A K's Johnson 2F

[Nick Lawson]

However, on a more positive note, here is something I didn't intend to do today:

The kit tender top is flat - there is no coal bunker. (pic1) There is supposed to be a toolbox that sits on a bracket above the coal. This is missing from the second-hand kit, so I started cutting and glueing Plastikard to make a replacement. I found a relevant old thread

and in particular @phil_sutters estimate of the toolbox size. This looks about right as the length corresponds with the brackets moulded into the font of the tender top.

 

Having warmed up, and being unhappy with the flat tender top I thought it would be interesting to see what it would look like with a proper bunker, so I cut some more plastikard as a trial. I cut a piece of 1mm thick plastikard roughly the width of the whitemetal tender top, but a bit too long. (pic2) The thread above links to an article in the Jul 1964 Railway Modeller; in which a diagram shows the dip of the bunker start approximately in the middle between the front two wheelsets. I softened the plastic with Mekpak before bending, but with this thin card it wasn't really necessary, so I didn't bother for the other bend to bring the bunker flat at the coalhole. There was the inevitable filing and sawing to get the thing to fit, but the overall effect from this quick and dirty experiment is quite pleasing. (pics 3 &4)

 

The plastikard template is too wibbly wobbly to use as-is. I will probably saw back the whitemetal component to make the flat top (and raised bulkhead) although this will need care to get level as it has no supports along the side, except at the back corners and the front it will no longer reach. I might then let in the front part of the plastikard to form the bunker, or use the remaining whitemetal offcut to form at least part of it. 

 

To get this to be worthwhile, the remaining issue is the chunky vertical front corner supports which are now visible. I may file down the upper parts of these a bit and see whether I can hide the rest under coal. The effect I would like to achieve is coal in the bunker, but with the toolbox riding clear above the coal. I'd need to salvage the front of the whitemetal top with the toolbox brackets and solder it to the top of the front as intended, - but may need to fudge more extensive brackets.

[Nick Lawson]

I decided to proceed with my open-plan bunker. The first step was to saw the front edge off the whitemetal top and solder it to the top of the front. (Pics 1 & 2). This caused me to look more closely at this component and realise that the two moulded details on the top are actually handles rather than just the mounting brackets for the toolbox. (Possibly nature's way of telling me I'm overdue for another eyetest).

 

Given their alignment with the coalhole, I wondered whether they were something to do with controlling the flow of coal through the hole. However, looking at the Midland Study Centre's diagram 77-11807, they appear to operate cranks reaching back under the tender.

 

However, I may have misinterpreted the diagram; so, cutting to the chase, please will someone tell me what the function of these handles was? Also, assuming that they are correct for my period, should the toolbox be mounted between them or over the top of them?

 

In other news: I described a while back faking up a tender buffer beam to replace a missing component. I had soldered Gibson sprung buffers to this brass strip before tinning the assembly for soldering to the tender. However, when looking to bring this all together I realised that the buffers align with the whitemetal tender chassis sides and I couldn't fix the sprung buffers without undoing my patent assembly or compromising the strength of the join, so regretfully I have superglued the heads in position sans spring. (pic 3)

[Nick Lawson]

Tender pick-ups

 

Having cleaned the rust off my tender chassis assembly I turned my attention back to fitting electrical pick-ups to it. Given the available space in the tender I aimed to fit wires to wipe the tops of the wheels. I also decided to keep the tender electrically isolated and fit pick-ups to all wheels, rather than shorting out the wheels on one side.

 

  I set out to epoxy copper-coated board between the frames. However, this was hampered by the presence of the CSB springs and axlebox spring attachments. The board needed to be stuck to the top of the frames instead. However this in turn was hampered by the K's tender body fastening points that go transversely across the inside of the body, so I couldn't just fasten a single length of board down the centre. Instead I have ended up with three separate chunks of board, each with an isolating cut down the middle, and each side of the three wired together. The connecting wires had to duck between the frames to avoid the body and avoid the fastening screws in the middle and CSB wires further out. Counter-intuitively the wires to connect to the loco are attached at the rear of the tender as there was more space back there. I assembled as much of the wiring as I could before attaching to the frames, at which point I got epoxy on my fingers and then everywhere else.

