Adventures in kit and scratch-building.

[Sandy Harper]

^Chris

 

^{you say in your reply that you sprayed with Ronseal varnish. What did you use to thin it and did it have to tbe very thin. I've tried and I end up with a faintly lumpy finish, but you have to look close to spot it.}

 

^Kev

Kev,

You need to be careful with Ronseal varnish as there are several types on the market. I have used the 'Polyurethane version for years and get very consistent results using white spirit to thin it down. Some other versions are 'Quick dry' and 'waterbased'. I have heard of someone using the water based version but I have not tried it.

 

My own brew uses a 'drop' of black enamel paint in the mix. This does two things. It helps you to get the correct constituency, visually, when mixing and imparts a slight toning down of the paint work on the model which gives all my stock a uniform look. I suppose you could call it a 'light' weathering.

 

I generally use gloss paint on my stock and then use the varnish to give it a satin finish. Working on the basis that it is better to tone down gloss than try to gloss up dull paint.

 

I either use Ronseal Satin or a mix of Satin and Gloss to get the required finish.

 

To 'visually' mix paint or varnish with white spirit I use a sort of tapered clear glass tumbler that smelly candles sometimes come in. A bit like an old whisky dram glass.

 

I put a measure of paint or varnish in and then add an equal amount of clean white spirit and mix with the back end of a paint brush. When mixed I drag the end of the back end of the brush up the side of the glass and watch what the paint mix does. If it sticks to the side of the glass to the point that I cannot see through it then it is too thick. If I can't see any paint on the glass, ie it runs back down into the mix, then it is too thin. I then add small amounts of paint or thinner so that just a trace of paint can be seen adhering to the side of the glass. This is usually about right. Adding black paint to the varnish helps me to see the correct consistency.

 

Regards

Sandy

Edited February 7, 2012 by Sandy Harper

[Kev T]

Sorry OzzyO, I've no idea what I did to get that small a font.

 

Thanks for the replies.

Simon I hope you don't mind the hijack.

 

cheers

Kev

[sej]

Hi Kev, I'm having a bit of a rest from the valve gear! Looking at the photo on page 9 it seems as though the eccentric rods are pinned with a bit of rod and soldered. I'm going to use a bit of rod as a staple, just a U shape while I'm getting everything working and then solder, really, really carefully. I find undoing and doing up little nuts and bolts very tiresome, particularly those on the eccentric clips, but they are very useful. I'm going to solder those as well. And I rather enjoy the high-jacks, there's always something interesting!

Chris, welcome to the thread! And thankyou very much indeed for your info on painting. Your Achilles looks absolutely marvellous, an inspiration in fact. So I've started on mine too. It does help that I can compare the way in which the two kits are engineered and think about how to scratch-build my Earl Cawdor. It also distracts me from the pesky valve-gear...

And it was good practice for shaping the footplate over the splashers. Only one a side for the Achilles; two each for the Armstrong and one and a bit for Earl Cawdor!

[sej]

On with the body-work of the Armstrong; I think I've used the wrong words in describing the frames. These are rather decorative curves in the footplate, formed over the outside frames, not the main splashers which are larger and further in. Presumably they were to clear the outside cranks, and/or to look pretty as the Achilles does the same thing and doesn't have the cranks. Whichever way, it adds to the beauty of the locos! Here I've formed and soldered the footplate, which was made easier with the fixing places thoughtfully supplied in the kit.

While my thoughts were on this area I decided to mark up the outside frames of Earl Cawdor. Previously I've stuck the drawings to the metal but inspired by a recent article in Model Railway Journal I drew directly onto the nickel-silver. I bought a whacking great permanent marker which gives a good coat of black, providing some exciting fumes and doesn't wear too quickly. It also gives great contrast to the marked out lines which is fantastic for sawing and filing. It was quite a job to transfer the drawing and I did cheat at one point, the reverse curves over the frames, by gluing the drawing to some thin plasticard, cutting it out and using as a template!

I soldered two laminates of thin brass to the back to help make the decorative rivetted trim, I'll explain that later!

