Steve's Caledonian loco work bench

[lofty1966]

Well what can I say its just shear dedication to duty.

 

Just One quick picture to show the replacement buffer beam in place and a little bit of filler on the join line where it broke and its almost as good as it was before. I'm afraid I've not had a chance to do any more in the last couple of days

Dunalastair 1 almost as good as new.jpg

Looking at the front of the boiler it looks like I'm going to have to have another go at scraping off more of the old molded hand rail as well before I go any further

Tis a thankless task scraping off those.

[Londontram]

Not a lot to report but been doing a lot of behind the scenes work on the Chassis of the Dunalastair 1 It seems I might have drilled the new axle hole a few thou to far forward as I was getting some problems with the con rods running a bit tight so have been tweaking that and its getting there. I've now adjusted the pickups to fit the new wheel arangment and at least that seems to be fine. The only other job was to do the wash out plugs but as that's just the same as the other one I wont go over it again.

 

  This afternoon I went to see Tony a good friend in Norwich who models the Caledonian in P4 and I took some bits along for him to look at one of which was the Dunalastair III which we sat on his layout for a picture. It was a bit of a juggling act as its 00 and my friends layout as I said is P4 but here's the picture (Defiantly to big for Tony's turn table)

I just wish I could paint my coaches as good as Tony's

[Mike 84C]

your locos are looking really good. did you see on ebay the djh its for a Dunalister & one of those strange 2-6-0?

[Londontram]

your locos are looking really good. did you see on ebay the djh its for a Dunalister & one of those strange 2-6-0?

Thanks for that just had a good look I've always thought the 2-6-0 might make a good subject for the future. There both nice but by the time you add motor gears and in one case wheels there both well out side my price range I'm afraid, as I'm now unable to work due to a disability since my accident I'm afraid my limit is bashing RTR and scratch building. 

 

     To get both my Dunalastair's to where they are now has cost me no more than about £25 each and buying parts plus the bits of brass and plasticard needed can be absorbed over a long period, the Dunalastair shown above for example is on a modified Hornby B12 chassis which cost £12, the Body is a Hornby T9 which was a gift from a very good friend Richard "Ben Alder" the tender was a sub £10 find on ebay as well. So with bits of brass and plasticard costing just penny's you can see I really do model to a budget but thanks for the link anyway regards Steve 

Edited October 22, 2015 by Londontram

[Mad McCann]

One of the things I really admire about your modelling is that you have proved in a very public way that very high quality models can be produced with basic resources and without recourse to an extensive budget. You are mining the same rich seam as those great pioneers of our hobby in the 1940s and '50s.

The results of your ingenuity and creativity bear mighty witness to that.

 

And that's all the smoke I'm blowing today, mate! ;-)

 

Dave.

[Londontram]

For those that follow my workbench threads so far in a great summer of modeling I've built the 492 0-8-0 tank loco which is over on this thread

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/77470-caledonian-tank-loco-scratch-build-from-post-no-10/?p=1973573

This just needs the crew painting (Not looking forward too) and lining (Looking forward to even less) but apart from these few jobs is pretty much done as you can see on the link.

Also the Dunalastair sisters on here

This pair is fast approaching the ready for top coat point and is just being held up by a few jobs that I need to order parts for but as funds are tight there on hold until I get the bits thought I'm still doing the odd job on them to get them as far ahead as I can until funds allow me to get the bits I need.

 

    So that's the state of play so I thought I would start a new project which after throwing ideas around a few friends I've decided to (Bullied into) look at doing a pair of Jumbos one an early Drummond one and the other a slightly later Lambie built one. One will be Caledoinian blue and the other in goods black.

 

After the mostly scratch built body and heverly modified chassis on the 492 tank and the the much altered T9 body's and modified chassis of the Dunalastair's these should be fairly easy builds (Famous last words) as there going to go on only slightly modified Hornby chassis with GBL or Triang body parts and tenders.

 

So that's the idea and now for the reason for the parts used.

