David Andrews Princess - Princess Marie Louise 6206

[Rob Pulham]

Before going any further on the chassis, I decided to assemble the footplate to check that all sits well. This is what for me has been the trickiest bit of the build so far.

 

The bending and fitting of the two dropped curved ends of the footplate. These are full thickness etch and at0.45mm in Nickel they take a bit of bending.

 

First, I fitted the valences using a piece of square bass bar and some surgical clamps to hold it in place and vertical to the footplate. Just a case of tack in several places along the length and then seem between them.

 

Next on to the dropped sections, I started with the rear section for no other reason than the front section needed the rivets pressing out and I had done enough of that for the day when I finished the footplate earlier in the day.

 

 

 

I marked up the start of the bend and another line which should have been the middle of the bend but fell somewhat short. In the event this wasn't an issue as by some miracle I managed to bend it almost perfect first time. It just needed a gentle bash with a rubber mallet to get the last bit of the curve where it meets the footplate to the right shape.

 

 

While I was on a roll, I added the drag beam too.

 

Then it was more rivets prior to fitting the front section

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

In my last post I mentioned that bending the full thickness nickel was a bit of a bu**ger. The front drop section proved doubly so.

 

The handicaps on the front section being that it’s physically shorter so less metal to get leverage with to make the bend and all those rivets that I didn’t want to flatten in the process.

 

I folded a sheet of printer paper (an old invoice which I keep for scribbling notes on the blank rear side) several times to give me a nice thickness of padding and started to make the bend. To my relief like the back one, having tried it against the side of the valence, I had got it pretty near on the first go.

 

Then I tried it sat on top of the valance and you can understand my complete and utter dismay! when I noticed the recesses for the lamp irons were sat up under the front of the footplate.

 

I had somehow managed to turn it around when I wrapped it in the paper and I had nicely created the curve in the wrong end. I am surprised that they didn’t hear my exclamation of Oh sh*t! in York. The only saving grace was that it was a bend not a fold and I hadn’t started to further the bend to get it to fit flush under the front of the footplate.

 

 

The good news is that I managed to recover it and re-bend it at the right end.

 

These two photos show it after straightening and re-bending at the right end and a dry fit before soldering

 

 

 

These are of it fitted along with the buffer plank.

 

 

 

Finally, the weapons of choice used to get me out of my self-created mess.

 

 

Plus, the all-important ‘how I did it’.

 

It’s worth mentioning right from the outset that I didn’t anneal it, nor did I consider doing so.

 

My workbench is partly covered with a sheet of toughened glass, while the other ‘half’ has a cutting mat. I usually use the glass section for soldering and making sure that things are flat/square.

 

I put the dropped section rivet face down on the folded paper on the toughened glass and gently tapped it with the rubber mallet to start to reduce the curve. Once this had been reduced some. I moved over on to the cutting mat with a 6” x 6” square of hard acrylic sheet that came with my hold and fold.

 

Its primary use is a firm base for cutting parts from etches. But it in this instance it provided a firm base where I could tap a bit firmer without risking breaking my glass sheet.

 

I managed to get quite a bit of the curve back out it before moving to the vice and after fitting one side with the soft jaw (the black angle piece in the photo) I started to bend the curve again at the right end.

 

Once I had the curve in and seated against the footplate, the front end still had a slight curve left in it (see the first photo). To remove this, I placed the part rivet side down on top of the vice jaw with the curved section overhanging.

 

Then using the length of 10mm brass bar in the photo, I laid it along the length of the curve and gently tapped with the mallet until it took most of the remaining curve out and then I finished of by putting a piece of green pan scrubber under the paper to allow a bit of give and then used the brass bar to ‘roll out’ the remainder of the curve. Making sure to stop before it started to curl the other way.

 

I share this in the hope that it will give someone else the confidence to have a go at recovering from a wrongly bent piece at some point.

[Rob Pulham]

Although I intended only to make sure that the footplate fits the chassis correctly, I got a little carried away and added quite a bit of detail. In reality it actually doesn't look much but probably represents 5 or 6 hours work.

 

In this kit there are quite a few parts that require trimming to fit. In fairness, the instructions do mention it and it's better to have them oversized, than parts being too small. But it really does create a time sink.

 

The buffers provided are some rather nice Hobby horse items but like the LG valve guides, the etched holes are too big for the stems. So, I had to turn up a couple more spacers to locate them properly. I won’t bore you further, with photos of them.

