Finney A3 - Spearmint

[brian marsden]

Hi Christian

 

I have only recently found this article, and become a member because of it. You are doing a brilliant job. I have a Finney A4 that I am building, all be it at a snail's pace. I also have his A1/3 and V2 kits. He seems to have made an error with the placement of the balancing weight of the RHS driving wheel for the A1/3 and A4 but corrected it with the V2; and that is that the leading edges of the weights should line up not the trailing edges. I only found this out after examining several photos, and that was after placing them according to Fig. 17.

One word of warning about getting a lathe and a milling machine, you end up replacing many of the parts with scratchbuilt. I have fallen into that trap and have replaced 90% of the valve gear with parts made from steel. Well, only steel looks like steel.

 

Keep up the great job.

 

Regards,

brian

[Christian]

I have only recently found this article, and become a member because of it. You are doing a brilliant job. I have a Finney A4 that I am building, all be it at a snail's pace. I also have his A1/3 and V2 kits. He seems to have made an error with the placement of the balancing weight of the RHS driving wheel for the A1/3 and A4 but corrected it with the V2; and that is that the leading edges of the weights should line up not the trailing edges. I only found this out after examining several photos, and that was after placing them according to Fig. 17.

 

Hello Brian

 

Thank you for your kind words, Spearmint has become a labour of love and I am very pleased with the results. This is my first attempt at a steam powered locomotive, my previous builds have all been diesel powered.

Interesting point you made regarding the position of the balance weights, I do not have access to many photos so I do not know if they are incorrectly placed or not. Perhaps you might ask Mr Finney about the positioning of these weights, it could be that there was some alterations made to the positioning of these weights during their long lives.

 

One word of warning about getting a lathe and a milling machine, you end up replacing many of the parts with scratchbuilt. I have fallen into that trap and have replaced 90% of the valve gear with parts made from steel. Well, only steel looks like steel.

 

Well I took delivery of a new lathe recently and I already have a list of additional parts to be made or replaced and some of them will be for Spearmint. At present I am setting up the lathe after a full strip down and making adjustments, I can see that it will get lots of use.

I shall post more progress shortly.

[Christian]

Time for a catch up I think,

 

After meeting many at the Telford show last weekend the main question I was asked is 'Hows the A3 coming on?'

Well 'not that fast' is the answer, the summer months seem to have got in the way of modelling along with a career change and many other distractions.

 

I have been working on Spearmint and making progress on the tender, taking photos as I go, but just haven't had the chance to post any on this forum or our website so I shall address this now.

 

I have completed the tenders upper body work and shall now continue with the tenders frames and chassis.

The upper section of the body has been a bit of a challange in places mainly becouse many areas are difficult to clean up properly after soldering. The fit of the parts has been good except the coping plate strengthining ribs which needed a little adjustment to ensure a good fit.

The only change I have made is to change the etched lamp irons with some cast brass replacements.

 

Below I have added a few pictures of the build and there are many more on our website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work shall now continue with the frames and buffer bodies. I have now got a lathe so I want to try and make the buffer assembly with enclosed springing so that it does not foul the chassis frames.

I shall post the results as soon as I have something to show.

[Western Star]

A superb job of that tender body.... I think that I shall take up soft shoe bowling rather than fail to achieve your standard.

 

I like the lamp iron castings - who is the supplier?

 

BTW - where is the hole for the bucket?

 

regards, Graham

[Dan Randall]

You've made a fantastic job on that tender Christian - well done!

 

 

Regards

 

Dan

[Rob Pulham]

You have made a superb job of it Christian. There certainly is a wealth of detail difference between this and the DJH tender although to be fair it does have cast brass lamp irons but very little of that lovely rivet work.

[Pugsley]

Lovely. I hope you're not going to paint that tender, it looks just superb as it is! nice to meet you at Telford BTW.

[Christian]

A superb job of that tender body.... I think that I shall take up soft shoe bowling rather than fail to achieve your standard.

 

I like the lamp iron castings - who is the supplier?

 

The lamp iron castings were supplied by Laurie Griffin, the look great.

 

You've made a fantastic job on that tender Christian - well done!

 

Thanks Dan, I need to finish off the tender frames and chassis now. Can't wait to see the tender finished.

 

You have made a superb job of it Christian. There certainly is a wealth of detail difference between this and the DJH tender although to be fair it does have cast brass lamp irons but very little of that lovely rivet work.

 

Thanks Rob, I have not seen the DJH tender but I am surprised that there is such a difference on the detail. The revit detail does look good but was a real pain to do, I lost count of just how many there were.

 

Lovely. I hope you're not going to paint that tender, it looks just superb as it is! nice to meet you at Telford BTW.

 

Thanks, it will get painted eventually but it shall appear at a couple shows before then. Yes it was nice to meet you too, shame we did not chat for longer as I have been very interested in some of your work.

