hayfield

Les no problem with the posting, or asking questions that how we all learn South Eastern Finecast have taken over the range http://www.sefinecast.co.uk/Locomotives/New%20and%20Revised%20Loco%20Kits%20Page%206.htm page 6, they have up graded the kit with an etched chassis, 2 sheets of etched brass details and have included cab interior fittings, and can be made into 1 of 3 variants. Thats the bad news, with the kit approaching £100 plus wheels motor and gears its quite expensive. Your kit is desigmed to fit on the Hornby 0-6-0 chassis, Wills and SEF have also produced etched brass chassis for this loco. They come up quite regularly on Ebay and do sell well. I fall into the group that likes rebuilding badly made models, unmade kits are more expensive and well made ones fetch a premium. Having the box and instructions etc helps Like all things a good clear description along with a good picture of all the parts will increase the price. May be worth just watching a few items on Ebay to get a feel of how much similar items fetch. Remember with your kit the updated item has an etched chassis and additional etched and cast parts. Still has a value which could be more than you paid for it if you have had it some time.

Just found the thread, very impressive great bit of modelling. We have Wipers coming to the Watford Finescale show at the weekend, even more looking forward to seeing it.

Stephen, I will be watching this thread with interest, I have an unmade kit like yours which is missing the chassis and a built up one that needs refurbishing, no motor but has a set of Romfords. If you have a problem with the drivers I have 4 wheels that are still shrink wrapped but no axles, I guess I will buy a Comet chassis for the unmade one and will use either Romfords or Gibson wheels. I never had any luck with the HPM motors, where as the Mk 2's have been fine.

Matt A great bit of modelling, thanks for shareing it.

The more who buy these items (especially those who do not know too much) the better as far as I am concerned. I have had some great buys. One chap openly admitted when I thanked him for the item, that he had brought a job lot for £4k and sold it on for £5k. I cannot remember what the item was other than I got a great bargin, could have been sold for 2 or 3 times the price if it had been described correctly. I am as interested in finding these cheap items as I am in finishing off my collection. I brought an item described as City of Truto, well it had an Airfix C of T box, a whitemetal loco (not a C of T) with a RTR chassis and another chassis all for £17.30 inc postage. This is what arrived, Airfix City of Truro un built kit, K's Grange missing the motor and front of the footplate and a Hornby Hall chassis (no bogie). Well I needed the motor for the A3 chassis in a Langley Baltic tank I have. I resold the Airfix kit and the chassis for over a tenner. Given the price Hornby motors sell for the K,s loco was for free. The chap who brought the chassis I think is a dealer, but the original seller was happy, I am, as is the person with the Airfix kit and no doubt the dealer will sell it. I cannot see a problem.

Super bit of modelling, you have a very rare tallent of getting the propotions just right. Thanks for shareing its looking very good. Just as an aside, I was reading the latest Railway Modeller last night about an EM gauge layout which also used card and brickpaper for the buildings.

At least you can get a very good pint whilst waiting for the loo.

When I was allowed to have a modeling room it was bliss, either not having to pack away everything each time or having the dineing table cluttered. Another benefit is not having to go into the loft to search in my bits boxes. Look forward to your posts and I hope all goes well in your new house.

Holidays, DIY on the house, a couple of turnouts and finishing off a couple of other locos have got in the way of the Atlantic lately but I have done a bit more on it over the weekend. The tender needs a bit more filler where the top plate fits the body, I need to make a new air vent and find some buffers. I have fitted the cylinder block casting, as its a butt joint I not too certain how well it has stuck, the cylinders need filling and I need to replace the cross heads / rods as they are soft whitemetal castings and I broke one. Also the front bogie fouls the chassis, I will try and alter the hole in the bogie and move it 2 or 3 mm forward. Still it runs well on the straight track, and its a lot better than I thought it would be a few weeks ago. The other locos I repaired are 2 Wills 1864 Pannier tanks, one which I painted some months ago and needed the chassis building, and another which came off Ebay with the pickups mangled, both now work and I also fitted some pickups to a K's Terrier another Ebay buy, this now needs some footsteps and the side air compresser.

I thought these pictures of the CCW Syphon G might be of interest, the sides seem similar to the Ratio one a few replies earlier. The Ratio coaches I have all have wooden roofs though that does not mean they used other types. This is as I brought it off Ebay, one day I may get arround to finishing it off.

