S7 scratch building

[airnimal]

My better half is out again going back to Manchester to have her haircut. I bet hers cost 10 times more than I pay for mine, but fearing for my life I won't mention that  when she gets back.

I knew when she got her boot off her broken leg she would be away like a high flying bird. 

 

I have carried on doing the underframe adding the overlays for the w-irons. The quality of the etching isn't a patch of the resin body. This is definitely hand drawn because things that should be identical are not. I intend to remove the tie bars and replace them with wire because looking at photographs these are made from round bar. To solder the overlays on and align them up I cut a couple of cocktail sticks up and used them by putting them in the gap under where the axleboxes will go. These outside overlays don't match up with the basic fret. I will have file back the basic fret to line them up the best I can once got a bit further on. 

[airnimal]

I removed the flat tie bars and cleaned up some of the metal around the W-irons where they overlapped. I didn't get in every nook and cranny but there has been an improvement.  I then replaced the flat tie bars with .7mm nickel wire. The underframe etch is quite flimsy and easily bent but as it doesn't carry any load it may be alright.  I hopefully will finish this one but the latter kit I will probably sell because it was a later build and is outside my time period. 

[airnimal]

The axleboxes retaining strap was just a flat strip which were all different widths and didn't look like the photographs.  So I cut a strip of nickel the the width of the bottom of the W-irons and marked it out for the rivets before cutting it to shape. I just need to do the same for the other 5 axleboxes now. I wouldn't like to build one of these on commission because of the amout of time trying to correct little things like this. 

[airnimal]

I have raised the tie bar a little because I had set it to low. I have managed to make the 5 remaining tie bars retaining straps. I am pleased with the rivet detail on these because they have come out with a good domed head. Once I do the other side I will have to think where I am going next because I haven't done much forward planning.  Until i get the wheels I won't be able to go to far. The close up shot of the axleboxe reveals that the white metal parts are not of the best quality. 

[airnimal]

Not a lot happening at present because I still don't have any S7 wheels for this build. 

I have done a small amount including adding the handrails to the body as well as completing the other side W-irons. I have found my wheel puller and removed the finescale wheels from the Slaters 6 wheel chassis that I removed from my LNWR coaches when I converted them leaving me with 2 sets of made up and painted parts that were going unused. I could of course used the etches in the kit for the working parts but as I already had these, it would be a shame to waste them when i know that these work very well. I also added a small piece of angle inbetween the outer ends of the W-irons because one small part had been over etched and had come away from the frame leaving it very fragile.  

 

In other news I have managed to find a pair of tyres for my bike but on the house front it has all gone quiet despite dropping the price by 7.5K.  I have also being fully discharged from Hospital after my prostate operation and don't have to see anybody again. I just have to have a PSA once a year at my local doctors.  

[airnimal]

I have now modified the chassis etch to give more clearance for the wheel flanges as well as putting some scrap etch across the ends to strengthen the frames. I also put a couple of brass strip across the frame to guide the centre wheels. The perspex floor wasn't thick enough so I added a second layer before drilling and tapping 10BA to locate the Slaters units. I have used the finescale wheels to set everything up and it all appears to work. So when I get some correct S7 wheels I will swop the units over and put the spare set in the other kit I have for the later van. 

If anyone wants the other kit with these made up finescale wheels send me a PM.

 

 

[airnimal]

I have started to add some details from the few parts left over but I don't want to put the steps on until I am ready to do the painting.  But I have added the V-irons which raises a question because both of these are leaning to one side. Now the drawings that came with this kit are modellers drawings and one is perfectly straight and one is slightly off centre. I have embossed the rivets on both from the have etched  mark's on the back. When viewed through the model it is clear that when a cross shaft is inserted it will out off line. The photographs in the wagon book are not very clear to determine whether either drawing is correct and was the art work drawn from one of these drawings or from worked drawing ?  I could have reversed one of the V-irons to make a matching pair but with the half etched marks already present this option would have needed a lot of work to achieve.  I will have to ponder what to do now. 

 

Cross shaft inserted and I now can see that if I had reversed one of the V-irons I could make them line up. As it is it interferes with the wheels. 

Edited May 19 by airnimal
Posted to soon.

