Jinty 52

Finally some progress..... It is over a year since I last posted here on my Class 20 build - sorry. Unfortunately my butterfly mind was distracted finishing off a Derby Lightweight single car unit M79900, Building an Easy-Build Brake Second, Dia 371, scratch building two wagons, one for use as a track cleaner, and just recently, building an Easy - Build Derby Lightweight Class 108 two car unit. That lot will keep the paint shops busy for a while, but not until the Class 20 is finished. Painting is still ongoing but here is where I have got to now. This is my second attempt to post here under the new format. My first attempt a few minutes ago failed as I must have hit a wrong button somewhere along the line!

As I have a number of other projects on the go, progress has slowed a little on the Class 20. However, I am well on the way with the painting now. Here are the completed bogies. I originally added the ATC gear to both bogies as two castings are supplied with the kit. My subsequent research appears to show that it was only fitted to the bogie at the number 2 (cab) end - certainly in the early years, which my model will depict. I have therefore removed it from the model. Fortunately this was easily done with no damage, just a paint touch up. Just to complicate matters I recently saw a Class 20 parked up on the GC at Loughborough which had the ATC at the cab end, but also had the ATC bracket (but no ATC ) on the leading bogie as well! This may be because the leading bogie was originally used at the number 2 end of a Class 20 at some time. I have also completed the cab controls and here they are. You won't be able see that much on the completed model due to the small windows, but what the heck! And finally the fan assembly, which will be bolted in place when the painted cab, bonnet and footplate come together. This work is in hand.

Hi Peter, A brilliant job on the Finney kit! I was speaking to Brian Clapperton at ABC Gears at Leigh yesterday with a view to purchasing his Pug motor and gearbox for the Hudswell Clarke. I told him to expect another order from you soon! That Oakville Ivatt tank you built for me turned out pretty damn good, and this was your first attempt at an etched brass kit! You were thrown in at the deep end with that one! The brass castings purchased from Dave Bollen's Shed Master range improved the look of the loco too. It is still my favourite loco. Mick

Hi Rob, I was expecting you to be there somewhere but I didn't see you. I enjoyed the show and spent a bit of brass on paint and bits and pieces. Mick

The inner bogies have now been painted and pick-ups fitted. The pick-ups needed shortening as they protrude about 5mm below the wheels. Rather than remove the excess I folded it over and soldered it to the pick -ups. This means that each pick-up is now four times its original thickness where it touches the wheels. I had a problem with one of the gear wheels which had a noticeable wobble when rotating on the axle. Replacing the axle made no difference. As the other three were fine I can only assume it was a rogue item. I solved the problem by making a sleeve out of 0.02mm shim brass and then placing the gear wheel on the axle with the shim in place. This went in place much easier than I expected and cured the wobble. When I first commenced running in the bogies the gears were very noisy. However, after careful running in over at least 24 hours on and off they are much quieter now. They will never be as quiet as an ABC Gearbox but they do give excellent low speed running. The gearing is on the low side and the loco is probably only good for a scale top speed of 50mph ( 75mph on the prototype, although I believe they could do more ) but the bogies become noisy flat out. However, it certainly won't be running flat out on my layout so that won't be a problem. The body acts as an echo chamber and a piece of foam will be inserted hopefully to dampen the noise. I have test run it a few times on my layout and been pleased with the results and hope to give it a good run out when painted on Keighley MRC test track at their next "O" Gauge show. Here they are on test.

The reason I let Peter build most of my locomotives over the years are as follows: 1. My lack of time due to building my layout, wagons and carriages, not to mention other interests. I also bought far too many locomotives, wagons and carriages over the years than I will ever need for my small layout!!! 2. Peter has no interest in building a layout or wagons and carriages but enjoys building engines. He offered to build some and I was happy to let him, or many would still be gathering dust as unbuilt kits now. 3. As you say, he is bloody good at it! As I've completed the layout and rolling stock more or less I thought I'd better build my remaining unbuilt (at the time) locomotive myself as Peter is far too busy with his A3 plus he has another two other tasty kits awaiting attention. Peter - Don't suppose you fancy building that Hudswell Clarke for me? Only joking! Mick

