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

[CXW1]

3 hours ago, micklner said:

Thanks , I might be better off cutting some slots into my chassis at each end for the LRM trucks , and use that still. It will be as easier as well, as mine has Gibsons fitted . I never have any luck removing them.

 

I would try the LRM radial trucks in the existing frames in the first instance, especially if the issue is with the front and rear axles rather than the driving wheels. I only used the Gibson frames because I had them to hand. 

 

[Pebbles]

Yes it is mainly the radius on the corners of the cab cut out. If its any help, I understand that the F8 cab cut out is similar, if not identical, to that on both the GER 2-4-2s and the G5. I'm not a member but I think that they still do a ring file booklet of NER loco weight diagrams. 

[micklner]

4 hours ago, CXW1 said:

 

Mick, the side tanks are approximately 16mm. 

 

I have used a drawing which was published in the September 1972 Railway Modeller magazine. I don't have the magazine but Peco charged me a few quid for a photocopy of the drawing - worth having for what it costs. I assume the drawing is accurate....

 

According to the RM drawing the cab sides are approx. 26mm, and the measurement from footplate to the highest point of the cab front (i.e. in between the 2 cab spectacles) is approx. 30mm. 

 

I'll take a picture of the frames this evening but please be aware of the point I made earlier about the loco sitting too high on Gibson frames if you were thinking about getting some. The other issue with the Gibson frames is the fact they are made from very thick brass, so you might have to use slightly thinner spacers if you want the loco to go round tight curves, or somehow narrow the frames at the front and rear. 

 

 

 

 

Luckily Tanks heights are i.d on the kit I have , the sides are 1mm higher , not perfect but near enough as its now painted . Yes, I will try a rear truck option first and see how it goes from there  in due course.

 

Thanks.

Edited December 3, 2020 by micklner

[CXW1]

29 minutes ago, micklner said:

Luckily Tanks heights are i.d on the kit I have , the sides are 1mm higher , not perfect but near enough as its now painted . Yes, I will try a rear truck option first and see how it goes from there  in due course.

 

Thanks.

 

Probably a bit late if you are going to go with the LRM trucks, but here is a picture of the Gibson frames. Unfortunately you can't see a great deal of the frames with the wheels/motor/gears in the way.

 

 

Front axle is in Gibson sprung hormblocks with 2mm axle bore and a bit of side play. Rear axle is in a home brewed pony truck.

 

In the absence of being able to see anything I have drawn a basic outline of the frames below. Something to be aware of is the fact the frames have a very high profile above the driving wheels - possibly prototypical but unnecessary for a 4mm scale model. 

 

 

 

 

[ArthurK]

My interpretation of the  GAs of the F8 and G5 give all the dimensions of the cabs, tanks and bunkers to be identical other than the height of side tanks. These were raised on the G5. Those on the F8 were 4 feet high. All cab radii were 9 inches, which  was the standard for the cabs on NER tank engines. This was the same as the cab opening and bunker height

 

ArthirK

Edited December 4, 2020 by ArthurK
Additional comment.

[micklner]

On 03/12/2020 at 18:23, CXW1 said:

 

Probably a bit late if you are going to go with the LRM trucks, but here is a picture of the Gibson frames. Unfortunately you can't see a great deal of the frames with the wheels/motor/gears in the way.

 

 

Front axle is in Gibson sprung hormblocks with 2mm axle bore and a bit of side play. Rear axle is in a home brewed pony truck.

 

In the absence of being able to see anything I have drawn a basic outline of the frames below. Something to be aware of is the fact the frames have a very high profile above the driving wheels - possibly prototypical but unnecessary for a 4mm scale model. 

 

 

 

 

     Many thanks , I am sure that will be a big help in due course. I will amend the existing frames.

 

     Just started fighting a old Geo Norton J25 "kit" diabolical instructions, no markings/tabs to confirm where the parts should fit and parts missing because they were never/forgotten to be designed to be in the kit , I have only just looked at the Tender as well so far !!

 

 

[CXW1]

14 hours ago, micklner said:

     Many thanks , I am sure that will be a big help in due course. I will amend the existing frames.

