Wright writes.....

[Tony Wright]

14 minutes ago, micklner said:

Tony

 

As already said above,  Smoke Box Door handle a must to change. I would also change the huge front coupling. I would also use some turned/sprung Buffers and Safety Valves as well for much better detail.  The awful XO4 cutout in the battleship thickness frames need sorting as well, it looks like you can see daylight coming through the frames in that area .

Good morning Mick,

 

Thanks for your comments. 

 

Daylight coming through the frames?

 

Agreed, but it's the tiniest triangle of light which can be seen. Anyway, the cut-out is not for an XO4, but a D11/D13.

 

Battleship frames? Excellent. They're robust, accurate and don't twist in the way that more-flimsy frames do when the body is screwed in place.

 

Odd, isn't it? What you can't tolerate and will pay good money to acquire replacements, yet you still use RTR bogie/pony wheels.  

 

We all have different blind spots..................

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

6 minutes ago, Roger Sunderland said:

The 8F is very nice Tony. I built one some years ago. It’s married to a Hornby tender for extra pickups though not sure it needs them. Still waiting for any advice you can give me on the DJH B16/1 I’ve acquired (please see my post a little while back)

Good morning Roger,

 

I must have missed your reference to a DJH B16/1. Can you tell me again, please?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

10 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Certainly looks like an 8F, Tony!

 

Makes a (nice?) change from yet another East Coast pacific ... ouch! (runs for cover) 

Thanks Graham,

 

Who knows, once shows return again, might it get a run over Shap?

 

Though not that common (in comparison with other eight-coupled locos), 8Fs were regular performers on Stoke Bank (at least as far as New England). Andrew Ingram certainly took some shots of them near Little Bytham. They came from sheds in the Nottingham area and the Bradford area. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

9 hours ago, Woodcock29 said:

Tony

 

It looks like a lovely model. I had the chance to buy the kit quite cheaply recently but reasoned I'd never have time to build it given the number in the to-build pile. I have built the Black 5 kit and have another (actually the Model Loco Armstrong version) to build. One thing I find strange is that you didn't bother to replace the cast smokebox door handles. I always think that as part of the face of the loco they lift it considerably. 

 

I've actually got a later repainted Hornby version on the LMS part of my layout and in fact a very old re-motored Hornby Dublo version that I've had running recently just for the fun of it. I fitted it with a small Portescap back in the mid 80s for my father. Despite the fact it still has the old HD driving wheels it actually runs pretty well. I had the workshop at my work at the time mill the chassis out for me in their lunch break! I fitted a new chimney, smokebox door handles (although I would now fit much finer ones!) backhead, buffers, tender and pony wheels and handrails all round to bring it up to my spec at the time. It could do with some weathering clearly but here is a quick photo taken on my phone. I wonder if I'll ever change the driving wheels, fit steps etc? I think it still looks the part and is part of my modelling history.

 

Andrew

 

 

 

Good morning Andrew,

 

I don't know if you remember, but David Jenkinson detailed/modified a Hornby-Dublo 8F body for service on his Garsdale Road layout in EM, building a new chassis, of course. I recall his astonishment at how detailed the body was, once the thick paint had been stripped off.

 

I wonder what happened to it? 

 

Yours still looks the part, though I would change the drivers! 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Roger Sunderland]

35 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

Good morning Roger,

 

I must have missed your reference to a DJH B16/1. Can you tell me again, please?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Morning Tony

I’ve recently acquired one of these , tempted by DJHs recent sale, and am somewhat perplexed. Clearly the kit is one of their earliest and has had few upgrades. The instructions still refer to Ks motor and Stephen Poole wheels. Two slabs of brass for the frames, screw spacers ( not drilled out to take the supplied screws), white metal crossheads , no brake representation etc etc. I like a challenge and am willing to give it a go but as DJH use a picture of one on Little Bytham in their advertising I wondered if you can give me any tips on the build and wether or not you replaced any parts.

 

Regards

[micklner]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

Good morning Mick,

 

Thanks for your comments. 

 

Daylight coming through the frames?

 

Agreed, but it's the tiniest triangle of light which can be seen. Anyway, the cut-out is not for an XO4, but a D11/D13.

 

Battleship frames? Excellent. They're robust, accurate and don't twist in the way that more-flimsy frames do when the body is screwed in place.

 

Odd, isn't it? What you can't tolerate and will pay good money to acquire replacements, yet you still use RTR bogie/pony wheels.  

 

We all have different blind spots..................

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

Bogie wheels , sorry I only use r.tr. wheels where supplied, and normally are good enough for my needs !!

 

The main reasons are

 

1. The aggravation of trying to line them out e.g LNER pacifics.

 

2 .I am not willing to pay £5.50 for one set of Markit bogie wheels end off !!. All my kit builds use Gibsons, at about half the price and look just as good. The only blind spot I have is looking into my wallet !!

