JamieR4489's workbench

[JamieR4489]

For a few months, now, my workbench has been looking more like Gorton than Doncaster...

 

At the Ely show, I bought a couple of locos from Jonathan Wealleans, who was disposing of a collection from a deceased modeller. There was a good selection of LNER items and I picked out a K's O4 and a scratchbuilt D2.

 

The O4 was initially dead but when I opened it up I found this was due to a broken soldered joint from the motor terminal to the pickups. With about 5 minutes work, the loco was growling around Tuxford North (it had a K's motor) but seemed to lack torque. A fairly light train was enough to stall the loco on tighter curves. I replaced the original motor and gears with a High Level gearbox and Mitsumi motor taken out of my Nucast Q1, which I rarely use as it's too early for 1938. I can't remember the exact gear ratio but it's quite high so the loco has a prototypical top speed and will now pull a house down thanks to the whitemetal body. While I had the frames stripped down, I took the opportunity to fit brakes. The frames are battleship-thick brass so a minidrill was employed to avoid being there all day. The frames weren't quite tall enough to reach the bottom of the body (initially, I thought the body was sitting high but the ride height is perfect) so I added some 1x1mm plasticard to the tops. The body needed far less work, the only major job being to change the chimney from the original Robinson type to something more similar to the later LNER Gorton pattern from the spares box. The steps halfway along the running plate were bent and broke when I tried to straighten them and it was only after I'd spent a while drilling and pinning the remains back together that I realised these steps were removed in the early '30s; they've now been taken off the model, as well. I'll need to add a snifting valve and then I can touch up the paint and decide on an identity.

 

I'm afraid the flangeless wheels will be saying for now. The person who built this decided to mount the pickups on top of the frames and you can see that the front one (which I've since tweaked) has popped out from behind the wheel.

 

I haven't had much of a look at the D2 yet but the detail is fairly basic in some areas. More importantly, however, it looks like a D2 and the chassis seems OK, although I will replace the K's wheels and motor. The tender may get swapped for a spare I've got to save spending time detailing the original. It's a saturated loco so it will make a nice comparison alongside my superheated LRM model.

 

The tender of the B7 is coming along nicely now. I've had to make quite a few new parts as the etches were incomplete and there's still quite a bit to do. The coalplates, which I thought would be OK, turned out to be too short for a 4000g tender and I don't have any brass or nickel silver of the right width so they'll be made from plasticard, as will the cover for the water scoop mechanism running along the side of the bunker. I've got some whitemetal axlebox castings but haven't yet compared their likeness to GCR ones.

 

Regards,

 

Jamie

[jwealleans]

Nice to see these being improved in a good home.   I've just started working on the J6 I kept from the same collection.   Will you bring it with you later in the month?

 

You'll have to tell me all about the B7 tender as well, i have a couple to tackle.

[JamieR4489]

Thanks Jonathan,

 

Yes, that's the plan.

 

The B7's tender is the primitive (no slots or tabs!) Perseverance etch by Rod Neep rather than Mike Edge's version that I think is supplied with the G-Train kits.

 

Jamie

[65179]

On 06/08/2023 at 20:49, JamieR4489 said:

For a few months, now, my workbench has been looking more like Gorton than Doncaster...

 

At the Ely show, I bought a couple of locos from Jonathan Wealleans, who was disposing of a collection from a deceased modeller. There was a good selection of LNER items and I picked out a K's O4 and a scratchbuilt D2.

 

The O4 was initially dead but when I opened it up I found this was due to a broken soldered joint from the motor terminal to the pickups. With about 5 minutes work, the loco was growling around Tuxford North (it had a K's motor) but seemed to lack torque. A fairly light train was enough to stall the loco on tighter curves. I replaced the original motor and gears with a High Level gearbox and Mitsumi motor taken out of my Nucast Q1, which I rarely use as it's too early for 1938. I can't remember the exact gear ratio but it's quite high so the loco has a prototypical top speed and will now pull a house down thanks to the whitemetal body. While I had the frames stripped down, I took the opportunity to fit brakes. The frames are battleship-thick brass so a minidrill was employed to avoid being there all day. The frames weren't quite tall enough to reach the bottom of the body (initially, I thought the body was sitting high but the ride height is perfect) so I added some 1x1mm plasticard to the tops. The body needed far less work, the only major job being to change the chimney from the original Robinson type to something more similar to the later LNER Gorton pattern from the spares box. The steps halfway along the running plate were bent and broke when I tried to straighten them and it was only after I'd spent a while drilling and pinning the remains back together that I realised these steps were removed in the early '30s; they've now been taken off the model, as well. I'll need to add a snifting valve and then I can touch up the paint and decide on an identity.

 

I'm afraid the flangeless wheels will be saying for now. The person who built this decided to mount the pickups on top of the frames and you can see that the front one (which I've since tweaked) has popped out from behind the wheel.

