Finecast SER R1 and R class 0-6-0Ts

[roythebus]

Thanks I'll give it a try.

[pete_mcfarlane]

I'm resurrecting this thread, as 6 years later I'm building another Stirling 0-6-0T from SEF, this time the earlier R class in Southern days.  One major difference is that I've now mastered soldering whitemetal, so progress is quicker (and it';s easier to attach replacement nickle silvers parts, as we'll find out). 

 

As before it has a modified Branchlines chassis, with Gibson wheels and coupling rods. I've manger to get a bigger motor and a flywheel in this time, as the expense of part of the cab detail. 

As before, there are a few issues. First up, I now realise that the footplate is slightly too wide, so there's more footplate outboard of the tanks than there should be, I only realised this part way through, so the earlier R1 is also wrong (and I didn't notice....). Rather than reducing the height of the frames, a better solution would be to make a new footplate out of sheet NS. But then how much of the kit would you actually be using...?

 

Other issues are:

• The cab is too long. It looks as though cut down R1 cabs are slightly longer than the original Stirling cabs on the Rs, and this is the same casting as the R1 kit. The cab also has other issues, like wrongly positioned windows (too low, presumably to aid casting the cab front. My solution was to make a new cab front and back, out of sheet NS, and then solder these in to the recesses front and rear of the root. As these are meant for the thick castings, I got a cab that looks about the right length. 

 

 

• The chimney and safety vales weren't great, so were replaced by much nicer lost brass examples from Branchlines from their Stirling O kit.

• The shape of the Smokebox wingplate wasn't great, which is a bit of an issue as it's such a distinctive feature of these engines. Part of the reason for this was the over wide splashers. These were reduced in width (without causing any clearance problems) and a new wingplate made. This is the correct width (so there's more space either side on the over wide footplate) but the overall effect looks right. Needless to say I only noticed after soldering all these bits together, which then resulted in some demolition work first. 

Oddly the kit also includes a cut down wingplate, of the kind that only seems to have been fitted to Rs fitted with higher pitched domeless boilers, which you can't build from this kit. 

 

So after quite a lot of fighting, I now have something that's starting to look like a Stirling domeless 0-6-0T.

 

Edited July 10, 2019 by pete_mcfarlane

[pete_mcfarlane]

The extra modelling time courtesy of the lockdown means that the R is now complete. It was painted once, stripped down, and painted again because I wasn't happy with the original finish. It's had a fairly thick coat of weathering over the lined SR goods black. This was my first attempt at weathering with an airbrush and I'm fairly satisfied with it. 

 

This particular loco never seems to have been especially clean in Southern days - I based the model on this photo 

 

 

 

Overall I'm fairly happy, although this wasn't the greatest kit, or the most accurate, even after replacing about ha;f of what came in the box.