 

Bending frames will only happen if the model has been badly built., and then force fitted to the chassis. If the Body is built ok then the frames simply dont bend. Its not hard to add a additional spacer on etched frames if needed, they are very rarely flimsy if built correctly !!.

 A decent current standards kit chassis should have the correct shape , brakes ,springs , cylinders, decent cross heads and valve gear  supplied if needed as well.

 

DJH older kits are years behind in quality and detail. The B16 which has just been mentioned in another post, is a very good example of what badly needs updating on those old kits.

The chassis alone should include the following to bring it up to todays standards,  Brakes , springs , the correct shape and robust crossheads , not a simple cheap oblong piece of brass with punched out holes.

The Body and Tenders are just as bad, I have built the C7 and D20, both of mine now have new Tenders, the DJH versions are simply poor in detail and quality. Much work was then needed on the Loco chassis and the bodies to add the missing bits, and upgrade poor or wrongly supplied detail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by micklner

[davidw]

Good morning Tony and all, sorry if I missed it but will the 8f be used on LB?

[St Enodoc]

16 hours ago, 96701 said:

I doubt that the ratchet mechanism could be made that tiny and still work.

I wonder whether a tiny Geneva mechanism with a dummy ratchet would work? Don't ask me to make it though.

[Tony Wright]

36 minutes ago, micklner said:

 

Bogie wheels , sorry I only use r.tr. wheels where supplied, and normally are good enough for my needs !!

 

The main reasons are

 

1. The aggravation of trying to line them out e.g LNER pacifics.

 

2 .I am not willing to pay £5.50 for one set of Markit bogie wheels end off !!. All my kit builds use Gibsons, at about half the price and look just as good. The only blind spot I have is looking into my wallet !!

 

Bending frames will only happen if the model has been badly built., and then force fitted to the chassis. If the Body is built ok then the frames simply dont bend. Its not hard to add a additional spacer on etched frames if needed, they are very rarely flimsy if built correctly !!.

 A decent current standards kit chassis should have the correct shape , brakes ,springs , cylinders, decent cross heads and valve gear  supplied if needed as well.

 

DJH older kits are years behind in quality and detail. The B16 which has just been mentioned in another post, is a very good example of what badly needs updating on those old kits.

The chassis alone should include the following to bring it up to todays standards,  Brakes , springs , the correct shape and robust crossheads , not a simple cheap oblong piece of brass with punched out holes.

The Body and Tenders are just as bad, I have built the C7 and D20, both of mine now have new Tenders, the DJH versions are simply poor in detail and quality. Much work was then needed on the Loco chassis and the bodies to add the missing bits, and upgrade poor or wrongly supplied detail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clearly I'm not building my locos properly.

 

Ah, well..........................

[Tony Wright]

1 hour ago, Roger Sunderland said:

Morning Tony

I’ve recently acquired one of these , tempted by DJHs recent sale, and am somewhat perplexed. Clearly the kit is one of their earliest and has had few upgrades. The instructions still refer to Ks motor and Stephen Poole wheels. Two slabs of brass for the frames, screw spacers ( not drilled out to take the supplied screws), white metal crossheads , no brake representation etc etc. I like a challenge and am willing to give it a go but as DJH use a picture of one on Little Bytham in their advertising I wondered if you can give me any tips on the build and wether or not you replaced any parts.

 

Regards

Good morning again, Roger,

 

The DJH B16/1 illustrated on Little Bytham was built/painted/weathered by Tony Geary. 

 

I believe he made a large number of alterations/modifications to it; certainly adding additional parts. The end result was a very fine model, though, as Tony describes it, 'a bit of a knife and fork job'! At least it proves that it can be made into a good representation of the prototype. That said, my preference would be for the PDK version. 

 

You're right in stating that the likes of the B16/1 is one of DJH's earlier kits - from the Banbury days, when, I believe, K's used to do a lot of the production work. The mechanism is certainly K's-like. The instructions certainly pre-date my writing of them for DJH (though there might be a hints and tips page). 

 

Post-A1 DJH kits are in a different league, of course. 

 

Perhaps Tony will comment.................

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

44 minutes ago, davidw said:

Good morning Tony and all, sorry if I missed it but will the 8f be used on LB?

It will, David, it will................

 

Though not common, 8Fs occasionally worked to New England from Nottingham and Bradford.

 

Anyway, she acquitted herself perfectly this morning.............

 

 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

[60027Merlin]

4 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Good morning Andrew,

 

I don't know if you remember, but David Jenkinson detailed/modified a Hornby-Dublo 8F body for service on his Garsdale Road layout in EM, building a new chassis, of course. I recall his astonishment at how detailed the body was, once the thick paint had been stripped off.

