Southeastern Finecast E1 & E2 in EM gauge

[DLT]

3 hours ago, hayfield said:

Going completely off topic,

 

It's your topic, so Rule 1 applies!

[hayfield]

15 minutes ago, DLT said:

 

It's your topic, so Rule 1 applies!

 

 

What's that "Don't go off topic" ?

 

Given that with the exception of motors which seem to be coming down in price, buying a kit now is not the highest price of the kit, so finding a reasonable source of "value" items is well worth looking out for.

 

Given that a £90 or more kit will need at least another £80 or £90 spent on wheels motor and gearbox anything that reduces this amount I feel is welcome

 

I guess one way I can reduce the cost and perhaps improve the looks is to use Gibson wheels, perhaps this could be my next trial.

Mashima's are both getting more expensive and rarer, certainly the High Level coreless motor is nice and smooth and only a £ or so dearer, I must try one of Chris' 3 pole 10 series, but will it replace the 12 or 14 series can motors? 

 

Certainly if you see an unbuilt kit you fancy with wheels motor and gears around of the price of the kit alone, it must be worth buying. However there could be a case of buying a kit you dont want for the wheels motor etc if its at the right price then selling the kit  (which is still complete minus the extras) to recoup most of your expenditure.

 

Or as I have done in this case just look out for chassis that can be a good source of parts

[hayfield]

Back on topic and after testing with a decent controller, especially as only 4 wheels are picking up power, the coupling rods need balancing out in thickness and the crankpins fitting properly

 

 

I now need to read the plan along with the instructions to ensure the correct parts are fitted for the era I am building it to. The footsteps will have to wait until the wheels and coupling rods are fitted properly owing to clearances, any issues and I will use the etched ones from the Weald kit

[DLT]

On 07/03/2020 at 14:40, hayfield said:

 

What's that "Don't go off topic" ?

 

No, as in "It's MY train-set, I'll run what I want!"

[hayfield]

You must remember I can easily get side tracked, had a quick look at the instructions again and I think as well as keeping it much the same as previously built I need to get a move on with the chassis as soon it will be holding up finishing off the body, The wheels need painting, the coupling rods need finishing or replacing I can then fit the steps and grind back the underside of the footplate

 

I have a Comet 3F chassis hanging around, plus a Wills E2 loco designed to fit the Hornby Jinty chassis, why not rebuilt it to EM gauge and try one of High Levels 10 series motors, should not take much effort in at least trying it out again as a test bed, well its worth exploring.

[hayfield]

There has not been too much progress to date, weekend with lots of football and gardening on Saturday, Sunday and Monday other activities kept getting in the way

 

 

The E1 drivers have had 2 coats of Micro Mask over the wheel treads and crankpins, once thoroughly dry the faces of the wheels were tidied up and primed, will decide overnight what shade of SR green I will apply.

 

 

The top set of coupling rods are from the E4, will be used as a back up, the bottom set have been beefed up with an extra layer from another spare set of E4 rods

 

 

 

I have rebuilt the Comet 3F chassis to EM gauge, I know its wrong for the E2, but the Wills kit was designed to fit the Triang Jinty chassis. Until I can learn how to design an etched chassis, I will put up with second best. At worst I will have an EM gauge 3F chassis to dispose with 

[hayfield]

I might have to change the name of the thread to the E thread

 

 

The front of the chassis has been modified by dropping the frame spacer and cutting a rebate on both sides at the front end. The body has had the rear footplate altered, the gap (which the chassis drops into)behind the buffers has been widened to accept an em gauge chassis and deepened nearer to the buffers. A brass bar was then soldered in place, it will have a chassis fixing hole drilled and tapped 8ba

 

 

I have actually got the ride about half a mm too low, at the moment the front wheels touch the footplate, these will in the end dictate the ride height, also I will need to increase the height of the chassis by about 3 mm

 

Back to the E1, I notice someone is selling an E1 which is being changer to an E1R, he got fed up with having shorting out issues, he states he has added brake gear si I assume it has the older cast chassis, I must admit I have not left much side play with mine.

 

Yesterday I ordered one of High Levels new 10 series motors, good value at £9.50, but its back to a 3 pole armature, but worth a try.

 

I also ordered some of their hornblock units, which I have heard good reports of

Edited March 10, 2020 by hayfield

[hayfield]

Wednesday and Thursday turned out to be quite frustrating as all I have really done is paint the E1's wheels

 

The frustrating part came about when I started to build the High Level Road Runner plus

 

 

It would just not mesh with the worm, a quick call to Chris and he thinks somehow the wrong gear and worm somehow got paired together, I missed the post so replacements will not arrive till next week

 

 

On the plus side a new High Level 10 series motor arrived, stupidly I did not think of buying a gearbox with a 1mm hole in the worm, however I will check which gearbox is suitable for a SECR P class over the weekend

 

 

A little work was done on the E2 chassis, a Comet GB2 gearbox with a Mashima 1420 was used to test out things, I have a smaller 1 stage Comet gearbox I can use which will sit a bit lower in the body, I have also fitted wires for the break gear so I can get it painted

