PAD Posted February 19, 2016 Author Share Posted February 19, 2016 After completing the coupling rods it a as time to modify the crank pin on the front driving wheels to maximise the clearance with three crossheads. Decided to tap the bush 10BA so it could be fitted in reverse without the need for a nut. Once that was done I thinned it down by placing it in the rod and filing from the rear in case I was over zealous with the file and scuffed the rods. Here's one completed and the other still to have the excess bolt cut and filed. And both trimmed. I wasn't happy with the appearance of the coupling rod joints, having used nickel silver rod for the pivot. I decided a more prototypical appearance could be achieved using a turned brass wash out plug. Here's a shot showing how it was with the rod, and how better it looks with the wash out plug. And both done. After that I prepared the middle and rear drivers and fitted the 12BA bolts from the rear, secured with a drop of Loctite. The 3/8 inch bolts for the middle drivers were replaced with 1/2 inch to accomodate the extra bush needed for the connecting rod. After a little extra reaming of the coulping rod holes I had a smooth running chassis. Hopefully the left hand connecting rod will be plain sailing also. Cheers, Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
84B Oxley Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Too late for you now, but for anyone else's benefit-Premier Models sell their coupling rod pivots in nickel silver as separate items. They look as good as your washout plugs(which they also sell-no connection with the firm, just a satisfied customer.) Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted February 20, 2016 Author Share Posted February 20, 2016 Hi Jeff, thought about trying to source something in nickel, but had the brass ones to hand. Should be able to disguise that they are brass with the painting and weathering. Cheers, Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deano747 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Hi Peter I hope they're soldered from the front because the 'Eileens' ones can break. The flange is delicate! Regards, Deano Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted February 20, 2016 Author Share Posted February 20, 2016 Hi Deano, I only soldered from the rear to avoid the risk of getting solder into the groove. I don't forsee any instance where it might break the flange, but time will tell. Just received some Hobbyhorse goodies from their Reynalds range to upgrade some of tge parts in the kit, add some that are not included.First the buffers and smokebox dart to replace the supplied items. And the shifting valves that go behind the steam pipes. And finally the water gauge for inside the cab. It's for a 4000 gall tender and too tall so I will cut it shorter before fitting. Cheers, Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted February 21, 2016 Author Share Posted February 21, 2016 No chance of any serious modelling this weekend but did manage a little fettling up on the buffers. Here's a picture of the water gauge in the cab of the real thing. If I cut the casting at the bottom and then make a new flange it should pass muster. Cheers, Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 Next up was the left hand connecting rod and crosshead. It worked freely after a little bit of tweaking. I have also added the vacuum pump and rod. I had to remove the bracket from the crossheads and reposition it further forward to get it to run without binding. I also knocked up some cosmetic nuts to detail the crossheads. Cheers, Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Harvey Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 Peter Have you restricted the side play in the front driving axle to the minimum to ensure the least chance of fouling the cross heads or supporting structure? Yet again this looks like it will be an excellent model when finished. Pete Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 Hi Pete, Yes thanks, I've got that covered. The front axle is fixed and after fitting I centered the wheels/axle with my "special centering tools" (the ubiquitous Costa Coffee stirrers). I wedged the wheels against the slide bars to center the axle and then heated the brass bearings and slid them out to minimise the side play. I've got about 0.5 mm or so each side which is fine. I have laid the cylinders face down on the Swindon works drawing in MRJ scaled to 7mm courtesy of Tony Reynalds, and it appears that Mr. Ennis has designed the kit with a little extra width over the cylinders. The valves are at the correct width so the outward slope of the cylinder wrapper is a little more pronounced, but not so obvious that it detracts from the appearance. Cheers, Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 I've now added an extra frame spacer with a captive nut so that the slide bar bracket can be screwed in place. For now I've taken the piston rod for the vacuum pump off, as it prevents the removal of the slide bars and con rod which is a pain during the build. I had to remove a couple of mm from the rear cylinder stretcher as it fouled the frame of the bogie, but easy to manage with the slitting disc. I have added the running plate brackets mid way along the frames and also the half etched rivet detail. These latter parts were fitted with super glue as it would have been very difficult to solder them on, without the brackets moving. Don't mind doing that where there's no likelihood of the parts getting knocked off. I also fitted the balance weights to the driving wheels. The middle one is quite thick and is made up from two laminated parts. On the left hand side the lower curved edge and ends need bevelling, but not the top curved edge as suggested in the instructions. On the right hand side, the middle balance weight needs modifying to represent the cut out along the curve of the bottom edge. This was to clear the rear inner edge of the vacuum pump, which otherwise would have been knocked off by the balance weight, with the first rev of the wheels. To represent this is I staggered the laminations as shown below, then cut and filed the excess off the top edge. The clearance is not needed on the model and is purely cosmetic. Cheers, Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted March 5, 2016 Author Share Posted March 5, 2016 Decided to move onto the body for a change and have got the running plate, buffers, and tanks in place. The running plate and valance comes as one etching which folds to make the valance, front and rear smoke box saddle and front splasher sides. 