Steve Smith

The Q is now on some gash Romfords for fettling the suspension and drive unit. The hornblock cutouts had to be fully opened up (with hornblocks fitted) to get just enough travel (+/- 0.5mm). The body was then raised 0.5mm on the chassis to get the correct ride height. The wheels are nicely centred on the splashers with just enough clearance - two different manufacturers getting it right - or at least equally wrong! The tender needed to go up another 1mm to match the loco ride height, and then as with the loco I replaced the valance with some 1.5mm angle this time cut down from some 1.5mm x 3.0mm channel section from my Robert Alderman milled brass section stash. In the slightly fraught process of removing the old valance I caught the end of one of the leaf springs with the iron. 😞 A comparison of the Crownline etched tender rear with the back of my Bachmann N Class tender as modified with coal hopper. This loco once had a bulky Tsunami sound chip and speaker fitted, and as a result I've just noticed that the hopper still isn't fastened down properly. Having endured two EM Gauge conversions, and a sound chip fitting and removal, the lining has suffered badly.

Hello John, This is my first loco build blog, so an experiment for me that I'm enjoying and finding helpful for motivation. I had began to get the impression that my twin beam compensated EM chassis was getting a cool reception here - I could be wrong of course! My new build thread on Western Thunder can be viewed* when not logged in and so should be visible to all here. I will blog the chassis build there, and then I may return to assemble and detail the Crownline body if there's support for it here. I have a number of interesting unfinished projects that have stalled (all Southern and EM) that I then plan to blog to completion, these include a Rebuilt River U Class, a W Class and Downside with the large tender. So this is all part of me working out where it would be best for me to do that! *Alas, it turns out that any pictures will be thumbnails only.

As it's still relevant to the Crownline conversion - I did rebuild the firebox and found that the beautifully cast firebox front was wedge shaped being thicker at the top than the bottom. This threw the firebox top out. I straightened anything that wasn't true and re-assembled it all square using low melt, and it's looking much better now - and no Milliput needed this time. The handrail holes are definitely too high although the seams on firebox and cab front still align. The 'boiler band' on the firebox remains overscale against photos - despite being further reduced. I filled the holes in the boiler with Milliput and then attended to the over tall Crownline supplied Lemaitre chimney. After studying photos I came to the conclusion that the rim was overscale with too much chimney above, and also that there should not be any sort of flare at the base. After lots of filing at both ends and turning on a mandrel in my cordless drill it's shorter and 'good enough' for me to move on. This is the state of play for the move to the new thread. The saga will continue here: https://www.westernthunder.me.uk/threads/q-class-in-em-gauge-from-the-crownline-conversion-kit-for-the-airfix-4f.9822/

The Crownline Conversion Kit is tantamount to a complete etched loco body and tender kit - even built as per instructions. It was the huge potential the many parts shown in the photographs of the Ebay listing that attracted me to it, as I had never considered it as an option before. Whilst I have scratchbuilt the roof and coal hopper the rest of the kit has been used as is or adapted to be stronger, easier to build or just to look more like the prototype. I would describe this as 'kit bashing', a still honourable but for me at least a more time efficient pastime than full scratch building! I am conscious that was has become a full on EM Gauge finescale loco build doesn't fit well in the Modellers Questions part of RMWeb, so will continue the build elsewhere, and will post a link here when I've sorted out a new home for it.