In the 1880s loco affairs at the Caledonian were if not a mess certainly needed an injection of new ideas the railway relying on a variate of 2-2-2 and 2-4-0 locos of varying wheel sizes and age. Enter Drummond brought in with the express purpose to shake up the loco department and bring in modern ideas which he did and two of his best were the class 66 4-4-0 the forerunner of the Dunalastair's and the 0-6-0 jumbos which set the Caledonian up with a strong modern freight loco which would last in some cases over 70 years. Drummond was a great promoter of standardization and all his locos shared common parts to help ease production and repair and because of this the jumbo and the class 66 shared a lot of common measurements with things like boilers and smoke boxes also cabs and tenders etc.

 

   Now there's no RTR model of the jumbo or the class 66 but there is the Triang/Hornby single also issued as one of the GBL range. Now the Caledonian single No. 123 was a private venture by Neilson and Co for an 1886 engineering exhibition but Neilsons were not stupid and not wanting to be stuck with an unwanted loco they made it very similar to the class 66 in fact a 4-2-2 version of the 4-4-0 with many common fittings like the boiler etc so that they could sell it to the Caledonian after the exhibition. So working to the theory that the single was almost a class 66 which in turn shared a lot of dimensions with the jumbo I figured that it might be a handy source of parts for the jumbo build so as well as a few tenders and body's picked up off of ebay I also brought a couple of GBL ones too.

 

      So working from a set of general arrangement drawings a single body was cut up into separate components the biggest of which are the smoke box with the chimney, the cab and the running plate which was cut and shortened so it still retained the rear steps and front buffer beam.

In the next post I'll cover the work so far

Edited November 21, 2015 by Londontram

[Londontram]

Here is the first picture which shows the parts from a single body which will go towards the jumbo. you can see the already shortened running plate, the smoke box and chimney, the cab and a Triang tender.

Before starting on the body I wanted to sort the chassis out first and was originally going to use a Bachmann pannier chassis which I had in stock but on closer examination a problem with the motor became apparent which as the motor was a can motor was quite wide and laying flat made it too wide for a boiler to hide with out to much butchery so that's now been side lined for another project and a Hornby chassis was substituted instead the Hornby motor even though a late modern one was still an open frame upright one so was a lot narrower than the Bachmann can motor. The chassis was shortened using the drawings and while cutting the back off the block in front of the motor was also cut back to provide some day light under the boiler.

The remaining bit of the block on the chassis is the motor mount. now I know there's going to be a compromise with how much motor will still be seen under the boiler but the jumbos boiler is quite low slung and between that and the splashers it should hide most of it.

Thanks for looking next time I'll look at using the singles parts and a source of a boiler for the jumbo.

                                                                Steve

Edited October 25, 2015 by Londontram

[Londontram]

Having now cut the chassis down to the length of the jumbo I test fitted the running plate and parts from the Caley single so see what sort of fit they were and first impressions looked good justifying my idea to use the single as a source of parts for the jumbo see what you think.

The parts just resting in place on the newly cut chassis, in this shot you can see it was worth cutting the block away on the chassis in front of the motor mount as it will provide some useful daylight under the front of the boiler

and with the Triang tender. (Sorry I didn't realize I had so much crap behind on the work bench)

 

    A little word about the tender as I said in the first post the Caledonian single was closely based on Drummond's 66 class and shared many components one being the basic design of the tender but as Neilson and Co were building the loco for an exhibition they added some embellishment and made subtle changes even on the tender and what they did was add some steps to the rear and the two cut outs either side in the chassis were elliptical instead of oval like the other Caley tenders. This makes the tender none standard but its a fairly simple job to convert it to a standard Caley tender by cutting the rear steps away and blanking off the elliptical cut outs and re cutting them as oval shapes but there was another choice.

 

 I want to build two jumbos one blue and one black and as luck would have it in 1895 all Caledonian express locos had tender upgrades to bigger models with a larger capacity and all the tenders were passed down to the jumbos the singles unique one going to a new build Lambie jumbo No. 413

 

      Jumbo No. 413 was built as an air pump fitted blue jumbo so could be used for passenger use (Lambi was one of two CME who served for short periods between Drummond and McIntosh in the 1890s and many Drummond designs were built under his tenure some with slight modifications) So I decided to go for this loco with this build so I could use the singles tender as it came, in fact I was lucky to pick one up off ebay that had been fitted with Romford wheels and pinpoint bearings, screw couplings and even some real coal so even less work to do, you see I'm all for an easy life.

