First etched kit - ex North British D30 "Scott" 4-4-0

[Richard Hall]

This project has been rumbling on for ages, but since I've just had a massively productive weekend and got the little beastie running, I thought I would put it on here to encourage others to have a go at etched kit construction.

 

It's a PDK kit for an ex North British D30 "Scott" 4-4-0, bought about ten years ago but not started for various reasons until last year, when I built the tender body using conventional soldering methods, lots of swearing and burned fingers etc at which point I shoved it back into the drawer it had come out of.  With my father's birthday coming up soon, I thought the D30 would make a rather good present if I could get it finished.  I had read an article about resistance soldering, so I bought a Frost "budget" resistance soldering unit and quickly found that resistance soldering is like magic.  The Frost RSU came with only very basic instructions so I have been teaching myself via the Internet and I'm still learning.  I acquired a sheet of 2mm steel to use as an earthing plate, and bought some decent copper sheathed carbon rods to replace the tiny, feeble carbon electrode that came with the Frost unit.  These rods are a foot long, cost about 50p each, last for ages and can be sharpened to a fine tip with a pencil sharpener.  I also got hold of a mains foot switch, which really should be included with the RSU. Photo shows the RSU and my home-made earthing plate: the unit normally sits on the floor, the red button increases the power for heavier work and can be operated with one foot, the on-off switch with the other foot.  

 

 

Once I'd got the hang of the RSU, the loco body absolutely flew together.  There are plenty of mistakes, not least that the leading left side splasher sits too far back on the footplate and doesn't line up with the driving wheel. I had a lot of trouble soldering the boiler seam, and screwed up the smokebox wrapper so badly that I had to throw it away and make a new one from brass sheet.  The instructions are fairly basic, and there are bits in the box and on the etches which do not appear in the exploded diagrams (bear in mind this kit was purchased ten years ago, and cannot be assumed to be representative of PDK's current offering). I got the boiler bands in the wrong place through trying to work out their position from old photographs.  The body still needs cab handrails, sandboxes and fillers, and boiler washout plugs, then a bit of filling and fettling, but it's 95% there.  I tried soldering the chimney on, but the RSU doesn't seem man enough for this kind of work, so the chimney, dome and all the castings are glued on.  I soldered the handrail knobs though, just because I can.  Doing fine overlays like the cab window frames and the beading round the cab roof is dead easy with the RSU, you can solder layer upon layer without the whole lot coming unstuck or pooling into one giant blob of solder with little bits of brass sticking out of it.

 

 

Tender body is just about done, and I gave it a coat of etch primer to see how much fettling it would need.  The answer seems to be less than I thought.  Those handrails are massively overscale for a reason: I carefully drilled out all the pre-etched holes on loco and tender to take the handrail knobs supplied with the kit, and then found that (a) there weren't enough handrail knobs for all the holes and (b) the NBR only used knobs on the boiler and smokebox handrails anyway.  This left me with some very oversized holes which made fitting correct diameter handrails difficult, so I went for the super-size option. I'm not convinced the handbrake standard is in the right place, but I couldn't find a photo to show what that place should be.

 

 

Chassis is a fold up nickel silver affair and didn't impress me much, having most of the flexibility of a compensated chassis but without any of the accompanying virtues.  I ended up twisting it this way and that until it sat square, then Aralditing a large block of lead into the middle.  It no longer flexes.  The axle holes were undersize for the bearings supplied and I don't have a taper reamer like proper locomotive constructors have, so I tried opening out the holes with a twist drill and ended up with the axles not parallel to each other.  Easily enough fixed by using the rods to work out which bearing was out of spec, removing it and filing the hole oval, then soldering it back in again.  Following this butchery, to my relief the wheels rotated smoothly with the rods fitted. Markits wheels and threaded crankpins, loco is live one side and tender the other, with an insulated drawbar, so only the driving wheels on one side have pickups - good old fashioned phosphor-bronze scrapers.  Mashima 1420 motor and flywheel which fit nicely in the rather narrow firebox, driving the rear axle via a Markits three stage 38:1 gearbox which pushes the flywheel end of the motor up into the boiler while keeping the cab completely clear. The gearbox was fine once I realised that the etched holes for the bearings were oversize (in contrast to the chassis), so I had to mesh the gears myself by trial and error.  The RSU is great for heating top-hat bearings, moving them slightly, then cutting the power and holding them in place with the electrode until the solder cools.  Not a trick you can play with a conventional soldering iron. The two intermediate gears have tiny grubscrews with slotted heads: I broke one, so decided to make the gears floating, with the shafts retained by bits of code 40 rail soldered to the outside of the gear cradle.  The bogie is sprung with a length of phosphor bronze strip soldered to the drag link and bearing on the underside of the front frame spacer, which helps counteract the usual 4-4-0 nose-heaviness.  Brief tests suggest the loco has about the right amount of adhesion for the rather small and feeble motor: it will spin its wheels but not too readily.  

