Modern Outline Kits Class 4F

[djparkins]

Perhaps it's time I left.

Ive enjoyed my time on here, but hadn't realised I was supposed to add more to the forums, nor that people found my posts meaningless.

I apologise.

 

Hang on in there Jeff! And perhaps, especially given your current circumstances, others might wish to retract/modify their comments - both on this forum and on the other one.

 

I agree with Miss Prism - we shouldn't be kicking anyone off of this forum [or WT for that matter]. There is too much authoritarianism in the world as it is these days! It gets too easy for people to 'fire from the hip' on these forums. A little bit of tolerance is now required please.

 

David Parkins

[LaScala]

Please don't kick anyone off !!!!!!!!!!!

If not posting fluff, irrelevant chatter or misplaced opinion was a criteria for continued membership, there would be very few left.

 

There are worse than JeffP, much more annoying in fact, but for the life of me I can't see why PAD is so incensed by a seemingly non productive modeller who gets wound up about tiny thumbnails.

[markjj]

Now that's all sorted can we get back to what this post was originally about lol... I had kind of forgotten why I never post anything I build on forums but now I remember why.... ;-) ;-)

[Hull Paragon]

Ray all Dave's kits tend to be like this unfortunately. A lot of additions to the kits are added as needed but not always included in the instructions. I think the instructions are better than many though.

The worst kit for instructions has to be his 8f's now no longer part of the range. I think it was his first 0-gauge kit as the instructions are just A4 pages of text with very little detail but it still builds into an amazing model and still holds it's own against any other 8f kit.

All kits need a good level of knowledge of the prototype as there are so many minor variations even when things were meant to be standard.

It's the same with wagons you often got the same wagon built by many different builders all with subtle differences although they were built to the same drawings.

Are you going to start the loco now ?

Watch when you do the firebox wrapper if you do there should be lines marked on the etch fret when you do the bends but Dave has missed them off on my kits.

Mark

 

I had a chat with Dave recently about bits that are missing or not clear. He sounded quite philosophical as he explained that the instructions are a bigger nightmare than the kit. No matter how hard you try, something gets missed. I have had no serious problems so far but the area that has caused me the most concern is the missing ribs on the tender coal space. I now know (courtesy of the posts above) which pieces they are but I now have to fit them with the tender fully assembled and a coat of primer on it. Clearly they should have been fitted before the tender skin was put on. I hope there is nothing missing from the sections on the motion as I have never built Walschaerts gear before!

 

With regard to the smokebox wrapper, I sent the boiler and wrapper (I think) back to MOK for them to roll as I don't have any rollers and nickel silver is not as easy to roll as brass.

 

I have started the loco and will post some bits and pieces later.

 

Ray

[Hull Paragon]

Perhaps it's time I left.

Ive enjoyed my time on here, but hadn't realised I was supposed to add more to the forums, nor that people found my posts meaningless.

I apologise.

I'm not sure what this relates to but from my point of view I altered the picture sizes that you were having difficulty with......did that help?

 

Ray

[Hull Paragon]

Just a short note. I'm not sure what has been happening in recent posts, but regardless of the content of the points that are raised, I try to treat everyone with courtesy and respond accordingly. Whatever is going on, this really isn't the place for bickering. I want a series of posts relating to the build of a complex and at times, difficult locomotive. I hope that at some time in the future, someone will read it and find it useful.

 

That's all!

 

Ray

[Hull Paragon]

I have eventually started the locomotive chassis. This has been accompanied by a change of laptop and the immensely complex issues thrown up with Windows 10, not least the fact that my Photoshop is not W10 compatible so I now have to work between 2 laptops to get my photos edited.

 

Anyway, the frames are the starting point. After the hornguides and front axle bearings are in, the next step is fitting the sanding valves. I have to admit another breakdown in rationality as I struggled to get them soldered in. I don't know why but I just couldn't get the solder to run on the first set......the second set was much easier thank goodness.

 

 

Next comes the stretchers and they need nuts soldering into the etched positions. My RSU, rapidly becoming my favourite piece of equipment, was used with 188 solder....plus a bit more solder. One of the tender nuts fell off and I had quite a job getting it back on, so no mistakes this time around.

