417 Class 2-4-0

[Caley Jim]

This started life as an idea I had or fitting a motor, chip and stay alive circuitry into the tender of a CR Jumbo 0-6-0.  Having proved to myself with a drawing that it could be done, I then went one to see if it would also fit in the slightly smaller tender of a 417 Class 2-4-0.  Tender and loco body etches for one of these, as rebuilt by Drummond, were among some the late John Boyle kindly produced for me, reduced from is artwork for 7mm scale.  My 98 Class 2-4-0 and tender came from the same source.  A photo of No. 426 is in this book at p144.  I'm not sure of copyright, so don't want to post it.  I found that the arrangement would fit, albeit with slight alteration to the position of the retaining screw for the motor mount.  All the parts for the chassis for both locos and tenders and the body of the jumbo and its tender were on the last sheet of etches I had done.

 

It was my intention to build the two locos in tandem, however I find that the 30:1 worm set I need for the jumbo and the 14T gears I need for both locos are out of stock in the Association shop at the moment.  I therefore decided to start with the 417 Class as I could obtain more parts for that.

 

As some will know, rather than drive tender locos with a drive shaft coming directly off the motor, I prefer to use a pair of gears to drop the drive below the footplate out of sight.  this means that I can off-set an Tramfabriek 8x16 motor to one side, leaving space alongside it for stay-alive capacitors, with the chip and associated circuitry siting between the gears and the motor.

 

This photo shows the motor mount with the motor in place and the bearings for the lower gear underneath.

 

From above with a Zimo MX616R chip sitting in front.  The chip has since had new leads attached to it.

 

These photos show the capacitors and the chip and circuitry in place, both wrapped in PTFE tape for insulation.

 

The leads to the motor won't be cut back until the gears are fitted as the need to be routed round them, likewise those to the tender frames.

 

I should be able to use this arrangement as a 'standard package' to fit in any 6-wheeled tender.

 

Jim

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[tapdieuk]

Jim is there not room for a wafer thin speaker buried under a large heap of coal?.....

Impressive work.

 

Will

[Caley Jim]

6 hours ago, tapdieuk said:

Jim is there not room for a wafer thin speaker buried under a large heap of coal?.....

Impressive work.

Thanks, Will.  That would involve a larger sound enabled chip.  As you can see, it's a tight squeeze as it is!

 

Jim 

[Caley Jim]

A little more progress, slightly slowed by a couple of things not quite working out as I had intended!  The tender chassis has been put together, the wheels fitted and the motor package bolted in place.

 

 

The cut-aways in the lower edge of the motor mount are to suit the longer wheelbase and slightly larger wheels of the Jumbo tender and are not needed for this loco.   I just didn't bother to change the original design.

 

The centre and front wheels are slightly sprung, the hope being that some of the tender weight will be transferred to the rear of the loco.  The chassis has been blackened with Beechwood Casey Aluminium black which seems to work well on n/s.  It will mostly be hidden behind the outside frames in any case.  the 'coil' at the front is  a small tube, made by coiling some fine wire round a No.80 drill and then flooding it with solder.  There is one on each side to take a sprung wire from the loco frames to transfer current from the loco to the tender.   Similar tubes in the inside of the frames have the chip wires connected in a similar way via lengths of 10thou p/b wire soldered to the leads which slip into the tubes.  This means the motor can be disconnected from the chassis without having to unsolder the wires.  The lower gear is in place and I had to prop the front of the capacitors up slightly to clear it.  They are advertised as 4mm wide, which would have left them clear of the gear, but they are in fact 4.3mm wide, which has added 1.2mm to the length of the block.   The brake gear won't be fitted until the tender body has been assembled and the loco chassis is up and running.

 

Also assembled are the slidebar/crosshead/connecting rod assemblies.  The etched parts for the crossheads were attached to the tender frames on the etch, so I thought it best to put these together rather than risk them getting lost!

 

 

The slidebars will be hidden behind the outside frames, with only the crossheads, piston rods and connecting rod small end visible through a slot.  They are soldered to blocks of double sided pcb which will, in turn, be soldered to the loco inside frames, the cut-away corner being to clear the front carrying wheels.

 

Jim

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[Caley Jim]

I've decided to carry on with the tender at the moment and have started on the body.  The original kit from which this was reduced was designed for 7mm scale and so the style of construction is completely different.  The outside frames were part of the underframe and were intended to carry the wheels in outside bearings, this then being bolted to the floor of the body.  I therefore had to separate these from the underframe and solder them to the floor, after a large section of the latter had been cut away to clear the motor mount.  The valences were also added while this could still be laid down flat and then the 12BA nut by which the body will be attached to the chassis soldered on top.   The tender sides and end are provided as one piece which required to have the flares at the top curved outwards and then the rear corners curved.  Fortunately the tabs on the lower edges of the sides and end fitted perfectly into the slots in the floor first time!😀

 

 

There's still a bit of tidying up of solder to be done and it is sitting a wee bit low at the front as there will be a slip of styrene glued to the underside of the floor here to insulate it from the chassis frames.

