Nick Dunhill's Workbench - Scratchbuilding a Reid NBR Atlantic from an ACE Kit.

[nickd]

Hi All

New project!  It's a ACE Kit for the Reid C10 NBR Atlantic.  The kit was part built by Graham Varley before his untimely death earlier this year, and we decided to finish it as a tribute to him.  Graham had (very nicely, as was his way) built the footplate, cab and the main part of the tender.  He'd then come across an issue or two and put the model in his dusty 'pending' pile in the hope that it would be forgotten!

 

The first thing I decided to do was to replace the awful front section of the footplate top.  The underside of it has a half-etched rectangle to aid curving, but it had left awful witness marks in the top.

 

 

 

 

Robin McHugh is something of a guru on scottish locos and pointed out to me that the footplate valences were too shallow so....

 

 

 

 

There's no easy way to do this.  Measure (twice!) cut, fit.  The splasher (out)sides were removed from the footplate etch as the fold line is too thin and you cant make a 90 deg fold!

 

It looks much better, and I capped off the week by fixing the smokebox step.

 

 

This will be fun.

Edited October 7, 2022 by nickd

[Blandford1969]

Nice, lots of us will watch with interest as C10's are not common. 

[nickd]

After assembling 4 models back from paint it's back on with the Atlantic.  I've been chatting a lot with Robin McHugh about this loco.  He has a wealth of knowledge about these prototypes and bought himself one of these kits and I think we are now building in tandem.

 

This week I got the chassis etches out of the box.  I noticed that the etches were intended for use in the ACE GC Jersey Lilley kit, but it turned out that the wheelbases of both locos are identical, my measure-o-meter (I've taken to measuring everything with this kit) confirmed that the wheels would all be in the right place in relation to each other.  However the frames only fit to the footplate where they touch....that is at either end.  More pondering over the drawing revealed that if the front of the frames are up against the rear of the front buffer beam, by luck or design, the wheels (and maybe the cylinders, we live in hope) fall into the correct position.  Turns out that the rear driving axle falls in the centre of the rear splasher apperture on the footplate.  The front driving axle is about 1.5 mm ahead of the splasher apperture, so we'll have to modify that later.

 

 

I held the frame under the footplate and used drill shanks as feeler gauges to determine that the gap between the tops of the chassis and the underside of the footplate was 1.1 mm.  I scratched my head deciding whether to cut my losses and cut out new frames or modify the etches.  I decided to modify, and it probably took nearly as long as cutting out new items.  The frames are joggled between the front driving axle and cylinder block and taper in between the front of the cylinder and buffer beam, I put all of the bends into the chassis frames.  The frames on the real loco aren't scaloped to give clearance for the bogie wheels.  I infilled the fronts of the frames and keep my fingers crossed that there'll be enough clearance for the wheels not to hit the frames on a 6' rad curve.

 

 

The manufacturer just supplying a random chassis caused a lot of extra work.  The chassis needing so much modification is not really acceptable.

 

I decided to make the frames 27-odd mm apart to give clearance for the inside motion.  My measurements show that a Slater's SG29 motor and gearbox will fit between the eccentric sheaves.  Of course none of the frame stays now fit and I so far have scratchbuilt the stay that supports the rear end of the valve rods, the one between the drivers and the one in front of the firebox.

 

 

 

 

I sense a lot of mission creep...

[nickd]

So the first jobs this week were to finish the frame stays and install the valve rods.  All went well...

 

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The cast valve rods are part of a LGM inside Stephenson motion set that will feature later in the build.

 

The next logical step would be to pop the wheels in.  I normally trust the kit design, but in this case I mocked up the rigid axle in the chassis and placed the footplate and cab on it.  For piece of mind I levelled the footplate (with a block of wood and some shims) with everything sitting on the one fixed axle.  The whole footplate sat about 1.1 mm too low!  The front buffer beam has the holes for the buffers offset (the buffers should be central in the buffer beam,) and this could well be the solution to bring the buffers up to the correct height above rail with the whole body sitting too low.

 

 

Well that's one solution to the problem.  The other of course is to move the bearings in the chassis frames, which is the solution I chose.  I refer to my comments above about whether to modify the frames or make new!

