BMR Workbench

[mozzer models]

Nice looking Models Like the use of RTR chassies with kit built bodys

[Bluebell Model Railway]

I have returned after spending some time having a look at this 3D printing stuff... for doing some Metropolitan Coaches as per 1906 condition, sadly hit a bit of a buffer stop as my 3D design knowledge is... well limited... always prefered a pencil and a piece of paper...


Anyway a few weeks ago I purchased a quite sorry looking Kit from Ebay. This kit was titled as an N-Class.. but it was quite plain to see with a number of 1638... and larger wheels that it wasn't and was actually a U-Class. I managed to get this model for just over £100, and was aware it would need alot of time, and repairs to get it right and working properly as well as looking good.

 

 

U-Class kits do go for alot of money if its well built and the kit produced by DJH you will be looking at £250 upwards.
This kit produced by SE-Finecast is a sort of comprimise, you can make an N, N1, U, U1 class locos.

 

The kit arrived on Tuesday, and first things first I inspected the kit to see how it was built and what needed repairing or replacing, The Chassis was quite well built, and assembled, sadly not running even though it said it was on ebay, this was later traced to a broken wire, and by the amount of insulation tape a total re-wire was needed.

 

 

The kits rebuild will be posted here as and when I get round to it... seeing as I'm a bit behind I'll post part 2 up now...

 

..........................................................................................................................................................................

 

Well the loco's body has been stripped down and assessed to be repaired and replaced various parts. After stripping the paint off the body, I decided to replace the tender with an N-Class tender made by Bachmann, which is lighter than the white metal one it came with.

 The chassis was checked over and repaired, it will need a total re-wire the chassis was also repainted like the wheels and the cylinders to SR Dark Olive green.P76.

 

A set of parts were ordered to improve the loco, new sprung buffers, new pickup wire, new safety valves, new buffer beam pipe work, and also some brass rod, and hand rail knobs.

 

The safety valve housing was modified to take the new Markits Tall Ross pop safety valves, which are pictured below, a small hole drilled to take the brass safety valve, and then a slightly bigger one to sink them down a little rather than sitting well out of the housing.

 

 

 

The repair that was needed was to the running plate where a section had been cut out to allow the expansion link to fit, even though the main part what its connected to was fitted incorrectly meaning it was sitting higher than it should of been. this altered, the running plate was fixed with plasticard, and using some filler to fill in any gaps and to smooth it over.

 

Next the new buffers were fitted to the front buffer beam as well as the Tender body which came from mainly trains for £2. These buffers are from Markits and are the SR stepped buffer shank type. The shape of the buffer beam will also be changed on the ends and slant inwardly towards the bottom.

 

I brought some Copper wire to redo the cab, and various other bits on the loco, drain cocks, lubrication pipes ect... I found the wire from various bead websites that produce kits for necklaces... and provide it in various thicknesses.

 

I then went about replacing finer details on the body, handrail knobs to the front of the smokebox to replace the cast ones, also started to fit the Lamp irons using the same method seen on this topic by bending split pins.
 I also removed the casting of the pipe which goes from the cab to smokebox... i guess something to do with the blower? no idea.. anyway i replaced this with the 1mm Brass rod i puchased from Hattons, you can see it on the image below as the one higher up and not the hand rail wire which is amazingly thick which I will eventually replace.

 

 

Next thing to turn up was some spares i brought for a Schools which the steps were modified slightly and pinched and put on the loco as I disliked the cast ones being very bulky. and reducing room for the front pony truck to swing. You can also see the modified buffer beam narrowing down to the bottom, which you will see on the U-Class locos.

 

The tender finally got a chassis yesterday big thanks to James Mower, for donating a spare tender, I've given it a light coat of Matt black paint later that afternoon, and you can see the tender top and chassis attached. I later started lining the tender out work never stops even on your birthday.

 

 

And finally an overall view at present...

 

[Horsetan]

.... the kit produced by DJH you will be looking at £250 upwards.

That would be a surprise to DJH. Their kit "only" costs about £120....

[James Harrison]

That would be a surprise to DJH. Their kit "only" costs about £120....

 But factor in wheels, gears, motor, paint, transfers, varnish, a couple of bits 'n' bobs to detail it up and the cost could easily double...

 

You're doing a great job with this loco Matt. 

[Bluebell Model Railway]

Yes sorry should of made it a bit more clear, i was speaking of fully built kit kits on an auction site. But even with buying a new DJH kit which i don't think they do anymore, Would cost me more, as i don't have the equipment to build the chassis.

