MAP66

All the cab detailing has now been glued in place and no sooner had this been completed than...

Billy and his 4 mates moved in and have made themselves at home in the cab, can you spot them?

I'm also experimenting with the glazing, haven't quite cracked it yet (no pun intended).

Nice steady progress Rob, keep up the good work. Running the layout with some shunting movements should give you a good idea of where best to site the electro magnets for the uncouplers.

4 minutes ago, chuffinghell said:

I believe with glue n glaze you can remove what you’ve glued and remove the left over glue by pealing it off (a bit like silicone sealant) and clean up with water

 

However I’ve not actually tried this so I can’t guarantee it works

I have had a bit of experience with glue n glaze, I use it for replacing the odd lost rivet by applying it via a sharpened cocktail stick or for filing in cracks. It didn't occur to me to use it for sticking down the numerals for the cab plates. I have found that it can start to cure more quickly dependant on ambient temperature of room. I think you have less time to work with it the warmer the temp. It then starts turning from a liquid consistency to more solid. On a couple of rare occasions, I have actually used it for its designed purpose to make a window and it does a good job on smallish apertures, like on the garage doors below...

Thank you @TT100 Diesels and @chuffinghell for those top tips, both of which would be a lot less hassle than knocking up some araldite. Something to remember for next time. 

After giving number plate 4851 a quick buff with his oily rag, GWR fireman Ernie Stoker, takes opportunity to take a load off, while keeping a close eye on the fire.

I thought it would be a good idea to dry fit all the separate detailing for the cab interior into the body shell. It all went in OK and some final tweaking will be required before it all gets glued in. It also reminded me that the information dials for boiler pressure etc. will need to be mounted directly to the cab front wall with some thin wire going to each one to represent copper pipework.

The openable cab doors have now been fitted, one cab door handle still needs to be fitted. My next challenge will be to attempt modelling the cab roof hatch open and then to attach the cab roof section to the inner bunker wall. The last time I tried this the joint broke, so a stronger bond is required. I can then return to painting the body work, adding transfers etc. and final weathering detail.  

A glimpse inside the cab with door open, door handle still to be fitted.

View looking from the rear. The roof will eventually restrict most of the detail but the roof hatch will be open.

Side on view with cab door open, this door has a handle fitted made from bent wire.

Aerial view showing how it all fits in, just about!

Another side view with cab door open. The wires below the loco are for the firebox glow and will eventually be wired into the sound decoder.

Looking up into the cab. 

Some time ago, I brought a brass cab side number fret along with all the other detailing bits required for the 14XX to 48XX transformation. I remember thinking at the time after it arrived, this looks tricky, I’ll think I will just get some made up from someone like 247 Developments when the time arrives.

That time arrived yesterday and I dug out the fret and thought, why not give it a go. As you can imagine the numerals are tiny and some care is required when releasing them from the fret and then not losing them afterwards, luckily there are multiples of each numeral for fumbling idiots like me.

The next problem was the most suitable adhesive to stick the numerals ‘4851’ to the backplate. I needed plenty of time to line my 4 numbers up in a row with equal spacing and I felt that superglue would be ruled out for the task. So, I went back to Araldite and used my very handy chisel tool to spread a thin layer of the araldite onto the backplate. Into the film of stickiness, using tweezers, I placed each number and manipulated it into its correct position.

I found this to be a very good method, allowing all the time necessary to get everything lined up without panicking that the glue is setting.

The araldite did the job and after spraying the cabside plate chaos black and allowing to dry overnight. I used some extra fine wet and dry to rub back the paint from the raised areas and everything stayed in place, which was a relief.

My attempt of a cabside number. My research tells me that 4851 was on shed at Exeter St.Davids in the late 30's. The chisel's flat edge was the ideal tool for applying a thin film of araldite glue.

Dry fitted in place, just to see how it would look.