In what was for me at least a fairly productive couple of days, the 4F chassis has been adapted for the Q and attached to the body for the first time. This is not what Crownline envisaged for their kit, so what follows is not intended for the more sensible amongst you. This is the modified side view. Before the hornblocks were cut out I fitted a Romford wheel to set the cast Crownline brake block/frame units in the correct position for me to drill through the holes provided for the sandboxes into the 4F frames (see below). This picture shows the sandboxes wonkily dry fitted in those holes. The front and rear of the frames were modified to look more like a Q and the centre leaf springs removed as these should be coil springs. An extra slot for a spacer was added above the rear wheelset as an anchor for the motor/gearbox, and as the centre pivot for the equalisation at the rear. A hole for the twin beam pivot was made between the front wheelsets, and the frame extended at the front. All this, other than the frame extension and hornblock removal, was accomplished with the frames soldered together at each end. Next problem was that the EM spacers provided were not really wide enough - especially for an engine where the frames show above the running plate. I settled for a shade under 15mm, so had to cut my own spacers including the one that is slotted to allow room for the gearbox driving the centre axle. At this pretty standard EM Gauge width the 00 gauge turned spacers needed no less than three .020" washers each side to pad them out. Each flat spacer has had a 10BA nut soldered to it, that was then tapped through for extra securing capacity - and because I could. The running plate had a couple of .020" N/S pieces added to locate the chassis on the centreline of the body, and these were then drilled and tapped 8BA to secure chassis to body. Lastly to help conceal the different width of frames above and below the running plate, strips were soldered in underneath between the splashers to fill the gap. Subsequently, I realised that this is really not a problem visually with the boiler fitted and blocking the problem viewpoints. Also shown is one of my twin equalising beams that have been calculated to give the correct running height - we shall see! A glimpse into the bowels of the beast with chassis fitted to running plate. Also shown for completeness are the Crownline cast brake gear/frame inserts intended for the Airfix loco chassis that got a passing mention above. Now completely off-piste as far as manufacturers instructions go, I'm desperately trying to think of everything I need to do to it before soldering it all up and fitting the High Level hornblocks! Incidentally the problem with the sloping firebox mentioned in my last post is because the top of it has a very slight twist, the solution for which will be a bath in boiling water and a much more 'informed' second assembly attempt. It is level on the other side!

First up an insane amount of time was spent tracing the front of the smokebox and trying to determine where the handles for the valve cover panels needed to be. Although the smokebox wrapper appears to be aligned correctly at the back, the overlap at the front varied from just enough to hide the half etched smoke box front at the top, to enough room for a reinforcing piece at the bottom to accept the handles. Therefore it was a design for a putative reinforcing piece that ended up being printed out, UHU'd to some .010" N/S sheet and put in the GW Models rivet press to mark out the positions by manoeuvring the embosser to the first spot, then using offsets for the rest. The reinforcing piece was then fretted out, drilled, soldered to the Crownline half-etched smokebox front, tapered with a file to fit the reducing wrapper overlap. It was then drilled through from the back to put the holes in the right place on the front. The handles were formed in a jig and soldered in. Although 0.3mm wire was used, they are overscale - artistic impression and all that! The smokebox door (not fastened yet) is a nice casting with a few gaps round the edges, but does seem a fraction large, and perhaps a little flat - hopefully detailing it will bring it to life. The cast whitemetal covers for the piston rods have not been fitted yet. Next task was to start adapting the body to the chassis. With none of the Airfix 4F running plate now remaining there was nothing at the rear that could support a chassis, so I added a piece of .020" nickel silver sheet that exactly fitted the cab holding it in the correct position in relation to the rear splashers. This has served to further stiffen the running plate. The new plate in the cab floor meant that the Airfix backhead and floor had to lose a lot more weight to make room for lead packing between the N/S sheet and the much thinned Airfix cab floor. At the front the original N/S support for the smokebox saddle that had the hole was replaced with a stouter version in .020" N/S. At the base of the smokebox saddle the mount for the Airfix mounting screw was removed and the resulting void filled with sheet lead. With the cab and smokebox now positioned correctly, there was now insufficient room for boiler and firebox to fit between them. Since the firebox was known to be short by about 1mm, it was the boiler that was shortened until everything fitted. As mentioned before the Crownline running plate was scale length and I opted to reduce it by 1mm so that the gap at the back of the cab was correct. The missing 1mm is within the firebox, with all other items being extremely close to the Eastleigh Weight diagram drawn size - impressive for a mere conversion kit! The Lemaitre chimney should be noticeably shorter than the dome, and that is clearly not the case, and it is likely that a slice will need to be taken out of the chimney. I also suspect that the firebox slopes up very slightly to meet the boiler when drawings show it level. Luckily the boiler appears to have a matching slight rise to meet the firebox - more glorious filing! Interestingly, given that the firebox was raised 1mm, the seam on the side of the firebox now lines up with the double line of rivets on the cab front - just as it should.