[airnimal]

I managed to remove the offending V-iron, and after cleaning it up I reversed it and added some pins for the rivets. Once placed back on the van it now has the brake cross shaft in a straight line. Perhaps the off centre V-iron wasn't a mistake or bad artwork but a reason to miss the wheels where it crossed the frames. 

 

With the weather being so kind I went out on my bike and did about 20 miles. I must get fit before we go to Hungry in just over 3 weeks time. 

 

I didn't notice when I took the photograph that I had broken one of the tie rods, now corrected.

Edited May 20 by airnimal

[S.D.L.]

Talking of approaching painting do you use an etch primer on the brass parts, or everything or just use car primer?

[airnimal]

S.D.L. no I don't use etch primer on any metal parts but I do try to clean whatever I paint thoroughly first. I just normal Halfords rattle cans either Red or Grey.

 

I have started on the footsteps with limited success after the first attempt was disappointing.  

I tried to be clever by using some brass milled angle for the bottom step and flat strip for the top step. The ones in the kit are a bit rough around the edges and the top step hasn't go a lip on it looking at the photographs.  Unfortunately the angle i used wasn't wide enough and the straps that I made from brass wire needed to be bent to shape, but I made the bends the wrong size. 

But It did give me a shape to work out the correct size so the next attempt was better. I used the bottom step from the kit this time which looks a lot better and is now in gauge. I am still not satisfied with the steps and I might try and bend up some better quality parts.  

 

I called at Slaters today and obtained the correct wheels which will need the axle ends removing before I can use them. I also bought a plastic moulded roof from one of David's kits. The profile is not quite correct but is something I hope I can persuade to fit. 

[redsoldiergreen]

Hi Mike . Amazing work as always . Can I ask do you compensate or spring your 4 wheel stock.? I keep reading conflicting views on this subject . I’m finally getting around to building something and not happy with some kits with the w irons with attached axle boxes ,so will replace them with etches.So is  worthwhile springing them??

[S.D.L.]

Thanks for the feedback on the painting of the brass bits.

steve

[airnimal]

redsoldiergreen,  I mainly spring my 4 wheel wagons using both Slaters units or my own etched brass W-irons.  My own ones are simply a slot which allows the wheels to more up and down by a small amout. The spring is just a piece of phosphor bronze wire bent to shape and retained by a small piece of brass tube soldered in the bottom of the base. It is easy to change the wire at any time to a thicker wire for wagons which weighs more. 

Although I don't run my stuff very often I have never had any problems with wagons falling off the track when I do. Perhaps I am lucky or maybe it is because of the S7 standards. This is of course my own opinion and other may disagree but I am happy with the way things are. 

 

I have been away for a few days visiting our daughter and family in Swindon so i haven't been doing much in the workshop for awhile. So when we got back I have been trying to tidy up a few loose ends. I have fixed the chain on the end of the LSWR wagon by drilling a very small hole in the tarpaulin bracket and and attaching it with some very fine wire. The jaws on my mini drill will not close down enough to hold fine drills, so I superglue a small bore tube on them which can then be used successfully.  I also cut down and fitted the roof on my NSR milk van and added some formers inside that holds the roof in place nice and tightly.  

 

 

[redsoldiergreen]

Thank you Mike I’ll try that.

[airnimal]

I have added the rain strips to the roof with some Evergreen section. I have made new footboards from nickel sheet because I was unhappy with the ones in the kit. The footboards hangers were bent up from nickel rod which is correct for the lower part but the the top section should be from flat bar. After I have soldered the steps together I will file back the top section later. I am unsure what to do about the spring hangers because they are just made from flat etch without any relief.  There wasn't any provision in the kit in the form of castings and I don't seem to have anything in my bits box that would look like the photographs. 

Something to ponder on. 

Also added are the screw couplings from the castings in the kit but the bottom link was substituted from one from a CPL set because the one in the kit was badly distorted.  

 

We were hoping that the house move was getting nearer but we have been let down several times from time wasters. We were warned that this was likely to happen but it is still pretty horrible when it does happen.  

[airnimal]

Trying to make 4 sets of footsteps all identical require some sort of jig. So I drilled a pair holes in a small block of wood that I keep for holding parts when soldering.  Once I had cut the rods to lenght it was quite easy to solder the pre cut footsteps on with a second piece of wood to act as a spacer. 

