Tyteford Halte

[MAP66]

As promised, I have put together a few images showing in a bit more detail the process I used to fit the rear window grills. It’s nothing fancy or complex but it worked for me…

 

Here, I have drilled all the top holes first. Some are a little askew but I can open them up a bit with a small broach to get them back inline. A length of 0.2mm brass rod is cut to size and a 90 bend made at one end. The bent end is inserted loose into the first hole and allowed to lay over its corresponding lower hole. I am only drilling the lower holes one at a time to maintain parallel alignment with the previous brass rod.

 

The next step is to mark on the brass rod using paint the point where the second bend needs to be.

 

Now, remove the rod and line up the white mark in the jaws of a pair of pliers as shown above  and form the second bend.

 

With the second bend made, the rod is offered back to the window for a test fit. Its a good fit but the lower hole needs a slight opening up to the right to bring the rod over to the right. The right edge of the window aperture acts as a vertical guide for the first rod and then each subsequent rod is lined up to the previous one.

The gap between each rod was determined by the marks left in the plastic after the original window grills were removed. when your happy with the fit, glue the rod in place. For this I used  Deluxe materials rocket card glue applied with a small brush to feed the glue into the holes while the rod is in place. The glue will also help seal the hole and for any enlarged holes feed in some liquid filler. That's it, just repeat another eight times.

Edited March 31 by MAP66

[57xx]

On 26/03/2024 at 07:32, MAP66 said:

Much appreciated Rob. I won't lie it can be a bit fiddly and I do have sausage fingers but I got into the groove with it and was fitting a bar every  3 or 4 minutes. When I do the other side I will take some more images showing the actual process, better than explaining sometimes,  an image paints a thousand words. For information the brass 0.2 rod is by Albion Alloys available from numerous model shops at about £5.50 for 10 x 300mm lengths.

 

I've found Nairnshire Modelling Supplies to be good for brass rod. They do more than currently listed on their ebay shop as I've had 0.5, 0.6 and 0.7mm off them. They only showing down to 0.3mm at the moment so not sure if they do 0.2mm, might be worth asking. The proprietor has always been good in communications I've had with him.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&iconV2Request=true&_blrs=recall_filtering&_ssn=2010rowantree634&store_cat=15858748010&store_name=nairnshiremodellingsupplies&_oac=1&_nkw=wire

[MAP66]

8 minutes ago, 57xx said:

I've found Nairnshire Modelling Supplies to be good for brass rod. They do more than currently listed on their ebay shop as I've had 0.5, 0.6 and 0.7mm off them. They only showing down to 0.3mm at the moment so not sure if they do 0.2mm, might be worth asking. The proprietor has always been good in communications I've had with him.

Thanks for sharing, always good to have additional supplier resources  when needed 👍

[MAP66]

Its been a bit quiet on here recently, there is a reason. Well, two reasons actually. I am waiting on an order from Squires and I have also been working on the new layout and have now started a new thread for it. There’s nothing exciting happening on there yet, all the boring stuff has to happen first and that’s going to take some time. Anyway, for those interested, here’s the link for the new thread  https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/185439-shepton-mallet-charlton-rd-for-now-yet-to-be-renamed/?do=getNewComment

 

[Captain Kernow]

On 31/03/2024 at 12:03, MAP66 said:

As promised, I have put together a few images showing in a bit more detail the process I used to fit the rear window grills. It’s nothing fancy or complex but it worked for me…

 

Here, I have drilled all the top holes first. Some are a little askew but I can open them up a bit with a small broach to get them back inline. A length of 0.2mm brass rod is cut to size and a 90 bend made at one end. The bent end is inserted loose into the first hole and allowed to lay over its corresponding lower hole. I am only drilling the lower holes one at a time to maintain parallel alignment with the previous brass rod.

 

The next step is to mark on the brass rod using paint the point where the second bend needs to be.

 

Now, remove the rod and line up the white mark in the jaws of a pair of pliers as shown above  and form the second bend.

 

With the second bend made, the rod is offered back to the window for a test fit. Its a good fit but the lower hole needs a slight opening up to the right to bring the rod over to the right. The right edge of the window aperture acts as a vertical guide for the first rod and then each subsequent rod is lined up to the previous one.

