CXW's NER & H&BR (and Industrial) Workbench

[micklner]

Mine is 25% bodged , so no surprise re the vents , you are correct A7's never had them .

 

When stripped it had plastic sheet added as a overlay on the smokebox sides and on the  front with a whitemetal door added, and also used for the  front and rear spectacle sheets , cab roof and the Bunker  top surround.

 

All very bizarre , luckily the kit had those parts lightly glued on and the plastic came away with little damage , so it can be reused, as it they been made quite well , the Cab Roof  however  was split by  the transit damage, I will do a new one in brass .

 

Re the Bogie?, there is almost zero clearance in OO let alone EM , so good luck with it. I will try a slotted Comet etch for the bogie support in due course. The whitemetal cylinders are cast only half the width, and I presume  arefrom the original kit .

 

Any idea what the rear slidebar support looked like , mine has none fitted . Very hard to see in photos.

[micknich2003]

The attached shows (Just) how the slide bars are attached to the rear fixing bracket. I may have others.

[MarkC]

20 hours ago, CXW1 said:

 

Evening Mick, I must have done a decent job so far because I didn't actually say what it was and you have guessed correctly. For the non-NER people out there it is an A7. 

 

In reality it wasn't that difficult a thing to guess as it clearly isn't an A6 or A8. 

 

The plan is to build an early example with a Diagram 55 boiler, shorter smokebox and Ramsbottom safety valves. The safety valve casting is a spare part from a Dave Alexander J27 that I've had for years - just shows you should never chuck anything out because it might come in handy one day. No idea what the chimney is or where it originally came from, and I probably won't use it.  

 

I am working from a photo of No. 1129 in the RCTS book. 

 

I am aware that there is a Little Engines kit for an A7 (if you can find one) but I've always thought that this somehow never really captured the prototype.

 

I assume the picture of 69772 was taken somewhere in Hull?

 

Cheers

 

Chris 

Hi Chris.

 

I'm sitting looking at an unbuilt Little Engines A7 kit as I type - why do you feel that the kit doesn't capture the prototype?

 

Loving your modelling, by the way - great stuff

 

Mark

[CXW1]

2 hours ago, MarkC said:

Hi Chris.

 

I'm sitting looking at an unbuilt Little Engines A7 kit as I type - why do you feel that the kit doesn't capture the prototype?

 

Loving your modelling, by the way - great stuff

 

Mark

 

Hello Mark

 

My comment about not capturing the prototype may have been a bit harsh. 

 

I think the footplate, cab, tanks etc are pretty good but the only completed A7 kit that I have ever seen (many years ago) was, in my opinion, let down by things like the chimney, dome and cylinders being of a questionable shape. In reality these are very minor things and more accurate castings would probably make a huge difference and lift the original kit to a far better level. 

 

I also recall the boiler appearing to be too thin (and a completely different profile to the boiler on Mick's model), but it was a long time ago so I could be wrong. 

 

Cheers

 

Chris

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by CXW1
Correction

[CXW1]

2 hours ago, micklner said:

Mine is 25% bodged , so no surprise re the vents , you are correct A7's never had them .

 

When stripped it had plastic sheet added as a overlay on the smokebox sides and on the  front with a whitemetal door added, and also used for the  front and rear spectacle sheets , cab roof and the Bunker  top surround.

 

All very bizarre , luckily the kit had those parts lightly glued on and the plastic came away with little damage , so it can be reused, as it they been made quite well , the Cab Roof  however  was split by  the transit damage, I will do a new one in brass .

 

Re the Bogie?, there is almost zero clearance in OO let alone EM , so good luck with it. I will try a slotted Comet etch for the bogie support in due course. The whitemetal cylinders are cast only half the width, and I presume  arefrom the original kit .

 

Any idea what the rear slidebar support looked like , mine has none fitted . Very hard to see in photos.

 

 

Sounds like a right old bodge. The thing that gets me with these badly made jobs is that someone at some point in time has looked at the model and thought 'that's a good idea and it looks pretty good' when it clearly doesn't. As you say, all very bizarre. 

 

I am also planning on using a Comet bogie so hopefully it will all turn out OK. 

 

 

 

[Asterix2012]

26 minutes ago, CXW1 said:

 

 

Sounds like a right old bodge. The thing that gets me with these badly made jobs is that someone at some point in time has looked at the model and thought 'that's a good idea and it looks pretty good' when it clearly doesn't. As you say, all very bizarre. 