So buying a fully built kit is the only way i can get one, plus i like a challenge and put my own mark on something, hopefully it will look better when I've completed it

[DLT]

Hi Matt,

 

You are cracking on with this one pretty quickly, should be a huge improvement!

The large diameter pipe you from the cab to the smokebox is the steam from the vacuum ejector, and is always on the driver's side of the loco.  The 1mm wire is about the right size for this.  I think the kit supplies it as a whitemetal casting, which is far too flimsy.

Does it run ok, or are you planning to re-motor it?

 

All the best,

Dave.

[Bluebell Model Railway]

Hello Dave

Thank you for the comment, I blame you for it's purchase haha, only joking of course.
 Thank you for correcting me on that... cannot quite remember what it was.. especially when theres no instructions. Yes your right white metal casting it was indeed, flimsy yes Brass wire would of been a better solution for the kit, which thankfully is now fitted, and looks much better.

The motor from a recent re-test does run very well... looks almost brand new, apparently hardly ever run, It was a bit stiff when first tested... although that was for approximately 5 seconds as a wire had broke,  well I say broke looks like someone attempted to fix it with Insulation tape.
After some cleaning and some maintance, and a direct power feed to the motor yes runs quite well in both directions, once all the pickups are on i think this motor will be ok, as i say looks brand new almost, I may look at re-newing the motor later on, if needed.

[Bluebell Model Railway]

The lining out and numbering and letter of the the tender has begun as well as sorting out a way to put pickups on it, being a Bachmann N-Class tender, greatfully donated to the project,  doesn't have pickups. Anyway, the tender is being lined out with HMRS Pressfix Transfers,  I usually use just the White lining sheet and paint the black outline by hand.
 Instead im using an LNER lining sheet which uses Black and white lining, and is also a bit finer than the normal white lining I commonly used before.
On the picture below you will see the black and white lining has begun going on the tender, some of the larger areas between the lining will be painted black.

The numbers and letters are from HMRS pressfix sheet, SR maunsell sheet.

 

 

 

The tender pickups was another idea which came out of comparing wheel spacing on tenders. I spotted on the new Hornby Schools class, the tender wheel spacing was the same to the N-Class Bachmann tender... I think everyone knows whats coming next...
I found the pickup unit which attaches to the underside of the tender, this was purchased from Peters Spares. To bring it up to Axle height I glued 3 bits of plasticard together, to bring it up to the correct height.
The axle housing was enlarged to take the Bachmann axle, but it fitted very nicely in to place, and glued to the underside of the N-Class tender.

The tender pickups will be attached to the loco by a 2 pin micro plug, which has been ordered from DCC supplies.

 

 

On the loco side, small parts have been done to the main body, I have removed the old Hand rail brass rod... and put on new hand rail knobs made by Gibson, shot ones on the smokebox and fire box and one medium one in the middle of the boiler barrel... ensuring the line of the hand rail is reasonably straight.

 

On the smoke deflectors sadly I couldn't get hold of any from Bachmann seeing as the model is no longer produced... must of forgotten about the modelzone one... never mind. I decided to take some thickness off by filing the back away to make the overal thickness a little less. I then went about making a new fitting for them as the old one was very big and bulky, so i inserted some thin wire 0.5mm and soldered it in to 2 holes drilled in the deflector and and filled the otherside to hide the hole. I also filled the hole in the leading edge of the smoke deflector which will be moved upwards.

 

 

I did some work on the front end, adding the vacuum pipe to the top of the bufferbeam, and finishing off the lamp irons made from the split pins shown earlier in this workbench. I also took the oppertunity to test fit the smoke deflectors.

 

And back to the Tender, the filling in of the gaps around the lining with black paint, you can see here underway, still touching up to do and a second coat.

 

Until the next time... which will be after Alexandra Palace at the weekend, which then render me completely poor.

[James Harrison]

Outstanding job on the lining.  How do you coax it to follow the curved edges on the tender?- that's one thing that I've yet to master...

[hayfield]

I have three of Wills U/N class locos I bought off Ebay (cheaply) that need rebuilding, thankfully Wills go for about a 3rd (well thats all I am prepared to pay)of what you paid for yours, your thread will be a great refference once I start

 

I recently got both J H Russells and Iain Beatie's books on SR locos so have no excuse not to make a start on atleast one. I must first look up the difference between the N, N1, U & U1 classes

 

Two of my locos have re-wheeled Hornby(Triang) chassis, one realy was a cheap, but managed to pick up a SEF updated etched chassis (with wheels ,gears & motor) again for very little. A Jamieson type chassis for these classes also came with some other bits so have a sort of reserve in hand.

