RMweb Premium great northern Posted October 22, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 22, 2012 Some old adages still have relevance. " Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is one of them. Everyone sees things differently anyway, and what one is used to has a large influence as well. It is hard for us to imagine how the people of tribes who practiced facial deformation by inserting plugs into lower lips could possibly have thought that appearance would thereby be enhanced, but they did. And like Simon, I find GWR designs less attractive than the works of Gresley, which is not surprising, as that is what I was brought up with. This thread really isn't the place to be discussing the merits of Edward Thompson. It is about Tim's recreation of one of his machines, which he has done to a very high standard indeed. Whether or not an individual finds it "ugly", it is a lovely bit of work, and conveys a genuine sense of the real thing. It's impressive by virtue of it's size - it has a definite "presence" even in 4mm scale, and from a rear three quarter angle it does look ( to me) quite graceful.I'm afraid though that to me side on it looks ungainly, with nothing like the visual harmony of an A3, which to me looks right viewed from any angle. Notice though that I keep saying "to me". Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Mallard60022 Posted October 22, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 22, 2012 Tom, go ahead and order loco's because you can't get them at many (any?) Charity Shops. However, many items of excellent clothing, even 'designer' stuff can be obtained from said shops at very competitive prices. Priorities man, priorities. P @ Oxfam Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timara Posted October 22, 2012 Author Share Posted October 22, 2012 To add my two-pennorth to this little debate (and hopefully bring things back to the main topic in a way!), my personal views are that they're certainly not ugly, but rather ungainly and most certainly gawky. If anyone wants an ugly loco, or at the very least a loco that has been made ugly by its appendages, then I will offer the Ivatt-built Caprotti "Black Fives". Take one lovely loco and make it hideous. Still, they're a necessary part of what I'm doing modelling wise. As for the Thompsons, I'm going to quote my dad where he says that he preferred the A2/2s over the A2/1 and A2/3 as they didn't have the rather huge deflectors on them (which he says spoiled the look of them). For someone who was a young teenager at the time, he saw them a lot at Peterborough and Grantham in the late 1950s. That doesn't mean to say he actually liked them though because he didn't and still doesn't, preferring the likes of a V2 or an A3. When I get round to doing the smokebox pipework on 60520, I shall take a couple more detailed images to show how I make them as they're not entirely clear from the photos. They're best done late in the evening too, amazing it might sound! Cheers, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
S.A.C Martin Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 This thread really isn't the place to be discussing the merits of Edward Thompson. It is about Tim's recreation of one of his machines, which he has done to a very high standard indeed. Quite right Gilbert - my apologies Tim. I will wind my neck back in now! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 ...That is NOT to say Gresley was in any way inadequate as an engineer, but I think it's far to say that without Thompson at the helm - the right man for the right time - the LNER might not have come out of WW2 in quite as good a shape as it did. Thompson's genius was in austerity and combining components already made for standard locomotive designs. His Pacifics proved the theory which Peppercorn perfected on in his A1 and A2 designs... You need some facts to support such an argument. The LNER came through WWII with just 10 B1s running at the end, and the Gresley 3 cylinder build essentially intact: V2s were produced unchanged until 1944. There was nothing wrong with the Gresley designs in service that prevented the railway from running. That they had weaknesses which were particularly revealed under wartime conditions is undoubted: it would have been far cheaper to redesign the bearings in the conjugated gear, and fitted kylchap ejectors to all the wide firebox machines, and left the improvements at that. The syntheses of existing parts for the B1, K1 and O1 were successful. The record shows that ET's attempts at novel design were typically unsuccessful, in the sense that they had greater problems than the supposedly 'unreliable' designs they were superseding. The fact that significant revision of the Pacific designs was required immediately ET left office is telling. Designs roughly three years old not perpetuated: that's a definition of failure in any book you care to read on the subject. The fact that the wheelbase layout returned to 'previous standard' is a good indicator that ET's layout was a dead end. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachmann Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 I see 'beauty' where it might not exist. The A2/2's and A2/3's are a case in point, yet I could not take to the recognised "beauties" such as the stumpy V2 or the the A3's lack of balance with too much ahead of the smokebox. The builder & painter of Gilberts A2/2 has produced the finest replica of these engines I have ever seen; captured to a tee. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
