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

[rowanj]

Thornaby's Class 27 D5372 now complete (sorry, Alistair, I chickened out on the cab window mod).  The removal of the Heljan boiler is easy, as is the renumbering - Modelmaster transfers are a straight replacement for those on the RTR model. The T recesses took a bit of filling, and needed the whole of the cab ahead of the doors to be repainted. I always intended to weather the loco, and am reasonably happy with how it has all turned out.

 

 

[rowanj]

I think I'm going to have to change the title of this thread, as I have almost run out of suitable kits to build, and more and more stuff is not of LNER origin. It is, however, appropriate, by and large  for my Tyneside based layout.

 

At the back of my mind is a plan to have a NE-based layout with an NCB connection, DCC operated. I have suitable DCC ready J27, Q6 and K1 locos, and a small stud -Ie 3- industrials which would fit. Whether the plan ever gets from the back to the front of my mind is yet to be seen.

 

This will be number 4 addition to the NCB stock. Hardy Hobbies slope -boilered Hudswell-Clarke on an Electrotren chassis. Ideally , I'll find a suitable RSH kit to become no.5.

 

The body is described as "semi-freelance" but it looks very like a pair of locos, one at Backworth and another at Broomhill/Shilbottle, so that will be the basis for this build.

[46256]

Hello John yes I’m trying to source a kit for this example of RSH…the chassis you’ve just used seems a good starting point 

 

best wishes  Brian

[rowanj]

The Hardy's Hobbies slope-tank Hudswell Clarke is taking shape. All I added to the basic kit were a reversing lever and handle for the brake standard in the cab. I added a couple of pieces of styrene to the underside of the cab roof to allow its' removal. The crew are included with the kit, but must live in the Land of Giants, so needed amputation at around shin level, and even so, are still tall chaps.

Although "semi freelance", the loco is close enough to a few B&W photos I have of No 28 around Ashington. It isnt clear if the livery was blue, or if it was lined, though many of the fleet were. In any case, I went for it, using Vauxhall Royal Blue and Railtec transfers. The lighting for the photo shows the tanks "bluer" than it actually is, (if you follow), and in fact, in certain light the loco appears all-over black.

For a quick bit of modelling, different to my normal preferences, I'm happy to recommend these kits and commend the service from Hardy's Hobbies and Railtec Transfers..

 

[rowanj]

I have virtually run out of available appropriate kits, so the Industrials are the limit of my recent loco activity. The Hardy Hobbies Hudswell is now complete. I found a couple of colour photos of No 28, and realised it was unlined, so altered that.

The RSH No 40 was scratchbuilt by a friend. He wanted one for his own layout, and realised no kit existed, so started to build one. we exchange emails, having never met in person, and I jokingly/laughingly/cheekily said I would have one too. He agreed at once, only for us to discover quite a few obvious differences between his version and mine, Nevertheless, here is his gift, RSH No 40. This was one of a pair built in 1954 to haul the miners' passenger shuttle at Ashington Colliery, and has been preserved. It also undertook more traditional duties. 

All I really added to my friend's work was a cab interior, some lamp irons, then paint, glazing, coal etc. The transfers are Railtec, from a custom sheet, and the NCB Blue is Halfords Vauxhall Royal Blue. The works plate, in distinctive Red, are fictitious etches from Modelmasters. Anyone who can read them doesnt need to go to Specsavers.

[Sandhole]

33 minutes ago, rowanj said:

I have virtually run out of available appropriate kits, so the Industrials are the limit of my recent loco activity. The Hardy Hobbies Hudswell is now complete. I found a couple of colour photos of No 28, and realised it was unlined, so altered that.

The RSH No 40 was scratchbuilt by a friend. He wanted one for his own layout, and realised no kit existed, so started to build one. we exchange emails, having never met in person, and I jokingly/laughingly/cheekily said I would have one too. He agreed at once, only for us to discover quite a few obvious differences between his version and mine, Nevertheless, here is his gift, RSH No 40. This was one of a pair built in 1954 to haul the miners' passenger shuttle at Ashington Colliery, and has been preserved. It also undertook more traditional duties. 

All I really added to my friend's work was a cab interior, some lamp irons, then paint, glazing, coal etc. The transfers are Railtec, from a custom sheet, and the NCB Blue is Halfords Vauxhall Royal Blue. The works plate, in distinctive Red, are fictitious etches from Modelmasters. Anyone who can read them doesnt need to go to Specsavers.

Pair of beauties.
Regards,
Chris.

[rowanj]

This should be a pretty straightforward project- a Dapol J94 converted to a NCB loco with the cut-down Lambton cab. The cab is a printed one from Railway Mania. the donor loco is Dapol, and was a gift from a great friend who I've never met personally, but who I "met Virtually" via RMWeb.

