Building kits for Tyneside in the BR era. J24 and PDK D49/2

[micklner]

I would try the Plastic sheet option as thin as possible. Paper will absorb paint, may  wrinkle, shrink etc.

 

Cheers.

[46256]

John I will send you some of my wife’s custard. it will stick anything 

[Michael Edge]

Another way of doing this is to mask the lower part and spray primer fairly thickly on the upper part, followed by black. When the masking tape is removed there will be a clearly visible step there.

I used this technique years ago with some scratchbuilt SR 6 Pan and 6 Pul units which had a marked step out around the windows. I did warn the customer never to have the paint stripped off them. I think these sets have probably been sold on now but I don’t know where to.

[Pebbles]

Self adhesive heat resistant aluminium foil tape. Looks like you can also get copper tape that may take solder.

Edited February 8 by Pebbles

[mikemeg]

Hi  John,

 

It is probably also worth mentioning that the tender rear, on all of those GS tenders (3500 and 4200 gallon) had an overlapped piece at the top of the tender rear if they used the overlapped piece on the sides. The position of the bottom edge of this piece exactly matched the bottom edge of the much deeper overlapped piece on the sides of the tender. Also, the tops and fronts of the sides and rear plates were edged with elliptical section beading.

 

Many years ago I scratch built a batch of three LNER 3500 gallon tenders entirely from plasticard - including the beading but excluding the springs and axleboxes which are Bradwell castings - one of which is still unattached to a loco. I will photo it from the rear at three quarter view so you can see the arrangement. On this, the overlay is .010" plasticard  (a scale 3/4") which is probably too thick and should have been .005"  (a scale 3/8").

 

Cheers

 

Mike

 

 

Edited February 9 by mikemeg

[rowanj]

I have made a start on the loco body. This really is not a kit to be rushed, The basic chassis went together really well, though I needed to triple check where some of the spacers went. The  one for the ashpan floor looked nothing like the one on the etch,. Actually, the instructions could do with an edit, and there is an asumption that the builder is familiar with the name of all the parts on the prototype. Not in my case,

 

I like to build the footplate along with the chassis to check overall fit and clearances, There were no issues here. The footplate is the usual 2 etches which must be oldered together,

 

The inside valve gear is very prominent and I was determined to have a go, I found a GA drawing which largely baffled me, and Mikemeg kindly sent me some photos of his build. This, along with Arthur's  instructions, have allowed me to produce something which I am sure isn't right, but looks as though there is something going on.

 

I've also built the bogie, which involve several etches/overlays and is new to me  I don;t have suitable wheels at present, and it is the wheels which keep the bogie cosmetic sides in place. Once I get the wheels, I'll fit the bogie and see what motor/gearbox combination would fit, I still have a spare DJH AM9 to find a home for.

 

Incidentally, Arthur's kits are no longer supplied with rolled boilers. I have done a couple by hand, but decided to invest in a GW  Models Pinch Roller. ordered the old-fashioned way, via a phone call tp George, followed up with a cheque in the post, There is a similar one on Ebay, but at £30 more.

 

So here is a photo of progress so far, posed alongside that bloody tender, in its' final form after using the suggestion by Mike Edge to represent the overlap on the sides.

[rowanj]

I found a pair of 15mm bogie wheels tucked away- I think they are Scalelink, so spent quite a while on the bogie, All the clearances a VERY tight, and I needed to spend a fair bit of time to get it together.  The bogie builds up in layers, and ends up semi- compensated, The loco needs at least 15mm wheels, otherwise it will llok odd compared to the prototype= even at 15mm they are undersized by almost 1mm.

