CF MRC

It’s always fun to exhibit a layout close to the location it portrays. The personal touch, reminisces and feedback makes for a great time. Tim

Not much to show with this post, but the front running plate has now been soldered to the brass core. As before, I used chemical blacking to ensure that the frames and piano front do not become irretrievably fixed in place. The front body fixing screw was also blacked and screwed into place to prevent the thread from filling with solder. The individual components were tinned with solder, the steel fluxed using a special steel flux which I sourced from Germany. The components were held in place using ceramic blocks and miniature towel clips whilst the ERSA soldering station was cranked up to 450 deg C and applied to the steel plate with plenty of flux. The flux is quite acidic and so after soldering the whole assembly was boiled in a saucepan of water for five minutes (don’t do this if you have white metal or low melting point solder!). Next job will be the second running plate and reversing mechanism. Tim

Thanks for posting that, I remember it being filmed. At the end I said it was 20 years from starting so that makes it 2004ish. That would also tally with the incomplete trackwork in the Belle Isle trough. All a bit younger then too! Tim

I recollect quite a few years ago there was a massive 7mm gauge model of Millers Dale & Monsal Dale on display at Matlock. The modelling was superb, but it didn’t really ‘work’ for me as you couldn’t get far enough away from it to take in the whole scene. That being so, why not make it in a smaller scale? Pendon’s Vale scene works well but could easily have used more perspective effects in the space available. CF is really just a big impressionistic painting with depth. Tim

I am a firm believer in large 2mm scale layouts… Tim

Thanks for the photos, Simon. This is the drawing for the 4-6-2 class. Maybe we need some etched chequer plate, but then maybe not… Tim

The Skittle Alley now has the beginning of an elegant front end with the frames, running plate, piano front and smokebox step made. The frames and piano front are removable, to aid painting and lining in the quite complex NER livery. The prototype is very simple design, but has a tricky front step. The piano front was milled from the same piece of brass used for the smokebox saddle. The curved front was carved in using pink stones and a large abrasive rubber polishing point. It was then cut off and rebated on the underside to fit the running plate. Meanwhile, the tricky little front step has a 6” diameter curved support and so this was made by drilling a 4mm-deep x 1mm diameter hole in some brass. This was cut out, squared up and made to fit a recess cut into the piano front. The two components were silver soldered together, taking care to heat up initially the large component from behind (silver solder saves problems with subsequent heating). The frames were cut out from nickel silver, sweated together and then separated: there were no lifting holes in these engines when first built. The front running plate is a separate piece of steel. Why steel? It chemically black very well. The assembly for holding everything in the correct place, whilst soft soldering the frames to the piano front, was quite tricky. The frames were pushed against the rebate previously formed in the smokebox saddle by means of a toolmakers clamp. The small front end clamp is an orthodontic device for expanding growing palates. Black marker pen anti-flux prevented bits being soldered where they shouldn’t, as can be seen. The sides to be joined were tinned and also the top of the piano box, so that the soldering iron tip had some solder to help transfer heat - a ‘dry’ iron is quite inefficient. With plenty of liquid flux and the iron cranked up to 450 deg C, the joint was soon made! Painting and lining the frames will be a good deal easier with them dismountable. The separate running plate will eventually be soft soldered on to the brass base; previous use of silver soldering makes this all together more straightforward. The running plate is awaiting holes for the lamp irons. Quite a picture-heavy long post this one, but it starts to make the engine look a bit more elegant. Tim

My father used to guard Ampthill Tunnel on the Midland mainline, during the war (he was in the home guard). He told me that the American engines used to have to stop to make steam before continuing south wards. Tim

After a very pleasant few days tutoring at the Missenden Abbey Modellers summer retreat, the tender of the skittle alley has made some progress. The front arrangements are quite different to what I’m used to - a bit like a BR standard in total, but that will become more apparent a little later. The etchings produce some of the components, but it needs a bit extra to complete the job, in fact a bent up bit of Chiltern Green rail. The sub assembly was located at the front, with a slightly increased opening for the drive shaft and then sweated into position. There would definitely be a step on the LHS to allow the fireman to reach his stowed fire irons so that was made with a scrap of 10 thou nickel silver. It was made to fit across the opening, being wedged in and soldered, but with a break line filed into the strip. This was then bent up and fractured leaving the step behind. The rivets on the etch could have been embossed from behind, but it was simpler to leave them as dimples rather than pimples. The beholder will still interpret them as rivets… The loco and tender now look much more in proportion, especially with the excellent correct pattern coal guards etched in N/S by Bob Jones. The two-component lifting lugs on the top of the tender were also fitted: they are quite insanely small! Tim

