West End Workbench

[Compound2632]

You can't have too many of those D1666 open wagons - they came to be about 18% of the LMS wagon fleet. 'Tis a pity it's not a Parkside kit.

[jwealleans]

I expect Mr. Cambrian sees things slightly differently....

[Wingman Mothergoose]

Good morning Jonathan, thought I'd say hi here as well on the LNER Modellers group!

Loving your thread, there's some truly beautiful stock here. Puts my efforts with my Kirk twin sets to shame and shows me up for the novice I am!

 

Chris

[jwealleans]

There's never any shame in making things, Chris.  As long as you enjoy it and each one's a little better than the last, who can knock it?   It's only a hobby after all.

[jwealleans]

Today's main focus of attention.  These have come quite a way since they left Margate, one for Fine Fish and the other Weetabix.  They've also been kicking around part completed for far too long, so hurrah for motivation and Wizard Models excellent service.

 

[Compound2632]

54 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

These have come quite a way since they left Margate, one for Fine Fish and the other Weetabix.  

 

 

Their own mother wouldn't recognise them. 

[gr.king]

Cue an even longer fish and / or meat train, with increased H & B representation?

[jwealleans]

Unless Red Leader's extending the loops on the scenic side without telling us, I can't see much scope for lengthening the train.   However, keen viewers may detect increased rotation of stock within the current 25 + BV limit.

 

Of course, a keen North End operator could add further wagons in time for the train's second, non-stop, appearance and then remove them before we tick back around to Move 1......

[gr.king]

Given that he generally has nothing else to do?

[Barry O]

shows how often he does the North End Fiddle yard..

 

Baz

[jwealleans]

The last time I operated North End, I had my feet metaphorically and literally up on the table and was watching rugby with Mrs. King.   I know a slacker's gig when I come across one.

[Barry O]

13 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

The last time I operated North End, I had my feet metaphorically and literally up on the table and was watching rugby with Mrs. King.   I know a slacker's gig when I come across one.

was that cos the station was out of action???  Or someone else had done all of teh set remarshalling..or we had gone on strike???

 

Baz

[jwealleans]

I can't remember what show it was now.   I don't especially recall any signal failures or lanyards on the line.   Maybe the previous shift had left everything set up 12 moves in advance?

[Barry O]

well not quite 12 as you get some sets in which then get altered using stock from other trains..And, of course you have to grab a particular coach from South Fiddle Yard to ad to a train..

 

Baz

[LMS29]

On 29 April 2020 at 12:41, Barry O said:

well not quite 12 as you get some sets in which then get altered using stock from other trains..And, of course you have to grab a particular coach from South Fiddle Yard to ad to a train..

 

Baz

 

It would be a lot easier to leave them on display in the siding near the South Box and not disturb the smooth 'running' in North fiddle yard.

 

Tom

[jwealleans]

Nice to bring something almost to the stage of completion.  If I'd got my finger out it could have been done a month ago, but what is there to rush for at the moment?   Final interior completed at the weekend and fitted yesterday, so with glue now dry it was all on to assembly.  Still some minor height and alignment tweaks to make but it's essentially there.  Posed with a part-weathered Great Northern for effect.

 

 

 

 

 

Just to catch you up on some other recent projects; the J6 is awaiting the chance to be test run, so is unlikely to see any more work until that's done.

 

 

H & B vans are about done, just need more varnish and then weathering.

 

 

I started another J6, this one from LRM, at the weekend.  This is a very different kettle of fish from the NuCast one - hopefully much better in the crispness of the result, but up to now what I'd call faltering progress.   The rods don't quite match the frames and I had to replace the supplied bearings as there would have been barely any material left in the hornblock cutouts if I'd reamed them out that far.  I also had to put leading and trailing bearings in inside the frames to allow any sideplay and thin down the centre ones a fair way to get the wheels to turn.  Tony Wright kindly brought out the pictures of the one he built some years ago and posted them on 'Wright Writes', which promises to be very useful   We'll see how it goes.

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by jwealleans
Spelling.

[Tony Teague]

Jonathan

May I pose a question to you please?

I have been looking for some suitable lamp irons to fit to a couple of SR brake vans that have none.

I have the Mainly Trains MT187 etch but that doesn't seem to offer anything that really resemples either the side mounted irons, nor the centre back mounted one.

Is there anything more suitable available or does one simply have to make something from brass strip or staples?

Any help appreciated!

Tony

[Daddyman]

If it's the same MT etch I had some years ago, for locos, it looks like it was designed for 5mm scale and is best binned!

 

Brassmasters do some off their Finney locos, and Silver Tay models (only an ebay shop, it seems) have some too. Both are recommended. 

[cctransuk]

2 hours ago, Daddyman said:

If it's the same MT etch I had some years ago, for locos, it looks like it was designed for 5mm scale and is best binned!

 

I'd have said that it would be overscale for 7mm. !

 

The Silver Tay etchings are good - I bought several.

 

John Isherwood.

[Tony Teague]

5 hours ago, Daddyman said:

If it's the same MT etch I had some years ago, for locos, it looks like it was designed for 5mm scale and is best binned!

 

Brassmasters do some off their Finney locos, and Silver Tay models (only an ebay shop, it seems) have some too. Both are recommended. 

 

3 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

I'd have said that it would be overscale for 7mm. !

 

The Silver Tay etchings are good - I bought several.

 

John Isherwood.

 

Thanks both - a very helpful recommendation.

I wasn't aware of Silver Tay models but they certainly have a good range.

Unfortunately, lamp itons are out of stock!

But I am a patient chap.

