Nile's kitbuilding bench - Midland 1377

[DLT]

What a little beauty!

Dave.

[Nile]

Thanks, should look even better now it's had a lick of paint.

I've also added some lead inside the body, the black panel in the back of the cab is a piece of lead sheet.

As it's running just fine it's safe to finish of the build by making and fitting the cranks and rods. I'd also like to make some sort of cab interior as there's plenty of room for one.

[Nile]

Onto the last part of the build.

The cranks are made up from three almost identical frets placed on top of each other and soldered together. Screws are then added and soldered in.

Here is the result, along with the rods.

As you can see, one of the cranks has already escaped.

Here I've fitted the parts on one side of the loco. The cranks are secured to the axle ends with loctite 603, the nuts are soldered to the screws.

 

I then made a replacement crank, using the remains  of 2 of the 3 frets. These already have holes in 3 of the 4 corners, I used that as a starting point. I drilled a hole 1.5mm from this and soldered some brass rod in it.

 

I enlarged the hole to match the axle, cut off the fret to the right of it, and rounded the end around it.

 

I cut off the rest and filed it to shape to match the others.

 

And here it is fitted to the loco.

 

It was all looking good, and then I managed to loose another one!!!   (the one on the right).

So I had to make another one (cranks R us).

 

Here is the result of all this mucking about, a working chassis having a test run on the rollers.

[ianmaccormac]

Hi

That looks really nice. Have you any details of where to buy one of these kits?

Thanks

Ian in Blackpool

[Nile]

Hi Ian, the first batch sold out. There may be another batch soon if there is enough interest, I'll PM you the details.

 

[Buhar]

When you find the cranks, what are you going to build round them?

[Nile]

If all my lost bits ever turn up I could open a spares shop     .

 

After spraying with satin varnish the body was reunited with the chassis.

In this form it had a successful run around Willesden Junction.

 

It didn't stay that clean for long, I weathered it with thin washes of black and brown paints followed by a coat of matt varnish.

I've also fitted some glazing.

 

It's nearly finished, I'm going to build a basic cab interior and add a driver.

[halfwit]

Nice work on that Deutz, I like the grubby finish. I've yet to build mine but it looks like it goes together without fuss.

 

That looks really nice. Have you any details of where to buy one of these kits?

 

For those interested Small Run Batch now have a Facebook page, which can be seen by us non-Facebook users.

[Nile]

For the interior I've used mostly odd bits of black plastic card. First I glued a piece into the front of the cab to form a bulkhead and hide the opening (no photo of this). I made a floor piece to fit between front and rear, with a hole to clear the nut. On this I made up a lump to represent the gearbox.

 

A test fit of the driver (of unknown origin), Lego blocks substituting for the cab rear.

The levers can't be glued on until after the floor is installed into the cab, otherwise it won't fit through the door.

 

The driver gets a new paint job, and now looks maybe too smart for this loco.

There is a semi-circle of plastic glued to his butt to act as a seat.

 

The floor fitted and glued to the cab front. The driver's feet are glued to the floor.

 

He sits at just the right height to see out.

 

And that concludes this build. Coming next is yet more soldering.

 

[Nile]

Tilbury Tank part 2 , the body

 

And now I return to the model that opened this workbench topic, the London Road Models LTSR no.1 class loco.

(The finished model won't look like this, it will be in Midland red)

 

Way back on page one I built the chassis, now I'm going to build the body.

This is the starting point, the running plate.

The first task is to remove the footsteps from the middle, and then fit the buffer beams and valences.

 

At the front were added : buffers, lamp irons, destination board brackets, and some nuts for chassis attachment.

 

Then the cab/tank sides were added.

There is a brass rod soldered across the top of the cab opening for strength. Beading has been added around the cab opening, and handrails to the cab sides.

 

With the cab front and rear fitted it's now looking a bit like a loco.

They are made from 3 layers, with a gap in the middle layer for the glazing that drops in from the top.

Where possible the solder joints are on the inside or underside where they won't be seen. I'm mostly using 188C solder paste from Eileens, with extra solder on the bigger joints.

Edited January 7, 2015 by Nile

[Nile]

Some more progress. An inner piece is soldered to the inside of the side tanks.

The top of this provides somewhere for the tank top to locate. The tank itself is then folded up and soldered to the side, along with the filler caps.

 

Moving on to the bunker rear, the lamp iron bases pass through slots in the bunker. To these are soldered the irons. To make that easier I retained the 'tail' from the fret and bent it 90 degrees.

This was soldered to the lamp iron base.

To the left is a destination board bracket.

 

The bunker rear is soldered into a slot between the sides, tricky as there is a gap each side. These gaps are filled with some brass rods that form the curved corners of the bunker.

Once all the bits are in place it works quite well.

[Smiffy2]

I'm impressed. I think solder paste might be my way forward - what flux do you use, please?

[Nile]

I'm not adding any extra flux. There is plenty of flux in the paste, and the solder I use is multicore with flux in it. The flux must be of the 'no-clean' type, as it's not leaving any nasty residue (that I can see).

There are times when some extra flux might be useful, I'm open to suggestions as to what to use.

Edited January 10, 2015 by Nile

[Smiffy2]

Thanks for that. I think my Silverline solder might not be fit for purpose...