 

I wonder what happened to it? 

 

Yours still looks the part, though I would change the drivers! 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

The late Ken Northwood of North Devonshire fame purchased the Hornby Dublo 8f when it was released and was also astonished at the the level of detail on it after the paint was stripped off. He then detailed and painted it as one of the GWR variants for running on his layout. No doubt it still exists - somewhere.

 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by 60027Merlin

[davidw]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

It will, David, it will................

 

Though not common, 8Fs occasionally worked to New England from Nottingham and Bradford.

 

Anyway, she acquitted herself perfectly this morning.............

 

 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

It looks great. I always like the 8f

[LNER4479]

Just needs 46245 coming in the other direction and all will be well with the world...

[cb900f]

3 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Just needs 46245 coming in the other direction and all will be well with the world...

Plus a Black 5 rushing through on a fitted freight comprised of 12t vans.

 

Pete

[Tony Wright]

Further to the discussion on the DJH B16/1....................................

 

 

Here's a studio shot of the one built/painted/weathered by Tony Geary.

 

Since it came into my possession, all I've done is to fit the correct pattern 12-spoke bogie wheels and remove the characteristic Geary 'squeak'. 

 

I'm very fortunate to own such splendid locos.

 

The B16 is frequently mentioned in wish-lists and polls with regard to RTR possibilities (there are three types to choose from). Speaking personally (and selfishly?), I hope they'll remain in the realm of the scratch-/kit-builder. 

 

 

[t-b-g]

53 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

Further to the discussion on the DJH B16/1....................................

 

 

Here's a studio shot of the one built/painted/weathered by Tony Geary.

 

Since it came into my possession, all I've done is to fit the correct pattern 12-spoke bogie wheels and remove the characteristic Geary 'squeak'. 

 

I'm very fortunate to own such splendid locos.

 

The B16 is frequently mentioned in wish-lists and polls with regard to RTR possibilities (there are three types to choose from). Speaking personally (and selfishly?), I hope they'll remain in the realm of the scratch-/kit-builder. 

 

 

 

To my eyes, that has had a bit of work done to the body to correct some of the worst bits of the kit but there is still something amiss with the proportions. If I had to guess, I would say that the boiler has been lowered by a couple of mm.

 

(edit to add that while looking for photos I found a mention that this one has a new boiler, so that is where the difference came from!) 

 

There should be much more vertical smokebox saddle showing above the above footplate part of the frames, so either the frames are too high or the saddle too low. I couldn't tell which (or is it both) without measuring.

 

I have never been in a situation to be able to check dimensions and it is not a class I know but that particular kit always looks as though the boiler diameter is too small, which either alters the top line, the bottom line, or both. It also alters the relationship of the boiler to the cab front and the way the smokebox saddle fits around the smokebox itself.

 

Malcolm Crawley built two B16s. One from a DJH kit and one from the Steve Barnfield etched kit. When you put the two side by side, the differences were very obvious. The Barnfield one captured the look of the loco so much better.

Edited November 12, 2020 by t-b-g
To add content

[Erichill16]

Tony,

The B16 model looks great but from this angle the splasher/wheel relationship really doesn’t show ‘oo’ in a good light. I’m sure it looks better in the flesh and from a better angle.

Ive always fancied a B16 but I’ve got far too many kits to get through before I could contemplate a B16.

Will you be doing the painting on the 8F?

Regards 

Robert

 

[t-b-g]

9 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

Tony,

The B16 model looks great but from this angle the splasher/wheel relationship really doesn’t show ‘oo’ in a good light. I’m sure it looks better in the flesh and from a better angle.

Ive always fancied a B16 but I’ve got far too many kits to get through before I could contemplate a B16.

Will you be doing the painting on the 8F?

Regards 

Robert

 

 

I think one of the problems with the kit is that the splashers look too big. That accentuates the OO look. The gap from one splasher to the next looks much bigger on the prototype.

 

Yet if you put smaller splashers on, you lose the relationship of the splasher to the frame above the footplate, which should be lower than the splasher tops. So perhaps that is wrong as well. As I said, it isn't a class I know well but when Malcolm's was about 90% complete he asked my opinion on something and I looked at the model and the prototype and by the time I had gone through everything that needed altering to make it right, he decided to just finish it as per the kit and it got stuck in the back of a cabinet and as far as I know, never came out again. Unlike the Barnfield one, which became a firm favourite on Thompson's End.

 

One of the nicest B16 models I have seen was the one on Retford, which I believe Pete Hill has now. That was a Barnfield one, built by Roy Jackson and painted and lined by Geoff Kent. If I wanted a good B16, I wouldn't start from a DJH kit. The Barnfield (now London Road Models) and the PDK versions are both far superior.

[micklner]

Mike Meggisons build of the LRM B16 , a beautiful model.