Progress of sorts is being made. Last week's job was to enhance those cylinder bolts. A jig was made that landed 0.5mm holes on the half etched rivets - so far so good, yet 0.5mm wire when fitted appeared too small. Instead of pondering the matter, I rather hastily decided that 0.7mm wire would be just the thing, so opened up all the holes fitted the wires and soldered them in before snipping the middle sections out. Upon mature reflection, I think they're a little on the heavy side, but there's no going back now! I wasn't at all convinced by the appearance of the Crownline valance with the cab in place. Some analysis of the cab of a Q confirmed to me that the valance of the Crownline running plate was a bit light at 1mm, both the cab photograph analysed in QCAD and the Eastleigh weight diagram suggested 1.5mm would be much closer, so after some appropriate procrastination, I went ahead and replaced the etched valance with milled angle section. I did have some 1.5mm x 1.5mm angle, but this was way too flimsy when I tried to form the required bends for the narrowing of the running plate. Amongst other useful brass sections inherited from the late great Bob Alderman were four lengths of 3mm x 2mm milled brass channel. This was of a heavier section than the angle, and a suitable length was filed down to 3mm x 1.5mm channel, then split down the middle with a fret saw before it was cleaned up ready for fitting. Three notches were filed in the vicinity of the bends, the bends formed and the lengths were fitted and soldered in - this has made for a much stronger and stiffer running plate. This is one of those unusual cases where a 0.5mm error is 33% out spoiling the proportions. The valances ended up slightly short at the front end but this actually helped with fitting the fillets to the buffer beam which are now much closer to the correct size - I could even use the gap to locate the fillet which was filed as triangle plus leg as filler for the gap. The 1.5mm milled angle will be perfect for the straight valance on the tender, but that's for another day. 30539 is going to be the identity of my engine. This was a Bournemouth engine from 1955 until withdrawal in 1963, and as this had a Lemaitre chimney (not provided in the kit), one was ordered from PDK via snail mail with cheque - how quaint! The chimney duly arrived in the post about a week later. It's a lost wax casting and there's quite a lot of material to remove from the middle to form any sort of appropriate hole. This afternoon's little task was to fit the smoke box wrapper and pose the body with chimney and dome in place. As per the instructions the wrapper was annealed by dangling it in front of a blowlamp and then dunking it in cold water when judged hot enough. This worked extremely well on the grade of brass used, and I was able to form the exact curve required on some 15mm copper pipe. The smokebox looks to be too far forward, but there is a bit of fitting to do at the back of the firebox that will allow me to move the smokebox back slightly to where it probably needs to be. The smokebox wrapper is covered in half-etched rivets, but they are quite subtle compared with my own slightly crazed efforts. Before going too much further I will need to adapt the body to the SEF 4F chassis, although the rear turned spacer on the 4F chassis will be moved forward so that it can double up as a mount for the tender drawbar.

As I had the wrong chassis I proceeded to separate the cab floor + backhead from the boiler + smokebox and in the process was able to discard the flimsy remains of the Airfix running plate. As threatened in one of my earliest posts, the Crownline running plate was shortened by 1mm at the rear and the rear drawbar beam soldered on with a piece of angle to strengthen it. The backhead on the Q is extremely shallow whilst that on the Airfix 4F protruded well into the cab. First the back was sawn off the backhead to make the slim version pictured and this was then separated from the floor and all 4F'ness was removed each side at the bottom as on a Q you can see the cab front each side at the base of the backhead. This was glued at the front of the cab onto a reworked Airfix floor, that might yet be replaced with a lead floor/drag box. What remains is pretty innocuous and could almost pass for a Q backhead. Floor and backhead are removable for detailing as the backhead will need manifold plumbing added each side at around chest height. It's possible that an L1 backhead might be suitable as it seems that the Q boiler was derived from the L1 boiler. The boiler needed a mysterious cutout at the rear filled in, and I elected to rebuild the Airfix smokebox saddle as I somehow convinced myself that it would be a 'better job' that way. Unencumbered by the remains of the running plate, the smokebox and boiler can now be fitted from the top - much better. The Q boiler is actually very slightly tapered, something I thought I might be imagining in photos. The diameter on the model should be just over 1mm less at the leading end, something that will certainly never be true for this model! The firebox was tackled next, and this was soldered up with low melt. Surprisingly, this skinny waisted firebox did not have clearance for the Mashima 1420 motor that I've earmarked for it, and a lot of hollowing out was required. When compared with the cab, and the Eastleigh weight diagram the firebox sat 1mm too low, so a couple of N/S strips were soldered in to lift it the correct amount. At the front the skinny frame overlays were reinforced in front of the smokebox, epoxied in place then soldered at the front to properly secure them. The 4F chassis has arrived very promptly from SEF, and I'm just awaiting the arrival of the Crownline chassis so that I can make a decision on how best to proceed. In the meantime I will work on a means of securing the saddle to the running plate at the correct height, and on emphasising the puny etched bolts for the cylinder fixing. This last might well need to be via a jig to drill them out and replace them with wire DLT style.

