Chuffnell Regis

[longchap]

An afternoon well spent Graham. The Gibson smokeox darts make a big difference when adding detail and the small Prairie has always been a favourite of mine, which is why I've three of them.

 

Are you going to backdate the era to pre-war?

 

[Andy Keane]

31 minutes ago, longchap said:

An afternoon well spent Graham. The Gibson smokeox darts make a big difference when adding detail and the small Prairie has always been a favourite of mine, which is why I've three of them.

 

Are you going to backdate the era to pre-war?

 

Small parries are nice. Much looking forwards to the upcoming Rapido versions.

[Graham T]

1 hour ago, longchap said:

An afternoon well spent Graham. The Gibson smokeox darts make a big difference when adding detail and the small Prairie has always been a favourite of mine, which is why I've three of them.

 

Are you going to backdate the era to pre-war?

 

 

I have two, a 4575 is on the bench at the moment, awaiting surgery.  I do plan to backdate the livery on them both.  Very nice little models I think.

 

[longchap]

2 minutes ago, Graham T said:

Very nice little models I think.

 ,  ,  ,  and sweet runners as well. I 'm very happy how they run and hope they'll hold their own against Rapido's 44xxs, when they arrive much later this year or next.

 

[Graham T]

As threatened, prairie 4575 has been subjected to the far from tender mercies of the Chuffnell Regis "workbench" this evening.  I wanted to add a crew and real coal, so the first game was figuring out how to take the body apart. 

 

 

Once I'd managed that, thankfully without breaking anything, I cut away the moulded coal with a razor saw and then tidied up with a scalpel and files.  I added a plastic strip across the rear bulkhead of the cab, for a new bunker false floor to rest on, so that I could have a slightly lower coal load.

 

 

The rear lamp bracket and its guard also had to be cut away from the moulded coal, and then glued onto the rear of the bunker.

 

 

Since the crew in my other prairie are almost invisible, I decided to open up the rear hatches on this one.  I drilled a series of holes first, then cut out the hatch with a number 11 blade, and cleaned up with needle files.  So now we should at least be able to see a little bit of the crew!

 

 

 

Since I'd opened things up a little, I thought I might as well paint some of the bits and bobs on the backhead as well (if that's what it's called?)

 

 

And that's enough for tonight.  I'll try to put it all back together again tomorrow.  All the king's horses and all the king's men springs to mind...

 

 

 

 

 

 

She will be renumbered to 5521 in due course, once I've put another order in for etched plates.

[Graham T]

After some faffing about and occasionally wishing for a second pair of hands, the prairie's bodywork is now back together.  The painted backhead and the crew are just about visible!

 

 

 

Unfortunately this also shows up how thick the back of the cab is.  Bomb-proof!

 

Next task is to tackle the DCC conversion.  Should be a doddle though, apparently there are only two wires needed...

 

 

 

[MrWolf]

Painting the edge of the cab aperture matt black would halp hide the thick material, or if it really annoys you you could file a steep bevel on the sides of bottom of the aperture. At least with the way the Bachmann body is assembled you can get at it reasonably easily.

[Graham T]

Yes I will certainly give it a coat of paint Rob.  Hopefully that will help to camouflage things, otherwise it will be out with the files again...

 

[Graham T]

Having managed to put Humpty back together again I was able to make a start on wiring in the decoder, a Zimo MS490R from Youchoos.  John had already connected a pair of Tantalum stay-alives and the speaker to the chip, which saved me a task that I don't especially relish, as I'd imagine it's pretty easy to trash a decoder with some ham-fisted soldering (a specialty of mine...)

 

So all I had to do was remove the Bachmann PCBs, the bead capacitors on the motor, and the motor wires themselves.  I used to solder the decoder wires to the motor wires, but then realised that I was just adding an extra join that wasn't needed (and another potential point of failure), so now I solder the decoder wires directly to the motor.  The stay-alives and speaker were popped into the smokebox, and the decoder stuck to the top of the boiler with black-tack, and then I tucked all the spare wire into the smokebox as well.

 

 

I was pleasantly surprised when the chassis fitted neatly back into the body at the first attempt.  And even more surprised when the loco actually ran at first time of asking on the layout!  So here you have a pair of prairies to enjoy 🙂

 

 

 

They're noticeably different colours but I think I can live with that.  They'll be getting a mild weathering at some point anyway.

