Washington

[burgundy]

Washington

 

Rather than write up a blow by blow account of my first etched loco kit, I have chosen to write a note retrospectively, as I am still regretting a rash prediction that I made about the time that it would take me to build my “post retirement project†layout . This way it all gets written up in one go, rather than being spun out since the middle of last October!

 

The loco in question is an EBM kit (http://www.mjwsjw.co.uk/page27.html) of a Billinton E3 0-6-2T, built for the LB&SCR in the 1890s; a little modern image for my taste, but deliberately chosen as a relatively simple design, to enable me to work end to end through an etched loco kit construction. The loco has been built to EM gauge, with compensation and uses HighLevel hornblocks and 108:1 gearbox, a Mashima 1630 motor and Alan Gibson wheels/crankpins. I have built a reasonable number of whitemetal locos in the past, but I have never managed to get a chassis that runs really successfully and this is my first attempt at proper compensation.

 

The initial burst of activity was undertaken at a weekend at Missenden Abbey in October last year, during which the chassis was assembled, valences attached to the footplate and one of the boiler sections was annealed. At that point, the bits were put aside as I set about the layout for which I had rashly (and publicly) set myself a timescale. The layout is still being built and my predicted completion date is long gone. The catalyst for resuming activity on the loco was a two week break in Tenerife early in the New Year. My wife has long since despaired at the speed with which I read books, so I have negotiated that I take some modelling kit on the basis that it takes up less space/weight than two weeks worth of reading. On this occasion, I included a soldering iron and the bits for the E3. I must confess that I wondered whether I would get a tap on the shoulder in the Departure Lounge and an invitation to go and explain what was in my luggage, but it all went smoothly in both directions.

 

Having been to Tenerife previously, our primary aim was to crash out in the sun relaxing, while the UK enjoyed the bracing winter weather. I will no doubt have your sympathy when I say that quite a lot of the kit was built sitting in the sunshine on the balcony in a T shirt in mid-January, with none of the usual domestic distractions. As an arrangement, it worked pretty well! I have an old tray with the front lip cut off, which has done duty as a travelling workbench for plasticard projects in the past and I spent some time thinking through the minimum set of tools that I was likely to need. I am sure that there is a Model Shop somewhere in Tenerife and, if I knew the Spanish for reamer, I am sure that they would sell me one, but on the whole I did reasonably well in planning what I would achieve and the tools that I would need. As an example, I took the precaution of annealing and rolling the couple of other bits that needed bending, rather than taking a blow torch. I suppose I could have negotiated the loan of a crême brulé maker from the restaurant, but I confess to bottling out of that one.

 

I don't suppose that I am the only person who has a hang up about soldering and, in particular, about soldering etched brass kits. However, with virtually nothing else to do for two weeks, this really was the JFDI moment. On this basis, I worked my way through the bodywork, doing a bit at a time and then planning the next move by cooling off in the swimming pool. Some of the early bits of work behind the valences are not pretty – but then again they are out of sight. By the time that I had erected the cab and bunker, I was beginning to feel better about making the seam down adjacent brass components and making a reasonable job of it. That is not to say that there are not still moments when it all goes to rats, but they are fewer and further between and I am actually looking forward to starting the next kit. By the end of the holiday, I had the basic body shell complete and it travelled home, screwed to a short piece of timber, cut to sit between the buffer beams, in a IKEA “Glis†plastic box, packed in with kitchen towel. The piece of wood was one of the precautions that I had decided upon (having put a slight bend into the valence/footplate at an early stage while the bits were stored), as I figured that it would be useful both as an assembly aid and also as a reinforcement for shipping home (the flaw in this cunning plan was that I did not pick a thick enough piece of wood to protect the footsteps, but this only became evident when these were attached later). Deliberately, I made no effort to take the chassis any further forward, as anything to do with the wheels and drive train was going to need access to 12v (although I did wonder whether it would be possible to turn the motor over using a mobile phone charger). However, having the chassis was important in order to work through any bits of bodywork that needed to be removed to accommodate the motor and gears. In the event, where you might expect the firebox door, there is the gearbox worm, which drives the rear driving axle and which protrudes slightly into the cab. The crew will need to mind their toes. Other modifications included filling a number of holes that had been etched into the boiler top. The kit is designed to build both a production E3 and also the prototype, West Brighton, built by Stroudley. Mike Waldron (aka EBM) has provided a multitude of alternative components to cater for both (in fact you would not have to scratch build much to get both locos out of the kit), but there are a couple of areas where his mind was clearly on West Brighton rather than the E3s.

