Shez

"Brass Thing" on order from Mr Griffin!

Thank you very much Norman. Its usually mounted above the handrail on NB locos I think. I never thought of the handrail being a tube. Very elegant arrangement. Clever chap that Mr Worsdell.

I can always rely on Sam! Good work. The photo shows it clearly. Can anyone enlighten us what it is? Don't think Laurie Griffin will have "NER Brass Thing" in the catalogue! The valve below is a lubricator - similar to the NBR pattern I have some of those. There is a preserved example to base it on. The 3D is really useful. Seems really well researched. Shows a flat floor to the backhead - also useful in that it shows the fallplate - something else not mentioned in the kit.

Glad to see progress continuing out there. Has there been any further progress with the layout? Good to see your Denaby wagons. My grandfather worked at Denaby Main starting underground as a pony boy aged 13. At Kettering show three wagons were lined up on the Slaters stand. Denaby, where my Grandad worked, Manvers Main where his two sons worked, and Parkgate Iron Co where my Dad worked! They were even in chronological order.

Referring back to the second picture (which I accidentally uploaded!) Can anyone tell me why the cab floor has a hole in it? There is no mention of this in the instructions - though they did refer to missing pieces on the tender! Has anyone got a photo of a cab interior showing the floor? Next up was the cab roof which Is in two parts that are curved to shape and then laminated together. I used my small rolling bars for the curve though a mouse mat and a piece of rod would have done the trick. Warning to anyone building the kit. It would be easy to throw away the cab inner as a piece of scrap etch left over when other parts are cut - make a note and keep it safe. I have not decided yet whether to fix the roof on or to try and make it removable. The final sub assemblies were the steps - I did these with 188 for extra strength. Question for NER experts. Many of the photos show something immediately in front of the smokebox handrail knob on the left hand side looking from the cab. What is it? - seems to be on other NER locos too but no mention in kit or explanation on drawings or in the "green book" On all locos however braked and whether simple or superheated. So with moving to my mothers its going to be at least a week before I can move on. Stay safe everyone.

Progress has been sporadic. Only a month after enjoying a great 100th birthday party my mother has been hospitalized twice in quick succession. Very worrying in the current climate and we have now decided we need to live with her on a rota basis over the upcoming infection period. However I have made some progress on a number of sub assemblies - nothing permanently fixed yet. A few issues that anyone building the kit may like to note. As no boiler bands were supplied I used some thin phosphor bronze strip. This was very easy to solder and looks good. I may use it again. Then came the handrails. In the instructions and the kit it says to use long ones on the boiler and short on the smokebox. Once I put these on it was clear something was wrong. The rails turned in at the front. All were removed with much muttering. I had some medium handrail knobs which I had bought for one of my NBR projects and these fitted perfectly. It may be down to my modifications to the boiler. Another problem revealed its self when I checked against the drawing the position of the safety valve cover. It was too far forward. Neither of the two marked holes on the underside of the boiler seemed to be correct. Filing back the hole has enabled me to move it to the correct position.

Just stay safe Sam. We are not now under the time pressure to get it finished.

Just got the e mail from Wakefield club explaining activities are suspended for the moment. My wife and I are temporarily moving in with my mother who is 100 and lives alone. However I do hope to be able to carry on with some work on the stock and constructing the water tower.

So own up then. Whats in the Finney 7 bag? As for the ones I got' the GCR 2 8 0 will probably be a bit down the list. Not sure whats up loco wise after the J21 is finished. Have now enough NBR stock to get a small layout going. In the longer run I had always dismissed the GCR in my own native South Yorkshire as too big for O Guage in the space I have. However some recent articles in Railway Modeller by Alan Whitehouse on the Railways around Barnsley have really got me thinking. The article on Summer Lane station and the coop coal yard was particularly interesting and the loco shed at Barnsley Exchange is also an intriguing possibility. There were some very cramped facilities in both cases and I can think of others.

Good day at Kettering yesterday. Really enjoyed meeting Adrian and O Guage Phil. A future project with a Gladiator GCR 2 8 0, and was also pleased to find D and S kits still available. A pair of lovely NER clerestory coaches to add to the pile.

I am making a rare visit to Kettering this Saturday, as I won't be able to make it to the Doncaster show this time as we will be away. Any of you lot around to say hello?

There gets to point in any build where you think "thank goodness, its going to work" . So all that time cash and bad language has not been wasted. I got the chassis up on the rolling road, and put some power directly through the motor. All ran nice and smoothly with no binding. There has also been further work on the boiler, with the smokebox being completed. Again I found that that the ready rolled innner and outer wrapper did not conform to the drawing for the type of boiler I wanted. In the end I made it up anyway and just filed it back to the correct dimensions. I also added the splasher tops. With both these and the wrapper some annealing was required to get the curves right. Good job we have a gas cooker! Having got to this stage I attached the chassis and pushed it through the test track curves to check clearances. All OK it seems. I also found out I am going to have to remove the drive shaft from the abc mini gearbox. I have now got to the point I like to get at with the model where I have enough to be pretty sure its going to run. The chassis has been dismantled and the boiler and footplate separated so the rest of the build can progress. Mostly detailing now.