The bogie joins the chassis via a bolt through the stretcher/spacer in the middle of the bogie. The slot needed opening to allow it to move smoothly on the 8ba bolt. It then passes through a hole in a spacer in the chassis, Fair enough, but I found the bogie and chassis tended to bind together as the bogie tried to move, I took the EM bogie spacer and cut it to fit bbetween and right at the bottom of the spacer on the chassis, opening its; slot too to allow the bolt to move freely. This gave me two flat smooth surfaces and( to my surprise) when I pushed the chassis through some points on the layout, and round the curves, the bogie behaved, albeit with a small short on one wheel,

 

Thw bogie bolt also is used to hold the chassis and body together via the smokebox, which has a nut soldered into the floor. I'm not wild about this arrangement, but can't see an alternative. The rear fixing is also odd, The rear spacer has a hole, which gets blocked when another part is soldered imeediately underneath to provide a sort of slot, This protrudes through the rear beam and I think is part of the coupling between loco and tender, In any case, the blocked hole doesnt line up with the hole in the footplate, I'll see what happens when I start the cab floor to see where I can best drill a hole and solder in a nut, which I would prefer to be invisible. It is unusual to find this with Arthur's kits, and it's possible I;ve cocked something up. I believe the chassis was designed before the body, to fit a Chivers kit, so this might explain it,

 

And finally, I test-fitted the DJH moteo, and it looks like it will fit. The cab/splasher side front would seem to show this.

 

So I'll finish the chassis- brakes and springs to be fitted, and get it running (hopefully) before doing anything much more on the body, 

 

[micklner]

Perhaps you have missed below ?

In the Kimber D20 instructions on of  the page with the Backhead drawing  Arthur recomends Alan Gibson 4844C 3' 8" 14.6mm. 12 spoke Plain wheels for the Bogie and mentions the tight clearances if using anything larger. He also recomends Gibson 6'8" drivers as they do not make 6'10" ones. He does'nt mention the Tender wheel size needed. I have just ordered the same Gibson 3' 8" wheels for mine,  hopefully they will match the undersize ones on the Loco.

 

My D20 is still in its box, as my Raven A2 is nearly done, it might be my next build. I have never heard of a Chivers D20 only a Chivers Q6 ?.
 

Edited February 14 by micklner

[Pebbles]

1 hour ago, micklner said:

Perhaps you have missed below ?

In the Kimber D20 instructions on of  the page with the Backhead drawing  Arthur recomends Alan Gibson 4844C 3' 8" 14.6mm. 12 spoke Plain wheels for the Bogie and mentions the tight clearances if using anything larger. He also recomends Gibson 6'8" drivers as they do not make 6'10" ones. He does'nt mention the Tender wheel size needed. I have just ordered the same Gibson 3' 8" wheels for mine,  hopefully they will match the undersize ones on the Loco.

 

My D20 is still in its box, as my Raven A2 is nearly done, it might be my next build. I have never heard of a Chivers D20 only a Chivers Q6 ?.
 

I can assure you that the Chivers D20 did exist and that Arthur, as was the case with the Q6, had a hand in it. They both had a 1940gal tender. The D20 was very innovative, in that like the McGowen D9, etched overly were added to a core cast body structure. 

[rowanj]

With the chassis stripped back to get the last of the deatail added, you can see what I was trying to describe about the added part, cut down from the EM etch, to give a smoother join between the bogie and the chassis.

 

The kit and the instructions havent kept pace,  At this point, I was hunting through the etch to find the etches for the springs, only to find they were now etched onto the chassis side, Similarly, the firebox spacer looks nothing like the illustration in the instructions, and seems to simply fit at the bottom of the representation on the chassis sides without any of the additions described in the text. 

 

I did see Arthur's recommendations on wheels, Mick, I confess to having had mixed results with Slaters, no doubt due to a lack of competence on my part. I;m going to stick to Markits for the drivers, though may try to get some bogie wheels and see how that goes.

 

It will probably all go quiet now as I get  the chassis finished.

 

Just out of interest, I've attached the GA drawings of the motion, which I tracked dowh on the tread Mike Meggison created 10 years ago when he did the test builds, This thread was where the Chivers reference popped up.

[rowanj]

After a succesful test run around the layout, I can start addimg the details to the body, At the moment, Most is just tack soldered and the cab roof is simply perched on the sides for the photo. 

