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The Derby Line, Four Track LNER J6


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I was waiting for some bits to arrive, so I thought I'd crack on with the tender underframe. I also lost a day or so's work to a cold. Grrr.

 

As per the Finney7 Micks builds - I also made the buffer beam removable. There are lots of tiny fiddly etched pieces, but they all fit... and it captures the intricate nature of the prototype. I liked the updated inner chassis, I prefer sprung hornblocks to compensation. The brake gear is held on with screws.

 

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Ok - Lets try out the new site format. Well done Andy, I bet that was fun... Not! I remember from my IT days in Banking, upgrades were horrendous, no matter how well you prepared..

 

The Radial has returned from Paul Moore via the excellent O gauge show at UWE Bristol. So it has taken a couple of days to fit her out and there is some tidying up to do after track test. It's always nervy fitting out a model once it has an excellent paint job and I absolutely hate fitting windows, I made at least 12. She is an attractive little engine.

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Once the track test is satisfactory, the DCC decoder can be fitted. Proper crank pin nuts will be fitted later.

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I don't really like pictures that are bigger than actual size, but here we go. The back head is loose and needs finishing - and someone needs to close that regulator!

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One extreme to the other... this set of tarnished etchings is for a LNWR Coal Tank..

It's a Griffin kit, which came from Shedmaster, which we suspect might be a Jidenco, blown up from 4mm scale...

Lets see how this one goes.....

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I like a bit of history, and I wonder if this kit was derived from the original Falcon brass design...

I've marked out for the hornblocks and there is not much meat around them. There is quite a lot of modification required yet and that awful cut out for the radial truck will have to be dealt with. The fact that they come from a hand drawn design becomes more evident.

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I'm matching up the frames to the running plate, there has been a lot of fabrication work before we even go near the soldering iron. The dummy silhouette of the expansion link has been removed.

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Rear frame plates have been made. I'd like to fit a radial truck, but we'll see how that develops. It will improve the view through the frames.

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The buffer beams are a wood sandwich between plates on the prototype and this is represented by a fold up etch which looks nothing like the actual thing. The buffer beams were too short in any case, so I made new ones to form the sandwich.

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There is an etched strip for the valance, which would take far to long to clean up, so brass angle was substituted. The sandwich buffer beams are in place, I've already cut wood for the ends. Trying to make a complete sandwich was beyond my patience and I didn't have anything suitable for representing the 6 inch thick piece of wood.

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I tacked up the frames, but after studying the photos and Jim's article I decided the firebox/ashpan combo looked like a monolith, so the whole thing was taken apart again.

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 A new brass ashpan was made up and is now even the right shape with the sloping ends.

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With storm Eric going on, I'm now working on the superstructure.

The kit tank sides feature the beading, except that it should straddle the top of the tank side. I couldn't see how I could add strip, with out it looking like two layers of beading and it also need to go under the cab side sheet. In the end it was quicker and easier to make new tank sides, the originals were also slightly too high in any case.

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The cab sides were cut off the original etches and here we have the new sides.

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The parts have just been plonked together to see how it looks.

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I'm grinding along with this, meeting one problem after another. I had to torch one side apart as I wasn't happy with the fit of the tank side and the cab front and back were sitting too low compared with the sides. I also ditched the tank extensions and fabricated new ones, they made the cab space ridiculously narrow. I've scratched up the raised platform inside the cab and that should give clearance to the tops of the wheels.
The bunker has replacement sides and top ( the one in the kit was too narrow and wouldn't rest on the internal ledges). The tool boxes are just plonked in place, but they are too short, and possibly too high.. The filler is just floating around to compare heights. It's all just plonked together again.

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The Finney7 Adams Radial is now finished. It was painted by Paul Moore. It has passed the track test, the inside motion works and is now DCC fitted. One final test before she is ready to go to her owner.