5 Austerity locos were converted to fit through narrow tunnels near Sunderland. I suppose the best known "Lambton Cab" locos are 29 and 5 at the NYMR.

Of the Austerities, No 60 is preserved on the Aln Valley Railway, though the cab windows are different to the kit version, so another prototype should be found. I have a photo of 59, so that will be that.

The 3D kit gives you the cab and 4 injectors, which sit on the footplate. two thicknesses of wire are provided for cab handrails and injector pipework. The cab of the donor simply unclips- or at least mine did- and the new one clipped in place equally easily, given the usual care need when handling 3D prints. The kit supplies 4 injectors, which is a good idea as one of mine pinged away when taking it off the sprue, They are pre-drilled to take the pipework, which is handy.

My donor needs the 3rd pair of steps adding, I'll rmake these from plasticard or brass, However, the cab windows, especially the rear spectacle plate ones, would benefit from having surrounds added, and RT Models offer a detailing kit which I may indulge in, depending what I find in the scrao box.

Here is the basic conversion work so far.

 

Edited October 1, 2022 by rowanj

[rowanj]

On test, the loco pulls my rake of 21T hoppers into the sidings at Little Benton North, The injectors under the footplate have been removed, and the centre pair of steps fitted. I'm waiting for the detailing etch from RT Models to, as a minimum, use the rims for the front and rear spectacle plates before it heads for the paintshop. It looks as though these locos were painted unlined black in service, but I'm thinking about testing out my newly acquired Humbrol weathering powders on this loco to see what happens.

[46256]

Nice seeing it at work John

[rowanj]

Not quite there yet, but this is more or less the condition of No 7 as in my photo of a sister loco in 1969. The 3D cab replacement was a simple swap. I got a detailing fret from RT Models, but only used the spectatcle plates and cab surrounds. The etch is excellent, and using it as well as the printed cab is really guilding the lily, as the fret comtains a cab on the etch. It will come in handy for a future planned build of either 29 or 5, currently on the NYMR.

I;ll add a front coupling and do some weathering, though I find Railmatch Weather Black over Halfords Red Primer gives a nice cared for/careworn look,so I won't be too heavy-handed.

 

[rowanj]

And here it is on the layout.

[46256]

Nice photo John, you feel the loco is working example

 

best wishes Brian

[rowanj]

I could do with another A3 from 64B, so here is a "work in progress" on test, The chassis is made up from a couple of duds I had in the spares box. On one, I had the classic "out of gear" problem which these early ones suffered from, and on both, I had done my usual trick of not managing to refit the pickups properly. I disposed of the chip, and fitted wires directly from wire pickups to the wheels, soldered to PCB and Araldited to the plastic baseplate which represents the brakes. The trick is to get the contact between the motor and the chassis, Ipushed a small brass offcut into the gap below the lower brush holder to replace Hornby's method which uses a contact point on the chassis floor. 

The body is Pretty Polly, from, I think, a tender - drive China-built model. I have repkaced most of the moulded handrails on the cab and firebox, and will do the same on the smokebox door. It needs a whistke, vacuum stand, coupling hook and I;ll add an ABS banger plate.

The tender chassis is Hornby, again from the spares box. The body is a tender-drive model, so I;ve cut and reassembled it to more accurate dimensions, and cut out the horrible coal moulding, In the past, I used to just cover it with real coal, but it is just too tall, designed as it was to clear the Ringfield motor.

Encouaged by my pal SirWilliam Stanier, who has produced a great range of one-off versions of Royal Scots and Jubilees, this will become Humorist, with its' full-size smoke deflectors.

Anyway, here it is on test, which I'm happy to say it passed.

[rowanj]

Humorist heads the Up Queen of Scots towards Newcastle. Given the origin of the parts, I'll settle for it. The tender was re-lined and coaled with a lump from the NYMR. I added lamp irons, a whistle, ashpan lever and handrails to the tender-drive body. i also modified yje smokebox door, which had the later split handrails, Deflectors are from Phoenix Precision and nameplates from Fox.

[rowanj]

I have been on a break from loco building, mainly because there is a bit of a shortage of kits to suit the layout. One significant gap is a J21. I had/have a Dave Alexander model, which I built some years ago as 65033, before realising, via Yeadon, that the differences between prototypes meant that mine was a hotchpotch. So I have tidied it up to become a decent representation of a "goods only" version. This means I need the more common passenger loco.

 

I had hoped to get a North Eastern Kits model, and will do so if it is ever released. In the meantime, a London Road Models kit has arrived, only to be grabbed by Mtrs Rowanj as a Birthday/Xmas present. So in the meantime, I'm scouring Yeadon to identify a suitable prototype,.It needs to be Tyneside based, long lasting into at least the late 50's, have outside brake rods (to differentiate it from my existing model) and probably the link from the axle crank to the lubricator.