A colleague also building a Q who read my previous post offered his Crownline chassis up to his SEF body with predictable results. A chassis swap has been arranged! The power of RMWeb, and what should be a happy ending!

Well this is embarrassing! In the back of my mind I was a little uncomfortable that the SEF chassis could be suitable for Q and 22xx and not say Q and LMS 4F. When I eventually offered the SEF fret up to the Eastleigh weight diagram in Russell I finally remembered that the SEF Q was one of the Wills Bodyline kits intended for a proprietary chassis with a slightly compromised wheelbase. Any compromise in this respect is faithfully carried forward into the excellent SEF etched chassis kits, or they wouldn't fit their Bodyline bodies. The Crownline kit on the other hand is intended for the Airfix 4F which is a sound choice having the required 8'0"+8'6" wheelbase and an SEF FC-159 chassis kit (LMS 4F) has now been ordered. I did consider the Comet chassis with it's undercooked brake gear and slots for springing, but prefer the flat top and plain cutouts of the SEF chassis with its meatier brake gear. If anyone is interested in my FC-202 chassis with coupling rods made up and filed down then let me know. On the plus side I have concluded that the length of running plate in front of the smokebox on the Crownline kit does match that on the Eastleigh weight diagram (which looks like a Q), and can also report that the beautifully moulded white metal firebox is a lovely sliding fit between plastic boiler and etched cab.

This dear reader is the blob of white metal that Crownline provide to delicately balance on the oh so thin cab front and sides - it seemed probable that I could improve on it. The whole etch had already been scanned and loaded into QCAD at the correct size, so I started by tracing the outline of the top of the cab roof. Fortunately, the cab front was full scale height and the right shape. From this trace I was able to calculate the width of the roof which I then drew in CAD adding the lines of zigzag rivets marked on close to where the roof ended at each side. Crucial to the Maunsell 'look' is those rivets and the overhang at the front, so this was allowed for too. Once drawn up it was printed out and UHU'd to a piece of .010" N/S sheet. This piece had to be large enough to mount in my GW Models riveting tool. The material was set squarely in the mount and the tip was manoeuvred to the first rivet from where I knew the offsets for rivets that side. This process was repeated for the other side. Even though the 2mm anvil was used those are bigger rivets than they really should be. The roof was then cut out leaving spare material at each side to manipulate the tighter curves each side. The initial bend was formed via a broom handle and the tight curves each side formed in a toolmakers parallel clamp. Once the correct shape was formed a strengthening rib was fitted between where the handrails will mount, and then the rain strips added in 0.45mm wire. Final step was form the half etched rivets on the front and to assemble the cab sides to the front and then to solder the roof to the front and sides. The cab front was not quite symmetrical and needed a small amount of 'fudging' to get a reasonable fit. The Airfix 4F backhead intrudes far too far into the cab, but my research today suggests that it is a much closer match to the Q than a Q1 backhead would be. The screw reverser and that strange little platform under it will need to go. There's no shelf over the fire hole as there should be, and the regulator is the wrong shape. The plan is to just give it a little makeover and set it further into the cab. I reckon either firebox+backhead+boiler surgery next or I make a start on the loco chassis. The fire iron bridge is made, but that will have to wait for the next tender instalment.

Now looking a lot more like a Maunsell 3500g tender! The top eyes for the handrails were added to the sides and then sides and ends were epoxied on. As noted before the fit of parts is very good. Once the white metal castings were added it was clear that there was room between floor and sides for reinforcing pieces in .015" N/S and these were duly epoxied in. The bottom hole for the long handrail was soldered on as a separate strip - much more control over position than trying to drill the running plate. The top hole for the short handle next to the steps should be in line with the floor which is the correct height. Was generally impressed with the castings which needed very little cleaning up. For the tender at least the filler casting was the runt of the litter being badly out of register and requiring the hinge and strap detail to be added in brass as per the preserved Q. Next the Airfix 4F body was eviscerated. Agreeably messy, but not too difficult as the plastic is amenable to a craft knife for those places where a razor saw simply won't go. The instructions warn that the firebox must be removed last as the assembly becomes very fragile, even more so in my case because I also had to narrow the Airfix running plate to match the changes I made to the Crownline running plate earlier. I'm not keen on the resulting generally pointless layer of plastic underneath as it is likely to get in the way of any soldering, so will probably fit smokebox+boiler and backhead+floor as separate assemblies which will mean that I can move the smokebox 1mm further forward to where I think it should be in relation to the running plate - at the expense of padding the back of the firebox to fill the resulting gap. ...Interesting times!

