Battledown

Now that this is finished I will start a new thread showing other models I have built and current future projects. 'Battledown's Workshop Ramblings'

I built a SEF T9 with a Perseverance chassis, Portescap RG4-1219 motors over 30 years ago. The Perseverance range of chassis were designed by Rod Neep but marketed with Westward kits. I also built a 700 class from a Westward kit which came with Perseverance chassis. Both were much modified to produce the original saturated versions with shortened smokeboxes. I still have them and they are both still runners.

I have no photos of the various stages of painting, just the finished locomotive. First everything had to be completely dismantled for the paintshop. I am reasonably proficient with an airbrush, so painting was relatively straightforward. I used two part etch primer and gloss Adams pea green from Phoenix Precision Paints, then masked everything off and sprayed the major black areas, plus the inside frames and cab in light tan and buffer beams red. So far, so good, but now came the lining. So into the box it went while I went away to practice with a bow pen, but try as I might, I still cannot get to grips with it. Sometimes it works but not consistently enough to give me confidence that I would not ruin everything. After six months of prevarication I eventually decided to try a different approach and resorted to a combination of Pressfix LNER lining transfers and very fine hand brush. It was time consuming but in the end effective. Following a coat of 1 part gloss, 2 parts satin varnish applied with the airbrush I was reasonably happy with the result. My methods will probably horrify the purists but a Brankenborough or Rathbone I aint! I need more practice to acquire the ability to use a bow pen. It was then time to add final cab details, buffers, couplings and all the bright parts and put everything back together. Final test running revealed that dismantling, painting and reassembly had not interfered with clearances or alignments so job done. This kit is undoubtedly a challenge, to say nothing of painting and lining, but I have to say I am pretty pleased to have fully completed the model. Well, strictly speaking I haven’t quite completed it; I have not glued the coal load into the tender - I just don’t want to permanently cover up all those rivets!

Well spotted - I was hoping no one would notice that! In actual fact it was actually the rear of the LH rear crankpin catching on the hornblock as it wasn't quite fully countersunk into the back of the wheel. Clearances within the splashers is fine - just!

And here it is running on a very short piece of track. And yes, that is a gin & tonic on the bench - was I drunk in charge of a locomotive?

It was at this stage that my problems started. Having put it all together again, running was very intermittent. There was a short somewhere and I began to doubt my decision to use the ‘American’ method of current pick-up. After seeking and receiving much advice from fellow members on the Scalefour Society forum I checked and ensured that it was not the brakes touching the wheels, or the tender and loco shorting together, or the motor can shorting to the boiler. I thought I had insulated everything but eventually isolated the problem to the bogie splashers touching the outside faces of the bogie wheels - clearances there are but a ‘fag paper’. Nonetheless I followed advice and epoxied some of my son’s roll-your own Rizla paper onto the inside faces of the splashers. Problem solved, but that means the loco will only negotiate very wide (probably prototypical) curves. Tell tale scotch marks on the wheel rims It's all very tight and compact under there! Motor connected to chassis - brass tube soldered to chassis with live wire from motor connected via split pin. Motor return from tender using the same method

There only remained final detailing of the upper works - well, when I say only I actually mean quite a bit of effort. First up were the handrail knobs and blower valve, which were threaded with 0.45mm wire then soldered in place making sure they were straight and in line with the relevant holes on the cab front. Next were the smokebox door, chimney, dome and safety valves. These are all excellent white metal castings that only need a small amount of cleaning up - providing your boiler and smokebox are perfectly round they are an excellent fit. The clack valves, vacuum ejector and whistle manifold are lost wax brass castings that need to be polished then built up with copper wire. These are not fixed in position until after painting. Other lost wax castings including various Injectors, lubricators and vacuum pipes were soldered in place. The injectors are built are mounted on the rear step which are a separate subassembly trapped between the chassis and footplate assembly. As for the reversing rod, this alone is assembled from eight parts! Then came the time to remove the jig from the valences. This is achieved by cutting through all the support braces on the bottom face leaving two separate jig pieces attached to the valences by short half-etched sections. These are very gently rocked back and forth until they break off. As long as the solder joint between the valences and footplate are strong then this is pretty straightforward, although there is a lot of cleaning up to do afterwards to smooth out the bottom edge of the valences and remove all the excess solder. Only now could I attach the chassis to the upper works but the design of the kit ensured it all fitted after a bit of trial and error. The instructions suggest leaving the cylinder wrappers off until this stage to ensure an accurate fit. As you can see from the photograph I didn't get it right first time, although this was more a case of the chassis not sitting right home than getting the wrapper in the wrong place. Final detailing and cleaning up resulted in a basically complete model of engine and tender that perfectly captures the graceful lines of what I think is one of the most handsome locomotives that ever ran on British rails, certainly south of the Thames (I also have a soft spot for the Midland's Johnson Spinner).

