pete_mcfarlane

The last week has mostly been spent on the frames. The were slowly cut out of 15 thou nickel silver, with much swearing and braking of piercing saw blades, and the filed to shape. I made a plasticard template to ensure that they were the correct shape, but as the scribbling on it shows I got the bogie support wrong (this was corrected on the actual frames). After taking this picture, the pilot holes were opened up with increasing large drill bits and then a reamer. I then fitted bearings, and soldered the frames together using a Comet frame assembly jig and their spacers. Some spare (slightly too small) Romford drivers were fitted, and amazingly it's all sqare and level. The openings for the bogie wheels is a weak point (the real frames have the massive section above the footplate to strengthen this section) so I've yet to fully cut them out. I'll do this when I have the bogie built and fitted, so I only remove the metal I need. There is a continous stip of frame spacers above the opening, to give some extra strength. And lastly, the body was perched on the chassis for a photo. The next week or so will be spent fitting the two together properly and adding detail to the chassis.

I'd not thought of doing that. It won't work on the (Maunsell modified) I4 cab as the gutters don't extend to the edge of the roof. However I'll file it away for future reference.

This is the result of a weeks work. Most of the effort went in to the bits of the frame that project above the footplate. These took a while to shape correctly and get them at the right height. There are three parts of this model that I reckoned would be a bit tricky, and this was the first. The second was the smokebox saddle, but that was surprisingly easy to do, although still I need to fit the curved sides (as I've no brass shim thin enough to curve to shape to hand). The third and last will be the chassis, as the profile of the frames has lots of changes of height, and should be fun to cut out. The blanks are in front of the superstructure, ready for marking out on Sunday. Two more things are worth mentioning about the body. I used some 20mm brass tube from Eileen's Emporium for the boiler.And the slightly odd design of the cab and tanks on these locos means that they are being assembled round the boiler, with the cab removable (as the curved edges of the cab roof means that I can't make the roof removable). The plan for the next week or so is to cut the frames out and assemble them. I'm finding that scratchbuilding a loco in nickel silver is a lot easier than I expected, but a lot more time consuming. The biggest time killer is cutting out the parts, although that may get quicker as my metalwork skills improve.

Firstly, I'll apologise for the slightly dodgy photo, showing the clutter of my work table. This is the current state of progress with my much modified Hornby E2. It now has buffer beams, buffers, and handrails. Various bits of beading have been added from Evergreen plastic strip, and and smokebox door fitted. The latter is from Mainly trains and was intended for a GWR 14XX tank. Progress is very slow, but steady. This might get finished at some point in 2012. Since taking the photo I've fitted a Westinghouse pump (a very nice cast whitemetal one, which I think came from D&P models). One of the big problems I found with this project was a lack of decent photos of the first 5 E2s. Most of the available photos of this class seem to be of the last 5, with the extended tanks. I'm mainly working from a photos of 32100 at Stewart's Lane in the early 1960s, so this is likely to end up as 32100. I'd like one of the extended tank batch as well, but I'm not modifying another Hornby model in a hurry.

Yes, it's going to have a good scrub and rub down before I paint it to remove any lumps of solder, glue and gunge. My soldering isn't the neatest.

I had a bit more free time than I'd expected today, so I made a start on the I4. First of all I produced some rough sketches showing how it's going to fit together, where the fixing screws will go etc. This show shows the general mayhem on my kitchen table. Having got that far, I started cutting metal. It took two goes to get a decent footplate with straight edges.. The footplate is 10 thou nickel silver, with 2mm square brass rod underneath to represent the valance. Buffer beams are from NS strip. I've decided that this will be number 2033, which had cutaway buffer beams, so these were carefully filed to shape once the beams were soldered in place. As per the advice in Guy Williams' book I've not yet cut the holes for the wheels and motor, leaving these until the footplate is a bit more rigid.

The T1 is now mostly complete. There's still a few details to be added to the chassis, and I'm in the process of assembling a cab interior out of plasticard. This is partly guesswork, being based on some slightly murky photos of T1s the show parts of the cab and some photos of the cab of the preserved O2. I'm guessing there's some similarities, since they are both Adams locos. Photos of the ca to follow when it's done. This is the current state of the loco. The main hold up was getting the dome to sit correctly. This took a lot of milliput, and sanding down, to get it correct. I'm not completely sure about the brake rodding. It's a bit flimsy, surprising given how robust the rest of the chassis was. The rest of the details - handrails, cab fillers, whistle etc will be fitted after painting.