I was a little concerned about the coupling rods provided in the SEF chassis kit, so tackled those next. The instructions showed two possible ways of assembling them, neither of which were options that I would ever consider, so I elected to articulate them with a rivet, though halving them on the centre wheel has also worked well for me. Before that there was a lot of filing, and looking at the photos a little more would be beneficial despite checking width and thickness with a vernier. Trying to photograph shiny things is definitely overrated! It was not actually true that lamp irons are not catered for in the kit. A perusal of the parts list revealed that some 1mm wide strips on the fret, two of them with 90° angles were intended to be fitted as lamp irons, though they were not otherwise mentioned in the text. A trifle wide for that I reckon, but there was plenty of admirably thin strip on the fret, and that was used instead. The top centre lamp iron looked vulnerable, so that was made from steel staple for robustness. The top step really is level, but the top right iron is slightly higher than the left top one, so I will have to fire up the soldering iron again before attaching the rear to the tender tank with Epoxy perhaps later today. Once the rear and sides are epoxied on, I will need to think about the fire iron bridge across the coal hole, nothing for that in the kit!

The tender bulkheads sides and rear have all had a bead added to the inside and even though only 0.3mm brass wire was used it has both stiffened them and improved the appearance. The rear (not shown) needs lamp irons fitted for which no provision is made in the kit. More evidence visible that the holes/slots are etched slightly too large/wide. As mentioned earlier I didn't rate the shape of the cutout on the cab sides, so decided to tackle that next. First I drew up a reinforcing piece with curves based on photos, the radius being 1.5mm at the top and 3mm at the bottom. Provision was also made for the window to be flush glazed and a rebate left at the front to take the cab front. This was printed out and UHU'd to some .015" N/S and fretted out. Once sweated to the brass etch the whole was carefully filed to fit the revised opening and any remaining etched bead filed down. Nickel silver strip pre-drilled for the handrail was then soldered in. In other developments I phoned SEF/Squires about my missing chassis kit and this time the boss picked the phone up. It turns out that the FC-106 Q Class specific chassis has been replaced with a generic FC-202 chassis suitable for Q Class and Collett 22xx. That chassis kit was in stock and arrived the next day. It will need some changes to suit the Q, particularly the coupling rods which are of a slightly exaggerated fish belly type and only nominally correct even for the 22xx - they'll need to be straight for the Q, and that's a lot of filing. Also not entirely sure how I feel about ending up with what looks a lot like a GWR 22xx loco chassis under my LMS 4F conversion to a SR Q Class. 😕

After my third e-mail I got a sympathetic reply offering to find out what had gone wrong with my order, but after another week had passed I phoned just after nine and the boss answered. The real problem was that I had ordered FC-106 for the Q Class, when it had been replaced by the generic chassis kit FC-202, but this wasn't at that point reflected in Squires' systems. No doubt some poor soul was trying to work out how to get an obsolete kit back into stock for me to have one. Not only is my FC-202 chassis winging its way to me, but Squires had the 7mm Long Life bit in stock that I needed for my Weller 75W soldering iron and generously cut me a deal on the two items. It seems that Weller have dropped their UK distributors and that is why Weller bits are out of stock everywhere here. Good recovery by Squires/SEF and happy customer again.

The October 1991 RM duly appeared with the much anticipated corrections relating only to the narrowing of the footplate being omitted. The drawing is appropriately corrected, but is reproduced to a smaller scale. Steady progress is being made on the tender with steps and tank now fabricated. Fit is pretty good, but the slots are etched a tad wide and this feature of the etch is probably not unconnected with the etched splasher tops falling through the gap that they should have bridged. Have been gently reminded that when soldering big bits of brass you need a big soldering iron and should start at one end work along the join to avoid buckling. I'll solder the bulkheads in once I've added an internal bead, but will epoxy the sides and rear on once they have been detailed up.

