Em gauge ex GNR J52

[Simon Moore]

I decided to start a second workbench topic so i could keep each of my interests apart. Whilst i am dabbling in p4 my main modelling has been in em gauge & i am turning my attentions back to focus on em stuff for a while. 

I have various items that are currently circling the workbench, the past few evenings i have spent trying to bash a old cotswold lanky class 31. Its a rough kit & whilst i will continue with it i think a london road one will be replacing it in the future. 

 

 

Lots of london road models kits to come mainly lnwr types plus wagons from bill bedford & 51l

Edited January 13, 2022 by Simon Moore

[Barclay]

It certainly needs a little tweak here and there. I have had the Cotswold L&Y class 23 saddle tank kit for many years. London Road Models kindly sold me a chassis etch with which to improve it. Then I realised how poor the tank is and London Road Models kindly sold me a resin tank. It is in fact slowly becoming a LRM kit by stealth! There is pleasure to be had though in making something half decent out of dodgy beginnings so good luck with it.

[Brassey]

1 hour ago, Barclay said:

There is pleasure to be had though in making something half decent out of dodgy beginnings so good luck with it.

 

I agree.  Looking forward to the LRM LNWR locos.  Will these be P4?

[Simon Moore]

3 hours ago, Brassey said:

 

I agree.  Looking forward to the LRM LNWR locos.  Will these be P4?

 

No all these are em to go on my layout Bodgers Brow which in the layout section somewhere. 2 locos i am doing will be lnwr then the rest will be lms to fit in my lms central division theme.

[Simon Moore]

8 hours ago, Barclay said:

It certainly needs a little tweak here and there. I have had the Cotswold L&Y class 23 saddle tank kit for many years. London Road Models kindly sold me a chassis etch with which to improve it. Then I realised how poor the tank is and London Road Models kindly sold me a resin tank. It is in fact slowly becoming a LRM kit by stealth! There is pleasure to be had though in making something half decent out of dodgy beginnings so good luck with it.

 

Thats why i persist with these old kits. You can nash them into a lovely model. Another i have on the go is a Furness D5 from Millholme. Whilst basic it is going together well enough.

[t-b-g]

There is a certain sense of satisfaction in taking a fairly old and grotty kit and turning it into a nice loco.

 

I did a similar sort of job on a Millholme GCR 0-8-0 (LNER Q4), a Little Engines "Pom pom", a Magna Models J10 and a couple of Millholme N5s.

 

When I run them at shows and people ask the origin of the locos, it is a nice thing to happen as it means that you have done enough to disguise the origin and make it look like it is what it was supposed to be.

 

I did start to do the same to a McGowan GCR Atlantic and a Ks Midland Single many years ago. They may yet get finished!

 

Those L & Y locos are truly ugly brutes but they do have a certain presence to them.

[Retro_man]

7 hours ago, t-b-g said:

There is a certain sense of satisfaction in taking a fairly old and grotty kit and turning it into a nice loco.

 

Those L & Y locos are truly ugly brutes but they do have a certain presence to them.

 

I agree there is a lot of satisfaction in making something passably decent from an old kit or rebuilding one someone else had a go at. I built the Cotswold L&Y 0-8-0 from a second hand kit that had not been completed and I even used the milled brass chassis lump which runs extremely well. The main issues were finding photos of the loco I wanted to build, and adding brakes and other detail to the chassis block.

[Simon Moore]

8 hours ago, Retro_man said:

 

I agree there is a lot of satisfaction in making something passably decent from an old kit or rebuilding one someone else had a go at. I built the Cotswold L&Y 0-8-0 from a second hand kit that had not been completed and I even used the milled brass chassis lump which runs extremely well. The main issues were finding photos of the loco I wanted to build, and adding brakes and other detail to the chassis block.

 

Thats a lovely model. Mine will be a Rosegrove based one which i have found pictures of. Did you file the boiler bands off for replacement with tape? Your look a lot neater than the castings. I have a few other lanky prototypes all with milled chassis & they run well. I have often thought the milled chassis would be a great choice for a beginner kit because its a dead cert to run with building a square chassis.

 

Hope mine turns out as nice now. Hoping to do some more over the weekend. I want to get the basic body components as 1 lump then detailing will be a doddle.

[Michael Edge]

The original small boilered 0-8-0s were a lot better looking.

My 00 model of the last survivor which just lasted long enough to get its BR number. Scratchbuilt many years ago for my Wigan Wallgate layout, it's been out of a job for a long time now but at the moment getting a little (unlikely) exercise on Wentworth Junction after I replaced the ancient K's motor in it.

[65179]

2 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

The original small boilered 0-8-0s were a lot better looking.

