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Thanks Mallard. One of the really good design features of the kit is that the cylinders, slide bars and motion brackets build up into one demountable unit. They are assembled on the frames to get everything lined up and one it's all soldered together, it simply slides out upwards. It is fixed back in place with a couple of 6ba screws. I seem to be missing a number of pictures from the build so I hope this pic of the assembly of the unit will explain.

Before shaping the cab roof I beefed up the etched cross member at the rear of the cab with some square section brass and also added 2 additional cross members from the rear one to the cab front. This was then quite rigid and allowed me to use this as a template for shaping the roof before fitting. The cab rivet detail is all half etched as is the window beading. One other error in the kit is that the smoke box door ring casting is too small in diameter by about 4 mm and also it does not have the required rivet detail on either side. To correct the diameter, I cut the ring at the bottom with a razor saw and then splayed the casting until it fit the smoke box etching. I then wedged a piece of white metal cut from a casting in my spares box into the gap and fixed with low temperature solder. After cleaning up it looked fine. The rivets were added by marking with the punch and then counter sinking the punch marks with a 6mm drill. I then added some small glass beads that I got from Hobbycraft, into the recesses and fixed with super glue. You have to be carful to get the depth right otherwise when you put the bead in it sinks too far and you don't end up with a dome showing to represent the rivet. I was a bit remiss in not taking any photos of the fixing of the boiler smoke box and firebox, but as can be seen, the smoke box saddle is a white metal casting.

Hi Tony, great shot of the loco wheels. Looks like a scene from the erecting shop in one of the big loco works. I have looked through the thread, and apologies if I have missed it, but are the cylinders and slide bars demountable to allow easy fitting of the fron drivers? Cheers, Peter

With the chassis on its wheels I moved on to the footplate. Used the GW rollers to bend the drop plates at the front and back of the footplate. It went together without problems and here's the end result. There's a fair few rivets to punch out on the footplate and this was done using an automatic centre punch with the etch place on some 2mm aluminium sheet. The aluminium sheet prevents distortion and with the auto punch you get a consistent hit with each rivets. For larger rivets I give two hits/rivet but again it is consistent. Much better than using a punch and hammer and a lot cheaper than a rivet press. The rivet press is of course much better for punching rivets in virgin metal but for half etch this gives a good result. You do need to find a punch that exerts the right amount of force though. After that I started on the boiler, smoke box and firebox. The firebox is built up around spacers and 6 ba nuts. You set up the front and rear of the firebox with the spacers, then form and fix the firebox wrapper around this structure and solder. The wash out plugs are half etched and need to be fitted before the wrapper is added. For my chosen loco, I needed to drill an extra hole low down on each side to add an extra washout plug and there were some spares for this in the kit. Unfortunately I did not take an pics of the firebox after assembly before it was in place on the footplate. The boiler comes pre rolled but the smoke box requires rolling by the builder. This was the first time I had used the GW rollers and they worked very well. I have the 6 inch set but I believe a 10 inch option is also available. The 6 inch should be fine for most boilers in 7 mm scale. Here's the boiler and smoke box in place on the frames. The cab has the half etch detail for the rivets and side window beading in place so that saves a lot of time and effort. The metal is quite thick even half etched so it is still robust. In fact this kit has some of the thickest etchings I have come across and I broke a pair of side cutters removing parts from the chassis fret. That said, this does not show in areas that matter and does not detract from the fidelity of the model.

No it's definitely a dog in this neck of the woods. don't think being likened to the pig's b*ll*cks is quite the same thing.

Thanks gents. Have a look at dibateg's thread on his Ivatt class 4 builds. They might end up flying, but they are definitely not pigs. More like some part of a dog's anatomy.

Thanks Ozzy. You are right I could have opted to put the joint behind the wheels but I figured it was as broad as it was long, which ever way I did it. I decided to cut it in the middle as I marked on the drawing below, solder a piece across the gap on the inside with a piece of waste fret between the gap (about 6 mm as I recall) with the joints filled will solder. The result before paining was not as good as I would have liked, but I did not consider the joint would show after painting. Fortunately it was OK. As it happens, it was the inner laminate for the springs not the middle one as I wrote earlier. See diagram. And after painting.