 

Putting the copper board on top of the frames and slightly ahead of the wheels had the benefit that I had quite a convenient point on which to fasten the wipers. I had acquired a pack of phosphor bronze wire, which some advocate for these wipers. I soldered chunks of 1mm brass rod outriggers onto the copper board and twisted up coils of PB to slip over them, soldering one end into the copper and leaving the other end riding on the wheel tops. This is my implementation of ideas I've seen in other people's work. If it was you - thanks!

 

I have got solder splodged liberally over the copper, and my nicely primed frames are looking rather battered  but otherwise it all seems fine so far. No doubt though  there will be further heartache with the pick-ups when I get the loco moving!

[Buhar]

Hi Nick

 

Enjoying this build, some useful tips here.  However, those wires do look a bit over-sized for current that will be passing through them.  Would thinner ones (decoder wires) not help in threading them back towards the loco?

 

Alan

[John-Miles]

I always enjoy looking at how others do things. I would have longer wires for the wipers but then I use compensation and if you put too much of a vertical force on the wheels you affect the compensation.

[John-Miles]

This photo is my K's 2F. It's probably 50 years old, rigid chassis, one piece coupling rod, K's wheels and I thought it had a Triang motor but on closer inspection it's a K's. Not that detailed, no fall plate for instance but for its time it was ok but not nearly as sophisticated as the subject of this thread. Built to EM standards and it still works well but oddly no coal in the tender!! I'm not sure why it is loading upside down. I did edit the image so it was  the other way up but it still loaded the wrong way up.

[jamieb]

2 hours ago, John-Miles said:

This photo is my K's 2F. It's probably 50 years old, rigid chassis, one piece coupling rod, K's wheels and I thought it had a Triang motor but on closer inspection it's a K's. Not that detailed, no fall plate for instance but for its time it was ok but not nearly as sophisticated as the subject of this thread. Built to EM standards and it still works well but oddly no coal in the tender!! I'm not sure why it is loading upside down. I did edit the image so it was  the other way up but it still loaded the wrong way up.

Seems obvious to me that there's no coal in the tender because it fell out when you ran the loco upside down! 

Was it on Jenny Kirk's railway from the Hornby program ?

[Nile]

Let gravity be returned to normal-

 

Better looking than me at 50.

[Nick Lawson]

@Buhar
 

Quote

those wires do look a bit over-sized

Well yes they are, but I had a length of that. I have other finer wire but only with bright-coloured insulation. I also struggle with an innate tendency to over-engineer stuff. I expect my second loco build will be a bit more relaxed in that respect. I hope so anyway!

 

Also, adding the 0.3mm wiper wires really emphasised how butch the other stuff is. But I'm not changing it now!

Edited July 6, 2023 by Nick Lawson
Addition

[Nick Lawson]

@John-Miles

 

Quote

I would have longer wires for the wipers

 

I've seen discussions about this and opted for  short lengths hopefully to minimise opportunities for wandering off the side of the wheel.

 

In contrast the loco wipers (pics to follow) are longer ones bearing on the inside surface of the types.

 

Your own 2F is looking good for 50.

 

I'm glad it isn't only me whose pics randomly insist on being wrong way up.

 

[Nick Lawson]

Snafu of the week:

 

The other night, having soldered pick-up wipers onto two of the loco's wheelsets, I couldn't resist popping the coupling rods on and seeing if it would run. I could not get the coupling rods to fit.

 

The next day I had another go, attacking the rod bearings with a broach; got the rods on (tight); ran the power and the wheels were forced into a death rictus and everything jammed.

 

I measured up and found my wheelbase is slightly undersized. Mortified I could not believe I had cocked up the setting up of the frames. However, I had set up the frames with Gibson coupling rods (plan A), but more recently acquired Brassmasters' nicer rods (plan B). Although I had done a cursory comparison on their arrival, looking more closely I find the Gibson rods are slightly undersized (~ 0.2mm). They do indeed fit my loco perfectly and the wheels turn as expected; so I will revert to plan A.

 

Hopefully I will be able to salvage the other rods for another loco one day, provided I haven't oval-ed them excessively.