10 hours ago, TT100 Diesels said:

 

Yeah, don't worry, I brush paint and get the exact same inclusions from nowhere....

 

I paint multiple thin wash layers to build up the colour and keep the detail, but gave up trying to 1000 grit out inclusions layer by layer. I did it at the end, and when patch paint touch in, dammit, they come again, and its ever decreasing circles ...😟.

 

Nice work on the engine by the way.

 

Cheers

 

TT100 Diesels

Thanks @TT100 Diesels, I am quickly learning that unless you have a laboratory dust free environment (and who has) then specs of dust in the paintwork are just something we have to accept. My initial approach, as you have said, will be to wait until the paintwork has totally cured and then carefully scrape off any unwanted specs, then touch in. 

Crumbs!!! thanks for the heads up Neal, I never knew there was such a thing as National Biscuit Day. Finally, a legitimate excuse to scoff as many chocolate digestives as possible without the guilt that follows. I hope you have a good supply of your favourite biccies in España.

Thanks Neal for your words of encouragement and advice, much appreciated.

If I end up with as good as finish as you have achieved on your splendid County Tank, then that’ll do me. I suppose there’s no excuse for me not to give the auto coach the same treatment now. Then I can finally glaze it, as passengers have been complaining of a terrible draught. Mind you, having the roof off, doesn’t help either. 😄

Best,

Mark

I have been doing some practising on the air brush, early results were a bit hit and miss. Eventually though, I plucked up the courage to give it a go on the loco. For covering a larger area, I found that 20 psi was about right with a watered down paint mix of about 50/50. I know some people thin down acrylic type paints with proprietary paint thinner products, but I chose to use plain water as I had heard that some of these paint thinning products can cause the paint to dry too quickly. This gave me a premonition of a gummed up air brush and I didn’t want to risk that.

Anyway, I went for it and sprayed just the boiler section with about 6 coats of very sparingly applied paint. The final result is not perfect but a vast improvement from the rattle can attempt, things can only get better, as they say, with further practice. The most boring and tedious part is all the masking off. Results below…

Boiler section now spray painted. Next, will be the rest of the body work and the longest part of that task will be to mask off all the areas which I don't want painted GWR green. Unfortunately, there was a casualty, in that the tap on the side of the smoke box was somehow lost. I will need to make another.

New territory for me, this air brushing lark. One of the other delights I discovered is that no matter how much time I dedicated to ensuring the surfaces to be painted were free from dust and debris, Immediately after and in fact during spray painting, all manner of tiny bits of detritus would appear out of nowhere, their soul purpose to fling themselves into the lovely painted surface and embed themselves.

Today, I was working on detailing the front buffer beam and have now added some cast fittings, namely the steam heating hose which also has within its moulded detail a representation of the auto coupling linkage and the brake hose which also has as part of the moulded detail, a representation of the electrical connection box.

Being me, I tried to enhance them a bit. The steam hose hangs quite low to the track so I snipped off the retaining chain and carefully bent the hose (very hard to do) until there was a bit more clearance above the track sleepers. I replaced the retaining chain using MSE signal wire. For the additional detail for the brake hose, I added a couple of tiny bits of plastic to represent the electrical connector ends and then two lengths of black EZ-line for the cables.

The final cast item was the regulator bracket which fitted to the inside of the buffer beam. The linkage from the regulator bracket when fitted is in line with the brake rigging front stretcher. I wanted to add a representation of the rodding attached to the linkage and I just need to do a bit of studying to identify if It should pass over the top or beneath the stretcher.

I finished off with some cruel close pics to check where more work is required. It has highlighted that some of the lamp irons are not sitting as flat or straight as they could be, so that needs sorting. Also, the brake shoe arms show a gap between the laminations, I will feed some filler into the gap. The buffer beam and fittings have had some initial paint work completed and a more detailed paint job will follow.

Head on view, on the right is the steam heating hose and the auto coupler. The brake hose is on the left with the electrical box directly behind.