Yes, personally I prefer etched parts for the brake components. If not then cast brass or N/s with W/m last. Just noticed a minor fault in the kit. If you look at the ash pan, you will notice a joint. The ash pan is part of the etch on the middle laminate of the loco springs between the middle and rear axles. For some reason, the spacing is set for a short wheel base loco, so it needs to be lengthened. You could cut it off and replace with a new piece of n/s, or as I did cut it and fill the gap with a piece of waste etch. The other joint line is out of site behind the break hanger and shoes.

On to the loco chassis. As do a number of modellers, most notably Jazz on this forum, I like to keep things simple when it comes to the works. My favoured method of construction is to have the outer driving axles rigid, with the centre axle allowed some up an down float, controlled by a simple nickel silver or phosphor bronze spring. Normally I just "ovalise" the centre bearing holes, then fit a square washer on the inside of the frame, with a piece of waste etch butted up against it to stop the bearing rotating. There are other ways of doing tis but that it what this old stick in the mud does. Anyway, in this case I did a variation in that I made the hole into a rectangle, on the premise that it is only the lowest and highest point that matter, and it seemed easier to file the hole straight rather than trying match the profile of the turned bearing. Here's what it look like. I then soldered a piece of waste fret into one of the half etch vertical grooves provided for those who want to compensate or use sprung horn blocks. Instead of a squared washer (which I find a pain to make), I soldered a piece of waste etch on the top and bottom of the turned brass bearing butted at right angles up to the piece of fret in the groove. The result is that the bearing can move up and down without rotating. Other than that I followed the instructions in assembling the rest of the chassis. Here's the frames showing what it looks like inside and out. The middle bearings were sprung on the out side behind the wheels with some nickel silver wire. Here's the frames after fitting the wheels. The coupling rods are etched laminates pivoted on the knuckle joint as per the prototype. I do not like joint being on the middle crank pin as you then have 3 relatively thin laminates rubbing on the pin which tends to wear groves in it. At least that is what I found with my Acorn R/B Merchant Navy. The break gear is all etched apart from a couple of cast brass linkages on the cross beams and goes together very nicely. The bogie also goes together without any problems and is fitted via a captive bolt and spring fitted to the slot on the bogie stretcher plate. The spring gives some downward pressure to help keep it on the rails but there is no side control. Here's the coupling rods. They are fluted on both sides so the top one shows the rear of the left hand side one. This is break gear and sand pipe set up. This is the 1st kit I have built where the brackets to fix the sand pipes to the chassis were included. Finally for now, the etched double shoe brake hangers. 9 parts/hanger if you include the mounting rod and the 3 pieces of rod through the side brackets on the hangers. Quite fiddly and time consuming but very satisfying once done. I will have to resize some more of the images before continuing.

The Revell enamels I use are metallic, No 94 for the brass and No 93 for the copper. Also I note that my last pic of the tender looks like I made a hash of bending the tender top. It is in fact just the lighting/distortion from the exposure, and you can see it's fine if you look at the pic of the same side further back in the thread. Had me worried though!!

Superb workmanship and a nice touch on the wheels. Will have to remember that for future builds.

Once the tank was together the addition of the various castings, which were very good quality, was quite straight forward. The white metal buffers were replaced with some cast brass items from Gladiator. This shows the method used to attach the cross members. The second and fifth rivets were drilled through and some 0.6mm brass rod soldered to the cross member which can be slotted in and out by spreading the frames. Here's the method of attaching the tender frames to the base of the tank. They are slot and tab located which makes it easy to fit them and the "V" brackets under the tank were on the frames and are simply bent at right angles and soldered to the base. Here most of the castings and other etched detail is in place. Note the difference in the tender vents on these tenders compared to the normal tall round ones on Ozzy's tender. And finally a few more shots of the completed tender.

No posts in the last hour or so! All been watching the footie? It's over now we have qualified so everyone back to their benches.

One thing I did change was the arrangement of the fitting nuts and bolts for the chassis. The instructions suggest soldering the bolts to the tender top, but I soldered the nuts instead as it is far easier to put the bolts into the nuts with a screwdriver when fitting the chassis than the other way round. Shorter bolts were later fitted to clear the footplate.

