nickd

I seemed to have got through quite a lot of the build this week. I began by making the smokeboxes. The wrappers for both locos were without rivet heads, so that helped. All the parts in the kit for the smokeboxes were used. They all fit nicely, but the smokebox wrappers have half etched lines on the inside to aid shaping. In reality they just produce a threepenny bit shape and witness lines on the outside. It would be good if manufacturers just used thinner (half etched?) material which can be folded by hand without the need for half etched relief strips, although I suppose that would not allow pips for rivet heads to be raised. See above for bunker rears. Someone pointed out to me that the smokeboxes in this kit stick out beyond the sandboxes and in reality the fronts of the smokebox and sandboxes should coincide. They were right. I decided that the way to achieve this would be to shorten the boiler. The kit advises the use of a ring of brass wire to produce the quarter circular section cover between the front boiler band and the rear of the smokebox. I decided to make life more difficult by cutting out circles of 1.0 mm brass sheet to the required diameter, and radiusing one edge. These were soldered concentrically to the rear of the smokebox to give the same effect as brass wire with a fraction of the dressing. The smokebox and the boiler were stood on the footplate and I could measure how much to cut off the front of the boiler so that the smokebox front and sandbox fronts were in line. It was quite a bit at 1.8 mm. I soldered the boiler to the smokebox and added all the cast weights that Jim puts in the kits. The next task was to fettle all the castings for the chimney, dome and SVs. The brief was to replace the white metal castings in the kit with brass castings from elsewhere. The kit castings for the chimney were not hollow (!!) and the SV plinths, covers and valves were one cast lump, so probably a good decision. I did have some issues with the replacement brass chimneys and SVs. The Adams chimney was fine but the later Drummond chimney had a couple of issues. The Drummond chimney had casting marks that went through the bolt heads on the saddle. The only way to remove the lines and make the saddle a good shape was to grind off the cast bolt heads, shape the saddle and then drill the saddle to accept replacement fake bolt heads from my favourite German supplier. Also the chimney cap has 4 holes in it. When I put the chimney on the smokebox the holes were not in line with the axis of the boiler so had to be filled and re-drilled. An easy fix but....... Also neither chimneys were hollow all the way through so I still had to drill and cut out the bottom and do a fair amout of grinding with a vicious looking burr to clear ot the flues. All in all 4 hours work to fettle 2 chimneys. I used the cast white metal kit domes, which were a bit pitted but filled ok with low melt solder. I moved on to the safety valves. I dressed up the plinths and shrouds and popped one on the firebox. The plinth nestled very well on the firebox clothing but..... FFS! This time I altered the saddle to twist the casting straight. It would have been quicker and better to cut off the shroud and either reattach it or make another one!! Next I made the steam manifolds with all the pipework and whistles etc. The LSWR loco has 2 whistles... And the IOW loco has a church organ whistle and a steam pipe that feeds the displacement lube in the cab...I think! The next step was to complete the cab interior of the early loco and add a crew. Actually I need to add the displacement lubricator when it turns up. I left the IOW loco cab until I have made all the Westinghouse system as the brake part is in the cab and I don't have a handle yet. I finished the week by fettling the last parts required for the tanks to be completed. On monday I'm going to have a mass session soldering everything together!

Not much progress on the 02s this week because of the above, however I did manage to add some pipework. I added steam heat and air brake pipes to the IOW loco and some vacuum brake pipes to the LSWR version. No train steam heat pipes on the latter as it hadn't been invented at that time, or rather the LSWR weren't that good at customer service (like Markits!) All the hoses are detachable to keep the painter happy, and there's some pipework detail represented under the footplate. I also ditched the kit CWM injectors and added some nice cast ones with copper pipework. The LSWR early injectors look a bit weedy! I've put it off for long enough so it's cab detail next week.

I have had a couple of days off from the 02s to carry out a couple of little jobs. One was fixing a Slater's Saint for a Guild member who approached me at Kettering ('A morning's work!' said the Loco Clinic, HaHa.) The other was a footbridge built from an iffy Churchward Models kit now marketed by Phoenix/Precision of SR Z class kit fame (don't you just love hand drawn, blown up 4 mm etches?)