Yes and no. I now have a big pile of bits - some of the wheels (still waiting on the drivers), some tubing for the boiler and a pile of nickel silver sheet, strip etc. I've also tracked down some photos of I4s which I have on order from the Transport Treasury. I'm hoping to start construction in about a week or so, once the Craftsman T1 is ready for painting. I'm still mulling over Portchullin Tatty's advice on gearboxes - I've not tried a High Level gearbox before, but they look interesting.

The T1 can move under it's own power. After the problems with the chassis on the J, it was something of a relief that it needed very little adjustment to run smoothly. Just some tweaking of the bogie pivots and some slight enlarging of the cutouts for the bogie wheels. The pickups are a bit non-standard due to the odd design of the chassis - a piece of PCB was bolted to the top of full length frame spacer between the frames. The do work. The main castings have now been added. I'm battling the base of the dome with filler to get it reasonably smooth. It wasn't the best casting ever. The inside of the cab, showing how far back the flywheel projects. I think the backhead will need to be slightly further back than it should be to hide this. And lastly, a quick update on the E2. It now has the correct smokebox saddle/cylinder covers, and I'm working on the tank top beading. The cab openings have been enlarged, and the tops of the tank and bunker adjusted to match the real thing. Why Hornby got these wrong I don't know - they are nothing to do with the dimensional compromises needed to fit their standard chassis.

I wasn't very impressed with some of the earlier Ayjay models EMUs, but this looks rather good. The separate jumper cables do help a lot.

I've finally taken some decent photos of the Chiver J class, in all it's late 1940s grottyness. I've also done some more work on the T1. Friday afternoon was spent constructing a replacement bogie out of nickel silver. I decided that the lump of whitemetal provided with the kit wasn't worth bothering with. The new bogie supports the rear end of the loco in a way unknown to the designers of 0-4-4T kits in the early 1980s. I had a good read of an Iain Rice article in an early MRJ, which whilst intended for a full compensated chassis is still relevant. The bogie slides in a slot to give it a decent amount of sideplay, which also involved enlarging the frame cut outs to clear the wheels (odd, considering this is designed for 1980s OO wheels with huge flanges running round train set curves). I've yet to experiment with side control springing - this can wait until pickups are fitted. All of the soldering on the body is now complete. I added a fair bit of extra detail, and then took a nice long shot so you can't see most of it. There are injectors under the cab, buffer beam detail and various other odds and ends. No steam pipes are fitted, as I'm basing this on photos of E75 taken in August 1930. I'm now fitting the castings. These need a fair amount of work to clean them up- most of them should be usable, but they aren't the greatest I've ever seen..

The chassis is the wrong way round - I should have posted photos of the chassis and loco oriented the say way round. I've now managed to shoehorn a Mashima motor and Branchlines multibox in to the space.

A trip to the local Sorting Office after work on Friday resulted in a parcel from Branchlines. The E2 chassis now has a Mashima 1220 motor and 67:1 Branchlines Multibox two stage gearbox. It drives the rear axle under the cab, and the gearbox needed a fair amount of it's sides removing to fit (and not be visible). I also had to reduce the thickness of the moulded backhead. It's pictured on my hi-tech loco test facility - none of this rolling road nonsense for my locos. This is the current state of play with the T1. It has a proper cab floor and front cab bulkhead, since the cab won't be full of motor, some Gibson LSWR buffers and various bits of beading attached. My fingers survived this quite well. The biggest problem were the etched coal rails - the needed shortening to fit. They weren't the easiest of components to modify with a file. Other than that it all went together with no major problems. You can also see my dodgy soldering - this wont show when it's painted......

A further couple of evening's work saw the boiler assembled and soldered in to place. The boiler and smokebox wrapper needed some slight adjustments to the correct shape (careful bending with fingers...) and the boiler had about .75mm filed off at the cab end to enable it to fit without pushing the front of the footplate down and out of alignment. It's still nowhere near finished, but I couldn't resist balancing the castings in place to get a rough idea of what it will look like.

