A Highland by-way, latest some SER kits

[M Wright]

Hi, I am new to this medium so I hope you will all bare with me as I find my feet.  This is the start of an odessy that began 35 years ago when I collected enough information to start building my first fine scale loco in O gauge.  I have always been interested in the Highland Railway its development, its stock, its operation, the scenery it passed through, the economic change it caused to the North of Scotland.  So 35 years ago I started to build a Jones Skye Bogie loco. It was not easy. It was built in our first house as our first child was on the way 3 months longer than he took to make the engine was finished. It ran on its 2 yards of track and had a glass case made for it.   It  moved with us over the next decades and was after a few years joined by a scratch built timber wagon.

Over the last year it has escaped its glass cage, been test run, re-built, and after 6 months has finally achieved its aim.  It runs reliably on the nearby large layout of a kind friend. 

I hope what I plan will not bore you but I want to tell you a bit about the loco's build (and re-build)  the stock that has been made for it to pull, and the start of planning its eventual home . A bit of the Buckie Branch.  Below,( hopefully) is a photo of it pulling its 11 wagon train on my friend's railway.

Skye bogie No86 pulling a Lochgorm Sheep Wagon

Edited September 3, 2014 by M Wright

[M Wright]

Well the photo posted OK, so now a start. How was the Skye bogie built?

                                                                   

 

A side view of No 86.

The model was started using the known dimensions and an old Skinley (I think) dyeline drawing. I had some help. At the time I was a member of the MRC in Oxford and they met at the time behind the OPC shop at Headington.  I had just cut the frames out using the technique of making a tracing off the plan and gluing it to two bits of brass strip soldered together when I saw in OPC window "The History of Highland Locomotives" by Peter Tatlow, The second edition had just been published in 1979.  Well the drawings were compared and many corrections had to be made to the Skinley drawing.  So a fresh start was made.  Now the Oxford model railway club was full of excellent scratch builders and talking to them I decided to try to raise my game.  So the new spec for the loco was the result.  It would be fully compensated and or sprung, all platework to be as close to scale thickness as possible and the simplest way to build it would be to follow a good prototype drawing.  Time spent going through drawings in the Scottish Record Office, help from Prof Peter Walker in Edinburgh, a keen Highland modeller in 4mm got me sight of some old drawings from Lochgorm Works so how the Allan front end was assembled became clearer.  I felt I had enough to start again.

The locomotive is tender powered. The front of the locomotive, smokebox,cylinders, outside frames and footplate and drawbeam is one unit.  The rear of the inside frames holding the sprung and equalised driving wheels(grooved square axleboxes, there is a rocking beam between them that  is lightly sprung with PB wire) slide freely in slots is a separate unit that plugs into the front. The joint is made by the driving frame front cross member having a rectangular plate that engages with a matching socket in the front frame cross member.   The cylinders have twin slide bars attached at the rear to the outside frame.  The crossheads were cut from nickel silver and filed to shape.  They were soldered to a bit of strip and the slots for the slide bars milled  using tiny cuts with a slot drill in a Unimat lathe.  The connecting rods were cut from 1/8" nickel silver(NS) strip and filed slowly to shape.  The ends were forked by silver soldering on a fork made from NS sheet excess solder was used so that the forged nature could be replicated  They were then detailed with brasses ,wedges etc. To the rear of the slidebars is another plate.  To erect the assembly the piston rod has to be fed into its bore and the crosshead pushed past the minimal clearance between the slide bar support bracket and the outside frames. I was starting to see why I was told this was not a loco to attempt as a first build.  However it was starting to look like an HR loco.  Next time I will deal with the other more arcane problems the Jones locos throw up. 

[3 link]

Hi,

 

Great, fire away you certainly will not bore me and I'm sure I am not the only who would be interested in the history of your loco and your plans for the future.

 

Your loco looks very much at home on your friends layout, the scenery looks very realistic and certainly captures the highland theme.

 

ATB,

 

Martyn.

[Ben Alder]

Lovely stuff- good to see another HR project take shape. Please do keep posting details on this.

 

Richard

[Londontram]

Lovely stuff- good to see another HR project take shape. Please do keep posting details on this.