I didn’t find it a problem. I left the screw joining the boiler and smoke box finger tight until the firebox end was soldered up then tightened it up before soldering the smoke box to the footplate. Don’t over-tighten, though, as you can strip the thread - the front former of the boiler is only about 18 thou thick.

Next came the boiler and smokebox. The smokebox is a separate assembly comprising a fold up former and additional backplate around which a single wrapper is formed. The kit comes with two boiler options, one with bands etched in and one without. I have only ever used the ones without so cannot say which one makes life easier or more difficult. You could probably form the boiler more truly with some roller bars but the brass is soft and only about 6 thou thick and I managed with a steel rod on an offcut of heavy duty foam backed carpet. The kit also includes a number of formers to help with assembly and it all turned out ok. There were a couple of minor kinks that were gently polished out with fine wet and dry emery paper on lolly sticks - starting with 600 grade and gradually finer to 1500 grade. It is best to fit small details prior to permanently fixing the boiler and smokebox to the footplate and cab front. These included the sanding lever mechanism in front to the splashers plus lamp irons and handrail knobs to the smokebox front. Side handrail knobs were left until after assembly to ensure they were horizontal and the correct height and angle. The Victorians liked a lot of polished brass, copper and steel on their locos and I was keen to fit these parts after painting. To aid this I used brass tubing inside the boiler to make it easier to glue items such as the whistle and clack valves to what would otherwise be about 6 thou of brass. The smokebox is screwed to the front former of the boiler and then to the footplate, locating the rear former of the boiler onto a small length of wire soldered to the cab front. This ensures that everything is the correct height and enables the boiler to be rotated to accurately position and fix the firebox to the rear splashers. The smokebox is also soldered to the footplate and the screw removed - the fixing hole is actually used as the front securing point of the chassis. The cab roof was then formed and fitted in place but not fixed - I left fixing until after painting to make cab detailing easier.

There are two options for the cab sides / splashers depending on what era you are modelling. The locos were originally embellished with brass beading but this was removed by Drummond in the early 1900s. If you are modelling without the beading then you get full thickness cab sides and splashers. If, like me, you are modelling with beading then you get half etch which equates to about 6 thou of soft brass so great care is needed. Slots and tabs are used to fit the integral cab sides and splashers but until the cab front and spacer tops are added they are very vulnerable. Once assembled, however, the assembly is surprisingly strong and rigid. The cab sides are strengthened further by the cut-out beading which is formed and soldered in place before fitting to the footplate. The cab front comprises two laminations with half etched details, providing further strength. The front outer lamination includes the splasher tops which, being half etch, are relatively easy to form. I used some old iced lolly sticks to support the footplate during this exercise - they can just be seen in the photos.

So, moving onto the loco body, as I mentioned previously, the kit features a jig to build up the footplate. This helps keep everything true and level and avoid any twisting as the cab, splashers and boiler assemblies are added. There are additional strengthening pieces that are removed as the build takes place. First thing is to solder the footplate to the jig, the top section of which includes the valences. It is important to make sure that the solder joint is a generous and continuous seam to avoid any distortion when the jig is eventually removed. Buffer and drag beams are added to complete the basic foundation structure. The assembly sequence is to build from the footplate upwards. First up is the front frames, slide-bar access hatches and crankpin splashers.

A coupe of videos

One other still frame from a video showing the completed chassis being tested on the track, with the tender chassis providing the return. As I wrote previously, I used the 'American' method of pick-up, one rail from the tender and the other from the loco. This means that you have to ensure the tender and loco are isolated from one another and that there are no shorts from either. More about that later in the build! One additional point worth mentioning is that, due to the footplate being built up using an integral jig, there is no way of testing the fit of the chassis in the loco body until it is structually complete. This is not too much of a problem due to the excellent design of the kit but, in P4 at least, you need to use a vernier between the aperture in the footplate and across the crankpin bushes so they will not foul.

I find the best cleaning solution post each soldering session or stage is a 50-50 mix of methylated spirit and water, followed by a good rinse then dry it with an old hair dryer.

It is the one recommended by Martin Finney for his gearbox. It is high revving, hence the 54:1 gear ratio. As you say, almost impossible to find 1624 round cans now. I have one left for an L12. T3 with Mashima 16 x 24 motor.pdf

Another still of the chassis on the rolling road. Only the brake rigging and final detailing to be added. Does anyone know how to upload videos onto this site?