[airnimal]

The bottom part of the steps were attached with round section material, but the top step was made from flat bar. So after making up all the steps I filed the top part that goes on the solebar's to make it look a bit more like the real thing. But it wasn't really wide enough and look a bit weedy.  So I slipped some small bore square tube over the top part and soldered it over  the wire before filing the back flush. This is a bit overscale but I think it is better than being a little underscale. A added bonus is cutting the brass tube to the right size is it acts a spacing piece to position the steps in the correct place. 

 

I have managed to find a pair of tyres for my bike so I am going to order some Hungarian money for our trip in a couple of weeks time. I will meet up with the gang later to discuss the final arrangements. A couple of them are going to a wake for one of the regulars from our local. They are going early doors so they may not be in the best condition when i get here. 

[Nickey Line]

7 hours ago, airnimal said:

I have managed to find a pair of tyres for my bike

Hi Mike, I would be very interested to hear where you got your tyres, would you pass on the info please?

Very impressed with your work, as usual!

[airnimal]

Not a lot to report.  I am still fitting the square brass tube over the wire rods holding the steps in place. Because the wire is a few thou thicker than the wire I drilled them out using the lathe. 

 

Nickey Line,  the tyres I managed to get came from Airnimal themselves.  I e-mailed the address on the Airnimal website about a month ago and didn't receive a reply, so I tried phoning them with the same results.  I tried several times and gave up. That is the reason I was trying to find them elsewhere without success.  My wife said why not phone Airnimal again and this time I got through to them who confirmed that they had plenty of the correct sizes in stock. So I ordered a pair of Panarcer Pasela,  which arrived very quickly and I think they were the original tyres fitted when I bought the bike all those years ago. They have plenty of tread on them and the amount of use the bike gets will probably see me out. The people who make Airnimal go by the name of Cyclecentric and a pair cost me £73.97 including p&p. I ordered a pair for my brother as well because he is worst them me with the net. How long the pair of use will keep cycling and doing overseas touring  with my brother being nearly 3 years older than me and I'm 73 now. 

We went out yesterday and did 40 miles and I am suffering this morning with aches and pains. 

We go to Hungary in less than 2 weeks and we are riding from Bucharest to Belgrade in Serbia and maybe into Croatia. 

[airnimal]

I have put the milk van on one side because I am trying to find a way to make the ends of the  springs which are only represented by flat etch parts without relief. So I have decided to make anothe van from the MSWR with a corrugated roof. I have made a similar van in the past but I sold it on many years ago. I have knocked up the basic chassis from Evergreen section to represent the iron channel underframe.  I have used my own W-irons which are a close match to the prototype and added a brake casting from ABS suitable modified.  I didn't have any buffers in stock that matched, so I turn up a set up on my small Perris lathe. 

[airnimal]

I have decided to abandon this MSWR van because I am struggling with accurately getting the details in the correct place. I seem to marking and then drilling for the rivets and bolts off centre. I have noticed this has been happening over the last couple of years and I have tried to compensate this by turning the work around and looking it at it from every angle. This has worked to some extent but it's not the complete solution.  

 

What now  ?  

 

I could do with making some Dia 2 LNWR open wagons because I have 5 Dia 1 one plank opens and to have a balanced stud I really need some two planks ones to match. But like a lot of modellers, making the mundane is never as interesting as making exotic and unusual vehicles.  I have made some Dia 2 in the past and I have never been satisfied with my results. The other reason to make the basic things is I have most of the parts in stock 

My mojo is not red hot at present with the disappointed on the house sale being back to square one after the latest time wasters pulled out. 

I will go and see the cycling gang later to finalise our trip next week to Hungary and beyond. 

And tomorrow I will be going to Crewe for the Scale 4 meeting. It's always good to see good modelling even if its not to my preferred scale. 

[airnimal]

I went to Crewe for the S4 meeting on Saturday and enjoyed the exhibition seeing new layouts to me. I also bumped into 4 other S7 members who were there obviously picking up new ideas.  

I bought a drill stand from the second hand table in my attempts to gain better accuracy  in my modelling. I used to have a cheap version or something similar many ago which use to bend when using it, but this one is better made and hopefully won't have the same fault. 

I came home and tried to start making some Dia 2 and Dia 3 wagons, but any skills I thought I had appeared to have left the building. I did prepare a set of wheels in my usual way but they will have to wait until I come back from Hungary.