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks Rob, I have not seen the DJH tender but I am surprised that there is such a difference on the detail. The revit detail does look good but was a real pain to do, I lost count of just how many there were.

 

I managed to get it finished tonight and I would have posted a picture for comparison but I go away tomorrow and the camera is packed. The tender I have is the streamlined version that was fitted to some A3's before they took them for the A4's the plan is that I will build it as Papyrus for a couple of reasons, one being it was the last one to have a corridor tender keeping it until 1937 and the second being I picked up some etched plates very cheap at Halifax.

 

I will post some pics upon my return.

[A_S]

This looks fantastic - Does Finney have a website? I can't seem to find one?

[jazz]

A beautiful build. Thanks for showing the tapered axles for setting up the axle bushes. Much better than the steel rods I use. Metalsmith will be receiving an order.

[Adam]

This looks fantastic - Does Finney have a website? I can't seem to find one?

 

Typing 'Martin Finney' into a well known search engine yields this. Third result down.

 

Adam

[Pinkmouse]

Typing 'Martin Finney' into a well known search engine yields this. Third result down.

 

Which results in a 404 Page Not Found error.

[Jol Wilkinson]

Which results in a 404 Page Not Found error.

 

The site was working a couple of weeks ago when I last looked at it. Perhaps there is a server problem.

 

Why not try the email address shown on the search results page.

[Adam]

Well, it was there earlier - it's certainly where the site has been for about the last 5 years. A hopefully temporary server issue, check back later?

 

Adam

[A_S]

Yes, I did try both google and the Guild traders list before asking the question! I've learnt over the years that people don't take to kindly to what (to them) may seem obvious questions...! Anyway, on with the build, thoroughly enjoying this thread

[Christian]

A beautiful build. Thanks for showing the tapered axles for setting up the axle bushes. Much better than the steel rods I use. Metalsmith will be receiving an order.

 

Thank you for your praise Ken, I always keep an eye on your builds which are quite fantastic and how you manager to build then so quickly and to such high standars is quite beyond me.

Yes the tapered axles are great and weel worth getting as it makes life so much easier.

 

This looks fantastic - Does Finney have a website? I can't seem to find one?

 

Martin Finneys website has been down for a little while now, I did mean to mention it to him at the Telford show but I forgot what with so much else to talk about. He told me that he had been watching my build of Spearmint and praised me for my efforts, I felt very honored.

[jazz]

Not at all Christian. I'm always inspired by such a high quality build. Speed is not everything but quality workmanship, such as you are displaying, is.

 

My builds are fast, yes, but that is due to decades of experience and the daily hours I spend at the w/bench.

 

I had a great time at Telford and really restrain myself, only purchasing two kits for Pen y Cwm. (I felt I had to support Mike, the new Agenoria owner, and purchased yet another ex GWR loco from his range.)

[Christian]

Hello everyone, thought I'd give you an update.

 

Painfully slow progress, so many things seem to get in the way but winter is coming so hopefully will give me a little more time for my hobbies.

 

You will recall that I have had an issue with the buffers for the tender becouse the ones included in the kit will fould the side frames. The options would appear to be either move the buffers inwards by approximately 1.5mm each or have non-working buffers.

 

Obviously I am not interested in either option, the buffers must be in their correct position and they must work. The only solution would be to make the buffers a self contained unit just like the real thing, no pun intended. A self contained unit would not have the thread and nut sticking out the back of the buffer body so there would be no danger of it fouling the side frames.

 

I have had a few ideas how to go about this and a few of you have made some good suggestions, but all ideas really require the use of a lathe. We have touched on this subject here, the pros and cons of getting a lathe, well I decided that it was time that I made the investment and a little while ago I received a lathe and some basic tooling. So add that to the price of Spearmint, the cost of the lathe? £700.00, the satisfaction of having working self contained buffers? priceless! Why do we get ourselves involved in this hobby?????????????

 

The following pictures show the parts I made and the modifications to both the buffer body and head and should explain how it all works.

Basically the buffer body was turned so that the rear face was flush then drilled with a 3mm hole.

In this hole goes a brass section that I turned to fit this hole, the brass section was drilled all the way through 1.7mm and partly drilled 2.8mm. This alows me to use a 10BA brass chesshead bolt with the head turned down to 2.75mm.

The steel buffer head has had the thread removed and has been drilled and tapped 10BA.

 

 

Here you can see the completed buffer assemblies, the brass section was soldered to the buffer head using 180 degree solder, this will then allow me to solder the assembly to the chassis using 145 degree solder without any fear the I will undo any of the previous work.

 

 

Here the buffer are now fitted to the chassis, I have also fited out some of the detail.

 

 

 

 

So that is where I am upto, with all the heavy soldering out of the way, I now need to fit all of the white metal castings and the tender will be finished.

 

For anyone that is interested, Myself, Simon and Dave of Building O Giage Online will be demonstrating at the Warley show thisyear on 20th & 21st November 2010. Stand E27.