The next phase of building has been to get the basic superstructure completed so we can check clearances. I first soldered the cabs sides and front in place. This took longer then I expected. I usually like to begin with the cab front and then position the sides. However because of the open front it meant the sides had to be done first. There were no tabs or slots so I used the drawing as a guide. The tops of the small splashers at the front of the cab had to be curved, and I found that it was necessary to heat the two protruding tops to get the rather sharp bend into them. Some rather bad language later I get the cab together and checked all was square. I then moved onto the splashers inside the cab. The instructions suggested quite a bit of fettling would be needed here, and its true that they had to be filed back, but generally they went together easier than expected. Contrary to the instructions I found that it was easier to put the sides in first and the ends last as slots and tabs facilitated this. I have followed the instructions with the middle and front splashers. Usually I make up an entire splasher first, but as again there is provision for slots and half etches I put the sides on first. Once again forming and locating these was easy and is another example of really good design. The more I progress with this kit I think that with a bit of upgrading it could really be an excellent kit. I have got a few locos behind me now and tend to find my way round problems - but earlier on it could have put me off. This was again true on the next phase. I decided to get the boiler sorted next. I soldered it with my usual 188 solder for this job with it clamped in place with soft florists wire. I then folded the front support bent the fire box to shape and tried it on the superstructure. As you can see on the photo it is about 1.5 mill too long. Had I messed up? Looking into the boiler I noticed there are two different markers for drilling holes for the dome and the safety valves. I consulted my Isinglass drawing. The boiler is correct length or the diagram 67A boiler fitted to superheated locos. If like my loco your model has a diagram 67 boiler then it therefore needs to be filed back to the correct length. Looking at the position of dome and safety valve this needs to be done at the fire box end. Nowhere in the instructions is this mentioned. If I had not had the drawing I would have been assuming I had messed up. The kit therefore provides for the different variants but does not make this clear. Apologies to Mr and Mrs Gladiator if they have already rectified this - as I have said, this kit was from an old batch.

Thanks for that kind comment Jazz. I wonder if its more to do with cleaning up as I go rather than prowess with the iron. I do find that the temp controlled iron I now have makes the job a lot easier compared with my earlier efforts. Back now from a trip to North Norfolk, a wonderful place I had not visited previously. Great coastal walks and birdwatching. It could almost get me thinking about little blue engines and teak carriages!

Its great to see you back in action. I will no doubt pester you with messages again whenever I get stuck!

This week presented the opportunity to crack on with the J21 and with a rolling chassis completed it was on with the brake gear. I do find it helps to make the brake gear removable , and so went for my usual approach which involves substituting the wire for a 14BA nut and bolt, with a piece of brass tube cut to act as a spacer. Straightforward, well it should be, but as I had not done an NER loco before I hadn't taken into account the brake hangers. This involved a bit of adaptation. In the end the hangers were soldered on but with the brakes captive inside but able to swing back and forth to enable easy removal of the wheels. They will then be spaced correctly be making the pull rods removable, with the spacers being made of brass tube with bolts soldered inside, having cut of the end. I have not fixed these in place yet as the chassis is going to be set up and dismantled a number of times and there is further detail to add. On the Pickersgill I made use of Slaters plastic brake blocks, and having some left and decided to do so again. I filed them down to look a bit more NER. Its a lot of faffing about, but I find it makes painting, fitting pickups testing and maintenance so much easier if you can get the brake gear off safely. I have also added some further spacers to strengthen the chassis. Still to decide on current collection. Was looking at the plungers on loco wipers on tender option, but the chassis is really quite narrow and though I drilled holes for plungers I am not sure if there will be room. In the meantime I decided to get on with the basic superstructure of the loco, so I can check what will be some very tight clearances on the footplate. I bgean with the cab sides which are on the extra etch which converts what is essentially a J25 etch to a J21. Before fitting I decided to add the detail, window frames, handrails, beading and the internal window runners. These are very nice crisp etchings, though the very thin window frames took some careful soldering. Again its the usual strange mix of brass and nickel silver in the kit. This took me a bit longer than expected so fitting these to the footplate will have to wait until next session. As we are now away for a week I thought I would finish with a photograph that documents progress so far.

Its the Connoisseur "Claymore" J83 kit from Jim McGeowan. The kit includes the relevant parts to backdate it to the original Holmes design before the LNER rebuild. Lower front splashers, dome with lock up safety valves, baseplate for whistle, and open coal rails. I also replaced some of the castings with lost wax versions from 62C models. (Peter Mullen) The only other modifications are to the chassis to fit a motor on the back axle, and strengthening the coal rail etch with half round wire. I described the building of one of these on my "Shez's workbench" thread on kitbuilding and scratchbuilding. That was the unfitted version. I didn't chronicle this build as apart from the chassis and the westinghouse gear it was pretty much identical. Good session down at the club this morning. Sam got on with electrics while I cut the ply for the river and roadway using the templates made earlier.