 

 

This is followed by the brake lever assembly. The components:

 

 

And the assembly part finished. I have since finished it without any problems

 

 

Then the ash pan:

 

 

And finally, the motor mount. I have used the recommended ABC mini gearbox with a Maxon motor. I have not finalised this assembly yet. It will bolt in somewhere and I want to be sure all is well before I finish it off.

 

 

The suspension is similar to the tender without the folded up housings. The assembled balancing beams and rocker box are shown below.

 

 

That's it so far. Next the hangers and springs............

 

Ray

[Mr Grumpy]

Ray,

Your thread is excellent, enjoyable and informative:-) It makes it all worthwhile when others add useful information to assist you and others with their build.

I have had a workbench thread for some time, but decided to stop posting for a while, just from a personal perspective.

Your build finally made me crack on with my MOK BR1G tender for my 9F. The tender has mostly gone together very well, except for the transverse beam rocker cradle which was etched back to front.

I have built two MOK locos and the 74xx instructions were particularly lacking. They are mostly excellent, but sometimes they need updating.

If you venture into MMP kits, his instructions and fit of parts are generally excellent :-)

[daifly]

Ray

Thoroughly enjoying following your build. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who will appreciate the bigger photos. Thanks for that.

I'm just trying to find a creative excuse for buying one of these kits too.

Dave

[Dan Randall]

Hi Ray

 

I ordered myself one of these kits earlier this week, so I'm watching your build with great interest!

 

 

(Dave, treat yourself - you know you want one!).

 

 

Regards

 

Dan

[markjj]

Mark

 

I had a chat with Dave recently about bits that are missing or not clear. He sounded quite philosophical as he explained that the instructions are a bigger nightmare than the kit. No matter how hard you try, something gets missed. I have had no serious problems so far but the area that has caused me the most concern is the missing ribs on the tender coal space. I now know (courtesy of the posts above) which pieces they are but I now have to fit them with the tender fully assembled and a coat of primer on it. Clearly they should have been fitted before the tender skin was put on. I hope there is nothing missing from the sections on the motion as I have never built Walschaerts gear before!

 

With regard to the smokebox wrapper, I sent the boiler and wrapper (I think) back to MOK for them to roll as I don't have any rollers and nickel silver is not as easy to roll as brass.

 

I have started the loco and will post some bits and pieces later.

 

Ray

Hello Ray,

Yes Dave always admits his instructions are not his strongest point but his kits are always amazing. I often wonder how he creates such kits for the price if you compare them to many.

The valve gear is very well covered in the instructions you can also find many similar builds of other similar loco's on here and WT if you are a member. The Ivatt whilst not identical to the BR Standard 4 is very similar and there are several build a of them on here with lots of info on the valve gear etc.

Your tender missing parts can easily be fitted with superglue or araldite once you put coal in the tender it will reinforce the bottom end of them as they will be hidden.

One good thing with Dave's kits you can often tap him up to buy spare etches or castings if things go badly wrong so it's never a case of a scrapped kit even if you have to wait a while for him to get the bits in his after sales are brilliant.

I hope he keeps up the good work with his kits though and he manages to design a few more I just love the nickel silver and the way he designs them.

I have several of theses Ivatts to build and about 15 other MOK kits to.... I just don't get enough hours to build them though at the MO there is never enough hours in the day...

As Richard says above if you fancy some nice kits to go behind your Ivatt buy a MMP kit or two. The instructions are superb with excellent diagrams and descriptive text plus they do a lot of LMS kits if you are a LMS fan plus many more BR types. You won't build any of them in a weekend but you will get a beautiful highly detailed model to match your Ivatt.

Going back to your build I buy very fine low melt solder called Smart solder for building MOK kits. It is designed for repairing modern surface mount printed circuit boards. It has a special flux and contains 2% silver in its make up. It's not cheap but a roll goes a long way. As the solder is so fine it's very hard to put too much on. It also works well with any additional flux if you need more flow.

 

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F131555950188

[Hull Paragon]

Ray,

Your thread is excellent, enjoyable and informative:-) It makes it all worthwhile when others add useful information to assist you and others with their build.

I have had a workbench thread for some time, but decided to stop posting for a while, just from a personal perspective.

Your build finally made me crack on with my MOK BR1G tender for my 9F. The tender has mostly gone together very well, except for the transverse beam rocker cradle which was etched back to front.

I have built two MOK locos and the 74xx instructions were particularly lacking. They are mostly excellent, but sometimes they need updating.

