nickd

....I have finished the pivot stretcher. The pivot plate is a bit simplified as I haven't decided how the boiler cradle will sit on it. The work looks a bit scratchy for a couple of reasons. 1. I'm a poor photographer, and photography is not in my top 50 so the quality is unlikely to improve. Sorry. 2. The chassis are so small that it's very hard to solder up, let alone clean up afterwards. I ended up grinding scalpel blades to various shapes to be able to scrape away the excess solder in the little corners of all the stretchers. Because its so small you have to be quick and use a lot of tissue soaked in water as heat sinks, this way you don't unsolder previous work with heat transfer. Not lingering with the soldering iron causes your soldered joints to look a bit blobby and requires extra cleaning in those inaccessible corners. (Sorry, this all sounds a bit moany doesn't it! Very long day.) Cylinder blocks next. This is the bit where someone with more NG experience than me gets in touch and tells me the etched cylinder parts are wrong too..........

...middle stretcher/motion bracket made from bits of scrap brass and NS. Carrier for pivot next......

Thanks for the heads up. I shall soldier on and see where we get.

Thanks Paul. I think I have what I need now. The frame stretchers bear no resemblance to the real thing so will have to be scratchbuilt. And the motion bracket is a bit sparse too. Will have to scratchbuild a lot of the chassis. All part of the fun I suppose. Hopefully the upperworks will be a bit more detailed.

Does anyone have a finished one if these and wouldnt mind posting a picture? I'd like to see how the valve gear, motion bracket and cylinders are arranged if made as per instructions. Thanks

.....I'm happy with the result so far. Motion bracket stretcher next. A lot easier.....

...so as you can see I have made some frame stretchers for the Garratt. I had a problem trying to decide where they should fit on the chassis supplied in the kit. When I cross referenced the drawings with the chassis etch it turns out its a whopping 8.7 mm too short! So I have cut out and fit some suitable extensions. I cut out one extension part and soldered it to a piece of scrap NS and cut round it etc etc. I hope this isn't a reflection of the rest of the parts in the kit.......

...so the rear stretchers are more or less finished. 11 pieces in each one, but a vast improvement I think. More stretchers next......

....I have started making prototypical frame stretchers, firstly the inner ones. I measured everything up from the drawings and decided to go ahead. The modification will also involve alterations to the inner bogie and the frames supplied in the kit. I think the kit is a generic thing that allows wiggle room for the many variations, and the WHR No. 87 has quite a few differences! Anyway this is the upper part of the stretcher made from 0.4 mm scrap brass. I'll make the bottom portion tomorrow, I think the pics are pretty self-explanatory. The thing in the foreground of the last picture is the stretcher supplied in the kit. More tomorrow......

Well folks the Whitby tanks are on hold while Slater's make suitable wheels, so I have moved on to my next commission for the time being. It's a Backwoods Kit for one of these: I've made the coupling rods and detailed them with oil caps and knuckle joints; Then I moved on to cutting the frames and modifying them to accept hornblocks from the Alan Gibson range (a bit 4 mm-ish here, apologies!) I sold the inappropriate Romford spoked drivers and acquired some disc wheels that are the correct diameter and nearly the correct pattern. They look a lot better. I milled off the crankpin bosses and added balance weights to hide the mess. There are more pictures to see on my Flickr page here https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/42950172280/ Next I'm going to make some prototypical frame spacers.......

And a couple more.

Here's a couple of pictures of things I've made over the last few of years. Sorry all not NER.

Sorry yes Gareth it is. Forgot to mention that.

Hi all, I don't post much on RMweb but thought you might like to see some pictures of my nearly-finished build. It awaits new NER wheel sets from Slater's. It's built from some etches I commissioned specifically for this build and castings mainly from LGM, but some from patterns I made myself. It'll be on show at Telford on saturday and sunday. I'll look forward to seeing you

It's not invisible, I just spend a lot of time scraping it off.....

Looks good. Just discovered this build and have enjoyed reading your thread. A few good tips in there too that I will 'borrow!' By the way modelling isn't my primary job, I own a vegetarian cafe. Keep up the good work. Nick Dunhill