Ok, let's see if I can get the hang of what you blokes above have suggested. Above is a pic of the tender tank construction. I didn't take any photos during the build at this stage so the next two shots are courtesy of OzzyO from his Princess Anne thread. Although they are of the David Andrews 9000 gallon riveted tender kit, they are identical to the construction of the Javelin 9000 gallon part welded/part riveted tender. Some of the detail is different, the rivet pattern on the tank sides and the tender tank vents for example, but the basis method of construction is the same. Thanks to OzzyO for use of his pics. If you look at the pics you will see that the bunker plates rest on an inner frame. Ozzy mentions that he had to do a bit of filing to get it to fit right and as I recall with mine it was the same, but no problem. I am not a big fan of annealing and if I can get away without doing then will. In this case I managed to bend the tender sides in at the top without it. It all went together very easily although the fire iron tunnel also required some filing and filling of gaps with solder to get it to look right. A nice touch is the fitting of the rear steps through holes in the back plate, you then fold a tab over inside and solder from there. Voila - no cleaning up required! As Ozzy (and others) have mentioned, much better to solder from the inside when it is possible. Well it all seems to have work as suggested so thanks again to Martyn and Ozzy.

Thanks OzzyO.

Thanks Martyn, I'll give it a try on the next post. Cheers, Peter

I failed to mention earlier that the kit comes with quite comprehensive instructions with numbered sequences to follow in relation to exploded drawings, and also which includes drawings of the frets and a list of parts to help identify the various castings. I actually started the build with the loco chassis, but I have resized all the tender pics so I'll kick off with that. It is quite conventional by etched kit standards in that it has an inner removable chassis with the axles, bearings and wheels, with the tender under frames and axle boxes being purely cosmetic. The chassis is designed for a rigid construction but the option to "float" the middle axle by filing away the half etch centre hole to make a "slot". This is designed to include springing via rodding connected to the bearings passing through a spacer, with a phosphor bronze spring acting on the end of the rod. Half etch cut outs are also provided for those who wish to fit horn blocks or compensation but not parts are provide for this. I went with floating and springing the centre axle which is my preferred approach. Half etched index marks are provided to drill holes for plunger pick up to be fitted, but again these have to be supplied by the builder. The brake rigging is all etched which I like, and the chassis went together without problem, just building as per the instructions. The only bit you have to solve for yourself is how to fit the frame cross members and make them removable. If you solder them into the frames you will then be unable to remove the inner chassis. I opted to fit rodding to the cross members which slots into drilled through rivet detail in the frames. I did this for both cross members an then found that the water pick got in the way. In the end I modified the rear one so that it is permanently fixed to the water pick up gear and comes out on the chassis as can be seen in the last two pics. I note that some of you manage to post a number of pictures with text in between. Can anyone tell me how to do that? I only seem to be able to post the text in one block and then add the pics afterwards.

I paint them by hand after spraying the main colour using Revel copper and brass. Don't know the reference numbers but I will check and post later. The brass is very "life like" on small parts even without weathering, but I don't think it would look the part on a GWR safety valve cover. The copper only looks ok if you weather it, but as you can see it looks pretty good.

