Nile's kitbuilding bench - Midland 1377

[paulaspinell]

Hi There.

 

Have you had your wheels yet from Markits?. I placed an order on his form from the website & sent it in the post to him on the 16/03/15, but have not received anything yet, I have a feeling this is quite normal considering he is a one man band & not is the best of health I heard from conservation with a trader at Alexandra Palace who may know about this.

[Nile]

I've been making sandboxes from pieces of plastic card. Working from photos, as I don't have a scale drawing, they won't be perfectly accurate.

Starting with the front one.

 

Trial fit. It needs to be hollow to allow the buffer to spring.

 

And then I made some more. The rear ones are three layers of 40thou plastic.

 

I drilled a hole in the bottom of each one and inserted some brass rod.

Painted and glued to the chassis.

 

The front ones were glued to the body.

 

To make filler caps for the front ones I cut thin slices from some plastic rod.

 

Glued to the running plate.

 

And painted grey.

The sand pipes at the front have to be movable to allow the chassis to be removed.

 

An overall view of the new additions.

Looking at photos of the real thing shows that the brake gear isn't quite right, but it will have to do. It looks better than no brake gear.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Nile

[Nile]

I've added the last detail bits, for now. Romford vacuum pipes and Bachmann couplings.

 

[Nile]

An update at last, hurrah!

I went to ExpoEM yesterday, and left somewhat poorer but with lots of goodies. Most of importantly for this loco was a set of threaded crankpins which I have now fitted.

Under the chassis is a sheet of round sticky labels just the right size to cover the ends of the Romford axles. As you can see I've painted some of them to match the loco. These can cover the ugly Romford nuts, but can be removed if needed.

 

I've fitted bearings to the tender to reduce its drag (by a lot). The outer bearings (slimline ones) are fixed, the middle ones are free to move up and down.

The retaining rods will be fixed in place with some canopy glue.

[Nile]

With the wheels secured in place I made up some brake gear from Branchlines parts.

These were painted and glued to the chassis, first with some superglue gel, then secured with epoxy.

 

The guard irons at the rear of the tender are quite prominent, so I made some from plastic strip.

Glued to the chassis.

 

To finish off- a whistle, real coal in the tender and a crew were added.

With added wagons.

 

And lastly some photos of the O1 and C together.

[Mike 84C]

That looks rather good and could almost be Irish!

[Horsetan]

Yes, I was thinking about the Irish angle as well! Think GSR grey was a darker shade, though.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Yes, I was thinking about the Irish angle as well! Think GSR grey was a darker shade, though.

You can almost imagine Mr Maunsell telling his former colleagues at Inchicore that "I found dark grey weathers well and is really cheap".

[ozzyo]

You can almost imagine Mr Maunsell telling his former colleagues at Inchicore that "I found dark grey weathers well and is really cheap".

 

and shows up all of the muck as well.

[Nile]

For the sake of completeness I'm going to post a summary of my build of a LSWR 0395 class loco. Full details can be found here -

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/98431-kitbuild-challenge-entry-lswr-0395-class/

 

This is the starting point, a Golden Arrow resin kit.

It needs some cleaning up and some holes filling, but the detail looks good.

It's designed to use the new Hornby 4F chassis, I've used one from an old Wills 4F kit. Modified to fit, I've replaced the XO4 type motor with something smaller to keep it out of the cab.

This allowed me to make a bottom for the boiler, from thin brass sheet. I've added some lead inside the boiler for weight. Not much is needed as the chassis is whitemetal!

Details added to the loco body. More pipes were added after painting.

Loco body in primer with the assembled tender.

Underside of the chassis, showing the pick-ups and added brake gear (plastic shoes and brass rods).

Tender chassis, with added brake gear from Branchlines.

I made coal rails for the tender from nickel silver square rod.

This shows it after painting, with transfers and a coat of Klear.

With extra details added, this is the (almost) finished model.

And now for two extra photos. To me this loco is similar in size and shape to the J15, so I posed them together.

Finally, after some procrastination, I added the toolbox to the tender.

And that's it. Some rolling stock next.

[sej]

That's a lovely loco Neil, with a great finish. What paints and transfers do you use for the LSWR livery?

 

Cheers

Simon

[Nile]

Thanks Simon. The main paint is Phoenix Precision LSWR goods green, the black is Revell Aqua (acrylic) Tar black, the buffer beams Humbrol acrylic 60 Scarlet.

The transfers are HMRS pressfix, sheet 9. After sealing the transfers in with Klear I finish it off with Humbrol acrylic matt varnish spray, in thin coats.

[Nile]

The next kit is a Dragon van. Not for a dragon but by Dragon Models. Their kits haven't got the best reputation here on RMweb, but when I saw this at Railex t'other week I thought it should go together ok.