More progress was made this week. I added the handrails and extended the cab floor into the doorways. The tapered cab door handrails were made by spinning nickel silver rods in a mini drill and filing them into a slight taper using a file. The spinning rod is supported on a block of wood. The kit comes with cast whitemetal buffers but the brief was to replace them with turned buffers from Markits. The buffers were very nice but the customer service at Markits is not. As is the case with all telescopic model buffers a certain amount of hardware extends to the inside of the buffer beams. This inhibits the fitting of support gussets so I decided to make the buffers self contained. I've done this with quite a few sets of buffers, but these were easier than most because they are rather nice turnings. The cast ones can be a nightmare to convert because they are often not square or the hole doesn't go through the centre etc. The Markit items have nice stocks that are accurately turned and have drillings for the fixing bolts. I took brass rod and filed it into a hex pattern using the flats on the chuck of one of my pin chucks. These were let into the drilled holes in the stocks and soldered in place on the rear. I had to made additional holes in the stocks for the SR model as the buffers had acquired extra fasteners by then. The fake fasteners I used for this application were from GHW-Modellbauversand in Germany. The Markits buffers don't have a packing disc between buffer and beam, but both of my chosen prototypes did. I cut these from 0.8 mm nickel silver sheet. I can only imagine how much quicker this step would have been if I had a lathe. The next step is to shorten the bit sticking out of the back of the stocks to the thickness of the buffer beam. I did this by drilling a hole in some scrap sheet of the same thickness, poking the back of the buffer stock through it and grinding off the excess length. The buffer heads had to have 4.2 mm cut off the length. This meant that the thread for the fixing nut was removed. I decided to use a ring cut from NS thin walled tube as a new fixing soldered to the end of the head (you need to use Baker's fluid as a flux for this so be careful.) The buffer shanks then have to be drilled out with a 2mm drill to form a relief for the ring. I drilled 2mm into the rear of the stock for this. If you're a bit lost have a look at this sketch. Hopefully it will add some clarity, but maybe not! You end up with something like this, and you can see my scribblings on the sheet under it. I've converted many sets and they all follow the same principal. The buffer beam furniture was completed with some CPL SR coupling and safety chains for the LSWR loco. The CPL stuff is very good but they take a while to assemble. Taps and dies are required. Yesterday was spent adding steps to the underside of the footplate and closing the water tanks. Lead sheet was added to the inside of the tanks. More next week.

Here are a few pictures of the work I did yesterday on the 02s. I spent a large part of last week preparing all the various parts for the loco superstructure and was able to assemble it all in one day, twice!

Work has moved on and the chassis have sand boxes, pipes and pickups. I messed about with the pivot for the bogie and decided that the mounting hole should be slotted slightly to allow a little sideways movement. This allows the model whizz round a 6' curve smoothly, but I did introduce some simple side control using phosphour bronze wire. Next was the footplate assemblies. These went together easily, the valances have fold-over tabs that locate in half etched rectangles on the underside of the footplate etching. The tabs are there to help locate the valances but in actual fact lift the lengths of valance in between them out of the half etched slot along the footplate edge. The valance unsupported by tabs then has a tendency to wobble about above the etched slot. Next time I think I would either remove the tabs and locate the valance etch in the slot or not file the etching cusp off the top edge of the valance etch. The rest of the week was spent cutting out and preparing body parts. The beading was attached to the side sheets and opening cab doors added where appropriate. The cab fronts and rears were prepared. Bars were fitted to the IOW cab rears and all the brass cab window surrounds prepared. The structures for the cab interiors were prepared. The last job of the week was preparing the bunker rear sections. The parts provided have etched lines on the rear to aid bending. The lines aren't continuous across the panel and when you begin to form curves witness marks appear on the outside. I decided against trying to dress these out and just cut out rectangles of thin nickel silver sheet as replacements. Next week I will assemble it all.

I like Jim's kits, they go together very nicely and are easy to make. This is a simple out-of-the-box build of a pair of 02s one from the mainland and one from the Isle of Wight. The plan is to do a few minor upgrades to the cab and some of the pipework on the loco body. I have borrowed a copy of the Bradley LSWR 'Bible' of Adams locos for reference. However I'm not a LSWR buff and would be grateful for any help/comments that would help me along the build. One loco will be of no 185 in early LSWR era and the other of W17 Seaview in SR Malachite Green era. As usual I began the build by making the rods. Both had fluted rods and I have added a few bits and pieces of detail. I decided to make the rear driven axle rigid and add some simple suspension to the front driving axle. I used Slater's square horn blocks and horn cheeks made from 1.5 x 1.5 mm L section brass. I used the rods as a jig for accurate location of the axleboxes. The rest of the chassis build so far has followed the instruction sheets. If anyone has spotted anything that's wrong please let me know and I can ammend it! More pics here https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/51904857513/

Here's a few shots of the finished GWR BG Rover. I made it and Warren Haywood painted it. The few pictures I have of the loco all have the same driver in the cab (W Sansom apparently!) Andrew Stadden made me a custom figure of the driver and a fireman, and Evan Griffiths painted them for me.