 

I still have to fit the brake gear (left until last because it makes wheel removal almost impossible) and make a new tender drawbar: the first one (from an old N gauge model) works but is a bit fragile after I melted two brass pins into it and soldered a PB contact strip to them.  I am scouring the house for suitable plastics. I also have to do something about the driving wheel centres, and fit the balance weights. The Markits wheel pack came with an etched fret of wheel centre covers and balance weights.  The covers are retained by the crankpins: unfortunately I think the distance from the centre to the crankpin hole is fractionally shorter than the crankpin throw on the drivers, and I couldn't get the covers to run true however much I fiddled with them, so it's back to my old trick of smoothing over the axle end nuts with Blu-tak and painting it black.

 

 

Finally the tender chassis: another fold and twist affair with undersized axle holes.  I bushed the outer two axles and left the middle one running in the unbushed holes, giving it a bit of horizontal and lateral movement to cope with sharp curves and rough trackwork.  (It's destined for my father's layout, and I'm starting to think I should have built it fully sprung...)  Again I still need to fit the brakegear.  Back in my teens I never bothered, but I'm determined to complete this kit without any bits left over.

 

 

Hopefully I'll have the last few bits of metal work done in the next couple of days, then it's off to the paint shop.  Mid-fifties BR lined black, my father wants it as long-time Waverley Route stalwart 62440 "Wandering Willie" for which I have the name transfers.  North British engines had their names painted on the splashers, no fancy cast plates here.

 

I'll post some more photos once 62440 has been painted.  

 

Richard

[Daddyman]

Looking very good. I bought one of these from PDK a month or so back and your build is encouraging, as the photo on the website doesn't look all that good. Mine will also be Wandering Willie. 

 

One thing you could do with your handrail mistake, if you were minded to revisit it, is plug the hole with capillary tube (0.9 OD I'd guess), file it flush front and back and then reinsert the correct diameter wire. It's a shame to leave the mistake when you've have got as far as you have. 

 

 

I too have just started using an RSU - in the past couple of weeks - and, like you, find it liberating. 

 

 

But buy a damn broach for god's sake! 

[Richard Hall]

Looking very good. I bought one of these from PDK a month or so back and your build is encouraging, as the photo on the website doesn't look all that good. Mine will also be Wandering Willie. 

 

One thing you could do with your handrail mistake, if you were minded to revisit it, is plug the hole with capillary tube (0.9 OD I'd guess), file it flush front and back and then reinsert the correct diameter wire. It's a shame to leave the mistake when you've have got as far as you have. 

 

 

I too have just started using an RSU - in the past couple of weeks - and, like you, find it liberating. 

 

 

But buy a damn broach for god's sake! 

Patience was never one of my virtues, although I'm getting a bit better with age.  Ordering the correct tool to open out the bearing holes in the frames would have held up the job for three or four days, and I wanted a rolling chassis there and then.  Good tip about the capillary tube, I don't have anything small enough at the moment so perhaps I'll learn from the twist drill fiasco and actually buy some.

 

I don't know whether the PDK kit is a good etched kit or not as it is the first one I have tried.  It mostly seemed to slot together nicely and I don't have a lot of big gaps to fill at the end of the build which makes a change from the old whitemetal days. My last build was an NB Models J37 when I was about seventeen, and that was a challenge as I recall. I'm thinking about building the PDK J36 for my father's Christmas present.

[Shez]

Nice to see another NBR loco on the site. I have a kit for a 7mm Scott from NB models in my to build pile. Wandering Willie seems to be a favourite, so I am going to be different and go for either Ellengowen or Lady Rowena.  Never thought of and RSU but this seems to suggest there are definite advantages.

 

Is it destined for an NBR layout?

[Richard Hall]

Nice to see another NBR loco on the site. I have a kit for a 7mm Scott from NB models in my to build pile. Wandering Willie seems to be a favourite, so I am going to be different and go for either Ellengowen or Lady Rowena.  Never thought of and RSU but this seems to suggest there are definite advantages.

 

Is it destined for an NBR layout?

My father's layout is set in the Edinburgh suburbs in theory, but he tends to run anything that takes his fancy. The D30 should look well alongside the C16 that he built a few years ago.