My 00 model of the last survivor which just lasted long enough to get its BR number. Scratchbuilt many years ago for my Wigan Wallgate layout, it's been out of a job for a long time now but at the moment getting a little (unlikely) exercise on Wentworth Junction after I replaced the ancient K's motor in it.

 

I remember getting excited by the reference in the Aug 1951 Railway Observer to 52962 working an evening Liverpool Brunswick-Dewsnap goods in place of the regular Stanier 2-6-0 42949. It was only when I looked at the quoted shed (Speke Jct) that I realised it was a typo and was just a Crab rather than a last hurrah for a large boilered L&Y 0-8-0 on the CLC!

 

Regards,

Simon

[Retro_man]

5 hours ago, Rhb Simon said:

 

Thats a lovely model. Mine will be a Rosegrove based one which i have found pictures of. Did you file the boiler bands off for replacement with tape? Your look a lot neater than the castings. I have a few other lanky prototypes all with milled chassis & they run well. I have often thought the milled chassis would be a great choice for a beginner kit because its a dead cert to run with building a square chassis.

 

Hope mine turns out as nice now. Hoping to do some more over the weekend. I want to get the basic body components as 1 lump then detailing will be a doddle.

 

Thanks. Yes, the boiler bands were replaced with tape.

 

[Simon Moore]

I have done some more work on the lanky bomber this evening & knocked up the main bulk of the tender. Not the nicest thing to build but its coming together. I like white metal kits for this reason. 

 

 

Next job tomorrow is to get the boiler & associated parts fitted to the footplate.

[Blandford1969]

If you want to scratch build a chassis someone on Western Thunder (say it quietly) has a drawing for a set of frames you could resize to 4mm

 

 

[Simon Moore]

No i am very happy with the brass chassis lump it has. I plan on doing both lrm kits at some point. Thanks for the tip though.

[Simon Moore]

Today i decided to finish off one of those projects thats been on the go far to long. Its a craftsman johnson that i built as my local engine that worked the worth valley branch. It actually took an elderly friend of mine to school so a personal project. I can also hear the whistles of the worth valley & see the steam from my workshop window.

 

I finished off today by blowing the bufferbeam's in red. Coal & a satin varnish to finish with a light weathering to high light a few parts. Almost forgot, brakes & pullrods to finish off.

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

On 16/04/2021 at 04:13, Michael Edge said:

The original small boilered 0-8-0s were a lot better looking.

My 00 model of the last survivor which just lasted long enough to get its BR number. Scratchbuilt many years ago for my Wigan Wallgate layout, it's been out of a job for a long time now but at the moment getting a little (unlikely) exercise on Wentworth Junction after I replaced the ancient K's motor in it.

That does look very nice actually, I'll add it to my list of things to build, thank you.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Knowing not much about steam loco's and even less about L & Y ones, was this loco an extended version of an 0-6-0 due to the uneven spacing of the driving wheels?

 

Mike.

[Michael Edge]

Not really, the L&Y had a large range of 0-8-0s with different boilers and including some 4 cylinder ones. They may well have had the same axleboxes though as this was their main fault leading to early withdrawal - in effect they were condemned by the arrival of hundreds of WD 2-8-0s but their LNW cousins worked on into the 1960s.

[Simon Moore]

I have been battling with this cotswold lanky bomber this evening. The castings on the firebox are awful. They are curved on the straight parts & the curved parts are just all over the place. I have tried allsorts to get the firebox right but the castings were truly awful. The firebox has a slope on it but its the best i could do. I'm done trying to get it straight. 

 

Anyway a cotswold lanky bomber getting closer to completion.

 

[Michael Edge]

Any chance of levelling the firebox top? That's what looks worst about it.

[Simon Moore]

37 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

Any chance of levelling the firebox top? That's what looks worst about it.

 

I'm going to have another look at it this morning Mike & see if i can file some of it away to level it of a bit. Hopefully the castings are thick enough to take away some material. 

[Michael Edge]

The castings will probably be thick enough, it's the cab roof in the way that will be difficult. You're doing well to persevere with this lumpen thing but I'm sure you will get a reasonable model out of it eventually.

[Simon Moore]

I had another look this morning & i decided against trying. I am keeping it as is because it isn't as bad in the flesh. 

Eventually i will get a london road models one which is far nicer. I have progressed it somewhat today & got most of the castings fitted. It actually looks passable & it will hopefully pull like stink

Edited April 22, 2021 by Rhb Simon

[Simon Moore]

Handrails, lamp irons & the last of the castings are now fitted to the Hughes 31. 

 

A very imposing loco.

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Well done for persevering with this build.

For all it's faults and shortcomings it is a product of it's era, and none the worse for that. Had you have made all the alterations and improvements it seems to need you would probably have built a LRM locomotive by stealth, and people would have questioned if it was a LRM model.

 

Mike.