And finally the glazing! The window etches are very fine and need careful handling when removing them from the fret so as not to distort them. In addition, they barely cover the window apertures, another reason to be careful when cleaning up the cab casting. I attached the frames to a piece of glazing using G S HYPO Cement which I obtained from Wizard Models (usual disclaimer). This comes in a tube with a very fine dispenser. I then carefully removed the excess glazing from around the frames when the cement had dried. Here they are attached to the cab using the above cement. I will remove any excess cement before masking off inside and out before painting commences. The sides of the casting are quite thick so I painted the window recesses matt black to hide their thickness before attaching the window frames. The cab side windows are 10mm and 9mm respectively. The larger window is facing forward in the above picture. On the other side the larger window faces the rear of the cab. That is about it regarding construction and it's on with the painting and lettering.

Here are the pick-up components ready for assembly, which is quite straight forward. The P/B strip is folded over and soldered as shown. The excess shown in red can then be removed. 0.7mm nickel silver rod was then soldered into the small hole and trimmed to 6mm. You can make it a little bit longer if you like as the wiring will be soldered to it in due course. A 5mm length of 1.2mm outside diameter silicone rubber tubing (supplied with the kit) is then placed on the pin to insulate it from the chassis. Here are two completed pick-ups. The holes in the chassis sides needed reaming out slightly to take the plastic pins and silicone rubber. With care, the smaller holes can be reamed out just enough to be a tight fit for the plastic pins but I made them a tad larger to enable easier removal for adjustment. The small square holes in the next picture were elongated as they prevented the plastic pins from being fully inserted in the chassis. I could have simply trimmed the upper pins but decided against it. The picture illustrates the before and after position. All four holes on each chassis were modified. The above picture also magnifies the poor joint on the lower side! Looking "end on" the there is no gap. I could run a fillet of solder along it but it wont be seen and the chassis runs fine as it is! Here are the pick-ups in place. They will need to be shortened at final assembly. And viewed from underneath.... The above shows that the upper plastic pins would have been prevented from being fully inserted into the chassis side without the modification I made. My intention was to retain the pick-ups in place with a small amount of epoxy at final assembly. However, as I write this I'm wondering if a small piece of silicone rubber on the lower pin will work just as well and make it possible to remove the pick-up at some future date if any problems were to occur. I will give this some thought at final assembly.

To be fair, I don't think the kit is too bad really. I've added a few embellishments, but just building it as it comes can give a decent result. A few adjustments here and there if possible would improve matters - including more written instructions to go with the excellent diagrams. I'm on with the pick-ups now - see my next post. Mick

After my previous post I did a little research and found Ambis Engineering! The chain I require - 40 links per inch ( code CL40) is still available and my order will be on its way to them tomorrow.

I have made further progress since my last post but have been distracted by new kit purchases and obtaining the latest motorised bogie unit from Easy-Build for my Class 108 set which I have had awaiting building almost as long as the Class 20! The next step was to attach the sanding pipes purchased from Modern Motive Power. Unfortunately the brass pipes are not very malleable and I could not bend them to shape despite annealing them in the hope it would soften them a bit. After breaking three out of four I cut the pipes off all of them and soldered 0.9 mm annealed brass rod in their place. This made shaping the pipes much easier. The pipes are supported by brackets made from 1.00 mm angle brass. The next task was to make up a set of Diesel Locomotive Couplings, again from MMP. They went together without any problems after a little bit of fettling. The previously constructed steps and buffer beam pipework were then dealt with. The rubber pipes are only temporarily in place and will be removed for painting. When finally assembled those requiring them will be held up by wire to represent the restraining chains. I've previously used fine chain supplied by Ambis Engineering, but don't know if it's still available. If it is I'll use that instead. Here are a couple of photos with the cab, bonnet and bogies in place. Sorry the final picture is not that good! That just about finishes the construction side of things. Painting comes next.