 

Scotts have fabulous names, don't they?  If I built another one for myself I wouldn't be able to decide which to choose. Possibly 62421 Laird o' Monkbarns, another Waverley Route regular and one of the last two survivors.

[Daddyman]

Patience was never one of my virtues, although I'm getting a bit better with age.  Ordering the correct tool to open out the bearing holes in the frames would have held up the job for three or four days, and I wanted a rolling chassis there and then.  Good tip about the capillary tube, I don't have anything small enough at the moment so perhaps I'll learn from the twist drill fiasco and actually buy some.

 

I don't know whether the PDK kit is a good etched kit or not as it is the first one I have tried.  It mostly seemed to slot together nicely and I don't have a lot of big gaps to fill at the end of the build which makes a change from the old whitemetal days. My last build was an NB Models J37 when I was about seventeen, and that was a challenge as I recall. I'm thinking about building the PDK J36 for my father's Christmas present.

This is the size of broach you need for enlarging the holes in the chassis for the bearings:

https://eileensemporium.com/index.php?option=com_hikashop&ctrl=product&task=show&cid=1292&name=five-sided-cutting-broach-3-0mm-4-0mm&Itemid=189&category_pathway=1135

 

Eileen's will have it to you next day, so no 3- or 4-day hold-up.

 

They also sell capillary tube; this link will take you to the 0.9 OD/0.45 ID tube: 

https://eileensemporium.com/index.php?option=com_hikashop&ctrl=product&task=show&cid=818&name=brass-round-tube-0-9mm-x-0-5mm-x-305mm-mt3&Itemid=189&category_pathway=1085

 

 

The PDK J36 is not as good as the Scott. I was pleasantly surprised when my Scott arrived last month as it has many improvements over the J36, such as a detailed chassis (the J36 has a silly fold-up thing with zero detail, meaning that you need to buy one of these: http://www.nbr4mm.co.uk/locochassis/9203.php).The tender is also much harder on the J36 as it doesn't have the bend lines etched in the way the Scott does. And there's not a rivet in sight anywhere on the kit. 

 

 

Oh, and don't mess around with etched boiler bands on brass kits: they're too thick most of the time and a real hassle to put on. Some of the big boys say to use Magic Tape. I use boiler band transfers myself - before the final coat of paint goes on. 

Edited May 4, 2017 by Daddyman

[Horsetan]

.....The PDK J36 is not as good as the Scott...... a detailed chassis (the J36 has a silly fold-up thing with zero detail, meaning that you need to buy one of these: http://www.nbr4mm.co.uk/locochassis/9203.php

 

In truth, the PDK kits are mostly slightly-evolved versions of their Crownline ancestors, and have never pretended to be anything other than simple WYSIWYG. That was the design approach adopted by Paul Hill, who is the common link between the two brands (Dave and Sheila King having retired some years ago). I have a Crownline J36 kit in the attic, and it has pretty much all the deficiencies / omissions that you mention, so I can see myself spending another £33 at some stage on the NBM chassis fret.

[Sulzer Bear]

A good looking build, considering it's your first etched brass, and having basic experience with kit building altogether, the mistakes made can be learned from and in most cases corrected, even that wheel splasher could, if you can unsloder it with the RSU, otherwise use a small pencil torch, these things often can be picked up for a few quid at DIY stores.

The flame is fine enough to heat up just the required part without melting your whole model to bits.

Best is to use the coupling rod trick always when installing your axle bearings, with Markits wheels it's quite easy, as the coupling rod ends slip nicely over the threaded ends of Markits axles in most cases.

When using Allan Gibson wheels and axles it's a bit more involving, as the axles are the same diameter the whole length the cuopling rods don't slip over, a pair of jigs has to be made from brass sheet, using the coupling rods to find the hole centers, and then drill and ream the holes up to 1/8", the diameter of the axles (need that broach again)

 

There is a J36 and a D40 in my pile,I'm considering the detailed chassis for my J36 as well, so far I've just soldered the boiler seam on one of the kits, and I had some problems with the hardness of the brass too, holding the seam nicely together would just not happen.

I solved this by anealing the brass above a gas flame (I used my coocker) and heated the brass carefully untill the color turned blue.

After that soldering of the seam was easy, and even when the brass is softer now, after soldering in the smokebox and firebox parts it's rigid enough.

[Daddyman]

In truth, the PDK kits are mostly slightly-evolved versions of their Crownline ancestors, and have never pretended to be anything other than simple WYSIWYG. That was the design approach adopted by Paul Hill, who is the common link between the two brands (Dave and Sheila King having retired some years ago). I have a Crownline J36 kit in the attic, and it has pretty much all the deficiencies / omissions that you mention, so I can see myself spending another £33 at some stage on the NBM chassis fret.