 

For the original 7mm kit little castings had been provided to form the curved corners to the flares.    Instead I'll use some small pieces of copper shim, curved to fit inside the corners and with their top edges cut into 'fingers' which can be curved to follow the flares.  When a thin wire is soldered along the top of the flare to form the beading, the gaps between the fingers can be flooded with solder and then smoothed off.   That's the theory, anyway, but it worked for the last one I built!

 

Jim

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[Caley Jim]

Slow but steady progress on the tender body.  Slow because of the alterations I need to make to the parts to fit round the motor, especially under the rear toolbox and bulkheads.  This required a bit of cutting away with a dental bur in my minidrill.  Under there is not a pretty sight!

 

 

Both the motor and the capacitor package intrude into the space between the two bulkheads, but, hopefully, a coat of matt black will make them less obvious.

 

Jim

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[Caley Jim]

Most of the soldering work on the tender body is now done, apart from creating a 'skeleton' of copper shim strips to support the sheet of tissue which will carry the coal load hiding the motor etc.

 

 

Full length footboards and front drag mean fitted, the latter in two sections leaving a gap for the drawbar and drive shaft (this drive shaft is just to illustrate where it will go).  Front handrail and brake standard in place, the latter from lengths of copper wire with fine wire bound round the joint to represent the gearing.  The 'ship's wheel' brake wheel is from some that Bob Jones etched for me when I built my 98 class 2-4-0, which has the same tender.  I'm in the process of moulding axlebox/springs in self curing dental acrylic in a mould I made for that loco.  This one is a bit granular and is just sitting in place.  I'm a bit out of practice in working with this material!

 

 

The rear with the buffer-beam from a laminate of 30thou brass and a layer from the etch, a surplus hook from one of my wagon kits and buffers turned from steel rod (old knitting needle).  Not sure what the purpose of the two 'hooks' on the tender rear was - carrying fire irons?  Handrails will be fitted after painting.

 

Jim

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[Caley Jim]

The shim strips have been fitted:

 

 

The spaghetti of the motor leads will be tidied up once I get the gear to fit on the motor shaft. 

 

With the tissue cover attached:

even looking from the front the coal load shouldn't look too 'contrived'.

 

 

(Apologies for the poor focus).

 

Jim

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[GER_Jon]

On 25/01/2022 at 20:20, Caley Jim said:

not sure what the purpose of the two 'hooks' on the tender rear was - carrying fire irons?  Handrails will be fitted after painting.

 

Jim

Could they be for lamps when running light engine?

[Caley Jim]

2 hours ago, GER_Jon said:

Could they be for lamps when running light engine?

No, They're far too big for that, around a foot high with out-curved ends and c9" out from the back.  In any case, CR locos carried two lamps either side of the cab and one in front of the chimney and on the centre top of the tender/bunker.   These Connor tenders, and some of their 4-wheel contemporaries, are the only ones I've seen with them.

 

I'll ask on the CRA Forum and report back anything I learn from the collected knowledge on there.

 

Jim

[Izzy]

Quite an unusual design having the full length footboards and the mid-level matching handrail. A bit like some brake vans. Was this to assist with raking the coal to the front or were these locos used for shunting a bit? Just wondering if they carried shunters riding on the footboards when doing so and the hooks were for shunters poles etc. Might have been an idea that got tried out that never went any further.

 

Bob

[Caley Jim]

On 27/01/2022 at 19:57, Izzy said:

Quite an unusual design having the full length footboards and the mid-level matching handrail. A bit like some brake vans. Was this to assist with raking the coal to the front or were these locos used for shunting a bit? Just wondering if they carried shunters riding on the footboards when doing so and the hooks were for shunters poles etc. Might have been an idea that got tried out that never went any further.

These locos were originally built for goods work, so the footboards were presumably for shunters riding on.  The 4-wheel tenders coupled to the 0-4-2 mineral locos also had them and some had a couple of small hooks on the lhs of the tender frames for carrying a shunters pole.  Some of these also appear to have had the big hooks on the rear.  No definitive answer from the CRA forum yet, apart from the shunter's pole suggestion.