 

I am also planning on using a Comet bogie so hopefully it will all turn out OK. 

 

 

 

This might be an example of something that someone thought was a good idea at the time, currently on eBay 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/372980883903

[CXW1]

18 minutes ago, Asterix2012 said:

This might be an example of something that someone thought was a good idea at the time, currently on eBay 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/372980883903

 

Sixty quid - bargain of the year!!!

 

I note it is described as 'nicely made and painted, and a great item for your collection' 

 

I assume it is prototypical for the little known electrified section of the Wisbech and Upwell? 

 

[micklner]

Re the A7 comments.

 

 

The Boiler on mine is a one piece whitemetal casting including the Smokebox ,all the same width as the Boiler, hence the plastic add on, by the previous owner. No obvious signs that the Smokebox had ever been modified/filed. It is 5ft 6 diameter, correct for the original large Boiler.

Mark's one is totally different, two piece Boiler and seperate Smokebox and smaller diameter, presumably the later version, perhaps that is the one you may have seen, the footplate/tanks sides also have a different casting mounting points as well on his kit.

 

I have also wondered about the A7 Dome and Chimney, the problem is where to get replacement castings ? Any suggestions welcome .

Edited September 25, 2020 by micklner

[micklner]

8 hours ago, Asterix2012 said:

This might be an example of something that someone thought was a good idea at the time, currently on eBay 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/372980883903

Being sold by the infamous Gostude, so it must be really authentic bargain !!

[ArthurK]

Earlier in the thread reference was made to tank vents, neither the A6 nor the A7 had vents on the tanks. The  A6 was vented from the bunker tank which was connected the the main tanks via square pipes running behind the cab steps.

The A7 was also vented from the bunker tank. Two pipes ran from the  tank rear first, vertically, then horizontally (below the coal rails) through the cab  rear. From there  they ran vertically up the cab rear to vent through the cab roof. These  pipes are visible on some photographs. The bunker tank was connected to the main tanks in the same way as the A6.

 

I have a variety of domes including that for the Dia63B boiler which  was fatter and had flatter profile. I also have smokebox doors, both the original and the later Doncaster profile,

 

ArthurK

Edited September 25, 2020 by ArthurK
Correction

[CXW1]

I'll admit that this probably won't win any engineering awards but I might have come up with a solution to the expected problem of the A7 bogie wheels shorting out on the slidebars when going round the slightest of corners. Please ignore the dodgy soldering - it will either be cleaned up or won't be seen on the finished model. 

 

Following the offline conversation with Mick, Mark and Barry yesterday I have come up with the following dodge. 

 

I have fitted a spacer onto the bogie between the rear wheels. The 'arm' (or whatever it is called) from the Comet bogie kit has been re-shaped and soldered to the new spacer. The works foreman looks on pensively. 

 

 

 

 

The next thing was to kill two birds with one stone. The bogie is attached to the frames using the same bolt which is used to fix the frames to the body.  The bogie therefore pivots/swings from behind the rear axle. He still doesn't look convinced.....

 

 

 

This has the effect of allowing the bogie to swing from side to side and hopefully allow the loco to go round corners, but the rear bogie wheels (which will be behind the problematic slidebars) clearly move less than the front bogie wheels. I may fit something to limit how far the bogie can actually travel, but this will be easier to do once the slidebars have been fitted. At the end of the day the loco isn't going to be expected to go around trainset curves so hopefully it will all be OK for prototypical points, especially if the ends of the cylinders can be made with plastic or similar.  The front of the frames sit on top of the bogie (thus making the bogie 'load bearing').  As stated earlier - the dodgy soldering won't be seen. 

 

 

 

I have also made a start on the connecting rods. These are made from nickel silver strip and 0.5mm nickel silver wire. The wire was soldered to the strip in the basic shape of the rod and then filed flat. Not perfect, but I'm happy with them for a first attempt. The Markits crossheads are really nice. 

 

 

 

I also did the final fiddly and boring jobs to the D24. Hopefully the next time it appears on here it will be painted and lined. 

 

 

Cheers

 

Chris 

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by CXW1
Correction

[CXW1]

I started work on the cylinders last night and, much to my surprise, they work.

 

Following some advice provided by Tony Gee (t-b-g), the working part of the cylinders were made using a 3-sided box section. The slidebars were soldered to the inside of the box which gives a nice strong construction. The box itself was then bolted to the frames and set to the correct angle, following which a small amount of solder was applied to hold everything in place. The box can be removed if necessary by melting the solder, but I don't see any reason why they will need to come off now. 