 

 

I had in mind that the piston rod covers were white metal items, so I was fully prepared to turn replacements if they were out of register like some of the other castings have been but I was pleasantly surprised to find some nice brass castings on the sprues.

 

 

Although I have wittered, above about having to trim a good number of parts. Despite having to trim them to fit, the design of the splasher tops made them some of the easiest I have ever fitted. That is once I had them bent to the right shape and managed to hang onto them to tack solder in place - they kept slipping out of my fingers... can't blame the kit for my being clumsy.

[Chas Levin]

Not boring me Rob and (IMO) not wittering either! Beautiful work...

[Rob Pulham]

49 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

Not boring me Rob and (IMO) not wittering either! Beautiful work...

Sorry Chaz,

 

Badly worded on my part. What I meant was I won't bore 'you' with photos of another couple of turned spacers. Not that my entire post was boring...

[Chas Levin]

21 hours ago, Rob Pulham said:

Sorry Chaz,

 

Badly worded on my part. What I meant was I won't bore 'you' with photos of another couple of turned spacers. Not that my entire post was boring...

Oh dear - please excuse me, I sprang to reassure you but I did indeed misunderstand! Your posts are far from boring, as I'm sure you know! And I'm sure further photos of the turned spacers wouldn't have been boring either, for that matter...

Edited April 18, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Rob Pulham]

Life has overtaken me this week so far so not much progress on the Princess. I did manage to solder up the boiler which to be fair had been quite nicely rolled and only needed minor tweaks to get it completely round. I had to shave a small amount beyond the etching cusp off the former to get it to fit in the half etch slot in the boiler front but other than that it was quite a smooth process.

 

Here it is sat on the footplate with the firebox

 

[Rob Pulham]

Today has been very productive in terms of tackling the smokebox.

 

After a conversation about rolling a 0.45mm sheet including rivets pressed out with Richard Spoors. Where we concluded that my GW 10” rollers were not man enough for the job and would flex. I decided to have a go at rolling the smokebox using the rolling bars on my Warco ‘MiniFormit’ which are a touch over 28mm in diameter so unlikely to flex.

 

Although I have had it for a number of years, I have only ever used it as a guillotine until today. Rather than risk the actual smokebox to an unknown piece of equipment I decided that I would cut a similar sized piece of 0.45mm sheet and have a go.

 

Although the actual process of rolling is broadly similar to the GW roller the Warco rollers are of the pinch variety and I must have pinched a little unevenly because I noted on my test piece that one end was marginally wider than the other. Not enough to be an issue but something to be aware of.

 

The other issue that I encountered was controlling the amount of ‘roll’ On the GW rollers there are two cap head screws on the top that you tighten down simultaneously to get an even roll. The adjustment screws are on the back of the Warco unit so harder to see. They consist of a threaded rod with a round knob locked on with a nut.

 

Those issues aside, the first go turned out pretty good and it’s perfectly usable. If I don’t find a use for it on a loco at some point, I can always use it as a wagon load.

 

 

 

Having done the rolling, I had some thoughts about how best to regulate the amount of roll as the screws are adjusted and came up with the idea of adding a blob of paint on the flats of the locking nut.

 

I wound both of them to a fixed point and then put a blob of coloured paint on the opposite flats on both nuts – White, Red and Blue so I can now see that I have turned them both by equal amounts.

 

Not the easiest thing to photograph as it's bolted to the bench and the screws are on the back.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Looking at all the rivets to be pressed out I decided that I would finally get around to doing something that I had been promising myself for years. That’s to make a more comfortable handle for the GW Models rivet press. Those who own the smaller of the two models will understand where I am coming from. The bigger 7mm/Gauge 1 version has a round end to the handle the smaller version just has a rectangular bar which gets mighty uncomfortable when pressing a lot of rivets.

 

My solution was to drill a 13mm hole in a piece of 20mm acetal rod and tap it onto the rectangular bar.

 

 

 

So simple but so much more comfortable.

 

 

It didn’t make pressing the rivets out any quicker but it saved the hand, some grief.

 

Ordinarily I would have taken the slight curl out of the sheet by setting the rivets using a jeweller’s stone setting tool, a technique picked up from Peter Dunn. However, because I plan to roll this and the curl is in the right orientation, I left it as is.