Three quarter side view  showing some wonky looking lamp irons. You can just make out my representation of the chain link holding the steam heating hose.

View from the other side. You can see that gap on the side of the brake shoe arm. 

I seem to have adorned the 48XX with more lamp irons than you could shake a stick at. In total there will be 11 and 9 have been fitted so far. That works out at 3 on the front footplate, 1 above the smoke box door, 3 along the left hand foot plate for lamp storage, 3 at the rear fitted to the lower bunker wall and lastly, 1 centrally mounted on top of the bunker wall. Then there’s the 4 fire iron brackets which I have just fitted. I have also filled in the aperture on the cab steps and the whole on top of the boiler where the whistle shield went.

I am basing my observations from a photo of 4851, said to have been taken at Exeter but year not given. I will need to make up the number plates soon, so was wondering if any one out there can provide further info on any class 48’s which may have been based or operating around the Somerset and Devon regions in the late 1930’s and what their numbers were. It would be good to have a few different number options to choose from. Thanks in advance.

The added brassware is almost completed, 2 more lamp irons to go. I have also added the 4 lifting rings on top of the tanks. The aperture on the cab steps is filled in and later both front and rear steps will be filed thinner as the plastic is way too thick.

Just jumping ahead to see how a Modelu lamp would look, should look pretty good once painted white with a red lens fitted.

I have reached the first milestone on the layout build, which is the completion of the first helix. A bit of an uphill struggle (pun intended) but barring a few final lengths of flexi track to fit it’s all done. The exit ramp which is the bridge between the Helix and the scenic level will be planned and built next.

There it is, pretty much completed and just the one more to do!  Plus of course the small matter of everything which goes in between.

The exit ramp is temporarily held in place to show how the two tracks leave the helix to enter the upper scenic level.

I will also be attempting to lay down more tracks on the first of two 2.4 x 0.6m lower fiddle yard boards. This first board is also the logical location for the layout control hardware, which will all be surface mounted to save me laying on my back and turning the air blue with my effing and jeffing. The second lower board also needs to be cut out along one side to fit around the radiator and then installed before the fiddle yard track work can be further extended along it.

Back to the helix again and I managed to fit two magnets under the 7F which enables it to haul a maximum of six coaches up the fourth radius without wheel slip. The magnets are just held in place with blac tack and seem to be holding without issue. It will be possible to fit a third magnet with slight adaption to the plastic brake rigging.

With three magnets, I think that eight coaches are entirely possible for the 7F and for rakes of up to 25 goods wagons should be manageable for most steam locos. The only limitation is available flat space beneath each loco to fix the magnets. For passenger stopping services, up to 3 coaches, I’m guessing that most modern rtr steam locos will cope adequately without the need for magnets.

There has also been some further development in my track cleaning endeavours, my experimental track cleaning bolster wagon still requires some further tweaking but will eventually do a good job of keeping the rail heads clean. However, I also came across from Noch track cleaning pads which are designed to clip to an axle of any item of rolling stock. They really work, see images below…

This is the product from Noch.

Early indications suggest that it does work, look at that muck its picked up. Its a 2 second job to clip it over the axle.

When fitted, it pivots down onto the track and wagons can still travel in either direction. I added a couple of strips of lead to the back of the pad to give it extra weight. It travels quite happily over point work and the diamond crossing.

Before I sign off, I did manage to set a basic speed curve for the 7F which has increased its max speed to around 70mph. This involved adjusting CV values as follows; CV2 (starting voltage = 1) CV5 (max speed = 100) CV6 (middle speed = 50). 

Turns out I was able to fix this without too much trouble. The final tool of choice was a Dremel type rotary drill fitted with a slitting disc. I was able to cut away at each sandbox until clearance was achieved. At the rear the solution was to drill a hole in the rear frame spacer in line with each buffer and the buffer rod simply passes through the hole when depressed, which quickly cheered it up, me too 🙂

Not the prettiest of jobs so far, but it's unseen and solves the problem.