 

Work has started on the loco chassis.  Frames fitted to spacers and the gearbox mounted after fitting the worm underneath.  Crankpins made and fitted, wheels fitted and the rods temporarily fitted.  All seems to run smoothly, but I can't try it under power until I get the two 14T M0.3 gears.  One of these goes beside the worm wheel to link to the lay gear, which is why the former has temporary stub axles.  The two springs providing electrical connection to the tender have been soldered on and the frames have been blackened.

 

The wire in front of the front coupled wheel is the spring for the carrying wheels - they have c½mm movement either way.  The tender has now received its axlebox/spring mouldings.

 

Jim

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[Caley Jim]

More progress on the loco chassis.  The connecting rods have been slid onto the leading crankpins, allowing the slidebar units to be attached.  The positioning of these is quite critical as there is little excess length in them meaning that I had to position the wheels with their cranks at one extreme of the crosshead stroke and fix the slidebar units in place with the cross head in that position.  With these fitted and the wheels turning smoothly under finger pressure, there was no reason to delay cutting the crankpins and fitting the washers (rings of fine wire).   I just have to hope that it runs OK under power when I get the other gears.

 

 

The driveshaft has also been formed and can just be seen between the fall plate and the tender drawbar.

 

There's little more I can do now to that chassis until I can test run it, so I'll start and prepare some of the body parts.

 

Jim

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[Caley Jim]

Being a believer in doing the difficult bits first, I started the bodywork by assembling the Stirling cab which comprises a front, which includes the front tops of the rear splashers, and a one piece sides and roof, half etched to include the beading at the rear of this.  The latter being half etched made it easier to bend to shape, but getting the curve of the roof and the curves between that and the sides in the correct place was a bit of a challenge.  At the same time, the splasher tops have to be shaped to match the cab sides!  I marked a centre line on the rear of the cab front and also on the underside of the roof and worked my way out from there.

 

 

Some fine wire soldered round the front represents the beading here and the spectacle surrounds are off the etch.

 

When I compared the outside frames on the etch with the photo I have of 426 I noticed that pattern of the slots were different.  The photo showed double slots, while the etch had single ones.  The pattern of slots in the outside frames varied between builders, and between batches.  I therefore had to set about fitting a divider into each slot, filed up from scrap etch, soldered in and then refined.  The lower (LHS) frame in the photo above is as on the etch, while the upper (RH) one has been modified.

 

Jim  

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[Caley Jim]

A bit of one step forward, two steps back recently.  One of the crossheads started to show signs of the layers coming apart, so some dismantling had to be done to fix and re-enforce that.   Once I got the footplate shaped to follow the contours of the top of the frames and then tack soldered one frame to it I realised that there was not going to be enough clearance between the outside frames and the crank pin on the leading coupled wheels, due to the slightly overscale width of the wheels.  I had a similar issue with the other 2-4-0 I have.

 

I widened the footplate by 1mm by splicing apiece of 1mm wide scrap etch into the centre at the front and a piece 0.5mm wide on either side of the cab floor at the rear.  A bit of a bodge, but nothing else for it.  It means clearances around the wheels will be a little more generous and the extra width shouldn't be too noticeable.

 

 

Jim

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[Caley Jim]

One unfortunate consequence of widening the footplate was that the outer edges of the cut-outs for the wheels were now wider apart than the width of the cab, but not by much.  I got round this by soldering 0.5mm copper wire along the inside edge of these cut outs and filing it flush with the surface of the footplate where it was a little proud.  this still left plenty clearance for the wheels.

 

The lower edge of the cab sides was a less-than-perfect fit to the curve of the footplate, so, once the cab had been tacked in place at the four corners and I was happy it was accurately positioned, and the front was vertical, the slight gaps were filled by flooding solder into them from the inside.  Any fillet then formed on the outside was carefully carved and filed away to leave a sharp internal angle.   The cab inside splashers and handrails were then fitted.  These also required a bit of gap filling around the curved section of the floor.

 

 

The hole in the cab floor was presumably intended for attaching the body to the chassis and will be filled in at some stage.

 

Jim

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[Caley Jim]

Just a brief report to announce that a package arrived today from the cave of the Gear Goblin containing 2 x 14T M0.3 gears.  Very many thanks, sir!  They have been fitted and initial tests show that, although the wheels turn under power, there is a bit of tightness in the gearing, though I think that will run out with a bit of 'toothpaste' treatment.  There is also a tendency for the 1.5mm od sleeve on the 1mm shaft of the motor to slip, so that will need to be attended to.

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

And it runs!  Still as much satisfaction from seeing a chassis run for the first time as it was for the very first one!

