Corbs & Chris' Clinic - Taking Stock

[Corbs]

1 hour ago, 313201 said:

Wish I had your skills corbs.  Believe it or not, since I saw the picture of a garratt loco comprised of 2 x 9F chassis and a duchess body, my garratt which is entirely Hornby parts is still hauling heavy loads with its 20 wheel drive.

 

I've recently repainted 7 class 110 coaches yelliw to represent network rail livery although my unit is a hybrid based on the unit being electric and diesel well before the hybrid concept was even talked about on the full size railway.

 

It's not skill it's just filler ;) 

 

36 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

Where is that tender from?

 

 

It's from the Great British Locomotives static models range from a few years ago (buy an overpriced magazine and get a loco free). This one was paired with 'Earl Bathurst' so I think the model it was copied from based on was the ringfield drive Castle. A similar one came with the King they did but it had the dual filler lids.

[DCB]

The Cathedral is an awkward beast to model.  There are a couple of pictures but I think it is safe to assume it would have had Hawkesworth's wide 8ft 6" County type Cab and Tender not the 8ft wide King type cab and with it the 8ft wide Hall/Castle 4000 gallon Hawkesworth tender, which bulk out the rear and give it a more balanced stance.

The Saint is equally awkward, that massive drop from running plate level to the base of the cab, the running plate is higher even than the Star and Castle, and the cab is shorter.  I am trying to convert a Hornby Saint into a Saint but it's heavy going.  Clevedon Court had a 3500 gallon Collett tender. Hornby do one for a version of the Grange, but I scraped the running plate off the side of a Mainline  2251 3000 gallon tender and mounted it as a body on a Triang Hornby Hall tender chassis.   The late Saint with outside steam pipes has the front drop further forward than the inside steam pipe ones and deeper than the Hall, another big challenge.  Which is maybe why mine is still under construction and yours is running

[Corbs]

42 minutes ago, DCB said:

The Cathedral is an awkward beast to model.  There are a couple of pictures but I think it is safe to assume it would have had Hawkesworth's wide 8ft 6" County type Cab and Tender not the 8ft wide King type cab and with it the 8ft wide Hall/Castle 4000 gallon Hawkesworth tender, which bulk out the rear and give it a more balanced stance.

The Saint is equally awkward, that massive drop from running plate level to the base of the cab, the running plate is higher even than the Star and Castle, and the cab is shorter.  I am trying to convert a Hornby Saint into a Saint but it's heavy going.  Clevedon Court had a 3500 gallon Collett tender. Hornby do one for a version of the Grange, but I scraped the running plate off the side of a Mainline  2251 3000 gallon tender and mounted it as a body on a Triang Hornby Hall tender chassis.   The late Saint with outside steam pipes has the front drop further forward than the inside steam pipe ones and deeper than the Hall, another big challenge.  Which is maybe why mine is still under construction and yours is running

 

Ahh yes you are right, in this pic of Clevedon Court double heading with a Hall you can clearly see the difference between 3500 and 4000g tenders (pic is linked to Flickr).

 

 

Annoyingly I have a heavily damaged 'Grange' in the overhaul queue but it came to me without a tender. I have thought about slicing the height difference out of the 4000g one but might shelve that for another day.
I'd love for Hornby or any other manufacturer to do an RTR Saint (I bet one will be announced the second I finish this...) but apparently it's quite tricky to do as there are at least 3 toolings for even just the production batches (not including the 4-4-2s or the 4-6-0 prototypes), and to do 'Lady of Legend' is different again (although I do think people might be forgiving if LoL used the same tooling as the 'main' Ladies).
I think the splashers are about the same size as Hall ones (with the raised running plate making up for the wheel diameter difference). I think 4000 North Star may have had the same/similar running plate/splasher combo but it was the only Star to have this. This and the Saints have the bottom of the smokebox basically sat on the running plate.
The production Stars seem to have similar running plates/splashers to the Castles - running plate lower and splashers consequently taller.

(Pic from: http://www.gwr.org.uk/no-stars.html )

 

All this is why my drop-down at the back isn't deep enough - because I didn't take the extra few mm off the bottom of the smokebox saddle and base of the firebox, it sits slightly proud of the running plate (Hall-style), not too bad at the front, but at the back either I would have had to move the cab down so far that the corners of the firebox would be touching the cab roof, or extend the cab sides in height so much that they would look stretched and weird, so I've settled for the compromise.

 

On the flip side, the extra height of the 4000g tender means it lines up with the cab cutout as the 3500g one would were the cab slightly lower, so swings and roundabouts. For me these kind of models require a certain amount of fudging anyway, nevertheless I am pleased with the result and can always incorporate learnings into the next build.