Hi Nick, I was very impressed with your 1P - I had a good read of your blog entries before starting on the T1. If I've got my sums right, the Mashima motor I'm using wont project in to the cab, but the flywheel will by a couple of milimetres. Hopefully this can be hidden by the backhead (which will need to be made from scratch, like the rest of the cab interior).. That just leaves the frame cutouts to fill - I've soldered some strip in to place which hopefully hides them once the body is in place. If it doesn't work, them I've still go the option of replacing the chassis with soemthing a bit better. Pete

Saturday was spent soldering up the T1, an these photos show how far I got: It was a lot easier than I epxetced. I made one modification to the body - E75 (the loco I'm modelling) had a flat top to it's cab cutouts. The kit is for the batches with an arched top, so this was adjusted with needle files. I also found that the bunker rear was too high, so it was cut down to fit - I suppose it's better to spend a few minutes with a file than finding that it was too small and having to make a replacement part. The chassis needs a bit more work than the body. These are the frames. A bit basic - so I'm making two modifications. Firstly, I had some Alan Gibson cast springs for the E2 project. I'll order some more for the T1 - they aren't quite correct, but will do. The second modification is to fill the visible part of the motor cut out with brass strip, since I'm not planning on using the Airfix 1001 motor the kit is designed around. The only real problem I found with the chassis was the slightly odd construction - a single continuous frame spacer sits at the bottom between the two frames and is located by various tabs and vertical pieces at the ends. Or do if the tabs aligned up with the holes in the side frames. I cut it in to two sections to get it to fit. I'm now waiting for a set of Gibson driving wheels. I also have to work out what to do with the bogie - the kit comes with a lump of whitemetal, and is essentially an 0-4-0 with a loosely attached bogie flopping around behind it. Apparently that's how they used to do things

I've not yet started cutting metal, and won't for some time. But I've made the following progress. I had a tidy of my railway books on Sunday and tracked dug out these two books: I've had both of these for a while, but it's only now that I'm actually going to try building a loco. The Ahern book cost me £1.75 from a second hand bookshop on Watford High Street in the summer of 1995 when I was a student. The Guy Williams book was bought a few years later - my local library had a copy as a kid and I borrowed it many times. I've also posted orders for some of the parts I'll need, including the motor and gearbox from Branchlines. I'm planning on using a big Mashima can motor and North Yard gearbox, along the lines of the mechanism in my J class tank engine. This is quiet, smooth and controllable - it does take up the lower part of the cab, but this isn't visible once the roof it on. And as detailed here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/986/entry-9025-next-projects-modified-Hornby-e2-and-craftsman-t1/ I'm having a stab at building an etched loco kit for the first time, and finally finishing off my one and only attempt (so far) at a scratchbuilt chassis. Hopefully the experience should help me when I start.

The J is done bar some touching up of the paint. When this is done I'll take some decent photos and upload them I've (foolishly) decided to scratchbuild an LBSC I4 for the 2012 challenge. http://www.rmweb.co....-atlantic-tank/ This lead me to dig out my one and only previous attempt at scratchbuilding a loco chassis in 4mm scale. It's incomplete and has been lurking in my box of half finished projects for about 4 years. I had trouble finding a suitable motor and gearbox to fit, due my liking for flywheels and dislike of small open frame motors. I've decided to get it finished, before staring on the I4 chassis. After a couple of hours with the Branchlines motor and gearbox data sheet/price list I reckon one of their multiboxes will do, so one is on order. The frames were drilled out using a hand held drill. Despite this it's far more free running than any of the kit chassis I've assembled. The chassis goes under this, which is not for the faint hearted. A Hornby E2 body stretched to scale length. I've been working on this on and off for for far longer than the chassis - about 12 years. It made use of the Hornby bodies multi part construction - the boiler and footplate were cut in different places, glued back together with plasticard spacers and then carefully sanded to shape. The tanks were extended with new sections at the front and the skirt under the boiler removed. The Hornby loco sits too high, with the drop in the frames increased - this was removed. The biggest remaining dimensional issue is the side tanks - they are 1mm too low. I'm still deciding what to do (if anything) about that. It needs a lot more work before it's finished. The other loco project I'm now working on is a Craftsman ex-LSWR T1 0-4-4 tank. This is a bit out of place with the Kent/East Sussex locqtion of my planned layout (although they did work in to West Sussex on the Midhurst branch). I'm really building it as an introduction to etched loco kits, and also to practise my soldering in case I decide to go for a metal body on the I4. So far so good - this is the result of an hour and half of soldering:

Thanks for the positive comments. That's the good thing about this year's challenge - we've got just over 6 months to do it.

