N15class

Just a quick update as I am hopefully I am of to Sao Paulo shortly. Do you ever get those days modelling when you hope they never end as all goes so well. That was today. I assembled the wheels onto the chassis and the whole shooting match rolled with no problems. Just have to fix a torsion bar for to hold the motor away from the cab and the pickup on the leading wheel the other two will be wipers on the treads hidden by the tanks. Then I thought I ought to do the footplate to check things I remade the buffer beams as the buffer mountings were the wrong shape. One thing leads to another and I started the cab, and just look what happened. Again my thoughts are with painting so I am trying to keep the body separate from the footplate and smoke box. Just checking the cab roof it looked a little small, I think itis called tight. Well if all goes well and I get to Sao Paulo, I have found a steam railway to visit. Also hopefully there will be a meeting with a compressor too.

Here a turn up for the books. I have had a chance to get the Buffalo out and give it a coat of satin varnish mixed with a dash of black. It is now been reassembled and is ready for posting. I am very pleased with the way this has turned out. I would have one of these lovely tanks if I modelled the GWR. I was a little concerned when I got the set of parts that there would be a struggle to get a decent loco from them. I would like to have a go at the saddle tank version in 7mm scale I have done one in 4mm scale. Well thats the first of the 3 finished. Lets see what one comes together next. Thanks to you all who read this loco build.

I made the number plates and applied the transfers as number 1282. The number plates are kits that I get from Martin Finney. I like these as you are not limited to certain numbers, and there seems to be little waste in the way of numbers as to you can get extra plates. So far all is fine. Well no but it would be if I could get a new compressor. No chance of spraying the satin varnish. Get a new can of humbrol out of the cupboard and see if I can brush paint to any standard. Unfortunatly it is not like the UK with a B&Q around every corner. But I have found a model shop, thats good I hear you say, for here it is. Also only 3 1/2 hours away. by plane. But fortune smiles sometimes, looks like we are off to Sao Paulo for a week as of Friday so I might be lucky and back in business soon. The result of painting by brush can be seen below. Not good enough brush marks as can be seen. As for now this will have to be shunted into it's engine shed for now, I will get it out as soon as I get some compressed air. So close but the fat lady ain't singing yet!!!!!!

Just a very quick update as no modelling was done today, I thought I would post a picture or two. They all show progress on the painting of the tank body section. I am not totally happy with the colour, but I know the green before 1928 was different. The loco is based on a photo in 1930 so I assumed it was in early green. I am thinking that by the time it has been put on the black footplate, has the transfers and is covered in satin varnish, it might tone it down a bit. Horribly enlarged

I had a successful day I wired up and put the pickups onto the chassis. It then spent about two hours or so running in each direction on the rolling road, seems to be sweet as a nut. Will know for sure when the body is reattached. Fingers crossed. It was lucky I had this to do because the balcony was out off bounds today. Above is a picture taken in December showing the loco body in primer. I was very pleased I only had a few imperfections to remove. The rest of my time modelling today was the detail painting on the back head shown above. Above is the footplate almost complete, it was primed and painted in December. The buffers were done one day last week. I am now wondering whether I should blacken the buffer heads or not.

Here we are at the end of another adventure. The Ivatt has now been finished apart from glazing. I was very pleasantly surprised the transfers from Fox arrived in 22 days, for mail not tracked it must be a record. It normally just never arrives. The emblem is from Fox and the numbers from HMRS. As usual I had to use 3 of the lovely emblems to get two. But never mind. I think the lining looks a lot better now coated with some black tinted varnished. All in all I am pleased with the way it turned out What do you think. Next up is a Dukedog rebuild. I am not sure whether to continue it on here as a blog or open a thread as I did for my own models. Not sure if it is me but there seems to be a decline in responses here. But I will not need to decide now as I am going to get on with the G6 now as it is only a few weeks before we go away. So it will not be started until November, need some tender wheels from Guildex anyway. Nice to have the bench clear for things that are just for me.

I have done a little to this in the last couple of days, mainly metal bashing to get myself in to a place where I can start putting it together. I made new cylinder front and back so I have something solid to work with when it comes to screwing it all together. The front of the frames where cut off, a new buffer beam was made as I ruined the original re riveting it. These will all be soldered to the front of the cylinders once they are assembled. You will see how the cylinder frame has altered, the two originals where soldered together first and made the same. The front of the frames where shortened by the width of the cylinders. The cuts were mad at the angle they will sit. I now need a few spacers to build the cylinders around, that's the job for Monday. I have bade the parts for the compensation I just need to fit the front rocking beam and they should all fit nicely. The coupling rods were assembled and filed up but not cleaned or the hinge fitted, The new holes for the brakes and the rocking arms were drilled just need to fit the hangers and pivot points. I even got to tack solder the basic frames together, will check all is square and finish them of later. But it is nice to make an actual start.