The gap between each rod was determined by the marks left in the plastic after the original window grills were removed. when your happy with the fit, glue the rod in place. For this I used  Deluxe materials rocket card glue applied with a small brush to feed the glue into the holes while the rod is in place. The glue will also help seal the hole and for any enlarged holes feed in some liquid filler. That's it, just repeat another eight times.

I've done two or three GW locos like that in my time, using 5 amp fuse wire, individually glued into tiny holes, just like you've done.

 

I rather like the idea of the 0.2mm brass wire, though.

 

These days, however, I am happy with the way Bachmann et al have moulded their rear cab window bars and I doubt that I could better them in terms of regularity and evenness. Sometimes 'less is more'.

 

What I won't endorse, however, is the etched window bars that you can get (?former Mainly Trains etch?). They may be nice and slender, but the lack of '3D' just doesn't convince.

 

In terms of the smokebox door on the old Airfix body, I couldn't agree with you more and on the few 14XXs that I've upgraded (for others), I've used a turned brass smokebox door that I think I obtained from Roxey. I then added hinges etc. from plasticard.

 

[MAP66]

34 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

I've done two or three GW locos like that in my time, using 5 amp fuse wire, individually glued into tiny holes, just like you've done.

 

I rather like the idea of the 0.2mm brass wire, though.

 

These days, however, I am happy with the way Bachmann et al have moulded their rear cab window bars and I doubt that I could better them in terms of regularity and evenness. Sometimes 'less is more'.

 

What I won't endorse, however, is the etched window bars that you can get (?former Mainly Trains etch?). They may be nice and slender, but the lack of '3D' just doesn't convince.

 

In terms of the smokebox door on the old Airfix body, I couldn't agree with you more and on the few 14XXs that I've upgraded (for others), I've used a turned brass smokebox door that I think I obtained from Roxey. I then added hinges etc. from plasticard.

 

Thanks are in order for the avalanche of likes just received on this thread and the layout one. I must be doing something right then! 

It would be nice to meet up at the SWAG event and put a face to a name.

 

Best Regards

Mark 

 

[Captain Kernow]

12 hours ago, MAP66 said:

It would be nice to meet up at the SWAG event and put a face to a name.

I agree, but unfortunately I can't go (again) this year, due to medical reasons. Maybe at a show in the SW later in the year?

 

[Captain Kernow]

I was going to add that you are only the second person I've ever found, who has installed individual bars on the windows at the rear of a GW cab.

 

The first was the brother of a good friend of mine, when we were all still at school in the 1970s, who made a lovely job of detailing up one of the then new Hornby 8750 panniers. A couple of years later I did the same with my pannier. I thought I'd done a half-decent job at the time, but upon extricating the loco from it's box the other day, I realised that the tops and bottom lines of the bars weren't as even as I'd thought. Still, it was nearly 50 years ago!

 

This is the loco posing on 'Bethesda Sidings' recently:

 

I subsequently realised that there were various other things about the Hornby pannier, that I could have corrected (and would if I did the exercise again - unlikely in view of the superior quality of more recent RTR panniers). The ride height of the loco is one of the main problems, it being too high.

 

[MAP66]

14 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

I agree, but unfortunately I can't go (again) this year, due to medical reasons. Maybe at a show in the SW later in the year?

 

That’s a shame, I missed SWAG last year as the Mrs was in hospital. I do hope your able to attend the shows again soon.

[MAP66]

24 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

I was going to add that you are only the second person I've ever found, who has installed individual bars on the windows at the rear of a GW cab.

 

The first was the brother of a good friend of mine, when we were all still at school in the 1970s, who made a lovely job of detailing up one of the then new Hornby 8750 panniers. A couple of years later I did the same with my pannier. I thought I'd done a half-decent job at the time, but upon extricating the loco from it's box the other day, I realised that the tops and bottom lines of the bars weren't as even as I'd thought. Still, it was nearly 50 years ago!

 

This is the loco posing on 'Bethesda Sidings' recently:

 

I subsequently realised that there were various other things about the Hornby pannier, that I could have corrected (and would if I did the exercise again - unlikely in view of the superior quality of more recent RTR panniers). The ride height of the loco is one of the main problems, it being too high.