With a basic chassis completed I decided to get the running plate constructed. As I have said before this is supplied as for a J25 and has to be adapted to suit the larger wheels of the J21. A diagram is provided in the instructions suggesting how to do this. It suggests extending the gaps for the wheels by 3.5 to 4mm at each end. I decided to cut 3.5 and then file. I marked out using a scriber and once again the trusty jewellers saw was pressed into action. One quirk of this kit is that some of the body parts are etched in nickle silver rather then brass, and the extra thickness was a real help here meaning fears of bending the footplate were unfounded. I don't know if this is general with this kit or just the one I have got. I then added the draw bar the front buffer beam and the valances. In each case I did a series of tacks first before running the seam to make sure nothing was pulled out of line. It makes for a strong structure. The photograph shows the fixing nut at the cab end. Once again the hole was far too big for the 6BA nut provided. I therefore soldered a washer to the underside of the footplate and then filed it flat to create a smaller hole. This seems to have worked fine. Constructing the footplate enables me to check those all important clearances of the footplate holes before returning to the chassis to add the bake gear and other details. Initail tests suggest a little more filing will be required. So concludes this rather random series of posts!

The design of the chassis made it difficult to use the springing method I have used on my recent builds. I therefore decided to give Slaters hornguides a try. The front two axles are sprung with the driving from the fixed rear axle. I am very pleased with the result as the chassis runs freely. I think this is probably down to the use of the master chassis to help position them. I don't think I would have got the same results without the help of this excellent piece of kit. I would certainly be happy to use them again. I was a little concerned that the two spacers provided would not be rigid enough so I used some of the spare ones provided on the etch. However, take care these are slightly wider and had to be filed down to fit. I don't know why this should be - I don't think there is any indication that they are scale seven spaces or anything like that. The London Road Models stamp on the chassis etch suggests it has been blown up from 4mm. To make fitting the horn guides easier I cut off the springs with the jewelers saw and then soldered them on again once I was happy everything worked. Once again I used little bits of scrap etch as strengtheners.

I have made quite a bit more progress but have had problems downloading images from my camera. With a little help from my son I have managed to recover some. Firstly I turned my attention to completing the tender. I said that the NE tenders were nice and straightforward so far, but things did get a bit more tricky from this point. First the tender flares. Theses were half etched and needed to be bent over to form the curve. Problem is there isn't much to get hold of. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts I decided to gently anneal the metal to give it some help and managed to role the flares over a bar held between finger and thumb. They then attached to the tender surprisingly easily as there is a little grove to position them. Another example of the well thought out design of the etches. I then added the side coal rails, which again was surprisingly easy, as once more there was a small half etch along the bottom to allow then to fit. The end coal rail was however a little too narrow , so here I had to add some little wire strengtheners at the corner and add do a little careful filing. I think it will be OK once its painted. There is then a confession in the instructions that two pieces are missing. The sloping back plate in the tender and the coal board support. However it was simple to make both parts from a piece of scrap etch. Once again I referred to the Isinglass drawing which I have found invaluable. I ill get one when making any LNER loco in future. Both were cut a little over size with the jewelers saw and than filed to fit. Unfortunately I have not yet been able to retrieve the photo that shows this. The photo of the rear of the tender shows the lovely brass buffers provided. Many of the castings supplied with the kit are excellent. Unfortunately this does not extend to the white-metal tender axle boxes and springs some of which were broken. I am thinking of replacing these with a set from Laurie Griffen. I then followed the instruction sequence and added the plates on the tender top. Here a little filling with solder and filing was required to get a good fit.I made a drawbar and completed details such as handrails and lamp irons . I then put the tender to one side for the moment and returned to the loco. It makes a very nice model.

The motive power for the branch when running the early 1900s stock is now completed and ready for the paintshop. NBR class D no 828. Some of the detail parts like the westinghouse pump and piepwork are not yet secured to make doing the Holmes/Reid passenger livery easier.

Sorry to refer back a few pages, but I have been away from the Forum. Can you please tell me what you used for the boiler bands on the Dean Goods repair, and what thikness it is. I am building a kit without boiler bands supplied and this looks as if it would work well.

Just found your thread and really enjoying it. I have a Scott and a Glen ready to build in 7mm. (both NB Models kits) Really great elegant looking locomotives. I will do an 812 further down the line. Your thread has really given me a push to try a bit of scratchbuilding myself in the not too distant future.

A couple of questions for NER /LNER experts out there. Firstly, As when I built the Pickersgill, I cant find any reference in the kit to a fall plate between the tender and the loco. The absence of these get to me as much as the absence of crews in moving locos. (is that the explanation - the crew have fallen through the gap.) Both the Isinglass drawing I have, and photos in the Yeadon books seem to show one but I cant work out if its attached to the loco or tender. Any ideas out there? Secondly, I will finish this loco in the early LNER black, lined red livery. As I will be preparing the wheels soon, can anyone tell me if they were plain black or did they have red lining around the edges?

Good to hear from you Jamie. Still following the progress of Green Ayre from afar.