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Inside motion for the coal tank:-
The crank axle has been prepared. The cranks are drilled and pinned with 0.8mm n/s wire. Crossheads and slidebars fettled. The Connecting rods are drilled and the lower part of the end piece is tapped 14BA. They will be quite short once all the dimensions have been worked out. The screws are not prototypical, but won't be seen inside the recesses of the engine. It means this part of the motion can be taken down and the crank axle dropped out.

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I use plumbers flux and solder paste on the crank axle and it is heated up with the blow torch until the solder flows. I added some flux cored 60/40 whilst it was still hot to fill in any gaps. Any excess can be removed later. I should have photo'd the blackened item after it was done, but here it is cleaned up and the axle cut out to form the cranks. I can see some bits need a final tidy. In the LNWR motion kit the eccentric straps come in two parts - that's a lot easier than the one piece ones that have to endure the blowtorch and not be soldered to the eccentrics - they are blackened in that instance to prevent that.

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Next thing is to get them all roughly assembled, make sure they will work, then a good clean up before final assembly.

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o, with reference to the GA, I'm here checking the fit of the critical motion parts. Parts are wedged into place and a 6BA screw allows me to rotate the axle and check for clearances and binding. The slidebars were then tacked in place ( they are very close to the leading axle ) and then parts are added one at a time. Each time checking it all moves freely. Most of my own inside cylinder locos have inside motion, it gives me a good deal of satisfaction.

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Next, I shall make the motion bracket that support the end of the slidebars, and have a 'play' with the valve gear....

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Richard - yes its good fun and very sociable.

 

That 'play' with the valve gear took a little while as the radius rods are quite short on this loco. It all fits in and works. There is some tidying up to do, getting it working freely was the main objective. The con rods and cross heads can be dropped out by releasing the big end cap and the motion is disconnected from the by withdrawing a 14BA screw from the weighshaft arms. Then the whole crank axle and attached spaghetti can be dropped out.

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Period engines often feature pairs of brake pull rods either side of the wheels. With our models, these pose a potential shorting risk, especially as there needs to be some movement laterally in the axles to allow the loco to negotiate six foot radius curves. I was pondering this and whilst away for a couple of days had a brainwave in the middle of the night - I could use some fine ptfe tube that I have to insulate the brake gear on it's hangers. Before that though, I had the next issue to resolve - there are only two pull rods in the kit. So the only way was to remove them from the fret and solder them to some drawn hard brass strip. The holes could then be filled and the rods filed to shape. Tedious and fingerprint removing.. The brake gear has to be removable, so is held on with nuts to the 12BA studs. There is no representation of the brake lever in the kit, |I made that up from some redundant 9F combination levers! There are also plastic inserts in the radial truck cut out to prevent shorts. The ptfe tube is almost invisible behind the brake hanger nuts.

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One feature of LMS days is that they put bars over the rear cab windows. Again - no provision in the kit, so I made up a jig to mark them out. Checking with my old school ruler, they are not at 60 or 72 degrees - something in between! Access is required to the bunker space, so I have to come up with a solution that fits around the toolboxes, beading and water filler. I think now, this is the worst kit I have ever had to put together.

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The interior of the rear bulkhead is now a little more populated. The instructions do suggest scratching up the tool box doors from scrap etch.

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David Hill kindly supplied me with some toolboxes, they are longer than those supplied in the kit. They butt up against the rear of the cab. Lamp irons have been added, the LMS replaced the LNWR sockets with irons. There is some tidying up to do, once the loco is assembled. Most of the castings are brass, from Laurie's range and they are of good quality.

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The 'floor' of the coal space is removable to allow access to the inside of the bunker. The tool boxes are not fixed yet, I always leave white metal to the last.

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Geary15901

My 'Studio' ( two bits of plasticard ) work better under natural light -it's too much of a faff to keep setting up a light...

I'm trying to do booze free in the week....but roll on the Rugby on Saturday!

Thanks Chris - I'm not sure about that, it's been close to going out the window a few times...

I managed to plonk everything together to get it to look like a loco at last. The flairs have yet to be cut off the smokebox. Only the main tanks and cab front are fixed.

