Exhill Works and other adventures in 7/8ths

[John Besley]

Carried on with the paint work this week on No 4...

 

Sprayed the bulk of the body in rust / dark brown and once this was dry the using Hjmbrol Maskal applied with a cocktail stick in thick dollops adding in lumps of salt. Spray decanted some hair spray into the cap then carefully drizzled this onto the salt to fix it sprinkled a small amount of crushed salt around as well.

 

 

When dry sprayed the bodywork with grey primer then Halfords Rover Inca Yellow

 

 

The following day peeled off the mask and scrubed away any salt grains then washed off everything in warm water.

 

Sprayed ghe cab side gloss then added No: 4 from a 20 year old Airfix set of waterside (still worked) and sprayed all the body in matt varnish

 

 

 

Allowing everything to dry painted hhf bufferbeams red, then picked out all the rust spots adding in others with a sponge and rusty paint mix. Painted the cab inside in cream before washing over all in dirty grime wash.

 

 

Lastly picked out all the panel lines,  bolt holes etc in a pin wash 

 

 

 

Added some black soot onto the front left corner of the roof as this is nearest to the exhaust pipe...

 

Next off got to paint the exhaust pipe, sort out the rest of the cab...

 

Need to find a picture of a rev counter and fuel / water temp gauges so I can print off and fit into the dials...

 

Any ideas why it's No 4...

 

 

Edited November 19, 2023 by John Besley
Schpelling

[Graham T]

Very nice technique for the heavier rust there John, as you've also been able to represent the paint peeling as well.  Excellent!

 

[John Besley]

1 hour ago, Graham T said:

Very nice technique for the heavier rust there John, as you've also been able to represent the paint peeling as well.  Excellent!

 

 

Many thanks Graham, I did try this method some time ago with poor results so rethought the process on a sample panel I made up and found the secret is to apply the maskal in thick dollops so it stands out, spray over with the primer and top coat, then wait untill the paint will stand handling but while it's still fresh, that way you can tear out the rubber maskal leaving the peeled effect I wanted to replicate.

 

With the paint still fresh it's possible to 'chip' it with a cocktail stick, blunt tool (thumb nail) to add smaller chips and scratches with a needle file or Stanley blade, carefully paint round the chip with a matching primer colour to show where the paint has flaked of the metal and come away from the primer coat.

 

I also wore away some sections with P1500 Tamaya sanding sponges to take it back to the primer coat

[Fishplate]

19 hours ago, John Besley said:

Any ideas why it's No 4...

 

Thunderbird 4 ?

 

It does look superb John.

 

Have bookmarked for the time I might be brave enough to try that technique.

 

What are the dimensions of the finished model?

[John Besley]

2 hours ago, Fishplate said:

 

Thunderbird 4 ?

 

It does look superb John.

 

Have bookmarked for the time I might be brave enough to try that technique.

 

What are the dimensions of the finished model?

 

You win first prize (if I had one ...) Thunderbird 4 it is...

 

 

No 4 is 210mm long 50mm wide and 130mm high from railhead fitted over Lima Class 33 underframe modified as noted on page 11

 

Best way to be brave enough is experiment.... guess you've got a scrap wagon or old Airfix kit knocking around use that as a practice piece.

 

I made up a dummy Traction engine Bunker for another project build years ago, and this gets rubbed down and recycled umpteen times, even had a spare No 4 put on it to see if the backing transfer paper would come off before I did it for 'real'

 

 

Edited June 10, 2023 by John Besley
Trypo

[John Besley]

I have now started to paint the driver...

[John Besley]

Progress this week, cut out the glazing for the cab windows used a clear cover from a CD holder, fettled these to fit then masked ff the front window and by plotting the sweep of the wiperarm marked this out, carfully scribed through the masking tape and removed the outer sction leaving the centre mask.

 

 

 

Gave the glazing a wash over with thined light buff emulsion and left to dry, carefully removed the centre mask and fitted both glazed pieces.