 

I put the driving wheels in the chassis and finished the frame stays and a motor mount.  The motor is a Slater's SG29.

 

 

The next job was the outer frames round the rear axle.

 

 

 

 

 

For the record there was nothing in the kit to locate the rear wheel set, so I had to fabricate a basic pony style truck.

 

Tomorrow I will look at the cylinders.  Place your bets on whether they will fit!

[Blandford1969]

Looking good, a shame you had to replace more bits. 

[nickd]

I have a feeling this isn't the end of the poorly fitting parts!

 

Also I've gone so far off-piste of the design of this kit that it's inevitable that parts won't fit. 

 

By off-piste I mean measurements off the GA.  The major issue with this kit so far is that the manufacturer has included chassis etches designed for a completely different loco.  This has meant some horrible compromises with the design of the rest of the loco.  Why not just design a chassis that is correct for the prototype?  In the end surely it would have been less design work, and you wouldn't get folks like me being passive-agressive about the quality of it online and it would have a good reputation and sell more kits.

 

The box is good quality.

[JeffP]

Keep in mind that many kits were designed cheaply at a time when there were few models available, and very little rtr.

I remember an "N" gauge class 31 that dwarfed the coaches, but I was happy enough to run it in 1977.

[nickd]

I tried turning my attention to the cylinders, but I fell down a different (deep) rabbit hole.  I made some dummy hornguides, nothing too elaborate so they didn't skim much off the budget.  I put another frame stay in place too that I had overlooked when staring at the GA.

 

 

You can see that I also fabricated an ashpan.  The ashpan sides in the kit required a little modification but nothing that made my scrap bin much heavier.  I decided that it would be sensible at this stage to also make the footplate support bracket that is between the driving wheels.  It is also a support bracket for the steps that are also between the driving wheels, and is cut in a way that doesn't bring it into conflict with the coupling and connecting rods.  I searched through the etchings in the box for the step parts.  There were treads (wrong size) for the cab and tender steps but nothing for the massive, conspicuous steps between the driving wheels.  So a bit of measuring and cutting later and..

 

 

 

Eventually I got to the cylinders, and they required some new ones to be made.  I also had to scratchbuild slide bars and crossheads too.  The slide bar etches on the 'kit' were too short by a mile (they were maybe correct for a Jersey Lilley) and there's virtually nothing in the box for the crossheads.

 

 

This pic shows one of the basic carcasses for the cylinder block.  The front and rear were salvaged from the kit etches, the pile of strips is what I sorted through to find suitable material for the slide bars.  Always save the waste strips from kit etches kids!

 

 

The main story of this photograph is that the centres of the connecting rods are wrong.  I chopped a big hole in the small end, made a jig and soldered the small end bearing in the correct place.  In this way I can position the cylinder block correctly on the chassis side.

 

Here are the nearly complete cylinders.  The crossheads are bloody awkward things to make and some castings really would have helped.  How the budget for this job shrinks!

 

 

I'm getting through a lot of piercing saw blades, but hopefully I can finish the cylinders tomorrow and make the front bogie.

[DOCJACOB]

As die hard NBR fan who even wrote article for NBR study group journal about the survivor tender from Cambridge area now with SRPS in Bo’ness this isn’t something I’ll be tackling. 
 

I have nothing but admiration & would love to hear % of kit that is actually used from curiosity. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[nickd]

So far the footplate cab front and sides.  I managed to make rods from the etches in the kit and used the chassis frames, although in retrospect it would have been less work to cut new ones. 

[DOCJACOB]

The real tender frame survivor. Used as fuel oil store for early LNER diesel shunters 

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by DOCJACOB
Spelling

[nickd]

Amazing!  It's incredible what still exists.

[jwealleans]

Having known Graham for a number of years, I'm surprised he even embarked on one of these kits.   He was quite choosy about what he would build and the  - ahem - variable quality of this range is very well known.

