Nile's kitbuilding bench - Midland 1377

[Nile]

The builders plate is missing, but that was deliberate as it was removed by the Midland.

[Nile]

Time to end the suspense. Just after taking the last lot of photos I noticed that I'd forgotten to fit the balance weights to the wheels. They are not that noticeable unless the rods are at the top. Have you noticed how locos are usually posed for photos with the rods at the bottom?

Glued in place with some superglue.

 

And then painted black.

 

One last look at the now complete loco.

 

[garethashenden]

Anyone driving it?

[PenrithBeacon]

I notice that you have painted the inside of the cab. Any hints and tips?

 

Regards

[Nile]

The crew are in the signalbox having a cup of tea. 

 

Inside the cab I paint the upper surfaces using Polly Scale paint (from Model Junction), in this case Aged Concrete which is slightly darker than the Aged White that I usually use. The lower half of the cab is black. This may not be strictly correct, such are the hazzards of modelling this era.

[N15class]

The crew are in the signalbox having a cup of tea. 

 

Inside the cab I paint the upper surfaces using Polly Scale paint (from Model Junction), in this case Aged Concrete which is slightly darker than the Aged White that I usually use. The lower half of the cab is black. This may not be strictly correct, such are the hazzards of modelling this era.

I think the midland was wood grain at top, whether the LMS continued I do not know.

[garethashenden]

I think the midland was wood grain at top, whether the LMS continued I do not know.

Wood grain at the top of what?

[N15class]

Wood grain at the top of what?

Inside the cab. I was just following the conversation thought it would be understood that I meant the cab interior.

[Corbs]

I think the midland was wood grain at top, whether the LMS continued I do not know.

Scumbled?

[N15class]

Scumbled?

Yes that sort of thing.

[garethashenden]

Inside the cab. I was just following the conversation thought it would be understood that I meant the cab interior.

Yeah I did think you were talking about the cab. The part where I got confused was "at top", I was under the impression that the top of the cab was sheet metal and not wood.

[Nile]

According to my reference material the LTSR painted the cab interior Chocolate Brown. I don't know what the Midland did to them, I've used a slightly darker colour than the aged white I normally use, It could probably do with being a bit darker. It shows up more in my photos than in real life due to the lighting.

[N15class]

Yeah I did think you were talking about the cab. The part where I got confused was "at top", I was under the impression that the top of the cab was sheet metal and not wooSorry

Sorry for  that, yes it is metal and the top half was made to look like wood.

[Nile]

And now for something a bit smaller.

After all the fun of Narrow Gauge South West last weekend, now seems a good time to post this. Last year I found a Peco 'James' 009 kit for sale for a very reasonable price. This kit was designed to use the old Farish Jinty/Pannier chassis. Thanks to the recent output from Farish and Dapol I have several of these chassis now redundant.

Wanting something a bit different I added some parts from RT Models to give the loco outside cylinders. I used some plastic fillets to raise the saddle tank above the boiler, thinking it sat too low as it came. This was the first test assembly.

 

This drew comments about the small size of the cab, the kit may have TT scale origins. So I did something about that, raising the roof with some plastic strips. Here it is alongside a 009 Baldwin 4-6-0T for a size comparison.

 

The cab looked better, but the smokebox looked a bit small in the comparison. Fortunately I had a spare one from an ALCO (I think). Here it is with the new smokebox plus some other detail bits.

 

Much better. All that was needed now was some paint and transfers.

It's another figment of my railway imagination I'm afraid.

And that was the end of the story, until the box it was stored in fell onto the floor. The only damage was the chinmey broken off, but that gave me an idea.

To be continued....

 

[DLT]

Thats a really nice peice of modelling Neil, the proportions now look "right"

Cheers, Dave.

[Nile]

I'd thought that the original chimney looked a bit slim, so rather than stick it back on I tried one of my printed ones from Shapeways. I had a spare one from a test print. It took a few coats of paint to get a smooth finish.

 

It looks a bit chunkier now. Here it is with a VoR brake van (Parkside Dundas kit)  in SR livery for another size comparison.

[Nile]

Golden Arrow SECR class O1

 

This is one of those kits I bought a few years ago, started but never got round to finishing. I'm now going to try and finish it, but not in the way it was meant to be.