 

Having got this far, rather than returning to the layout, I decided to concentrate on finishing the E3. Initially, this has meant dealing with the chassis, wheels, brakes and drive train. I have never been clear on the best order of assembly at this stage, as, ideally, you need to avoid removing push-fit wheels from axles, if at all possible. On this occasion, I put one wheel on an axle to use as a jig for assembling the brake gear and then soldered up the various brake components to the chassis. Next I sprayed the whole lot satin black from an aerosol of car paint. Wheels were painted with primer (Car Care red primer aerosol) and then Stroudley goods green so that only touching up is required after assembly. Wheels and gearbox then went onto the axles so that I could test the freedom of movement, without and with coupling rods and finally the motor went in so that I could test the whole lot under power. Needless to say, it did not all work out quite that smoothly and I ended up removing the wheels from a couple of axles, then refitting them. The advice that I received on how to do a temporary fix, to keep axle nuts on while you do the trial running, is at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/36195-trial-running-a-chassis/ and proved extremely useful by the time that the rods had been on and off a couple of times. The net result of this advice was that I tied down the motor with a wire to anchor it to the chassis, added a dollop of bath sealant to provide a soft bed to minimise vibration and some superglue around the flexible joint in the two stage gearbox to stop it straightening itself out when power was reversed.

 

A particular feature of the E3 is that the brakes are actuated from a rod that runs down under the centre of the loco and is clearly designed to get right in the way as you try to solder up the pickups. One point that surprised me on the chassis was the amount of rattle space between the front of the frames and the backs of the wheels. Given that the back to back for EM is 16.5mm, the EM spacers provided in the kit left the fronts of the frames about 14mm apart. I have therefore resorted to washers on all the axles and at this stage I can only hope that no more flexibility will be required to manage 30 inch radius corners.

 

In parallel with the chassis, there was the remaining work to finish off the body, including coal rails, steps, lamp irons, boiler fittings, backhead, etc – all the stuff that does not take kindly to being gripped firmly while you hack at the body to accommodate the drive train. The white metal parts were attached with 5 minute epoxy – a separate mix for each one - and the rest were soldered. On Brighton locos of this vintage, there are six lamp irons at each end, including the rather tall ones on the front buffer beam to allow discs/lamps to appear two deep above either buffer. The Salter balances on the dome were interesting, as I realised that I did not really understand what I was trying to model. An e mail to the Brighton Circle e-group produced detailed photos of the domes of two preserved Terriers virtually by return!

 

And that pretty much got it all to the stage of painting. The first coat was the red oxide Car Care primer aerosol which showed up any holes, open joints or lumps. Unfortunately, although it showed them up, I did not necessarily see them at the time. The next was Precision Stroudley goods green (I have actually used Stroudley lining green which is a little brighter and matches other locos that I have painted) and this involved use of a relatively new airbrush. I have still not quite got over the old Humbrol airbrush that I have used for many years, which now seems like a weapon of mass destruction. I am still struggling with the idea that a very fine mist of paint only goes exactly where you aim it.

 

Just to demonstrate that nothing goes easily, when I removed the masking tape from one of the side tanks, where it had been protecting the body colour while I sprayed the footplate, a neat slice of paint came with it to reveal bare metal. I can only assume that there was something on the metal that had prevented the red primer from keying properly. Yes, I know I should have stripped the whole lot back to bare metal and started again, but I opted to sand down the rough bit and respray over that side tank. I am sure that I shall regret it, but at this point, there are so many things that I know I should have done differently, that I just wanted to get this one finished and learn the lessons for the next one.

 

Lining was done with transfers for the red/black/red and for the buffer beams – and it then became blindingly obvious where I had missed some of the bits that needed filling. Happily, a few of those were covered by the lining! It was at this stage that I went back to put the chassis into the body – and discovered that it did not fit any more. My initial assumption was that something that I had done to tie down the motor and gearbox must have changed the geometry on which I had originally proceeded. Having scraped away at various tight spots and reduced the depth of the gearbox sides (which butt up against the cab front), I was beginning to have nightmares that the motor was sitting higher for some reason and that it was touching the top of the boiler. How do you see whether there is space above the motor from the bottom of the chassis? At this stage, I put it aside for a while and did something else so that I could look at it afresh. Looking at it again, it became clear that the obstruction was actually part of the (rather nice) cast metal boiler backhead, which had been installed with the other whitemetal parts after the original fitting of the chassis, and this was easily remedied with the mini drill. So much for trying to avoid any hacking at the body with all the fittings in place! The lampiron at the base of the chimney succumbed at this point and had to be reinstalled with superglue – I was not going to play with a soldering iron quite so close to a whitemetal chimney and a whitemetal smokebox door.