Some would argue that even half etched boiler bands are overscale although it is a moot point whether they actually look so. My reason for going sans etched boiler bands is that it is much easier to put transfers or tape on a flat surface to represent the lining. The devil is in the detail but it's the detail that makes a model in my opinion.

Next up is the inside motion which comes as a separate kit. The T3 being an outside cylinder locomotive means that there is no need to build up a crank axle which makes life easier. The eccentrics and rods are built up as separate assemblies using the eccentrics, rods, expansion links and valve rods. The large ends of the eccentric rods need to be opened out very carefully until they are just free to rotate on the machined eccentrics without either binding or falling off. As with the piston rods, I replace the cast rod with 0.7mm nickel silver wire. Care needs to be taken to ensure that the correct eccentrics are paired (mirrored pair for each valve) and the rivets are inserted from the right direction. Valve guides are made up using brass tube fitted to the motion plate spacer from the loco mainframes and the valve chest from small etches and 0.45mm wire fitted to the main cylinder assembly. The eccentrics are slid onto the axle then the wheels refitted and quartered. The axle is then offered up to the hornblocks and the valve rods inserted through the motion plate and into the valve chest on the cylinder assembly. All are then jiggled into position, the cylinder assembly onto the frames and then the wheels up into the hornblocks. The motion plate is then sprung into position between the main frames. Yes, it is as devilishly tricky as it sounds! Finally, the eccentrics are positioned on the axles so they are in line with the valve guides and with respect to the crankpins and fixed in position with Loctite. Once completely set test by pushing the chassis by hand. As long as you have aligned everything carefully nothing should bind. Next came the motor gearbox. I used a T3 specific design etched gearbox housing supplied by Martin Finney fitted with High Level 3-stage 54:1 gear set with a Mashima 1620 round can motor. Then the moment of truth - testing under power. Luckily for me, everything worked first time which made me a very happy bunny. The last picture is a still from a short video of the whole thing in action which is too large to upload here. As you can see, it is all pretty congested in there.

You should - he's one of the greatest social commentators as well as writers.

Just the method I have used. I have yet to master the bow pen sufficiently so always chicken out and resort to transfers. Pre-grouping is pretty much all I model these days, which is why I have been spending a bit of money recently - D Class, 812 Class and Improved Precedent. I actually build my models in P4 and then put them in a display case. For that reason I am just as happy to buy these excellent OO models and display them alongside my own efforts. Sad, I know, but I love looking at those elegant engines with their ornate liveries - at least I don't keep them in their boxes in a cupboard!

The kit includes detailed overlays for the chassis with rivet and bolted detail, although much of this is hidden behind the wheels and motion. For early days there were also bogie splashers, equalising beams and piston tail-rods which were very distinguishable and add to the character of the T3, albeit greatly reducing the model's ability to negotiate anything other than large radius curves, clearances in P4 being particularly tight. These were removed in Drummond's time so modelling later versions probably makes life a lot easier. Next came the cylinders and outside motion. The basic cylinder assembly and motion plate are made up from single etches respectively and joined together with one-piece nickel silver castings for the slide bars and cylinder glands. I removed the piston rods from the crossheads and made up new ones from nickel silver wire (1mm for the pistons and 0.7mm for the tail rods) as it is nigh on impossible to get a perfectly round cast one. Drilling 0.7mm holes in the ends of 1mm wire without a lathe to hand was fun! The tail rod glands are made up from brass etches and 0.45 wire that then fit into the white metal cylinder fronts. I would have preferred a nickel silver casting as for the piston glands but it all worked out ok. The connecting rods are made up from two nickel silver laminations as per the coupling rods, plus two further laminations for the crankpin bosses. These are then attached to the piston rods which trapped in the slide bars once the motion plate is fitted. Clearances are very tight due to the bogie splashers - just a few thou between the crossheads and rear splashers and little more between the tail ros and front splashers. I don't have any photos of the various stages of assembly, just the finished article, but if it all sounds fiddly and time consuming then believe me, it is.

I built a LRM kit in P4 for a friend some years ago. I remember it being a tricky but accurate kit that built up into a nice model. I could not hope to match the crispness and finish of the livery of the Rails/Bachmann one though!

London Road Models produce kit for the Improved Precedent with name and number plates for four of the class; Hardwicke, Charles Dickens, Cromwell and Booth. They come as a set on a separate fret for all four. I’ve always found John Redrup, the owner, to be really helpful so suggest you contact him to see if he would supply them separately. London Road Models PO Box 643 Watford Herts WD18 6ZU londonroadmodels@btinternet.com

M7 - here's one I built earlier (in best Blue Peter fashion).