The kit itself is made of resin and consists of a complete tender and a loco body designed to fit onto a modified Hornby chassis, the one under the Jinty etc. This does result in a lack of daylight under the boiler, the chassis block is in the way. This isn't really a problem if the model is painted black, which is what I intended originally. However my interests have changed and I now want to paint it grey, to match my other SECR locos. The chassis block will look ugly, even if also painted grey. But I have a cunning plan, replace the Hornby chassis with a kit from Mainly Trains that is designed to replace it. Add in a High Level gearbox and this should result in an empty area under the boiler. This also means I can use the correct size wheels, which I just so happen to have, the Hornby wheels being 1mm under size for this loco.

 

Whichever chassis is used, the rear needs to be cut off in order to fit the body. This is what I have done here.

 

The basic chassis assembled, wheels fitted plus gearbox and motor.

The gearbox is a High Level RoadRunner+ D1 Drivestretcher.

 

A test fit if the body shows it should work.

Edited March 2, 2015 by Nile

[Nile]

To keep the motor horizontal I soldered the the joint between the gearbox and drivestretcher.

 

With the bottom of the gearbox resting on a spacer the motor is horizontal without any extra support.

 

And is hidden inside the boiler.

 

But the bottom of the boiler is missing. To make this I used some 6 thou brass I'd been given.

 

Stuck to the motor with some white-tak.

 

For a test fit inside the body.

 

Not easy to see but it sort of works. I need to devise a way of fixing it in place.

Edited March 5, 2015 by Nile

[Spitfire2865]

Would it be possible to fix the brass to the boiler/body and then slide the whole thing over the motor and then secure it to the frame. May be a tight squeeze and will be a bit awkward fitting and removing it if need to arrises.

[Jol Wilkinson]

How about a vertical support at each end (the front of the firebox and rear of the smokebox) soldered to the frames.

[Nile]

Thanks for those suggestions, I'd had similar thoughts myself.

Spitfire's suggestion would probably produce a better finish to the boiler, but would need a different gearbox/motor arrangement with the motor sitting vertically inside the firebox. that would also need some modification to the rear chassis spacer. I shall retain this idea as 'plan B'.

I'm going to try LNWR's idea first, as 'plan A'.

Edited March 6, 2015 by Nile

[Nile]

Here's how I fixed the boiler bottom to the chassis. I soldered four strips of Nickel Silver to the chassis, these will support the corners of the brass sheet.

I made them initially over long, then trimmed them back to the correct length by a process of trial and error test fittings.

When I was happy they were the correct length I soldered the sheet to them.

 

Putting the body on shows that this side looks ok.

 

But the other side is not so good.

The boiler edge is a big ragged and needs some work to improve the join.

[Spitfire2865]

Filler is your friend.

Though otherwise, looking good.

[Nile]

Yes, filler is the answer. But filler can't hang in mid-air, it needs some sort of support. For this I glued some plastic strips along the inside of the boiler.

 

From a different angle.

 

These strips rest on the brass boiler bottom.

The white bit is where filler is needed. As this is also white it won't look much different until it's painted.

 

I filled the hole in the running plate with some black plastic card.

This is where the steam reverser goes, but the hole is far too big. I will glue it on top of the filled hole instead.

 

Filler applied on top of the plastic.

 

[Nile]

Some more progress.

On the chassis I added the brake gear, and then assembled it for a test run.

No pick-ups yet, and temporary crank pin nuts, but it worked.

 

On the body I've been adding details, such as the handrails.

 

The buffers used until now were temporary ones fitted when I first assembled this kit, and were the wrong type. I've now got the correct type, but fitting them requires the mounting hole to be enlarged.

Apart from those on the smokebox front, all the handrail knobs are the Gibsom shoulderless type, which I prefer now.

 

More bits added.

 

And also on the tender.

The white along the bottom of the buffer beam is a strip of plastic I added because I thought it wasn't deep enough. I'll be adding the buffers after painting.

 

Handrails added to the cab rear.

Because the cab sides were bowing in slightly I glued a piece of black plastic card to the underside of the roof. This keeps the sides the correct distance apart at the top. It shouldn't be noticeable when finished. 

Edited March 15, 2015 by Nile