Apart from a few wonky plasticard attempts when I was a teenager, I've never scratchbuilt a steam engine before so now seems to be a good time to try. I did consider building some wagons or a building for the Scratchuilding challenge, but came to the conclusion that this would defeat the whole point . So rather than repeating something I've done before, I'll have a go at pushing my skills a bit. I've settled on the I4 class as a suitable prototype. These are a nice straightforward design - no splashers, very few curved parts and nice big side tanks to hold the motor and gearbox. There's a photo on one of these locos on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LB%26SCR_I2_class. Like a lot of Marsh's locos they were pretty hopeless, despite being superheated, and were gone by the end of the 1930s. It just about fits in with my planned layout's location on the Kent/Sussex south coast border, as the real things were shedded at Brighton in the 1930s and had their cabs cut down to fit the SE section loading gauge. It will be 4mm scale, 16.5mm gauge and painted in SR livery with a 4 digit number. There isn't a kit available, and I doubt if Bachmann will be doing one for a few years. I've yet to decide whether to build to body out of plasticard or nickel silver. This will depend on how well the chassis goes....

How about 31890, the rebuilt 3 cylinder River tank.....?

The R1 is definitely on my list to do - I've had the wheels in my box of unstarted project for about 10 years. I also bought a Chivers LBSC D3 at the same time as the J, so that will appear eventually.

The loco has now been painted. First several coats of dark grey (not black) paint and a red buffer beam. The Vallejo red paint covered incredibly well - two coats were enough to get decent coverage. The loco is modelled on a photo in the Bradford Barton album on Wainwright locos showing it in Southern livery, but recently renumbered with it's BR number which is still pretty clean. I added the HMRS southern lettering before doing any weathering to get this effect. The light colour streaks (Limescale?) were then added. Then several coats of thinned matt varnish, tinted with various combinations of grey and leather to give a dirty effect. I'm not sure if the area around the new numbers was repainted or just cleaned - I masked it off and painted it black. And then applied the numbers. The renumbering on the real thing must have been a rush job - the lack of symmetry is copied from the photo, and they didn't bother to give the loco a thorough clean first. Coal was added to the bunker - before varnishing so the matt varnish removes the unrealistic shiny glitter effect that you get with small lumps of coal. I'm still using a tub of crushed coal that my late Grandfather crushed and sorted. The custard tin has a best before date of 1978. And this is the loco ready for varnishing, with crew (Bachmann Scenecraft), fire irons, headcode disks and a few spare lamps. The plastic driver will be less shiny after a coat of varnish. He's staring in to space, mentally composing a letter to his ASLEF rep about his cab being full of motor.

The 04 now has a full set of handrails and some Markits sprung oval buffers.I think the buffer heads project too far forward, so some packing is needed at their rear to reduce this. The Southern 03s have larger airtanks in front of the cab, compared to the ones on the Bachmann model. The replacements on my 03 were made from Evergreen plastic tube with the domed ends filed and sanded to shape from 40 thou sheet. They are glued to the cab front (as were the original ones) - the model splits in to a separate cab, footplate and bonnet which will make attaching the connecting pipework interesting.

Having undercoated the Loco in Tamiya grey spary paint, I added the missing rivets to the smokebox. These were done using Archer rivet transfers - basically blobs of plastic on a carrier film. I went for a vague representation rather than trying to represent every single rivet. This isn't the best photo, but if you click to view it full size, then the rivets should be visible. I'm now in the process of painting the loco, using Vallejo acrylic paints. The main colour is a very dark grey, rather than black, as the loco is going to be weathered quite heavily.