GNR A1 Pacific builds

[Captain_Mumbles]

Gday All!
I have collected some parts with the intention of building some Railroad pacifics into early type GNR spec pacifics. I have acquired an old Flying Scotsman body shell with what looks to be a high cab, but the chimney and dome look like the later and lower LNER type. 

To add insult to injury the railroad Flying Scotsman shell that I have has a low cab but high chimney and dome!

Before I start cutting up everything to make my own molds are there any places where I might be able to get detail parts. That is  high chimneys and domes for my body shells?

[Captain_Mumbles]

After having been unsuccessful in tracking down some chimney and dome parts, I have managed to install the high roof onto the lower cab of the Railroad Flying Scotsman with some careful cutting and a little massaging.

After procrastinating for way too long over which scheme or which loco to chose I decided to tackle the tender body. The victim being the body of an old tender drive train set tender. These are very large to accommodate the ringfield motor. The width problem is solved by simply cutting the sides off and gluing them back on. But this has the curved in, or semi-streamlined sides which must also be removed to back date it to the GNR style tender.

Studying many pictures I have noticed what appears to be a doubler around the top edge of the side sheets. This is the next problem to tackle.

 

Cheers!

Ben

[Chas Levin]

Hello Ben, nice work; have you progressed any further on it? I have a railroad 4472 stashed with the intention of turning into something similar at some point...

[Captain_Mumbles]

13 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

Hello Ben, nice work; have you progressed any further on it? I have a railroad 4472 stashed with the intention of turning into something similar at some point...

Ive had a busy couple of weeks Chas. Hopefully I can get back on it over the weekend.

[Captain_Mumbles]

Even though the cab roof is higher than the others, it looked just a whisker too low after studying too many pictures.

So I removed the roof again and added a small styrene spacer.

 

It is refitted, and undercoated for filling and sanding.

 

Thanks for looking!

[Captain_Mumbles]

I picked this up off the bench and have started painting.

It is time to work out how to do the lining. At this point I am thinking the overpriced one on an auction website might have been a good option! But we are here now...

I have touched up the green a little and started with the white and black stripes.

I am still to decide if it will be 4473 Solario, 4479 Robert the Devil, or the early GNR scheme for a cameo.

 

Thanks for looking!

[Chas Levin]

Welcome back - nice work!

 

Over-priced RTR is never a better option than building your own, in my opinion at any rate...

[Captain_Mumbles]

I ve finished a quick and easy project which is fitting a modern chassis to an old Humorist. This requires the simple task of using a dremel to shave down some plastic under the boiler to allow for the large chassis block. Thankfully the railroad body and the old body are very similar and that part of the conversion is very easy. The tender is a little more intense. I ran it through the band saw down each side just behind the tender side sheets. and glued it all back together carefully without ruining the paint. I cut down the coal from the railroad tender and glued that in too. I think I explained this before, but here are some pictures. This solves the problem of the over scale tenders on the old models. Its not 100% but it really does look great going around the trainset now.

 

[Dominion]

The tender looks so much better with that treatment. I did a Cameronian in a similar way. It looks like you cut the single piece coal rail stamping ? When I did mine I tried to shape it to take out the extra width and shortened each end a little but it ends up with tight corners. How did you cut the railing ? A hand held hack saw ? I seem to remember it is quite hard.

Tom

Edited September 30, 2023 by Dominion

[Captain_Mumbles]

7 hours ago, Dominion said:

The tender looks so much better with that treatment. I did a Cameronian in a similar way. It looks like you cut the single piece coal rail stamping ? When I did mine I tried to shape it to take out the extra width and shortened each end a little but it ends up with tight corners. How did you cut the railing ? A hand held hack saw ? I seem to remember it is quite hard.