Yes, after the experience of the J36, I bought the Scott expecting it to be little more than a scratchbuilding aid (and 95 quid not to have to cut out NBR valances is not too high a price to pay, in my humble opinion), but was pleasantly surprised at what I got. 

[Daddyman]

After that soldering of the seam was easy, and even when the brass is softer now, after soldering in the smokebox and firebox parts it's rigid enough.

It will firm up, too: brass which has been annealed stiffens when worked on, which is one of the reasons the Big Boys don't recommend annealing. 

 

For those modelling NBR locos, I've developed a method for representing the characteristic compound curve on the leading edge of the firebox lower section. Here's the prototype:

 

 

 

And this is how I've modelled it: 

 

 

A strip of 1.5mm square rod up the joint between front and side, filed to shape from the front first, and then the sqaure rod ground away inside with some fitting or other in the minidrill. This grinding from inside is necessary so that when the holes for the reversing rod etc are drilled in the curved corner of the firebox, the impression of the prototype's thin wrapping is achieved. 

 

Also, I'll be at Bo'ness a week on Saturday, so if anyone wants any measurements from (or photos of) the Y9 or J36, feel free to ask. 

[Horsetan]

....

Also, I'll be at Bo'ness a week on Saturday, so if anyone wants any measurements from (or photos of) the Y9 or J36, feel free to ask. 

Red rag to a bull, this.

 

Photos of the Y9 cab interior / rear cab plate, please!

 

As far as photos of the J36 are concerned, everything, please! - all conceivable angles, if you're up to it; cab interior, particularly.

[Daddyman]

Red rag to a bull, this.

 

Photos of the Y9 cab interior / rear cab plate, please!

 

As far as photos of the J36 are concerned, everything, please! - all conceivable angles, if you're up to it; cab interior, particularly.

No prob. I need the Y9 cab too. I have loads of the J36. I'll send them to you in the next day or so either electronically or snailmail, and you can see if I've missed anything. EDIT: PM me with your email address, will you, Ivan: I'll see how many I can get in an email. 

 

Just as long as no one asks me to sully me tape measure on "Great" Western filth. Unlikely at Bo'ness, I grant.... 

Edited May 4, 2017 by Daddyman

[Retro_man]

 

When using Allan Gibson wheels and axles it's a bit more involving, as the axles are the same diameter the whole length the cuopling rods don't slip over, a pair of jigs has to be made from brass sheet, using the coupling rods to find the hole centers, and then drill and ream the holes up to 1/8", the diameter of the axles (need that broach again)

 

 

You can always use a set of Romford/Markits axles for setting up the chassis with the coupling rods. I usually use Romford/Markits wheels too during the build and only use the Gibsons for the final assembly - that way the Gibsons are less likely to slip on the axles.

[Richard Hall]

Thank you everyone for all your very helpful comments and tips.  The capillary tube repair to the oversized holes worked beautifully.  I have now done a bit more work on the loco body, filled the gaps I could see (using solvent-based Tippex and a fine brush, which creeps along small gaps and fills them very easily) and gave it a coat of primer.  I haven't yet tackled the oversize tender handrails but I feel I really should.  Here are a few photos, put up not out of vanity but because I know from experience that the only way to spot flaws in a newly built model is to photograph it and stick it on the Internet

 

 

 

[Daddyman]

Both the build and the kit look very good. Glad the capillary tube worked. 

 

What about putting the vacuum brake feed down the nearside valance? - that kind of thing really brings a model to life. Not the clearest shots, I'm afraid, but this is how I do it: good old capillary tube again, 0.9 for the main part and 1.0 for the corners, with 0.45 wire inside to strengthen the joint at the corner. Then Hobby Holidays' copper strip for the brackets. 

 

 

[Blandford1969]

No prob. I need the Y9 cab too. I have loads of the J36. I'll send them to you in the next day or so either electronically or snailmail, and you can see if I've missed anything. EDIT: PM me with your email address, will you, Ivan: I'll see how many I can get in an email. 

 

Just as long as no one asks me to sully me tape measure on "Great" Western filth. Unlikely at Bo'ness, I grant.... 

Would it be possible to post the photos of the Y cab as it would help with a Caley version I'm building please?

[Daddyman]

Would it be possible to post the photos of the Y cab as it would help with a Caley version I'm building please?

Send me a pm with your email address - it's a pain to load them on RMWeb, easier to email.