 

Richard

Now Richard you know what the doctors said about looking at images of HR loco's at that time of night - you know its not good for you! 

[Bulwell Hall]

Malcolm Wright - now there's a name from the past!  I wondered where you dissapeared to all those years ago!  I too was a member of the Oxford MRC back in those long ago days at Headington.  Glad to see you still retain your interest - I remember being impressed when you built the 'Skye Bogie' and it is good to hear that it has been revived.

 

Best wishes

 

Gerry Beale

[Portchullin Tatty]

Looks fabulous Martin but then I am probably considered biased on such topics!

 

The Crewe framed locos are jolly difficult to build because clearances are so tight and the curves of the smokebox/cylinder wrapper are difficult to capture nicely.  You have done a grand job of this as she definitely looks the part.

 

It is great to see another Highland Modeller on the forum; we are slowly taking it over..............!

[Sandy Harper]

Will we need to start buying the Continental Modeller after next September?

Sandy

[M Wright]

Hi, it is great to have such kind replies. I have followed Portchullin Tatty and Sandy Harper on these pages with great admiration for the atmosphere captured in your models. Gerry Beale great to be in contact with you again after at least 35 years!(I have seen your name frequently in MRJ linked to some stunning bit of stock) I have been busy in research then in education, tertiary and secondary before retiring in 2006. We moved back up to our Scottish roots  in 1990.  While working and now in retirement  we have operated  a business that makes fine scale steam locomotives. We have been at that for 40 years off and on. I will share a bit of that on this post from time to time too.  It might interest some to recount the learning curve of etching, tool making and mastering parts for different types of casting.  Tomorrow when I have a bit of time I will post again with some more about making No 86.  Like you too ,since last Tuesday I have been wondering if I will have to post in the Continental Modeller! Malcolm.

[Portchullin Tatty]

It might interest some to recount the learning curve of etching, tool making and mastering parts for different types of casting.  Tomorrow when I have a bit of time I will post again with some more about making No 86.  Like you too ,since last Tuesday I have been wondering if I will have to post in the Continental Modeller! Malcolm.

 

 

Yes please; I am on my own learning curve doing much the same now.

[M Wright]

Hi, a bit more about building No86. Some of you have commented about tight clearances on these locos, they are.  The loco as I said in the intro is fully beam equalised and sprung. The bogie is  like the real thing in that it  has sprung side control. It can rotate on its kingpin by less than 10 degrees without hitting something but can displace sideways by about 2mm.  None of this was calculated I am not that sort of modeller.  I make something to the drawing and if it works in scale fine, if not I remake it with some new idea (usually a poor one) and go on until there is some sort of solution.  The driving wheels have little or no side play, so I thought. I had realised by this stage of the build that squeezing in a crank pin was going to be tricky.  However the loco runs through 6 foot radius points and can manage about 5 foot 9inch as its minimum radius. 

                                                                                Not much space

The bogie really does pull the loco into the curve.  The loco is  on the american principle.  The loco is live to one rail, the tender to the other, i e no pickups.  The downside is one side has wheels insulated at the hub and the crankpins are in insulated bushes. Not one to take chances the piston rod runs in a tufnol bush and tube.  The crankpins themselves are silver steel pins 10BA theaded for the hub. The rods are bronze bushed but not to the full thickness of the rod,  The pin makes up the rest of the bush with a shoulder plus 10 thou and provides a thin head to retain the bush and joint. The heads started off as 15thou thick but running on a real railway showed there was side play in the drivers and the heads have been thinned to about 8 thou now.  They are put in with a little tool that has two short pins on it. 

                                                                                The crankpin

 

The crankpins are retained in the hubs with a bit of loctite (yes, one did unscrew, 20 minutes with a magnet found the bit!)

 

The last bit today is solving how to fill in the space between the front cylinder covers and the frames. I tried cutting and forming but every atempt looked untidy.  My wife solved it by putting the cats bell on the bench and telling me if I cut it  it would give me the  panels.  I did what I was told and it worked.  The cat was pleased too. His kill rate lept up.

                                                                              The cat's bell made four sements

Next time  the chimney, cab roof and some bits and bobs, and I discover etching.  Malcolm.