Made a start on 735, managed to get a couple of sessions in. The etching is not a crisp as one would of hoped for, but nothing that can't be got over. The chassis etches were worse than the body ones, just takes a little more cutting out and a bit more filing. First job was to cut the frames for the hornblocks, after this it was plain sailing to get the chassis together. As you can see I have marked all the axle bushes so I know they will fit again when painted.. Having assembled filed and polished the coupling rods the horns were soldered in. Then I found one of the coupling rods had broken at the hinge, the etched hole was far to close to the edge and had broken out. They are only 2 laminates so this created a real problem. Managed to solve it, but having done one I had to do the other so they would match. Now have to repolish. The brake hangers and shoes are only a single etch to I added some plasticard to the inside to give the shoes some depth. Will also help them not to short out. Also made the detatchable as normal for me, this was done with short hangers in the frames and tubes soldered to the brake hangers, then it just clips onto the chassis. I have tried 14BA screws and nuts, but find it is just something else that needs masking or cleaning afterwards. Would of been better if I had of put the leading brake hanger on its mounting rather than under it. Next job will be to fold up the gear box and get it and the motor mounted, to check clearances and put in the motor support. I think I will get the chassis painted and running as I build the body. I am still thinking about the chimney, hopefully I will come up with a solution soon.

Firstly I would like to say I have no idea of the copyright of this drawing, I would like to thank whoever for a very useful drawing, I was going to wait until the 1076 class was completly finished, but I can't, I got out my Ace Models kit of LBSCR's A1/A1x class. This was just to get myself acquainted with the kit. These kits are quite basic by todays standard but for the price they make up into respectable locomotives. I have made a couple of kits from Ace, and the ones I have done fitted together quite well. I am not going to build this as an Isle of Wight or Hayling Island version that seems to be the norm. Mine will be SR No 735, which was one of a pair sold to the LSWR. The other wasNo 734. I will be modelling mine with the Drummond boiler along with the safety valves in the dome, and a stove pipe chimney. I will assemble this with slaters sprung hornblocks, I would like to try ball races but I think I should wait until I get into my new workshop. I have also thought about CSB suspension, but I can't get my head around the conversion of the calculations from 4mm to 7mm, also do not understand how you can work out wire diameter until you have the loco finished and weighed. But thatis a different story. I have checked it all, the kit seems to be Ok I have a rough plan in my head. The only thing I really need to work out is how to make the chimney with out my lathe? The Dome looks like it might convert from the A1 one, if not I have a few Drummond domes about.

Here are a few photos of my 7mm Buffalo under construction. I think you will see it is a very straight forward build nothing to fancy. I am looking forward to the day it is finished I get board with some builds this was one unfortunatly. Above is the footplate section, this just requires the buffers soldering on and then can be painted. I try to build loco's for ease of painting. This is all black so needs only the buffer beams masking. Above and below show the body before and after detailing. As seen from the top photo the bodyis a seperate unit and in the lower it is screwed to the footplate to allow the fitting of the details willstill split atpainting stage. Below is the backhead which I have added a little extra detail to help make it look betterthan the plain casting and also a shot of one of the injectors that have been modified to allow the units to come apart again. I hope that has brought things upto date, I am in the process of painting so I will post those soon.

Hi. I am in the process of finishing off a GWR pannier tank. It is from a set of etches I got from Dave Berry shortly before he pass away. It seems that the etches were for a multitude of pannier tanks, so it was a case of making sure I only used the ones I needed. I do not know when it was drawn but it was very old style, needing a lot of fitting and fettling, an aid to scratch, but saying that it sat on the drawing well. The chassis is in nickel silver but quite thin. It all went together well apart from one major problem, the bearing holes did not match the coupling rods, after a lot of checking it was found the chassis was wrong as the coupling rods matched the outside frames. I have made the frake rigging detatchable as I normally do, wheelswould of been impossible to remove otherwise especially as they screw onto the axle. Well as you can see in the pictures I need to add the pickups and wire the motor to it all. The pickups will be the wiper type rubbing on the treads at the top of the wheel. With the outside frame theyare well hiden.

Today I got down to some serious thinking about the frames. To start with I need to widen them in front of the cylinders. I have marked where the cylinders will go. S I will remove the front of the frame at the front mark. I may well cut the frames again just behind the cylinder to make them removable, this may require a new front and back for them. Sorry about the second photo I was in a rush and only took one so it had to do. I also checked where the brake hangers will come, as sometimes the holes in the frames are wrong, they are so have been remarked but not drilled as I want to check axle holes with the coupling rods. The compensation has been worked out. I will have the front driver rocking side to side and the rear and middle on side beams, with the motor hung either on the centre or rear drivers. I have done it this way to get the triangle under the tanks so there is plenty of space for getting any extra weight over it. I will try a method unused by me on the pivoted axle, which is to hold the wheel bushes pivoted side levers rather than horn blocks etc. I have done the easy part now it is down to making it all work. Here is the sort of thing I would like to achieve, it makes the whole thing easier to work with. Also it looks better than having narrow frames at the front. Lets hope my head is still in gear when it comes to metal cutting time. I cant afford a cock up as I have no nickel silver long enough to make new frames. Must speak to Metalsmiths.