[nickd]

Graham got in touch when he was too ill to do anymore work and told me that he'd had his arm twisted a bit by the client to build this kit.  I'd already agreed to take over a chunk of his commissions, and most were, as you say, kits known to be at the Lego end of the spectrum.  He said that he'd agreed a fixed price contract for building this kit, and having built a fair bit of it (he built more or less all the tender as you'll see later,) it became apparent that the kit would require more hours than he had agreed.  He said at this point he'd shoved it on the back burner on the hope the client would forget it!  I only work on an hourly rate,  so actually I'm enjoying a bit of scratchbuilding.  You'll have to make a judgement whether the 'kit' represents value for money!  I just hope that not too many modellers waste their money on this one.

[nickd]

Having completed the cylinders this is how I fitted them up onto the chassis.  It's important that the centre line of the cylinders crosses the centre of the driven axle.  You can see that I put a rod down the tube that carries the piston rod and lined it up with the wheel centre.  To achieve this I soldered some packing pieces onto the top of the cylinder front to achieve the correct position according to the GA.  I then shoved successive diameter drill shanks on top of the cylinder rear until the correct incline was achieved.

 

 

 

BUT I also checked the fore and aft position of the cylinder by installing the con rod and moving the wheel such that the piston would be a top and bottom dead centre, iin this way I can move the cylinder until the crosshead falls into the correct positions on the slide bars.

 

 

 

This is an iterative process and you have to hope that the cylinder falls into the centre of the bogie.  Fingers crossed.

 

The cylinders are only tacked for now so can be corrected later if needed when the bogie is offered up.

 

Finally here's a rendition of some printy axles and springs I commissioned to replace the ghastly castings in the kit.

 

 

Thanks to Mick Davies.

 

More struggles with the brake rigging next week.

[Blandford1969]

Your working wonders. Blimey though, 3d printed springs, very nice. Wish something like that was available in 4mm for the scratch built C10 I'm gradually gathering bits for.

[nickd]

Continuing from last week, after both cylinders had been fitted I made the muck shields that back both slide bars.  They are huge and cover the whole of the backs of the slidebar area.  After that I made some motion brackets, there were random shaped etchings in the kit for these items that now reside in my scrap bin.

 

 

As you can see I also did the final fit-up of the rods.  I had to make a pair of spacers that fitted between the coupling and connecting rods, over the crank pin.  This was to move the con rod big end outwards so that the rod is parallel to the slide bars and frames.  This is often overlooked in kit builds, but the prototype con rod was definitely not angled, disaster would quickly follow.  

 

The next logical item to make was the front bogie and equalising beams.  There were random etchings in the kit for these items that now reside in my scrap bin.  Laurie Griffin does a Drummond bogie side frame kit, and it is almost identical to the one on this loco.  I wonder if the etches supplied are even for a Jersey Lilley?  I made the bogie stretchers from lengths of U-section soldered together, the bogie has rudimentary side control.  I had to make some guard irons for the above, there were random shaped etchings in the kit for these items that now reside in my scrap bin.

 

 

The rolling chassis was now complete and to my relief went round a 6ft curve.

 

 

I added some bits of brass strip that limit the movement of the front of the bogie to prevent shorting, as the front of the frame is not scalloped above the wheels.

 

 

The next step this week was the inside motion, there's nothing usable in the kit for this, and I began by fitting the eccentric sheaves.  These need to be removable as they share an axle with the gearbox.  I had loads of sheaves CNCd in steel to replace the castings in LGM inside motion sets a while ago, they save loads of fettling.  (I have loads so if anyone wants a set at cost let me know.)  The axle holes were opened up and they were soldered to short lengths of brass tube that telescope over the axle.  The axles and tubes are drilled to accept a steel driving/locating pin.

 

 

The pin will stop the eccentric straps falling off.

 

 

The week ended with the fettling of castings for the eccentric straps and forked-ends.  The rod itself has to be scratchbuilt as they are quite long and shaped to avoid the front driving axle.  The cast rods in the LGM set were too short.

 

 

My scrap bin is getting quite full.  The cat is there for scale.

 

[nickd]

And here's a quick update of the progress on eccentric rods. 

[nickd]

The eccentric rods on the loco are very long, and the castings for this in the LGM inside motion kit are too short so, as you can see, I had to make some from waste etch.  It's quite tricky to make the scarfed joints invisible, and you have to make sure the rods are straight and both ends square to each other.  Some of the cross drillings in the castings were a bit diagonal, so they were soldered up and re drilled.