[M Wright]

Hi, I make boiler mounted details using the formed flange method.  Turn the end of brass rod to a bell shape.  The main diameter being the diameter of the dome / chimney etc.  The skirt of the bell being at least the diameter of the base when viewed from the side.  The inside is bored out to leave at least 1/16" wall on the main part and the belled part has its wall tapered to about 10 thou. The whole thing is then heated to red and quenched.  Then the saddle is formed by sqeezing the bell down onto a steel rod the diameter of the boiler.  Then it is back into the lathe to turn the skirt circular and profile the rest of the rod to shape.  If the part is to be a master for lost wax make it 2-3% larger and solder the feeds inside. 

                                                                   Some masters for a new Lochgorm kit

 

This way the flange is not damaged and if it is riveted they stay nice and crisp.  The Jones dome on 86 was made in four parts- base ,chimney inner and outer, and top.  The louvers were produced in my first attempt at etching.  The louver slots were protected with tiny rectangles of tape.  The inside and outside was painted with enamel,  After a couple of days the tape was removed and I put the part into warm Ferric chloride soln.after half an hour the slots were etched though.

                                                                                my first go at etching

 

After this etching  became more used by me.  However to be really useful I had to wait 10 years to get my first Mac and a drawing packeage- Freehand.  Since then I have used etching in pattern making and in production for the plate work for my 16mm locos. If is amazing what is possible with etching.

                              This is coilliery headframe kit that I designed using Freehand a few years ago. I cannot think of another way to replicate such a structure in 4mm or  2mm scale. Malcolm.

[Portchullin Tatty]

Did you see my article on making Jones louvred chimneys in the Highland Railway Journal?  It was ten if not more years ago now (but can be found in the Society disk).

 

In essence I cut thin slots with a piercing saw through 50% of the chimney at the top of each of the louvres; ie I ignored the intermediate posts and also going further either side.  From this I filed downwards at an angle from the slot to create the appropriate slope to the louvre - again I ignored the intermediate posts and the notional end to the louvre on either side.  You have to do this to get the angled slope to go around the full amount evenly (where it tapers as it leaves the curve of the chimney should be outside of the final louvred area).

 

Then I flooded the whole lot with solder; which I then filed it back to the profile of the chimney.  If you wash solder in hot water, it oxidises to a grey so it is easy to see when the profile has been reformed and where the slots are hidden in solder.  With a scalpel, you can then cut the slots out; this time retaining the intermediate posts and getting the louvres to finish on either side to the correct degree.  As the solder is much softer than the brass, it is quite easy to do this to pick up the angled slot formed in the brass, the solder being left untouched at the intermediate posts.

 

This sounds complicated but actually is not that bad (and I think I described it better in the original article!).  The forming of slots takes maybe an hour?

 

 

PS the headframe and the turnings are very nice!

Edited February 16, 2014 by Portchullin Tatty

[M Wright]

Hi, very interesting to hear how another modeller (Portchullin Tatty) tackled the louvres on the chimney.  Your method sounds a lot simpler.  If I ever buid another Jones engine I will give your method a go.  Although I might take another route.  An old friend  was telling me about 3D printing.  Until recently he would sit down , or if busy would hire model makers to make the masters for his loco kits.  His kits are fantastic with lost wax casting counts into the hundereds.  He said at least £15000 would be invested to make the masters or a couple of months of his time, if he did it. Clearly this level of upfront cost limits the kits you can produce to those you know will recover your investment risk.  Now he has tremendous skill at CAD so some years ago he took the time to learn 3D software and used a bureau to print the masters in wax that he has draughted. He now gets all the masters for under £2000 (not forgetting his time at the screen) It seems the way forward, especially if you produce models commercially as I do. Malcolm

[M Wright]

Hi, I thought it might be more interesting to show you what I am doing now.  I will return to the Skye Bogie later. Over the last few months in odd moments I have been building a HR goods train.

                                                                 A couple I made earlier

I decided to clear out my projects box so have just started to build the second Lochgorm Kits fish truck. It is amazing how fast you forget how you did something.  In this case  I did'nt make a note of the problemsencountered and their solution.  This is an interesting prototype but my it takes a lot of work to build.

