Martin Finney 2721 Pannier Tank

[MPR]

Relevant planning links are:

(High Level) 

http://www.highlevelkits.co.uk/gearboxchoicepage.html

(Brassmasters)

http://www.brassmasters.co.uk/gwr_kits.htm

[shellshock]

I have finished the basic body structure I did notice that with the original type of bunker I decided to use for this loco that the overlays were slightly too long so I had to carefully trim them down on the cab ends also the bunker over lay I had to cut it in half and remove about 1 mm of material and then cut and shut it in place on the bunker.

Regarding the chassis once I had put it together I had a pleasant shock when I connected the motor up to the power supply the chassis ran nice and smooth and all I had done was to open out the coupling rods to 1.7mm diameter as the Ultrascale crank pins are 1.6mm diameter. I do note that the Ultrascale wheels seemed to go on smother and say Alan Gibson ones however I did use the trick of plastic washers so that the compressing force was more on the rim of the wheel rather than on the crankpin boss this helps to make the wheels more square to the axle. I also temporarily fitted the body to the chassis also as to see if there were any problems as I would rather try and get theses out of the way at this stage of the build not when every thing is nicely painted and varnished.

The next thing I am going to do is fit the current pickups and finish off the detailing of the body as well as order the decoder speaker Led lights and possibly a stay alive as well from Digitrains.

[Craigw]

1 hour ago, shellshock said:

I have finished the basic body structure I did notice that with the original type of bunker I decided to use for this loco that the overlays were slightly too long so I had to carefully trim them down on the cab ends also the bunker over lay I had to cut it in half and remove about 1 mm of material and then cut and shut it in place on the bunker.

Regarding the chassis once I had put it together I had a pleasant shock when I connected the motor up to the power supply the chassis ran nice and smooth and all I had done was to open out the coupling rods to 1.7mm diameter as the Ultrascale crank pins are 1.6mm diameter. I do note that the Ultrascale wheels seemed to go on smother and say Alan Gibson ones however I did use the trick of plastic washers so that the compressing force was more on the rim of the wheel rather than on the crankpin boss this helps to make the wheels more square to the axle. I also temporarily fitted the body to the chassis also as to see if there were any problems as I would rather try and get theses out of the way at this stage of the build not when every thing is nicely painted and varnished.

The next thing I am going to do is fit the current pickups and finish off the detailing of the body as well as order the decoder speaker Led lights and possibly a stay alive as well from Digitrains.

 

Shellshock,

 

Really nice to see a Finney build and a P4 one at that. I had one of these built for me by John James in this condition, it really does look good.

 

I am not sure if it is camera distortion, but to me the cab seems to be leaning ever so slightly backwards - it may be worth checking

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

[shellshock]

I have now finished the Loco but I just now need to catch up with the building progress write up so for this part I got the decoder and stay alive from Digitrains who as usual gave excellent service and prompt delivery. Regarding there stay alive they can now supply some very compact units such that for this project I am able to easily fit it in to the loco body. So I decided to fit the speaker in to the bunker this being a Lok Sound 50321 unit which can be made in to various combinations including very small indeed. I decided to fit  the stay alive in to the smoke box area after I had run the lamp wires through.

Anyway at this stage I made up the pickups using 0.2mm phosphor bronze wire and also finished off all the detailing on the body.

Lastly regarding the Cab on the drivers side leaning over very slightly backwards in the last post it is a combination of camera distortion and possibly the bunker not being quite vertical even though it appears to be square when checked with a set square but once the handrail was added possible slightly out so that it tricks the eye in to not noticing it. So hopefully only if the viewer is aware of the original slight fault will it be detected.

The next write up which I may get round to doing on say Boxing day will describe the painting and fitting the Lamps speakers and other such fun DCC equipment.

[shellshock]

For the basic chassis wiring I fitted TSC 2 pin Micro connectors the red and black from the rail pickups to a male connector and the motor wired to a female connector. As these connectors have black and white colour wiring for the rail pick ups I used red to white and black to black and fro the motor connector black to -ve on the motor and white to +ve on the motor. When fitting the actual decoder the red and black wires went to female connector again black to black and red to white. For the motor wires the convention was decoder grey to male connector black and decoder orange to connector male white. Also I got on with painting the body. For primer I used Halfords Etch Primer followed by a basic coat of precision paints GWR Green P9 ( GWR 1906-1928) After allowing the paint to dry fro 2 days I then masked up the green areas and sprayed Humbrol Satin black over the rest of the body top and bottom. For the safety valve cover and bronze chimney top I masked them up with Maskol before I primed the body. Once the basic spaying was done I then used a paint brush to finish off the black and green areas as well as the buffer beams and firebox back head details. Once I was happy with the paint job I then applied a coat of Glass varnish ready for the transfers and number plates. I find that HMRS transfers for the words “GREAT WESTERN”keep there finish after the final coat of satin varnish unlike the Fox Transfers equivalent. However when using fox lining I have no such problems. For the next part I will go in to wiring of the lamps speaker and stay alive.

[Darwinian]

That looks absolutely brilliant. Can’t beat the looks of an open cab pannier.