 

To roll the smokebox with the rivets embossed I backed it with a piece of card from a biscuit packet (Tesco Finest Chocolate Gingers – other sources of card are available).

 

 

 

Once I filed the etching cusp off the rear former it dropped straight in.

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

There has been quite a bit of conversation over on the Guild forum about the Smoke box saddle for the David Andrews Princess. It seems that the main saddle casting which is brass is 2mm or so too deep. Oddly there is a second casting which is white metal. I find it most strange that they are made from two different materials

 

A couple of fellow Guild members whom I have corresponded with on the subject, had the second casting missing from their kits (both bought second hand) and I wonder if was actually there, but like me they missed it because they were looking for a second brass casting. I certainly did until it was pointed out that it was white metal.

 

 

 

 

 

Before I go any further, I need to assemble the cab (I have already soldered the inner and outer cab sides together) and I am sure that I will need to remove some material from the middle splashers to get the boiler to seat properly between them.

[Rob Pulham]

I set myself a couple of goals for the session, the first was to get the smokebox door ring to fit in the smokebox barrel, the second was to assemble the cab.

 

Staring with the smokebox door ring, I had decided that filing it would be a complete pain and a last resort if I couldn’t work out how to hold it in the lathe to turn it down.

 

The amount of rim left after turning would be miniscule so no chance of griping it by that and being able to turn it. I didn’t have any material of a large enough diameter to make a mandrel so I decided to try holding it on the outside of the jaws. Because it’s white metal it would be really easy to distort or mark it. I cut a strip of aluminium drinks can to length so that it would wrap around the circumference of the inner ring but not overlap to throw it off centre. Once inserted I carefully opened the jaws until they were just gripping the part.

 

I started off by attempting to have it hard up against the jaws in an attempt to get it running concentric but the rivets on part of the ring prevent it from sitting flush so I had to move it away from the jaws and then use a pair of thin parallels inserted between the jaw and the face to ease it until I reduced the wobble to an acceptable level. Despite trying to get it perfectly flat on my glass sheet I wasn’t able to without damaging said rivets so I had to accept a little wobble.

 

I had the lathe running at about 100rpm or less, I set the carriage stop so that I wouldn’t inadvertently chop of the front rim and then moving in 0.050mm at a time I skimmed the rim at the back of the part. The first cut quickly proved that the outside of the part wasn’t completely circular either. I patiently took cuts until the rear rim was completely concentric, all the while checking the fit of the smokebox front after each cut.

 

In the end I took off a depth of 0.750mm which equates to 1.5mm overall. That would have been a killer with a file while attempting to keep it circular.

 

 

 

 

 

Having got that to fit successfully I turned my sight to the cab. I have never had something so simple be such a complete pain in the posterior to get together squarely. Today’s attempt was my third go at it, and it still took both sides being removed and refitted twice before I was satisfied that it fit as I thought it should. The problem is finding some part of it in between all the rivets and window frames inside that you can put a square against, to hold the sides at right angles to solder them.

 

Next, I spent some time with a spirit level adjusting the horn block screws to get the chassis/footplate to sit level.

 

Having the cab as a datum I can now see that the Firebox needs a slight trim where it goes over the rear splashers so that it will sit level. Once I have done that I need to sort out where the boiler is currently riding on the centre splashers. The problem here being that there isn’t a great deal of clearance between the wheels and the splashers so I think that I will have to cut into the boiler clothing to get it to seat. Once I have the boiler seated, I can consider what to remove from the saddle(s).

 

 

 

 

 

I will start by soldering the cab to the footplate and trimming the firebox…

 

PS just as I was posting this, I moved the loco from the photo area to my workbench and managed to drop the cab on the floor. Now the first job is to solder one of the cab sides back on....

[Chas Levin]

That's really nice precision work on the smokebox door ring Rob, very satisfying to see! Hope the wider seating arrangements progress well...

[Rob Pulham]

Since my last post I haven’t had much time to spend on modelling but having tacked the cab on I did get to drilling and fitting the firebox to the footplate with self tappers so that I have a datum to work from for seating the boiler.

 

I am not sure how others have managed it but I am having real difficulty with the size of it seeing what’s level and what isn’t so I have resorted to nibble a little bit, fasten the foot plate to the chassis add the boiler/smoke box and then take a photo that I can study without trying to juggle to loco in my hands while squinting at it.