 

 

Carried on with the driver who is wearing an ex army shirt his son picked up on his travels on holiday in Eastern Europe  with Nils Huxtable behind the iron curtain... our driver has no idea what country it's from but I guess time will tell (bear in mid Exhill is in the early 1970s)

 

 

NOTE - when painting an ex BR greasetop make sure that the underside of the peek is mid green- they never stayed that colour as the quickly got grimy but at least you know its right, and the sides are fabric so stay matt black with the peak and cap top in satin black

 

 

Still got some more to do before we're finished but getting there 

[John Besley]

Having shoehorned the driver into his cab, I then had a rethink as the seat impeded getting his legs in... so useing a spare tracion engine tractor seat made up a pedistal that bolted to the foor alowing the seat to drop in but more importantly swivel so I could get our driver in comfortably, the seat is now padded with a old cusion to help out..

 

 

 

Printed out the rev counter and fuel/ water temp/ and oli pressure dials (these are actually some I found online from a Morgan) then fitted the dials on the cab front

 

 

 

Just waiting for a part for the lighting to turn up plus a plate form Narrow Planet...

[Keith Addenbrooke]

So, Thunderbird 4 has controls from a Morgan - how fast does it go…?

[John Besley]

Depends who's driving it...Gordon or Scott 

[John Besley]

I was fortunate to pop into Exhill yard today and found TB4 busy bothering some trucks, with Gordon Tracy driving there was no messing about ...

 

 

having gunned the throttle she roared up the bank past the shed before setting the load back into the reception siding

 

 

 

and finally parked up on the shed road where I was fortunate to grab a photo of all the Exhill locos in one place

 

 

Edited June 22, 2023 by John Besley

[John Besley]

The sounds of summer birds song in the valley were disturbed by the early morning PW train heading off from the yard over the girder bridge

 

 

 

[John Besley]

YARD SHUNTER

 

 

‘What is it Guv?’

‘Not sure , something the boss has brought...’

‘I am confused,  31841 was an Exmouth Jct engine an N 2-6-0, but this is an 0-8-0... I know it says Southern on its tender, was this something Bullied designed to replace the Z?’

‘I don’t think so, if I know anything in a day or two it’ll be in bits, at least it runs nicely and with the right coal will pull anything and those little wheels should have plenty of traction’

‘True, Those wheels can’t be much more than 10” diameter at least there bigger than Tinkerbell, what do you thinks going to happen to it, fit a bigger boiler and cylinders? Rebuild the tender?’

‘Look I don’t know all the answers, we’re just going to have to wait and see...’
 

Edited June 29, 2023 by John Besley

[John Besley]

And in other news the bonnet badges have arrived and been fitted...

 

 

That now pretty well concludes this build, and onto the next one (oh and some rolling stock)

[Fishplate]

Very, very nice.

 

Looking forward to seeing what you do with the 0-8-0.

[John Besley]

 

Dismantled the 0-8-0 and removed the cylinders to see if a set of 9F cylinders could be made to fit.... will re investigate this as the cylinder assembly with the slide bars precludes this option... refitted the valve gear - very fiddly needed three hands and wishing I hadent taken that apart

 

 

Then cut out a footplate, made up a rear frame support, along with cutting out a section of 32mm waste pipe for the boiler barrel....

 

 

Balanced everything in place to see how it looked visually, the boiler will need to be raised up slightly but I want to keep it as low as possabily for its centre of gravity (and besides it looks better with the small drivers)

 

 

The tender is just to weigh up the ideas as this will becombe a 8 boige wheel tender 

[John Besley]

Further work on the tender, made up the rear buffer beam and set of chopper couplings, the castings for the dome and chimney arrived (very nice they are too) so set about sorting out another boiler shell as the first one was too short, cut out and sanded the ends flat then marked out and drilled for the chimney. Set up the boiler to see how it looked decided that this will be raised slightly so as to give clearance for the firebox and ashpan.

