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Southern Railway Modelling - Miscellaneous Project work


Jack P
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On 26/05/2020 at 00:42, Jack P said:

I progressed a bit more with the W last night, Still lots of cleaning up to do!

 

49935466478_580edb94e6_b.jpg

 

Tanks are on, smokebox saddle is in place too. I need to pop to bunnings and get some araldite to attach the smokebox wrapper.

 

I realised that I need to still solder on a bunch of little details to the front bufferbeam, I'm concerned about de-soldering the stuff that's already there though. I don't have any lower melt solder than the stuff I used to laminate the bufferbeam together with -  Would I be ok to use whitemetal solder to attach them or will that cause issues?

 

I also need to fill the tanks with lead sheet. Before I do I need to build the inside of the cutout in the tanks, I didn't think it would be as obvious as it is, but seeing the above photo, I think it needs to be done!

 

I'm now wondering if anyone has any suggestions for my next conundrum; I was going to try and make the cab roof removable, I'd initially thought I could make the whole cab removable, but I don't see that actually helping matters much. The Issue It seems many people face when building the later Maunsell engines is that the roof is one piece. The W has a join where it looks like the cab sides meet the top section of the roof, so I could make it removable from there.

 

However, the always impressive @DLT built a finecast W many years back and made the cab floor and backhead detachable from the rest of the cab. I might see if this is an option moving forwards, probably more work than making the roof removable, but possibly a cleaner result. Theoretically it would be easy enough to tack the sides to the front and back using the floor as a former, and then cut the tabs off the sides and see if I can figure out somewhere to hide the mounting points for screws.

 

Thoughts, advice, suggestions and abusive comments on a postcard please!

 

If you tin both surfaces first, you can indeed use WM low melt to form the joint.

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14 hours ago, DLT said:

Whats the problem with the N-Class locos?

 

One of them had the motor burn out, the other ended up with mangled valve gear. I used bits from each to cobble together one functioning loco. I've still got the spare tender and the old loco body will be going off to my friend for him to use in his U1 project.

 

After putting in a call to Dave at SEF (Such a nice guy!) and ordering the wheels, I made some more progress with the W last night:

 

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I soldered some offcuts of brass inside the tanks so that they didn't have massive gaps visible. I then filled the tanks with lead sheet, they ended up being a pretty tight fit but I superglued them in for good measure. I then soldered on the tank tops.

 

Then, I tackled the cab,

 

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The issue I've now found is that the tanks full of lead act as a massive heat sink. The cab wasn't fully seated on the left hand side, and try as I might, I haven't been able to de-solder the cabside and align it properly - it's been time to get a new iron for a while now, so i'll probably take the opportunity to upgrade to a higher wattage. The right hand side went on nicely, and I think Dave's suggestion of making the middle part of the roof removable is the simplest option. 

 

Once the new iron arrives, I'll de-solder the entire cab, clean it all up and try again. Until then though, the W is going back in its box and will be picked up again when the wheels get here.

 

Thanks all for suggestions and help so far! It's not going to be the most perfect build but i'm hoping it will pass muster (time will tell though)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ah, thanks so much guys. It feels a bit like a team effort, I got a lot of support, help, advice from you all (especially Dave!), I don't think the end result would've been the same without it. :good_mini:

 

I also managed to squeeze in another quick project over the weekend, and changed the numbers on my WD to sunshine style ones. She still needs the fire iron holder on the other side of the tender, after which she will be heavily weathered!

 

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Here's another cheeky photo of 'Beattie' - Just cause!

 

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JP 

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12 hours ago, RAY NORWOOD said:

That is fantastic. It just needs head code on it.  

 

Plus a crew, coal, tools, weathering, Ray - much like half my fleet! I use the term 'Finished' loosely :D

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6 hours ago, Jack P said:

I also managed to squeeze in another quick project over the weekend, and changed the numbers on my WD to sunshine style ones. She still needs the fire iron holder on the other side of the tender, after which she will be heavily weathered!

 

 

Did they ever carry those?

(Not that I'm being pedantic!)

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3 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

 

Did they ever carry those?

(Not that I'm being pedantic!)

 

You're speaking to one of the largest pedants - I found this photo (when looking for those photos of the Departmental stock I sent you)

 

https://thetransportlibrary.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=96956&search=Southern+railway+breakdown+crane&page=2

 

I then created a thread looking for info, 

 

 

and embarrassingly, was referred back to a thread I had started earlier about the same thing! 

 

 

From what I gather, yeah, it was a thing, but I haven't found many photos to prove it!

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6 hours ago, DLT said:

Quite so, Graham knows everything.

 

A real wealth of information - the man in malachite if you will!

 

9 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

If Graham Muz says it happened, then I suspect that it probably did - just that I have never seen one pictured!

Best wishes

Tony

 

Indeed! I thought it was an interesting variation. Now that I've done the numbers, it makes me wish they'd put SOUTHERN on the tender too!