 

I haven't had much of a look at the D2 yet but the detail is fairly basic in some areas. More importantly, however, it looks like a D2 and the chassis seems OK, although I will replace the K's wheels and motor. The tender may get swapped for a spare I've got to save spending time detailing the original. It's a saturated loco so it will make a nice comparison alongside my superheated LRM model.

 

The tender of the B7 is coming along nicely now. I've had to make quite a few new parts as the etches were incomplete and there's still quite a bit to do. The coalplates, which I thought would be OK, turned out to be too short for a 4000g tender and I don't have any brass or nickel silver of the right width so they'll be made from plasticard, as will the cover for the water scoop mechanism running along the side of the bunker. I've got some whitemetal axlebox castings but haven't yet compared their likeness to GCR ones.

 

Regards,

 

Jamie

 

You can't have too many Gorton products Jamie 😉

 

What's the origin of your GC tender? If the coalguards are too short for your B7 tender then they may be correct for an earlier GC loco or ROD tender. In general, any with solid coalguards built before the B8s had shorter ones. As I understand it, the ROD tenders were also built to the (or more correctly one of the)  earlier spec(s). If your tender kit is correct for the short coalguards then check the position of the tender brake standard against photos of your chosen loco. This varied across the not so standard 4000 gallon tenders. On earlier tenders the centre axis of the standard is in line with the vertical handrail, closer in to the tender body on later ones.

 

The self-trimming tenders differ in all sorts of other ways too.

 

Edit: The Judith Edge kit makes up very nicely into the later non-self trimming tender with the longer coalguards including the slight running plate flair needed for the B7 etc. That kit does not contain any shorter coalguards.

 

Which B7 are you doing?

 

Regards,

Simon

Edited August 7, 2023 by 65179

[JamieR4489]

8 hours ago, 65179 said:

 

You can't have too many Gorton products Jamie 😉

 

What's the origin of your GC tender? If the coalguards are too short for your B7 tender then they may be correct for an earlier GC loco or ROD tender. In general, any with solid coalguards built before the B8s had shorter ones. As I understand it, the ROD tenders were also built to the (or more correctly one of the)  earlier spec(s). If your tender kit is correct for the short coalguards then check the position of the tender brake standard against photos of your chosen loco. This varied across the not so standard 4000 gallon tenders. On earlier tenders the centre axis of the standard is in line with the vertical handrail, closer in to the tender body on later ones.

 

The self-trimming tenders differ in all sorts of other ways too.

 

Edit: The Judith Edge kit makes up very nicely into the later non-self trimming tender with the longer coalguards including the slight running plate flair needed for the B7 etc. That kit does not contain any shorter coalguards.

 

Which B7 are you doing?

 

Regards,

Simon

Thank you very much, Simon, I hadn't appreciated the differences in brake standard positions and didn't know about the running plate flair.

 

The kit is the Perseverance etch. It was incomplete when I got it and the etch had some holes where it looks like coalguards used to be. The shorter ones are the same length as on locos like J11s. Current plan is to do 5072.

 

Regards,

 

Jamie

[65179]

Not 5072, but I dare you to model this load of coal in the tender!

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234735890695?hash=item36a7597107:g:zwMAAOSwEYljSrQ5&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAsKKRRKUd6pnJlssyjhMLJRgGyA61TLYHQj0EqSsG%2FAuiHrjplhDsbnnRZNcB%2Bg2tSlWqoAgpjEStbMfPPSXgyiV1PSoIZmiGcCSq41EynJGYbExFEGkJKjAoWnSij2kldg9rqgkvURJnpjnSt81VCqdt9jNQTFK%2BzQCny%2B5ZeCjEZDiuSBpLX0uSj9FeaHnmXQ0zwz5V0pjgyXkldiqcr35CRJJ00fMbipVgIos5olVW|tkp%3ABk9SR76nuc26Yg

 

Simon

[Pebbles]

The Perseverance GCR tender was supplied with their D11 kit, but also cropped up in a B2 kit issued by Jayline.  Very ambitiously the fret sought to cover all tender versions  used by  the later Robinson engines including the self trimming type.

[JamieR4489]

2 hours ago, 65179 said:

Not 5072, but I dare you to model this load of coal in the tender!

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234735890695?hash=item36a7597107:g:zwMAAOSwEYljSrQ5&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAsKKRRKUd6pnJlssyjhMLJRgGyA61TLYHQj0EqSsG%2FAuiHrjplhDsbnnRZNcB%2Bg2tSlWqoAgpjEStbMfPPSXgyiV1PSoIZmiGcCSq41EynJGYbExFEGkJKjAoWnSij2kldg9rqgkvURJnpjnSt81VCqdt9jNQTFK%2BzQCny%2B5ZeCjEZDiuSBpLX0uSj9FeaHnmXQ0zwz5V0pjgyXkldiqcr35CRJJ00fMbipVgIos5olVW|tkp%3ABk9SR76nuc26Yg

 

Simon

One sudden brake application and the crew are met with an avalanche of coal! Mind you, at least I wouldn't have to bother with any bunker details.