 

An order will wing it's way to Eileen's before the afternoon is out!

 

Question - when soldering the tank sides did you clamp or jig them, or simply hold them in place (in which case I really am impressed)?

 

I am going to have to try a whole loco before long.

[Nile]

With this kit, with it's slots and tabs, most of the time I can simply hold a piece in place when soldering it. I'll use either tweezers, or a small piece of wood to protect my fingers. An advantage of using solder paste is that it leaves one hand free to hold things.

If I need to clamp something I have a few options available.

Nothing expensive here, the thing on the right came from a pack of tweezers from Poundland. The modified clothes peg has many uses.

I'll be bothering the Eileen's stand at St.Albans tomorrow.

[Smiffy2]

I use the singed clothes peg, but I've never thought of the hairpin!

 

Julie!

 

Proops do some nice locking tweezers in different shapes, with fibre pads to reduce finger scorching.

Edited January 10, 2015 by Smiffy2

[Nile]

Onto the boiler, oh what fun! This has to rolled from flat brass, and sounds a lot easier that it is. It involved me bending it around something round until I ended up with something mostly cylindrical in shape. Inside this were soldered some formers, and this is where the first problem was encountered.

The formers are slightly over size. Rather than file them all down to match the boiler I left a gap at the bottom, which I was able to fill with a piece from the fret.

The bolt sticking out the front is for attaching the smokebox.

 

Right way up, with more bits soldered on.

 

The smokebox consists of an inner that folds up, and a wrapper that fits around it. Th keep the tops of the inner part the right distance apart I added the support piece at the top.

 

All soldered together.

Just visible are the row of rivets along the bottom that I'd previously punched into it, before folding up.

 

Smokebox and boiler attached, using a nut inserted through the hole in the front.

 

[Jol Wilkinson]

Neal,

 

am I wrong in thinking that the boiler is supplied flat so that optional holes can be drilled out to suit whichever version the builder wants and can then returned to LRM for rolling?

 

The Tilbury Tank was designed by the same person that did the LRM LDSC B4 4-4-0 and that was the approach he developed for that kit.

 

Jol

[Nile]

You're right about drilling optional holes before rolling, but there was nothing about returning to LRM for rolling in the instructions.

[sej]

Hi Neil, it's good to see your Tilbury Tank back and building. It's looking very nice too.

 

Cheers

Simon

[Jol Wilkinson]

You're right about drilling optional holes before rolling, but there was nothing about returning to LRM for rolling in the instructions.

I am surprised. It is on the front page of the B4 instructions.

 

All the other LRM kits that have an etched boiler are supplied already rolled.

[Nile]

With the boiler structure complete it was now time to try and fit it to the body. The firebox end was propped up with a piece of wood.

Hmmm, something's not right. The smokebox end is about 2mm too high.

After much thinking I decided the solution was to cut the bottom off of the smokebox saddle. The line of rivets was in about the right place, so formed a convenient guide line.

 

Putting it back together I tried again.

That looks much better, it's looking like a Tilbury tank now.

[Nile]

Before fixing the boiler in place The reverser linkage bits need to be soldered. I soldered the lever to the inside of the side tank for strength.

 

The boiler now soldered in place at both ends.

 

Bits that go inside the bunker.

Not fixed in place yet, I want to add some lead under it first.

 

Installing the cab splashers.

These are folded up and soldered first. A small amount had to be filed off the bottom to get them to fit.

 

Beading has been added to the side tanks and bunker.

These thin strips have a half etched slot along the underside that locates on the top edge of the tank/bunker, so are not that hard to fix in place.

 

Guard irons and pipes added to both ends.

That's the end of the soldering jobs, any remaining bits will be glued on.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Nile

[Nile]

The external steam pipes, which sit either side of the base of the smokebox, are brass castings. As I've modified the smokebox these no longer fit properly. I tried filing one down but gave up after a while, they are very hard and difficult to hold. Instead I made replacements from plastic.

Each pipe was made from three layers of 40thou plastic card laminated together. This was the starting point, a scrap piece of plastic.

 

Cut up into six pieces. The brass part was used as a guide.

 

One piece was used to make a pattern for the others.

 

All the pieces were cut to the same shape, and glued together to form two parts.

The new plastic one is slightly shorter than the brass one.

 

Glued in place on the model.

[Nile]

With construction nearly complete it's time to add some weight to the model. The best place for this is inside the tanks, there is plenty of room and it will be above the driving wheels. I managed to get two strips in each tank.

 

There is also room inside the cab splashers for some.

I also put some lead in the bottom of the bunker, but you can't see that.

 

The whitemetal boiler backhead needed trimming a bit to fit between my OO gauged splashers.

 

In place in the cab.

 

The front end with all the bits now in place (apart from the handrails).

 

I needed a small bit of plastic behind the lower airpump support to get to sit vertical.

The thick brass rod just above the airpump is for the vacuum ejector and is not fixed in place, and won't be until after painting.

 

A trial fit on the chassis, things are looking good.

 

Alongside the ghostly figure of a 79 class, a 3D print from Shapeways.

 

It's now ready for the next stage, painting and lining. It might take a while.

To be continued .......

Edited August 12, 2020 by Nile