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It's a bit scrappy, but the entire cab interior is scratched up. The back head will be sprayed next, then it can be populated. Now is the time to detail the cab before the bunker goes on.

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A further thought.......depending on your track radius watch the clearances on the rear of the frames.Have built three of these ex-Shedmaster ones and left the rather crude cutout for the pony wheels. The pony wheel fills it in,not perfect, but it does allow truck movement. Have also built an ex-Northstar (now Gladiator) one which had the frames at the rear set inwards slightly which is a far better arrangement.

 

John

 

 

 

 

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Thanks John - yes - I did look at that . They didn't seem to fit the other way up and looking at the photos - the brake hangers are the right way too. The shoes don't actually seem quite right as I don't think they should taper. I need to revisit the brake gear as I think the hangers are mounted slightly high.

 

I've been experimenting with my 6' radius reverse curve, and with some side play in the drivers -it just about works. It's a long wheelbase to get around a curve. I did consider insetting the rear frames. That - although annoying could still be done. Thanks for your observations.

 

It's a busy little cab, and I wanted to get as much in as possible before putting the bunker on. Most of the rest like the manifold, will be mounted on the back head. I needed to create the two substantial oval plates on the tank tops. BR Standards to the rescue again, I had an oval plate spare from the MOK class for tank, so I soldered it to some scrap etch and filed another to shape. The cast fitting is a cut down MOK sand pipe union! When built, the tanks were balance by a box section across the cab door way. This must have rusted like hell, so it seems that later on the box was replaced by a pipe with a shaped cover over it, so that there was room for the crews boots to fit on the step. So I shaped those up from some spare sheet. Just the sight feed lubricator to sort out...

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The brakes are definitely upside down as they do taper the top end of the block  and then widening out. I can't remember on the ones I built any issues with the hangers being in the wrong place, but it was a long time ago when I did them.

Not an easy kit to put together but you seem to be doing very well, I always thought the best bit of it were the castings .

 

John

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Just spotted a possible way out with the brakes......by the lamp brackets I take it you are building the LMS version if so then the later all metal brake hangers/blocks might be better, as the wooden blocks were being phased out by then

 

John

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John - Lissadel -

 

Yes you are quite right...They should look more like the 2nd photo. I shouldn't have blindly accepted the contents of the kit ( I don't normally ) so I shall have to revisit that pesky brake gear. I must say I'm impressed John - you've built three! I would say this has not been one of my favourite projects. Scratch  building is not my thing really. I also like your idea of narrowing the rear frames - I will address that once I've completed the upper works.

 

Thanks for your observations.

 

Regards

Tony

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I have a 'thing' about Coal Tanks perhaps going way back to the old K's OO kit which you could buy for a fiver....then! The three I did were for customers and a case of once you'd done one you knew what you were up against for the other two. I don't know if they still supply cast coupling rods ,if so take care when handling the finished model as the prototype rods were thin thus the castings prone to bending if caught when handling.

 Attached photo of my current CT a Gladiator (ex Northstar) kit with scratchbuilt sloping smokebox as per the engine when first built. Kit is recommended if you fancy doing another one !

 

John

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Very nice John - I think Gladiator would have been my preferred choice. I ditched the cast rods, they were wobbly, there was no way I could get them straight and they were poorly drilled. I had to substitute Premier ones.

 

Take it from me - I will never be building another Coal Tank....

 

Regards

Tony

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The saga continues, but I got to a stage where I could plonk things together and we get something that looks like an engine at last. Nothing fits first time, but that's the nature of it. Everything has to be measured for position, I couldn't do it without the GA. The smokebox door is a nice pressing, the safety valve casting has been modified to have Ross pop safety valves. I also added the washout plugs, they don't show on early photos. I've also cut out the coal hole and added some hinges to that door. It's a scratch build really.

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The manifold in the kit is not quite right for a Coal Tank, so it has been modified with more scraps of castings and tube to build it up. The whistle sticks out through the cab roof. It's wet from just being washed.

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I'm half a day ahead of this now so the removable roof is fitted as is the boiler.

 

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