'Cloister' - Another Superdetailed Slater's Quarry Hunslet

[Quarryscapes]

Red Damsel is now 99% finished, and thoughts have turned to the next project. This will be another Hunslet, but as I wish to experiment a bit with this one I'm making it a simple one - Cloister fits that bill, with only a few additional parts required this time.

 

What parts? Well, Cloister is characterised by having a welded tank with no handrails, injector feed is taken from the side of the tank (suggesting it may have at some point carried the injectors on Red Damsel). The steam turret is unique in having the pressure gauge on the right and whistle on the left, there is also no blower feed on the left of the smokebox. (and I'm pretty sure not on the right either). The motion brackets are the original ones from Velinheli, with the holes for the crosshead water feed pumps plated over. In terms of new parts to be fitted, I'll draw up a new steam turret and will fit the same cast brake column, brake cross shaft and boiler flange as Red Damsel, and of course the same individual rivets and bolt heads, but on the whole there's a lot less fabrication. 

 

What experiments? Well Red Damsel was planned out for DCC operation, but Coister is to be Radio Controlled. Compared to what I'm used to, these are large models, but when it comes to squeezing in a whole host of electronics and a power supply, they suddenly become quite small again! The boiler is barely large enough to hold batteries - my current plan is for a pair of 18350 Lithium Manganese 800mAh rechargeable cells powering a Deltang RX65. In the coal bunker will be a connection to charger and a switch to turn the electrics off. The lack of blower on the smokebox is important as I wish to be able to get at the batteries through the smokebox being removable. It's not easy getting inside Red Damsel, so I want to trial the system on something a bit more accessible before retro fitting the Damsel too. 

 

A quick 3D mockup shows just how tight space is, and compares the contents of Red Damsel's boiler! 

 

 

As with the Damsel, any pics info etc gratefully received, Cloister is another loco where I have precious little in the way of photographs of.