Nick thanks for putting me right, its a cylinder I just thought (wrongly) it was a Westinghouse. The Southeastern kits do not have the pipes that come out of the boiler sides that are on the Hornby Dublo version. I think Markits may do a posh version, I might just try and coble some up with some wire and brass

A quiet 2 weeks plus as I have been on my hols, walking in the peaks and a quiet week in Kent. Visited both the Peak rail centre which for me was good for photos of a few wagons and the coach preservation shed and The Midland Railway centre at Swawick. loved the Midland museum the shed with the Duchess and Princess along with the replica buildings being constructed. I have a couple of K's 6 wheelers to rebuild and seeing how the straps and rods fit together will assist Inside of the Royal carrage Someone out there is copying my modelling skills The second week we visited the KESR misses again that P class only got a view from the elevated viewing area at Rolvenden. And also the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch railway. At onetime if it were not full scale and GWR I would turn my nose up at it. But seeing they run over the past 2 yeard at Dungerness, New Romney and Hythe was very enyoyable, in fact they put some of the preserved railways to shame. I used to think of them as models, but am realising they are engins in their own right

Thanks all for your replies,and the photo's show its worthwile. RMweb seems to be busy tonight thats why I am a bit late replying. My locos body paintwork is a bit tired and I paid less than chassis sell for it, so there will be no great loss. I do have a Wills etched replacement chassis (I believe Southeastern Finecast do an even better one now)and spare Romford 18mm wheels if I want to go down that road, I also have a couple of chassis with Romfords fitted. One even has a K's Mk 1 motor with a flywheel and runs surprisingly well, it has homemade brake gear as well (strange what comes up on Ebay). Fitting a new type magnet is worth while, I did this to a Wills GWR U1, with great sucess and this uses the R1 chassis. The idea was to detail the body, I have a spare Westinghouse cylinder, does anyone make the boiler pipework as SEF do not fit these to their model. Also I will try and find a plan as the front windows need to be remodeled and lamp irons etc need to be fitted. The boiler bottom is also a great improvement. Thanks again and if anyone has thoughts or photos please share them

I brought a Hornby Dublo R1 quite cheaply, after waiting some time the Wills version to come up on Ebay at a reasonable price. Thats not happened and I was woundering if its worth the effort of detailing this model up. Hand rails are the 1st thing to come to mind along with Westinghouse pumps and other pluming, perhapps even rounding off the bottom of the boiler. Has anyone done this? tips, suggestions welcomed and if it does not work then chassis sell on Ebay for more than I paid for it.

I have started to build up the cylinders, they are now glued together and I have started the filling process with Milliput. More filling is required along with rebuilding the cylinder fronts. I also need to work out whow high the cylinders should be. They are just a push fit into the chassis / body at the moment. Next job is to rebuild the crossheads

Here is a photo of the Keyser Coral A, a good model when produced. Etched frames would now be much better but that is far beyond my abilities, but would help me restore a second model I have which is a bit bent. Only has the 2 outer frames, I guess 2 thinner inside ones could be fitted and perhapps a glass load. Would the glass be in wooden boxes?

This picture shows the lumps of Milliput which I have used to build up the gap on the corner of the coal rails on one side and level up the poor fit on the other side. Also some other bits filling the joins above the buffer beam. I used a mini drill to level the tender sides on the inside, then I filed the filler flat with the body. I used a razor saw to start the gaps between the coal rails followed by a needle to open up the gap. All looks fine now. Poor picture but shows the cylinders taking shape, should have been 5 parts but ended up as 8 parts. I will fit the slide rods before attaching the cylinder sides. Then try and fathom how the fit the cylinder assembly to the chassis

My camera batteries are on charge so no photos tonight. The Milliput worked very well both as a gap filler and to replace the top curved corner which had been broken off. 1st try on the corner is nearly there, but the outside curve was a little to round. I sanded it to shape and after testing a couple of methods of replicating the coal rail slits, built it up a bit more. I ran out of quick set epoxy last night, so I called in at B&Q and brought some quick set metal epoxy. Its a lot thicker than standard epoxy, so could be used as a gap filler. It states on the box that it can be drilled, sanded, tapped and painted. I have tried it out on repairing the cylinders, glueing a bolt to whitemetal and made a blob to try out the claims on the box. Will have to go back and buy some normal epoxy in the next day or so.

