nickd

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.

I was bored last sunday so made an album of all the locos I've made since becoming a professional modeller 3 years ago. Hope you enjoy it. Nick https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/albums/72157720173370422

The next problem I encountered with this conversion was space for the crankpin behind the crosshead and slidebars. There was none, so I recessed the crankpin nut as much as possible, into the coupling rod. The Heljan con rod was about 3mm longer than is prototypical, the slidebars were 3 mm shorter than required, and the crank throw generated by the Heljan wheels 3 mm less than on the GA. I suppose these things are interrelated. I made new slide bars that were cheekily about 0.5 mm narrower than the Heljan ones to help with the crankpin nut clearance. As a belt and braces measure I skimmed a bit off the Slater's wheel crankpin boss to place the coupling rod closer to the wheel face. The inside of the crosshead had to be ground away to accept the Premier Components con rod supplied in the kit. All was well there so I moved on to the inside motion. I had bought a F7 inside motion kit which is in fact a simplified, but none the less effective interpretation of the GWR thing. I decided for ease of assembly to mount the eccentrics on a length of telescoping tube pinned to the axle. Here they are mocked up. I had to open up the holes in the eccentrics to a suitable diameter. The rest of the rods were assembled as per instructions. Some 12 BA screws were let into the swing link mouldings and the radius rods attached. The job was then topped off with the Warren Shephard brake gear with scrachbuilt rigging. You can also see the dummy horn guide detail glued in place. These were supplied by Mick Davies and are 3D printed. They aren't structural and are glued around the brass axleboxes and horn cheeks. The new chassis was screwed to the body using one of the Heljan self-tappers via a drilled hole under the cab, and an M1.5 screw that goes up through a hole in the cylinder stay, through the original hole in the footplate and smokebox saddle and into the die cast weight in the smokebox. The cab is held in place on the footplate with the 4 original Heljan self tappers. An ABC Mini motor and gearbox or a Slater's SG29 will slot straight in the firebox and drive the rear axle. As a finishing touch I glued some real coal over the plastic moulded stuff in the tender.

Just to close this thread here's a few pictures of the finished models with coal in the tenders. Ready to go to work. Thanks to everyone who helped with the build. There's more here https://www.flickr.com/photos/144381574@N05/with/51642177010/

Without wanting to turn this thread into a Heljan bashing opportunity, an interesting quick palate cleanser came across my bench last week. Someone had bought a 43xx off Ebay second hand, described as 'displayed only.' It was subsiquently repainted and on reassembly the gears didn't mesh. The worm (helical gear pattern) had torn up the spur gear (straight cut pattern.) The owner asked if I could fit it with a new chassis with some inside motion etc and what follows is a description of what I did. I entertained scratchbuilding or custom etch route but thought that a more cost effective approach would be to buy some etches from Warren Shephard and modify them. I also bought an ABC mini gearbox with Maxxon motor, Slater's wheels and a F7 GWR inside valve gear kit. I ordered some GWR 3D printed cosmetic horn guides from Mick Davies. Warren Shephard was very accommodating and sent me lots of etches (most unused) and lots of very nice castings, all at a very reasonable price. I reckon all the parts have cost around £400. Now if you are capable of carrying out the work yourself (it's not too taxing) and you can get a donor loco at reasonable cost (today Hatton's are offering brand new 43xxs for 560 and Olivia's Trains factory reconditioned locos for 500) then this represents quite good value for a well detailed and modified model. The first tricky bit is to dismantle the Heljan model. It isn't constructed like the typical UK kit built loco but there are instructions on Tower Model's website. I just took out all of the screws I could see and it fell apart. The cylinders have to be released by gently teasing the slide bar support brackets off their location pegs on the underside of the footplate. Lots of small parts will fall off but they can be replaced later, and many are captive on the model as it is screwed together. There are two cross members bridging the gap in the middle of the footplate between the smokebox saddle and firebox. They attach the footplate to the now redundant chassis and I cut them off. It is obvious how the main components of the body clip together. They can be secured by a screw up through the cylinders and saddle, and the four tiny screws up through the rear of the footplate into the cab floor. So far, so good. The chassis etches are designed to fit a few variants of GWR Moguls, so are easy to modify. As with a normal kit the footplate sits on the top of the frames. Warren's footplate etch is 0.35 mm thick but the Heljan footplate is 1.7 mm thick, so a good starting point is to cut 1.35 mm off the top of the chassis etch. I marked the centre of the front splashers on the underside of the footplate and scored a matching line across the front axle journal centre on the chassis etch. Everything was measured from this so that when the chassis lands on the underside of the footplate the wheels fall in the centres of the splashers. It looks like this.... Here's where you need to cut... The rest is just a simple chassis build except that I slightly narrowed Warren's frame stays (0.4 mm of each side) to make the chassis exactly the right width to slot between the Heljan cylinder block. Some of the stays need a bit of a mod as you have to cut the frames. Here's the modified chassis sitting nicely under the footplate. For those of you that don't like rods made by laminating nickel silver etches the Warren S parts come with Premier Components rods. So this is where I'm up to now, Mick Davies is printing me some cosmetic horn guide parts to cheer the chassis up as well. The rest should just be a routine chassis job. More next week.