We're on the last leg! The coal rails are a complete faff to make. They have to sit above the flare in the tender side and be straight and parallel to each other and the tender. The corners have to be the same radius as each other and the tender corners. The best place to start is to plant the mounting posts in the correct places. The kit has special posts that fit over the ends of the division plate and the front coal plates. I started with the division plate making sure that it was central, then the front coal plates and their posts. The free standing posts were then carefully placed so that they were all in line. It's important to spend time here getting everything lined up, it'll make mounting the coal rails easier. I made a jig to set the height of the rails. I say jig but it was really a strip of scrap brass filed to the required width, it could have easily been a drill shank of the required diameter. The brass rod is bent, checked and offered up etc etc etc. I didn't have any rod long enough to go all the way round, so there's a joint at the rear post. Couldn't decide whether this helped or was a hinderance. It took ages to get it looking right. Then I added all the boxes. The tool, sand and water filler boxes are all fold up etches. They are accurately etched but take a while and some care to get neat and square. Lots of the cast replacement ones I have seen are a bit crap, but maybe I would have saved a lot of person-hours by getting Mickoo to 3D print these items. Mick is one of the few people I'm aware of that does high quality, useable 3D printed parts. So there it is. (Sorry I couldn't be arsed to rebuild the loco for some publicity shots. It's partially stripped for painting.) It'd be with Crayons (or is it Felt-Tipped?) Haywood by now if our bloody Land Rover wasn't broken again!! More pics when it's reassembled post paint, but there's a few more construction pictures on my Flickr account here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/51890789204/

Here's a couple of pictures of the Z after all the muck has been applied by Warren Haywood. The loco just needs some coal and a crew.

After a week or so faffing with a Z and a Rover it's back on with the Queen tender, although there'll be a bit more on the Z when the painting is done. The kit came with the wrong tender for my build, which Jeff and/or Pat Ennis swapped for the cost of the postage. The model represents a Queen towards the end of it's life, post BG, with a Dean 3000 gal tender. The tender is nearly the same length as the loco and is much bigger than the original Armstrong tender. The chassis is cunningly designed with a rocking beam system enclosed inside the well of the water tank, as with the loco all the etches are very accurate. It is easy to build, but I swapped out the brass bearings supplied in the kit with some from my stash, as the OD of the kit bearings was smaller than the etched hole in the rocking beams. The water scoop components fit together nicely and mount on the bottom of the water tank. The brake hangers and blocks are fabricated fron some zig-zagging etches, which are a bit of a faff to make but probably the best solution to making this type of assembly. The brake hangers and rigging are designed to be hung from some rods attached to the rocking beams. Attaching the rigging would connect the brake hangers on opposing sides of the tender and prevent the beams from functioning unless a clever system is designed to allow the rigging to move with the suspension. I was certainly up for the challenge of this but the budget for the build was not! I made some new mounts, attached to the water well sides, and moved the brake hangers rearwards a fraction to allow vertical movement of the wheels in the rocking beams. It functions well but wasn't so much fun to build. The axle boxes and ouside frames were assembled next. These tenders carried a variety of types of axleboxes and all are catered for in the kit. The frame etches are designed to be modified to suit. The nett result of this though is having to assemble each axlebox/spring /hanger assembly from 4 different castings. Good job I reduced the budget above! The footplate is made from a clever lamination of several etches, they are very accurately produced and allign nicely. You then fold up the tender inner structure. I had an issue with the design of the half etched tabs that have to be folded through 90 deg to support the front coal space etch. I guess the time spent in the etching bath dictates where the fold of the half etches will occur, and in this case the spacings produced to mount the inner structure was too tight. I cut off the half etched tabs and replaces them with some internal runs of L-section brass. These give the same (correct) allignment of the tender tank assembly. Next was the dreaded GWR tender side flares and corners. The tender side is a very long etch that has to be accurately folded (using a 4 mm drill shank) to fit round the above tank assembly. First though I formed the flares at the top of the etch. This was done by taping a suitably sized rod to the top of the etch and manipulating it by hand, a section at a time. First one side, then the rear and finally the other side. Then the front of the tender sides have to be modified to give the correct shape. There are cutting jigs supplied in the kit to support you with this task. The etch fitted very nicely round the tank and located nicely into the half etched locating slot round the footplate top. The dreaded corners.....I elected to flood the fingers with solder rather than try to insert a casting. It takes lots of care to file the solder to shape. There's no secret apart from patience, and accurate alignment of the fingers before applications of solder. I was pleased with how these turned out, although they look crap in the photos. More next week and more photos here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/51876737133/

And lurking in the background.

