The Calder Vale Mineral Railway

[Ruston]

Pattern-making almost complete for the Lady. Only the brake blocks to be made.

[Ruston]

First set of frames built and, after some trial and error, fitted to the body.

I don't have any wheels as yet, nor any axles but I have made the cranks to the dimensions in the drawing in Mike Sharman's book. As can be seen in the above photo, the small splashers for the cranks have been made solid and from making the patterns I already know that the cranks and rods will not be able to turn. I am going to have to gouge out the bottom of the running plate and the small splashers but working with this 3D-printed material is a complete unknown to me, so it could all end in disaster. Nevertheless, an engine is no use if it doesn't run.

 

Painting the body.

It looks a bit rough but those ragged edges will blend in under weathering.

[TurboSnail]

1 hour ago, Ruston said:

First set of frames built and, after some trial and error, fitted to the body.

I don't have any wheels as yet, nor any axles but I have made the cranks to the dimensions in the drawing in Mike Sharman's book. As can be seen in the above photo, the small splashers for the cranks have been made solid and from making the patterns I already know that the cranks and rods will not be able to turn. I am going to have to gouge out the bottom of the running plate and the small splashers but working with this 3D-printed material is a complete unknown to me, so it could all end in disaster. Nevertheless, an engine is no use if it doesn't run.

 

Painting the body.

It looks a bit rough but those ragged edges will blend in under weathering.

 

Looking good! For the splasher modification, an engraver tool on a Dremel works well for me. Otherwise, a technique that uses lots of small passes is better than any technique that uses a lot of force, as the resin is quite brittle.

[Ruston]

A bit of a play, today, and a few snaps taken, too.

 

 

 

 

 

[Ruston]

Here's a surprise!

 

 

 

Manning Wardle class F Isis

[Shed82CB]

that's just a lil something something you put together?

[Ruston]

11 hours ago, Shed82CB said:

that's just a lil something something you put together?

It's the Chivers kit that I posted at the top of page 13, back in July but I never posted anything about the build. It's been rebuilt twice and repainted once since I started and it spent a long time in bits when I couldn't get it to run, so left it aside. Then a hammer fell on it and knocked off the weatherboard, which flew off somewhere, so I had to make a new one. I found the old one just as I finished putting the new one on! It needs the brake gear to finish it but the etches have gone AWOL.

 

The kit is made to represent Wantage Tramway No.7, which had a full non-standard cab and so I had to chop the castings down and make beading for the bunker tops. I also had to chop the casting for the front of the cab because it had the tank rear cast into it. The tank rear then  had to be soldered to the rest of the tank.

 

The weatherboard and spectacle rims were made from brass sheet and the stays from brass wire. The dumb buffers are of wood with card plates on the front, painted red and weathered as rusty iron.

[Shed82CB]

8 hours ago, Ruston said:

 

The kit is made to represent Wantage Tramway No.7

do they still make the kit? WTC 7 is quite necessary to the wantage layout i'm planning

[Ruston]

22 hours ago, Shed82CB said:

do they still make the kit? WTC 7 is quite necessary to the wantage layout i'm planning

I bought mine in July, so I would assume it's still available.

 

More on Lady of the Lakes.

 

The parts are cut for @TurboSnail's frame but are not yet assembled so here are his Markits wheels trial-fitted to my own frame.

I have machined some brass spacers to go between the wheels and the cranks. The cranks are made by myself and are tapped 10BA to screw on to the Markits axles. Tom sent me some Markits cranks but they are huge when compared to these and would definitely cause a problem in hitting the underside of the running plate. There are some clearance issues with these wheels that have yet to be resolved. My own frame will use Gibson wheels and as they have finer flanges and don't have such thick treads, I'm hoping the same problems won't arise.

 

Edited November 28, 2019 by Ruston

[Ruston]

The Stephenson 4-4-0ST has now been named Thoth.

 

 

 

It took some faffing around, and filling every available space with lead, to get it to pull 5 wagons up the bank but after all that it kept derailing where the gradient flattened out on the curve at the summit, just before the viaduct. This has now been cured by cutting down the coil spring that takes the engine's weight on to the bogie and inserting a spherical plastic bead between the bogie and the spring. The bogie can now follow the track more easily and can cope with the change of gradient.

 

In other news, I seem to have taken on too much. I have three of my own locomotive builds in various stages of completion, plus three milling jobs for frames for other people and now one vital cutter has broken so that's two of those jobs that are stopped and I'm not feeling motivated to have to go to Leeds and get a new cutter. In fact, to be honest, I'm not feeling motivated to go in the shed, or the garage as it's cold enough to freeze the balls off of a brass monkey out there.

Edited November 30, 2019 by Ruston

[Shed82CB]

4 minutes ago, Ruston said:

it's cold enough to freeze the balls off of a brass monkey out there.