Nice one Sandy. As I've mentioned previously on your post, this was the first loco I built when moved up to "O" Gauge in the 1990's. I've often thought about buying one of these kits and it is nice to see one built up. My kit was a vacuum moulded re-release of a kit by Highfield Models re-released by my local model shop. It was originally designed to fit under a Lima motor bogie (well we all have to start somewhere!). I hope you don't mind me posting a picture of it below. When I look at yours it reminds me that the height from the footplate upwards on mine is too low and has a squashed look - rather like the so called "mini" produced by you know who! Nevertheless it was carefully weighted and runs very smoothly. I've ordered a ready to run one from Tower Models, the idea was to order a Clayton from JLTRT to make up instead - but that has hit the buffers! Instead I've consoled myself with a Mercian Hudswell Clarke - D2510 - 2519. This is another long-time favourite of mine. I've written the date of purchase on the box so I don't let it go too long (as in the case of my Tower Class 20) before building it. For anyone interested in Sentinels there were two very good articles in Railway Bylines: Volume 10 Issue 12 November 2005 Volume 11 Issue 2 January 2006 This is a long time ago but they still do crop up on book sellers stands at exhibitions. Also anyone interested could try the Vintage Carriages Trust at the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. They have a vast collection of railway magazines and have been a very useful source of information to me over the years. I don't think they provide a mail order service though. Regards Mick

Over the last few days I have continued to make progress with the bogies. First up were the guard rails attached to the outer ends of each bogie. The kit supplies a simple etching that is easily folded and soldered in place. However, the guards on the real thing are "T" shaped. As I had some very malleable brass strip (even more malleable after a few seconds over a gas ring!) left over from a previous kit I decided to have a go at making the guards more like the real thing. First of all I had to go back and straighten out the guards! I then drilled two 0.5 mm holes in a piece of wood and inserted the pins on the guards into the wood, sliding the brass strip underneath and tack soldered them together using 227degree solder - see below I was then able to easily shape the brass strip to the profile of the guard and complete the soldering. The top of the guards by the pins were tinned with 145 degree solder and fixed to the bogies by low melt solder once they had been cleaned up. The sand boxes and brake cylinders were then soldered in place using low melt (70 degree solder). The sand boxes are a bit awkward due to their shape and lack of any fixing pins. I held them in place with blue tack and when satisfied they were aligned correctly soldered them to the bogie. I also added the linkage for what I assume is a manual brake on one of the brake cylinders on the number two (cab end) bogie, along with the speedometer and cable. This casting is not supplied with the kit. I think I purchased it in a set of two from Westdale Coaches many years ago. The other one was used on my single coach Derby Lightweight Unit (that reminds me, I still need to lightly weather and glaze it!). Finally, the AWS castings were added. I'm not sure if there was one on each bogie. One of the preserved locos I photographed only had it fitted at the cab end. As two castings were supplied I have assumed two were fitted. If anyone knows different please let me know. Here are some pictures of the work done. There are still the sanding pipes and a bit of pipework to be fitted. Number 1 Bogie Number 2 Bogie Here are a couple of photos of the loco on my layout. These are to encourage me to get it finished! Mick

The Brakes and Pull rods After a bit more thought and studying the instruction diagram, the brakes didn't turn out to be that difficult after all. I had already drilled out all the necessary holes in the bogie frames before their assembly. (I even drilled through the weight saving holes in the bogie beams. There are seven in each, but there should be eleven....Oh dear I'm getting carried away here!). At that time I'd noticed an indentation on the inside of each of the four vertical springs (no mention on the instruction diagram!) and reasoned that they were for the inner brakes, so I partially drilled them out too. You can see one of them in the photo below, along with the two pins inserted into the inner brakes. The two plastic squares of 20 thou plastic card are used to ensure that the inner and outer bogies are centralised, and are then removed once they are screwed together. The outer brakes were then fitted to both ends. The upper rods do not exist on the real thing and should be removed. They cannot be seen from normal viewing angles and I have left them there for now. The bogie was then turned over and screwed to the wooden platform. This provided a stable platform to fit the inner brakes and pull rods. The wheel bearing strengtheners were then added. On the real thing they are held in place by bolts so I used 16BA screws and nuts for this purpose. That still leaves the brake cylinders, sand boxes, sand pipes, AWS fitting, speedometer (from my spares box), mileometer , bogie steps, and track guards (or whatever they are called). Watch this space! Mick