As can be seen, I comfortably got away with the DJH AM9 motor/gearbox. I'm not sure what to make of these, They are well engineereed, and make fitting a breeze, But they are, in my view, horribly overpriced, and even the smaller one is only going to fit into something no smaller than, say, a K3 unless you want to compromise the cab interior, I wonder what the sale of DJH to Squires means for future production, If the cost could be got down to the £50-£60 mark, I would suspect they would be top-sellers (assuming they are not, already),

Edited February 20 by rowanj

[micklner]

It will be very intersesting to see what Squires actually do with all of the DJH range. Many kits need a serious update, and as said their prices are laughable on a lot of the items.

[John Tomlinson]

2 hours ago, micklner said:

It will be very intersesting to see what Squires actually do with all of the DJH range. Many kits need a serious update, and as said their prices are laughable on a lot of the items.

 

Although I'm not a North Eastern modeller, I've long had an urge to build a Q7. What a beast!

 

I wonder, do any of you have advice on a kit, I know DJH did one but it is one of their earlier efforts and appears no longer (for now) available.

 

Many thanks,

 

John.

[rowanj]

7 minutes ago, John Tomlinson said:

 

Although I'm not a North Eastern modeller, I've long had an urge to build a Q7. What a beast!

 

I wonder, do any of you have advice on a kit, I know DJH did one but it is one of their earlier efforts and appears no longer (for now) available.

 

Many thanks,

 

John.

John. I think the DJH Q7 is one of the poorest of their models, and I wouldnt recommend it unless there is a very major upgrade, Dave Alexander did a very nice whitemetal kit, and that's the one I built.. Arthur was very close to producing an etched kit, but I suspect that won't happen now. So if you spot an Alexander kit, that would be the way to go,

John

[John Tomlinson]

54 minutes ago, rowanj said:

John. I think the DJH Q7 is one of the poorest of their models, and I wouldnt recommend it unless there is a very major upgrade, Dave Alexander did a very nice whitemetal kit, and that's the one I built.. Arthur was very close to producing an etched kit, but I suspect that won't happen now. So if you spot an Alexander kit, that would be the way to go,

John

 

Many thanks for this. It will be something else to keep an eye on in my searches on ebay!

 

Googling "Alexander Q7 kit" I was referred to the first page of your layout thread and a photo of your 63464, going back over some old pages that's quite a selection of kits you've built over the years!!

 

John.

[Blandford1969]

6 hours ago, micklner said:

It will be very intersesting to see what Squires actually do with all of the DJH range. Many kits need a serious update, and as said their prices are laughable on a lot of the items.

Its also will we be able to buy spare parts, in some cases that could be brilliant

[Blandford1969]

3 hours ago, rowanj said:

John. I think the DJH Q7 is one of the poorest of their models, and I wouldnt recommend it unless there is a very major upgrade, Dave Alexander did a very nice whitemetal kit, and that's the one I built.. Arthur was very close to producing an etched kit, but I suspect that won't happen now. So if you spot an Alexander kit, that would be the way to go,

John

Bassed on the quality of the D20, that we will not get Arthurs Q7 is a real tradgedy 

[rowanj]

As I understand it, Arthur had most of the etchwork  completed, but was determined to have appropriate castings for the inside motion. I believe that was the point he had reached before his last stroke. I don't know whether he actually commissioned the etches, or if a test kit was built . Mikemeg would be the one to ask.

 

Though he has never done this, and depending on how far things have got with the design and production, I wonder if there is any merit in suggesting that he offers what he has got as a sort of scratchbuilding aid, in the way that Mike Edge does with some of his kits. Certainly a modern kit of a Q7 would be worth having.

[mikemeg]

Re Arthur's Q7 kit, I did do a test build of this using the early pre-production etches. The overall loco superstructure and the 4125 gallon tender etches were completed. What remained to be developed/finalised, as has been referenced here, was the profusion of 'mechanical assemblies' between the mainframes.

 

The Q7 was a three cylinder loco hence there was one set of driving motion and three sets of Stephensons valve gear sitting between the mainframes. Initially Arthur considered providing various etches for these assemblies but later decided on castings for this provision. The final developments of this kit were actually interrupted by Arthur's deciding to produce a kit for the F8 which, though intended as a relative 'quickie', took longer than expected to reach production.

