Chas Levin

Hello Jol, just found photos and a scan of the BM instructions for the BM chassis with the swivelling front end, on your RM Web "LNWR 4mm rolling stock for London Road -it's all packed away" thread; I also read through the related posts, including your note that you added a centralising/springing wire to the top of the front frames to keep the front end under control. I was very interested to see how the pivoted front end works (I'd spent some time after you wrote about it above, trying to picture how it could be done) and I'd say it's definitely a very useful tool to have in the box for possible future use. I can quite imagine though why that centralising/springing wire would be needed. I was also very interested to see the near eye-level photo of your PT with the BM chassis, where you can clearly see the split in the frames, which makes very clear how extremely unobtrusive the join actually is! I know you've since moved away from this idea in your subsequent LRM chassis designs, but because I'm running models on a small layout with very tight curves, techniques like this are always of interest...

Excellent thread - thank you for the wonderful research, drawings and information!

I have the general assembly instructions downloaded from Bill's website so I read the same thing. There is a thin dividing line (no pun intended) on some of these reveals between flash and what I take to be inner retaining ridges or raised lines. No problem though; I now have some 0.4mm on the way and found I have 0.25mm in stock, so I shall set the windows aside until later in the build for now and, when the times comes to turn back to them, I'll move between the various thicknesses according to what seems to fit best. Next will be the underframe and roof detail. Also today I've been looking at the LRM C12 frames and drive train, while I plan the compensation arrangements. I've pretty much decided to go with rigid rear and pivoted front driving axles (thank you again to Jol Wilkinson for recommending that arrangement, as have many other people of course). That leaves some further planning for the bogie (which I intend to have deriving some compensation from the same beam as the front driving axle) and the rear trailing wheels (which will need enough sideplay / movement to negotiate my layout's curves. So no pics at the moment - unless you'd like to see a scan of my brain, showing the electrical activity this is generating...

Lovely looking loco Michael. Thank you for posting - I have one to build, so I'm very pleased to have found these details...

Hello, thank you for the reply; I thought what comes supplied with the kit must be thinner and I shall get some 0.3mm. I too am leaving the glazing and grab handles until last, but I wanted to get the cutting out of the glazing out of the way now (if I have something tedious or a bit boring to be done, I always like getting it done as quickly as possible, old habits etc...); interestingly, some of the windows - the deeper ones - seem to suit using the 0.7mm, so once I have the 0.3mm as well I can pick and choose . Edit: checking through what I have in stock, the thickest glazing (aside from the Wizard 0.7mm) is 0.25mm and that - at only 0.05mm less than the Mousa-supplied 0.3mm - seems very thin to stay rigid in separately cut panes like this. Does it look too thin to you, 2750Papyrus? Am I over-thinking it? I know from experience that 0.25mm works fine in strips fixed inside a thin brass coach side, but getting vertical uniformity here, where the insides of some of the window apertures have come out slightly differently from each other in the moulding process, might be tricky. I've asked again about getting the 0.3mm that comes with the kit, but in the meantime I've ordered some 0.4mm, in hopes that will be the Golden Mean: thin enough to sit properly against the retaining ridges in the shallower windows, thick enough to stand flat...

Finally got going again on the Mousa resin GNR coach, cutting out all the windows: I decided to cut them all now, to a uniform size, fettling later as needed. I'm using glazing strips from Wizard models, 0.7mm thick, and realised as I offered them up that the sill depths vary, as you can see in the photo above. In addition, some have inner ridges that are quite well defined, some don't. I suspect that the glazing that would have been supplied with the kit may have been thinner, so I'll have to remove the inner ridges on the narrower sills, to allow the glazing to sit flush with the outer body surface. A quick test shows that it already does so on the windows with the deeper sills (the taller narrower ones) but not on the others. The thicker body is one advantage this material has over brass; on the brass coaches I've built, I've been at pains to fix the glazing as closely as possible against the inner surface of the coach sides and the very thinness of the brass means you generally get away with it - or certainly at layout viewing distances. This coach should hopefully have truly flush glazing however...

Hello Jol, thank you very much for the detailed answer, which I shall digest properly this evening; I just wanted to reply as soon as I read it though, to say how sorry I am to hear of your retina trouble. My grandfather had the same problem but that was in 1959, when treatment was considerably less advanced and successful as it is these days - I hope the treatment is going well and that you will soon be back to building, rather than just looking. Thank you for your kind words - I'm glad if my efforts help entertain you during your recovery; whenever I look at them I mainly see the faults and errors!