The sides fold over themselves to give prototype thickness and forming the solebars  in the multifold operation.  The designer used a perforated line rather than a half etch for the solebar and half etch for the folded over body sides.  The ends are folded over too, this time the fold is at the bottom rather than the top.

                                                                  Side view , not too bad, the perforated fold line just visible.

The problems of this construction are the sizes of the formed components do not necessarily match. Also it is difficult without bending bars to achieve a clean form for the solebar edges since the gaps in the bendline bend differently from the strips of solid metal of the perforation.  The problem only shows up when you assemble the body.

                                                                 The buffer plate base is not level with the solebar base. Filing the sole bar ends not too obvious?

Resolving this is not simple since there is a detailed overlay that after embossing attaches to the solebar. This and the solebar are deeper than the buffer plate.  My first solution was file the solebar at its end.  To start with this looked OK but as the kit proceeds it gets better and better looking becoming a lovely model and the bodgers solution of filing stood out more and more. My solution was to shear some thin brass into a 2mm strip and solder it onto the solebar end to look like the thickness of the buffer beam.  I will post this photo next and seek opinions. To my mind these kits are so worth the effort. Mr Copp of Lochgorm Models is to be praised for making such characterful stock available.  There don't seem to be many kits arround that capture  the late Victorian design era so well.

[M Wright]

Hi, well that has been a long break from this blog. It has all been real world problems 30 year old kids' careers, mum in the nursing home, most of you will get the picture.  I have found time to nearly finish the Lochgorm fish wagon.

I think it will be in olive to match the other one. I am not too sure if they were even painted.  There is a photo of a line of them on the dock at Kyle.  None of them have any inscriptions  and most look to be in bare wood, Hi Ho we will never know now. 

 The business side of the workshop has been pushing on, a batch of 5 Baldwin Gas Mechanicals in 16mm scale is nearly done.

They look quite nice on the bench.  It has been interesting following the Neil Sayer kit build of the same loco in O scale on this site. 

Talking to Neil he said his kit had been partly inspired by seeing one of my BGMs some years ago.  I wish I had had the sense to cast the bonnet and gear box  in resin rather that make all those patterns for ABS to cast for me! The last photo is the first one finished ready for painting. Another 4 following on.

[Y Ddewin gwyn]

Awesome head frames, though I can get away with modelling them in wood! Lovely Highland locos and stock. Those flares and curves look a bit daunting.

[M Wright]

Hi, thanks for the compliment YDdewin gwyn.  It was sheep wagons that got me into Highland.  From a bit of looking around on the web I should have moved to Australia since sheep wagons seemed to have been common and varied and so many pretty, charming rural branch lines to model.  As for the curves, the loco was built long ago (see above) pre- computer.  So all the cuvers were worked out  the metal bashers way, find out how much metal is needed by laying a paper strip or thead along the curve.  Then mark where flat changes to curve and start the first bend and so on.  The hard part, the smokebox /cylinders was done this way and finished by filing  and cutting the extra metal back to the smokebox front and rear plates when the curve was right and soldered to them. Regards, Malc.

[M Wright]

Hi, well after a bit more work I thought I  would share with you what is happening in my workshop.  At last a small batch of Baldwin 50HP gas mechanical locos are finished.

Four finished locos sitting on the guillotine, no other space to put anything down!

Below is a close up photo of one of them.  They are 16mm scale, powered by a gear head motor driving a bevel gear box on the rear axle.  They are battery powered, and like the prototype have only two speeds in forwards and reverse. The frames are laser cut steel, bonnet, radiator and cosmetic jackshaft gearbox are white metal castings.  The plate work is etched brass  and the majority of the details are lost wax castings.

A close up shot of one of them. 

I have been following a thead on this forum where a Neil Sayer kit of the same engine in 7mm scale is being built.  There has been an interesting discussion on it about the use of resin for some of the parts and the fact that there use prevents a fully soldered construction of a kit.  I see no draw backs to resin, most good quality kits today are mixed media.  Provided the designer uses materials  suited to the job, who cares, as long as the end result is durable and looks like the prototype. 

Next time back to the Highland with some bits and pieces finished off.  Regards, Malc.

