Ruston's Industrial locomotive and wagon workshop thread.

[Ruston]

1 hour ago, Captain Kernow said:

Agreed, but I wonder how easy it would be, without access to the appropriate machine tools? Anything else seems to me to risk damaging the bits of the chassis that you would want to retain?...

 

It can be done without the milling machine. I didn't mill the entire lot away in any case. I sawed the most of it away, using a piercing saw, and only tidied it up by milling it. A decent enough job could be done with a file instead and it's not as if anyone's going to see it. If they do then it means the loco has taken a dive off the layout and is upside down on the floor, in which case file marks are the least of your worries. 😕

 

 

[Ruston]

Here we go again.

BR lettering, numbering and crests removed. Roof off. Buffers off. They seem to have used more glue on this one as the bodywork is extremely reluctant to leave the frame. I may have to put a slit in the underside for the wires that will connect the Stay Alive, in the cab, to the decoder, under the bonnet. It will also mean repainting the bodywork in situ. I haven't decided how that will go yet. If it remains in what is more or less Ruston's factory livery I will paint the roof to match the rest but I'm thinking that it would be nice in Hargreaves orange to run on Blacker Lane. I already have a fictional steam loco on there, so one of my favourite type of diesels deserves a place there. It's Modeller's Licence, not... No, I can barely bring myself to type the words... Rule 1

[Ruston]

Three on the go but not all are mine. It's a mix and match job to get what we want.

 

First up is the one for Blacker Lane.

This uses the chassis from the BR green one, frames from the Rowntree and bodywork from the BR blue one to give a mid period 20-ton type.

 

Next is for my friend Scott's half of Sevastopol Works, where it will be a quite new loco, so is in Ruston works livery, or as near as.

This uses the chassis and frames from the BR blue one and the bodywork from the BR green one. The lack of buffer beam weights is ideal for conversion to block buffers, which is what it will have when I've finished with it. The full-length side weights suit the early period. The frame has been painted green but needs a better colour match yet. The roof will also be painted green.

 

Last is for use at Charlie Strong's yard since I sold my Judith Edge kit-built 88DS that ran on there.

This uses the chassis from the Rowntree one, the frame from the BR green one and the late type bodywork, with larger windows, from the Rowntree one. The white roof has already been painted but, like the other one, requires a better colour match. The frame will also go green and so this is a late model 17-ton type when finished. That exhaust will be painted. White? What were they thinking?

 

 

[Michael Edge]

It might be heat resistant paint, I remember some 1960s F1 cars had white exhausts

[Enterprisingwestern]

8 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

It might be heat resistant paint, I remember some 1960s F1 cars had white exhausts

 

Or wrapped in the, perfectly acceptable at the time, asbestos tape?

 

Mike.

[Ruston]

9 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Or wrapped in the, perfectly acceptable at the time, asbestos tape?

 

Mike.

Hornby have done it, despite their "Era 6" listing, as present day, preserved condition, which has a silver painted exhaust.

 

Still a work-in-progress but looking better now.

 

[Ruston]

Paint and weathering done. Stay Alive in cab, ready to be wired to a decoder. The chassis block has been chopped, as per the previous one, but I used a piercing saw and file, just to prove it can be done without a milling machine. I forgot to take a pic of the chassis block before I refitted it but here's one of the lumps that I sawed off to prove it.

 

 

[Ruston]

Progress with one of the others.

Based on w/m 321733 that had block buffers and worked for The Distillers Co. That one had a lowered cab roof, but the cab is unaltered here.

I've made new buffer beams, plus the various parts of the buffers themselves, out of Plastikard. It's still a work-in-progress.

 

 

[Ruston]

I've stopped work on the Rustons for now.

 

This one, returned to my ownership a while ago in a deal involving swapping an O gauge loco for it and another sound-fitted OO loco.

I had built it to order for use on what was my White Peak limestone & Tarmacadam layout but when it returned to me I didn't find much use for it. It's had a quick make-over to adapt it for use on Blacker Lane.