69843 Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 *looks at floor* Sorry sir. It was an accident sir. It won't happen again sir. Back on topic, the conversions are definitely looking nice Tim. Your modelling is certainly A1 (or should that be A2?). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CUTLER2579 Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 I see 'beauty' where it might not exist. The A2/2's and A2/3's are a case in point, yet I could not take to the recognised "beauties" such as the stumpy V2 or the the A3's lack of balance with too much ahead of the smokebox. The builder & painter of Gilberts A2/2 has produced the finest replica of these engines I have ever seen; captured to a tee. Well Tim,that is praise indeed from probably the finest coach painter in existance, not to mention his other work.Sounds like a Lager advert, but not ment too.I would of course agree with Larry on this matter. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timara Posted October 31, 2012 Author Share Posted October 31, 2012 A bit of progress on Owen Tudor. One side of valve gear is all ready to rock-n-roll and runs very sweetly whilst on test. Since building Thane of Fife, I've changed how I assemble the valve gear. The result is that everything goes together without the swear box receiving a single penny. Smoke deflectors are all assembled and fixed in place. On future models I shall be using the King/Gilbert etches as they have useful locating tabs which allow for an even stronger fitment to the running plate. I still use 2mm L angle soldered to the lower edge though, as it really gives the glue something to bond to. The latter might just be visible in the image below..... I've fixed the smokebox door in place having added the weight inside the boiler. Bachmann A1s and A2s seem to be rather rear-heavy, so 50g of lead up front is a good enough cure by my reckoning. I've done this to several of Gilbert's A1s and it makes a massive difference. This machine should be good for 9-10 heavy kit-built coaches or whatever else of a similar weight David cares to throw behind it. Jobs still to do include re-fitting of the ejector pipe in its correct position and then I can paint the firebox/cab and smokebox areas. That latter job is for the weekend, which looks to be relatively good at present. More to come anon.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Worsdell forever Posted October 31, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 31, 2012 Just a thought Tim, how well does the resin footplate match up (thickness wise) to the plastic/Bachmann one? Looking good by the way. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timara Posted October 31, 2012 Author Share Posted October 31, 2012 Just a thought Tim, how well does the resin footplate match up (thickness wise) to the plastic/Bachmann one? It's one of those tricks of the eye that unpainted resin plays on one. It matches up absolutely perfectly though. Looking good by the way. Thankyou! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidw Posted October 31, 2012 Share Posted October 31, 2012 Mmmm - thanks Tim. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbeagleowner Posted October 31, 2012 Share Posted October 31, 2012 I agree with you Simon. I don't think that it's possible to argue that th Thompson Pacifics were great designs, but they weren't as bad as they have been made out to be and when used in the right places acquitted themselves well. I would also agree with what you say about the looks too. No one says that a Princess looks ungainly, and to me they don't have a great front end arrangement when it comes to aesthetics. However, beauty is in the he if the beholder... I think the Sam can be said of Thompson himself too. Not a perfect man by any means but it's easy to forget he was a product of the era he lived him and the life that he had had up to the point he became CME. Also as Simon points out the circumstances he found he had to deal with must have been very difficult, and he didnt have the benfit if hindsight. According the Peter Graftons very fair biography or the man and his locos it seems that ET was a mixed bag, or to put it another way, simply human... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
micklner Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Looks a cracker. Re cab have you used DJH sides and the original Bachmann front ? looks like a lot of cutting to fit ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timara Posted November 1, 2012 Author Share Posted November 1, 2012 Looks a cracker. Re cab have you used DJH sides and the original Bachmann front ? looks like a lot of cutting to fit ? Thanks Mick . The cab is actually most of that from a Hornby A3. The entirety of the sides are cut away, leaving just the "swallowtails" of the front to act as mounting points for the replacement sides. Something I did discover recently whilst up at Gilbert's (when Tony W paid a visit) was that the DJH cab is indeed too tall and too wide. The height discrepancy is between the windows and the bottom of the cab and the width one is between the forward windows. Needless to say, this is why I went down the route of using a spare A3 cab! The rear view above also helps to show how much better the "bitsa" cab looks in comparison with 60515 on page 1 of this thread. Note also the ejector pipe now in place. I extended it with a short stub of 1.2mm plastic rod and drilled both it and the main pipe 0.4mm to accept a short length of wire. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Tomlinson Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Sorry if this seems to labour the last question, but I am very curious about the cab dimensions, especially the height. Are the brass sides here DJH with something filed off the bottom? The reason I ask is that I'm about to start a Crownline A1/1 kit, Great Northern, which seems to have cab sides that are too short when compared to the Isinglass drawing, and one thought I had was that the DJH sides for another Thompson Pacific might fit the bill. Otherwise it looks like a case of cutting the kit overlay and splicing a bit in to make the correction in the right place! Many thanks, John. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timara Posted November 1, 2012 Author Share Posted November 1, 2012 Hi John, Not a problem and thanks for the question . Going on the premise that the Hornby A3 cab is about as accurate as one can get and that the A2/3 cab was a direct development from it, the DJH cabsides are 0.8mm too tall. I've carefully cut off the bottom edge through the lower edge of the last rivet line so as to preserve them. It does mean that the sides match the Hornby cab perfectly. Now, when placed with a DJH boiler/firebox, the cab appears to be in proportion to it, which bodes the question as to whether the former is too tall and thereby being more obvious when attached to the Bachmann A2 firebox. From personal experience of working with a PDK (formerly Crownline) A1/1, the cabsides don't appear to be entirely right at all. The same can be said of their A2 cab, which I'm sure Tom F can certainly vouch for after seeing 60505 and 60520 cab to cab last month! Out of sheer curiosity, what is the height of the Crownline cabside exactly please? Cheers, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