It's a very useful source thanks; if you could combine the correct proportions of the Eastleigh outline drawing in Russell with the level of detail in the Beattie drawing you would be very close to the truth!

The June 1991 issue was a very rare Toddler that I had bought and then not discarded. Not a bad effort by Mr Beattie, but surprisingly it doesn't show the narrowed running plate and as with the Crownline kit the shape of the cab cutout is wrong in that the lower radius should be larger than the upper one. Roche did pick up on that detail though his cutout is perhaps a tad small in relation to the window. The half etched cab sides will be laminated up, and I'll try to improve the shape of the cutout then. Maunsell cabs have a very distinctive look, and it is the cabs of the DJH D1 and E1 kits that look so very wrong to me. The Beattie drawing seems to suffer from the short buffer/long overhang syndrome too. Now I need to wait for the October issue to arrive for all the corrections!

It turns out that the one on Ebay that I missed out on (0 bids at £44.99), was relisted (buy it now at £49.99), and that's the one I bought. Looking at sold listings it's a tiny market with extremely limited supply - and demand! This fairly comprehensive kit is giving me a great deal of amusement - so reasonable value. I do regret buying an Airfix 4F body when it turns out there was an unwanted example in the club that would have been free to a 'good' home!

This is not intended to be a blow by blow account of the build, just some notes about what can be expected from this conversion. Work on the tender commenced by assembling the frames, buffer and draw beams to the tender base. The buffer beams for loco and tender are half etched with the rivet detail so were laminated up for robustness. The valances were then attached (soldering from the outside which is not ideal), again I opted (or at least tried) to mount them slightly outboard of the etched slot provided. My stock of full size High Level Kits (HLK) hornblocks did not stretch to the tender so instead of using my Persy chassis (with etched full size cutouts) I opted instead for the Comet 6'6" + 6'6" tender chassis - speedily supplied by Wizard Models together with the most suitable (or least unsuitable) AGW wheels (being 3'11" 10 spoke). It was tricky to accurately enlarge the 2mm slots to suit the HLK Miniblox that I did have in stock, and there certainly wasn't much material left when I'd finished. The MiniBlox were then carefully soldered in before assembling the two frames together with the supplied slotted frame spacers. The twin equalising beams and trim screw arrangement are of my own design. The coal hole was tackled next. The Crownline conversion kit is clearly intended to take the Airfix tender drive, so there is just a very large hole where the coal should go. I used the drawing in Russell to knock up something to fill the hole. Although I'd photographed 31806 on the Mid-Hants when it ran with this type of tender I hadn't captured the coal space, so if I'm wrong now is an excellent time for me to find out... The Comet brake shoes were a bit flat looking, so I fretted out some separate shoes in N/S and soldered them on. I had to fabricate some quite substantial mounts to join body to chassis - these are not yet attached to the body. The wheels are some rough old Romfords on pinpoint axles while I fine tune things, but I'm relieved to report that the tips of the pinpoints are centred on the holes in the frames, and the bearings centred in the hornblocks. Pleasingly, the tender thus equipped runs very smoothly (both ways) through the crossover points on my test track - just like a bogie coach would. Cloud on the horizon? What is beginning to look a lot like the non-availability of the SEF Q Class chassis - I suspect that no news is bad news in this case!

Placed an order for a Q Class chassis over the phone last week, and was told it would go in the post later that day. It wasn't available in their Ebay shop, and that was significant as it turns out, because when I chased the order on Monday I was told that it was in fact out of stock. The helpful lady that took my order has promised me an e-mail with an ETA. Am tempted to go with the 4F chassis for my Crownline Airfix 4F conversion, but there's the tantalising possibility that the Q Class chassis kit will have a backhead in it to upgrade the Bodyline loco kit it is intended for - just like the SEF U and N Class chassis kits do!

