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The Derby Line, Four Track LNER J6


dibateg
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1 hour ago, dibateg said:

The O1 is mine for Basford  - along with 6 other 2-8-0s already built!, Hall is a commission Mike.

 

Hope you are doing ok in France?

 

Tony

 

Wrong Johnny Foreigner Tony, I'm the Spanish one currently stranded in the UK!

 

Mike.

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  • 4 months later...

I've been away from the loco workbench for too long, working on the layout.

I'm having a little break from the layout, so I've dug out one of the oldest kits in the cupboard, a Four Track J6 to be 64219 of Colwick shed. The etches are blown up from the George Norton kit designed back in 1992...

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I've made a start on the mainframes, fitted Slaters hornblocks and made up the springs from Ragstone castings. I turned up the shock absorbers on the lathe. The centre spring can be dropped to allow fitting the crank axle. I've used the P4 spacers ( with a smidge filed off them ) to make the frames as wide as possible for fitting the inside motion.

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2 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Do you mean P7 spacers Tony?

 

Confused of Espana!

 

Keep up! He means the P4 ones as etched in the 4mm kit but bigger than P4 now it is all bigger.

 

Perfectly clear?

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  • dibateg changed the title to The Derby Line, Four Track LNER J6

Despite my best efforts, I still managed to put the wrong smokebox wrapper on - very neatly I might add. So out with the blowtorch to take it off and put the correct one on! The cradle is etched out of 0.9 nickel silver and there was not enough material in places on one side of the fold line to get it go over at all. So I just did the ends. I didn't use the etched beading in the kit, opting for soft half round jeweller wire. The mud hole doors have been cut out and blanked from behind. Ragstone clamps.

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It's all just plonked together at the moment, I've also made an infill for the back of the saddle, but that has to allow for the valves. There are rather too many sections of half etch that have to fold, along and edge where they meet the full thickness brass. That never works well, I shall have to have a think about that..

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I ended up separating out the front splasher development and attaching the top separately. The front wouldn't fold up tidily, so I replaced that with some brass channel that gives nice sharp edges. Even though the tops were full thickness, the brass is quite soft, so it formed easily.

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There was some fettling to get all these various bits of frame and splashers to fit. I shall add detail next before putting the boiler on. Oh dear - look at that untidy soldering on the inside! There are some nice little etched brackets for the splashers that nicely cover the join.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The front end wasn't looking quite right as the lower smokebox was too narrow, so I unsoldered the sides, teased ( bent ) it out and inserted two strips of 0.7mm strip behind the lower wrapper to beef it out. I've taken the picture before tidying so it can be seen. It fits snugly now. I've attached the cab to the boiler so that it is all one unit. This helps getting decent fit of the boiler to the cab front, and importantly you can ensure the bottom of the smokebox is in the same plane as the bottom of the cab. I need to do something about the smokebox door ring as that is not represented yet.

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After a little break, I've been tinkering with odd bits of the J6, and I wanted to create the smokebox door ring. A hunt through the scrap etch drawer turned up one on a Sans Perail Standard 5 etch. It needed a mm taking off it, but how to do that consistently when it has a big hole etched in the middle - too small to go on the outside of the chuck jaws. So I came up with this Heath Robinson arrangement - clamping it between two old Peco wagon wheel on some 6BA studding! However - it worked...

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Lovely stuff as always Tony. I did a smokebox front like that once by soldering a scrap of metal across the hole, then soldering that to the squared off end of a brass bar as a mandrel type arrangement but I like the slightly sideways thinking approach of using the old wheel as a clamp!

 

There are now two high quality 7mm J6 builds going on at the same time on RMweb.

 

They are my favourite GNR locos, so that is nice to see. 

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Thanks Tony - J6s rule! After making so may 'modern' steam engines, its nice to create a period piece.

 

There seemed to be all sorts of lubricators fitted to the J6, the closest I could find was a Ragstone one with it's drive arm. As is the snifting valve, I need to put a plate under that.. Rob keeps finding me things to do.. The brass chimney was solid, so I drilled that out on the lathe. Washout covers are Finney7. The smokebox ring is now in place and since this picture I've drilled the chimney for the bolts.

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I've now carved the loco body off the frame jig, it was etched from some pretty hefty brass. Cab and boiler are now firmly attached. Details include little crank ( sanders? ), Griffin GNR lamp irons. and bolt heads on the cab roof. Buffers are from Gladiator, I shortened them slightly and reduced the diameter of the base. That was drilled and and I've added 0.8mm bolts from GHW-Modellbauversand ( Germany ), they look a bit too plain otherwise. Jaunty chimney not attached. Those rain guards were well tricky!
The frames needed some attention, I could not find any photos of the leading lightening gap, and in some photos there is a hint of it being blanked out. So that's what I've done. The ashpan was a solid fill in those rear frame gaps, so they were chain drilled and filed out. It looks better, more solid at the front and lighter at the back.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm mulling over the tender of the J6, I think there was a reconfiguration of the 3170 gallon tender at some point. Moving the coal divider forward and down, also changing the tank top behind it to raise the tool boxes higher. They are often shown buried in coal.  Most of them appear to have had this change. If anyone has any ideas or contradictions, that would help!

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I am not sure if the different tender versions get covered in Malcolm Crawley's GNR tender book or not. There were certainly many different types and drawings of most of them were in the book but I don't know if they were as built or if alterations done later were covered.

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3 hours ago, jwealleans said:

I have Malcolm's book.  The drawing is of the tender as built and so of limited use for the LNER era, especially in this area.   Paul wasn't able to provide much more concrete information either.

 

That is often the case. Even if you can find a good GA drawing that shows something when it was built, details of later modifications often haven't turned up.

 

Do the tenders preserved with the Atlantics help? They may not have been altered back to "as built" condition.

 

Malcolm had started collecting photos but ran out of time to get all he wanted. There was talk of a supplement to his book being produced, with the photographs he had collected plus others. I do recall that he had some views showing the tender fronts in later days. Did anybody take the task on and does anybody know where the photos are now? I think somebody might have taken them away but I don't know who.

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Thanks Chaps!

I finally came to a resolution of the tender front, with an estimation from the various photographs. The tank top extends to behind the dividing plate, that allows the toolboxes to sit at the height you can see in the photo. The front plate was cut out and then trimmed to fit. They do appear to tilt back. There is a small locker to scratch up for the left hand tank extension. Tool box just plonked for reference.

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I've also been distracted by Crosby Hall which has come back from Alan Brackenborough for finishing. That will be the last GW engine here for a while..

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15 minutes ago, dibateg said:

Thanks Chaps!

I finally came to a resolution of the tender front, with an estimation from the various photographs. The tank top extends to behind the dividing plate, that allows the toolboxes to sit at the height you can see in the photo. The front plate was cut out and then trimmed to fit. They do appear to tilt back. There is a small locker to scratch up for the left hand tank extension. Tool box just plonked for reference.

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I've also been distracted by Crosby Hall which has come back from Alan Brackenborough for finishing. That will be the last GW engine here for a while..

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These look great, a shame the hall is your last one. I do think the GWR engines have a nice balance to them. However, we don’t mention that on other parts of the forum. 
richard  

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The front end is sort of completed, just need to straighten up that wonky gate. The camera always picks these things out. I scratched in the little locker and made up the handbrake from tube. Water valves are from Ragstone. The tool boxes could probably do with a flatter lid profile, but the are on now.. The steps look wide, but we'll see how they look when the loco is done. Just the whitemetal details to add...

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