Chassis fitted to body shell with buffers out.

May I introduce my fat thumb to demonstrate that the front buffers now also go in.

For the rear, drilling holes was the answer. The white marks denote the centre line of the buffers when fitted to the body shell.

Buffers out at the rear.

You met my left thumb earlier, here's the right one testing the rear buffer.

I will be at the work bench later today in an attempt to get these buffers working as they should, thank you to @MrWolf and @stevel for their suggestions which will be further looked into. Hopefully, when I report in this evening, it will be good news 😊

1 hour ago, GWR57xx said:

Won’t the sandboxes prevent the buffers from moving inwards, rendering the sprung buffers redundant?

I’d have thought removing material from the sandboxes to allow movement would be more beneficial than removing material from the inside of the buffer beam?

Unless I’ve misunderstood, which is entirely likely 🙂

You are absolutely correct and have not misunderstood, many thanks for pointing this out. This is what happens when I try and think ahead, without engaging my brain first. Since posting, I had worked out that it would be necessary to cut a slot or remove some material from the sand boxes (as you suggested). That's where I'm at now and am working on the best tool for the job. The sand boxes are cast brass and will present a challenge to work on but I think I should be able to work something out 🤪 There's a problem at the rear end as well but I think I can drill through the chassis to allow the buffer pin to move inwards when the buffer is depressed.

As I’m still waiting on a few detailing bits, I decided it was about the right time to make provision for sprung buffers. So, the first task was to remove the existing buffers and I went about this with careful use of a chisel blade.

Old buffers removed, a few mishaps with the chisel blade which will be mostly hidden by the new replacements.

Buffers removed, it was now time to assemble the replacements which I purchased a few years back from Phoenix Precision. There is a brass bush which fits inside the body of the buffer, once fitted the bush protrudes slightly and so the hole in the buffer beam, where the existing buffer once resided, needs to be enlarged to receive the bush. This will then allow the new buffer bodies to fit snug and flat against the front and rear buffer beams.

The buffer body on the left shows the bush which protrudes slightly.

I used a triangular file and then a rat tail file to open up the hole, you can see from the image below how much larger the holes needed to be made. The new buffer bodies where then glued onto the buffer beam.

Now looking at the rear buffer beam, we can see how much the hole needs enlarging to accommodate the protruding bush.

There then is a problem to overcome! The buffer head itself has a thin rod at it’s opposite end which passes through a tiny hole in the bush, through the large hole in the buffer beam and then is bent to stop it pulling back through the buffer beam under the tension of the spring. The problem becomes apparent when fitting the body shell back to the HL Chassis, as the front sandboxes are then hard up against the inner face of the buffer beam. They would foul against the rod coming through the buffer beam, so I will need to somehow cut a groove into the inside face of the front buffer beam to receive the bent section of the rod. This should make sense from the images below.

The white line indicates where I need to gouge out a channel on the inner face of the buffer beam to allow the rod to be bent along it.

The channel is required as there is no clearance between the sandboxes and the inside face of the buffer beam when the body shell is fitted to the chassis.

So, there we have it, buffer beam detailing has begun. Screw link couplings, steam and brake hoses to follow.

2 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Well done - good handrails can make quite a difference to realism.  I do like the rotatable ‘jig’ the body is resting on: really shows how small it is even in 4mm scale, Keith.

Thanks Keith, glad you like the 'jig', that was a good year - Hic! 🍾

I have finally replaced all the grab rails with brass rod of various diameters. The grab rail prototype dimensions were taken from ‘The Tivvy Bumper’ and the close to equivalent diameters in mm’s for 1/76 scale are shown in the images below.

All grab rails have been painted with a white primer, next I need to replace some lost rivets and finally for this stage, all body work will all receive a spray of grey primer. I have also ordered some GWR lamp irons, 4 of which will adorn the rear of the bunker.