 

I think we’re all a bit guilty of looking at models we worked on years before and thinking, I wish I had done that bit differently, I certainly do. Even stuff I’m working on now, I constantly ask myself “why on earth have you done it like that.”

Thanks again for all the comments and for sharing that image of your Pannier which I think has definitely stood the test of time and those window bars look dam good to me. Fifty years ago, that would have been the envy of every modeller to own it and It still looks amazing now.

[MAP66]

Well that was a bit of a dry spell at the 48XX work bench! I have been instead, constructing the first helix on the main layout and am finally on the last circuit. But then, the announcement from Dapol yesterday that they will be producing under new tooling the GWR Class 517 0-4-2T as well as a new range of GWR Class 14xx/ 48xx/ 58xx 0-4-2T vehicles (How marvellous I thought, and with interior cab detail, how very dare they 😆) was the encouragement I was waiting for, to get my little project over the line. The Dapol models are not expected until Q4 2025. so even I, at my current speed, have a good chance of completing my version before Dapol release theirs into the shops.

 

As a progress re-cap, the cab window bars are now all completed and I am just taking a break in-between furiously filing away some unwanted features of the old Airfix body shell, namely the smokebox door and the top feed. The smoke box door will be replaced with the Mainly Trains cast white metal one. A couple of before pics below, after ones to follow…

 

First image, just to show how the window bars ended up, the enlarged holes will be concealed with filler.

 

As it looks before being attacked with the file, top feed and smoke box door are soon to be history.

 

 

Edited April 30 by MAP66
Steal can't speil and bad grammer

[MAP66]

A lot of filing later resulted in a pleasing transformation, the top feed and moulded feed pipes are no more, along with the smoke box door. A little work is required on the white metal replacement door hinges before I glue it in place with araldite.

 

On the prototype, the smoke box wrapper seems to have a bevel or chamfer to its front edge, unlike the model which has a dead square edge. So, I rounded the edge of with some fine emery paper. A couple of moulded rivets where also lost on the smoke box wrap, a result of some careless strokes of the file. These will be re-introduced courtesy of glue n’ glaze applied on the tip of a needle.

 

A close up view of the real thing 'Tivvy Bumper' showing the chamfer detail to front edge of smoke box wrap.

 

My interpretation of this was to slightly round off the square edge with fine emery paper. Note also the shadow imprint left from filing away the smoke box door and draw off tap. This will aid with re-alignment of the white metal replacement door. 

 

Side on, showing all the scarring and blemishes in reaching this stage. The raised hole on the smoke box wrapper still needs filing down and some more attention is needed to the overscale boiler band. Then an all over dusting of grey primer should reveal any further body work necessary for the boiler and smoke box.

[MAP66]

I’m well into the stage now of improving the body work of the old Airfix shell, as opposed to hacking it about and making it look even worse. I thought it would be an idea to list out below the jobs completed thus far and some of those still required to complete the 48XX body shell. I’ve come a long way, but still a way to go.

 

This is not the complete list, but if I add any more to it at this stage it will look too daunting. I will complete this lot and then see what’s next to do.

A couple of images below to show how things are left this evening. 

 

 

 

 

 

[MAP66]

This last seven days has seen me full of inspiration and disappointment. There was some wonderful and exceptional modelling on display at SWAG 24 last Sunday and at the Bristol exhibition which the Mrs and I attended on Friday. The Pasties and cakes are far more superior at SWAG though 🧁. This was actually the sort of tonic I desperately needed as I was sulking due to not being able to get my sound decoder to work in the recently acquired second hand Bachmann 7F. Suffice to say, If I hadn’t gone to the Bristol show, the 7F would still be a no goer. It works fine now and the whole embarrassing story will be told on the layout thread when I get around to posting it.

 

So, meanwhile back at the work bench, I managed to prep the boiler and smoke box for painting, replaced lost rivets and fitted the smoke box handle and draw off tap. Then the edge of the smoke box was taped off to protect the boiler and the smoke box was given a rattle can of chaos black followed by a wash of umber. The dart or handle still needs painting black. Next job will be to attempt spray painting the boiler GWR green and refit the hand rail and add a lamp bracket atop the smoke box.

 

Door dart and tap fitted, just the centre pin needs trimming down a bit.

 

The tap has been adapted from the stand pipe in the Ratio cattle dock kit.

