the front half of an Agenoria RSH saddle tank that has been ballasted, that is.

 

My fault, I should have checked how the access was once the boiler/tank are soldered to the firebox. The chip would go in, but needed to be clear of the front so as not to foul the motor, which will fill the firebox. At this point, I could have used a TCS M1 decoder - a seriously small, but similarly spec'd chip, but the cheapskate within me didn't want to spend the extra £5. And I like that the T1 is detachable on the end of its harness. Should I fry the chip, a complete rewire won't be needed. But that still left me needing to figure out how to make room for the decoder. I considered the cab roof (too visible); under the cab floor (not enough room); even opening the boiler back up to chisel out some freshly epoxied shot (to risky to damage the tank); I tried the bunker, but because it tapers inward, it was about 2mm too narrow for the socket end of the decoder. And I'd slipped another few grams of shot in there to try and get the weight up. That was a shame, as the cab rear even had a cut-out (to clear the captive bolt soldered in place to attached the chassis to) that I could pass the wires back under the cab floor to the motor. And then I looked in the cab again...

It was about now that one of the big plusses of working with solder became apparent: the ability to undo what had previously been done. Out with the soldering iron, and off with the bunker back. Some thinners softened up the glue enough that I could lever out the shot balls. Dremel in hand, I gingerly cut an "x" across the cab back and folded the brass back before nipping it off with side-cutters. Shades of South Wales , 1970!

 

The way the kit was designed, the cab interior has a false back that creates a shelf inside (the blue line on the drawing below). But removing the real cab back (the red line - which would have been covered in coal anyway) when the shelf space is combined with the bunker space, there is room for the decoder. And the wires then run under the cab floor into the firebox. I ended up de-soldering the cab back from below the level of the shelf, and removing the whole sheet. The decoder is an easy fit, and I'll rig up some fashion of removable of false top that I can load with coal so I can access it if needs be. The only down side is that with the socket on the bunker side, the body will be trapped to the chassis. If the decoder was up front in the tank, the whole lot would slip off on its own.

 

Now you see it.. now you don't

 

 

With that sorted out, I set about adding the last details to the tank - some neatly engineered fold up steps, and representations of brackets attached to the boiler that the tank sits on in real life. Satisfied with they way they looked, it was time for the big connect: boiler/saddle tank to footplate/firebox. I started at the smokebox end, squaring up the sides and running a bead of solder down while I held everything in place. This is probably an area for improvement with the kit - it would be good to have a hole etched in the footplate so that solder could be run around this join from within. As it was, I managed to get one and a half sides of the smoke box base to bond to the footplate, but the sandboxes make getting solder to the back of each side impossible.

 

With the smoke box held firm, I started on the firebox. Even with my somewhat cack-handed skills, this was much simpler than I thought. By reaching up through the firebox and flooding the join from underneath with flux then solder, the seam ran silver from the top of the firebox around to the 9 o’clock and 3 o'clock positions. I let it cool, then re-fluxed, and used the heat to take the bead all the way to the base of the firebox-saddle tank join. A similar treatment along the bottom and with no fuss I had myself a single piece of superstructure.

 

While the iron was still hot, I added the whitemetal buffers, tacking them with a spot of 140 solder, to allow me so straighten them up before coming along and flooding the back with 70. Time, too, to add the cab steps. One of these lasted 20 minutes before it was collected and bent up at the fold forming the tab holding it in - and falling off when I straightened it. So I cut some 2mm shim, and soldered it on at right angles behind the steps, giving them some much needed rigidity.

 

 

All that happened fairly late on Sunday, so the whole lot is sitting in a pickle of dilute methylated spirits (you might know it as denatured alcohol?) to clean the flux off. I'll use my evenings this week to tidy her up and hopefully add the last of the cast details. My shipment of mixing pipettes has arrived in today's mail, so I can see the wheels getting some paint shop action next weekend - and I get the week to concoct a suitable brew of something near "improved engine green"!

 

[jukebox]

Well it was glue pot time last night. Or two-part tube, anyway.

 

The etched holes for the casting were, with the exception of the tank filler, all way to small, so I just cut the feeds off and filed the undersides down (I actually drilled out a small cavity on eachto give the epoxy glue a little more strength in the shear plane). I have drilled out the chimney down past the rim, so once it gets a coat of black, it will seem convincingly hollow. In all, the castings were a very good fit; nice and sharp. Just how well they really sit will be revealed when the undercoat goes on, but from what I can see they'll be fine.

 

The pictures tell the story clearly enough: Chimney, dome, water filling hatch and safety valve bonnet are now all attached. Hand brake inside the cab, too.

 

 

 

 

The sight lines all came up looking good the next morning - no visible list to port or starboard on the chimney! - and the four fittings do all form a stright line, so nothing to catch the eye as looking out of the ordinary.

 

You know you are getting close to the end when a) you can make a punchlist of things to do before the primer goes on, and the parts bags are looking decidely sparse!

 

For the record:

 

Front lamp iron

Smokebox door

Chimney

Dome

Water filling cap

Safety valve bonnet

Cab door

Cut out for couplings

Hooks on bufferbeams (still not sure if I will fit these)

 

Then it's off to the paint shop to be etch primed, and the smallest amount of filler in a few places where I can see seams vivible where they shouldn't be.

 

Speaking of paintshops, I managed to do a bit of mixing during the week. I set out to try and get a shade something like Gladstone at the NRM, but it proved a little elusive. In the end, I mixed a small sample of tones on a pallette, and came out with something similar that I liked.

 

 

This is one of those times the computer is not too flash at reproducing tones - that yellow on the left is nowhere near as vivid as it is in real life, and therefore the resulting tone I chose on the bottom right is also somewhat darker than it actually appears.

[jukebox]

Only a little progress this weekend, unfortunately: the weather has turned decidedly winter on me here in the West, and it was much too damp and cold for any painting.

 

I did sort out some smokebox piping, and made up the runs that I will add to the firebox once the painting is done.

 

 

(there's some mirror image jiggy-pokery going on there to make it look like the photo - but in real life the bends are as they should be)

 

Got the cab door back on, too. I fitted the smokebox door, and handrail, but almost immediately decided to remove the latter - it just doesn't seem right - too small for the "face" of the loco, I think...

 

As an aside, I'm thinking about adding cabside numberplates - something by the way of single digits in an oval shape would be good. Can anyone recommend any suppliers?

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[Captain Kernow]

Only a little progress this weekend, unfortunately: the weather has turned decidedly winter on me here in the West, and it was much too damp and cold for any painting

When you say things like that, Scott, I have to remind myself that you are in a different hemisphere from us in the UK - probably the warmest and sunniest weekend of the year so far for us!

 

The loco is looking very nice, btw, coming on very well indeed!