Mercian 7mm Midland 1F Kit

[Ray H]

I meant to take and show this picture yesterday.

 

 

The boiler has been formed around the boiler forming rings provided so I'm sure that I have the circumference as small as it will go when using them. Fitting the boiler between the tanks also suggests that the forming rings may have been a shade too large.

 

The front right hand splasher that I'd fitted at that time was found to foul the wheel so has subsequently been moved out and its "twin" on the other side has also been fitted since the picture was taken.

 

I have also now "Solder(ed) frame extensions . . . . to the sides of the smokebox (&). Form(ed the) cylinder cover and solder(ed it) in place."

 

 

The cylinder cover is seen here, fitted (as is the right hand frame extension although that can't be seen). The left hand frame extension was fitted today. Both had to be reduced in length so that they cleared the inside of the splasher(s) and thereby wouldn't foul the wheel flanges.

 

As can be seen the cylinder cover now hides the centre lamp iron hole on the footplate. It didn't dawn on me until later today that I should, perhaps, have reduced the depth of the horizontal part of the cylinder cover to leave the hole exposed. That said, I have yet to (look for and) locate the lamp iron castings in the bag of castings that came with the kit but think that having looked at some pictures of actual locos, the lamp irons should be a little bit further forward. I won't know for certain until I check the castings to see how they are fitted to the footplate.

 

The latter part of today has been spent in fixing some of the beading around the top and bottom of the tank sides (and cleaning up the poor soldering afterwards!). I still have more of this to do than has actually been done.

[Ray H]

Not much to show for this afternoon's efforts.

 

 

The beading is done as are the tender coal rails and they're something that would definitely benefit (in my eyes) from being fitted before the cab back is added.

 

I want to do some work on the brakes tomorrow so that they can be removed before painting the chassis.

[Ray H]

Alas, the beading wasn't all done! I'd forgotten the pieces around the cab opening so that was a job done yesterday. I also made & fitted the four steps and added the four supplied buffers, the bases of which seem a little small compared with my interpretation of the size of those seen in the various pictures that I've looked at.

 

The loco went to club last night and had a (very) brief saunter up and down one of the fiddle yard sidings. I had hoped that it might get a run around the full (oval) layout but the scenery chaps had the static grass machine out in between the fiddle yard and the through sidings so all the stock normally stabled in the area is parked, permissive block style, around the rest of the layout.

 

We did look at some of the remaining fittings and think we've discovered a few that aren't in the box that the kit came in.

 

The cab roof was another topic for discussion. We think that we've found the basic one piece roof etch but it has a central opening where a sliding cover might have gone. Alas we couldn't find anything in the box that looks like it might cover said opening.

 

Having looked again at some of Duncan's pictures this morning it seems as though 41708's original open-cab roof panel was simply extended with another full panel with no provision for a sliding hatch. I will probably mimic that especially as my model is gradually becoming more and more like a representation of 41708 as each day passes.

Edited January 27, 2019 by Ray H

[Ray H]

The chassis was "broken down" into more or less the component parts yesterday afternoon ready for painting.

 

I hope to undertake further work on the body during the coming week in the hope that we might get a better idea of what is missing at club on Thursday evening. However we're entertaining members from another club on that evening so I may need to wait for a further week.

[Ray H]

The snow or a threat thereof has stopped me heading to club this week and also stopped the club's visitors last evening.

However I have tried to use my time productively and the body now has the chimney and dome stuck on using a two part adhesive. I tried to solder the white metal dome onto the top of the boiler twice but wasn't happy that I'd got it centred properly so having cleaned up after each attempt I finally decided to use an adhesive.

Meanwhile the frame assembly had been reduced to component parts, sent to and returned from my colleague who has done a nice job of painting all that needs doing at present.

The next job will be to re-assemble the frame/wheels, etc and then I'm hoping to go back to the instructions and carry on the build from where I left off before.

[Ray H]

The frame was re-assembled yesterday afternoon and paint cleaned from areas where I'd prefer it wasn't (!). It then spent a good hour on the rolling road having been temporarily wired for DC operation.

 

Before returning my attention to the body I decided I'd better check if the speaker would still go where I had been expecting it to. That was towards the front of the chassis and although it looks as though it might, it won't.

 

I did check to see if the speaker shown below would fit within the confines of the body. It would go in the boiler but I didn't want to fill that with a speaker in case I need to find somewhere for some extra weight. It wouldn't fit in either of the side tanks.

 

Zimo also produce a dual sugar cube speaker with the speakers length-ways (rather than cross-ways as shown below) and I was beginning to think that I'd have to order one of those which it appeared would most probably fit  in one of the side tanks. However, on checking the chassis again I discovered that the speaker would fit under the motor. Although it looks horizontal (to the rails) it is in fact angled, sloping upwards towards the back of the chassis.

 

The front of the speaker enclosure has a slight lip on it and that sits nicely on one of my home-made frame spacers, the lip preventing the speaker from sliding any further forward. I've then super-glued a piece of 3mm "plastic" at an angle inside each of the frame sides to support the speaker - it is fractionally too long to sit horizontal.