Edited March 19 by Ruston

[John Besley]

2 minutes ago, Ruston said:

I've stopped work on the Rustons for now.

 

This one, returned to my ownership a while ago in a deal involving swapping an O gauge loco for it and another sound-fitted OO loco.

I had built it to order for use on what was my White Peak limestone & Tarmacadam layout but when it returned to be I didn't find much use for it. It's had a quick make-over to adapt it for use on Blacker Lane.

 

Looks the part, did it require just weathering apart from the alterations, and be interested to know how you weathered her

[Ruston]

6 minutes ago, John Besley said:

 

Looks the part, did it require just weathering apart from the alterations, and be interested to know how you weathered her

Yes, it had to be re-weathered but apart from the rust patches and scrapes the limestone dust etc. was mostly only done with powders, so there was no need for a repaint.

 

I start by painting rust scrapes and patches on, using Tamiya Hull Red and then give all the bodywork a wash that is made up by using Tamiya thinners with black/white to give a dark grey wash. Then I'll go over the rust scrapes with a tiny brush and appropriate weathering powder.

Black smoke weathering powder on the tank and roof with light streaks on cab sides etc.

 

To get that gunky oily filth on the wheels and rods I use a mix that I make from Tamiya clear yellow and gloss black and whilst it's still wet I paint in some smoke weathering powder. In case any of that has made its way into the crank pin holes in the rods I paint some oil into them, which prevents them from gumming up and also keeps the shiny oil look.

 

That's the most of it but sometimes I'll rub graphite on the edges of cab steps etc. where paint would wear off and the constant use would keep the metal shiny and free of rust.

[Ruston]

Looking into the box of stuff, I found these two engines.

 

The Hornby B2 Peckett is as new, out of the box. I acquired it as part of a deal that I can't even remember the details of. One of those things that seemed too good to turn down and which might come in handy some day. It's day has come.

It's not going to look that way for long.

 

This Hattons Barclay came to me minus cab and buffers and the clacks are missing in action, as is usual with these things. Otherwise it's fine.

I've got a cab and some buffers, if I want to complete it as standard, but I've got other ideas for it.

 

[Ruston]

I bought one of those Hornby B2 Pecketts when they were first available. It ran nicely but on my deliberately and not so deliberately scruffy industrial trackwork it jumped as the massive flanges hit pieces of ballast and a section of track on my CVMR layout, where the rails were set into DAS clay and static grass, was completely out of bounds to it. Hattons Barclays and Hornby W4 Pecketts, plus all of my kit-builds that use Gibson wheels were able to run without a problem.

 

I don't know what possessed Hornby to use such deep flanges on these models, especially as this one came after the W4 Peckett, which didn't have them. It's something that has put me off the model so much that I don't own a single example of a B2 as Hornby intended. One was converted to a C Class and the other chassis is under a Manning Wardle body.

On the left is an unaltered B2 wheel. On the right is one that has been turned down using a drill and file. The axles are splined, so it's pretty easy to put the wheels back on and get the quartering right.

With the motor removed it rolls nicely, so the quartering must be OK. I'll go over the bare brass on the wheel flanges with some brass blackener.

 

I don't think that this one will stay as a B2. I like the bigger Peckett 0-6-0STs but aren't at all keen on the B2. I've got another Manning body kit somewhere in the stash. A Manning knocks a Peckett into a cocked hat, every time, and if you think differently then I'm here to tell you that you're wrong. 😐

 

 

[Ruston]

I dug out the 3D-printed Manning kit.

 

Oh dear.

How sad.

 

Never mind.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

I'm finding bendy 3d syndrome is a widespread issue, both in rolling stock and architectural items, it's put me right off street lamps for starters.

 

Mike.

[Ruston]

3 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

I'm finding bendy 3d syndrome is a widespread issue, both in rolling stock and architectural items, it's put me right off street lamps for starters.

 

Mike.

It makes me wonder how this stuff will fare in the long term. Are people going to find their 3D-printed models have warped and twisted in a few years time? I've made the new running plate from 40 thou. engraving brass and 20 thou. cartridge brass, so that isn't going to warp any time soon.

