Brading, Isle of Wight Transitional 1920s (Phase 1, building up stock)

[LBSC123]

Splendid work, as always. 

[Nick C]

1 hour ago, TeakDB said:

Well, ive finally started the Beyer Peacock and made some good progress which I will detail below, but first a misadventure.

 

I had to wait a few extra days for some cutting broaches to arrive in order to ream out the bearing holes in the frames. During this time I started on a few cattlewagons (which will be returned to after this is finished) but also thought I'd solder up a D&S GER 4 wheeler as a quick project. I finished the underframe before I realised i'd made a slight mistake and got the version of the Dia149 kit without recessed eaves (no mouldings above the windows) rather than the version with. As D&S kits arn't easy to come across (I still only have three LCDR 6 wheelers after a year and a half of looking) I have now had to consign this kit to a dark corner and hope I come across the hens tooth that is the Dia149 3b kit so I can swap out the underframe frets and sell on the current kit.....

For those who are interested this kit would represent perfectly an ex IWCR GER 3rd which seems to have often been the spare coach for the Brading branch in the early 20s (ie right up my alley!). But I digress...

 

Beyer Peacock Part 1- A rolling chassis.

 

I decided to make my first model as Wroxall in early Southern livery. In addition to the Golden Arrow Kit I bought wheels ect from Scale Link, a Roadrunner+ gearbox from highlevel and have a choice of motor between a high level one and a cheapo mitsumi motor. 

This is the current state of play (body structure in the rear is just posed not soldered together yet), after around 5 hours of messing around. I soldered up the frames using a poppys assembly jig and got it square and running smooth fairly stress free. As this is my first locomotive I am following the instructions as best as I can and having a head scratch whenever anythings not obvious. I have built the chassis rigid as i'm not messing around with compensation and have seen plenty of these built rigid by Mark Pretious on his facebook group 'Merstone, St Lawrence, Ventnor West and Bembridge 00 Finescale Layouts'. I soldered in two spacers, one between the two driving wheels as suggested to mount the pickup pad on and the second just back from the front wheel so I can gently spring it with a wire pressing down on the axle.

 

So far my observations are a) the most recent Silsbury book on the Locomotives of the Isle of Wight is very useful as it helped me locate the Cylinder covers and brake reservoir on the frames accurately, the latter has a pre cut locating groove but actually sat further back in reality. b) The hole for the front axle needed slight extension vertically to allow a bit more wiggle room for the front wheels to keep contact with the track c) The front section of the footplate needs to sit as far forward as the precut slots allow in order to get the tank sides to sit where theyre meant to and to allow the gearbox to sit as far forward as possible.

 

 

I probably should of left the frames in grey primer to take photos but I will show off more of the detail without the footplates when I finish the brake assembly ect- ive just mounted this so far to judge clearance for the gearbox and motor. Im fairly sure I can fit the mitsumi in here without loss of cab detail but since I have the highlevel motor I will use it for this one and the mitsumis can be saved for the next couple. I'll try and fit the motor and the brake details as well as the pickups before next week.

 

 

On another completely different note, I have received, with an incredibly fast turn around of two days, a few sheets of IWR garter transfers from John at Precision Decals. Matt Wickham of Vectis 3D design got these designed for his upcoming Oldbury Carriages and I thought itd be rude not to order enough for a rake of them and metropolitan stock, I asked for no numbers in the garters as I think I can get away using SECR numerals from fox transfers to save John the bother of setting up 15 odd different numbers. I will report back if Ive got my meausurements right for this plan.

 

Have you not seen the Eveleigh kits for the GER stock? 

 

I have to admit that I've still not built my IWR 2-4-0T, after having it lying around for several years. I'm glad to hear the chassis went together without any issues though, as I'm the one who digitised it (from Chris' original hand-drawn master)!

[TeakDB]

Hi Nick, I have seen them yes but thanks for the comment, I originally thought that's what I was going to use. Unlike the d&s kit they are a slightly different diagram than the IWCR coaches but I'd be absolutely happy to forget about a 4mm difference because it really doesn't matter.

However, now there doesn't seem to be a ready supplier of castings it adds a bit more time and effort into it. Ultimately I'm in no rush to get this coach done as I don't have the rest of the kits to make a Bembridge rake at the moment anyway so I'm happy to wait for a while to see if I do find a d&s kit. If not I will be purchasing one from Dave Everleigh in due course.