 

     Just started fighting a old Geo Norton J25 "kit" diabolical instructions, no markings/tabs to confirm where the parts should fit and parts missing because they were never/forgotten to be designed to be in the kit , I have only just looked at the Tender as well so far !!

 

 

 

Sounds fun 

[t-b-g]

14 hours ago, micklner said:

     Many thanks , I am sure that will be a big help in due course. I will amend the existing frames.

 

     Just started fighting a old Geo Norton J25 "kit" diabolical instructions, no markings/tabs to confirm where the parts should fit and parts missing because they were never/forgotten to be designed to be in the kit , I have only just looked at the Tender as well so far !!

 

 

 

I can't remember who designed those kits but it wasn't George himself or Malcolm Crawley.

 

There were some that were done by somebody else who then passed them over to George. They were going to vanish otherwise and George thought that having them in his range was a better option than them vanishing altogether.

 

They date back to the very early days of etched kits and they were not, shall we say, up to the standards we would hope for today!

 

The only consolation I can offer is that they can be completed. Malcolm had a lovely J25 and also a couple of very nice J21s from the same source.

 

Tony

[micklner]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

 

I can't remember who designed those kits but it wasn't George himself or Malcolm Crawley.

 

There were some that were done by somebody else who then passed them over to George. They were going to vanish otherwise and George thought that having them in his range was a better option than them vanishing altogether.

 

They date back to the very early days of etched kits and they were not, shall we say, up to the standards we would hope for today!

 

The only consolation I can offer is that they can be completed. Malcolm had a lovely J25 and also a couple of very nice J21s from the same source.

 

Tony

Well !! the parts so far at least fit !!.

So far whoever designed the J25 have missed/ignored , Tender Coal plates . Internal slope for the Coal space and the Backhead and any Cab fittings for the Loco .

Luckily I can source these parts nowdays from elsewhere or scratch make them !!.

I see no reason why the J25, and a N8 from the same source I have which must be newer, as all the parts appear to be there, will not turn out fine in the end.

[pete55]

3 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

I can't remember who designed those kits but it wasn't George himself or Malcolm Crawley.

 

There were some that were done by somebody else who then passed them over to George. They were going to vanish otherwise and George thought that having them in his range was a better option than them vanishing altogether.

 

They date back to the very early days of etched kits and they were not, shall we say, up to the standards we would hope for today!

 

The only consolation I can offer is that they can be completed. Malcolm had a lovely J25 and also a couple of very nice J21s from the same source.

 

Tony

 

Hi Tony,

I might be wrong, but I think they were originally the 7mm range of 07 Kits, produced by K Dales in Cottingham, and they ended up with George, possibly after going somewhere else in between. the artwork was either re drawn or shot down to 4mm I think.

 

Pete

[t-b-g]

2 minutes ago, pete55 said:

 

Hi Tony,

I might be wrong, but I think they were originally the 7mm range of 07 Kits, produced by K Dales in Cottingham, and they ended up with George, possibly after going somewhere else in between. the artwork was either re drawn or shot down to 4mm I think.

 

Pete

 

That rings a bit of a bell! I think they were originally 7mm and it may have been Malcolm who instigated the change as he wanted some NER locos and had heard that the 7mm kits might be available.

 

George was very much an LMS man and most of the LNER kits he did had some input from Malcolm.

[Paul Cram]

As I stated above the one I built has ex 07 kit on the box and I bought it before George took them over. I diid get the etched boiler from George. The original is a very chunky turned brass one.

[Jol Wilkinson]

On 05/12/2020 at 13:50, micklner said:

Well !! the parts so far at least fit !!.

So far whoever designed the J25 have missed/ignored , Tender Coal plates . Internal slope for the Coal space and the Backhead and any Cab fittings for the Loco .

Luckily I can source these parts nowdays from elsewhere or scratch make them !!.

I see no reason why the J25, and a N8 from the same source I have which must be newer, as all the parts appear to be there, will not turn out fine in the end.