The Bachy Maunsell N Class tender is an excellent model and was well ahead of its time, but from my point of view has a weakness in not having room between the frames for EM Gauge wheelsets without a lot of messy and time consuming rework. On my conversion I also chose to cut the plastic coal load out and model the coal space, although that was a piece of cake in comparison with the frame widening! Thanks to Kevin, for the tip on what I hope will be an Ian Beattie drawing that will be really useful once I've tracked it down in the club library. In the meantime my Q has a narrowed running plate ready to receive the Airfix 4F parts to be cut from the loco body which I'm hoping is at least in the post by now. The supplied etched splasher tops were too narrow*, so I substituted them with some cut from thin N/S sheet. The drawbar beam needs to be removed to fit the Airfix boiler and at that point I'll trim the running plate at the rear, not least because the valances are taking a more circuitous route than envisaged by Mr Hill, and are now slightly too short. The valance is fitted almost flush to the running plate and not in the groove provided which would be too far back. A relief to see that the 'underneath' written on the etch is indeed underneath! In the absence of the SEF chassis kit - currently out of stock at Squires - it's time to tackle that tender.

Some preliminary analysis of the etches and castings in the conversion kit compared with the dimensioned weight diagram in Russell (from Eastleigh dwg. SR80) suggests that the overall length of the Crownline running plate, and lengths of cab and smokebox are all correct, but the length of the running plate in front of the smokebox is perhaps 1mm too long and the cab 1mm too far forward. This can only be because the Crownline firebox and Airfix 4F Boiler combo are about 2mm too short overall. Since the relationship of cab to rear driven wheels seems to be correct I could reasonably trim 1mm from the rear of the running plate. It may also be an option to move the smokebox 1mm further forward and add the missing 1mm at the back of the Crownline firebox which appears a fraction short compared with the 7' (28mm) specified. These minor changes would leave the running plate slightly too short, but everything else more or less in proportion which is what really matters. In this case the rear of the cab appears to be 3mm from the end when it should be 2mm. Proportionately that's a whopping error compared with say 1mm on the length of the 40mm boiler or a 1mm almost anywhere in the 35mm front overhang. Errors in the Roche Drawing so far (IMHO): No characteristic narrowing of the running plate. Buffers are drawn too short resulting in the running plate being too long - all of this extra length being in front of the smokebox. Shape of cab roof in plan and front/rear elevation is wrong and cab front windows wrong shape. Controls for the steam reverser wrongly drawn. Chimney looks to be a tad too far forward. The two prominent sloping rows of fastenings for the cylinder/piston casting are in the wrong place and there are too many of them. Happily the Crownline conversion kit has only one of these errors in not having the running plate narrowing. Bottom line is that dimensionally there doesn't seem to be much wrong with the kit even built as intended. A start has been made on assembling the now partially narrowed running plate.

On my I3 the rear axle runs in a tube that is pivoted on an arm between the frames as a sort of internal pony truck that is sprung via a rubbing bar to keep even pressure between the wheels on curves. The rest of the loco is compensated Sharman style with fixed rear driven axle. This is the mk2 version with the very necessary longer pivot arm with primitive side control via a bit of piano wire - note the very fine Sharman wheel profile! Road holding is excellent, but it would be very difficult to fit current collection with such an arrangement. Built to EM Gauge standards the frames are narrowed at the rear. It only needs to traverse a layout with a ruling radius of 3'6" and might manage 3' at a push this being more a function of those air tanks each side of the front bogie. This loco only collects current from the driving wheels, but being compensated and running on handbuilt points (with live frog) this is never a problem.

Fair point - I have good experiences of SE Finecast and Crownline kits. This loco will be to EM Gauge and fully compensated, so I'll need plenty of clearance under the splashers which can be a problem in EM (fat wheels+big flanges). For the SEF kit I'd follow the methods of Iain Rice so would want to thin visible whitemetal edges and add detail along the lines of DLT's splendid Q. If I'm honest though this seemed like an economical way to obtain a Crownline/PDK Q Class body with what I felt would be the benefit of the SE Finecast chassis. Having received the kit I'm surprised that the instructions tell me to glue the many etched brass bits together for the loco body, but to solder the tender body together if I'm up to it. The only parts of the 4F loco body retained are the running plate (thinned), smokebox, boiler and backhead, with the smokebox receiving an etched overlay with rivet detail. The kit gets a demerit for the straight sided running plate, but I had to fabricate a complete new running plate and cab for my Rebuilt River U Class, so I'm sure I can fix that if I try. There's no hopper in the tender, but I've already made those for the U and a Bachmann N Class. The steam reverser is provided, but not the valves/controls above it. I could blog the build if there's any interest out there... Steve