 

I've glued a protective layer of very thin clear plastic to the front of the speaker housing in case anything metal jumps up at the speaker metalwork from the track.

 

The speaker will happily rest in the inclined position although as an added bonus it is wedged in place unintentionally by the two wires from the pick-ups that pass through holes drilled in the frames.

 

 

I haven't fitted the decoder yet so I haven't tried the speaker but I have done some more work on the body today. 

[Ray H]

I spent quite a while on the loco yesterday and it is now in an almost finished state. The frames have been painted by a colleague and he will weather them once work on the body has been completed.

 

The cab roof is just resting in place.

 

There are a few bits still to be added but my (almost) zero knowledge of a steam locos anatomy means that I'll need some input from club members plus hopefully - in at least one instance - a dip into their spares box for the bits that still need to be added.

 

I'm fairly certain that the previous owner, who hadn't built any part of the kit, has either mislaid or used some of the bits from the kit elsewhere.

 

 

I managed to lose a 12ba nut off one of the buffers on Saturday. I then dropped another whilst I was trying to find out why the buffer wouldn't slide back into its base. Search (the floor) as I may I couldn't find either of them. I ordered some via bay of E and they're due here on Wednesday.

 

Yesterday I was fitting the lamp brackets and managed to catch one of several laying on the bench ready to be soldered onto the body with the cuff of my shirt sleeve. That too disappeared presumably onto the floor as I couldn't find it on the bench despite a reasonably thorough check. The search for that on the floor revealed one of Saturday's missing nuts and within a few minutes looking in the same area I found the second nut.

 

Later on whilst making a more thorough check of the bench top prior to putting some tools away I found the errant lamp iron!

 

Today's task(s) is to make a wooden cab floor - the bits for it should have been in the kit but weren't so I'll use coffee stirrers. I may also attempt to find a home for the dcc decoder within the frames and if successful, fit that as well.

[Fastdax]

1 hour ago, Ray H said:

I may also attempt to find a home for the dcc decoder within the frames and if successful, fit that as well.

 

Great stuff Ray! Glad to see the 1F nearing completion.

 

BTW, there should be plenty of room in the boiler/firebox for the decoder, speaker, stay-alive pack (a necessity in my opinion) and any LEDs such as firebox-flicker.

 

I use a small 4-way connector to connect the chassis to the body to allow most of the electrical stuff to live permanently in the body. They are like these and are ridiculously cheap. I put the female half on the chassis and the male half in the body.

 

On the chassis, red and black go to the pickups and yellow/white to the motor terminals. In the body, red/black go to the decoder's track inputs and yellow/white to its motor outputs. An added advantage is that you can take the chassis on its own and test it on DC power by connecting a power supply to the yellow/white wires on a spare 4-way plug.

 

 

[Ray H]

Thanks for the info Duncan. There is actually plenty of space between the frame sides for the decoder - the speaker is already there. That saves having to worry about trapped wires when adding or removing the body. The decoder might well have been in situ by now had I not had to pause for lunch!

 

Whilst it doesn't look to be a possible problem with the connectors that you describe, we have had a couple of instances where male connectors have been attached to the decoder coming "uncoupled" from their female mate with the result that the pins have been free to contact the rails with dire consequences for the decoder!

[Ray H]

The loco has finally (?) got to the stage where it can have an initial visit to the paint shop courtesy of my mate Jim.

 

 

 

It wasn't until I uploaded the pictures from my phone that I noticed that the cab roof was adrift. It is meant to be so that I can add the reversing lever and crew but it would have been nice if it had stayed put before I took the pictures!

 

The next job is to purchase and then add the decals before it goes back to Jim for some weathering.

 

I'll probably leave the cab roof held in place with black tack or similar in case I ever need to gain access to the cab.

[Ray H]

This is the current situation.

 

 

The weathering has been done by my colleague and there's a story behind the gloss looking bunker side(s).

 

I originally tried applying the decals after the entire loco had been weathered as I'd done similar with a previous loco and got away with it. This time I wasn't so lucky. I tried trimming the decals as close to the edge of the digits as I could but the decals either broke up as I was transferring them from the backing paper to the bunker side or as I was attempting to position them - they seemed to move (even minutely) each time I added another decal.

 

I finally got a complete set only for one to fall off within a day or so. In addition the film onto which the numerals are printed was clearly visible. Time to start again!

 

I removed the decals, rubbed down the paintwork on the whole of the bunker side with 1500 wet & dry used dry finally wiped over with IPA. The weathering was gone but at least the whole of the bunker side looked in the same condition.

 

This time I pre-applied a couple of coats of acrylic varnish each 24 hours apart. I used Micro Set on the bunker sides to aid positioning and wasn't too critical cutting around the decals. By the time the Micro Set had dried the film around the numerals was all but invisible to the (average) naked eye.

 

It will now go back to my colleague to re-apply the weathering on the bunker sides.

 

It still needs a crew, couplings and some added weight in the water tanks to aid traction.