I am a bit confused by this. When I built a LRM NER 3038 gallon tender to go with the G1/D23 it included those parts as shown in this photo. Perhaps you have an early GN kit, rather than the current LRM version

 

 

[micklner]

24 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

I am a bit confused by this. When I built a LRM NER 3038 gallon tender to go with the G1/D23 it included those parts as shown in this photo. Perhaps you have an early GN kit, rather than the current LRM version

 

 

Jol

Yes it is a old Geo Norton version as said on my posting above last Friday at 21.28 .

I have found other building posts elsewhere since then, they confirm that the "missing parts" were it would appear never etched/supplied at at that time. My etches are dated 1985, so it is a very old kit and apparantly one of the first ever etched kit issued.

      I think I have been spoilt by the quality of recent kits, I never realised what was included in kits of that era.

      I have now built most of the Norton Tender and all fits well , it just needed more work to establish the correct postions for the parts due to the minimal tabs/slots present on the etches.

[CXW1]

Just to add to the conversation about tenders, I have made some progress with a North Eastern Kits tender for the D22. I know that Arthur looks at this thread periodically so I'm happy to be corrected by the kit designer himself if I've managed to make a pigs ear of it. In all honesty the tender is so well designed that it is probably harder to get it wrong than get it right. 

 

I haven't built the chassis that was supplied with the kit yet because I'm waiting for some bearings and wheels from Alan Gibson. The tender is currently plonked on top of a 52F chassis that my Dave Alexander J27 tender usually sits on - I think the tender in the picture below is sitting slightly too high but that will get sorted when I build the chassis that came with the kit. 

 

As an aside, the 52F tender chassis greatly improves the running qualities of the J27 compared to the 'whitemetal lump' chassis that was supplied in Dave's kits - far less weight and drag for the loco to deal with. 

 

Anyhow, I think I said in my last posting about the D22 that my next job was going to be loco brakes and cab handrails. Clearly I haven't done any of that, but I've knocked up a tender body for the D22 and 75% of an F8 instead, so I haven't exactly been idle. I have also decided that the D22 will be a model of No. 1542 because I thought it looked better with tapered NER buffers rather than the LNER group standard buffers that were fitted to No. 663 in the period being modelled, plus there is handy side-on photo in the RCTS book to refer to.

 

No. 1542 had Ross Pop safety valves which has allowed me to nick the the brass trumpet for the F8. 

 

Just noticed that one of the front buffers is wonky and a couple of the castings need a small amount of work to straighten them up before they are stuck down. Getting there though....

 

[CXW1]

1068 Class 'Gamecock'

 

One of my earlier attempts at scratchbuilding was a North Eastern Railway '1068' class. The prototypes were originally built in 1875 for the NER Central Division and became known as 'Gamecocks' due to the plucky way they tackled the hilly stretches of line adjacent to the Yorkshire Moors. Well, at least that what it says in 'Locomotives of the North Eastern Railway' by John S. Maclean. The book contains some wonderful pictures and drawings of early locomotives. 

 

The NER had some nice 2-4-0 locomotives such as classes 1068, 40 & 686, plus the more familiar 901 and Tennant engines. 

 

A look in my spares box suggested that I had some old wheels the correct size to have a go at making a 1068. The class was built in 1875 and most were scrapped in the early 1900s and I've not been able to find many photographs. The few pictures that I have been able to find suggest that all 6 members of the class had subtle differences and were probably all re-built in some way during their existence.

 

My '1068' is based on a photograph of No. 1050 which by that time had received some modifications and a newer boiler and fittings.  

 

I originally painted the model in NER lined black, but in reality they probably didn't carry that livery. 

 

Here is a picture of the '1068' as built trying to pull some carriages out of Buckingham station - I think that Tony Gee took the picture and I'm sure he won't mind me showing it here. This was a couple of years ago and my memory suggests it struggled and needed banking assistance. To be fair, the loco's small size means that it doesn't weigh much and it only has a Mashima 1015 motor, and Buckingham's carriages are pretty heavy. 

 

 

Over the past few weeks I have been plodding away giving the '1068' a repaint into something more in line with the photograph in the Maclean book. 