 

Interestingly, before its final guise, Clevedon Court had inside steam pipes but was wearing an outside steam pipe smokebox with the holes blanked off, as seen here in 1939:

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrbsh1232.htm

 

 

The Cathedral notes make sense - although I don't think any RTR OO manufacturer has done a 'proper' wide County cab? The one I have here that came off the Ringfield drive model is the same width as the Castle cab I replaced it with. So kitbuilt might be the way to go.

Offering the 4 Hawksworth tenders sat on my desk up to each other, the Bachmann one (31mm) is narrower than the Hornby examples (33mm) so I hope that gives a steer on which one to use.

 

[Miss Prism]

Saints never ran with 4000g tenders afaik. The 2937/5922 Dainton pic shows well the height difference between the 3500g Collett and the 4000g Collett. The 3500g Colletts were quite common behind Saints.

 

The GBL offering seems like a fudge to me, and in height seems closer to a 3500g rather than the 4000g.

 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Miss Prism

[Corbs]

39 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

Saints never ran with 4000g tenders afaik. The 2937/5922 Dainton pic shows well the height difference between the 3500g Collett and the 4000g Collett. The 3500g Colletts were quite common behind Saints.

 

The GBL offering seems like a fudge to me, and in height seems closer to a 3500g rather than the 4000g.

 

 

Handily I had a Hornby 4000g tender from a King, providing they got the measurements right it matches that, so the height thing might be an illusion from the cab height being slightly off.

[Corbs]

Found the box with the coupling rods, PLUS they had the crankpin screws with them, yaaaay. For some reason one of the wheels was missing the threaded crankpin insert so I nicked one out of a spare wheelset. Not an exact fit but held the soldering iron against it to melt it into the slot, seemed to work.

I pinched an idea from someone on twitter doing a Saint to make something resembling a vacuum pump. Cut some brass tube in half and glued to the running board, then painted black.

Link to Twitter build:

 

 

Coupling hook and vac pipe added to the front end, more odds and ends from the bits box.

 

[Corbs]

Hoping to get some fall plates in metal but felt a bit impatient, so used some scrap plastic from a piece of packaging to make one. Raided Pat's stash of figures and found a painted crew who help to make the cab feel less bare.

 

Hopefully there is just the tender coupling, cab glazing and elecrickery to go now. I have placed an order with Micron for a couple of receivers as this will be going RC.

There are only 6 pickups, they are all pretty knackered and I can't be bothered to faff around with them, so going to see how big a battery I can get into the tender.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Corbs

[Corbs]

I did a little video slideshow, basically summarising what was in this thread, but just in case it's of interest....

 

[Corbs]

Mixed fortunes with the Westerner fleet over the past few days.

The Saint and the County have both been wired up for RC. In both instances, the receiver, battery and 9v upconverter are all in the tender.

This means only 2 wires need to connect loco and tender.

On the Saint the on-off switch is hidden behind the tender frames. Off is back, On is forward.

 

On the County the switch is positioned here due to the holes in the tender frames. Left is off, Right is on.

 

 

A quick clip of the Saint's first movements on RC.

You can see it's a bit tight, I did lubricate the drivetrain after this. but something was clearly 'off'.

 

 

It later embarrassed itself on the layout by making it halfway around one level before conking out. The drive gear is spinning on the axle 🙄 loc-tite didn't cure it at all sadly.

I think there is something 'off' with this wheelset as there was glue smeared around some of the spokes. Unfortunately this series of 'Castle' didn't last long before it was redesigned, so driving wheels aren't easy to find. I've ordered some 'Star' ones which look like the correct fitment.

 

 

The original aim with the County was to retain the tender weights, but this wouldn't fit unless I removed the 'low coal' space in the tender and replaced with a large coal pile, so the weights were taken out.

Both the County and the Saint have 240mah batteries.

 

 

Again with the tests, again with the tight spots. If you listen you can hear a distinctive 'knock' every rotation.

 

 

This 'knock' got worse and worse on the layout to the extent that the loco started sounding like a helicopter and was bouncing up and down about a mm on every wheel revolution.

The loco went from haring up the helix with 18 wagons to being unable to drag 2 coaches around, presumably from the lack of traction caused by the jumping.

It seemed like it could be another split gear but I couldn't see any cracks when inspecting it.

 

Handily I have the remains of the smashed/dropped ringfield drive Castle on the workbench which donated its entire wheelset and rods.

I'll check the quartering, gears etc. on the old set at some point but it's one of my least favourite things to do.

At least it seems to be running smoothly now!

 

It was pretty good when it was working. Here it is in company with the Cathedral (which was on charge).