micklner Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Re A1/1 Hopefully your kits Cab isnt covered in rivets as my PDK version as there arent any . A lot if filling was needed to clean it up !! Cheers Tim re Cab any reason why a full A3 cab wasnt used ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Tomlinson Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Since my post earlier today, I've found and read Micklner's thread on old RM web about his A1/1 build, which is extremely helpful and a splendid result! My Crownline cabs don't have any rivets along the bottom, but I'll check carefully to see if there are any others where they shouldn't be. I spent part of the afternoon with my somewhat primitive Vernier calipers, and a delve through some boxes in my stash, to give some interesting findings. Cab height on my Crownline A1/1 is 26.8mm, a smidge perhaps under the Isinglass drawing size, but we're talking line thickness here. Big thanks to Tim for suggesting I actually measure it! The windows however appear about 1mm too low, which I guess could be corrected by cutting the overlayand inserting a strip around the horizontal handrail area, and then trimming the top. The other thing I noticed in my kit was that the rake back in the firebox, along the top going back to the cab, appears to be too great, with the Isinglass drawing showing a much shallower fall. This could of course be a vagary of the resin casting, or perhaps the drawing isn't quite right, or a mix of the two. The Isinglass drawing is quite clear however in its quoted dimensions, that the chimney top and dome top are 13ft and 1inch above the top of the rail, with the raised part at the front of the cab 1/16inch less. In other words 52mm plus a smidge in line on a 4mm model. Whatever the vagaries in heights and shape of different parts, it seems to me that it is this relationship that needs to be of major concern in building the kit. I then had a look at a couple of Peppercorn A2's, one by DJH which is well advanced work in progress, the other by Crownline, and again used the Isinglass drawing for reference. As Tim noted the DJH cab is around 0.8mm too high, however the relationship to the firebox and boiler looks right in terms of firebox rake and how the whole thing sits on the running plate. I may just have been lucky here, or perhaps the castings are a bit oversize as well. The Crownline cab at 26.7mm is possibly 0.3mm or so underheight, but like the A1/1 the windows are set a good 0.5 mm too low which compounds the error, and could be said to compromise the appearance. As an aside the old style resin boiler on the Crownline A2 appears distinctly on the small side, and I will have to see if PDK will sell me one of their newer castings. I hope this post will be taken not as an attempt to nit-pick - I do after all model in OO where my rails are 12% too close together! - but rather a look at the variations in proportion which can make or break the "looks right" approach to a model. John Tomlinson. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbeagleowner Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Really great work here Tim - I think that both the A2/3 and A2/2 look fantastic and come out better the both the Crownline and DJH kits that I've seen in my opinion. You're not going to be adding sound to any of them are you? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timara Posted November 1, 2012 Author Share Posted November 1, 2012 Really great work here Tim - I think that both the A2/3 and A2/2 look fantastic and come out better the both the Crownline and DJH kits that I've seen in my opinion. You're not going to be adding sound to any of them are you? Thankyou for your kind comments . Both recent models (and, for that matter, all five locos featured here) are for customers of mine, so although they're certainly DCC fitted, none of them are equipped for sound. There would certainly be room to sling a decent sized speaker in the tender though, should I get a commission to do one so fitted. Cheers, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timara Posted November 1, 2012 Author Share Posted November 1, 2012 Cheers Tim re Cab any reason why a full A3 cab wasnt used ? Hi Mick, Yes, the donor cab wasn't quite so willing to have its corners straightened out under controlled heat conditions! As it is, the A2/3 cab has a load of rivets on it that the A3 doesn't have, so it made much more sense in the end. Cheers, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gr.king Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 It certainly looks all-set to be a good 'un in every detail Tim. Temporarily putting aside commendable ideas about having everything spot on, I can also see that some would find appeal in the relatively simple method of creating an A2/1, using a V2 donor body, which is currently being covered elsewhere. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 In our next historical revisionist exercise, Simon Martin* will be explaining why the Vichy Government was good for France... *better known as "Ricky" Martin, on account of Livin' Da Vida Loco... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Max Stafford Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Stop yer stirring, man - I like Thompsons! ;-) D. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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