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Judith Edge kits - suitable for a beginner?


Sulzer
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Sorry to beat my favorite drum, but how clean is the work? The area to be soldered should be shiny, abraded immediately before heat is applied. Clean surface, decent flux and 145 solder is my recipe along with my 15 quid oriental iron. From the photo it doesn't look too bad.

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6 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

It depends on what you use for flux, I use only phosphoric acid and I've never had to clean any of our etches before soldering.

I sometimes scrub with the F/G brush, but I've long had the impression that the flux (I use Carr's Yellow) makes that preparation unnecessary - is that what you're saying, Mike? 

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I haven't got a clue what the various Carrs fluxes are - and they won't say either - at least one of them is Bakers fluid which I won't allow anywhere near my workshop. I just use Phosphoric acid for everything, the commercially available ones at about 12% are OK (9% is too weak for steel), I dilute it myself from more concentrated supplies.

The only brass etches I ever have to mechanically clean are either very old ones or worse - the ones which have been wrapped with sellotape when the kit was packed.

 

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20 hours ago, Daddyman said:

Brass does need quite a lot of heat, and I don't think a 25W will do it, especially with a pointed bit. I was surprised after a few months of making N/S kits to remember how much heat you need for brass. 

 

Tell-tale signs of poor heat transfer are the iron "sticking", lack of solder on the reverse of the joint, and solder that looks like welding (think joints between tubes on an aluminium or titanium bike frame).  

 

I also think you might need to prepare the brass a bit too - I usually scrub the area to be soldered with a F/G brush, but people use chemical treatments too. Makes soldering easier. 

For some reason if I use a fibre glass brush some joints don't solder very well.  I can mange to build Comet coaches and JE kits with dilute phosphoric and my Ayou solder station .. with teh additional support of a 25W Antex.

 

Baz

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5 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

I haven't got a clue what the various Carrs fluxes are - and they won't say either - at least one of them is Bakers fluid which I won't allow anywhere near my workshop. I just use Phosphoric acid for everything, the commercially available ones at about 12% are OK (9% is too weak for steel), I dilute it myself from more concentrated supplies.

The only brass etches I ever have to mechanically clean are either very old ones or worse - the ones which have been wrapped with sellotape when the kit was packed.

 

Interesting, Mike. I'm coming to the end of my current Carr's batch and facing £7 just for postage, so am interested in other options. I've stuck with Yellow for years just because it doesn't rust tools, and doesn't leave a green deposit on the model. Does your formula do either of those things? What do you dilute it with? 

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Phosphoric acid certainly doesn't rust anything -- it's the basis of rustproofers such as Jenolite. You can get green deposits on brass and nickel silver but the acid is easily washed off, a quick rinse under the tap after each work session prevents it entirely. Dilute it with tap water - and before the theorists start howling about never adding water to acid, I can assurer you that nothing happens. When you drop a bottle of concentrated acid on a concrete floor though..... That was a long time ago and only once but it was interesting to say the least.

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Thanks Mike, very helpful. 

 

17 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

When you drop a bottle of concentrated acid on a concrete floor though..... That was a long time ago and only once but it was interesting to say the least.

More likely to be the carpet for me I think. Less interesting? 

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I did spill some on the carpet once...... That was even more years ago when we first discovered it and I was using it at a concentration of about 84% - then we learned to dilute it. A drop of washing up liquid in the flux as well helps it to wet the surface of the metal.

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On 16/03/2021 at 11:30, Michael Edge said:

Our latest 7mm kits now available (but not many of them at the moment)

Harton 4w No2/No10      £75 + £5 postage

2004230486_7mmtest.jpg.f748dd9f924f5a643ae07b36ab608556.jpg

Hunslet 325hp 50T 0-6-0DH £100 + £5 postage

IMG_0375.jpg.0c77994eb1514a80f260925fb138b773.jpg

 

I like how the models have had all the panels leant against each other without the use of solder!

 

Mike.

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In support of Mike's comment above, although I don't normally use acid flux, when I have I have noticed that applying heat to the flux causes it to boil which etches the joint clean. Therefore you really don't need to be too fussy about cleaning with an acid flux. 

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  • 7 months later...

Hello, I am someone else who has next to no experience building a metal kit and is wondering how easy it would be to build a JE kit. 

 

My interest is in electric trains, such as the NER BO-BO loco 265000 and the LMS & LOR Liverpool / Merseyside EMU's.

 

If they had been available I'd also have been interested in the LNER Tyneside and Woodhead / Shenfield EMU's.

 

I have actually tried one of the Tyneside units as 3D printed by Shapeways but am not happy with them because the train sides are supposed to be smooth whilst the 3D versions are pitted / need an inordinate amount of sanding (with wet & dry) to achieve a smooth finish.

 

Simon

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The ES1 Bo-Bo is quite easy to build, the only really complicated bit is the pantograph and we recommend a TT Sommerfeldt one for a working model - although they ran a lot on 3rd rail anyway.

I wouldn't recommend the LOR trains and the 503 for a beginner, the 503 and rebuilt LOR trains were not designed as kits and do present some difficulties, the other LOR   train is rather complicated to build.

The EB1 (26510) is probably the easiest of our main line electric loco kits to build, simplest of all is the Harton 4w electric but that's an industrial.

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I'm with Michael. I use 12% phosphoric acid flux (London Road Models, usually) and find no need to pre-clean brass or nickel silver before soldering using multi-core, 179 (silver content soft solder), and 145 degree solders.

However, I have found it necessary to clean white metal parts in order to get low melt (70 degree) solder to flow and wet the surface. In this case, I used LRM 9% phosphoric flux.

Dave.

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2 hours ago, spsmiler said:

Hello, I am someone else who has next to no experience building a metal kit and is wondering how easy it would be to build a JE kit. 

 

My interest is in electric trains, such as the NER BO-BO loco 265000 and the LMS & LOR Liverpool / Merseyside EMU's.

I built the ES1 for the Express, the journal of the NERA, a few years back, and commented at the time that I thought it was suitable for a beginner. The only tricky parts are punching out all the rivets on the bonnet tops (though this is more tedious than difficult, and Michael can give you tips on how to do it), bending the bonnet tops to match the sides, and, depending on your period, the bonnet-top handrails. These latter are best done in two parts, with the joint hidden inside a handrail knob. If you want the curly-wurly ones, you're going to have fun... The pantograph wasn't too hard - after all, you've only ever got to hold two parts together and move a soldering iron into their vicinity, same as anywhere else on a kit. 

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