 

 

[Chas Levin]

21 hours ago, 96701 said:

There is something rather fine about a  well built brass  / nickel silver / whitemetal loco. It is a completely different beast to a painted, lined and weathered loco. Maybe it is because the components are different colours because of the way that they are made and the metal from which they are made.

 

Is it that the unpainted model displays engineering techniques and the model maker's skill, whilst the painted / lined / weathered version more displays the painter's skills?

I agree so much with that, the lovely look of a model in metal, and especially where it's a combination of brass and silver coloured metals. I've often wondered quite why it does look quite so engaging and perhaps you're right about it showing the modeller's work, before it's covered up by the painter's - interesting thought...

[Chas Levin]

11 hours ago, Roger Sunderland said:

Morning Tony

I’ve recently acquired one of these , tempted by DJHs recent sale, and am somewhat perplexed. Clearly the kit is one of their earliest and has had few upgrades. The instructions still refer to Ks motor and Stephen Poole wheels. Two slabs of brass for the frames, screw spacers ( not drilled out to take the supplied screws), white metal crossheads , no brake representation etc etc. I like a challenge and am willing to give it a go but as DJH use a picture of one on Little Bytham in their advertising I wondered if you can give me any tips on the build and wether or not you replaced any parts.

 

Regards

Hello, I hope I'm not talking out of turn here as I've only built one DJH kit to date, but I have several more to build so I've been able to examine them too and as Tony comments in reply to your post, there's clearly been some evolution. The one I built (J9/10) had some of these issues: the frames were more sophisticated than plain rectangular pieces but they, their associated parts and the instructions all catered for a much older motor and fitting the current AM10 motor and gearbox combo supplied with the kit called for some 'fettling'. Similarly the detailing wasn't the most exhaustive I've seen.

I can see both sides here: DJH are running a business and want to sell stock and recoup on their investments and I suspect that kit sales are far too low nowadays (sadly) to underwrite the various costs attached to substantial re-design.

On the other hand, being coy about such details as these may lead to disappointed buyers facing unexpected obstacles, which won't help sell more kits.

I wonder whether DJH might consider a compromise, by explaining in the notes accompanying some kits' online pages that they are of an older origin and may need additional modification to accommodate more modern drive systems, or to match the latest detailing standards? I realise that may sound counter-intuitive - a sales pitch that points out what some may see as defects - but it might have long term benefits.

Don't get me wrong: I'm a big fan of the company's products, I enjoyed building the kit enormously, viewed the mods as an interesting extra challenge and found that overcoming them enhanced my sense of achievement (and the AM10 drive unit was well worth the extra work to install, it runs beautifully). Extra detailing is more of a moveable feast I think, for the builder to indulge in to his or her own taste, but I realise these views are not to everyones' taste...

 

[Tony Wright]

3 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

I think one of the problems with the kit is that the splashers look too big. That accentuates the OO look. The gap from one splasher to the next looks much bigger on the prototype.

 

Yet if you put smaller splashers on, you lose the relationship of the splasher to the frame above the footplate, which should be lower than the splasher tops. So perhaps that is wrong as well. As I said, it isn't a class I know well but when Malcolm's was about 90% complete he asked my opinion on something and I looked at the model and the prototype and by the time I had gone through everything that needed altering to make it right, he decided to just finish it as per the kit and it got stuck in the back of a cabinet and as far as I know, never came out again. Unlike the Barnfield one, which became a firm favourite on Thompson's End.

 

One of the nicest B16 models I have seen was the one on Retford, which I believe Pete Hill has now. That was a Barnfield one, built by Roy Jackson and painted and lined by Geoff Kent. If I wanted a good B16, I wouldn't start from a DJH kit. The Barnfield (now London Road Models) and the PDK versions are both far superior.

When Tony Geary built his B16, neither one of the other options was available, Tony.

 

I agree, having built the PDK one (being much newer), it's a better kit. The DJH one is very old now.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

3 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

Tony,

The B16 model looks great but from this angle the splasher/wheel relationship really doesn’t show ‘oo’ in a good light. I’m sure it looks better in the flesh and from a better angle.

Ive always fancied a B16 but I’ve got far too many kits to get through before I could contemplate a B16.

Will you be doing the painting on the 8F?

Regards 

Robert

 

I will be painting the 8F, Robert.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[t-b-g]

4 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

When Tony Geary built his B16, neither one of the other options was available, Tony.

 

I agree, having built the PDK one (being much newer), it's a better kit. The DJH one is very old now.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

The suggestion was aimed at anybody contemplating getting a kit now rather than a criticism of Tony Geary's choice. He certainly went the extra mile to get it to look as good as it does, which is far more than Malcolm did with his, despite my persistent prompting! Sometimes I could get him to change course but not often.