The next step in this mammoth reassembly job was the oil pipes from the mechanical lubricator to the axleboxes. This takes a lot of patience, especially when it came to making the P-clips! It's a bit dusty in this shot! Then I reassembled the loco and got the DCC decoder tuned in to match the motor requirements and sync the chuffs. Now it's back with Crayons Haywood for the application of the rest of the muck. Hopefully more pics soon of the finished loco. There's more here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/51862132117/

Thanks, so you have. Nick

The Z is back from paint. It took a little longer than normal as we had to wait for some specially commissioned transfers to appear from Fox. As you can see all is painted and the chassis has also been weathered. Warren felt that it was best to reassemble the body before he applied the weathering effects, so here's a few shots of the state of play. Here I'm cleaning all the paint off the bearing surfaces. And here is the chassis assembled. Here's the upperworks assembled. So next week I'll button the Z up and then I have to reassemble a BG GWR Rover post paint. The pair, together with the Queen I have been building, will all then go to Modelyard in Leeds to have the DCC decoders tuned in. Then the Z will go to Warren's for more muck. There's a few more snaps here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/51848375697/

Hi Jeff. You know I thought it would have been something like that. The length of the brake hanger was so far out and the rest of the etches have sub millimetre accuracy. I thought after I'd fitted it all up 'I bet I used the wrong etches.' I must have just miss read the instructions in my haste. I had exactly the same issues with the first Queen I made so at least I'm consistently crap at reading instructions. No harm done, it wasn't a massive work-around in the end. The loco/era I'm making has the 3000 gal version of your tender doesn't it? Ta Nick

Hi Jeff It is indeed amazing for a 21 yr old hand drawn etch, especially the boiler etch, that couldn't have been easy to work out in your head. Thanks for your help too. Regards Nick

Well here it is with all the detail added and mocked up. I just noticed I haven't fitted a vacuum pipe so will raid the bits box tomorrw (there isn't one in the kit!) It runs nicely on analogue and digital, and I managed to shoehorn enough lead in it to bring the weight up to about 900g. I'll build the tender in a week or so, but first I have a Z and a Rover to reassemble post paint!

So we have chugged along for another week and I have completed the main structures of the loco and most of the detailing work. The Smokebox structure was too wide at the bottom and wouldn't fit between the frames above the footplate. Next time I make one of these locos I should narrow the front and rear formers appropriately. The instruction leaflet does fess-up to this in all fairness, it suggests a work round, but I elected to chop the smokebox wrapper to end on top of the frames. There's a casting provided to represent the brass cover plate between the boiler front and smokebox rear. It needs a bit of straightening but fits very nicely. I offered to boiler structure up to the footplate and cab, checking for squareness and checking again, and the assembly fitted well with only a minimum amount of adjustment required. I finally took a deep breath and soldered it all together. I then spent a happy day fettling and polishing boiler fittings. The SV and dome fitted well but the chimney did not. The base of the chimney has a radius much too small for the smokebox, and the chimney stack is off to one side. I will weigh it in with the rest of my brass and NS scrap in the summer and treat myself to a nice bike ride to a posh Peak District pub for a good lunch! Iain Young (Sans Pareil) sells GWR River cast copper chimneys that are the same as those fitted to Queens. Result! Then it was just a case of ploughing through all the body detail. Springs, lamp irons, valve cover, injector clacks, steps etc etc. This part is surprisingly time consuming. The white metal sand boxes were very poor castings, so Mick Davies 3D printed me some. I have to make the handrail round the boiler, add a couple of smokebox fittings and glue some lead sheets in the boiler and the loco will be finished. It's a nice kit and the etches are very accurate. More pics here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/51835505198/

A fair bit of progress this week, I started with the footplate. It's in 3 main parts, you begin by forming the outer frames and then curve the footplate top to fit. Forming the outer frame structures needs some precision and care. I mocked them up with tape before soldering together, constantly checking for straightness and squareness. When this was done I carefully formed the curve in the footplate top and attached it to the frames. I used the slots for the fall plate as a datum point. The top was soldered to the frames and the finishing strips attached under the footplate edge. The buffer and drag beams finish the structure off. It is very hard to make this structure, but the etches are accurate which helps greatly. The splashers were added next and the buffers. The cast buffer stocks provided were a bit badly cast. I had some spares that Pat Ennis had sent me for a previous job and these were really good so I substituted them. The castings were blind and drilling them out isn't a trivial job. I had the usual issue with holding them whilst drilling white metal, which constantly cloggs up your drill bit. In the end I sleaved them with brass tube and they now work perfectly. The coupling is from CPL. The cab was next. Again all the etchings are spot on so it was quite an easy task. The tapered handrails are made by filing a length of 1 mm rod held in a mini drill. The rod is filed whilst rotating against a wooden block. I made the backhead and detailed it up. I added a few extras, and will add more as the boiler is constructed. The final task this week was to form the boiler and firebox. It was pre-rolled and it was difficult to form the bottom of the firebox once it had been rolled up with the boiler. I had to spend a lot of time dressing out creases that had formed where I didn't want them. The formers fitted very well though and when offered up to the footplate and cab it fitted almost perfectly. More boiler action next week, and there's more pictures here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/51821637238/