Tom

I cut each side off leaving me a straight rear piece with three posts and two side parts with curved ends. I was lazy, and I did this with a pair of small quality flush cutters.  I have a pair of heavy duty smallish flush cutters and use it to cut track. If you don't have flush cutters that will cut it, I think I did it ages ago with a small jewelers saw and put the railing in a vice. This will be a much cleaner cut. I carefully straightened the side bits out a little and re bent them around a pair of small round pliers to make it a tighter curve, it just looks a bit more realistic. You will obviously have some excess due to the narrower body. Simply trim it. I glued the rail back in place. I hope to obtain some small rod or half round to glue over the rails, to make the railings look more like they are pipes. But it looks pretty good so far.

 

 

[Captain_Mumbles]

I wasn't happy with the rain channel location after stretching up the roof. So after too much procrastination I sanded off that detail and made a new one. Some paint reapplied and it is starting to show some early A1 elegance already. The next challenge will be the lining of the cab and running plate.

[Captain_Mumbles]

I have started modifying the side sheets of the corridor railroad tender to match the GNR type. Starting with the upper doubler strip and the curved plate at rear. It is also necessary to file the ends so they are curved corners  instead of flat like the A4 tenders. I also did that on the end of the Cab as can be seen in the previous post. Well, as much as I can without filing off that molded handrail.

 

Edited October 7, 2023 by Captain_Mumbles
typo

[Captain_Mumbles]

Some parts of the tender are made new as it is easy to cut the styrene sheets rather than modify some of the old bits. The front bulkhead of the tender is used, but the detail is removed and new sheets fitted in front of it to match how it looks on one of the other Hornby GNR tenders I have. The old bulkhead becomes more like a structural skeleton.

The next part will be to shape the rear where it is concave and to add the beading. But all this is going to be left for solvents to dry overnight.

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by Captain_Mumbles
typo

[Captain_Mumbles]

With the concave shape sanded at aft end, the beading is applied. It is .020 strip cut into even smaller strips. It might appear heavy at the moment, and it always will be on the heavy side. But there isn't really any alternative. In a few days when the solvents and plastic has thoroughly dried I can round if off a little and that will improve it a lot.

 

[Captain_Mumbles]

Update on the Coal rails.

 

[Captain_Mumbles]

G'day all.

While looking at too many pictures of early A1s on the web I discovered that my coal rail tender was too high.

I compared mine to the factory ones and found that I had copied Hornby's discrepancy. I also found that there might  be more than one design of the lowered cab. The cabs on early A1s and their tenders should draw a more or less straight imaginary line across the top edge of the cab side to the top line of the upper coal rail.

 

I compared the my tender side sheets to my Isinglass drawing of an early A1 and mine were 2-3mm too high. So I cut roughly 2.5mm from the bottom of my tender and the general overall balance of my model improved.

 

To add more confusion, on the lowered cabs of the later A1/A3, sometimes the top corner of the cab makes a straight line across the lower coal rail. But not always. This leads me to believe there are multiple low cab designs OR, the tenders might differ in height.

Hornby's models always have the top corner of the cab lining up with the lower coal rail at least on all the models I have, even the early representation of the A1. So I think they may have the tender too high or the cab windows too low on this early version they made. But in my opinion that is still a gorgeous model.

In any case, my one is not that accurate either. It is going to be my interpretation of what a 'Railroad' early A1 might look like, however it is becoming more detailed and intense than first intended.

 

Cheers!

Ben

 

 

 

 

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

That's looking rather good.

 

manna

[Captain_Mumbles]

On 17/10/2023 at 09:20, manna said:

G'Day Folks

 

That's looking rather good.

 

manna

G'day Manna.
Thanks. One day I'll be as good as you mate! I hope you're still building these days.

 

For now,

After a small set back where I melted one of the sides with a heat gun here it is fixed up as best I can and in undercoat.

 

 

 

[manna]

13 hours ago, Captain_Mumbles said:

G'day Manna.
Thanks. One day I'll be as good as you mate! I hope you're still building these days.

 

For now,

After a small set back where I melted one of the sides with a heat gun here it is fixed up as best I can and in undercoat.

 

 

 

G'Day Folks

 

Yes, doing a bit every so often, still plugging on with the house, good chance next year I can start the new layout. 