I'll only post the highlights of the build, as the kit has been illustrated before by better modellers than me.But it will be good to get back on this particular horse.

Edited November 11, 2022 by rowanj

[rowanj]

I'm now at the planning stage for the LRM J21, which Santa delivered yesterday. Having built the similar J25, I don't anticipate any drastic issues. Literally hundreds of these kits must have been built over the last 50 years, though the thread I hoped to follow lost its' photos in the great purge.

My preferred loco is 65110. which was long-lasting and based at Heaton, so fits my purposes. it was regularly used on summer excursions from Newcastle up the ECML to Morpeth and then on the branches to Rothbury or Scots Gap/Bellingham. The photos of the loco in BR days show a few addditions needed for the kit- prominent pipe runs along both footplate valences, outside brake rods, and amechanical  lubricator drive rod from the LH middle driving wheel. More significantly, the loco kept an extended smokebox after losing its' superheater, which isnt supplied in the kit, I dont have a drawing, so if I go down that route, I'll need to estimate the extra width using the photos in Yeadon. At least this gives me an excuse to get another kit to build 65033. which has the short smokebox.

It's a while since I built my last kit, so we shall see how I get on.

Edited December 26, 2022 by rowanj

[rowanj]

The basic chassis is complete, to the extent that it can be pushed around the layout, through pointwork and round corners, and stay on the track.

The kit supplies axle bushes, and I always fit them, As can be seen from the photo, a lot of metal needs to be removed before they pass through the chassis. I used a broach, and would not like to tackle the job without one. I suspect you could simply open uot the holes to allow the axles to pass freely and use washers to adjust sideplay, rather than fit the bearings. I had the file the tops down quite a fair bit to get the wheels to rotate freely, whilst checking all the while that the live ones didnt touch the sides,

 

The kit doesnt have the slot and tab fixtures which are such a boon to building a nice square chassis, but instead you solder 2 spacers into notches on the top of the chassis etch. I found this a right faff, and much cursing and hot fingers resulted. I didnt think the result gave a sufficently robust chassis, so added a further 3 spacers from a Mainly Trains etch, bought via Wizard. The same applies to the tender chassis etches, and the basic tender chassis is almost there.

With the tender, the dummy chassis should have been a doddle, as the kit provides an option for a fold-up alternative. But, just as with the J25 I built, it results in too wide a part, so OO wheels wont turn.

 

I now build the basic loco chassis, tender chassis and footplate together to check clearances, and I'd suggest that is particularly important with this oldish kit, as there are fewer aids to endure everything goes together properly. Neverthelss, if other LRM Kits I've done are anything to go by, a nice loco should result after all.

[micklner]

The Chassis spacer in the last photo on the left is crooked ?.

The J21 is the very old Norton kit , I am hoping Arthur K version will still come out in due course.

I found the same stable J25 was hard work , I got there in the end !! Never had problems with sideplay on mine using Gibsons.

[rowanj]

That spacer was a touch crooked, Mick though not as bad as it looked in the photo. Now adjusted.

 

This is not a kit to be hurried. A week later, amongst all the festivities, the tender chassis is complete, though I'll tinker with the brakes to get them closer to the wheels - just in time for them to be hidden behing the frames. The footplates for tender and loco are ready for the detailing, and I'll start with the splashers- not my favourite job. 

 

The cab front has been married to the boiler, The instructions are clear that you need to remove metal from the cab front where the firebox sides enter.This is a job needing care, as the firebox sides also need bending out. A modern kit would have a mark on the boiler to show where the cab front goes, and slot and tabs to join it to the footplate. There is a hole in the boller bottom which os the point where a fixing bolt passis through the chassis and footplate, so that gives the forward position for the boiler. Washout plugs are etched on the boiler side, so they, plus a good drawing of the loco and lots of photos of the real thing show where the cab goes. I will be fitting the motor to the middle axle, so the boiler bottom will need to be cut to that point.

 

Mick mentioned the J25, and this is essentially the same kit. The larger wheels of the J21 means clearances are tight. Metal needs removing from the loco footplate to prevent shorting of the live wheels, and you can see where I needed to put in a curve over the rear drivers where the firebox sides enter the cab.

 

I don;t know where things are with ArthurK;s J21 kit, for which I think/hope I am on the waiting list. Mike Meggison built the test kits some time ago, but all has gone quiet since then.