Tony

[jwealleans]

Evening Tony,

 

You seem to have been helped without my having to do anything, which is all to the good.   My advice would have been no more useful than staples or bent wire if you needed the lamp irons to be functional.  I hadn't come across Silver Tay models either.

 

Now, let me tell you all a little story.  Are we all sitting comfortably?  Regular readers may recall this picture which appeared on this thread on the 5th.  

 

 

I had a communication from a concerned reader in Grimsburg who thought that although this is supposed to be a J6 of the 536 batch, the boiler position was too far forward and closer to that for a 521.  Now I confess that this having been built once, I simply rebuilt the same components in the same places, given that it had all been made to fit like that and it looked like a J6 to me.  However, once you have an idea planted in your head....  I thought the NuCast kit would only make a 536, the cab is clearly for one of those, none of the descriptions of building the kit have ever mentioned shortening the boiler or smokebox to my recollection... but I kept looking at that front overhang above the valves and it kept nagging at me.   Then said concerned reader kindly sent me a drawing (I only had one for the 521) which showed that the whole thing stuck forward too far.  I reckon it's a combination of cab a little too far forward on the running plate, smokebox not as far onto the boiler as it should be (that unit did not come apart when the rest of the loco did) and boiler/firebox maybe a touch too long.  Anyway, what to do?

 

The obvious thing would have been to take it off the front of the smokebox, but that would have meant relocating the chimney and snifter and also making a piece of new cladding to extend the smokebox backwards as it would then have been too short.  That sounded like a lot of work and probably not something I was likely to make undetectable.  There was really only one thing for it:

 

 

Remarkably, after a night in paint stripper then a sudden immersion in boiling water, very little fell off.   A twist with a large screwdriver popped boiler and smokebox away and the rest was left to cool so as not to disturb it too much.  I then took a big bastard file (not a technical term) to the back of the firebox.

 

This was the result:

 

 

Much less overhang and the firebox front better positioned in relation to the centre splasher.  Once the rest of the bits had been recovered from the bowl and reinstated and the whole thing washed, dried and primed again, I stuck up a new picture for appraisal by the discerning and knowledgeable cognoscenti of the LNER forum....

 

 

... and no-one could tell the difference.  Well, I know.  Hopefully when I've finished the LRM one the differences will be much more apparent.

 

Speaking of which, I spent much of the day today working on that.

 

 

Frankly, I made a bit of a hash of it.   I started by fettling the rods, after all that malarkey about whether they matched the frames.   Well, they took almost no work to run smoothly, so if there ever was a difference then there isn't now.   That bit was fine.  Then I set off into the body construction.  Cab... fine, use fuse wire for the beading so it's rounded (tip from TW), make sure it's square on the footplate... check....add the splashers... check...middle one might be a bit short but we have fixing plates to add which will hide it.  Then on to the boiler.  I used some wire to hold it in shape as Tony Wright's build mentioned that the overlays didn't quite match the diameter of the boiler and he ended up with a gap.   What you then do is add a series of overlays which built out the smokebox to the right thickness and also make up the steps in the cladding where boiler and smokebox meet.   One of those shifted as or after I put the next layer on and by the time I spotted it it was all too firmly made up to take apart, so the visible step in the cladding tapers away to nothing part way round the boiler.  I may be able to fabricate something, I'll give it a couple of days and have a look again.   I was also pleased to have followed Tony's advice and made the saddle part of the footplate assembly rather than the boiler as when I offered it up the boiler rose almost 1mm towards the front.  I was able to file a slot on the underside for the front of the saddle to slip into and so it will end up level.   At the moment it's just sitting on there as I think it'll be easier to do anything about the cladding with it separate.  

 

It's looking pleasingly like a J6 up to now, though and the larger cab and cutouts are quite visibly different to the later series example behind it.  

 

One project which is now finished is the Bachmann ROD for Ormesby Hall:

 

 

It was only waiting for crew and fire irons and me to get my finger out.  It can go back in the box now in the hope we may be able to run it this season.  Plates for these are available from 247 Developments.

 

Also on the bench today, after the kits were mentioned on Sir's thread, an Acro GW Crocodile H.  This has now acquired a load courtesy of Duha.

 

 

The chains need toning down and tensioning and then it'll be done.   Hopefully this week.

 

 

[Barry O]

and there's me getting a chewing for not getting a ex LMS 4F incorrect (it needs to be left hand drive not right hand) Luckily it should be a lot easier than the two J6 whatsits you are building...

 

Baz

Edited May 18, 2020 by Barry O

[JamieR4489]

I don’t know how different the Nucast kit is from the SEF one but in the latter they provide parts to make the 521 series engines. The kit is primarily designed for the 536 series, though.

I must have spent a good few minutes looking at the photos on the LNER forum but the only difference I could see was the front vac pipe looked a bit wonky in one. Now that I look at it the second picture does look much more like a J6.

[jwealleans]

Bear in mind that I bought this built, so any spare parts were long gone.  I did have a copy of the NuCast instructions but if there were any alternative parts I didn't take much notice, I was mainly concerned with making sure I had everything for the loco as was, knowing I'd do the other kit as a 521.  I was surprised that front vac pipe survived, it was the first thing I thought would fall off.  I expect it will, probably somewhere near the Ruston factory in front of crowds 6 deep whenever we next get to take Grantham anywhere.

[LMS29]

9 hours ago, jwealleans said:

 I expect it will, probably somewhere near the Ruston factory in front of crowds 6 deep whenever we next get to take Grantham anywhere.

 

The yard near Rushton factory is full of your 50 wagons, but you could put it with your van in the siding at the front near South Box. It would be much nearer the admiring crowds and out of our way!

 

Tom