 

By taking a photo of each side and comparing them, I can immediately see that I need to take a little more off the left side middle splasher. This is because it’s not seating down flush with the front of the firebox at that side, but it is at the other. This means that it’s being pushed over to one side slightly, this is backed up by it appearing to seat on the secondary saddle at the right side but not at the left. And of course, looking at it from the front.

 

 

 

 

Useful things photos, and it is a slight pain assembling it and disassembling to take a bit more off but I can’t think of a better way of achieving what I need.

[Chas Levin]

Rob, lovely work as usual! What camera / device are you using here - clearly, you're avoiding lens distortion, something that plagues me using the camera on my phone and which would make the kind of accuracy you're after here quite impossible...

[Rob Pulham]

Hi Chas,

 

When I retired I treated myself to a new camera and having have a Canon EOS 350D for a number of years opted for the full frame EOS 6D Mark II. I have had a side interest in photography since my late teens which means the phone cameras just don't do it for me, I like to have a proper camera in my hands. 

 

I also have some cheap studio lights which I use when photographing my builds - being cheaper end of the market they do fluctuate in light levels a bit, so some post processing is sometimes necessary.

 

Edited to add, one advantage with the 6D is that you can focus on multiple spots within the scene without moving the camera (I always use a tripod) which allows photo stacking to ensure that the longer models are all in focus across the depth of field.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Rob Pulham

[Rob Pulham]

As sometimes happens I had a little distraction from levelling up the boiler. While stripping the firebox off to adjust it to get it to sit down snugly, I noted that I hadn’t fitted parts 74E and 74F which are ‘L’ shaped rivet strips that fit around the rear splashers. I thought it best to fit them while I had the firebox off. Just to catch out the unwary, these are supposed to be handed but are in fact etched the same hand.

 

I did think about trying to press out the rivets from the face side so that I could use it upside down on the opposite hand but because its half etched, it made centring the rivet press on the half-etched rivets very difficult. In the end it was much easier to cut the leg off the ‘L’ and add it as two separate parts. Actually, you can barely see the joint when looking from above so it should be almost invisible from the ¾ side view once painted.

 

 

Then I took a little more off the firebox arches where they clear the rear splashers to get the firebox to sit properly on the

footplate.

 

 

 

I also took a little more off the left hand middle splasher which has centred the boiler but it’s still a little high at the front.

 

More needed off both sides.

 

[Rob Pulham]

 

Before taking more off the middle splashers, I eased the cut outs and bottom of the boiler at the firebox end to get it to sit better against the front of the firebox it didn’t need much but it seemed to help. Then I removed some more from the middle splashers

 

 

 

and I also milled some more off the smokebox saddle to reduce its height. I have had off forum discussions with a couple of people who have built these and both said that they had to scratch build the front saddle as they couldn’t get the casting to sit low enough. Just as a precaution I knocked one up from an offcut of 0.7mm nickel.

 

 

At this point the scratch built one needs shortening.

 

I took a couple of photos with the replacement in place to see how it fit.

 

 

 

 

 

And finally for last night I took a couple more after trimming back the splashers a bit more and reducing the height of the saddle casting again – it’s getting there.

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

At this point there was 0.1mm difference in the height of the DA saddle casting and my scratched up one from nickel so I popped it in the mill for one last skim and removed the last 0.1mm. The saddle casting is now 0.7mm deep in the centre and that makes the bottom of the smokebox 0.3mm below the frame tops.

 

 

Now it was time to sit it on a sheet of toughened glass in lieu of not having a surface plate and checking with my height gauge to see if the smokebox is level.

 

 

 

Yeay!! It sits dead level.

 

 

 

 

In the last two you can just see that the smokebox is lower than the frames – just.

Now I just need to get the secondary saddle to fit and ultimately fasten it together. For now, a darkened room beckons…

[Chas Levin]

On 11/05/2022 at 16:41, Rob Pulham said:

Hi Chas,

 

When I retired I treated myself to a new camera and having have a Canon EOS 350D for a number of years opted for the full frame EOS 6D Mark II. I have had a side interest in photography since my late teens which means the phone cameras just don't do it for me, I like to have a proper camera in my hands. 

 

I also have some cheap studio lights which I use when photographing my builds - being cheaper end of the market they do fluctuate in light levels a bit, so some post processing is sometimes necessary.

 

Edited to add, one advantage with the 6D is that you can focus on multiple spots within the scene without moving the camera (I always use a tripod) which allows photo stacking to ensure that the longer models are all in focus across the depth of field.