Before starting the kit I scoured my railway books for information on the Black 5s, which despite from being a standard LMS design, had a myriad of differences. The long wheelbase variant introduced under Ivatt was similar in appearance to the later Stanier variants, but with a lot of detail differences. My chosen prototype 44679 differed as below. I have noted where this was and wasn’t catered for in the kit. Built with a part welded/part riveted tender – supplied in the kit. Had roller bearing axle boxes with modified spring hangers – plain bearing boxes supplied in the kit with the original type spring hangers, so sourced the roller bearing variety from Gladiator. This means you cannot build an Ivatt version with plain bearings and modified hangers, as some had, from the kit as it comes. Had “flat type” tender vents –supplied. Had feed water filters on the outside of the tender frames between the 1st and 2nd axle boxes – supplied. Had pillars (handrail k nobs) both top and bottom on the cab back plates – supplied. Had rocking grates with an operating lever running from the front of the cab along the right hand side of the firebox – not catered for in the kit so made the lever from waste etch. Had double brake shoe hangers on the loco – supplied (etched). Had raised oil boxes part way along the footplate on both sides - supplied. Top feed placed on the front boiler ring – supplied but needed modifying to the top hat cover type. The oil atomiser was placed on the footplate near the rear of the smoke box on the right hand side – not provided in the kit so sourced from Laurie Griffin. Ivatt type steam cocks and pipes on the cylinders – Stanier type supplied so sourced from Laurie Griffin. The blister cover on the stop cock for the atomiser steam supply was placed lower down on the left hand side of the smoke box, below the handrail - supplied. The steam lance cock was placed higher up on the right hand side of the smoke box – not provided in the kit. Could not source a suitable casting so made from scratch. The top feed pipes ran under a cover plate in the boiler cladding. This is supplied in the kit but is too long resulting in the pipe emerging too low down on the boiler. After following the instructions I realised it was wrong and (with much cussing) corrected it. This left a whole low down on the boiler sides but these are mostly obscured by the back plates to the sandbox fillers. There was no oil box on the top sidebars and these are supplied as such in the kit. Longer slide bars fitted – supplied. Shorter, 10’- 10’’connecting rod – supplied. Longer union links fitted – the original shorter versions were supplied on the etch, and I had to modify these to make longer. The other option is to make from scratch, but I think it is as broad as it is long, as to which the best choice is. In addition to the above mentioned sourced/scratch built parts, the following parts were required. Cast brass steam heating and brake pipes to replace the white metal ones. 3 point oil boxes made from scratch to replace incorrect cast brass ones supplied. I will show why later when I get to writing up the build in detail. 6 additional 2 point oil boxes were required – had 4 cast brass in my spares box and made two from scratch. Oil cut off tap between lubricators and the oil atomiser not supplied – made from scratch. Scratch built the oil boxes on the etched drop links and combination levers. Ash pan operating lever –not supplied, sourced one from Acme from their Ivatt Class 4 kit. Injector operating levers – not supplied, fabricated from waste etch. Top joint and screws not etched in the boiler, so scored the joint and added a representation of the screws from tiny brass nails. Forget where I got them from some years ago. The operating links from the mechanical lubricators to the valve gear are not supplied so made these (cosmetic) items from waste etch. There should be a right angle pipe inside the front left hand frame under the smoke box – used a cast brass item from a Slater’s Caledonian pug, again from the spares box. Added the locking screw handles to the sieve boxes using some 4mm scale handrail knobs and brass wire. Square cover plates (X2) added to the shoulders of the cylinder wrappers. Replaced the cast w/m buffers with cast brass items from Gladiator. Added the two missing rivets either side of the smoke box ring. Two additional wash plug holes needed to be drilled low down on the firebox sides. There were enough spare plugs (etched) in the kit. Otherwise the kit was built as per the instructions which are very good, but if anything else springs to mind during the write of the build, I will highlight it. And just so it's not all boring text in the post, here's another pic of the completed loco.

Yes I have some notes that I made, plus the instructions and of course the photos taken during the build.

Stephenson valve gear!!! Where?

Here's the remaining fret resized. Also as I have advantaged of having already finished the model, 2 shots after painting lining and weathering. In my time I have built kits from Jim Harris, College Models, Acme, Connoisseur, Agenoria, Chowbent, MMP, JM Models, DJB, Slaters, Piercey and DJH. Of those DJH are the most expensive and probably the best in terms of quality and ease of build. I would put this kit above all of those as I found it an absolute joy to build. Looking at OzzyO's thread on the "Princess Anne", the design and construction of the tender appears identical, with the same inner framework to support the coal bunker, so I do not know if there is a connection between the design of this kit and David Andrews. I have never had the pleasure of building one of the latter's kits but from what I have heard and seen, they are also excellent. Although I have all the pictures of the build, I will take my time over posting it as I need to resize all the photos.

In my write up on the Seven Duke, I have mentioned my previous build, the Javelin long wheelbase LMS Black V on one or two occasions and also posted a couple of pictures. There seemed to be some interest in this on the forum so I though I would do a retrospective write up on the build. I was lucky enough to fine two pristine and complete examples of the kit on the Guild stand at Telford in 2010 which were on offer at just over £200 each. The price at the time was about £320 (from Gladiator) so they were a bargain. Having examined the two kits extensively and satisfied myself that they were complete, I took the plunge and made my choice. Here's what you get in the box, along with the ABC motor gearbox and Slater's wheels purchased separately.The pic for the tender sides will follow as I need to resize it.

Superb work and beautifully clean! Like the method of attachment of the boiler conduit. Is that fixed with epoxy via the pins after painting to ease the lining process? I made the handrails and regulator rods detachable on the Duke to aid lining but never considered making the conduit detachable. Maybe next time. I built the College Models Kit of the "flying pig" some years ago. It made a very nice model but the kit lived up to the loco's nickname in that it was an absolute PIG to build. The MOK kits looks to be in a different league though and I would guess much more pleasurable to build. Cheers, Peter.