 

 

[Ruston]

The two layers of brass are soldered together, along with the spacers underneath and valances added.

I perched the bodywork on top to make me feel like there isn't much left to do. 😆I have weighed it and to get it up to the same weight as the Peckett will require an additional 50g of ballast to be stuck into every nook and cranny. That's another downside of 3D-printed bodies - they weigh next to nothing. I don't suppose it matters much if they are going to run on a micro layout, where they'll only shuffle 3 or 4 wagons at a time, but I want this thing for Blacker Lane, where it needs to pull 9 of my poor-running Parkside hoppers up a 1 on 50 on a  3ft. 5in. radius curve. A Hornby W4 Peckett can only manage 5.

[Mol_PMB]

I'm glad I'm not the only one with a windowsill full of long-forgotten half finished projects in a random selection of gauges. The sign of a creative mind, perhaps?

I look forward to seeing the MW developing.

[AlfaZagato]

Unrelated, but I think that is the first time I've seen a Barclay next to anything else I can scale.   I didn't realize it was so small.

[Ruston]

On 24/03/2024 at 17:12, Mol_PMB said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one with a windowsill full of long-forgotten half finished projects in a random selection of gauges. The sign of a creative mind, perhaps?

I look forward to seeing the MW developing.

The sign of a messy mind, certainly. 🙂

 

Rivet heads and stubs of brake shafts have been filed off the chassis block in order to give a flat surface to on which to affix frame overlays.

The overlays are made from 10 thou. hard brass.

[Ruston]

The Manning that I'm basing this model on had 17x24" cylinders and the B2's 14x22" would look too small and puny and so I am making new cylinders. I don't have a drawing to work from, so it's being done by eye and by comparing what's on other models, such as the Pi Victory (17x24") and the Hattons Barclay (16x24"). Mine are larger than what's on the Victory but not as large as what is on the Barclay but then I've always wondered if Hattons got the cylinders right on that model as they look huge.

Edited April 2 by Ruston

[Ruston]

The wrappers for the cylinders are made from 5 thou. Plastikard so that they can be dented and scraped. You see so many pictures of industrial steam locos with battered cylinder wrappers but no one ever models them that way.

[Ruston]

A little more progress with the MW build.

 

I have been sanding print lines and doing a test fit of the printed body parts to the brass running plate assembly. The cab floor has been made from 60 thou. engraving brass, drilled and tapped for a pair of 12BA screws. A 'floor' has also been made for the bottom of the smokebox, also drilled and tapped 12BA. These brass floors will be epoxied into the printed parts and screws will then affix the body to the running plate.

Lead sheet has been glued into the tank sides and bunker floor. There is enough space in the tank to fit a decoder and speaker, with a Lais Stay Alive fitted in the firebox, which leaves the smokebox to be stuffed with lead. Extra lead can be added to the bunker, too and I'm confident that the original weight can be easily achieved.

 

I have made all the replacement brake parts but have yet to assemble and fit them. New cylinder glands, slide bars and motion bracket will be required as the Hornby parts will not fit the new cylinders.

[Ruston]

Balance weights added. 5 thou plasticard.

[Ruston]

The cab isn't exactly straight along its lower edge. Simply screwing it to the running plate isn't going to work, so I'll try screws and epoxy in an attempt to close the gap between cab and footplate. It obviously means that the two assemblies will permanently become one but I can't be having such a gap. If the printed parts were used as intended they would sit in a recess in the printed running plate and the bend would never be visible but there you go...

I may have said this the last time I built one of these but I won't do another like this. It seems like a good idea to use a RTR mechanism and 3D-printed bodywork but when you try and blend the two, with scratchbuilt improvements, made from brass it's a load of work. I could have just scratchbuilt things such as the cab and the tank and it would have probably been less hassle to do so. It's things such as making boiler fittings where I tend to come unstuck. 3D printing large items with proper straight edges in this resin, or whatever it is, simply isn't a proper engineering solution. Anyway, it is what it is and I will have to persevere with it.