And then cut it all out and cleaned it up.

[N15class]

Nice piece of fretting.

[Sandy Harper]

This is starting to turn into an interesting build . Looking forward to the next instalment.

 

Sandy

[Rob Pulham]

That looks a very clean piece of scratch building there Simon.

[sej]

Thankyou all, I very much enjoy scratch-building, I find fretting quite relaxing! It does however show up the time difference between cutting a complex shape from an etched fret and cutting one out for yourself. I suppose it's ending up with something novel and generally cheaper. I haven't given up on the idea of of CAD yet though...

I tried out something new with the Armstrong build. The J hangers and their brackets need to be soldered to the frames with the lower half and bolt still able to be detached. The instructions suggest oil or paint as a barrier but I'd read of using chemical blackeneing to prevent unwanted soldering. Easier to control the oil and quicker than paint. And very successful! Hurrah!

Then I went on to roll the fire box and solder to the cast "transition" ring. All went very smoothly, love those rolling bars!

[sej]

Time for a few more art-house photos. A bit of boiler soldering to start...

I like to use copper wire to keep everything together but it is quite liable to break so the more the merrier.

 

Then I tried to put everything together and in the rush, plus plenty of wine, I lost concentration.

The fire-box is cleverly connected to the boiler by a rather lovely turned brass disc which slides between them and is connected by a 6BA bolt screwing into a captured nut in within the boiler former. I forgot that I'd soldered this in, when it was easily accessible, and wondered why I couldn't get the bolt through the hole. (It did pass through my mind that it was going to be fiddly to get a nut into the inner recessess of the boiler.) So I reamed out the hole with the unseen nut inside, stripping the thread. Curses! This morning I had to carefully drill it out and solder in a small piece of brass tube drilled and tapped for 6BA. Don't get too drunk and don't rush! Til the next time...

Anyway, now she looks gorgeous, what an absolute feat of engineering, both in the real thing and the design of this kit.

Next, the curvy footplate of Earl Cawdor...

[Castle]

Hi Simon,

 

Those are shaping up to be some genuinely beautiful bits of kit! There is nothing quite like this era of engineering and the elegance and grace of the locomotives is being captured here and then some. I look forward to seeing the finished article.

 

A top quality job good sir!

 

All the best,

 

Castle

[renovater 1]

This really does look good !!

[ozzyo]

Hello Simon?

 

before you fit the boiler in place, check the fit of the driving wheel splasher tops. OK it maybe granny and eggs but who knows. The other one to watch for are the drives catching on the boiler and firebox.

 

Nice looking build.

 

OzzyO.

[cornamuse]

incredible work on this thread. Wish I could even come close or know how to get there! very inspiring

[DLT]

This is the stage where you really know you are getting on with it, when it starts to actually look like a locomotive.

Lovely work, and it looks like a superbly produced kit.

Many thanks,

Dave.

[sej]

Thankyou everyone for your kind comments and words of advice and encouragement, it certainly spurs me on!

The kit is incredibly accurate, the wonders of 3D CAD design and ingenious thinking. The main splashers are a virtually perfect fit with no fettling at all; from a flat etch, curved to a 3D shape that meshes with a series of other complex curves. Quite astonishing! And they used to do it for real, with great big hammers and stuff. Marvellous.

And then there's my efforts with some heroic rivetting on the footplate of Earl Cawdor, with a picture to show the old girl (chap?) him/herself.

[sej]

To continue with Earl Cawdor for a while. I wanted to produce the rivetted "trim?" beneath the footplate as it's quite prominent in some of the photos. My Scorpio Achilles had some nice etches to do this which of course took seconds to cut out and prepare. The Earl's took a bit longer... I'd cut some brass lamintes at the same time as the frames so I had the match to the top surface, so I soldered those to some more brass to give something to hold onto, marked out the trim and its centre-line (for rivetting) and then fretted everything out and cleaned up.

Then some more heroic rivetting providing more art-house photos, boy does that thin strip curl!