 

Given the 'issues' with the 4125 gallon tender on the LRM B16 kit, I have just actually completed Arthur's kit for this 4125 gallon tender, including using the Bradwell castings and detailing the tender front.

 

I am now looking at what will be needed to complete the loco itself, perhaps as a small tribute to Arthur and his work. It has been my great pleasure to work for him and with him these past years and his contribution to our hobby has been enormous.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

 

 

 

Edited February 21 by mikemeg

[mikemeg]

Re the wheels for the D20. As stated above, these locos had 6' 10" driving wheels. Most loco wheels were allowed to wear by up to 2.5 " off their diameter before being re-tyred. So 6' 8" wheels would suit (well worn but still allowable) perfectly well. The bogie wheels, on the prototype, were 4' 0" (16 mm) so for OO or EM 3' 9" 12 spoke (15mm) is the largest which can be accommodated; on P4, 3' 11" (15.66 mm) can be accommodated.

 

I believe the tender wheels for the D20's were also 4' 0" in order to achieve level symmetry between the loco and tender running plates. So the actual choice of tender wheel diameter should be allied to the driving wheel diameter i.e. 3' 9"  (15 mm) should maintain the running plate symmetry.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

 

Edited February 21 by mikemeg

[mikemeg]

Just for the record, two test builds were done on the D20. The first used the original mainframes as first fitted to the D20s. The second used the deeper Worsdell mainframes which were fitted to some locomotives, though not all.

 

There were many other detail differences between the two models - smokebox door profile, piping around the smokebox etc.

 

The first build was based on 62372 which was a Selby locomotive for many years. The second was based on 62396 which was the last survivor of the class and the only one ever to carry the later British Railways logo on its tender. This loco was based at Hull Botanic Gardens for many years though I believe it may have finished its days in the North East.

 

It was a long while ago that these were done but it is a lovely kit of a very archetypical Victorian prototype.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

 

 

 

Edited February 21 by mikemeg

[rowanj]

Thanks are due to Mike for sharing the last posts. They show what can be done with these kits by a good modeller, but the kits themselves are so well thought out that even a duffer can make a good stab at them.

I had forgotten that Mike had built a Q7 test, and it looks excellent. I accept that something needs to be between the frames..I even knocked something up with Dave Alexander's kit..and in a perfect world you would have a representation of the 3 cylinder Stephenson gear. However, I can only speak personally, but I would buy the kit knowing I could cobble something together to make people think that something was happening, Am I just not sufficiently purist? Am I alone in settling for a fictional bodge, even if it did look a little bit like the real thing?

 

I will interested to see how Mike gets on.

 

Back to the D20 cab..

 

John

Edited February 21 by rowanj

[John Tomlinson]

32 minutes ago, rowanj said:

Thanks are due to Mike for sharing the last posts. They show what can be done with these kits by a good modeller, but the kits themselves are so well thought out that even a duffer can make a good stab at them.

I had forgotten that Mike had built a Q7 test, and it looks excellent. I accept that something needs to be between the frames..I even knocked something up with Dave Alexander's kit..and in a perfect world you would have a representation of the 3 cylinder Stephenson gear. However, I can only speak personally, but I would buy the kit knowing I could cobble something together to make people think that something was happening, Am I just not sufficiently purist? Am I alone in settling for a fictional bodge, even if it did look a little bit like the real thing?

 

I will interested to see how Mike gets on.

 

Back to the D20 cab..

 

John

 

My answer to the questions you raise are the same as yours. Inside valve gear is a nice thing to have, but not essential, and for those so minded cobbling a representation together shouldn't be a big problem.

 

My answer in 7mm might have been different, everytihng being more visible, but in 4mm on a working loco a rough representation would do me just fine.

 

John.

[Michael Edge]

It's difficult enough doing two sets of Stephenson gear between the frames in 00 (I did it with a Finney kit despite hearing Martin telling another customer that it was impossible...) but three sets and a crankshaft - I wouldn't even think about it!

[Blandford1969]

I'd certainly happily just buy a set of etches if made available for the Q7. Maybe Arthurs daughter will read these comments and who knows .... it would be wonderful.