Coal rails, steps, balance pipes and I've pretty much reached the limit of what can be built as separate sub-assemblies: One interesting side effect of building this way - instead of fixing each sub-assembly to a single main construction - is that I've paid more attention to how attaching each section will interact with attaching the neighbouring pieces. On previous builds (of all types of rolling stock) I've come across situations where earlier construction has caused issues with fitting a part in later. Here however, there's ample chance to look at how things will combine, and which spots will need particular attention: the boiler and it's associated parts are a good example... But for the time being, all these pieces will be put to one side and work will commence on the chassis... And I really should do a bit more on the GNR resin coach too: I've been putting off cutting out all the windows

Hello Jol, thank you for the post, very encouraging. I am of course familiar with your modelling from many other threads and from London Road, but I didn't know of your confirmed preference for compensation. Both locos in your picture look absolutely superb; I've always liked the Precursor and may yet build one, but my main area is the GNR and LNER so I try not to let 'foreign' stock get too numerous. That being said, I have an LRM Samson in my pile (early locos sometimes catch my eye) and I've just ordered a Teutonic, because the motion looks fascinating and there's something uniquely graceful about the lines of the loco in profile. A fixed rear and pivoted front driving axles are exactly what I had come to the conclusion would work with my C12, so I'm very pleased to hear you did the same. Did you apply any kind of compensation to the front bogie? I'm considering pivoting that too and linking it - using a rubbing plate - to the pivoted front driving axle. My layout has very tight curves so not only will the front bogie need some management, but the rear wheels may be a concern and I haven't yet worked out what to do with them. I may try something sprung, so I'm also interested to hear that you combine compensation and springing. I think they may need more sideways movement than the chassis allows, but what I'll be able to hide without it looking too un-prototypical I'm not yet sure. Brass contact pads on PB strip sounds interesting too: so far, I've only used plain PB wire which works well for me most of the time but does need a little adjustment from time to time. I think perhaps strip might be more stable... As to springing and CSB, I'm reading through a lot of material on that currently and I do think it may not provide improvement proportional to the extra complexity and construction time, but I am going to try some builds out of curiosity and to see them working. I expect I'll get over my fascination once I've tried it... Either that or I'll be one of those very zealous converts

That looks mighty fine!

Oops - sorry! Should have read your post more clearly Mind you, that does mean I might use some myself...

If only all photos carried this much info with them... Mind you, think how big the books would be!

Those tables are exquisite!

Cab roof mainly done and boiler banded using the bands supplied in the kit (excepting the stepped cab end one) - for some reason there is one less band than shown on the Isinglass drawing, so I've chosen the one that goes beneath the dome as the one I'll need to replicate from elsewhere, as it's the shortest length: I've also started using 188 degree solder for some parts, where soldered sub-assemblies are to be themselves soldered further at a later stage. For these pieces, the smokebox wrapper and the cab beading were done using 188. In both cases, they're jobs I should prefer not to have to repair in the case of later movement...

A busy week has meant less time for the important things in life like models... I've been working on various further sub-assemblies for the body, such as these cleverly designed fold-ups for the in-cab splashers, which both start off as a single flat etch; the one in front was particularly satisfying to complete: And today was my first try at boiler bands: These two longer ones were made easier by the holes in the ends: I soldered small pieces of 0.3mm brass wide into holes beneath the boiler at the point where the ends meet so they could be anchored before sweating them on. The photo's a bit unflattering: they look much neater in real life!

I must preface this Tony by apologising for taking up yet more space on your thread with LED lighting, as I know it's not your favourite thing, but... Following on from the recent discussions: Modelu have now added hollow bodied LNER BR(E) style side lamps to their range and I thought some might be interested to see what can be done with them (no personal connection, just a happy customer). I also use the DCC Concepts ones also mentioned above, but they're single lens and single colour only and whilst building GNR and ECJS brake carriages, I was at a loss as to how to incorporate lit side-lamps, giving white light forwards and red light backwards... until these came along. They're not only hollow bodied, but also have the rear 'wall' missing, which allows the positioning of a 1mm LED where that wall would have been, firing forwards. The lens openings can then take Modelu clear or red lenses and the LED easily illuminates both (though I also paint the inside of the lamp body white). Here are photos of one of a pair I prepared a while ago from test prints, for future use on a GNR Howlden Luggage Brake - apologies for the photo quality, but these are of course rather small and I struggled to get a balance between sufficient light to show the bodies whilst not over-exposing the lenses: The LEDs are installed with thin superglue, having first 'backed' them with thin plasticard; at 1mm square, they're just smaller than the missing 4th wall opening, so they slip inside, allowing the edges of the backing piece to mate with the lamp sides. The lenses are mounted with the thinest possible ring of 24 hour araldite, laid round the upwards facing ring of the lens opening. Here's a photo of one installed on a carriage: I run them from the Traintech motion sensor modules others have mentioned above; some of these have two outputs, one steady, one flickering (intended for effects), so it's possible to run two lamps off one unit. I find that in normal running and at layout viewing distances, the difference between the two illuminations is not a problem, beside which in practice I should imagine few lamp pairs looked identically bright. You can of course use clear or red lenses both sides and I know the way I've done it may not be very prototypical, but seeing the white and red as the carriage goes by always puts a smile on my face .

That's superb! I'd looked at those pivoted top lights and wondered about modelling them too

Beautiful - as others have said, really characterful!