 

2 hours ago, Pebbles said:

The Perseverance GCR tender was supplied with their D11 kit, but also cropped up in a B2 kit issued by Jayline.  Very ambitiously the fret sought to cover all tender versions  used by  the later Robinson engines including the self trimming type.

I had a feeling I'd read that it was supposed to cover all types of Robinson tenders, so thanks for confirming that. It's hard to tell how accurately the kit could represent each type because, as I've mentioned before, the one I got was incomplete. There are also a few parts where I have no idea what they represent! Such are the joys of not having the instructuons.

 

Regards,

 

Jamie

[65179]

6 minutes ago, JamieR4489 said:

One sudden brake application and the crew are met with an avalanche of coal! Mind you, at least I wouldn't have to bother with any bunker details.

 

I had a feeling I'd read that it was supposed to cover all types of Robinson tenders, so thanks for confirming that. It's hard to tell how accurately the kit could represent each type because, as I've mentioned before, the one I got was incomplete. There are also a few parts where I have no idea what they represent! Such are the joys of not having the instructuons.

 

Regards,

 

Jamie

 

Stick a photo or two on here and we can play guess the part!

 

If the Perseverance kit is supposed to represent both types but, for example, only has one set of body parts then it doesn't represent the wider self-trimming type very well!

Edited August 8, 2023 by 65179

[JamieR4489]

3 hours ago, 65179 said:

 

Stick a photo or two on here and we can play guess the part!

 

If the Perseverance kit is supposed to represent both types but, for example, only has one set of body parts then it doesn't represent the wider self-trimming type very well!

I'll see what I can do tomorrow...

 

The kit certainly provides the wider bulkheads, tank rear and front coal plate and the hopper shaped bunker for the self-trimming tenders.

[JamieR4489]

Right, here's your starter for 10:

 

A fairly nondescript piece with half-etched lines about 5-6mm from each end.

 

I thought this would be easy to identify as it's a more complex shape but it's stumped me so far.

 

Jamie

[65179]

1 hour ago, JamieR4489 said:

Right, here's your starter for 10:

 

A fairly nondescript piece with half-etched lines about 5-6mm from each end.

 

I thought this would be easy to identify as it's a more complex shape but it's stumped me so far.

 

Jamie

 

How deep is the top one? Are there any fold lines on the reverse?

 

The lower piece is what sits in the orientation shown in the coalhole of the self trimming tender to restrict the amount of coal coming out of the front of the hopper.

 

Simon

Edited August 9, 2023 by 65179

[JamieR4489]

31 minutes ago, 65179 said:

 

How deep is the top one? Are there any fold lines on the reverse?

 

The lower piece is what sits in the orientation shown in the coalhole of the self trimming tender to restrict the amount of coal coming out of the front of the hopper.

 

Simon

Ah thank you! I should have known that as I had a good look round 506's tender at Barrow Hill last year.

 

The first one is about 3mm deep and is plain on the rear.

 

Jamie

[JamieR4489]

It's fair to say modelling took a back seat last year. My motivation was very low, I think caused by various problems I encountered with the B7 and O4. My interests have moved towards 12" to 1' railways but, now that they're closed for a few months, I'm hoping to get back into modelling.

 

The Tiny is now finished and the end is in sight for the Black Pig, although I do want to replace the coal plates as I'm not happy with my scratchbuilt plasticard versions. They'll be replaced with brass which should make them much sturdier. I've had to replace the bogie wheels with some under-scale ones as the originals kept fouling on the cylinders and motion bracket. That's not the fault of the kit, the instructions say that it is designed for a minimum radius of 2' 6" and a lot of my layout is tighter than that.

 

 

 

 

@65179's thread on GCR tenders alerted me to the fact that the steps should curve inwards whereas I'd made them straight so I carefully bent them to approximately the right shape.

 

At the start of November, Kernow Model Rail Centre were doing a flash sale that included Hornby's revised A1s. These had been on my radar since they were announced but I could never justify the price. For £100, it was a bargain. The smokebox lamp iron was very wonky and firmly glued but I've extracted and reattached it without pinging it across the room. I've added the parts from the detail bag, painted the smokebox hinge straps silver and toned down the firebox LED (which I see as being a gimmick, anyway) with a blob of black paint. It will eventually get renamed, weathered, etc.

 

 

Hmm, I've just noticed that the front bufferbeam is dropping, I'll have to take a look at that.