 

It still isn't 100% accurate because I don't have the required painting skills to give it the full 'pre-Worsdell' NER livery. However, it looks a bit better than it did in lined black and it is OK from normal viewing distance, and it makes a change from the late '20s/early '30s LNER stuff that I make. 

 

It needs a coat of varnish to seal-in the transfers, then some cab glazing and the crew sticking back in the cab. Then it will probably go back into its box for a while. 

 

 

Now, back to the D22 and F8......

 

Cheers

 

Chris 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2022 by CXW1
Spelling

[sej]

That looks fantastic Chris, a lovely little loco!

[t-b-g]

30 minutes ago, CXW1 said:

1068 Class 'Gamecock'

 

One of my earlier attempts at scratchbuilding was a North Eastern Railway '1068' class. The prototypes were originally built in 1875 for the NER Central Division and became known as 'Gamecocks' due to the plucky way they tackled the hilly stretches of line adjacent to the Yorkshire Moors. Well, at least that what it says in 'Locomotives of the North Eastern Railway' by John S. Maclean. The book contains some wonderful pictures and drawings of early locomotives. 

 

The NER had some nice 2-4-0 locomotives such as classes 1068, 40 & 686, plus the more familiar 901 and Tennant engines. 

 

A look in my spares box suggested that I had some old wheels the correct size to have a go at making a 1068. The class was built in 1875 and most were scrapped in the early 1900s and I've not been able to find many photographs. The few pictures that I have been able to find suggest that all 6 members of the class had subtle differences and were probably all re-built in some way during their existence.

 

My '1068' is based on a photograph of No. 1050 which by that time had received some modifications and a newer boiler and fittings.  

 

I originally painted the model in NER lined black, but in reality they probably didn't carry that livery. 

 

Here is a wonderful picture of the '1068' as built trying to pull some carriages out of Buckingham station - I think that Tony Gee took the picture and I'm sure he won't mind me showing it here. This was a couple of years ago and my memory suggests it struggled and needed banking assistance. To be fair, the loco's small size means that it doesn't weigh much and it only has a Mashima 1015 motor, and Buckingham's carriages are pretty heavy. 

 

 

Over the past few weeks I have been plodding away giving the '1068' a repaint into something more in line with the photograph in the Maclean book. 

 

It still isn't 100% accurate because I don't have the required painting skills to give it the full 'pre-Worsdell' NER livery. However, it looks a bit better than it did in lined black and it is OK from normal viewing distance, and it makes a change from the late '20s/early '30s LNER stuff that I make. 

 

It needs a coat of varnish to seal-in the transfers, then some cab glazing and the crew sticking back in the cab. Then it will probably go back into its box for a while. 

 

 

Now, back to the D22 and F8......

 

Cheers

 

Chris 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't mind at all Chris. It was lovely having those locos as guests on Buckingham.

 

I do like the new paint job. There is something about those old locos that a fancy paint finish really brings out.

[CXW1]

The D22 and F8 are ready for painting but I need the weather to improve considerably before this will happen. I had a few spare hours today and turned my attention to a couple of things that have been loitering at the back of my workbench for some months. 

 

Back on page 4 or 5 I posted a picture of a Mainline/Mainly Trains J71 that I have been fiddling with off and on for a few years. I mentioned that I had improved the running by fitting some new pickups but, in all honesty, it still ran like a bag of old nails despite many hours of tinkering. I had built this as a rigid chassis in the days before I had discovered and understood hornblocks. So, I have stripped off the paint, fitted hornblocks on the front two axles with a very simple single compensation beam, and it drives off a fixed rear axle with the original 1024 motor and 54:1 gearbox. The running is now much better - problem solved. 

 

 

The 'fun' part was getting the gearbox out of the frames without taking the chassis to bits (it was necessary to get the gearbox out to have a starting point for aligning the Hornblocks by using the coupling rods in LRM axle jigs). The gearbox is one of the older High Level designs where the final drive gear was glued to the axle with Loctite 603 which had set solid. I loosened the gear by heating it up with a soldering iron. Tip - if you do this make sure you get out the way of the fumes given off by the glue.....

