Michael Edge's workbench

[Michael Edge]

More work on the LSW C14, I want to get this finished this week.

Some pattern making going on now, I have another one of these to build anyway but I think we may well see this as a fully worked up kit. Chimney and dome machined and superglued to steel bar of the appropriate diameter, safety valves still to be fitted to the dome. I'll build up a blutack dam round these and then pour the mould rubber on, when moulded they fit exactly on the boiler diameter and being one piece moulds there are no part lines.

The buffers are modified KM LNW Bowen Cooke ones, for production I think I'll do a lost wax casting for them. The coal rails fitted exactly as designed - for once. Handrail pillars fitted but no handrail as yet.

Some more pattern making, smokebox door and toolbox, the clack valves will need to be lost wax as well. Handrail fitted now, just as difficult as usual with the added complication that there is no pillar on the other side of the smokebox, just one on the boiler. Cladding bands added with copper shim, they won't be lined so they go on now.

 

[sej]

Brilliant way of forming moulds for boiler fittings, thanks for sharing!

 

Cheers

Simon

[Michael Edge]

I do it like this for all our kits, when the resin is poured in the mould a piece of greased steel bar is placed on it - so it should fit the boiler.

[Daddyman]

I do it in a similar way, but only use part of a brass tube - as little as possible to cover the base of the dome/chimney. This is superglued to the master so that the bond can be broken later, and the underside stuffed with plasticine to give a level base when it is stood (with the plasticine down) in the plastic box used to form the outside of the mould. Once the mould is made, the resin is poured in and the segment of brass tube (now separated from the dome/chimney master) can be placed on top while the resin is still wet; the tube forms the boiler-shaped depression in the underside of the dome/chimney. There is no need for blutack dams with this method - not that there's anything wrong with them. It might be that you use less moulding compound this way too as there is less master and tube to cover.  

 

Another technique is to put resin castings in the fridge. This is after the resin has had half an hour for the heat process to finish, and before de-moulding. It makes the castings much stronger more quickly, and prevents any distortion which might occur when castings are taken out of the mould.  

Edited May 5, 2020 by Daddyman

[Michael Edge]

With items such as chimneys which have large undercuts in the mould I find it's better to get them out quickly, leaving them longer leads to the mould tearing much easier. I use a very soft and flexible rubber and don't forget most of what I do is for production and mould life is a significant factor in the costings.

I do sometimes make up plastikard boxes as you describe but Blutack is quicker.

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

With items such as chimneys which have large undercuts in the mould I find it's better to get them out quickly, leaving them longer leads to the mould tearing much easier. I use a very soft and flexible rubber and don't forget most of what I do is for production and mould life is a significant factor in the costings.

I do sometimes make up plastikard boxes as you describe but Blutack is quicker.

I've read of folk who use Lego for moulding boxes.

[Barry O]

6 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I've read of folk who use Lego for moulding boxes.

He is called Rossi!!

Do I win a prize?

 

Baz

[Michael Edge]

7 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I've read of folk who use Lego for moulding boxes.

It doesn't fit very well on round bar.....

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Michael Edge said:

It doesn't fit very well on round bar.....

This is where my theory falls to the ground.

 

Anne Elk (Miss)

[Barry O]

1 hour ago, Michael Edge said:

It doesn't fit very well on round bar.....

It does if you heat the bar up.....

Baz

[Michael Edge]

That's an idea, might make the bricks a bit difficult to re-use though.

[Michael Edge]

Some photos turned up this week of a loco I built in 1995.

An L&Y Dreadnought running with an 8 wheel tender, EM gauge. Although this model is 25 years old it has only recently been painted, superb job by Paul Moore.

[Michael Edge]

I am slowly working my way through my own older locos putting more modern and efficient motors/gearboxes in them. Latest one at the weekend was this venerable Buckjumper.

Built way back in 1987 with Herculaneum Dock in mind this is just the bog standard Wills kit - I know it's not really an accurate model of any one of these mind boggling varied locos but it looks the part to me. The J69s were used for many years shunting at Brunswick. It's old enough to have Sharman wheels which are still OK but it's been grinding round all these years with an Airfix/MRRC motor and Romford gears.