 

Regards,

 

Jamie

 

[JamieR4489]

I told myself that my next project would be a Kirk Restaurant Triplet and that I wouldn't start it until I'd finished the B7, so what did I go and do? Start working on a pair of A4s, of course!

 

The first started as a second-hand Hornby Mallard and is well on the way to being finished as 4463 Sparrow Hawk. I was lazy when I renumbered it and just turned the 8s into 3s through strategic scraping. One of Graeme King's resin single chimneys was fitted and most of the front lamp irons were replaced with scrap etch as the originals had snapped off.

 

I started fitting some of my A4s with full-length drain cocks a few years ago but decided to take this a step further and replace the guard irons. The A4s originally had two pairs, one on the bogie and one attached to the frames but Hornby put both sets on the bogie. I sawed off the front of the bogie and filed the remains to look like mudguards. New guard irons were filed from nickel silver scrap etch and attached to a t-shaped arm that is held in place by the main body screw. Drain cocks were soldered together from 0.45mm brass wire and then soldered onto the guard irons. They locate into holes drilled in the bottoms of the cylinders but aren't glued in so that I can remove the drain cocks and guard irons as a complete assembly when disassembling the loco. I've had to set the drain cocks slightly wider than they should be to allow the loco to negotiate a 2' radius curve and I also had to limit the bogie swing by soldering bits of wire across the pivot slot so that the wheels can't rub on the cocks. This may not make a lot of sense so hopefully the pictures will explain it better than I can.

 

Nameplates from 247 Developments were fitted and the loco given a few coats of Humbrol Clear. I've made a start on repainting the wheels using Humbrol 20.

 

 

The second A4 also started as a second-hand Hornby Mallard but the previous owner had changed it to 4903 Peregrine. I'll be turning it into 2510 Quicksilver as I was keen to have one of the original four in blue, and every man and his dog seem to have 2509 or 2512 (2511 was in the Plant during the period I'm modelling).

 

Garter Blue Hornby A4s with 1935 tenders aren't easy to come by but I had a spare 1928 tender from a Railroad Flying Scotsman that I turned into Minoru. I decided to have a go at converting it to a 1935 type but if it went pear-shaped I'd get a spare Hornby body.

 

The 1928 tenders had beading on the sides, a flat back and no streamlining whereas the 1935 ones were flush-sided, had a bowed end to match the Silver Jubilee stock and (from 1938) had a reduced streamlined fairing around the bunker. Between 1935 and early-'38 they also had fairings over the water space.

 

I started by filing the beading off and the stuck 2mm plasticard inside the rear corners to reinforce them while I was filing the corners to the correct shape. I also shaped and stuck some triangular pieces of plasticard inside the rear corners above the top of the tank. Once I had drilled out the corridor porthole, using the original moulding as a guide, I attacked the tender with a selection of files, comparing it to my Hornby 4491 as I went. I finished it off with fine sandpaper and filled any deep scratches. Handrails, steps and lamp irons were then fitted to complete the rear end. The 1928 tender was in its original condition without extra streamlining so I had to extend the side sheets upwards using 20x40 (I think) thou Evergreen strips and I then traced around the front fairing of 4491's tender and used it as a template to cut out a piece of 10 thou plasticard. I stuck it on top of the tender bit by bit, starting at one side and then allowing the glue to harden before sticking the next 10mm or so down. The moulded coal was cut out and a false-bottom for the bunker made, along with the top of the corridor. I've used a 1936 non-corridor chassis so the rear steps needed replacing as the ones on 1935 corridor tenders were a different shape.

 

The tender body is now ready for painting and I'm hoping that I'll be able to match the Hornby paint on the loco body, as that will save me a job trying to reinstate the parabolic curve. Then I'll need to make all the same modifications I did to 4463.

 

 

Finally, when I was working on 4463 I was about to put the whistle back on when I realised that it wasn't a chime whistle. I assume the previous owner had lost the original and fitted whatever they had to hand. Rather than buy a replacement, I decided to pinch the whistle from my Hornby 4489, which is wrong for the former but correct for 4463. 4489 had a CPR 5-chime whistle, which was shorter and fatter than the standard A4 chime whistle and was divided into 5 'segments', each a different height. I pushed a piece of brass tube inside another and then filed the tops to approximately the right shape (I think I only managed a 4-chime rather than 5), cut the tubes down to about the right length, soldered a piece of wire inside the inner tube and soldered a crankpin washer underneath the tubes. Tim Watson probably could've knocked up a much better version in 2mmFS in about half the time but from 3' away it looks sufficiently different to a standard A4 chime whistle to make it stand out, so I won't lose any sleep over it.

 

 

I know this is a very long post so thank you if you've made it this far!

 

Regards,

 

Jamie

Edited April 1 by JamieR4489