[M Wright]

Hi,  just before coming South to do a show a Peterborough I thought some of you might like a peek at my bread and butter.  I build commercially in 16mm scale, so although not Highland its the next best, Welsh slate quarries.  Here is a pic of the first production prototype of my Hunslet Alice class live steam. Regards, Malc.

                                                     

 

[M Wright]

Hi, just back from a show, the 16mm AGM in Peterborough and a holiday, 14 days at our house in France.  So now it is back to the grindstone starting to draw up the platework of the Hunslet so that it can be etched.  I purchased a kit from a company called Swift Sixteen at the AGM an  armoured Simplex.   Nice kit in resin , ethched brass and lost wax brass.  It is complete with a well made chassis.  It took two days to build. A very nice model. A photo follows.

[M Wright]

Hi, as promised yesterday here is the latest off the bench, a tin turtle.(Armoured 40HP simplex)  This has taken two days from a very nice kit made by Swift Sixteen.  It is 32mm gauge 16mm scale and a pretty accurate model.  Well designed with a RTR chassis, a nice introduction to garden railway modelling and very appropriate in the centenary year of the Great War.  The prototype is at Apedale who are having quite a gathering of WD stock in September,a good chance to see a lot.

Another of my interests as you will know if you follow this forum is the Highland Railway in O scale. The latest item to reach the finish line is a Lochgorm kits HR Jones 4 wheel luggage van /brake.  Not too challenging to build but as the sharp eyed will see I had problems with the transfers.  Inspite of gloss varnishing the panels before application and using Humbrol decal set the wretched things have a slight crinkle to their edges.  These were very expensive waterslide transfers that I have used before with no problems. I am annoyed they are not 100% reliable since their application is the penultimate stage of a long road.  If I can face it one day I will dump the van into gun cleaner and start again.  In the short term, fix the glazing and not look at it too closely!

[M Wright]

Hi, well I have taken some timeaway from the 16mm bench and got back to the Highland.  For a bit of light relief I decided to build a Jones designed Highland Railway 6 wheel coupé coach.  This is available in 7mm as a Lochgorm kit.

 

I learnt a bit building the luggage van (above). One lesson was that the sides bow when soldering on the  door hinge strips,and it is simpler to get the hinges the right length before soldering them on!  Two simple jigs were knocked up this time.  The first is a trimming jig to get them all the same length.  After cutting I file them flat to the jig and profile the side to look like a hinge.

The other is a simple help a bit of MDF with a saw cut to take the hinges while the strip is pressed down and soldered.  The side is held down too with a flat weight near to the joint.  Starting soldering from one end of the hinge strip this time the  side stayed flat.  Because the hinge slots are badly over etched,  flux , a big hot iron and a lot of solder is needed.

The last photo shows the side from the front. The overspill of solder can be quickly scraped flat to leave the sides looking OK.

Next is to fold up the ventiators and mount them to the sides and make the coupé ends.  There are rather a lot of instructions and hints how to do the ends in the instructions so I am hoping it is not going to be impossible.  I will report on progress next week.

[M Wright]

Hi, a bit more progress on the Highland 6 wheel coach.  I would have got further if the floor etch had been the right size when formed.  The bit I was dreading, the chariot end panels, were ok.  Do not believe the instructions, they cannot in my opinion be formed without annealing and being skrawed in from the bottom edge to give a tiny sharp bend where they solder behind the bottom panel bead.  The  length and width problem was just annoying. The upstands on the floor had to taken off and soldered on having filed off the foldline plus about 0.4mm.  Then it was possible to hold a side on to check the fit of the end. Only then (fortunately) to discover the floor was too long, but that was a lot quicker to sort out with a file.

 

The coach looks OK, it is so fussy design wise that you don't see many of the faults in my workmanship.  I still need to make the chassis.  Does anyone know a source of  6 foot long cast whitemetal coach springs? Ideally just the springs without any mount brackets. I know where I can get lost wax brass ones but they are bit expensive and need altering to fit. 

Did any other railway have coaches with these chariot ends?  Thanks. Malc.

[Portchullin Tatty]

Nice to see you back on the Highland stuff.

 

The chariot ended vehicles do have a charm of their own.   Have you seen the Jones bogie tri-composite.  Now they are fun!