There are many ways of making Singles pull decent length trains. The Ivatt / Stirling 7’ 2-2-2 on CF will pull 12 bogie coaches. It has a pivot between the loco and tender that only allows movement in the horizontal direction - so much so that the engine can be picked up by the tender. The tender chassis is free floating at the front end but pivots at the rear end on a fixing screw and the rear wheels support the back of the tender; in that way most of the weight of the tender can be used by the engine. The rear loco wheels just go along for the ride with light springing. This avoids the see-sawing effect that could happen with a 2-2-2. The front wheels have two independently pivoted chassis blocks that are kept apart from each other by using a counterbored hole to accommodate the muff which then runs inside the blocks. These blocks were made out of copper tungsten, but could just as well be brass. This avoids the need for springing (so taking away traction) and allows for almost independent movement of the front wheels, rather like a Triumph Herald suspension. My Stirling 8’ Single actually worked better without the tender loaded onto the back - it’s construction was described in MRJ a while back. Hope this helps. Tim

The reason for the quiet time on CF, post Thornbury is that the Showman’s Road Loco ‘Frederick’ has had new tubes fitted, new plugs and a major front end overhaul with gold leaf lining re-done. This is all ready for a trip to Cornwall for the Boconnoc Rally (28-30th July). Anyone who wants to come along is welcome - Frederick cooks a mean bacon roll on the shovel and an excellent cup of tea. I will be taking the 2mm workbench with me, but haven’t decided what to do yet. I will have two granddaughters with me as well, so don’t expect too much! Tim

A great weekend with great company. Thanks for inviting and putting up with me! Tim

They did really well. He is very sympathetic to model railways and used more or less the same line previously with me about space & complexity in making a model. Tim

I am currently making a model if the Raven 4-6-2 class. I had to paint the wheels early on in construction so used the Precision paints colour. I think it’s a bit too ‘strong’ for a 2mm model (doesn’t really matter too much for the wheels) so I will experiment with lightening it and reducing the blue hues a little. Tim P.S. Of course, this engine did run in grey paint for a while…

Dipping in to Ww, as one does, I wondered if I was in the correct place with all this Midland talk… Tim

Dipping in to Ww, as one does, I wondered if I was in the correct place with all this Midland talk… Tim

It’s a bit worrying, bringing the mucky big city to a show with bucolic tendencies (the layouts, anyway). Tim

Steaming would be a bit compromised with the blocked tubes… Tim

The art of model making is what you leave out, not what you put in. The trick is to make the brain think it is seeing more detail than is actually there. Tim

If that doesn’t work, Paul, go to an agricultural supplies merchant, thread some fuse wire into the rope and connect it to an electric fence unit… Tim

In 2mm scale, the wheels are nigh on invisible in tube stock. Tim

The trains are somewhat lost in the cityscape. Having the end open does however allow visitors to have a close look at the trains and engines in the fiddle yard as they come past. Tim

The chains would attach to a U shaped steel slipper shoe that would slide under the wheel when going down hill. The dray-man would put it under the front of the wheel whence it would slide and hence brake the waggon. It could also act as a chock when parking. There are probably many variations on this theme. Tim

Bet your car didn’t look like this, though Ian. Phil Parker took this excellent picture of the Kirtley well tank with the late Steve Sykes’ beautiful scratch built wagons. The sign of things to come is shown by the Sonic Models J50 - they don’t get much better than that. It was great meeting Sam Leung, the proprietor, at the show. Tim

We had an excellent weekend at the Thornbury show. I managed to get this video of the Kirtley WT and many other engines at work. The driver’s view down the layout takes some beating. One of the aspects that really worked well was that we were completely open at the LH end. We always try and engage with the public at shows and we let quite a few people come behind to take a look. This seemed to be very popular and allows people to take a close look at locos and stock - and our brass strip track of course. The new scenic efforts were quite subtle, really, but did make it a bit more interesting in the hinterlands. We are forever trying to streamline set up and take down. We were loaded and in the van at just over two hours on Sunday. Tim