If you venture into MMP kits, his instructions and fit of parts are generally excellent :-)

 

Thanks for your encouragement Mr G. Good luck with your build!

 

Ray

Ray

Thoroughly enjoying following your build. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who will appreciate the bigger photos. Thanks for that.

I'm just trying to find a creative excuse for buying one of these kits too.

Dave

 

Thanks Dave. Hopefully the new photo size will work for everyone.

 

It's difficult to fully justify the cost of one of these kits but in the end (for me anyway) you only live once so be bold. You won't be disappointed.

 

Ray

Edited November 23, 2018 by Hull Paragon

[Hull Paragon]

Hello Ray,

Yes Dave always admits his instructions are not his strongest point but his kits are always amazing. I often wonder how he creates such kits for the price if you compare them to many.

The valve gear is very well covered in the instructions you can also find many similar builds of other similar loco's on here and WT if you are a member. The Ivatt whilst not identical to the BR Standard 4 is very similar and there are several build a of them on here with lots of info on the valve gear etc.

Your tender missing parts can easily be fitted with superglue or araldite once you put coal in the tender it will reinforce the bottom end of them as they will be hidden.

One good thing with Dave's kits you can often tap him up to buy spare etches or castings if things go badly wrong so it's never a case of a scrapped kit even if you have to wait a while for him to get the bits in his after sales are brilliant.

I hope he keeps up the good work with his kits though and he manages to design a few more I just love the nickel silver and the way he designs them.

I have several of theses Ivatts to build and about 15 other MOK kits to.... I just don't get enough hours to build them though at the MO there is never enough hours in the day...

As Richard says above if you fancy some nice kits to go behind your Ivatt buy a MMP kit or two. The instructions are superb with excellent diagrams and descriptive text plus they do a lot of LMS kits if you are a LMS fan plus many more BR types. You won't build any of them in a weekend but you will get a beautiful highly detailed model to match your Ivatt.

Going back to your build I buy very fine low melt solder called Smart solder for building MOK kits. It is designed for repairing modern surface mount printed circuit boards. It has a special flux and contains 2% silver in its make up. It's not cheap but a roll goes a long way. As the solder is so fine it's very hard to put too much on. It also works well with any additional flux if you need more flow.

 

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F131555950188

Mark

 

Many thanks for your detailed comments. I have got other kits in the pipeline so I probably won't ever get round to an MMP one.....but you never know!

 

I use a lot of low melt but the flux I have been applying was pretty corrosive.....going green in about 5 minutes. So I recently changed to another one from Squires that I saw in a George Dent book....without washing it stays clean for at least 48 hours....my test period. I will have a look at Smat solder and thanks for the tip.

 

Ray

[Hull Paragon]

Hi Ray

 

I ordered myself one of these kits earlier this week, so I'm watching your build with great interest!

 

 

(Dave, treat yourself - you know you want one!).

 

 

Regards

 

Dan

 

Dan

 

Good luck. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

 

Ray

[Hull Paragon]

I'm in the process of putting the springs and hangers together but before I post the results, a short quiz.  Here are the frames again.....

 

 

Has anyone spotted my deliberate mistake/s?

 

 

Ray

Edited November 23, 2018 by Hull Paragon

[Mr Grumpy]

Bearings in back to front?

[markjj]

I'm in the process of putting the springs and hangers together but before I post the results, a short quiz.  Here are the frames again.....

 

 

Frames and Sanding Gear.jpg

 

Has anyone spotted my deliberate mistake/s?

 

 

Ray

A quick blast with a hot air/paint stripping gun will correct that Ray. They are a lot kinder than a blow lamp or sitting for ages with a soldering iron waiting for the solder to melt. They are also very good for soldering said bearings in lots of flux and a tiny ring of solder or solder paste.

[Dave Holt]

The other thing that intrigues me is the support arrangement for the sand traps. In the upper frame (LH side?), the short LH support has a backing plate against the frame plate whereas none of the others has one. I also wonder why the support legs on the two frames are different lengths?

Dave.

[markjj]

The other thing that intrigues me is the support arrangement for the sand traps. In the upper frame (LH side?), the short LH support has a backing plate against the frame plate whereas none of the others has one. I also wonder why the support legs on the two frames are different lengths?

Dave.

Dave

The support brackets are cut away after the sand gear is fitted. Dave has fitted them this way so they don't snap off.