Sounds like you need a new, smaller layout for shunting and playing in the warmth of your house

[Guest Isambarduk]

2 hours ago, Ruston said:

I'm not feeling motivated to have to go to Leeds and get a new cutter

Dave,  No need to go to Leeds.  I can recommend The Drill Service Horley Ltd for all cutters (including drills).  Postage is included for orders over £10 (not difficult) and they are hard and sharp.  Of course they are more expensive than the ones that you would expect to buy at a typical model railway show from people who sound as if they run a large retail store selling a wide variety of goods or those who sound like they own country estates, but they last and last (as in they stay sharp, even after a lot of use).

 

Entering The Drill Service website for the first time is a bit like entering a city department store whe you are familiar only with the village shop.  However, if you start with slot drills (my preferred cutter for 7mm), I'd go here: Slot drills and choose the less expensive options (eg 3mm SDC3F-3.00-Y £6.75).  Similarly, for drills, we are after jobber drills and I'd go here; Jobber drills and for our sort of sizes (move down below the teeny weeny drills at 'You cannot be serious' prices) 1.0mm D-1.00 is £1.36, which is the sort of price that you should be paying for a decent drill of this size.

 

I hope this helps :-)

 

David

 

[Ruston]

12 minutes ago, Isambarduk said:

Dave,  No need to go to Leeds.  I can recommend The Drill Service Horley Ltd for all cutters (including drills).  Postage is included for orders over £10 (not difficult) and they are hard and sharp.  Of course they are more expensive than the ones that you would expect to buy at a typical model railway show from people who sound as if they run a large retail store selling a wide variety of goods or those who sound like they own country estates, but they last and last (as in they stay sharp, even after a lot of use).

 

Entering The Drill Service website for the first time is a bit like entering a city department store whe you are familiar only with the village shop.  However, if you start with slot drills (my preferred cutter for 7mm), I'd go here: Slot drills and choose the less expensive options (eg 3mm SDC3F-3.00-Y £6.75).  Similarly, for drills, we are after jobber drills and I'd go here; Jobber drills and for our sort of sizes (move down below the teeny weeny drills at 'You cannot be serious' prices) 1.0mm D-1.00 is £1.36, which is the sort of price that you should be paying for a decent drill of this size.

 

I hope this helps :-)

 

David

 

Thanks, David, but these are specialist cutters for pantograph engraving machines; they have a taper fit and are unlike drills or milling cutters. They are made to spec. and to order by Pantograph Services in Leeds. As they come they are just a blank and are ground to the customer's specification. I'll take the old ones up there and, leave them to be re-ground and usually pick it up a day or two later, which is probably faster than anything ordered by mail and I know exactly what I'm getting.

[Ruston]

Manning Wardle Class Q

[Shed82CB]

the firebox it HUGE, i wonder how they preformed historically

[rope runner]

1 hour ago, Shed82CB said:

the firebox it HUGE, i wonder how they preformed historically

Probably exceptionally as is evidenced by the longevity many of the MW locos, with Kitson notably producing many locomotives to identical design after they had taken over the goodwill. 

 

Paul A. 

[Ruston]

In these boilers, and in most Manning Wardles, the firebox extended well above the height of the boiler as it acted as a dome for collecting the steam. I've read that the Class N suffered from priming and their boilers were mostly rebuilt with domes. Whatever the cause was it was obviously overcome in the Q class as they remained dome-less.

[DLT]

On 30/11/2019 at 17:09, Isambarduk said:

Dave,  No need to go to Leeds.  I can recommend The Drill Service Horley Ltd for all cutters (including drills).  Postage is included for orders over £10 (not difficult) and they are hard and sharp.  Of course they are more expensive than the ones that you would expect to buy at a typical model railway show from people who sound as if they run a large retail store selling a wide variety of goods or those who sound like they own country estates, but they last and last (as in they stay sharp, even after a lot of use).

 

Entering The Drill Service website for the first time is a bit like entering a city department store whe you are familiar only with the village shop.  However, if you start with slot drills (my preferred cutter for 7mm), I'd go here: Slot drills and choose the less expensive options (eg 3mm SDC3F-3.00-Y £6.75).  Similarly, for drills, we are after jobber drills and I'd go here; Jobber drills and for our sort of sizes (move down below the teeny weeny drills at 'You cannot be serious' prices) 1.0mm D-1.00 is £1.36, which is the sort of price that you should be paying for a decent drill of this size.

 

I hope this helps :-)

 

David

 

 

Thanks very much for this David.  I would re-iterate the advice to always buy engineering tools (drills, taps & dies etc) from an engineering supplier rather than from those that supply the hobby market. 

The other supplier I use is Chronos:  https://www.chronos.ltd.uk/

[Ruston]

I've been feeling a bit depressed, not to mention having a horrible cold, and so haven't done any modelling for a week but, today, I put the heater on in the shed and came out with this.

It's the chassis for Lady Of The Lakes and it runs. The gearbox is a High Level 90:1 Hump Shunter. On the downside, the 3D-print, as shown previously, won't work as is and so I will be making more of this model as scratch-built brass. There will be a new print but consisting only of everything above the level of the running plate, excluding the cab sheets and weatherboard, which will also be brass.

 

The real Lady, seen here in I.W. Boulton's yard in Ashton.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2019 by Ruston

[DanielB]

Nice work Ruston, looking very good already.