 

 

I don't think I will do too much detailing on this one as its a body someone else built, just a case of filling gaps fit the missing parts and decide if I can be bothered to fit lamp irons and bunker steps. I have no plans or photos showing the rear of the loco so only have a Hornby model as a guide

[hayfield]

I have just done a few bits the past two days, painting the E2 chassis and fillilling a few gaps

 

Suddenly whilst sanding some filler smooth the smokebox fell off, actually a blessing in disguise. Firstly it has allowed me to finish off paint stripping properly, next up it has shown me I have to  think again about the front chassis to body fixing.Finally its made up my mind to add a few extra detailing bits

 

Next up which motor/gearbox should I use, it may end up with one of the High Level + units if I want the cab clear

 

The E1 is slowly progressing as I start to add the remaining castings. Cannot do much until I get the gears back

[hayfield]

 

Boiler/smoke box is now back in place (first time in many months I have used epoxy glue) after altering the front fixing, the saddle had a whitemetal lug which fitted into the hole on the footplate usually used as a screw fixing. I carefully drilled a hole through ending up with a 2 mm bit and when a 8ba screw was tried it made its own thread. However the epoxy glue has filled part of it in, so it will need re-drilling.

 

 

The wheel treads and crankpins have had a coat of Micro Mask ready for painting

 

Answering another thread I have a second E2 which I bought part built, I thought as one E2 goes through the paint shop I might as well put a second through

 

 

The builder started to fit a cab by drastically altering a Triang jinty chassis

 

 

Underneath shot where all the cast centre spacers have been removed and a D11 provides a front wheel drive

 

 

Quite a neat job with romford wheels, depending on how I feel could be an easy EM conversion by changing the Romford axles to EM ones and adding 40 though plastic sides to the chassis

 

As for the E1, waiting for the gearbox parts

 

 

[ianLMS]

Coming along very nicely indeed there. I tried soldering small WM parts, and it is quite a challenge to get it just right. I often use epoxy now especially delicate parts or hard to reach areas. 

[hayfield]

Ian

 

I managed to get the family to buy me a soldering station, turning the heat down to 300 degrees gives far more time to safely solder, I did solder some quite small parts on the Peco Glyn Valley Tram I bilt and that was using a standard Antex 25 watt iron. I do though use 12% flux for whitemetal and Carrs red flux for brass and nickel silver

 

Of late either Mitre bond or industrial grade superglue have been my glues of choice, closely followed by that new polymer stuff. On this occasion I wanted some gap filler, and cut off the excess whilst still soft enough

 

 

Wheels duly painted for the E2, just need to fit the remaining parts to the E1 & both E2 bodies. I am missing half a dozen small parts, these were ordered yesterday from SEF along with an E5 etched chassis

 

 

[hayfield]

Quite a few things have been getting in the way of the E1 the worst of which is the delay in obtaining replacement parts for the gearbox (Chris is having issues with his local Post Office) given whats going on a minor inconvenience and other bits have got worked on

 

 

However I got on with fitting as many of the parts I could which would not get damaged whilst fettling the chassis. One thing I could have done was put the Road Runner gearbox into the Comet chassis for the E2 

[hayfield]

Like most on gardening leave (holiday till tomorrow) as been told to self separate owing to medical history, I retire in 6 weeks and still have 1 weeks holiday left to take

 

Still after a morning gardening I decided to quickly fit some pickups to the E2, well somehow the crankpins I fitted last night were too tight, I had to both adjust the motor as the screw holes failed to align with the motor, as the motor is now on a slight squeue I had to turn it the other way, then the pickup wires started to short against the chassis, finally the front wheels touched the footplate. Then somehow the pickups were collecting power erratically, either over time the wheels had tarnished of the masking fluid left a residue spirit cleaner would not remove (never happened before) I put a wheel on a spare axle and put it into the chuck of a cordless drill and cleaned the tyre with a track rubber, did the job

 

 

Several hours later its working and very well, I got it to crawl and it took 62 seconds to make one rotation of the wheel, High level gearboxes are stunning, at normal and top speeds the loco is very quiet. Next up is to cut the crank pins, fit the rest of the castings and details

 

The E1 is still held up with the parts still in the post, I guess something we will have to put up with over the next few weeks

[hayfield]

Still on the E2's as waiting for the Royal Mail to deliver my High Level order

 

 

I have been fitting out the E2's with the remaining castings, lamp irons from staples and hand rails, lest hand loco needs the crank pins cutting to size then I can fit the steps

 

 

The roof is still loose on the right hand loco, you can also see the steps

 

 

The rear steps are Dart Castings coach steps, right hand photo shows the cab waiting for a backhead and brake standard and perhaps a reversing lever

 

Both nearly ready for the paint shop

[hayfield]

The second E2 is now in primer, just about to fit the steps of the first one and it will follow. Hopefully the Royal Mail will deliver the missing gears for the Road Runner + so I can check the E1 chassis with the E1 body, been a bit frustrating as the Post Office Chris posted a batch of packets seems to have fowled up. I have finally started laying track, I need a test track and I had built a crossover so it seemed a good move certainly to have a 4 foot run with an A5 crossover in and with a little bit of effort it can be extended to an eight foot run

[DLT]

Hi John,

Looking very nice.  What are the pipes coming up from the tank tops to the cab roof?  Are they tank vents?