 

The tube that the crosshead slides back and forth in was secured with some scrap brass. 

 

 

 

The next job will be to make some cosmetic wrappers to go around the cylinder 'box' but this can go on the list of things to do now that I am happy that everything seems to work OK. 

 

Here is a picture of the cylinder fabrication with the body just plonked on for now. The cylinders and slidebars are on a slight angle as per the real thing, and the excess tube at the front of the cylinders has been cut off since the picture was taken. 

 

 

 

And here it is going for its first test run along the workbench. The gearbox is an old Comet 50:1 job that I use for testing things. I will end up using a High Level gearbox to make sure there is no visible motor in the cab.

 

OK - I will admit that a photograph with a couple of wires sticking out of the motor doesn't prove that it actually moves, so you will have to take my word for it. 

 

 

There is also sufficient clearance between the rear bogie wheel and the slidebars to suggest that it will go round modest corners. 

 

As Hannibal Smith used to say, I love it when a plan comes together.....

 

Cheers

 

Chris 

 

[micklner]

How are you making the rear Pony truck swing ?

[CXW1]

1 hour ago, micklner said:

How are you making the rear Pony truck swing ?

 

Haven't got that far yet but it will be the same simple arrangement as I've used on the N12 and other 0-6-2s. I'll post a photo this evening - it will be easier to show you a picture than try and write a description. 

[t-b-g]

3 hours ago, CXW1 said:

I started work on the cylinders last night and, much to my surprise, they work.

 

Following some advice provided by Tony Gee (t-b-g), the working part of the cylinders were made using a 3-sided box section. The slidebars were soldered to the inside of the box which gives a nice strong construction. The box itself was then bolted to the frames and set to the correct angle, following which a small amount of solder was applied to hold everything in place. The box can be removed if necessary by melting the solder, but I don't see any reason why they will need to come off now. 

 

The tube that the crosshead slides back and forth in was secured with some scrap brass. 

 

 

 

The next job will be to make some cosmetic wrappers to go around the cylinder 'box' but this can go on the list of things to do now that I am happy that everything seems to work OK. 

 

Here is a picture of the cylinder fabrication with the body just plonked on for now. The cylinders and slidebars are on a slight angle as per the real thing, and the excess tube at the front of the cylinders has been cut off since the picture was taken. 

 

 

 

And here it is going for its first test run along the workbench. The gearbox is an old Comet 50:1 job that I use for testing things. I will end up using a High Level gearbox to make sure there is no visible motor in the cab.

 

OK - I will admit that a photograph with a couple of wires sticking out of the motor doesn't prove that it actually moves, so you will have to take my word for it. 

 

 

There is also sufficient clearance between the rear bogie wheel and the slidebars to suggest that it will go round modest corners. 

 

As Hannibal Smith used to say, I love it when a plan comes together.....

 

Cheers

 

Chris 

 

 

Looking good Chris. I think you have come up with an interesting variation on my advice. I was suggesting the two of the sides on the fold up cylinder should be the front and back but I see you have gone for top and bottom!

 

I haven't done them that way so I will be interested to see how it goes.

 

Tony

[CXW1]

11 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

Looking good Chris. I think you have come up with an interesting variation on my advice. I was suggesting the two of the sides on the fold up cylinder should be the front and back but I see you have gone for top and bottom!

 

I haven't done them that way so I will be interested to see how it goes.

 

Tony

 

This is probably down to me not reading your email properly as opposed to developing my own theory!!

 

With the benefit of hindsight I can see that the front and back approach would probably avoid having to use some scrap brass to hold the crosshead tube in place. However, the top and bottom approach gives a nice strong and level fixing for the slidebars.

 

[t-b-g]

3 minutes ago, CXW1 said:

 

This is probably down to me not reading your email properly as opposed to developing my own theory!!

 

With the benefit of hindsight I can see that the front and back approach would probably avoid having to use some scrap brass to hold the crosshead tube in place. However, the top and bottom approach gives a nice strong and level fixing for the slidebars.

 

 

I can see advantages to both versions. Perhaps the idea could be developed into a 4 way fold up with top, bottom, rear and front all done that way.

[CXW1]

36 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

I can see advantages to both versions. Perhaps the idea could be developed into a 4 way fold up with top, bottom, rear and front all done that way.