Yesterday's work cleaned up and side tank outer skins made and cleaned - here's everything together, but only posed at this stage: Everything's still in separate pieces: The instructions advise fixing the beading on the side tanks before folding, but I was worried about possible stresses and distortion in bending the soldered beading, so I made a half bend, soldered the long length (plus the right angled section that lies on the same plane - it's all one piece), then completed the bend to 90 degrees, then bent the small remaining unsoldered length of beading to match the 90 degrees and then soldered it, which worked very well. On the question of adding weight in the bunker and the removal of the rearmost vertical part of the cab foldup, I realised that one advantage of removing that piece is to allow soldering the bunker shell from the inside and the subsequent fitting of the cab foldup - the instructions suggest the cab foldup be fitted first... so it's that rear piece has been removed. However, what I don't quite understand is how you can assess the need - or not - to add weight in the bunker, without being able to test the unweighted running characteristics first. For the time being therefore, I'm proceeding with various other work on the body with the intention of leaving the cab and bunker loose until such time as I have a running chassis, for test purposes. I'll get to a point soon where not much more can be done on the body without fixing the various sections properly in place, at which point I'll go back to the chassis construction. I usually build up one basic structure, but one nice aspect of this plan is that at some point following testing, it will not take a great deal of soldering to unite the sub-structures very quickly into something that looks suddenly loco-like . My thoughts on suspension are still inclining towards a non-sprung beam compensation for this build; I know one advantage of this system is that extra weighting shouldn't in fact be needed, but if things turn out to be a little nose-heavy, it might be useful to have the option. At some point - hopefully over the weekend - I'll spend some time examining and comparing hornblock systems from several different manufacturers, which looks like it will be interesting. The ability to drop out the axles seems a useful advantage for possible adjustments or maintenance; another thing that may prove important is how much space the different types occupy between the frames, as I'm working in OO...

A very productive day indeed sir! I don't get that much done in a typical day...

Things are progressing on the C12: Predictably, the smaller things - sandbox lids in this case - take longer than larger jobs. Still a little cleaning up to be done but not too bad so far. The rearmost vertical piece of the fold-up visible in the picture (only posed on the footplate at this stage) is noted as being removable for the addition of weight, with an additional note that leaving it in place may aid positioning. I'm hoping it will be possible to have my cake and eat it, by leaving it in place long enough to aid alignment, removing it at the last possible stage to make adding weight possible if needed.

Got you - sorry! I did think I must have misunderstood, but also thought perhaps it was a bit like one of those very complex radio controlled planes or helicopters, where each outing involves considerable setting up time...

Hi John, nice to hear from you again . Thanks for the encouragement - in fact, the current loco build is not the first. You may have missed it earlier in this thread but I built a DJH J9/10 earlier this year, much easier though - rigid chassis, whitemetal body, DJH motor/gearbox, runs beautifully: I've certainly learnt that figuring out CSB spring placement is a faff... Though I've ordered the High Level Kits CSB Jig to have a look at, as that appears to be a way of taking some of the pain out of the process...

I think I'm the opposite of those who struggle to complete project before starting others and have many in progress: I find it very difficult to work on more than one at once, or to start another before the current one has had every last little detail finished. I'm trying to train myself to work on two at once (one soldering, at the bench, one plastic, in front of the TV) but I keep ending up using each day's modelling time on just one, generally the metal one. Hence the progress currently on the C12, with less headway on the resin GNR coach! As to building the chassis or the body first, I built my first loco chassis-first (because I'd read of that being a recommended order - Iain Rice, amongst others, said this if I remember correctly) but I had to pause the chassis at the unpowered rolling stage for precisely the reason you mention, in order to build the body and be able to determine the fit of motor and gearbox. This time, I started once again with the chassis but have paused it while awaiting the arrival of hornblocks, beam material etc, which will assist decisions on the chassis design. So no, I don't think you're talking rubbish at all . I suspect that whichever you build first, there will be a stage where you want to have both, partially completed, for test purposes; so perhaps it's swings and roundabouts... One advantage though of building the chassis first is that I can watch it run to and fro on my test track while I build the body! I know the NE Kits J77 from Arthur's forum thread, which had some lovely looking pictures of it.

Thank you Mark, yes, that is of help and very interesting. "My O scale MOK 9F uses both springs and compensation beams and is a very smooth and powerful loco" That's very interesting: it's occurred to me that this might be a good combination; too ambitious for the loco I'm working on currently, which will be my first with any type of suspension, but definitely something to try in the future. Most loco suspension I read about is one system or another, rather than a combination - though I realise I may simply not have found others' examples yet. "In 4mm scale I have a Gibson Jubilee which is fully sprung and once set up is smooth and pulls well." Do you mean that the loco requires setting up before each use? "I also have a High Level Andrew Barcklay 0-6-0 which has just compensation beams no extra weight and has better traction than my old K's J72 which is about twice as heavy." That is clearly one of the ones you were referring to in your comment on Tuesday that compensation negates the need for extra weight