Now it has a High Level gearbox (Highflyer) and a 15mm square motor from China, the big lump on the left is what came out. These motors are extremely powerful and just about silent but they do seem to run a bit warm. They also run very slowly and need a high gear ratio, this is about 30:1 and gives a top speed of about 40mph or so. 68601 now runs silently and smoothly, current consumption is so low that it barely registers on the ammeter so I'm not too worried if it gets a bit warm. The screw holes in this motor are nowhere near the ones in the HL gearbox so it's just soldered on.

[Enterprisingwestern]

48 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

The screw holes in this motor are nowhere near the ones in the HL gearbox so it's just soldered on.

 

Bloody Chinese, why don't they consult Chris first?!!

 

Mike.

[t-b-g]

2 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

Some photos turned up this week of a loco I built in 1995.

An L&Y Dreadnought running with an 8 wheel tender, EM gauge. Although this model is 25 years old it has only recently been painted, superb job by Paul Moore.

 

Lovely model! You don't see many of those about.

[A Murphy]

Lovely model. The Lancashire and Yorkshire seems very under-represented in these and other modelling pages.....

 

Regards,

 

Alastair

[Michael Edge]

3 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

Lovely model! You don't see many of those about.

This customer has at least three of them including the only original version I have built.

[t-b-g]

31 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

This customer has at least three of them including the only original version I have built.

 

I hope he has a suitable layout to run them all on.

[Daniel W]

I've always had a softspot for the Dreadnought. Can you remember what kit it was built from, Mike? The only one i am aware of is the Millholme effort.

[Michael Edge]

No kits involved here, all his locos are scratchbuilt. I think the Millholme kit was a bit of a mixture between the L&Y and subsequent LMS versions of the Dreadnought but It's a long time since I built one.

[Michael Edge]

Here's a couple more L&Y locos, again built many years ago (1992-4), painted recently by Dave Studley.

Nothing visible from this angle but the 4-4-2 has inside motion (Joy valve gear) - I did an Aspinall 4-4-0 with it as well but it's not this one. Looking back through my files I did build a few locos from kits, Craftsman and George Norton ones. My photos of these are all pre-digital, not so easy to find and post on here.

[t-b-g]

14 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

Here's a couple more L&Y locos, again built many years ago (1992-4), painted recently by Dave Studley.

Nothing visible from this angle but the 4-4-2 has inside motion (Joy valve gear) - I did an Aspinall 4-4-0 with it as well but it's not this one. Looking back through my files I did build a few locos from kits, Craftsman and George Norton ones. My photos of these are all pre-digital, not so easy to find and post on here.

 

Lovely models Mike.

 

Can you remember how you did the brass beading round the splashers? I have some to do on a GCR 11B LNER D9. If you had them etched, that is not much good to me but I can think of several ways of doing them and wonder how others would approach it if they needed to do it from scratch.

[queensquare]

25 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

Here's a couple more L&Y locos, again built many years ago (1992-4), painted recently by Dave Studley.

Nothing visible from this angle but the 4-4-2 has inside motion (Joy valve gear) - I did an Aspinall 4-4-0 with it as well but it's not this one. Looking back through my files I did build a few locos from kits, Craftsman and George Norton ones. My photos of these are all pre-digital, not so easy to find and post on here.

 

Just gorgeous,

 

Jerry

[A Murphy]

Great looking models Mike (and Dave). 

 

Alastair

Edited May 13, 2020 by A Murphy

[Michael Edge]

3 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

Lovely models Mike.

 

Can you remember how you did the brass beading round the splashers? I have some to do on a GCR 11B LNER D9. If you had them etched, that is not much good to me but I can think of several ways of doing them and wonder how others would approach it if they needed to do it from scratch.

It's a long time since but my usual method then was to make the splasher tops from brass sheet of the appropriate thickness, leaving it standing proud of the splasher face. Solder up the splashers, clean up the joint and sand it to the thickness of the beading. All these were built before I got into etching but I did do some etched splasher faces for the L&Y Atlantic in 4mm and 7mm.