See attached photo.

I forgot to add photos for reference only I'm sure Dave wouldn't mind me using them...

Edited November 23, 2018 by markjj

[markjj]

The other thing that intrigues me is the support arrangement for the sand traps. In the upper frame (LH side?), the short LH support has a backing plate against the frame plate whereas none of the others has one. I also wonder why the support legs on the two frames are different lengths?

Dave.

 

Hello again Dave,

Sorry I didn't explain things regarding the sand trap brackets very well last night.. The result of too many glasses of wine earlier...

The supports for the sand traps are different on each side because one side carries the mechanism for the drain cock rodding. On the real thing the bracket is beefed up on one side with that additional support plate which I'm guessing is a solid casting or welded up bracket to stop the bracket twisting when the rods move. See the attached pictures and it might all make more sense. the additional support is as I said before cut off once the sand traps are fitted and the pipework soldered on. picture of the real loco borrowed from the book of the Ivatt 4mt, Instruction manual page from the MOK instructions I hope again Dave doesn't mind me sharing it here.

[Hull Paragon]

Well done to the bearing spotters and others who may have noticed that I also put the sanding valves in the wrong way round. I'm really annoyed at that because I didn't do well getting them in and now they have to come out and be done again! I realised my mistake when I had soldered in a pair of spring hangers and I was looking at the bearing arrangements to set the clearances......I just couldn't figure it out until I discovered that I had put the hangers on the wrong side as well. This all stems from my mind somehow managing to ignore the fact that the hornblock arrangement houses the rocker beams and therefore, is on the inner side. Mind you, it could have been worse as I snapped a 12BA tap off in a hanger and couldn't do anymore so I only had one pair that I could fit. I phoned Dave yesterday (Friday) who put a new one in the post yesterday and it arrived this morning. Fantastic service Dave thanks!

 

So I took out the wrong bits and soldered them all back on the right side......on one frame anyway. The second one still awaits my next session.

 

So my advice for the day is: Read the instructions, twice, then read them again, and before you do anything check twice..........

 

Ray

[Hull Paragon]

A quick blast with a hot air/paint stripping gun will correct that Ray. They are a lot kinder than a blow lamp or sitting for ages with a soldering iron waiting for the solder to melt. They are also very good for soldering said bearings in lots of flux and a tiny ring of solder or solder paste.

 

Mark

 

A good tip thanks

 

Ray

[markjj]

Mark

 

A good tip thanks

 

Ray

By the way Ray with Dave's instructions you need to read the book twice the normal way then from the rear forward again at least once ;-).

I hope you managed to get your problems sorted without too much trouble. I also broke a tap in one of them spring hangers on my first 4mt kit. The art is to make sure you run a drill all the way through then plenty of lubrication and just go in a turn at a time slow and gentle.

[Hull Paragon]

I posted some stuff a short while ago, including some replies to comments, which don't seem to have uploaded. The site was very slow that day so maybe there was a problem.

 

Anyway, I sorted the back to front frames out including re-soldering those **** sand valves.....several times. They are still not 100% like some I have seen (Dibateg for instance!), but I must move on or I will never finish it.  I took a minor divergence from the instructions .....I wanted a flat surface so that I could use the RSU to solder the spring hangers on, so I soldered the loose support for the sanding valves and filed it flat so the tab didn't protrude.

 

So, on to the springs and suspension. Loads of bits and pieces to prepare:

 

 

 

I soldered the hangers on and then replace the bearing. A couple of sand pipes later and now I can cut the support off and unsolder the tab. One of the sand pipes needs to be routed a bit higher as another sits below it and at the moment there isn't enough room.

 

A quick view of the RHS:

 

 

And the inside with pre-assembled stretchers and rocking arms box in place but not yet soldered.

 

 

The LHS is almost done.....just the sand pipes and I can assemble the chassis for soldering. Hopefully that will be done today before I set the suspension up later.

 

 

With apologies for the darker than normal pictures....If anyone needs a clear copy of one (or all) I'll redo it/them.

 

Ray

Edited November 28, 2018 by Hull Paragon

[Dave Holt]

Ray.

The picture look just fine on my computer. The chassis looks to be coming along very nicely.

What is the purpose of the three small, fold-out tabs (the upper one at about 45 degrees) between the front and centre driving axles?

Dave.