 

Finally here's a picture of a jumbo, an early Drummond one in this case and I'll talk about the differences as the build progresses.

once again thanks for looking Steve

Edited October 25, 2015 by Londontram

[Strathwood]

Having now cut the chassis down to the length of the jumbo I test fitted the running plate and parts from the Caley single so see what sort of fit they were and first impressions looked good justifying my idea to use the single as a source of parts for the jumbo see what you think.

Jumbo trial fit loco only.jpg

The parts just resting in place on the newly cut chassis, in this shot you can see it was worth cutting the block away on the chassis in front of the motor mount as it will provide some useful daylight under the front of the boiler

Jumbo first trial fit.jpg

and with the Triang tender. (Sorry I didn't realize I had so much crap behind on the work bench)

 

    A little word about the tender as I said in the first post the Caledonian single was closely based on Drummond's 66 class and shared many components one being the basic design of the tender but as Neilson and Co were building the loco for an exhibition they added some embellishment and made subtle changes even on the tender and what they did was add some steps to the rear and the two cut outs either side in the chassis were elliptical instead of oval like the other Caley tenders. This makes the tender none standard but its a fairly simple job to convert it to a standard Caley tender by cutting the rear steps away and blanking off the elliptical cut outs and re cutting them as oval shapes but there was another choice.

 

 I want to build two jumbos one blue and one black and as luck would have it in 1895 all Caledonian express locos had tender upgrades to bigger models with a larger capacity and all the tenders were passed down to the jumbos the singles unique one going to a new build Lambie jumbo No. 413

 

      Jumbo No. 413 was built as an air pump fitted blue jumbo so could be used for passenger use (Lambi was one of two CME who served for short periods between Drummond and McIntosh in the 1890s and many Drummond designs were built under his tenure some with slight modifications) So I decided to go for this loco with this build so I could use the singles tender as it came, in fact I was lucky to pick one up off ebay that had been fitted with Romford wheels and pinpoint bearings, screw couplings and even some real coal so even less work to do, you see I'm all for an easy life.

 

Finally here's a picture of a jumbo, an early Drummond one in this case and I'll talk about the differences as the build progresses.

Jumbo.jpg

once again thanks for looking Steve

Great to see your work, but can you post larger pictures please so we can all see what whats going on a little better.

 

Many thanks.

 

Kevin

[Londontram]

Great to see your work, but can you post larger pictures please so we can all see what whats going on a little better.

 

Many thanks.

 

Kevin

Yeah sorry about that Kevin, I took them on my mobile phone and for some reason it wouldn't upload them unless I cropped them but I uploaded a new app and it seems alright now so should be better from now on. The trouble is if I try and enlarge the pictures to much they go grainy but I can do it a bit, see if this one is any better in this another view of test fitting the single parts on the modified chassis.

                                       Steve

 

Edit - That seems to make them a bit better I'll alter the others as well

Edited October 25, 2015 by Londontram

[Corbs]

Have you tried using photobucket? It's pretty good for auto adjusting size when posted in forums

 

Really looking forward to seeing how this one progresses

[uax6]

Please keep the photos in the thread, hosting them off this site is a pain, as it means I can't see them in work, which is the only chance I get to see this place. There are so many threads with photos hosted elsewhere that I just cannot see.......

 

Andy G

[Northroader]

Tagging along behind you from thread to thread, I'm always amazed by the ingenuity, should it be engineuity? of the bits you get off the scrap heap and turn into nice looking, meaningful old engines. Looking like you've done it again, another to follow with interest.

[Londontram]

I needed to find a suitable bit of tube for the boiler which works out at 18mm in 4mm scale so went through the house and shed looking for some thing I could use but the wife came to the rescue with two possible solutions one being a plastic syringe of the non needle type that we use to give the dogs any oral medicine they might need and the second an alluminium tube that held some small novelty cake sparklers.

 

    Because I had always intended using the tube as a guide only and covering it with a thin plasticard wrap to get the firebox sides to flow off the barrel I went for the syringe as one, it was just a tad smaller than 18mm (17.5mm) so would allow for the wrap and two, the alluminium tube would be better in another project where the tube was the main boiler if you see what I mean.

 

Out of interest here are a couple of pictures of the syringe and the alluminium tube so you get an idea of what they looked like.