Time to start a new project. Sometime ago I bought an ACME Ivatt 2mt tank. It was sold having been started. The only thing done was some very poor riveting. I think most can be over come, a few small parts may need replacing but that is no hardship really. It is all etched in Nickel silver, so will stand a little more punishment putting the riveting to rights. I have added the necessary bits to build the loco, and also a few bits to improve it. There are not the parts to build a push pull one, I have two types of chimney for it so I should be able to find a suitable prototype to build. This is what I have to work with. I have cut out the frames and spacers to make a start, I got no further as I need to sort out the way the compensation will go. It also has the front frames too close together so I will need to do some butchery to the frames in front of the cylinders. On the tender version I built this was all designed into the kit. I have a couple of ideas on how to get it done. The cylinders and motion bracket also need to be removable to ease fitting the front drivers. I spent most of the session sorting out the rivet detail on the tank sides. Not only was the riveting poorly done but the etch marks are not that good. I punched the rivets flat with flat end bar and the smooth jawed vice. I then cleaned up the outside with emery etc. I then flooded the half etches with some solder to avoid making holes when re punching. I have finished one well I think I have. and the other is almost there. Hopefully they will look OK. If not I will cut some new ones. The poor location of the half etches made things trickier than it should of been. Trouble is they are probably the most visible part. That's it for now. Back soon

I decided I would get the chassis back together so I can quickly finish this if and wen the transfers arrive. I thought for a change I would post videos as most of it is testing and running as various parts are added. I have missed out the first operation of running after the coupling rods are connected. But start with after the connecting rods and crossheads are. I run one side before adding the second. I also at this time make sure the return crank lines up correctly. Next I will add the valve gear to one side and make sure all is going well before starting the second side. It is always necessary to fun in both directions as you can sometimes find something catches one way but not the other. Although this was working very nicely I have had to back track today as the cut out in one motion bracket was just touching or very close to the wheel. I have now ground out the back, and now retesting. I just did not want any shorts when running with pickups. The pickups should be done tomorrow so I will then be able to test through a couple of peco points with ponies on.

Very nice, is the layout documented anywhere?

Thanks I have come back to the feeling the blog, is the best way of showing kit and scratch building. It I think give a logical layout, keeping comments with the part that they apply to.

You have to remember that the principal stock would be first to repainted. You want the paying passengers to see the corporate livery. Any thought to be or at the end of its life would not be touched. Things like wagons etc would only be done as they went through a repair shop. I expect many wagons were withdrawn in their big four livery with just the number hand painted on by the yard staff. As with the big four, items didn't get taken out of use to be painted, it came with servicing.

I've just come back and gone through my whole blog. You know I like the way it works. I have a feeling I may come back to it. I still like the forum side, and will keep it update. But, I feel that this was the best way to show loco builds etc. Much easier to follow. So watch this space a T1 scratch build maybe starting here real soon.

Sorry for not responding sooner. The new chair sprues sound great. A bit late for this one. Now the downer. This will either be scrapped or not finished. Either way it's as far as it's likely to go. We are planing to come back to the UK. Which gives us three choices with our house here. One we keep it and use it for holidays, in which case layout stays but progress might be non existent. Two we sell the house, not very likely. Three we rent it out. Both these last two options mean clearing out the house, which means selling or binning everything. I don't think there's much call for British O gauge here let alone a Southern base 1930's layout. Maybe in the UK I'll have space to start something else.

I also bought this. A GWR K3 PBV. Which after a little work looks like this. All ready for some colour.

Well, as you can see i didn't do much last year. Let's have an up date. The RR R1 is complete. I'm pleased with the way it turned out considering what I started with. The LMS 2P is being lined, I did have a disaster with the tender, and had to repaint the sides. The Dean goods is finished apart from fixing the body to the frames, a little more running in, and a spot of work in the and around the cab.

I'm afraid not much was done last year, the 0395 is more or less as the last post. I did manage to build two SR wagons one ex LSWR and the other a fitted SR one. Both from old kits. The LSWR from ABS and the SR one from janick?

Thanks for all the replies, sorry for the delay, but I've been away from modelling for six months or so. But here's the result of everyone's help.

That would be the E1 that is blue with a big 1 on the side.

Does it need one only the pull push fitted locos had them. Any bit of plastic tube and plasticard will make one.