 

It takes a lot of effort but if you make everything and then carefully assemble and check each part eventually some nice running inside motion can be achieved.

 

 

 

 

Everything ran very nicely so I moved on to the brakes.  Here are the brake parts that are in the kit, they are clearly for something else, or just random parts.  The holes in the chassis for the brake hanger pivots are in completely the wrong place.  They had to be filled and redrilled.

 

 

It's a bit of a recurring theme in this build, and becoming a bit less amusing every day as the bill racks up.  Luckily I had some cast WM brake shoes in my bit box that are very close and I made the rest from scrap and left-overs.

 

 

The brake system is quite complex on this loco so I'll finish the rest tomorrow.  There's not even any castings for brake cylinders in this kit even though they're very prominent.  We'll be scratchbuilding again no doubt.

Edited November 26, 2022 by nickd

[Blandford1969]

Wow, great build and so helpful as references for an eventual scratchbuild of one

[nickd]

This week I have been mainly making brakes.  I made a pair of brake cylinders from some left overs in my box-o'-bits.  I rummaged through the brass scrap box and found some left-over pull rods from an Agenoria Kit that were exactly the right size and so could be repurposed.  I made sets of levers and bell cranks etc and fitted it all up.

 

 

I had got some springs and hangers printed by Mick Davies, and here they are fitted up on the finished chassis.

 

 

 

Here's the chassis stripped for a good wash.

 

 

The locos had Westinghouse brakes so there's a few air tanks on the loco and tender.  Here's how I make them.

 

 

The K&S range of brass tubes all telescope inside the next size.  I pick the tube with the closest OD and cut the required length, and a length from the next size down 2 mm shorter.

 

 

I close the ends of the smaller diameter tube by soldering it to a bit of scrap brass and cutting/filing to shape.  You can see I drilled a hole on it to stop the end popping off when it gets hot.

 

 

Then I pop one inside the other and solder it up centrally  with low melt solder.

 

Attention turned to the tender.  Graham had already built a lot of it already, and it was well built so I test fitted the wheels to see if everything sat well.

 

 

 

Enough end float for you sir?

 

Of course I had to jack up the body by 1.2 mm as I had with the loco footplate.  Now that the footplates of loco and tender coincided I reversed the top hat bearings and shimmed out the tender wheels.  There were some brake blocks and hangers that vaguely resembled the correct type in the box, so I modified them so they were like the prototype.  The rods for the hangers were not in the right place so had to be cut away, chassis re drilled and new rods fitted.  The rest of the brake system is scratchbuilt as per loco.

 

 

This is the resulting chassis prior to the blobs of solder being removed!

 

Next week I hope to finish the upperworks of the tender, however a big issue has arisen.  The model depicts the loco in it's earliest condition.  Robin contacted me to explain that in their early days the tank sides were about 5 inches shorter than in later years.  Graham built the tender in it's later condition so the first job will be to remove the flares (you should have never been wearing them in the first place!) and chop a few millimetres off the top of the tender sides.  That's going to be fun.

 

 

Here's the cut line.

 

Incidently I'd like to hear from anyone who has (attempted to!) built the ACE Kit GCR Jersey Lilley.  As I said above the chassis in this kit is from his Jersey Lilley kit with a few random etches that fail miserably to make it fit a Reid Atlantic.  It would be interesting to see if the ACE Jersey Lilley chassis actually fit his Jersey Lilley body (assuming that's buildable.)

 

 

[nickd]

Today I replaced the weedy tender valance with one of the correct size and no integral step plate, I'll come back to those later.  A quick grumble about tab and slot construction, filling the slots that appear on the top of (eg) footplates is a nightmare.  Can they be half etched?

 

Really today was all about putting on my big-boy's pants and cutting off the top of the tender.

 

 

 

 

 

I laid waste to 6 slitting discs as Graham had doubled up the material on the tender side to get a strong join.

 

More awkward soldering next week, there's loads of beading.........

[DOCJACOB]

Much karma to you regarding this build. 
 

Well well beyond my ability. From what seen, unfortunately this is one locomotive kit I’ll not be adding to my build list 

[Blandford1969]

It looks like it would have been easier to scratch build it in total

[nickd]

It would indeed have been at least a tie.