 

 

 

Feel free to comment...

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Looking good - I agree the raised boiler works visually (as well as from the engineering perspective).  The proportions look good to me, though it doesn’t leave a lot of room for the firebox, controls and cab, which is where I suspect a design challenge may lie (sorry).  It’ll be interesting to see what you have in mind.

 

Not trying to create work, but seeing the replacement figure with his arms in his pockets set me thinking about how the real driver might be positioned - I imagine the driving position would be leaning forwards to hold the controls?  Just a thought.

 

As always, fascinating to follow the progress, Keith.

[John Besley]

5 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Looking good - I agree the raised boiler works visually (as well as from the engineering perspective).  The proportions look good to me, though it doesn’t leave a lot of room for the firebox, controls and cab, which is where I suspect a design challenge may lie (sorry).  It’ll be interesting to see what you have in mind.

 

Not trying to create work, but seeing the replacement figure with his arms in his pockets set me thinking about how the real driver might be positioned - I imagine the driving position would be leaning forwards to hold the controls?  Just a thought.

 

As always, fascinating to follow the progress, Keith.

 

As you say Keith it's still a work in progress, the big issue I had was the flywheel comes right into the cab area, I am thinking of tapering the back head slightly and may well extend the frames back a bit to compensate, this will mean the tender coupling will need extending.

 

The driver is not the final answer, I am waiting for a bag of body parts to arrive do I can build a driver fitting a bit lower down and crouching forward.

 

Then I need to build up the firebox sides to cover the motor. 

[John Besley]

The package of body parts arrived which helped in setting out the cab and firebox proportions –isn’t cardboard a wonderful tool, with the firebox set back slightly and extending the cab sides past the chassis ends we have 12mm to play with which should be ample for the cab fittings etc

 

Overall height to top of cab sides are 100mm

 

 

 

Let me know what your thoughts are

[John Besley]

The chosen driver went into surgery today and has had his legs ajusted...

 

 

 

[Keith Addenbrooke]

41 minutes ago, John Besley said:

The chosen driver went into surgery today and has had his legs ajusted...

 

 

 

My wife carries a card when she travels in case one of her artificial hips sets off airport metal detectors.  He might need one too, Keith.

[John Besley]

Made up the Smokebox saddle along with a hidden mounting plate to bolt the frames to the chassis, then made up a set of formers for the firebox, after some head scratching settled on a firebox along the lines of  the GWR / BR standard box...

 

 

why make things easy when with a little more efort they can be a head scratcher...

 

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by John Besley
.

[John Besley]

Made up the sides of the firebox by multiple strips of 60thou plasticard, once these had dried then the profile could be sanded with sanding sponge.

 

 

Following which the cladding sheets where fitted these are strips of 5thou laminated over the firebox.

 

 

To finish off a set of washout plugs where made up from Plastistrut tube and a 2mm square fillet filed up from scrap for the square washout plug itself, a 3.5mm hole was drilled into the firebox and the plugs inserted leaving just the end proud.

 

 

The other two plugs are for the backhead in the cab

[John Besley]

Turned up a Smokebox front and silver soldered up a set of hinges from some spare 16mm wagon hinges these where then soft soldered to the Smokebox door.

 

 

Found the piece of waste pipe I used for the boiler smokebox was a fraction too slack as I must have sanded it back at some point, cut yet another boiler barrel (now I know why I’ve been using waste pipe...) this now the final barrel as I’ve since fitted the boiler bands in place.

 

 

In the last couple of days I turned up a set of Ross pop safety valves then routered out a recess for the safety valves to sit into as the cladding sheet would be cut around these on a full size engine. Hunted up a spare manifold from a G scale kit part and modified it to my needs

 

 

Using CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) mocked up a cab to see how this would work in practice.

 

I think the proportions look about right