After two lots of that and some judicious flattening I soldered one side to a frame and was very pleased with myself and then realised that I'd rivetted both strips for the same side. Curses! One moments inattention!! I blame having to get up to switch "The Archers" off, can't bear it!

After some thought and a few choice words, I cut the straight bit off the back end, soldered the wiggly bit into position and bunged the straight bit on the front...and very pleasingly everything lined up just as nicely. I'll have to listen to Radio 3 from now on.

[ozzyo]

That's what it's all about get out of the s##t the easiest way possible.

 

OzzyO.

[3 link]

That's what it's all about get out of the s##t the easiest way possible.

 

OzzyO.

 

That's what I like about you Ozzy, a man who speaks his mind B) .

 

Have you recieved that etched primer spray yet ? I was hoping to get a review from you even though Malcom said it's the best he's ever used.

 

All the best Matey,

 

Martyn.

 

P.S. Sorry for the hijack Simon.

[ozzyo]

Hello Martyn,

 

the black etch primer should arrive Tus. or Wed. will be giving it a try out on a set of Harris wheels first, then on the tender under fames.

 

Time to let Simon have his thread back.

 

OzzyO.

[sej]

Thankyou gents, that black primer sounds very interesting, is it acrylic?

 

Just to do a bit of trumpet blowing for us multi-tasking railway modellers; got my picture in The Stage this week for winning a Fringe Report Award for Best Shakespeare Producing! Hurrah!! That's why I'm modelling Earl Cawdor...

 

Anyway back to some proper culture, I'm really enjoying scratch-building at the same time as kit construction and I'm trying to bring all three locos to the same stage. So here are the out-side frames and footplates of the the Achilles (Lorna Doone) and the Earl.

I used the rollers to form the footplate of the Earl; a very multi-functional piece of kit.

I'll fret out the footplate, a la Guy Williams, to accomodate the splashers, inside motion and motor.

[sej]

Just back-tracking a little with another "what-is-it?" photo. In the absence of a built in jig I had to provide my own for strengthening the frames of the Earl in order to fit the wavy footplate. So here it is with plonked on strengthening bits. I've moved on with both the Achilles and the Armstrong and I'll put up photos of the progress sometime after I get back from the GOG show at Kettering tomorrow. Obviously without buying anything else...

[N15class]

Your frames there are impressive. The quality of your work is second to none.

[sej]

Thankyou Peter, I really enjoy the creative process of making stuff, something that seems sadly missing in much of our modern lives, present company excepted of course! There was an encouraging article on Womans Hour on the rise of "Crafting" a horrible word for a nobler art.

Back to the railway modelling, I resisted great temptation at the GOG show at Kettering to buy any more kits. I haunt the Bring and Buy stall like a vulture with a credit card. I did buy some useful bits and pieces from Eileens including a whacking great file (as advised in a recent article in MRJ) and fell for a beautiful BR mineral wagon from the nice man at Lionheart Trains. I have a photo of one in a train on the Culm Valley line, so I'm allowed...

Here's "Brunel" (I ordered the plates from Guilplates too, great service they do,) with cab-roof and trim and brass beading on the splashers.

And here's progress on the chassis of "Lorna Doone". Another bit of modelling that looks like a Klingon star-ship. It's a brilliant piece of articulated design by Scorpio.

Both kits now require me to look at the inside valve gear so I'm going to go back to "Earl Cawdor's" frames while I have a think about that...

[Castle]

Hi Simon,

 

Outstanding workmanship (or should that be top crafting?) on show here as always. The articulation on the Achillies looks particularly cunning it has to be said. Is there any chance of a couple of pictures to show how the whole thing works please?

 

Don't worry about (especially young) people not making things or appreciating how things are made - the average age of volunteer on the overhaul of Prairie No. 4144 in the Didcot works is just 20 years old. At least two of them are avid railway modellers too. These people are out there, they just need encouraging.

 

Thread hijack over...

 

All the best,

 

Castle

 

[Rob Pulham]

Looking fantastic Simon I just had to do a re-run of the thread to refresh my mind on which was which.

 

You are doing a sterling job of keeping the three builds moving along at the same time.