 

I think that would be a good idea. I had some brass square section which just so happened to be the correct size from top to bottom. I cut off one of the sides to end up with what you can see in the pictures. Probably a case of the materials I had at my disposal lending themselves to what I ended up doing. The slidebars are 0.8mm x 0.8mm nickel silver from Eileens - these had to be narrowed ever-so-slightly to fit in the slots on the Markits crosshead. 

[CXW1]

3 hours ago, micklner said:

How are you making the rear Pony truck swing ?

 

OK - like the A7 front bogie this isn't going win any engineering awards and there are probably far-more technically correct ways of doing things, but it seems to work. 

 

The first picture shows the basic A7 rear pony truck. It is made from some square brass section with a couple of small-sized 2mm bore frame bushes pressed into the end. I'm not sure what the inside dimensions of the square section is but the bushes are a snug fit and need to be pressed in with a vice. 

 

 

This is as far as I have got with the A7, so the pictures below are of my N13 0-6-2T. A potential problem with the A7 pony truck is the fact it isn't very long, which means it probably won't travel very far from side to side (but this is counteracted by the fact there is a front bogie). I can't make it any longer as there is only 24mm between the centres of the rear driving wheel and the trailing wheel, and there is also the issue of the gearbox to be fitted to the rear wheel.

 

Anyhow, on the N13 (which has a longer wheelbase between the rear driver and the trailing wheel) I have attached the pony truck to a frame spacer. The pony truck has had some lead fitted to it to weigh it down and is kept on the rails with some light springing made from something like 0.4mm brass wire. Please excuse the dirty wheels!!

 

 

 

The next picture shows the same arrangement from above. As you can see, the pony truck doesn't move much, but it is enough to get through a set of B6 points without any issues forwards and backwards. I guess if you wanted the truck to swing from side to side a bit more you could joggle the frames at the rear. I stuck some sellotape to the rear of the frames before painting  so there aren't any issues of 'metal on metal' if the rear wheel touches the frames. 

 

 

 

Like I said above, this isn't going to win any engineering awards but I found this system to be dead easy to make and so far it has been very reliable. I have used this idea on the N13 and also my N10, N12 and F8 tanks and none of them jump off the track.

 

I think another benefit of this system is the fact that it only needs a small square cut-out in the frames which eliminates the amount of daylight, and looks OK from normal viewing distance. 

 

 

Incidentally Mick, the above picture shows the separate fabrication of the cab and the side tank typical of H&BR tank locos as per our discussion about the lining on my N12 a week or so ago.

 

Like all things like this, there will be different theories on pony trucks/radial trucks and there will also be ideas out there that are way-more technically correct than what I have done. But, I am working with basic tools and materials and not in the game of commissioning my own etched designs or owt like that, and therefore need to keep it simple where possible. 

 

 

[CXW1]

Apologies for posting the same picture twice. Tonight's job is cleaning some wheels I think.....

[micklner]

Interesting work, what curves will they actually go around ?.  The N13 looks excellent.

[CXW1]

23 minutes ago, micklner said:

Interesting work, what curves will they actually go around ?.  The N13 looks excellent.

 

I'm not sure about the absolute minimum radius as I don't have a layout with tight curves, but I deliberately have some horrible 36 inch radius Marcway points on my test track which it can get through. I work on the basis of 'if it goes through those it will go through anything'. The N13 also has a little bit of side play on the middle driving axle which helps. 

 

[ArthurK]

The A7 frames were 4' 0" apart. At the rear they were 3' 7 1/2" apart. That gives you an extra 1.5mm to play with.

 

I usually overlap an inner frame with a 0.5mm spacer  between them. With 0.5mm frames that gives gives an inset of 1mm both sides.

 

ArthúrK

[CXW1]

38 minutes ago, ArthurK said:

The A7 frames were 4' 0" apart. At the rear they were 3' 7 1/2" apart. That gives you an extra 1.5mm to play with.

 

I usually overlap an inner frame with a 0.5mm spacer  between them. With 0.5mm frames that gives gives an inset of 1mm both sides.

 

ArthúrK

 

Thanks for the information, Arthur. 

 

I tend to use 0.5mm brass for the frames, so setting the rear frames inside the main frames would definitely work.  Probably a bit late to do anything with my A7 now as I don't fancy dismantling it now that I've got it running nicely, but I will certainly incorporate narrower rear frames if I make something similar in the future. 

 

[micklner]

Very useful for my A7 , I was looking at mine yesterday . Luckily mine is still in bits , some Frame bending to be done first before any soldering !!.