[MAP66]

Sometimes things go well, sometimes they go even better than expected but then sometimes things don’t go quite so well. I’m entering the realms of new territory again and that is painting steam locos. Its good to post fails as well as successful endeavours to show that sometimes we have to learn from our mistakes in order to improve, so here’s one example.

 

Basically, I am not impressed with my efforts on painting the boiler. I’ll talk you through it, I thought that after the grey primer stage which went on well via a rattle can, I had inspected the sanding down and it seemed OK, probably because of the duller finish. I then went ahead and sprayed it green using a Humbrol rattle can, oh dear!

 

The finish is very poor as the paint delivery at the nozzle is quite heavy and I ended up with a kind of dimpling in the paint work, the resultant sheen also highlighted some previously missed sanding imperfections (see image below).

 

So, there we go, back to the drawing board for attempt number 2. I will first sand down the offending section of boiler and then re-prime all over to knock out the green. The grey paint comes out in a much finer mist and goes on well.

 

Now for the change, I do have an Iwata air brush (still in the box) as I have no confidence in using it, but that must now change and I need to start practicing with it. This all stems from buying a previous air brush years ago and using it for the first time. Afterwards, I dismantled it for cleaning and it never worked properly again. I obviously still have this dread that history will repeat itself.

 

I intend looking at some online tutorials and basically start practicing until I have mastered a nice combo of air pressure and paint delivery. Only then, will the boiler and rest of the body shell be subjected to several fine coats of GWR green. I will then put up a before and after comparison, lets hope the difference is obvious, until then I leave you with this calamity…

 

The Humbrol rattle can has resulted in an unsightly dimpled finish and the sheen highlights the areas of imperfection within the red circles.

[MAP66]

In between watching air brushing tutorials, I have been carefully removing all the unwanted plastic moulded detail from the body shell. Mainly hand grab rails but also some lamp brackets and 4 off lifting rings from the top of the water tanks. It’s all very delicate work and even more rivets have succumbed to the scalpel blade as a consequence.

 

So, some making do will be required and then a coat of grey primer. All hand rails will be replaced with brass rod of the correct diameter and I have taken the liberty of fitting the cab side hand rails prior to priming the body work. This is because the body work is fee from damage around where the brass meets the body shell. The holes drilled for all the other grab handles will have a small length of wire inserted into them to prevent them from clogging up with paint from the priming process. The primer should highlight any defects which can then be rectified more easily before the grab handles are fitted.

 

I put this image up as a reminder and comparison of how the body shell once looked.

 

Much better with brass hand rails I think. This is 0.45mm diameter rod with handrail knobs from 247 Developments.

 

I wanted to ensure that the holes drilled for the new grab rails were in the right place. To ensure this, I used a scalpel to create a flat for drilling on the handle junction where it enters the body shell as shown within the red circle above. After the holes are drilled for each grab rail, then the moulding can be removed.

 

Looks pretty scruffy and battle scarred after removal of the two grab rails at the front of the tanks. You can also just make out on the tops of the tanks that the moulded lifting rings have been removed. The lugs are still there as I'm keeping them and will just make new rings from brass wire.

 

Side view of the real thing, you can clearly see that the diameter of the grab rail at the front of the tank does not increase very much where it attaches to the body work. On the Airfix model this is represented by an overscale circular moulding.

 

Lamp brackets removed and two grab rails. 

Edited May 9 by MAP66

[MAP66]

I have finally replaced all the grab rails with brass rod of various diameters. The grab rail prototype dimensions were taken from ‘The Tivvy Bumper’ and the close to equivalent diameters in mm’s for 1/76 scale are shown in the images below.

 

All grab rails have been painted with a white primer, next I need to replace some lost rivets and finally for this stage, all body work will all receive a spray of grey primer. I have also ordered some GWR lamp irons, 4 of which will adorn the rear of the bunker.

 

 

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Well done - good handrails can make quite a difference to realism.  I do like the rotatable ‘jig’ the body is resting on: really shows how small it is even in 4mm scale, Keith.

[MAP66]

2 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Well done - good handrails can make quite a difference to realism.  I do like the rotatable ‘jig’ the body is resting on: really shows how small it is even in 4mm scale, Keith.