I still can't quite believe how many buildings you have constructed to create this magnificent scene and all in such fine detail. It would take me several lifetimes to achieve what you have. I can only marvel at your fantastic prolific modelling skills and the colouring you have on that taller section of relief arches looks incredible.

In between watching air brushing tutorials, I have been carefully removing all the unwanted plastic moulded detail from the body shell. Mainly hand grab rails but also some lamp brackets and 4 off lifting rings from the top of the water tanks. It’s all very delicate work and even more rivets have succumbed to the scalpel blade as a consequence.

So, some making do will be required and then a coat of grey primer. All hand rails will be replaced with brass rod of the correct diameter and I have taken the liberty of fitting the cab side hand rails prior to priming the body work. This is because the body work is fee from damage around where the brass meets the body shell. The holes drilled for all the other grab handles will have a small length of wire inserted into them to prevent them from clogging up with paint from the priming process. The primer should highlight any defects which can then be rectified more easily before the grab handles are fitted.

I put this image up as a reminder and comparison of how the body shell once looked.

Much better with brass hand rails I think. This is 0.45mm diameter rod with handrail knobs from 247 Developments.

I wanted to ensure that the holes drilled for the new grab rails were in the right place. To ensure this, I used a scalpel to create a flat for drilling on the handle junction where it enters the body shell as shown within the red circle above. After the holes are drilled for each grab rail, then the moulding can be removed.

Looks pretty scruffy and battle scarred after removal of the two grab rails at the front of the tanks. You can also just make out on the tops of the tanks that the moulded lifting rings have been removed. The lugs are still there as I'm keeping them and will just make new rings from brass wire.

Side view of the real thing, you can clearly see that the diameter of the grab rail at the front of the tank does not increase very much where it attaches to the body work. On the Airfix model this is represented by an overscale circular moulding.

Lamp brackets removed and two grab rails. 

The saga continues, does it end well? Read on and see…

Dismayed and disheartened, but not yet beaten, I contacted Youchoos who advised sending the decoder back to them for investigation. A couple of days later they contacted me to advise that a replacement was on its way to me. Brilliant service by the way. The new decoder arrived and was inserted into the 21 pin socket. A few seconds later my heart sunk again as the replacement decoder was again, non responsive.

I was too embarrassed to contact Youchoos again, so I sulked for a bit but not for long as I had tickets for me and the Mrs at the Bristol Model Railway Exhibition the next day and perhaps I could find some answers there.

I must confess that I spent far too much money at the show, its hard to resist when you are faced with 4 halls packed with traders and exhibitors. My safety mechanism for the prevention of over spending was my better half who had me on a tight leash. However, I used my old decoy tactic and while she was admiring all the fine modelling on display, I could occasionally slip away and the debit card would get a good hammering.

I did manage to see the Digitrains stand and came away with a decoder tester and a cheapo 21 pin standard decoder. I thought these would be useful for carrying on with my investigations as to why I was unable to get my sound decoder to work.

Fast forward a bit and I’m back home at the work bench with the decoder tester and the test decoder. The tester was powered from the NCE command station and the cheap test decoder was inserted into the 21 pin socket. I pushed the socket in as far as I thought it should go, but it didn’t seem right. So, I pushed it a bit harder and it went in slightly further. Was that the reason, I thought, why the Zimo decdoder wasn’t working? Had I simply not pushed it in hard enough?

With the thought of experiencing sound in the 7F possibly only moments away, I tentatively attempted to communicate with the test decoder. Amazing, I was able to communicate to the decoder via the handset. So, all is working OK from the NCE powercab side of things. Next test was to insert the Zimo sound decoder into the tester to see if it was actually working.