 

Will watch this thread with interest

[Bluebell Model Railway]

James a lot of care, I will probably go through that a bit later as Im sort of doing a video of rebuilding it bit by bit, so I can show a bit more detail and pretend I know what I'm talking about.

 

John, This is a Will's kit, with updated chassis, so its quite old, cheapest one I've seen go for in quite a long time, will have to keep an eye open for one more. I've given the chassis a run yesterday, although I seem to have an Issue in forward running, backwards is absolutely fine, all the motion runs smooth without motor / gears engaged... so I've got some head scratching to do... got a feeling it's something to do with motors pitch or angle.

[DLT]

hayfield, on 22 Mar 2013 - 09:58, said:

I recently got both J H Russells and Iain Beatie's books on SR locos so have no excuse not to make a start on atleast one. I must first look up the difference between the N, N1, U & U1 classes

 

Two of my locos have re-wheeled Hornby(Triang) chassis, one realy was a cheap, but managed to pick up a SEF updated etched chassis (with wheels ,gears & motor) again for very little. A Jamieson type chassis for these classes also came with some other bits so have a sort of reserve in hand.

 

Will watch this thread with interest

Hi John,

have you looked at my SR locos thread? (Link below) I'm building a U at the moment and I have discussed some of the differences between the various classes.

 

The SEF chassis is very good, and I guess it fits the SEF body kits well. I'm fitting it to a DJH body, and have had to make some small alterations.

 

All the best,

Dave.

 

Very nice work on the upgrade Matt,<br />Cheers, Dave.

[hayfield]

 

 

James a lot of care, I will probably go through that a bit later as Im sort of doing a video of rebuilding it bit by bit, so I can show a bit more detail and pretend I know what I'm talking about.

John, This is a Will's kit, with updated chassis, so its quite old, cheapest one I've seen go for in quite a long time, will have to keep an eye open for one more. I've given the chassis a run yesterday, although I seem to have an Issue in forward running, backwards is absolutely fine, all the motion runs smooth without motor / gears engaged... so I've got some head scratching to do... got a feeling it's something to do with motors pitch or angle.

 

 

Matt

 

Just re-read the thread and yes under the mention of DJH you do say its a SEF, the Moguls do come up on Ebay, its like everything getting it at the right price

[hayfield]

 

Hi John,

have you looked at my SR locos thread? (Link below) I'm building a U at the moment and I have discussed some of the differences between the various classes.

 

The SEF chassis is very good, and I guess it fits the SEF body kits well. I'm fitting it to a DJH body, and have had to make some small alterations.

 

All the best,

Dave.

 

Very nice work on the upgrade Matt,<br />Cheers, Dave.

Dave

 

I think I have been following it when it was on the older site, should have added "its nice to have 2 Mogul threads going at once"

[Bluebell Model Railway]

Alrighty, update time

The loco body and smoke deflectors have now got a coat of primer, and then was checked over and a bit of filling was done around the cab, and smokebox. A second coat was then added, I use Grey Halfords primer. You can see the hand rail wire has now been test fitted.

 

After leaving the body to dry, painting could begin, I hand paint all my locos, and I used on this one the Phoenix SR Maunsell P75 Olive green to paint the loco, On this particular image the loco has had its first coat, by the end it will usually have 3 - 4.

 

 

 

Satin black was also applied to the top of the running plate, smokebox, and cab roof. The cab roof and smokebox will eventually after the varnish has been applied get a coat of Humbrol Matt Black which makes the loco look more authentic. The buffer beam was also painted red Humbrol 60 Matt Red.

 

I turned my attention to finishing off the electrics and the pickups, a replacement piece of copper strip board, was fitted to the underside with 2 screws insulated with 2 plastic washers. Bronze pickup wire was used  to pick power up from the back of the wheels, on the photo's below it shows i did this to both sides... i later removed the second set, as I found it was causing a short.

 

 

 

And fitted to the underside of the loco:
You can see the 2 pin plug brought from DCC supplies, for around £6 this connects power from the tender pickups.

 

The loco was taken to the layout, to sort out the issues, and get the motor in the correct position, as there was an issue with gear and worm which would run fine in reverse but lock  solid going forward. But this issue has now been resolved. The lining will follow next.

 

[Bluebell Model Railway]

Getting towards the end of the restoration of this U-Class kit, so now I start the lining out... not as extreme as the SECR livery but still quite a lot to do.