24 folds in all but quite easy particularly with the hold and fold. Three laminates are then added which include rivet detail etc., to the front and rear drop plates and the middle plate for the tanks. The front drop plate includes the access plates for the valves, etched through on three sides so I added some shim brass sheet to the rear to fill the gaps. The buffer beams again are laminates with the outer one with half etch rivet detail. The side tanks require "hundreds" of rivets pressed out before assembling, but go together quite easily. Here's the sequence of events, starting with the running plate etch. There's some slight gaps in places at the bottom of the tanks, but there's an half etch rivet strip to go on which will hide them. Cheers, Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted March 7, 2016 Author Share Posted March 7, 2016 To get the superstructure together as soon as possible, I have moved out of sequence with the instructions and prepared the rear cab plate. I fitted the look out guard rails, rear door surround and coal hole cover in the flat after punching out the half etched rivets. The Dave Bedford grab rail jigging thing was most usefull in making the guard rails. The rear doors can be left closed or made opened by folding along the half etched lines at the sides. I've left them closed for now. The cab side doors are meant to be fitted either closed or open, by soldering tabs into slots in the rear cab plate. I decided to make hinges using the fixing tabs bent around a 0.5mm drill bit and soldered. I then drilled the rear cab plate 0.5mm and soldered in some 0.5mm rod bent at right angles and the doors are just dropped on and can be opened or closed to suit. The glass for the windows is fitted in hinged brass frames which are not catered for in the kit. However, I have some ideas on how to represent them and will do that after painting when I fit the glazing. I have also punched out the rivets on the boiler and fitted the casting for the smokebox door ring. Just realised this was a mistake as I have overlooked to solder an 8BA nut inside the boiler so it may be screwed to the running plate. B*GG*R!!!!!!!! I will give some thought to getting around that cock up when I have "regained my composure". In an any case I could not resist putting the boiler in place for a couple of photos. Cheers, Peter. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ealing Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 It's looking marvellous Peter. Is there enough space in the saddle to allow you to solder a nut on the underside of the smoke box? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deano747 Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 Hi Peter Coming along really nicely, and lovely clean work! That's a very handy tool for wire forming. Do you know if its still available? Regards, Deano Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KalKat Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 You can get them from Eileen's Deano Emma Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold 57xx Posted March 9, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 9, 2016 Deano, Eileen's Emporium stocks them, there may be other places available too. https://www.eileensemporium.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=9&page=shop.product_details&flypage=eny_fly_default.tpl&product_id=5622&category_id=285 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted March 9, 2016 Author Share Posted March 9, 2016 It's looking marvellous Peter. Is there enough space in the saddle to allow you to solder a nut on the underside of the smoke box?Thanks for the kind words.Yes there is room for a nut. However, there might be a risk of it pulling off so I intend to solder on a couple of squares of brass, then drill and tap 8 BA. Cheers, Peter. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted March 13, 2016 Author Share Posted March 13, 2016 I've been forging ahead "Jazz like", with the body work. Well maybe not. Anyway, I have made progress and the bits and pieces are starting to look a bit like a large prairie. I thought the next bit, the bunker and rear cab sides would be quite tricky, but apart from one or two corrections and a bit of fettling, it was it all went very smoothly. First up correcting the lookout aperture which overlaps at the front edge, and needs filing to line up with the profile on the already fitted front cab/tanks. I did this in the flat before folding. Here's the aperture marked for filing. Next I made the corner folds around a suitable sized drill bit, taking care to keep it square. The area of the flare at the rear needs annealing to facilitate the curving. I then fitted the the cast upper corner pieces first and formed the upper rear panel to line up with the castings. Here it is with the corner and bunker extension castings. And after soldering and forming. As Jazz found in his build, the corner pieces are a little short so a piece of waste etch was soldered on the top edge to line up with the top edge of the etching. The