 

Here is the J71 sitting on its new compensated chassis. An acceptable model given the limitations of the old Mainline body. 

 

 

Also back on pages 4 and 5 I rambled on about restoring an old K's Y8. This resulted in an unused replacement boiler which got turned into the basis for a new loco. I put this to one side with the intention of getting round to it at some point. Today I managed to get a rolling chassis and fit a few detail bits like handrails and castings. 

 

The wheels are too big and are just some old Romfords that I am using at the building stage before fitting the correct size Gibsons. 

 

The chassis will drive off a fixed rear axle. The front axle is in hornblocks and can rock on a fixed beam. 

 

I think it already looks better than the old Ks job despite the temporary oversize wheels. 

 

 

 

 

It is very small for a 4mm scale loco - it is 70mm in length over the buffers. 

 

Cheers

 

Chris 

 

 

 

 

[CXW1]

 

 

 

 

The J71 has had its chassis repainted, brakes re-fitted and I've covered up the 'Romford' wheel nuts with some little brass thingies from Comet. 

 

 

 

It is still way too cold to think about painting the D22 although I can't decide if it is too cold for the paint or just too cold for me - probably both.

 

Here is a final picture of the D22 prior to painting. Last night I fitted brakes to both the loco and the tender. The lubricator on the footplate was made from scrap brass and a spare handwheel. I assume that the lubricator would have had some pipework attached to it but I can't find and photographs that are clear or detailed enough to tell. Any ideas what should be there?

 

 

 

I'm quite pleased with the D22 given that it was a bit of an afterthought to use up some spare driving wheels....

 

Cheers

 

Chris 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by CXW1
Picture added

[micklner]

I presume it is a Wakefield Lubricator ?

 

 

 

 

This one is to be fitted to the rebuild  G5.

  4 pipes when fitted to the brass connectors, will disappear behind the frames. You dont see them modeled in 4mm very often

 

The Dome on the D22 looks a bit strange , almost no flair at the base ? .

 

Lovely Loco.

[Jon4470]

Like the D22!

 

My attempt at a Wakefield lubricator is below ( along with an oil box)

 

 

The body is plastic with pipes from 5 amp fuse wire.

 

The hand wheel is the smallest that I have available- it’s too big I think.

 

I plan to see what it looks like once installed on the loco. May remake it - or not - we’ll see!

 

Jon

[Blandford1969]

17 minutes ago, Jon4470 said:

Like the D22!

 

My attempt at a Wakefield lubricator is below ( along with an oil box)

 

 

The body is plastic with pipes from 5 amp fuse wire.

 

The hand wheel is the smallest that I have available- it’s too big I think.

 

I plan to see what it looks like once installed on the loco. May remake it - or not - we’ll see!

 

Jon

Looks good to me and better than trying to drill a white metal blob

[CXW1]

4 hours ago, micklner said:

I presume it is a Wakefield Lubricator ?

 

 

 

 

This one is to be fitted to the rebuild  G5.

  4 pipes when fitted to the brass connectors, will disappear behind the frames. You dont see them modeled in 4mm very often

 

The Dome on the D22 looks a bit strange , almost no flair at the base ? .

 

Lovely Loco.

 

Thanks Mick - looking at the prototype in the photo I don't think you will see the pipes modelled in 4mm scale by me either!!

 

The dome is one of Arthur's and I think it looks OK to the naked eye. I'm not changing it.

 

Cheers 

 

Chris

 

 

 

 

[CXW1]

2 hours ago, Jon4470 said:

Like the D22!

 

My attempt at a Wakefield lubricator is below ( along with an oil box)

 

 

The body is plastic with pipes from 5 amp fuse wire.

 

The hand wheel is the smallest that I have available- it’s too big I think.

 

I plan to see what it looks like once installed on the loco. May remake it - or not - we’ll see!

 

Jon

 

Thanks Jon - I think your lubricator looks spot on. As I have just mentioned to Mick I don't think I'll bother with the pipes. My eyesight is pretty good but not that good!!