 

  So the smoke box and cab were opened up with a grinding wheel in a dremil so that the tube sat inside at either end and it was then  super glued in place though not before giving the tube a good roughing up first with some wet and dry to give a keyed surface for the glue to stuck to. When dry the whole assembly of cab boiler and smoke box were mounted on the running plate again using super glue. I don't know if any of you have used the GBL models in any projects but some of them seem to be made from a plastic that seems high in polyurethane and they don't respond well to normal plastic cements which was the case with this Caley single body I used here so I've used super glue to put it together.

 

When dry again I could try it against the chassis and see where I had to cut the boiler to fit it all over the motor and the results you can see in this next picture.

Well that's the loco finished from the cab back that didn't take long did it. But seriously if you look at this picture and the one below you can see the sense of using the singles cab as there an almost exact match to the original jumbo.

 

      As was expected there is going to be some compromise with the underside of the boiler but I think by the time the wrap layer is on extending down the sides of the fire box to the running plate and the splashers are in place it should go a long way to hiding most of it (I hope)

I had a couple of jumbo domes in stock so one closest to a Lamnie one was picked and just sat on it here to give it a sense of balance remember the boiler will have a wrap layer over it before any fitting are stuck on.

    As I mentioned in a previous post there were some detail differences between the Drummond and Lambie built jumbos and the Drummond ones had a slimmer dome set further back than the Lambie one with the safety valves mounted on top of the dome the Lambi one being set more forward with separate safety valves near the back of the boiler and if you go back to post No 3 you can see this on the picture of the Drummond jumbo and here's a picture of a Lambie jumbo with the dome further forward with the separate safety valves.

Those with a keen eye and who are familiar with the Triang single will be able to see the differences with the singles tender and a standard jumbo one as I mentioned earlier the standard tender doesn't have rear tender steps and the singles tender has elliptical cut outs on the tender frames where as you can see in this picture there oval, minor details but ones you need to know if doing this conversion (Actually Caledonian tender are a bit more complex than that with many more variations and styles and can be a mine field for the novice but this is enough information for this project)

Thanks for looking again Steve

Edited October 26, 2015 by Londontram

[Londontram]

As a follow on from the last post here are a couple of basic plans of both the Drummond and Lambie jumbos where you can see the differences in the position of the domes and safety valve.

 

[Corbs]

Steve, do you happen to have a similar drawing of the 812 class? Just trying to work out the dimensional differences.

All the best

 

Corbs

[Londontram]

Steve, do you happen to have a similar drawing of the 812 class? Just trying to work out the dimensional differences.

All the best

 

Corbs

I've got some plus a lot of dimensions that might help if you send me a pm with an email address I can send what I've got. Steve

[Corbs]

I've got some plus a lot of dimensions that might help if you send me a pm with an email address I can send what I've got. Steve

Amazing, thank you!

[Londontram]

Two jobs on the agenda today the first to sort out the front mount for the body to the chassis this was done by cutting some of the plastic from the keeper plate where it comes up past the horn guides at the front of the chassis exposing the chassis block giving a flat surface to work with. A block of plasticard was laminated up and cut to fit in the space between the chassis and the flat area behind the buffer beam on the body and once happy with the size was super glued to the underside of the body. when dry the chassis and body were put together and a hole was drilled through into the plasticard block and a self tapping screw put in to hold the front end together. The rear already had an 8BA screw in the rear drag box so now the body and chassis were firmly fixed together. Heres a picture showing the front end screwed together.

 

The next job was the wrap for the boiler. I had always intended to use the tube as a guide to the shape of the boiler and to give the whole assembly strength, I planned to put a wrap of 5 thou over the whole lot so I could carry it down the firebox sides to the running plate. So a piece of plasticard was measured out and cut then starting with the top of the boiler area was stuck down with super glue gently working my way round until the whole barrel was covered. some small bull dog type clamps pinched the bottom of the wrap together to hold it all in place while the glue dried and while all this was setting the two sections at the front of the boiler were trimmed and glued under the boiler being held tight in place with some soft wire twisted tight. In the next two pictures are the wrap as cut before gluing in place and then the wrap fitted where you can see the clamps and twisted wire holding it tight until the glue set.

 

     When all this had been left to set for several hours the clamps and wire were removed and the bottom of the wrap was trimmed to end level with the running plate as can be seen in this next picture.