one on the right has been cut and partly filed to fit, while on the left you can see the infill piece before cutting and fettling. When the beading is on it won't be noticeable. And a trial fit on the running plate.The overlap at the front is too much so that was also marked up an filed back. Checking the cab roof against this altered upper cab roof length showed that the roof was too long (as Jazz also mentioned) so I decided to remove the front and rear beading to shorten it. I will replace this this later to the re-sized roof. Here it is after scoring with the scrawker before snapping off the excess. The bunker after further fettling. The coal plate inside the bunker is not provided in the kit so I will be making this from scratch later. Before I fitted the bunker to the running plate I added the steps, grab rails and handrails to make for easier fitting and cleaning up after soldering. The kit caters for the original condition without bunker steps on the side, by having half etch marks on the inside. If you need steps you drill through in the flat from the rear, but if not you leave as is. By the way, the instructions suggest using 0.7 mm wire for the grab rails, same as the handrails, but this is incorrect as the grab rails are narrower. I used 0.5 mm for these. As I intend to add to the coal plate later I have soldered some waste etch along the line of the rivets on the inside to facilitate this. I also prepared the firebox and taper boiler part, and drilled and soldered a nut on the inside of the smoke box, so I could get an impression of the overall look of the model before proceeding. Here's the boiler firebox and taper boiler during preparation. the taper boiler needs the bottom edges rubbing down to get it to sit low enough. I did this by rubbing down on some 240 grit paper. It took a while but it was easier to do it this way and keep it "square" and not overdo it. I thought the boiler looked too long and marked it to shorten but after further checking I think it is OK as is. I then fitted the bunker in place, added the hand rail to the taper boiler plus the cladding bands (except on the boiler) etc., and cleaned it up. Here's a selection of shots from various angles. I am quite pleased with how it's looking and went a little banners with the camera. The firebox and taper boiler part are only placed for the photos. As I said, I think it is starting to look like bit a large prairie. Cheers, Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scale7JB Posted March 13, 2016 Share Posted March 13, 2016 Looking very nice!! I have to say though the cylinders are quietly shouting at me... I think they're slightly the wrong shape and possibly too high as well.... I've just had a look at a few prototype photos. I reckon the cladding at the top of the cylinders should almost be touching the valances ( I recall you can just get your fingers in there on the real thing), they might be sticking out too far ( apologies for the analogy, but they're a bit pert looking and they should be more bulbous), and the piston rod should almost be in line with the centre of the wheels, or just above... I could well be wrong, and just my tuppence worth.. JB. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 Looking very nice!! I have to say though the cylinders are quietly shouting at me... I think they're slightly the wrong shape and possibly too high as well.... I've just had a look at a few prototype photos. I reckon the cladding at the top of the cylinders should almost be touching the valances ( I recall you can just get your fingers in there on the real thing), they might be sticking out too far ( apologies for the analogy, but they're a bit pert looking and they should be more bulbous), and the piston rod should almost be in line with the centre of the wheels, or just above... It does look a bit like the Great Central 9P cylinders as things stand. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 Hello JB, You’re right about the cylinders and I will be correcting the profile so it is just clear of the valance. Not sure about them being to high though, but I will check that. Thanks for pointing it out. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev_Lewis Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 The cylinder height looks good to me, and you have to remember that GWR loco's were always wide over the cylinders. But damn I wish I could build to your standard Peter. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johng Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 I've been forging ahead "Jazz like", with the body work. Well maybe not. Anyway, I have made progress and the bits and pieces are starting to look a bit like a large prairie. I thought the next bit, the bunker and rear cab sides would be quite tricky, but apart from one or two corrections and a bit of fettling, it was it all went very smoothly. First up correcting the lookout aperture which overlaps at the front edge, and needs filing to line up with the profile on the already fitted front cab/tanks. I did this in the flat before folding. Here's the aperture marked for filing. 20160308_160424-1.jpg Next I made the corner folds around a suitable sized drill bit, taking care to keep it square. The area of the flare at the rear needs annealing to facilitate the curving. I then fitted the the cast upper corner pieces first and formed the upper rear panel to line up with the castings. Here it is with the corner and bunker extension castings. 20160308_190814-1.jpg And after soldering and forming. As Jazz found in his build, the corner pieces are a little short so a piece of waste etch was soldered on the top edge to line up with the top edge of the etching. The one on the right has been cut and partly filed to fit, while on the left you can see the infill piece before cutting and fettling. When the beading is on it won't be noticeable. 