[rowanj]

I'm having a bit of a crisis of confidence. I need to get the boiler to a point where I know the motor will fit, and this involves afair bit of removal of the boiler bottom ahead of the smokebox, probably to a point just ahead of the middle splasher. I know where the front of the boiler starts, and the consequence of this is that a substantial amount of the boiler continues into the cab. There is no reference that I can see to cutting this back, though I suppose it must be done. There is a castingfor the backhead which I think, when soldered to the cab front, will give the right depth into the cab. But cutting back the boiler is a condiderable and irreversable procedure.

 

The J25 proves I can build the kit, and the backhead in this cab was soldered to the cab front. Why cant I remember how I did it? Time for a glass of Sancerre to stimulate the little grey cells.

[micklner]

From memory the J25 Boiler was far too long . Again from memory, I built the Cab sides and front first and then cut the excess of the Boiler otherwise the backhead would have been halfway inside the cab !!

Not a kit I would recommend to a beginner. Arthur's kit is the one I should have bought at the time.

Well done on the Loco chassis spacer , sadly it looks like the Tender chassis has a spacer going downwards at the left in photo, you might get away with that one!!.

 

A couple of photos of my J25. I have a built much modified NuCast J21 with a 52F chassis, I doubt if they would help with your J21 . I also hope for a Arthur version.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rowanj]

Thanks, Mick. I am about to build up the basic cab, which will confirm, I think, that the boiler is too long at the back. I'll almost certainly cut it back almost flush to the cab front.

Re that spacer, I should have said that I added some extra spacers, home made in this case, as those in the kit didn't give me the rigidity I wanted. I added them purely as strengtheners after I'd built the basic chassis and checked for squareness. I'm afraid I was a bit careless with that one, but it won't be seen.

I'm still inclined to fabricate the extended smokebox, so will try to put the saddle together to see how it might work.

 

Edited January 2, 2023 by rowanj

[micklner]

It cant any harder to make a Superheated Smokebox, than the rest of the kit !! .

 

My vague memory cells tell me , that I did mark the rear of the Boiler level with the inside of the Cab front and then removed the excess, slightly overlong and filed it back just slightly oversize in relation to the  Cab front . This allowed the Backhead to sit flush with the inside rear of the Cab.

The etched Motion rods on mine were total rubbish with huge crankpin holes etched into them , I used 52F etched ones, he sells as spares. Lanarkshire Models also do good ones as well.

 

Good luck

[rowanj]

It looks more like a candidate for North Road Scrapyard than Heaton Shed, but everything is just posed to get an idea of how it will go together.

 

I started to fit the splashers to check wheel clearances, and have tack soldered the cab sides. I was given the dimensions for the extended smokebox, and this is my third, and hopefully final, attempt to roll it from 080,cm brass sheet, I still need to reduce the diameter a bit more to make a snugger join to the boiler, rather than relying on solder to hold it. The extended smokebox really alters the look of the front end of the loco, and given that may were in this condition, I dont know why the option wasnt offered in the origial kit. My current thinking is to use Archers Rivet Transfers to add the missing detail.

 

Following Mick's comments on the coupling rods on his J25 version, I thought I'd better check mine. In the event, assembly was straightforward. I'm using bog-standard Romford crankpins, and needed to ease the holes with a broach, At this point, I think, I may as well complete the chassis and get it running, so that is the next task.

Edited January 4, 2023 by rowanj

[rowanj]

The chassis is now up and running. I accept it looks scruffy in the photo, but It will be tarted up in due course. It was more problematic than I expected, I drilled a hole in the LH chassis to take a pin for the mechanical lubricator, fitted the brakes, then gave it a coat of Humbrol Red Primer and Railmatch Weather Black, anticipating an easy fit of a Highlevel gearbox and small Mashima motor. However, the motor, when fitted, clearly hadnt enough torque, and needed replacing. All the handling dislodged some of the work on the brakes, etc, and also damaged the paintwork - Weather Black is a fairly fine spray, and does need careful handling. But I normally weather chassis anyway, so going back in with powder and dry brush isnt an issue.

65110 had outside brake rigging, and a mechanical lubricator. You can't miss the link for latter on photos of superheated or -ex-superheated locos, so I fitted one from scrap valve gear parts from the spares box. It was so easy that I'll tackle my Q7 in the same way.

The footplate fits without causing any shorts.. Tomorrow, I;ll make a suitable cut to the boiler bottom, then tackle the cab interior, including making the cut in the overlong boiler where it enters the cab, I want to replicate the wooden floor, so I soldered a flat-head screw, face down in the rear fixing point at the back of the cab, which should let let me conceal it in a recess beneath the plasticard floor.This has also given me an easy way to get the footplate on and off the chassis as I go about the build. You really do need to check everything as you go with this kit.

Edited January 6, 2023 by rowanj