The tender was done earlier on as seen above. Lining the smoke deflectors first went without an issue, for this lining I decided I wanted some lining which is a bit more finer. For years, I have used HMRS White lining transfer... which are a little thicker than what should be normally used.
This time I am using HMRS Pressfix, LNER lining, same white black white lining package... the loco was done over 2 - 3 days, if your unsure how to use the HMRS transfers, read back earlier in the thread.

 

 

The extra black around the white lining will be added soon after the transfersare fully dried and fixed.
Attention turned to painting the back head and various cab components ready for fitting after the varnish was applied,  so not to change the finish off the Matt black painted back head.

 

 

After the satin Black was added round the outside of the lining, the loco was varnished, after leaving the varnish to dry and harden for a day or so, A couple of coats of Matt Black were added to the Smokebox and cab roof. Mean while I also painted the inside of the frames red, which you can see below. Brass fittings were added, whistle and safety valves.

 

 

Cab fittings were then added, the reverser to the right of the cab was painted and fitted, the Cab windows were also fitted as well as just after the backhead was fitted.

 

 

Crew were then fitted to the cab, only last thing remaining to added and still awaiting to arrive the cab side plates.

 

Today I took the loco down to the shed for a small run up and down the layout, heres one shot of the loco in action on the layout.

[Bluebell Model Railway]

With the U-Class pretty much complete and just waiting for its cab plates... I moved on to the next kit.

The Met coaches are still on going and I will do a follow up report on here later, as all coach bodies are complete, with work now focused on the chassis, and finding bogie's with a 28mm wheel base point to point.
http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67663-metropolitan-coaches-in-4mm/
 

 

Adams Radial Tank - Dean Sidings Kit

 

 

As most will know or have seen, I own or did own a K's Adams Radial... I brought mine from ebay for about £40, not working... with the motion and wheels locked solid. After the repairs, the repaints and new motor and gearbox, its hardly ever seen action on the layout, looking over scale compared to the coaches around it.

I became aware that my favorite kit producer Dean Sidings, started to produce a resin body to go on a RTR chassis. After speaking to Dave at Alexandra Palace, and having a look at his display model, I decided to go ahead and buy a kit, to replace the over sale, and quite old K's Kit.

This Kit, is one of the harder one he produces quite complicated... I have seen a few struggle with it... So I am going to post a step by step walk through of the build which I hope will help people.

 

The kit comes with all the detailing parts, you can shake a stick at... as well as the front bogie wheels. You are left to find a 14xx chassis made by Dapol or Hornby. I did look in to a Hornby M7 chassis as it had the right wheel size but for reasons I decided against it... which you will see why during the build.
 The kit comes with parts to built 3 variations of the Radial... 3 chimney's, 4 domes, 2 safety valves, 2 types if cross heads for the cylinders, 2 styles of cab, square or round windows.
This is one reason why I like Dave's kits, he gives you everything... and for the price I would say they are very well priced considering the amount of castings and detailing parts you have... Handrail knobs, wire, smoke box door handle.. its great...

 

Price of the Kit: £67.50

 

You get 3 pages of written directions, and also 2 double sided pages with illistrations... which is good, but hopefully with photos I post here will help those who are not sure.

 

[N15class]

Your Mogul looks good. I think there are a couple of bits amiss. I am not sure about the step at the fron of the tender, was that on the N?

Also I dont think the smoke deflectors were ever olive, I know some were done Malachite. But am sure they were black when loco was olive. I look forward to being corrected though.

[Horsetan]

Your Mogul looks good. I think there are a couple of bits amiss. I am not sure about the step at the fron of the tender, was that on the N?

Also I dont think the smoke deflectors were ever olive, I know some were done Malachite. But am sure they were black when loco was olive. I look forward to being corrected though.

 

The stepped tender front of that particular 4000 gallon tender is correct for the new-build "U"s, as well as "U1" and "N".

 

The ex-Wills loco portion tried to cover all four main variations of the Maunsell Mogul, with varying degrees of success. It's been showing its age for approximately 30+ years, though there are ways to correct the footplate level for the "U"/"U1" if you feel like it.

 

I don't know if Dave Ellis will ever manage to complete the late Alistair Rolfe's original development work on a proper "U" that he alluded to quite some time ago.

[tender]

Will be following the Adams Radial build with interest. I did have a look at one of these kits recently but was put off by the use of the old Dapol/Hornby 14xx chassis. Will be interesting to see how it turns out.

[DLT]

Hi Matt, 

 

I like the look of the Radial, and its certainly a lot of kit for the money.  I've not come accross Dean Sidings before; do they have a website?