 

"Drat, drat and triple-drat" (D. Dastardly)

[Nick Lawson]

Tender bunker continued:

 

I carried out my plan to modify the flat-top tender to include a coal bunker. The top is cut down from the original piece. It was a bit of a game soldering it in due to the cross members lower down.  I decided against trying to solder in the off-cut as the sloping bunker rear, due to the even more restricted space up front. Instead I cut down my plastikard template and epoxied that in but I can see that the exposed epoxy has gone that gungy orangey colour, presumably disturbed by flux residue. Hopefully it will hold together.

 

In the pic below you can see that filling is in progress. You can also see the conspicuous hole in the top, which does not appear in the instruction diagram. I have no idea  what it is for. Perhaps to allow the crew to plumb in a jacuzzi?

 

Less conspicuously there is a second, smaller hole underneath the cross panel towards the rear. No idea about that one either.

 

I'm now faking up a tank filler - another item not include in the kit or instructions. I have a length of old copper gas pipe which I think will be the right sort of diameter. I'm trying to file the end square so the filler loses its current racey look.

[Nick Lawson]

Some progress on assembling the loco body:

 

I fitted the front bufferbeam, which was awkward to solder from underneath due to various obstructions. I then had to scrape out the excess solder which of course ran to fill the spaces for the frames.

 

The plug of the safety valve bonnet was a nice fit in its hole, so that was a quick touch with the iron to fasten.

 

I then found that the consequence of filling in the underneath of the boiler earlier meant that I couldn't do the same for the dome. Instead I stuck it on with GS Hypo contact adhesive.

 

The big thing which I have been putting off is the fitting of the cab sides. These consist of the sidesheets themselves and the wheelboxes which extend under the cab front to provide a filling piece under the boiler (pic 1). It isn't visible in this picture, but the other end of the box is incomplete. The other, offside, box was more seriously deformed and unusable. I had been toggling between “problem”/”opportunity” modes about this before settling on the latter.

 

This kit like many others makes the cab wheelboxes extremely wide in order to hide OO gauge frames. In the prototype the wheelboxes are taller than they are wide, unlike the kit. As my loco is in EM, I had hoped that I could narrow the wheelboxes a bit to give a bit more floorspace for the crew to actually approach the backhead. Ideally, trimming the outside surface of the wheelbox would allow this. The problem in this case is that the front part of the casting needs to stay inboard, snugged under the boiler.

 

However, the mangled state of the offside wheelbox was such that the front panel was unusable anyway and would need cutting away and replacing with some scrap brass. This left me free to attack the remainder and trim away the worst part of the outside leaving a narrower, fairly complete wheelbox.

 

The frame spacing on this loco is in fact not quite wide enough for the top of the frames to be hidden inside the wheelboxes, (wider EM gauge frame spacers are available from other sources), so I cut an arc into the bottom of the wheelbox side such that it sits on top of the frames. I was worried that this would be too visible, but in fact isn't too bad. It was however a pig to solder the cut down, not very square wheelbox to the cabside before fitting this assembly to the footplate.

 

Having done this I then tinned my brass replacement piece and soldered that in place. (pic2) For the other side I followed a similar procedure, except that I was able to reuse the wheelbox front, but had to fill the partly missing back end with solder.

 

With the cabsides and wheelboxes soldered in place I then cut away some of the hidden parts of this assembly (pic3 – before cutting), to ease sliding the motor into the boiler barrel.

 

Pics 4 & 5 show the current state of play. I'm waiting for the filler to go off, so I can fit the body to the frames again. Overall I like the effect achieved, although I am annoyed that I have managed to end up with the left hand wheelbox slightly wider than the other.

[Nick Lawson]

More progress with the cab.