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Now that's done, what's next?

 

Well During the 2 years since I'd started on the N15x I also made a start on a few other loco kits. An 0395, K class, I3, and most recently the W. I also have a Wainwright E, ex-SECR J and SR R1 lurking unstarted in the wings. My aim, among the other projects is to get these locos finished off in order of most built to least.

 

Top of the pile is the I3, a project i'd abandoned as I was unhappy with a few proportions of the smokebox door. I nabbed the 3D printed door from the 3D printed I3 that I've got - it's almost too far the other way, and the door is a fraction too big, but I think it looks better than being too small. The plan is for this loco to be either 2078 or 2027 - as from what I can tell, neither of these locos had the pumps on the fronts of the tanks

 

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This is her current condition. I've got a replacement chassis on the way from SEF. this will be modified to make the whole loco sit a little bit lower. I'm thinking about trying to add some compensation to the rear pony truck, but not quite sure how yet. 

 

My new Hakko iron arrived recently, 

 

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I've only had a small play around with it, but going from a 35W iron to a 65W iron is a real night and day difference. The quality of this iron is also much higher than the previous one. Happy, happy! I'm looking forward to really breaking it in.

 

Finally, I did some weathering for a friend,

 

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A 700 from the Dunkirk train pack. 

 

That's all for now, I hope to have more kit adventures to update soon!

Edited by Jack P
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I shall follow with interest what you do to modify the I3 and it’s chassis, as I have one of these (along with the etched chassis too) in a box awaiting construction. 

 

Regards 

 

Brian

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2 hours ago, BSW01 said:

I shall follow with interest what you do to modify the I3 and it’s chassis, as I have one of these (along with the etched chassis too) in a box awaiting construction. 

 

Regards 

 

Brian

 

Will do my best to update you as I go! So far it's just been lots of filing down to get the right height!

 

1 hour ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

I have one of those Hakko solder stations - it's rather good, and despite being expensive to buy has ended up cheaper than working my way though a series of cheap irons that keep burning out. 

 

Good to hear from you Pete! I was browsing your R1 build thread today. 

 

I thought for the money it was pretty good, I managed to get it for approx £100 inc 4 tips, cheapest one I could find!

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The spare tips are a great investment, as it's really easy to swap them around. I've found that a pair of pliers can undo the locking nut, so it's possible to switch the iron off and swap tips without waiting for the iron to completely cool. This is useful for putting in a smaller bit for detail work, or keeping separate bits for soldering whitemetal.  I love my Hakko iron, and it's made soldering a lot easier.

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9 hours ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

The spare tips are a great investment, as it's really easy to swap them around. I've found that a pair of pliers can undo the locking nut, so it's possible to switch the iron off and swap tips without waiting for the iron to completely cool. This is useful for putting in a smaller bit for detail work, or keeping separate bits for soldering whitemetal.  I love my Hakko iron, and it's made soldering a lot easier.

 

A mate of mine actually sprung for one of these stations in order to build a mechanical keyboard, I was a bit put off by the bright yellow and blue, but after seeing it in action I decided to put aesthetic to the side.

 

I agree about the tips too, they're cheap enough that you could slowly build up a range of different ones for different applications!

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If you don't like blue and yellow they come in silver as well.  I bought a couple of additional irons for mine so bit changing is just a matter of swapping plugs around.  My additional irons came from ebay at about the time the original distributor changed over to the current one.  Don't know if that affected the price I paid.

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A couple of photos of the N15x at the model club. 

 

The lighting there isn't great, coupled with low winter sun and lots of shadow, means these have all come out a little dark. I've adjusted the brightness with the flickr editor, but i'm still not convinced.

 

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Thanks almost entirely to DLT, she runs perfectly and the whitemetal body means there is absolutely no risk of traction issues. However, the clubs layout's track poses an issue, with all that weight on the drivers every bump and rough join make her bounce and jump around. I even broke a screw coupling on one of my coaches - very prototypical. The DCC layout has slightly better tracklaying so once she's chipped i'll see if that goes any smoother. 

 

I've also upgraded the bookshelf and it's looking very empty. Does anyone have any Southern book recommendations? (i'm making my way through the southern way series at the moment)

 

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5 hours ago, Jack P said:

 

I've also upgraded the bookshelf and it's looking very empty. Does anyone have any Southern book recommendations? (i'm making my way through the southern way series at the moment)

 

 

I have a spare Southern Way 43 on flea Bay at present: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124220096870  :rolleyes:

 

If you don't have them, I recommend the series of 4 "An Illustrated History of Southern Wagons", anything on SR coaching stock by Mike King, and assuming that you have Russell on locomotives, I'd also add any of the Bradley / RCTS "Locomotive History of the xxx" series, incl. SECR, LCDR, LBSCR, LSWR & SR.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Tony

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