I've always fancied having a crack at building a Radial myself, so I'm interested to see how this one progresses.

 

You've made a splendid job of restoring the Mogul, but please can I make one suggestion?  Paint ALL the black bits in matt-black, especially highly visible areas like the footplate and tender tops.  

These horizontal surfaces attracted a lot of muck, and the satin looks too shiny to my mind.

 

All the best, Dave.T

[Bluebell Model Railway]

Looks like i'll have to get the photos out for Peter... haha.. as I have plenty of them especially 1638... As mentioned above the Wills kit is a comprimise to suit all various classes..  N, N1, U, U1... so there will be things not right.. the tender is actually a Bachmann tender.. its like for like what came with the original kit when purchases... same as 1638.

But Horsetan beat me to it.. 1638 does have painted smoke deflectors.

 

Digging through my Bluebell Photos I have online... as its preservation era im modelling everyones hated subject... I have on image showing the tender and just about see the smoke deflectors... the other U-Class 1618, had the opposite, no step in the tender, and black painted deflectors... the loco is now all BR black as the tender was at the Mid hants following their fire,



Tender yes... as was I... slightly put off with the 14xx chassis.. but there are always ways on improving things... which seems to be a habbit with me, down side also the motor takes up most of the cab which is a shame.. but still least its slightly more in proportion than the K's effort. with slightly smaller wheels.

Dave, Dean Sidings... haha yes hard to get hold of... He has no web presence... I spoke to Dave of Dean sidings at Alexandra palace at the end of March.. hes not a web person... lets put it that way... he doesn't do email as he doesn't understand how it works..  Only way is mail order... although Im suprised as hes now discovered the telephone.. and thats now on the front of his 2013B catologue.
If you wish I will forward the information to you, if you are interested in contacting him.

I will take that note Dave I was in undecided on painting the tops of the running plate.. as they are matt black anyway on the prototype, I will certainly look in to doing that... as I still have a small amount of lining to do on the cab, when the plates arrive... So I will look at painting those areas, when I come back to it, when the plates arrive but I hear what your saying, and will sort that out. But thanks for the words of advice, and comments on that it was certainly a challenge...

By the way Model Rail Magazine looks good for May doesn't it... shameful plug...

I have started the kit tonight so I'll get round to posting something tomorrow, it is one of his more challenging kits, but in my mind it looks straight forward... although I may regret saying that...

 

Thanks for the comments. As always much appreciated.
 

Edited April 19, 2013 by Bluebell Model Railway

[Bluebell Model Railway]

So to begin, I decided to work on the chassis first, get the chassis working, and then with all the parts in place, shape the body to fit the complete chassis. Which is how I normally do things with these kits.

 

The Chassis:

First steps on the instruction sheet focus on the chassis and getting it to fit the body. Some cutting with a junior hack saw, and filing required, as well as a small philps screw driver and a craft knife.

So step by step according to the steps written by Dave of Dean Sidings,
Figure 1 and 2.
 

 

 

 

- Remove the cast sandboxes from the front of the chassis by undoing screw A, Replace screw for now… probably so you don’t loose it.
- Remove coupling from the front of the chassis by loosening screw B on the underside, then replace screw. (For now)

 

 

 

-Carefully slice away  plastic guard Irons at the front of the chassis, by cutting flush to the plastic chassis. Keep the plastic side frames but not the brake hangers or associated rodding being the front drivers.
-Cut away the plastic side-frames at the rear of the chassis, the fire-box casting and the battery boxes. Keep the plastic side-frames but not the spigot for the pipe-work on the original

14xx.

 

 

 

-Cut off 5mm from the motor mounting bracket. This will leave proud screw C. This will be removed or a small cut-out made in the mounting plate, below the coal bunker, on the body itself.
-Cut off the sand Boxes behind the rear driving wheels cast as part of the chassis. Take care not to ‘nick’ the wheels and keep metal filings away from the motor.. (Or you could just strip the chassis meaning this won’t happen)

 

 

 

A dry test fit to the body, not fixed, was carried out to make sure all was in order.
 

 

 

More later....

[Castle]

Hi Matt,

 

I saw that a certain Bluebell fan had got himself into a magazine...

 

Well done!

 

All the best,

 

Castle

[Bluebell Model Railway]

did he... must be someone else haha.. may of slipped out earlier on but yeah its nice.. sadly only really one person in my family wanted to see that sadly he passed away in Feb, so good but.. slight sadness with it... but have to keep on going.

Thanks Castle.