 

I had been a bit dissatisfied with the cab windows as being lacking in the roundness department and being set a bit too far towards the sides. I acquired a Mainly Trains spectacle frames etch from Wizard. Although originally for GW locos, the smaller size was about right for this loco. I admit I had wrongly thought I could slap these on the outside surface, masking the lack of roundness. I fastened them inside the cab, taking the opportunity to move them towards the centre for a better look. The prototype windows opened,  being hinged on the edge nearest the cab side, with fastenings on the opposite side. I left the tabs on the pieces to represent these fittings. (pic1)

 

After the glue had gone off, I dug round the outside of the cab windows where necessary to reveal the window frames, and slapped filler on the opposite sides. Further making good to do on this, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

 

In the meantime I fitted the reversing lever in the cab. The backhead isn't super detailed, but I thought I could improve it a bit by fashioning a regulator handle. I adapted an L-shaped whitemetal offcut for this.

 

With these in place I put the cab roof on. (pic2) I realised that I should have done this before fitting the safety valve bonnet as I couldn't get a good run with the soldering iron along the front edge of the cab roof. It would have been good to solder this as the arc of the cab roof was a smaller diameter than that of the cab front so there was a bit of a gap to fill. The roof is a good thick chunk of whitemetal which wasn't amenable to bending. Instead I glued the roof on; and , later pared away the underside of the roof overhang to reduce the appearance of thickness, and filled underneath.

 

Today's adventure with scrap brass was to fake up a fall plate. I had looked at the Brassmasters plates at expoEM, but couldn't decide which to buy. My homemade one could also be considered a Brassmasters product, according to the wording etched on the underside of the plate! The general appearance was taken from photographs, but adapted to reach the unprotypical distance across to a 4mm tender. The whitemetal cab floor is higher in the middle than the sides, so I needed to cut a rebate into the rear edge, so that the fall plate can sit flat. It is held loosely in place by a couple of wires bent over into holes in the whitemetal floor. I notched the front edge of the plate in a couple of places to locate these and soldered them in. (pic3) As you can see, this still needs tidying up. I'm not sure how strong this will be, but hopefully enough for my use ("social, domestic and pleasure" ??)

[Nick Lawson]

Coal rails

 

The whitemetal kit still included both the tender coal rails, but they are looking battered, (pic1). One in particular has a break in the lower rail. I tried to straighten them but they were never going to look good.

 

Instead I acquired some 0.7mm square section n/s rod from the Wizard MSE range; which I used to make replacement rails,  together with uprights of scrap brass etch, (pic2). I tinned the latter for soldering to the whitemetal tender body, (pics3,4).

 

The n/s rod is slightly smaller cross section than the original whitemetal, which is good in that the rails are less thick, (although still overscale); but less good in that the rails aren't quite deep enough compared with photos of the real thing.

 

In this exercise I admit to concentrating on replicating the kit pieces, rather than studying photos to see what they ought to look like and I positioned the assemblies lengthwise on the tender a bit arbitrarily.  I had checked the height against pictures, but still managed to mount them a bit high so that the two gaps are not the same. Also I see that the lower rail on the far side of pic 4 isn't quite straight.

 

However, overall I think I have achieved a reasonable improvement on the kit; and, apart from reducing the blobs of low melt solder from the tender top, these are now pretty much done.

 

 

 

[Nick Lawson]

Looking again at the coalrails in the pic above, the end slopes are too straight, so I may see if I can put a bit of a curve into them. Or maybe not.

 

I have been adding stuff to the loco body. Firstly the cab handrails. The original kit supplied wire to bend, but this was long gone. My replacements instead used brass wire with the inevitable bit of scrap etch for the top brackets, drilled through and the wire soldered in. Soldering from the underside of the top simultaneously tinned the remainder of the brass bracket ready for soldering down onto the whitemetal body.

 

For the rear handrails I cut a notch into the cab side sheet for the handrail bracket to fit into. To minimise blobbing low melt solder all over the side sheet, I then tinned (?) the rebate in the whitemetal with low melt solder, slapped loads of flux on, offered up the tinned brass and put the iron on top. However I see from pic 1 that I should have bedded it in a bit more, on that one at least. Since taking the picture, I have filed the excess off the top of the handrails.

 

For the handrails at the front of the cab, (?? to which the hero clings desperately while hanging over the side during the exciting chase sequence??) I tried to similarly notch the whitemetal behind the edge of the sidesheet.

 

It is hard to tell from photographs, but I think these handrails, (front and back),  should be set a bit further outboard than I achieved. To do this the top brackets need to be more comma-shaped.