 

manna

[Chas Levin]

On 18/10/2023 at 08:20, Captain_Mumbles said:

G'day Manna.
Thanks. One day I'll be as good as you mate! I hope you're still building these days.

 

For now,

After a small set back where I melted one of the sides with a heat gun here it is fixed up as best I can and in undercoat.

 

 

 

 

 

Nicely saved - I can't see any repaired damage, very nice job!

[Captain_Mumbles]

On 19/10/2023 at 07:34, manna said:

G'Day Folks

 

Yes, doing a bit every so often, still plugging on with the house, good chance next year I can start the new layout. 

 

manna

 I have been at my place for a few years now and I still feel like I am moving in!

 

17 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

 

 

Nicely saved - I can't see any repaired damage, very nice job!

Thanks!

I can't believe what I get away with sometimes.

 

 

[cypherman]

Hi all,

I have started repairing damaged areas using the gel superglue and baking soda method. I have just repaired the 4 corners of a Hornby 21 ton coal wagon. They tend to get the corners of the top  rim broken and chipped off. Also fixed the roof of a box van that had been touched with a soldering iron. The coal wagon was easy. Got a piece of greaseproof paper and where the wagon was to sit smeared it with a little vasoline( Does any one else here still put vasoline on battery terminals?). This is to stop the glue sticking to the surface. I then put a nice big blob of gel superglue on each corner and sprinkled baking powder on to the glue. Then left it overnight to make sure it was fully set. Then filed the corners to the correct shape. Painted it and now you cannot tell the difference. The roof of the van was similar in that after filing and sanding the damaged part of the roof smooth I put a decent blob of glue into and sprinkled that with baking powder. Left it overnight and the next morning I filed and sanded the roof and glue flat. Then after a quick coat of black it is almost impossible to see the damage. I learnt this trick with the glue and baking powder off a guy on Youtube called Paul Restorer. He repairs old Corgi and Dinky cars and uses this method to make window struts and bumpers. I recommend that you watch his videos. He can make a car that I would have binned and turn into something that looks like brand new.

Edited October 20, 2023 by cypherman

[Chas Levin]

8 hours ago, cypherman said:

Hi all,

I have started repairing damaged areas using the gel superglue and baking soda method. I have just repaired the 4 corners of a Hornby 21 ton coal wagon. They tend to get the corners of the top  rim broken. Also fixed the roof of a box van that had been touched with a soldering iron. The coal wagon was easy. Got a piece of greaseproof paper and where the wagon was to sit smeared it with a little vasoline( Does any one else here still put vasoline on battery terminals?). This is to stop the glue sticking to the surface. I then put a nice big blob of gel superglue on each corner and sprinkled baking powder on to the glue. Then left it overnight to make sure it was fully set. Then filed the corners to the correct shape. Painted it and now you cannot tell the difference. The roof of the van was similar in that after filing and sanding the damaged part of the roof smooth I put a decent blob of glue into and sprinkled that with baking powder. Left it overnight and the next morning I filed and sanded the roof and glue flat. Then after a quick coat of black it is almost impossible to see the damage. I learnt this trick with the glue and baking powder off a guy on Youtube called Paul Restorer. He repairs old Corgi and Dinky cars and uses this method to make window struts and bumpers. I recommend that you watch his videos. He can make a car that I would have binned and turn into something that looks like brand new.

Very interesting: what's the baking powder doing though, and what's the advantage of this over conventional fillers like Milliput?

Edited October 20, 2023 by Chas Levin

[chris p bacon]

3 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

Very interesting: what's the baking powder doing though, and what's the advantage of this over conventional fillers like Milliput?

I saw this technique about 25 years ago at an aeromodellers event, the superglue and baking powder make up a fast setting filler paste, I've used it a few times...if I can remember where I've put the baking powder...🤔

[MikeTrice]

You can also use superglue with microballoons filler powder. When rubbed down you get a surface just like the styrene.