That explains it! I think, when I have a bit more space to work in I shall have to upgrade my photographic kit too; I'm spending far too long messing about trying to obtain sensible images and still falling very far short of what I'd like...

 

Lovely work otherwise, a pleasure to watch: "dead level" is one of my favourite phrases

[Rob Pulham]

For a bit of light relief, I took the secondary saddle for several brief trips on the mill until I got it to sit at the same level as the main saddle.

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

Over on the Guild forum there was some discussion about lubricators, centred primarily on the potential difficulties of drilling out brass castings. This prompted me to look in the box and see what the lubricator castings were like as supplied.

 

 

They are nicely detailed castings, albeit missing the front and rear fittings. But, most importantly for this build, there are only two of them in the kit and we need three.

 

In a bit of a dilemma but not needing them right now, I sent an email off to the gent that I am building it for with a few options on how we might proceed.

 

While awaiting a reply/phone call, I rose to the challenge and had a look through my material stock to see if I had any bar of a suitable size for making some myself.

 

I had a length of brass that was suitable, so I cut three lengths and machines them to the basic shape and size before drilling out the various holes.

 

Next, I turned the circular front piece that the pivot mechanism attaches to. Which gave me a chance to try out the grooving tool that I ground. I am pleased to say that by taking very light cuts, I was able to turn down a part with a 1mm spigot then a 3mm centre and a further 1mm spigot beyond the 3mm section without having to reverse the workpiece in the collet to turn the second spigot without snapping it off.

 

I then filed up and cut off around 50 small brass unions (I needed 42 but there were the inevitable pings off into space). It was only when I started to fit the blanking plugs on the front of two of the lubricators that I thought to take any photos.

 

 

 

 

As you can see not all of the holes were dead in line due to the small drill wandering a little because I drill right through rather than from each side. But I had a cunning plan to get around that.

 

 

The holes through the bodies were 0.5mm but the copper wire that I am using for the pipes is only 0.3mm. The smallest microbore tube that I had for making the unions has a 0.5mm id so I had quite a bit of wiggle room to line them up as I fitted them.

 

The rocking [ shaped pieces on the rear, were made from some slices cut from a length rectangular brass tube that I have had in my stock box for 10 years or more. I don’t seem to use it often and then only in small slices but it’s handy to have and more rigid that if I had bent up some strip.

[Rob Pulham]

Just to finish this little bit off, in all the three lubricators have 75 parts between them. Fiddly to make, and I know that I could have bought in some very nice castings or 3D prints from the trade, but I had immense fun and raised my personal bar a little higher.

 

Would I make some more in the future, who knows now that I have scratched that particular itch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rob Pulham]

Tuesdays have become quite a busy day in the Pulham household so I didn’t have too much time at the bench. One of the jobs that I always seem to forget until the last minute when building are the balance weights. I normally wouldn’t have taken photos of such a simple thing but in this case, I wanted to share the type of adhesive that I used.

 

After reading about it on Western Thunder as being specifically designed for etched metal and clear parts, I thought that I would give it a go and bought some. I am not a great lover of cyanoacrylate type glues, not because of their adhesive properties but because the fumes can leave unwanted residue especially on paintwork etc. which is difficult to get rid of.

 

The glue needs 6 hours to fully harden and to be honest it doesn’t seem to have great “grab” when initially applied. But being able to wipe off any overspill with a damp cotton bud and no residue from fumes is a big plus, assuming that it works.

 

Well, my scepticism was unfounded, the balance weights were nicely stuck when I checked them this morning.

 

 

 

I also added the inner plates for the weights cut from some 10thou nickel sheet.

[Chas Levin]

Interesting to see this tried out rob - and did you find there actually was significantly less 'bloom'? I tried some quite expensive cyano from another manufacturer that was specifically sold as being Low Bloom and found that unless you used the tiniest imaginable amount (no bad thing in itself but not always entirely practical) the amount of bloom was about the same as normal cyano...

[Rob Pulham]

Hi Chaz,

 

No bloom at all, it's resin based and I would liken it more to the pva end of the spectrum that cyano but it certainly sticks etch to both cast metal spokes and 'plastic'* spokes - I added the balance weights to the J6 yesterday after my successful test on these the day before.

 

* I say 'plastic' but it's really whatever Slaters wheel centres are made of and I am not sure that 'plastic' fully covers it.