 

A final round of touching up before applying some varnish. Now, I have had some problems with varnish in the past – see http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/18648-crackle-finish/page__p__179703__fromsearch__1&do=findComment&comment=179703 In this case, the base primer is Car Care, the green is Precision, the black is Revell acrylic, there is a coat of Klear across the tanksides and there are lining and lettering transfers. So although the swatches with Games Workshop varnish produce exactly the satin effect that I was looking for (when it comes out right), at least one of the cocktail of different surfaces had been implicated in a crackle finish in the past. I therefore resorted to airbrushing with Micro Flat; maybe I have not shaken it up enough, but it sprayed beautifully and it produced a perfect satin finish (and you just spray water through to clean the airbrush). Brilliant!

 

The two photos attached were taken minutes apart, earlier today, in the garden. The camera never lies but I can confirm that both sides are painted exactly the same. Still to do are the buffers, handrails, couplings, coal in the bunker, crew and then final attachment of the cab roof.

 

Lessons learned

 

• The worst bit of soldering up the body was getting started. Yes, there were moments of frustration along the way, but I am now quite looking forward to the next kit in the European unmade kit mountain.
• The new airbrush was just as much of a step change as soldering. I will approach it next time with greater trepidation as I do not feel that I really got the best out of it this time round.
• Despite the experience at Missenden Abbey, I am still none too sure why this chassis seems to work and previous ones have the gait of a three legged donkey.
• Treat masking tape with respect – or alternatively find a better way to clean up and prime the bare metal bits – or both.
• Whichever way you assemble the body, chassis and drive train, there will probably be something that would have been done better in a different order!

I hope that this may encourage others to take the plunge with building an etched kit.

 

Eric

[DLT]

Hi Eric,

 

I havent read your whole post yet, but the model looks superb.

Great result,

Dave.

[Mike G]

Beautiful, you must be thrilled.

 

Mike

[Dave Searle]

Hi Eric,

 

Very nice, congratulations on your first etched loco.

 

When I saw the first photo, I thought the Goods Green was too light, but the second one is much closer to what I was expecting - interesting the way the light changes what the camera sees. I look forward to seeing it in the flesh at the Brighton Circle AGM.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

[burgundy]

My thanks to those who have commented.

 

I should be grateful for any thoughts on the various lessons learned - namely

• The worst bit of soldering up the body was getting started. Yes, there were moments of frustration along the way, but I am now quite looking forward to the next kit in the European unmade kit mountain.
• The new airbrush was just as much of a step change as soldering. I will approach it next time with greater trepidation as I do not feel that I really got the best out of it this time round.
• Despite the experience at Missenden Abbey, I am still none too sure why this chassis seems to work and previous ones have the gait of a three legged donkey.
• Treat masking tape with respect – or alternatively find a better way to clean up and prime the bare metal bits – or both.
• Whichever way you assemble the body, chassis and drive train, there will probably be something that would have been done better in a different order!

A number of these have been the subject of their own threads but I should very much appreciate the observations of others who have successfully tackled any of these challenges.

 

Best wishes

 

Eric

[Kempenfelt]

Looks superb Eric! Good to see you're keeping busy now you've got all that spare time!

 

Best Wishes

 

Paul

[Horsetan]

That's a brilliant job. All the heartache is worthwhile when you stand back from the model and take it all in. Your painting and lining skills are way way ahead of mine!

 

Question: did the E3 ever have handrails along the boiler and smokebox at all?

[burgundy]

Question: did the E3 ever have handrails along the boiler and smokebox at all?

 

Horsetan

Thanks for your comments.

Coincidentally, I was just fitting the handrails as you posted this. They are a plumber's nightmare as a single rail runs all round - an arc over the smokebox front, along the side of the smokebox, rightangle corner onto the front of the sidetank, another rightangle to run along the outside edge of the sidetanks, with a sort of kink in and out to go round the tank fillers. With the holes for the handrail knobs now filled (with handrail knobs), I should be able to load up the smokebox with some liquid lead to add some weight.

There is no great secret to the lining. It is all done with transfers, good lighting and a bit of patience.

Best wishes

Eric

[pete_mcfarlane]

That looks very nice.

 

I had similar fun with the handrails on my Finecast E5. I ended up making them in 3 pieces - the smoebox front handrail and the two sides. The joins were in the middle of a handrail knob so they didn't show.

[burgundy]

Complete now with handrails, couplings, coal and some ballast in the smokebox and bunker. A crew has been recruited and will be painted.

Washington was the obvious choice for the name as I worked there for three years!

Best wishes

Eric

[Poggy1165]

Excellent model! If you hadn't told us it was your first etched kit, I would never have guessed.

[ullypug]

Very nice too!!

[James]

That's a lovely model and a superb write up!

 

One that should be, IMHO, in RMweb's Showcase!

[jamieb]

Very nice job Eric.I've got one to build in the pipeline,what did you use for the name transfers?Is it going to have a numberplate also?

 

Jamie

[burgundy]

Thanks to all for the kind comments.

I can confirm that the loco now has a crew and the number plates have been ordered but not yet arrived.

Best wishes

Eric