Thanks, Dave.

[hayfield]

Spot on, "vent pipes" according to the instructions, Can only see them on the locos with these shorter tanks and in LBSCR photos

 

The long lost packet that the Post Office and Royal Mail have been looking after for the last 2+ weeks finally arrived, I can now fit a Road Runner + gearbox into the E1

 

Also a few weeks ago I bought one of High Levels 10 series 3 pole motors also in a separate package was a Road Runner compact + gearbox with a worm with the appropriate 1mm bore, thought I would give it a go. I have 3 or 4 Mashimas 10 series open frame motors, I may decide to sell a couple as they are not compatible with High Level gearboxes as eBay is going bonkers and put the proceeds towards a couple of High Level coreless motors, the other alternative would be to buy a couple of Comet gearboxes

Edited April 2, 2020 by hayfield

[hayfield]

A trio of E's

 

 

The second E2 has been primed and the E1 has its chassis on

 

 

The postman arrived with 2 packets from High Level, the first with the Road Runner + replacement gears which the Royal Mail have had for over 2 weeks and a Road Runner Compact + with a worm to fit one of the new High Level 10 series 3 pole motors. As you can see the High Level 1219 coreless motor sitting nicely in the tanks. Despite my ham fisted attempts at fitting the crank pin bushes it still runs silky smooth and very quiet. I need to fit a pickup to the front insulated wheel which may have to be from the top due to the chassis design, I also need to sort out the ride height as clearance with the crankpins is a bit touch and go.

 

Next up will be the final detailing of both the body and chassis and painting

 

I was going to re-chassis my I3 tank but I said to Chris I will check out the 10 series motor so I have another P class in the wings or an 02

[hayfield]

For some reason I tend to get less done on the weekend and the past few days DIY and the garden have taken priority, also laid some track on my layout which will give me a better test track. This week I will try and move things on a bit as far as the test track and painting the locos.

 

You will see I have very successfully tested a High Level coreless motor, speaking with Chris about motors I bought one of his 1015 3 pole motors to give it a try, well it and its slightly larger 1020 are only £9.50 each. 

 

Towards the end of the week I received a Road Runner Compact+ with the correct 1mm bore in the worm, I guess a P class would be the obvious choice but I decided on a LSWR 02 chassis

 

No pickups yet but on first tests with leads its fine, I will fit pickups later but a test with a body is a long way off owing to the Southeastern finecast footplate needs a bit of work on it to fit an EM gauge chassis

 

 

Just to show how much space it leaves, as you can see the cutouts in the footplate are not wide enough for EM chassis, the bogie wheels are Gibsons as will be the drivers once the chassis is painted and running

[hayfield]

 

The E1 had its steps and lamp irons fitted then primed, now I am making room in the shed to paint it and the E2's

[hayfield]

All 3 locos have had a blast with SR post war Malachite after mt efforts of making space in the shed over the past 2 days

 

 

Here is the E1 the main issue is the lack of sunlight as the shed window faces due west, may be better later in the afternoon or by rigging some decent light in the shed, next up I need some decent paint brushes, trouble is the shops are closed

[hayfield]

Never realised it was over 3 weeks ago I started to paint the E's, thought I would leave them a bit for the paint to harden, 

 

 

I thought I would start odd with the Jamieson E2, no chassis yet but is the guinea pig, I have some Railmatch thin low tac masking tape, (Must be at least 30 years old) still it worked and thankfully no paint was pealed off

 

 

Before attempting the E5 or the other E2 I painted the wheels of the older E2, then followed it up by painting the parts which needed to be painted black and red, a bit of touching up needed on both. The next issue is lining, I have a bow pen, but have I got the ability to use it ?, this is where the Jamieson comes into play. Still better than being plain green  

[hayfield]

A quick update on the E's, the Jamieson worked as a test bed for some old thin low tack masking tape which must be as old as the hills

 

 

Two E2's have been started and I noticed that the E1 still had 2 unfilled gaps in the footplate, an Adams Radial tank in Pea green waiting for its paint to harden. I do have several other jobs to do so hopefully the painting will be done a bit at a time. The right hand E2 needs brake hangers and gear fitting, I will also try and fit a few cab details to both and new coupling rods for the left hand E2, this is the one built using Triang Jinty side frames (to EM gauge) and has rail built coupling rods. Then transfers beckon, as for lining, the jury is out

 

I have a micro layout baseboard to build, I have built a slip and 2 turnouts in P4 plus some other turnouts to build. So much for a quiet retirement, and the front privet hedge beckons 

 

 

[hayfield]

The E1 has moved on a little, external black parts have been painted, cab still to be done

 

Next up after painting and lettering is to firstly get the chassis sitting at the correct height, then there are clearance issues to be sorted. Both front and rear wheels are very close to the footplate and the rear crankpin may fail to clear the cab steps