20160309_122438-1.jpg And a trial fit on the running plate.The overlap at the front is too much so that was also marked up an filed back. 20160308_224959-2.jpg Checking the cab roof against this altered upper cab roof length showed that the roof was too long (as Jazz also mentioned) so I decided to remove the front and rear beading to shorten it. I will replace this this later to the re-sized roof. Here it is after scoring with the scrawker before snapping off the excess. 20160309_180439-1.jpg The bunker after further fettling. 20160309_183817-1.jpg 20160309_183834-1.jpg The coal plate inside the bunker is not provided in the kit so I will be making this from scratch later. Before I fitted the bunker to the running plate I added the steps, grab rails and handrails to make for easier fitting and cleaning up after soldering. The kit caters for the original condition without bunker steps on the side, by having half etch marks on the inside. If you need steps you drill through in the flat from the rear, but if not you leave as is. 20160312_222403-1.jpg 20160312_222436.jpg By the way, the instructions suggest using 0.7 mm wire for the grab rails, same as the handrails, but this is incorrect as the grab rails are narrower. I used 0.5 mm for these. As I intend to add to the coal plate later I have soldered some waste etch along the line of the rivets on the inside to facilitate this. I also prepared the firebox and taper boiler part, and drilled and soldered a nut on the inside of the smoke box, so I could get an impression of the overall look of the model before proceeding. Here's the boiler firebox and taper boiler during preparation. the taper boiler needs the bottom edges rubbing down to get it to sit low enough. I did this by rubbing down on some 240 grit paper. It took a while but it was easier to do it this way and keep it "square" and not overdo it. I thought the boiler looked too long and marked it to shorten but after further checking I think it is OK as is. 20160311_111231-1-1.jpg I then fitted the bunker in place, added the hand rail to the taper boiler plus the cladding bands (except on the boiler) etc., and cleaned it up. Here's a selection of shots from various angles. I am quite pleased with how it's looking and went a little banners with the camera. The firebox and taper boiler part are only placed for the photos. 20160313_210547-1.jpg 20160313_210617-1-1.jpg 20160313_210707-1-1-1.jpg 20160313_210740-1-1.jpg 20160313_210814-1.jpg 20160313_210833-1.jpg 20160313_210859-1-1.jpg 20160313_210957-1.jpg 20160313_211032-1-1.jpg 20160313_211103-1.jpg As I said, I think it is starting to look like bit a large prairie. Cheers, Peter Hi Peter, So glad you sorted your way around the boiler/weatherboard/ roofline issue's, nice work and a great guide for others,as I said before Bracks did sort his, I think from memory he had the same issue's with the cylinders, once amended the result was outstanding, like you say it's coming along a treat. Great to follow. John. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 Looking very nice!! I have to say though the cylinders are quietly shouting at me... I think they're slightly the wrong shape and possibly too high as well.... I've just had a look at a few prototype photos. I reckon the cladding at the top of the cylinders should almost be touching the valances ( I recall you can just get your fingers in there on the real thing), they might be sticking out too far ( apologies for the analogy, but they're a bit pert looking and they should be more bulbous), and the piston rod should almost be in line with the centre of the wheels, or just above... I could well be wrong, and just my tuppence worth.. JB. Hello again JB, I've checked the GWR drawing published in the winter 1993 edition of the GWRJ and the center line of the piston rod is 36-1/2 inch above the rail. To the centre line of the driving wheels is 34 inch, so the piston rod center is 2-1/2 higher. That's 1.45mm in this scale so the model is correct. The cylinders are as you point out too narrow at the top and I will be correcting that error in due course. I was aware before you mentioned it but I wish I'd spotted it before assembling the cylinders. If you spot anything else please let me know as it's better than finding out when the paint is on. I have now added the remaining boiler bands and handrail knobs along with the castings for the smokebox saddle. The firebox and taper boiler are also soldered in place, but the chimney is just placed for the photo. The roof slots under the folded top edge of the cab sides and is a very good fit after I modified it. Cheers, Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PAD Posted March 17, 2016 Author Share Posted March 17, 2016 Here's a shot of the alignment of the cylinders and the wheel centers. I don't think there's any issue with that but the cylinder shape needed rectifying. This is how I did it. First the wrapper needed to be partly un-soldered. I then soldered a length of 1.6mm rod along the top edge, bent the wrapper around the rod and re-soldered. The top edge still wasn't close enough to the valance, so I added a wedge of brass at the upper part of the cylinders and then made another wrapper and fitted it over the cylinders. This did the job. I also soldered the chimney in place, along with the tank strapping and grab rails over the boiler and the footstep at the front of the smoke box. Finally I have fabricated the coal plate for the bunker. To assist in lining up the chimney I pushed a piece of dowel into the hole on the top of the smoke box. And the coal plate. And some shots of the loco so far. I think the cylinders look acceptable now. Cheers,Peter. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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