I inserted it into the socket and it pushed home as before, then I took a brave breath and pushed it down even harder and like the test decoder it went in a bit further. Ha, Ha that felt promising and It looks like I might have been a numpty. Yes, I had been a complete numpty as the Zimo decoder, previously thought to be a dud, was working fine.

So, finally I was able to insert the Zimo decoder back into the socket on the tender, using the technique of push it in until it stops and then push it a bit more. I was then able to go through the program sequence on the test track and give the 7F an address.

Placing the 7F back on the main track, selecting the assigned address and then pressing 1 and the room came alive with the glorious sounds of escaping steam hissing from the loco. Roll the thumb wheel of the handset for some forward motion and more glorious sounds are heard and then the unmistakable sounds of the chuff, chuffs as the speed slowly increases.

I ran the 7F light up the helix and noted that the max speed was equivalent to about 20mph, so it was back to the program track to set up a basic speed curve. First though, I needed to study the CV list to see which values needed to be changed. This will then be swiftly followed by, an embarrassing apology phone call to Youchoos.

Just as an update, I spoke to John at Youchoos and he was completely understanding and basically said these things happen. I have no affiliation with Youchoos and if anyone out there is thinking about installing their first sound decoder, I would have no hesitation in recommending their products, advice and service as a very satisfied customer. I'll leave you with a couple of pics showing the decoder tester and something which should give hours of reading pleasure.

I think this will be a very handy piece of kit if I'm going down the route of installing decoders. Its able to test a number of different decoder types and even has an on board motor and speaker.

I'm looking forward to getting my head stuck into both volumes of this, essential research for the new layout.

Quite a bit to report on since we last visited, if you remember, I was about to embark on my first sound decoder install. We’ll pick up the story from there. I was armed with my back dated HM166 paged turned to the step by step installation guide.

Those of a nervous disposition and have not yet ventured into the dark world of decoders and programming CV’s are encouraged to read on and stick with me. Those modellers who find this type of thing a doddle, are also invited to come on the journey as any tips and advice they can offer are most welcome.

Let’s begin, the 7F was placed upside down in a foam service cradle to allow access to the u/s of the tender. At this stage it’s probably worth explaining, why the 7F? Well, I thought it was a great candidate for a first time install as everything happens in the tender. With no need to interfere in the workings of the loco itself.

The plastic brake rigging of the tender was carefully removed and put to one side, as where the 3 screws holding the chassis to the upper body of the tender. Leave the draw bar attached, I didn’t and the retaining nut came off and I could hear it rattling about inside the tender. Some how I will need to get that nut back on – a problem to solve later.

Loco and tender where then turned right side up and the tender body required some gentle to moderate wriggling to slowly separate it from it’s underframe and revealing that loose nut. Also, on view was the metal weight and the 21 pin decoder socket plug.

I removed the plug to reveal the 21 pin socket board, this board had 2 tabs for soldering the 2 speaker wires to. The pads were tinned as where the ends of the speaker wires and then subsequently soldered to the pads. The ice cube speaker assembly was secured, plastic enclosure down to the metal weight, with black tac. Exposed speaker terminals where covered with electrical tape.

The Zimo MS440C decoder was released from its packaging and orientated for the missing index hole to be lined up with its corresponding missing pin on the onboard socket board. I then pushed the decoder home, as I thought! The decoder comes with ‘stay alive’ capacitor attached, I snipped this off as I fitted a ‘life link’ circuit instead which is a beefed up version of the stay alive function.

So that was it, with the tender cover still off, the 7F was placed on the program track and the NCE power cab was switched on. To cut an already long story short, no matter what I tried the decoder could not be detected and I was unable to undertake any programming. Darn it, to be continued…

The Zimo decoder is shown upside down to how it should be installed. Note the small red circle (bottom r/h of board) for correct index alignment for installation

into onboard socket.

Speakers have been wired in and secured in place. The 'Life Link' tiny circuit board has been soldered to the + and - wires of the made up capacitor array. The blanking plug is still in place at this stage.