 

Question: the low front extensions to the cabsides appear to have been open-topped. What was the purpose of these enclosures? Umbrella stand perhaps.

 

Boiler handrails.

 

These locos had chunky boiler handrails, as they also served as conduits for the vacuum ejector gubbins. As I have a Gibson ejector casting, I wanted to use 0.7mm wire to match. I was a bit worried that the handrail knobs wouldn't cope, but in fact I managed to broach them out easily. Pic 2 shows the first length of rail awaiting the ejector. The rail isn't fixed yet. I want to represent the cab front fixing point first.

 

Whistle

 

I managed to overlook that the whistle was missing from the kit. I sourced a Markits turned whistle from Roxey. Interestingly there seemed to be some variation in the height at which the whistle was pitched - sometimes higher than the cab roof and sometimes lower. I have unilaterally decided to go for lower as being less vulnerable to low-flying sausage fingers.

 

In fact the Markits whistle shaft is very short. As pictures show whistles having a horizontal, fore-and-aft component with a  connection through the cab front I thought this might provide a useful base for it, so I  faked up this component, managing to drill through a piece of 1mm brass wire. My intention was that the whistle and an extension shaft would meet inside this cross piece and be soldered together. To get the proportions right, I first had to make the whistle shaft even shorter. My joint hasn't quite worked, the hole is filled by the lower shaft and solder and the whistle is wobbling on top; so I need to do it again. However, pic 2 again shows the general effect. No, I haven't put in the connection through the cab front.

[Nick Lawson]

Over the weekend I completed the boiler handrails on both sides, in particular grafting the ejector casting between two lengths of handrail. I started on the smokebox door, drilling it for the two handrail knobs. The door had a number of divots in its face so I smoothed it as much as possible with fine emery and then filled the remainder. I had a second attempt at the whistle but made a worse job than before.

 

I backed off from sorting out the whistle today. Instead I did the chimney. I had previously drilled out the top a bit, but the outside of the top was noticeably wider side to side than fore and aft. I tried to file it down to be more circular, also reducing the appearance of some of the missing chunks. It is still a bit crude, but, for once, I was wary of trying too hard so I've desisted from further fettling.

 

The chimney base isn't a nice fit on the smokebox. It rocks - but not in a good way. You may well have seen examples of K's locos on ebay with a chimney leaning either forward or backwards. I considered pruning off the locating knob so that I could sit the chimney on top of some emery on the boiler and grind it flat, but it looked like this would have removed too much of the flared base.

 

Instead I gave up on my plan to glue the chimney in place, which would have allowed a leisurely checking from all angles; and went for soldering, so that I could fill the gap but at the expense of a bit of chance. Luckily I managed to tack it in an acceptable position first go and then completed the job. Now however, looking along the boiler I see the chimney, dome and safety valve bonnet are just slightly out of alignment with each other. I decided to reset the dome to get this alignment, as it is the one of the three which is just glued. However, in the usual way of these things, this glue is nicely stuck thank you very much. I'll have another look in the morning and see how much I mind about this. Memo: in future fit the chimney and safety valve, then the dome, so it aligns with the other two?

 

In other news: I soldered in place the reverser reach rod which I devised a while back. Earlier classes of 2F had a straight reach rod, but later ones had a cranked/kinked one. Needless to say I had made a straight one, not the correct one for my M class. However most of it is hidden behind the wheel arch, so I just filed the top off the back end to put a discreet hint of kink into it. Ahem.

 

In examining photos of the prototype I had noticed the bottoms of the firebox above the running plate were noticeably wider than the rest of the firebox. I guess these were the plates attached to the side of the firebox which sat on the frames. I made a pair out of scrap and glued these in place. Apart from being a pleasing little bull**** job to end the day, these plates are actually quite useful on this loco, in that the firebox casting was deformed and didn't reach the footplate everywhere it should; so these plates help mask the reconstructive surgery with the iron.

 

Looking again at the pics - the other day I mentioned broaching out the handrail knobs for the chunky rails. These knobs are Markits. This wouldn't have worked with Gibson knobs which I used for the CSB mounting points.