When done the splashers and the area between axle two and three a false section of chassis will tidy all this up and push the lower section of the wrap into shape fixing it to the running plate.

  Of interest in this picture are a couple of clack valves recovered from the boiler of one of the GBL T9 models used in the Dunalastair builds, the pipes need replacing with straight pipes but they should do nicely for the clack valves on the side of the jumbo boiler also next to them is a back head from the same source as you can see in this next picture the motor ends inside the boiler leaving the cab clear to detail. so although it might seem a waste to take a part of the GBL models for one build as you can see here the parts are used in many projects so at the end of the day there's is very little left over.

On this picture you can see the 8BA screw holding the rear end on this will be hidden under the fall plate when that's fitted

    Thanks for looking Steve

Edited October 27, 2015 by Londontram

[Londontram]

Some times I sit at the modeling bench and cant get into any modeling or more often at the end of a session after clearing up I like to just have a little play, some times this just consists of pushing a loco up and down the test track making choo choo noises (Honestly but then haven't we all done that from time to time...... come on tell the truth)

 

   Any way today's play was to gather up all the locos sat on the bench for a group photo and in the first picture all the cabs are in a perfect straight line so you can see the difference in length and size of each loco, from left to right the jumbo, the Dunalastair 1 and the Dunalastair III

In the next is the tenders again all the front plates are level so this shows the difference lengths of the tenders and tank styles

Again in the same order from the left the jumbo (Single) tender then Duney 1 and Duney 3 the first two are 6 wheel ones and the last an 8 wheel bogie one. There are many variations and the variate is a good subject in its own right. for example there is a version of the first under frame with a full length tank like the one on the second tender and these also came in varying heights depending on the water capacity

 

   Any way play over for today. Steve

Edited October 27, 2015 by Londontram

[Londontram]

Three posts in one day must be doing well mind you the first two are yesterdays work. Today I wanted to build up the splashers and sand boxes to see how well they hid the under boiler area where the motor was so using the same method as used on the 492 tank a set of plans was copied and cut up to provide templates which were glued onto plasticard with a paper glue. These were then cut out and finished with files and sandpaper. The templates can be seen in this first picture.

 

It took a bit of building up but the basic shape is there now, its going to need a bit of filler here and there and a lot of sanding to get a good finish but I think its got the look OK. the question is does this do enough to hide or make acceptable the area under the boiler where the motor extends beyond the fire box. I guess it looks a bit raw as its in bright white plasticard with some subtle painting it will look even less obvious but really guys I would value your views on this. The first picture is a side on view and the second is from the front and shows how as well as making the splashers and sandboxes the front wing plate had to be modified from the original singles shape.

I've only done the one side so far and when done the clack valves and reversing lever (There positions marked in pencil on the first of these two pictures) and the air pump on the other side will help to draw the eye away from the under boiler area. What do you think. Steve

[Buhar]

Hi Steve,

For my money, drop the skirts.  Bits of the chassis will be visible, but further back.  It works for the Bachmann 3F (although with less metal than yours).  The problem we have is that light doesn't scale and so parts of the beastie that are in shadow on the real thing are quite visible on a model.

[Londontram]

Hi Steve,

For my money, drop the skirts.  Bits of the chassis will be visible, but further back.  It works for the Bachmann 3F (although with less metal than yours).  The problem we have is that light doesn't scale and so parts of the beastie that are in shadow on the real thing are quite visible on a model.

So you think cut the skirt back and be damned with it as trying to hide it makes it stand out more. Well I've only done one side so far and the way its done it would be quite easy to cut it back and nothing would be wasted as the splashers will be the same what ever but if that doesn't look right then it would have to be cut off completely as that would be past the point of no return.

Oh dear I shall fret about this all night now, any one else got any views on what they would do?

Edited October 27, 2015 by Londontram

[Londontram]

Well as I thought I have been worrying about this all night and as I was having my early cup of tea I glanced at the model sat next to me and the lamp was casting shadows and all of a sudden I could see the main area that was causing the problem which was the triangle shaped bit in front of the center splasher, you can sort of see it in this first picture.

So using the last two pictures I quickly blanked out this area, see here.

So was thinking if I remove this triangle area and paint beneath black it might be enough to restore the balance what do you think

[Buhar]

I think that might be the solution.  Tell yourself, though.  You weren't "fretting" you were problem solving.