[Corbs]

Yay, much smoother.

 

[GreenBR]

Hello,

Any chance  of some more details about the RC Control or can you point me somewhere where you have given more details.

Regards

GreenBR

[Corbs]

9 hours ago, GreenBR said:

Hello,

Any chance  of some more details about the RC Control or can you point me somewhere where you have given more details.

Regards

GreenBR

Sure thing! Here's the spec.:

 

Deltang Rx41 Receiver

240mah battery (1-cell, 3.7v)

9v upconverter

Deltang Tx22 controller

The RC components are from Micron Radio Control.

 

[Corbs]

Further to the above, I did an endurance test with the County this evening, where I run it flat out and time it until the battery runs out.

It managed a decent 28 minutes which means if I start a 25 minute timer at the start of a running session, I should have good warning to get it back to shed for refuelling before it comes to a stand (given that in actual use it isn’t running flat out consistently).

 

[GreenBR]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply. Forgot my manners, Please and thank you very much

Regards

GreenBR

 

[Corbs]

No worries!

 

Good news - a replacement wheelset for the Hornby 'Star' class arrived, fitted all 3 wheel/axle combos to the 'Saint', and they work!

 

Hopefully this means both the Saint and the County can get a proper run out this weekend.

 

Does make me wonder if the older-but-not-as-old-as-the-ringfield Castle was retooled to become the Star model as these axles do not have bearings, unlike the newer Castle chassis.

 

 

One of these days I'll replace the Tri-ang tender wheels and even out the running height - looks like the rear springs are sagging a tad.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Corbs

[plasticbasher]

Your Saint build is really inspirational @Corbs

An alternative (more traditional) approach I've had bookmarked since I first found it a few years ago is this one:  https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/39982-improving-the-Hornby-saint/#comment-427675

 

In fact I started replicating @TheCuckoo's work on my Saint, but using a complete Bachman Mogul tender.  Additionally I also filled in the gap under the boiler with a section of boiler stolen from a scrap Triang Hall body, which is my only "enhancement", but found my attempt at the footplate modification he described had set at a slightly jaunty angle - that caused me to pack my efforts away in disgust and forget about it..!

 

I might dig it out again and rethink based on your work.

 

As an aside, having worked on mine, and compared to the scrap Triang Hall body I had at the time, I believe that (although both the Saint loco body and chassis block are fundamentally the same as a Triang Hall), the Saint body was subtly rejigged to sit at the right height on the Saint chassis, despite larger driving wheels.  It's a shame they went that far (seemingly without fanfare), but didn't address a few other failings to drag the model from being a "sort of" Saint-a-like into something a bit closer to scale.

[Corbs]

The bodgy 'I'm running out of patience' tender chassis was on borrowed time. The Tri-ang split axle wheels don't really like points (or pointing in the same direction for that matter) so a bullet was acquired, then bitten, then a 'proper' rather than GBL tender chassis ordered. This has enabled the fitting of metal tender wheels. At the same time the mounting screw was changed, freeing up space on the inside of the tender body. More space = bigger battery, swapping from 240mah to 1000mah. The voltage step-up and receiver are black-tacked on top of the battery. On/off switch is accessible from the side of the loco by using tweezers through the gap in the frames. Charging plug is underneath as before.

 

Hoping this should give well over an hour of continuous running (would likely be more if I had a 3v instead of 12v motor).

 

[Corbs]

'Black Prince' the Half Hornby, Half GBL 9F has had some titivation.

 

Now sound-fitted with a decent capacitor (as the pickup was dreadful and it stalled all the time), it was back on the workbench to have the rear coupling height altered.

At the same time, the moulded tender handrails were cut off and replaced with wire ones (not got a replacement tender ladder as yet).

 

This was brush painted using paint sprayed into a rattle can lid, then matt lacquered for an even-ish coat.

 

The smokebox door dart was carved off and replaced with a metal one.

 

 

A Mainly Trains etch supplied some front lamp irons and then the whole loco body was matt lacquered and treated to a smattering of weathering powder.

 

I know, it shouldn't have the name for BR service, but it's a great name and we have a lovely pic of my grandfather standing alongside the loco with Mr. Shepherd himself, so it's staying.

 

Also joining the fleet is a GWR parcels railcar, this was previously a test mule for a DCC shop so I got it quite a bit cheaper than normal. The same shop yielded a sound chip and stay-alive. Sounds great!

 

It was far too clean so has also been treated to a very thin lacquer coat over some basic powders and panel join highlights.

 

In the background you can see the in-progress first attempt at making better china clay hoods using the toilet paper/PVA/cling film method. We'll see how that goes when it dries!