Recently I have used Milliput to fill gaps and build up parts which have broken, it can be shaped to size/design, once cured sticks fast and can be sanded or carved to shape. Stays workable for some time. Tonight I brought some quick set metal epoxy (thought it was quick set epoxy glue).I have tried it on glueing some whitemetal parts together, its quite thick so can be used as a filler. Says on the box it can be drilled, sanded, tapped and painted. I have left a blob on a test piece to try out these claims.

Thanks, but I am a bit fearfull what it will look like with a coat of primer on. This may be the first loco I weather. I do not know what was used to strip the paint off,if it was done by my friend who gave me the model it would have been caustic soda. Whatever it was you can see the tarnish on the tender which has not been cleaned and burnished. But seeing his models he would never had butchered the castings. The tender wheels are quite a tight fit (limited side ways movement), I will pack out the front and rear ones but the centre ones will have to have some side play. I will have to put some insulating tape on the body where they might rub. That also goes for the bogie wheels touching the chassis and the rear trailing wheels.

With the cast part of the chassis unglued, the first (cast) part now fits flush with the footplate when glued to the main part of the chassis. With no cylinders it still looks a bit high, but it now matches up with the tender buffer height as well as other locos buffer heights The 4 sides of the tender have been stuck together and I have just used Milliput to fill the gaps and rebuild a broken corner of the sides. Hopefully I will not make as many mistakes on this part of the build These are the parts of the cylinders, the front parts of the cylinders have been stuck to the chassis block. This was the easy part as it was only in 2 bits. The rear one which is in 3 bits will take a bit more effort in gluing to the block in lineing them up. Recently I have not had much spare time to model, however when driving to and from work and other spare moments I have been able to think about the problems and come up with a solution. Much better than thinking on your feet with the items in front of you. Nice to have a session that has all gone well, normally its 2 steps forward and one back.

Last night I tried to get the chassis working with the front bogies. Those early locos builders never took us 4mm modelers into consideration when designing their locos. There are a lot of wheels to get into a small space. Unlike most kits the front bogie is attached to the chassis from a bolt above the centre of the bogie, there is a cast section which glues to the chassis. It also holds the cylinders. Like everything with this kit nothing seems to fit. On reflection the cylinders or rather the 2 parts which are still left on the casting, stop it from sitting flush with the footplate, I had to pack the back of the chassis by 1mm to level it. The wheels look like they should go into the body a bit more. Luckerly the offending part will come away from the chassis without too much trouble. I will get the casting into some boiling water and hopefully the 2 cylinder parts will fall off. I think the builder either fitted the cylinders up side down or incorectly. Still the first job is to get the chassis fitting snugly with the body and working. Then I can have a go at the cylinders. This afternoon I have made a start with the tender, unfortunatly the builders file has been at the tender parts as well, plenty of filling is required with this item as well.

The second attempt to secure the gear wheel to the axle seems to have worked, as there is no slipping. I took each wheel off in turn, trimmed and adjusted the pickups, greased the bearings and replaced the wheels. As I watched the loco go up and down the track the rear drivers were not turning, the 2 small rear wheels were lower than the rear drivers by a fraction so a small amount of fileing sorted this out. The front bit of the footplate where the cylinders go needs building up,as its been badly filed. So some filler had been added, this needs to dry for a day or so. Tomorrow I will sort out the front bogies, start building the tender and do a bit more to the body

Well I have given the gears 1 more go, I took the 2 wheels off and took the axle out, degreased all the parts including the chassis and motor bearings. Re-drilled the holes, then reassembled the parts. I dropped epoxy down the holes and rotated them hopefully dragging the epoxy down arround the axle. I will now give it a day to cure. Had a few bits arrive in the post yesterday. I brought an old Eames Prairie loco some time ago. Someone decided to rebuild the chassis, well they got as far as fitting a new set of Romfords but lost all the other parts. I notiiced on Ebay an Airfix plastic kit with a motorising chassis on it (minus motor and gears) took a bit of a leap of faith. Well the chassis seems well built and the wheels and motion run freely, the front fixing is in the correct place just need a new rear fixing plate. At the same time brought a Comet coach part built, poor photo and description. Well it turns out to be a BR mk1 compo. Needs buffers roof and underframe details, its been very well put together. Also I brought a Southeastern Finecast M7 with wheels and motor along with a Wills etched M7 chassis (need this to replace an old Wills cast chassis). So been looking at my new bits.

Thanks for the replies, I may try and refit the gears and axles once I have degreased them and the bearings. My drills will not touch Romford axles.