 

Brass locomotive construction scares the crap out of me, I have to admit. The closest I've come is building a resin/brass hybrid kit in N scale.

 

Could you point me in the direction of any "idiots guide" to brass kit making, I'm really tempted by a few of the Judith Edge kits.

[Ruston]

4 hours ago, DanielB said:

Nice work Ruston, looking very good already.

 

Brass locomotive construction scares the crap out of me, I have to admit. The closest I've come is building a resin/brass hybrid kit in N scale.

 

Could you point me in the direction of any "idiots guide" to brass kit making, I'm really tempted by a few of the Judith Edge kits.

Hi Daniel,

 

I don't know of an 'idiot's guide" but I'm sure there'll be books on the subject available. There are really only two things to know about soldering stuff together and they are that you need sufficient heat on the job and a flux; the rest is just practice and experience. Making the model work is the trickier part, in my experience.

 

The Judith Edge kits are very well designed and usually go together with the minimum of fuss. I'm sure that if you get one and start a thread here in the Industrial section people will help and answer any questions you might have. It's not difficult - do it! You won't regret it.

[DanielB]

Do you just use a soldering iron or do you have one of those little blow torch thingies?

 

I tried scratchbuilding in brass but my iron wasn't hot enough, I don't think.

[Ruston]

1 minute ago, DanielB said:

Do you just use a soldering iron or do you have one of those little blow torch thingies?

 

I tried scratchbuilding in brass but my iron wasn't hot enough, I don't think.

For 4mm kits I use a 25w iron. I have a RSU for 7mm and for assembling my scratchbuilt frames but the latter use 1mm thick plate brass and the iron isn't up to that sort of job. I have used a miniature blowtorch on 7mm kits sometimes but for any small 4mm kit the iron will suffice. Use 145 degree solder and Carrs Red flux. Don't use those paste-type fluxes as they make an awful mess and rot the tip of your iron.

 

Top tips.

 

Use broaches for opening out holes in frame plates and driving rods and never try to use files or drills for this.

 

Don't bother trying to solder castings on; just glue them using epoxy.

 

Don't fork out thousands of pounds on a jacuzzi-style bath; make your own simply by placing a hairdryer in the bath.

 

Oops, that last one was supposed to go to the editor of Viz

[Guest Isambarduk]

Geoff Holt wrote two volumes on scratchbuilding steam locomotives in 7mm scale and similarly Guy Williams wrote one for building in 4mm.  Both were published by Wild Swan. More recently, Simon Bolton has written a volume intended for all scales. If you search online for 'scratch-building model railway locomotives', there are many others.

 

You do need to have a reasonable amount of power available at your iron; 25W is satisfactory for many situations but 40W will be needed from time to time.

 

David

[Regularity]

26 minutes ago, Ruston said:

I don't know of an 'idiot's guide" but I'm sure there'll be books on the subject available. There are really only two things to know about soldering stuff together and they are that you need sufficient heat on the job and a flux; the rest is just practice and experience.

I will disagree with that, but only slightly.

The flux serves to chemically clean the joint, and may also help to "wet" the join a bit.

The important word there, though, is clean: the parts must be made mechanically clean first. This just means rubbing the surfaces with a gentle abrasive. I use bits of Scotchbrite cleaning pads: purple are far and away the best, if you can get them.

The heat bit is vital. You can get reasonable heat from a 25W iron, but I prefer something a bit more powerful, because then I am in and out of the joint quicker. One problem with brass, and this is worse if the surfaces aren't clean, is that it absorbs the heat and can act as a heat sink, getting uncomfortably hot and previously soldered pieces may fall off! This is one reason I prefer nickel silver, the other being that n/s takes paint better.

 

I always tin both surfaces: a thin wipe of solder is tinning - if you apply too much, you can heat the surface and quickly rub the Scotchbrite over it to get rid of most of it. 

 

Get some scraps of brass, and play around a bit.

Make a simple T shaped joint, as in a tank side meeting a footplate.

The order of progress is:

 

1) clean the edge of the | piece, apply a dab of flux, then pick up a blob of solder on the iron and take it to the metal surface. As soon as the flux starts to sizzle, the solder should begin transferring to the metal, and slide the bit along the edge.

2) clean the flat surface that forms the ___ piece as above. Try to get the solder as thin and flat as possible.

3) Put the I on top of the __ piece. Apply flux to the inside (no visible side) of the join.

4) Apply the tip of the iron to the joint, where you have put the flux. You shouldn't need any more solder.

 

That's it. You can scrape off any excess, and polish the surfaces to remove any residual solder, but providing your iron is clean and hot enough, and the joints are clean and hot, then you don't need any special solders or fluxs for most joints. I use 9% phosphoric acid flux (give everything a good wash after each session, scrubbing with CIF or similar cream cleaner) and 60:40 tin:lead "tinman's solder" for nearly everything. 145 might be used for overlays and where strength is not required, and obviously 70 degree lowmelt to join whitemetal to pre-tinned brass, steel or nickel silver, but otherwise all of my soldering is done that way.