Here's a crude pic of the 43XX after finishing by Conrad Cooper and re assembly/testing. The loco ended up with an ABC Mini gearbox with a Cannon motor. It runs very smoothly and will pull my Land Rover! I didn't mention above but the mazac block shoved inside the boiler to provide ballast has to be chopped up to allow the ABC motor/gearbox to be fitted. I glued some more lead sheeting inside the boiler to compensate.

In the last few days the chassis has been fitted with the mudguards and the dummy inside motion. There were a couple of inside motion parts missing from the box, and I'm sure that a call to Pat or Jeff Ennis would have resulted in a package by return of post. Luckily I had some inside motion parts left over from my GWR BG Armstrong convertible project that fitted the bill nicely. The mudguards are fiddly to make and attach, but again that's the nature of the prototype. The brake hangers and brake blocks are made by zig-zag folding up of multiple layers of etches. The hangers are in two parts with the blocks sandwiched in between. These were supremely fiddly to fabricate from the etches but the end results were very good. Again I think Scorpio have tackled the structures in the best most practical way and a casting would have been too chunky. As I said above I didn't post a blog when I made my first Scorpio Queen in 2020 and I wish I had! The brake hangers for the middle wheel are about 2.5 mm too long, or the parts are identified wrongly in the instructions. The memory of this came flooding back as I assembled them! Here's the remedy... ...and the final result. As usual a lot of care has to be taken when assembling brake gear with pull rods round both sides of the wheel. They need not to touch! Also they need to be detachable so the wheels can be removed for paint etc. I have fabricated some sand pipes from brass rod and will attach them to the centre wheel brake hangers on monday morning. Then the loco bodywork begins......

Happy New Year to all. This is my first post for a month or so, I thought I'd have a break from social media over the holiday......well that and the fact that I wasn't making anything of note. I made a F7 BG Rover such a brilliant kit that there didn't seem much point in posting a build thread (I'll post some pics when I reassemble after paint,) follow the instructions and you can't go wrong. I also reassembled a couple of Peircy B1s after paint that were built by someone else. Just before Christmas though I started my second annual Scorpio Queen build! I actually made the last one in 2020 but didn't post anything about making it, just a few pics of the finished loco. My last experience of the Scorpio Queen kit (and the GWR BG Armstrong Convertible I made from the same source) was very good. The instructions are good, although I had to do a lot of cross referencing, but maybe that's just the nature of the prototype. The etchings are excellent and fit together very well, and most of the castings are good too. As you can see above it made a very acceptable model. I began with the chassis. It has rocking beam suspension which looks a bit Heath-Robinson esque but works very well. I didn't bother with the Scorpio option of a special gearbox fitted with different gear ratios on each shaft of the motor to drive the rear and centre axle. It is designed round an unobtainable Mashima motor and it also looked a bit H-R esque (perhaps I am wrong and it works well too!) Instead I used the same system that myself and DLOS had discussed sometime ago before he sadly died. He suggested moving the pivot of the rocking beams closer to the centre (driven) wheel. In this way a lot more of the weight of the loco is transferred to the centre driven wheel, and hopefully it will pull a bigger train. I moved it 12 mm closer to the centre axle, a lot of precision drilling is required. I used the old hole for the rocking beam pivot to mount an anchor rod for the motor. The rest of the build so far is as per instructions. I fitted the model with a Mashima 1833 style motor from Taff Vale Models mated up to a foldy-uppy gearbox from the same source. I like both the motor and gearbox from TVM, if you build the gearbox carefully and shim it out properly it runs very sweetly and quietly, it has Ultrascale gears. The motor seems nice and powerful too. Julian Wynn hasn't paid me to say this! Here it is having a bit of a test run, and there's a few more pics here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/51799260196/

Thanks but all 7 mm, as I'm sure you guessed. I'm not quite as expensive as you think.