 

[Graham T]

Having got the wee beastie running without too much difficulty, I had enough time to add the "jewellery".  Smokebox darts from Alan Gibson again, screw link couplings, a fire iron on top of the left hand tank, and some real coal in the bunker.  I haven't got any etched plates for this one yet unfortunately.

 

 

 

 

[MrWolf]

It's been interesting to follow this loco upgrade, I have the 45xx with small tanks in the 1929-34 livery and I'll be doing the same jobs on that. I'm tempted to open up the cupboard doors in the cab on the 36xx, at whatever point it gets built!

[Nick C]

It's good to see how much difference a few small details can make to a loco's appearance.

 

One tip though - when fitting smokebox darts, the inner handle should always point downwards (at least roughly) to indicate that the door's locked! (the outer one simply tightens it in place, and seems to end up at almost any angle)

[Graham T]

Well there's something I didn't know!  (Obviously...)  Thanks Nick.

 

 

[Graham T]

As I had the soldering iron out, I thought I'd try putting together one of the Langley Miniatures luggage trolleys.  Hmm.  Not too certain about the results so far!

 

To be fair, it doesn't look quite so bad in the flesh as the close-up pics make it appear.  But I'll need to see if I can get some of the excess solder off without the whole thing falling apart again!  And attaching the smaller parts is really going to be a challenge...

 

 

[Compound2632]

33 minutes ago, Graham T said:

As I had the soldering iron out, I thought I'd try putting together one of the Langley Miniatures luggage trolleys.  Hmm.  Not too certain about the results so far!

 

Is that the one with the benches and barrows? I managed those but have put the trolleys to one side for now...

[Graham T]

Just now, Compound2632 said:

 

Is that the one with the benches and barrows? I managed those but have put the trolleys to one side for now...

 

Yes that's the one.  The benches were a lot easier!

 

[MrWolf]

It does make me rather glad I didn't chuck out my old Cooper Craft benches and barrows from the last century.

I can solder circuitry or petrol tanks, but I think that would try my patience!

[Graham T]

Didn’t someone recently buy Cooper Craft?  Hopefully we’ll see at least some of the range getting re-released.

 

[Andy Keane]

10 hours ago, Graham T said:

As I had the soldering iron out, I thought I'd try putting together one of the Langley Miniatures luggage trolleys.  Hmm.  Not too certain about the results so far!

 

To be fair, it doesn't look quite so bad in the flesh as the close-up pics make it appear.  But I'll need to see if I can get some of the excess solder off without the whole thing falling apart again!  And attaching the smaller parts is really going to be a challenge...

 

 

Graham

Just a thought - you seem to have run solder all the way around the joint between the floor and the frame. You could just tack solder instead, as just four small bits in the corners will do all you need to hold it together. Any gaps will fill with paint.

Andy

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Andy Keane said:

Just a thought - you seem to have run solder all the way around the joint between the floor and the frame. You could just tack solder instead, as just four small bits in the corners will do all you need to hold it together. Any gaps will fill with paint.

 

On the other hand, if well-fluxed and well-heated, the solder will flow by capillary action all the way round, forming a neat, solid joint. The tricky bit is keeping the two pieces in the right positions while floating one on the other.

[Graham T]

5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

On the other hand, if well-fluxed and well-heated, the solder will flow by capillary action all the way round, forming a neat, solid joint. The tricky bit is keeping the two pieces in the right positions while floating one on the other.

 

That's what I was trying to do, but not very tidily as you can see!  I tinned both faces, then applied DCC Concepts flux and then tried to heat them to get the solder to run.  As you say, getting the pieces to stay aligned was a challenge.

 

I've since been directed towards a very useful guide by @BWsTrains, so will read that a couple of times and then try again.

 

[MrWolf]

That's what I remember from old books such as Model Locomotive Construction, the idea of tinning the surfaces and then sweating everything together. Much of what I have done with sheet material is with an old copper bit iron and a No1 nozzle on the oxyacetylene, different approach altogether.

[MrWolf]

2 hours ago, Graham T said:

Didn’t someone recently buy Cooper Craft?  Hopefully we’ll see at least some of the range getting re-released.

 

 

Cambrian have bought all of the tooling and there was talk of production resuming in March.

[Graham T]

5 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

Cambrian have bought all of the tooling and there was talk of production resuming in March.

 

Let's hope so!

 

[Graham T]

Am getting slightly better less bad at this soldering witchcraft.  No tinning, and iron turned up to 11.  This is three parts laminated together for the tow handle of the luggage trolley.

 

 

 

Still needs a bit of tidying up with a file, but way better than previous efforts...