 

This is what's inside.

A single piece resin body and etched chassis, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, although the W-irons go together ok by folding and soldering.

There is a problem with them that has been identified before, they are too close together. A standard Gibson axle just about fits, but there is no way bearings are going to fit, and they are still bending out slightly here, soldered to the chassis.

The one on the left is the rocking unit.

A test fit of the body on the chassis shows it sits at the correct height, so some good news.

I plan to open the holes out a bit to get the W-irons vertical, and not use bearings as this van won't be doing much mileage.

Edited June 3, 2015 by Nile

[Nile]

With the brake gear soldered to the chassis, I glued this to the body. As the chassis is shorter than the recess for it care needs to be taken with its alignment.

 

I opened out the holes in the W-irons to 1.5mm, this seems to have fixed the problem with them and they now look ok with the wheels in.

The lack of proper bearings shouldn't be a problem, the only place this will run is a shunting plank.

 

The axleboxes and springs were glued to the soleabars, with a small gap behind them to the w-irons. This lets the w-irons to both rock and flex, allowing the wheels to be removed.

 

One addition I made to the chassis was the black piece of whitemetal next to the rocking w-iron unit. This is to keep it in position as it is otherwise a bit loose.

 

[Guy Rixon]

Cant really when I cant afford a decent soldering iron and cant find flux. Nor do I know how to properly take care of am iron either. All guides say stuff but dont explain it.

 

An Antex XS25 is a decent iron and not too expensive. You need a stand for it, but they're cheap; you don't have to buy the Antex one. You don't need an expensive soldering station for most work and you don't need a 50W iron for working in thin metal.

[Spitfire2865]

An Antex XS25 is a decent iron and not too expensive. You need a stand for it, but they're cheap; you don't have to buy the Antex one. You don't need an expensive soldering station for most work and you don't need a 50W iron for working in thin metal.

That post was over a year ago. Ive since bought an iron and had plenty of success with it.

[sleeper]

Neil,

I've just finished working my way through your posts and am impressed by your broad range of skills, your posts are a varied mix with something for everyone, I especially liked your kit built engines, superbly finished. I will be watching with interest in the future, well done.

[Nile]

Primed ready for paint.

 

Paint and transfers (HMRS) on, it's nearly finished.

 

[Nile]

With a bit of weathering, and the buffers painted oily steel.

OO wheels were fitted for this photo, but the model has actually been built for EM gauge, a future project.

Here it is with the correct wheels, on my one piece of EM track.

I shall probably fit Dingham couplings later, when I get around to making some.

 

[sleeper]

 

I shall probably fit Dingham couplings later, when I get around to making some.

 

Hi Neil,

I've been following this post with interest, when you get to making the Dingham Couplings could you do a detailed post as I've seen them mentioned a lot but I don't really know what form they take

 

Thanks

Roly

Edited June 20, 2015 by sleeper

[Nile]

I've fitted some Dinghams before, you can see here-

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/82968-niles-mostly-freelance-bodging-bench-a-condensed-pannier/page-5&do=findComment&comment=1454862

[Nile]

Things are a bit quiet on the kit building front, Here are some wagons I've built (or rebuilt) recently.

Two Cambrian kits, first a LBSCR open wagon.

 

 

A private owner wagon, Wheeler & Gregory type, lettered for the LMWR.

 

 

Two kits that I'd built long ago that needed repainting and new transfers.

A Slaters MR brake van.

 

 

A South Eastern Finecast LBSCR brake van.

 

Edited December 18, 2022 by Nile

[Spitfire2865]

Oh very nice.

The LBSC open came out nicely. Though that PO wagon looks less like a cambrian mounding and more like a Slaters one. The strapping is what tricks me.

Im a tad jealous of the MR brake. Ive wanted to pick one up but they seem to be gone from this world and I dont fancy turning to ebay.

BTW, what did you use for the open end handrail? Looks considerably thick.

Though quite honestly, I have little use for a brake van, let alone a 4th now.

[Nile]

I think the handrail on the MR brake is the original kit part, moulded as part of the buffer beam. If I started a new kit I'd replace all the moulded handrails.

[Nile]

Modelling time seems to be in short supply at the moment. I picked a couple of Cambrian kits as they should be quick builds, but so far this is all I've managed to do.

 

It's a SECR 10ton open of 1920. I haven't even started the other kit.

But then I have been busy building a loco over in the 'build a loco' challenge section, an ex LNER F5.

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/99937-kitbuild-challenge-entry-lner-f5-2-4-2t/

I'll post some new photos of the finished model later.

Edited December 18, 2022 by Nile