 

 

As can be seen, lack of weight is compromising both traction and track holding. At the moment it can be slowed until the wheels are doing c2rpm.  Main problem was stopping the sleeve with the gear on it slipping on the motor shaft.  Cyano wasn't holding it for any length of time, so I got some V-tech 843 medium strength thread locker in the ironmongers in Peebles today and that seems to have done the trick, along with giving the shaft a light rub with an India stone.

 

I feel a celebratory dram is in order!😁

 

Jim

 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[Caley Jim]

There is an etched boiler among the parts, but it only extends as far as the smokebox, the latter being a separate part.  I prefer to make my boilers from tube, so the etch was stuck to some paper with double sided tape and a template cut out, also using a pin to mark the holes for the handrail knobs, injectors, clacks, etc.  The paper template was then transferred to the tube, which had been cut to length (including the smokebox) and used as a guide to cutting it and marking the hole positions.  I left it a little over size around the firebox and files these areas to get a reasonable fit round the cab splashers before soldering it in place.  Any slight gaps were filled with a flood of solder and the internal angles clean up as with the cab.  A test run with the tender and loco bodies on and a bit of extra weight in the shape of a back-to-back gauge and a bit of steel rod shows that it will just about drag itself along.

 

 

There is plenty room to put lead in the boiler and a bit in the firebox and under the cab floor.

 

Jim

[CF MRC]

I love seeing the rods and cross heads hiding behind the frames.

 

Tim

[queensquare]

On 16/02/2022 at 22:53, Caley Jim said:

There is an etched boiler among the parts, but it only extends as far as the smokebox, the latter being a separate part.  I prefer to make my boilers from tube, so the etch was stuck to some paper with double sided tape and a template cut out, also using a pin to mark the holes for the handrail knobs, injectors, clacks, etc.  The paper template was then transferred to the tube, which had been cut to length (including the smokebox) and used as a guide to cutting it and marking the hole positions.  I left it a little over size around the firebox and files these areas to get a reasonable fit round the cab splashers before soldering it in place.  Any slight gaps were filled with a flood of solder and the internal angles clean up as with the cab.  A test run with the tender and loco bodies on and a bit of extra weight in the shape of a back-to-back gauge and a bit of steel rod shows that it will just about drag itself along.

 

 

There is plenty room to put lead in the boiler and a bit in the firebox and under the cab floor.

 

Jim

 

Great progress Jim.

I'm glad I'm not the only one whose phone camera has a built in amplifier. Why is it that a mechanism that exhibits a perfectly acceptable noise level suddenly sounds really loud when filmed - mine do exactly the same!

Like Tim, I love the flashing rods through the holes in the frames.

 

Jerry

[Caley Jim]

14 hours ago, CF MRC said:

I love seeing the rods and cross heads hiding behind the frames.

Thanks, Tim and Jerry.

 

The earlier 2-4-0 I built also has slotted splashers, so you see the wheel spokes through them!

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

Slow progress over the last few days as another commitment has been taking up my time.  The boiler has now been soldered to the footplate and cab and has copper wire spigots fitted for the injectors (top of the firebox) and clacks (in front of the splashers).  The holes for these, along with those for the handrail knobs (twisted brass wire) were drilled in the positions marked off the template mentioned earlier.  The splashers have been assembled, with sandbox filler caps from copper wire, and soldered in place.

 

 

Again, several gaps in the joints were flooded with solder and then carved back to sharp internal angles.

 

Jim

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[Caley Jim]

Now that the smokebox front and wrapper are on, it's beginning to show its 'Crewe Type' look.

 

Because I had widened the footplate I had to make a new smokebox front, using the etched one as a template, widening it at the bottom by ½mm either side.  There was a half-etched wrapper provided however I felt it was a bit thin being only 4 thou and, in any case it was a wee bit short for the wider footplate, so I made a new one from scrap etch edge.    Fitting the smokebox wrapper on Crewe Types is a wee bit tricky.  Not only does it have to follow the outward curve at the bottom, but the lower edge has to match the sloping top of the cylinders.  Trial and error is the only way to go!  Fortunately I didn't overdo the trimming at any stage!

 

Jim

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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[Caley Jim]

With the smokebox door and cylinders fitted it's beginning to show its 'face'.

 

 

It doesn't look nearly as 'scrappy' in real life as it does in the photo!  The holes in the lower part of the smokebox front are for 4 lubricators in the upper ones and the valve spindle tail rod covers in the two lower ones.  All of these will be fitted after painting.

 

Not likely to be much progress over the next few days as I now need to get organised for working at something on the Association Roadshow stand at Model Rail tomorrow and Saturday and also get my shopping list made out.  Please pop along and say hello if you are attending on either day.

 

Jim

Edited March 31, 2022 by Caley Jim
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