 

Also bravo for the chassis, I think it's got a nice amount of detail on it and after filling went together nicely, now I know you are following I'll endeavour to make a better job of it to do your digital design credit!

 

 

[TeakDB]

So Ive managed a bit more this weekend, but first a bit of backpeddling on IWCR exGER carriages!

As I was shuffling round some books yesterday I found, by chance, one of the ocassional images i've bought off ebay when the subject seems interesting enough and I cant remember seeing it in one of my books, I have reproduced this below and it cleary shows a GER Third without recessed eaves, on further checking there is also a picture of this coach in 'Isle of Wight Railways Remembered' in IWCR days.

So there we go, irrefutable proof the coach I was building is appropriate, not for the Bembridge releif coach but certaintly running with the LSWR bogie coaches at some point. Further research shows that of the 6 IWCR carriages 2 survived to be renumbered/painted and fitted with electric lighting, these lasted untill 1931 with one certaintly being the Bembridge releif coach. I will continue building it then if/when I fancy a break from the Beyer Peacocks white metal and it may end up in IWCR guise later on down the line as without more decent photos coming to light its only a 1/5 chance this was one of the coaches that made it into SR Green. 

 

 

Back to the task at hand I spent a lot of time staring at the chassis, motor and footplate working out how to get the motor in without losing backhead detail, the height being the main limiting factor here; forcing the motor to sit low down in the frames and consequently forwards. In the end I realised staring wasnt really going to help so I soldered on the buffer beams for both parts of the footplate as these obviously (a lightbulb moment) need to sit flush to the frames- with this done I realised that I had to remove quite a few mm from the middle of the front footplate to allow the gearbox room to 'sit down'. This means I also need to backpeddle on my earlier comment about the front footplate needing to sit as far forward as possible! 

 

 

I also tidied up the black spray behind the wheels and fitted the wheel balances. Again 'Locomotives of the Isle of Wight' came out to show me that the larger balances sat on the front wheels and the smaller the rear, almost but not quite, 180 degrees offset. I've come to realise that its at this stage I want to paint the wheels before fitting coupling rods and the remaining chassis details so I will now have to wait to receive some phoneix precision paints to arrive before the chassis can continue much further.

One job that can be got on with is cutting down the front axle to be flush with the wheelset. I've also started playing with the fit for a few of the whitemetal pieces and am unfortunatly coming to the conclusion there is going to be a lot of filing  in my future to ensure tidy fits!

 

[TeakDB]

Short update today as theres family round. This is the current state of play.

 

 

Ive painted the wheels in Urie green which looks far more garish in good lighting and is making me morbidly interested how the whole model will look in it, no wonder the Southern got maunsell to create an alternative livery so quickly! This being done I will crack on with finishing the chassis and fitting pick ups soon, just got a bit of filing to do on the main body to let the rear set of wheels rotate freely. 

 

With the body I wasnt happy with the supplied screws to hold the chassis and body together so I fitted two 8ba nuts to the front and rear footplate, one hidden in the firebox and the other in the bunker, this one required some filing to fit. With this done I filed back some of the front footplate to acheive a good fit for the side tanks. I took the instructions advice about pilot drilling all the handrail/fittting holes before soldering the whole assembly together which required a lot of looking at photos to determine what fittings I would fit.

 

I've tried to use solder as a filler where possible which has worked well but I will still need to find some suitable filler to use for other gaps such as between the cab front and boiler and the firebox/boiler. Lastly I seem to have chucked the supplied whsistle somewhere so I think I will look at some brass fittings at some point, I know I also want to replace the smokebox dart to one with a small handwheel.

[TeakDB]

Update on the chassis. Here it is with the brake assemblage complete

With the pickups fitted (definately not pretty but this is far from my forte and seemed like the easiest way to go, I may change this arrangement later).

 

 

And current state of play after I'd removed the wheels and used a large amount of masking tape to be able to spray the brakes. My thought that the brake linkages would stop me taking the wheels off was wrong and so next one I build I will spray the whole chassis including brakes first before fitting the motor or pickups as that is obviously a lot easier.

 

I've got a bit of paint to tidy up and have to fix the motor in position with some brass rod but it seems to perform alright, only issues I have so far is finding something to clean the stray paint off the wheel tyres and that when I screw down the body on the chassis both motor pickups contact the body and so create a short- need to find some way to insulate them. Now waiting for some fine milliput before making further progress on the body so may take a break and work on something else for a little bit.