[Nick Lawson]

Lubricators

 

The prototype had small "mushroom" lubricators mounted on the side of the smokebox. I saw Gibson did a MR lubricator, so I got a pair. Unfortunately these turned out not to be right for this loco. Firstly the shape is rather more pointy than is required, which I could live with. The second problem though was that the casting had a vertical pipe and appeared to be designed to sit on top of part of the loco, rather than have a horizontal mounting into the side of the smokebox (pic1).

 

I attempted various solutions without success. The castings are minute and irregularly shaped, so of course repeatedly ping out of tweezers to commune with the carpet monster. It was thus impossible to position them against the smokebox and glue them on the right way up. It was even worse trying to get a soldering iron up next to it long enough to take.

 

Eventually I had one last attempt at what had been my original Cunning Plan, which was to graft a length of brass wire on to the side of the casting. It seemed likely that if this could be done it would be much easier to fix in place, by drilling holes in the smokebox and inserting the wires. However, various attempts at this earlier had failed due to the impossibility of getting the casting to stay still long enough to solder. I always ended up with a skewed joint liberally coated in a blob of solder. Finally though I managed to make the necessary joins. A coffee stirrer provided a suitable restraint.(pic2).  I still didn't get the lubricators perpendicular to the wires, but near enough that drilling slanted holes in the smokebox would compensate. (pic3).

 

Still needs a bit of tidying up before final fixing, but mostly not to bad. I can stop swearing now.

[Nick Lawson]

The last mountings for the boiler were the distinctive Salter safety valve springs. The original whitemetal castings  were still present in the kit; and after humming and hawing about whether to use my replacement Gibson brass castings, I decided to use the originals anyway to go with the original dome. Then I discovered that these were a mismatched pair - one having the arm set higher up the column than the other. As the lower of the two broke off when I tried to bend it, I considered soldering it back on higher up to match the other one. Luckily at this point I decided I couldn't be ar bothered and the Gibson brass castings looked so much nicer anyway. (pic1)

 

The loco is now in the paintshop for priming. Pics 2 & 3 have come out a bit blurred - must be the effect of the Stealth Black.🙂

[John-Miles]

One wheeze to make the Furness lubricators is to get an O gauge handrail knob, cut the stem off and the insert a piece of wire through the knob and with a bit of solder make it into the right shape. Then bend the wire to 90 degrees and you have your lubricator. I used this method before I acquired a lathe.

[t-b-g]

I really enjoy the challenge of taking an older kit and "doing a job" on it to turn into something that can stand comparison with more modern productions.

 

One such was a Millholme GCR 0-8-0 and another was a K's Midland Single, which is now 4mm longer than it was. I also have a stalled rebuild of a McGowan GCR Atlantic, which would have been easier as a scratchbuild but still has a few kit parts incorporated and may get finished one day.

 

So I have really enjoyed your work on this build. It is right up my street in terms of the prototype and the way you have gone about things.

 

Lovely job!

 

Tony

[Nick Lawson]

@t-b-g Tony, thanks for your encouraging words.

 

You have listed some interesting prototypes. Maybe one day!

[Nick Lawson]

"I am not a number I am a fr... oh alright, yes I'm a number."

 

I faked up this smokebox numberplate from scrap brass, then found my available transfers are the wrong font and a nightmare to position with shaky hands; so now talking to @railtec-models instead.

[ianLMS]

I use the smokebox numbers from Fox transfers available in different fonts.

 

 

[Nick Lawson]

The other day I applied some black satin finish paint from a rattle can. This served to beautifully highlight some glue blobs I had missed. Wah! Some touching up called for, (mostly on the other side of the loco from pic 1).

 

Also I have been trying to work up the brake handle/ tender handrail arrangement. The kit provides two brake handles, of differing heights, with short handles atop chunky, free-standing columns. According to  the MR diagram "http://www.midlandrailwaystudycentre.org.uk/documents/77-11807.jpg"  the real thing had longer handles on top of more slender columns, supported by the tender handrail.  I tried faking up a replacement brake column/handle from brass wire (pics 2 & 3). As always my soldering doesn't bear close inspection, but I think this gives a better effect on the size of the top, although the column looks too slender, so I'll try again with some thicker wire.