I shall be taking Spearmint to the show and she will be on display for the weekend, you are all welcome to come and visit us for a chat during the weekend, I love demonstration shows, so much fun and a good laugh, we will all be happy to answer any questions during the weekend, hope to see some of you there.

[dikitriki]

Bravo Christian!

 

I had to think through what you'd done, but it all made sense. It's filed away for use on future BR standard front buffer beams where the requirement for self-contained buffers is obvious - and on the Fairburn for that matter

 

One improvement I would offer would be to not drill all the way through the buffer head, and then use a bottoming tap in the hole (ie blind tap). You could use ThreadLok or something similar to retain the buffer head, and it might also then be possible to dismantle for painting if you can still extract the bolt from behind the buffer beam.

 

Whatever, nice work.

 

Richard

[Adrian]

Bravo Christian!

Hear! Hear! Beautiful clean work once again.

 

I had to think through what you'd done, but it all made sense.

I can't match the quality of the photo's but I put a few drawings on my website of a very similar arrangement which might help. http://www.cherrycla...ungbuffers.html

 

One improvement I would offer would be to not drill all the way through the buffer head, and then use a bottoming tap in the hole (ie blind tap)

I think I'll try this next time - it's just the fear of breaking the tap with a 10BA blind hole in steel.

[Ressaldar]

Hi Christian,

 

the absolute dogs doodahs, brilliant. Looking forward to seeing the completed loco.

 

regards

 

Mike

[Silverstreak]

Ive just spent the afternoon catching up on a number of threads including this one and its clear Christian that your workmanship is of the very highest order. Perhaps Ive missed something along the way but dare I ask at this late stage why you have selected the Finney streamlined non corridor tender for your BR version of 60100. The tender kit is mainly for the A4 class and although at least three A3's did run with this particular type 60100 was never one of them.

 

In double chimney form along with smoke - deflectors the example you are completing could easily become 60046, 60084 or 60103 but not 60100 The inaccuracy to the prototype does not however distract from your superb workmanship.

 

No matter how hard I try I have never achieved the cleanincy of work reached by your goodself

 

Regards

Bob

[Christian]

Perhaps Ive missed something along the way but dare I ask at this late stage why you have selected the Finney streamlined non corridor tender for your BR version of 60100. The tender kit is mainly for the A4 class and although at least three A3's did run with this particular type 60100 was never one of them.

 

In double chimney form along with smoke - deflectors the example you are completing could easily become 60046, 60084 or 60103 but not 60100

 

Hello Bob,

 

A very good observation regarding the tender, yes it is wrong for Spearmint. The locomotive has been modelled on Spearmint as I have a good selection of photos to go on but if I am honest I have never really paid much attention to the tender until I was a considerable way through constructing it.

 

So at the moment I am unsure what to do, I would not really have a particulqar problem with re-naming and re-numbering Spearmint if I can be sure that what I have modelled is a true match to the prototype, I shall have to give it some more thought. As I am so far through with the build I shall keep it as it is at the moment, perhaps later I could get the right tender and sell this one for someone builing an A4. It will be a long way off until I get around to the stages of painting and numbering so my options are still very much open right now.

[Silverstreak]

So at the moment I am unsure what to do, I would not really have a particulqar problem with re-naming and re-numbering Spearmint if I can be sure that what I have modelled is a true match to the prototype, I shall have to give it some more thought. As I am so far through with the build I shall keep it as it is at the moment, perhaps later I could get the right tender and sell this one for someone builing an A4. It will be a long way off until I get around to the stages of painting and numbering so my options are still very much open right now.

 

Hi Christian

From what I recall the A3's that would fit your period and current tender are 60046 Diamond Jubilee, 60084 Trigo or the well known Ftying Scotsman. The other one was 60095 but it never received German type smoke deflectors. While you are deciding it is worth mentioning that David Andrews supplies a tender just right for 60100 Spearmint and even DJH may be able to supply one. You mention an option may be to sell the tender on. Hmmm, after all your efforts and superb workmanship I would recomment keeping it to marry up with a Finney A4. I finished one last year, it really is a super kit.

 

All of this reminds me of an episode which took place a fair few years ago when I was into 4mm. I was building an A3 and decided it should be married up with a tender which at the time was not available in kit form. So I had a go at scratch building one and I have to say I was pretty proud of it. Anyway the loco entered the fleet of an exhibition layout I was involved with and not long after we took it to a venue "North of the border". My pride was soon dented when during the course of the weekend it was pointed out to me on a number of occasions that it never ran in that period or format with that particular tender. Back home a quick peruse of the RCTS Locomotives of the LNER 2A confirmed my mistake and the loco entered the works and came out as another Scottish stalwart.

 

I only mention the above because your A3 is a model of such high quality and workmanship it deserves to be just right

Regards

Bob