Thanks Keith, glad you like the 'jig', that was a good year - Hic! 🍾

[MAP66]

As I’m still waiting on a few detailing bits, I decided it was about the right time to make provision for sprung buffers. So, the first task was to remove the existing buffers and I went about this with careful use of a chisel blade.

 

Old buffers removed, a few mishaps with the chisel blade which will be mostly hidden by the new replacements.

 

Buffers removed, it was now time to assemble the replacements which I purchased a few years back from Phoenix Precision. There is a brass bush which fits inside the body of the buffer, once fitted the bush protrudes slightly and so the hole in the buffer beam, where the existing buffer once resided, needs to be enlarged to receive the bush. This will then allow the new buffer bodies to fit snug and flat against the front and rear buffer beams.

 

The buffer body on the left shows the bush which protrudes slightly.

 

I used a triangular file and then a rat tail file to open up the hole, you can see from the image below how much larger the holes needed to be made. The new buffer bodies where then glued onto the buffer beam.

 

Now looking at the rear buffer beam, we can see how much the hole needs enlarging to accommodate the protruding bush.

 

There then is a problem to overcome! The buffer head itself has a thin rod at it’s opposite end which passes through a tiny hole in the bush, through the large hole in the buffer beam and then is bent to stop it pulling back through the buffer beam under the tension of the spring. The problem becomes apparent when fitting the body shell back to the HL Chassis, as the front sandboxes are then hard up against the inner face of the buffer beam. They would foul against the rod coming through the buffer beam, so I will need to somehow cut a groove into the inside face of the front buffer beam to receive the bent section of the rod. This should make sense from the images below.

 

The white line indicates where I need to gouge out a channel on the inner face of the buffer beam to allow the rod to be bent along it.

 

The channel is required as there is no clearance between the sandboxes and the inside face of the buffer beam when the body shell is fitted to the chassis.

 

So, there we have it, buffer beam detailing has begun. Screw link couplings, steam and brake hoses to follow.

[GWR57xx]

Won’t the sandboxes prevent the buffers from moving inwards, rendering the sprung buffers redundant?

I’d have thought removing material from the sandboxes to allow movement would be more beneficial than removing material from the inside of the buffer beam?

Unless I’ve misunderstood, which is entirely likely 🙂

[MAP66]

1 hour ago, GWR57xx said:

Won’t the sandboxes prevent the buffers from moving inwards, rendering the sprung buffers redundant?

I’d have thought removing material from the sandboxes to allow movement would be more beneficial than removing material from the inside of the buffer beam?

Unless I’ve misunderstood, which is entirely likely 🙂

You are absolutely correct and have not misunderstood, many thanks for pointing this out. This is what happens when I try and think ahead, without engaging my brain first. Since posting, I had worked out that it would be necessary to cut a slot or remove some material from the sand boxes (as you suggested). That's where I'm at now and am working on the best tool for the job. The sand boxes are cast brass and will present a challenge to work on but I think I should be able to work something out 🤪 There's a problem at the rear end as well but I think I can drill through the chassis to allow the buffer pin to move inwards when the buffer is depressed.

[stevel]

1 hour ago, MAP66 said:

You are absolutely correct and have not misunderstood, many thanks for pointing this out. This is what happens when I try and think ahead, without engaging my brain first. Since posting, I had worked out that it would be necessary to cut a slot or remove some material from the sand boxes (as you suggested). That's where I'm at now and am working on the best tool for the job. The sand boxes are cast brass and will present a challenge to work on but I think I should be able to work something out 🤪 There's a problem at the rear end as well but I think I can drill through the chassis to allow the buffer pin to move inwards when the buffer is depressed.

Would drilling from the outside work, maybe starting with a smaller size drill and then enlarging the hole.

[MrWolf]

If I needed a slot in the sand boxes I'd drill a hole of clearance size through the front of the sand box and then cut down to the 6 and 12 o'clock positions from the inside face with a coarse toothed razor saw. (A fine saw will clog up in brass.)

 

 

Edited May 18 by MrWolf
Stupid autocorrect

[MAP66]

I will be at the work bench later today in an attempt to get these buffers working as they should, thank you to @MrWolf and @stevel for their suggestions which will be further looked into. Hopefully, when I report in this evening, it will be good news 😊