London cambrian

Go for it rcmacchipilot! Its an interesting vehicle, but i cant help thinking 4mm wouldnt do it justice! plus its got open frames, so make it a fully timbered chassis or at least an impression of it! But devondynosaur, we have at time resorted to using bits of styrene etc, even down to those sort of size, details you just couldn't get in 4mm! several bits of angle iron supporting tool boxes under one of the vans were made from plastruct, but your right, most of our fine details are made from metal, machined out! and if its flat its laser cut, if its not, like some cams for the sanding gear on my pannier tank, its machined from one long piece and cut up into bits all of the exact same profile

That old analogy about buses has come to mind again… But anyway, whilst I’ve been pottering along with the pannier, the other resident of the workshop has done with building silly coaches and has no moved back to the original past time of wagon building. He blames me for this one but its his own fault really! His original plan when we went along to the midland railway centre was to go there to get photographs of the Derby lightweight DMU, which we duly got. But I had happened to look on their collection at the centre, and had been asked to take pictures of the Kirtley 2-4-0 for a friend who wants to build some kirtley 0-6-0s! But anyway, parked behind in the vintage coaching stock rake was this Midland railway motor car van. He’s always a sucker for a challenge, so we grabbed a few photographs and went home. The more he looked the less enthusiasm he had for an all riveted aluminium channel frame for the derby lightweight, the more the motor car van appealed! So, out came the books and a quick search on RMweb sourced some drawings, and after a good deal of studying, and redrawing on CAD, work began. At the same time I spotted a gas tank wagon built by the Midland railway for the Somerset and Dorset railway. Turns out this was the designs for one of the vehicles that was regularly seen at the buffer stops at Bath Green Park station. So far in our little fleet, we have 1 van, 1 flat wagon, 4 open wagons, 2 bolster wagons and a brake van, but no tank wagons. So it came to pass that S&D tank wagon no2 was built! https://twitter.com/SDJRailway/status/249437865442938880/photo/1 The motor car van The van is to a design built in the early 1900s, built we believe t designs for a similar van, which did not have as many louvers. But in general service the vehicles were commonly used to transport car chassis’ to the Rolls Royce body factory! (the plan may be to build one of the 12th scale Bentley blower’s from airfix, and put it in, it’s about the right scale!) The frames were laid out and made in our traditional manner, using hardwood that is sold as skirting board in B&Q, planed to thickness. All the parts were machined, this vehicle is going to be a true Rolls Royce of wagons we hope (excuse the pun!) The frames were drilled as well, to hold the ironwork, and machined out to accept the buffer springs. Then everything was assembled using PVA glue and cocktail sticks. The body began to be assembled from a softwood called Obeche. It’s very easily obtainable in dolls house modelling shops and machines beautifully. He started by making each louvered section, as a separate panel. First machining each slat slot on the milling machine, sticking each panel in, and machining it all flat. Then each individual section is glued together and made into one one of four larger panels. Planks are then pitted in, all from the same sheet of wood, to minimise errors and putting the planks out of square. These can then be fitted to a bottom runner that fits onto the frame. In the gap left, the doors can be made, a wood frame, machined so they overlap in the proper manner, and fit into the frame. The next job to get some roof arches in, because the van also has opening end doors, these will hold the body square. These I shall be getting laser cut for him, it saves a lot of potentially complex machining. This is as far as the van has got, recently more precedence being put on the other project. S&D Gas tank wagon Originally this was only ever a side project, it’s nice to have two or three wagons going on at the same time. This wagon has proved a little more elusive, only two were ever built, but with amazing what a quick appeal in RMWeb turns up! The pic that above was supplied by a fellow RMWebber, showing the tank wagon at Highbridge. It seemed this wagon was used to transfer gas to outlying points on the S&D system. So basically it'll look lovely behind some nice panelled coaches! But anyway, the chassis was built in the traditional manner, wooden frame, dowel aligned, predrilled etc etc. theres nothing special about it, currently the chassis is at much the same point as the motor car van. The interesting bits lie in the tanks and supports. The supports were made from the same wood as the frame, the radius made by using a fly cutter in the milling machine. This gave a surprisingly good finish in spite of the slow speed we had to run it at to keep the machine from shaking too much! But the large radius gave a relatively high rotational speed. The 16 angles used to keep them in place were machined to size from a large piece of steel angle, and then chopped to width, once the whole lot had been profiled, saving a whole lot of hand work! The tanks are a whole different kettle of fish. In this scale to get things to look right, they really do have to be very close to right! So, in the two tanks, there are 16 line of rivets, half offset in pairs of lines, 48 in each. Plus all the rivets in the lap plate, and rivets total around 1100! The main tanks are made 110mm plastic drain pipe, the original scaled up works out at 109.2mm, so close enough! The centre section is of a slightly larger diameter, so a trip was made up to Slater’s Plastikard in Derbyshire (we were going up there to pick up some scale wheels from 17D miniatures anyway!) for some extra-long sheet (A4 was about 5mm too short!) to wrap around. The other problem he faced was bonding the polystyrene to the tube. Flexible cyanoacrylate was the answer, basically super glue with rubber added in! So, with it all stuck in, the process could begin of drilling al the hole in the tank, evenly spaced. Stretching our milling machine to the limit of its capacity, a rotary table was put on its side, and a relatively cheap tail stock centre obtained, the pipe was fixed between them. The tube fitted just over the chuck on the tables base plate, an a wooden plug in the other end provided a centre to support the tank, and rotate it about its longitudinal axis. Then, using the dials at 7.5 degree between each rivet, and a 1/16th centre drill (an ordinary twist drill would wander too much) 16 rings of 48 holes were drilled in the two tanks. Finally, using a similar process, the last 50 ish holes were drilled in the 4 lap plates, which were again plastikard glued on with flexi cyanoacrylate. Then began the long laborious job of putting all the rivets it! Not before making an access hatch for the top. Since it’s a gas wagon the filling would have been done by pressurised pipes, but when it was built, a man was need inside to seal the rivets inside. So, an access hatch is on to. This represented a job in itself. The filler was easy, a bit of brass tube we already had in stock for making the pannier tank fillers. A cap made from a bit of steel plate. Now remains one of the few mysteries of this wagon, what was on top of this cap? We suspect a lifting eye, but none of the drawings or pictures confirm this. The hole for the filler was put in the tanks using the fly cutter again, and a ring cut from plastikard. Then, taping the two rings together a ring of holes were drilled in them, for a now familiar two lines of rivets! All the holes are followed up by a pistol drill with a 1.6mm drill, and the rivets popped through with super glue. No we are not prepared to rivet them properly, that would involve rolling a tank properly, I’m not even sure riveting that that close a confinement is possible! Finally, the tank ends. These were a domed affair, making them doubly difficult to machine! The wagon is always gonna weigh very little with wooden frames, so to add some weight, but not too much, the ends are made from inch thick slices of 120mm aluminium. This we bought at the local model engineering, were we met with some old friends, one of whom owns the brent house track. Anyway conversation to what we had in our bag, oh some big slices of aluminium, but long story short, a mate of his offered to CNC machine the tank ends for us! So, a very complex job, done for us, free of charge! It’s amazing what you can get with friends! We’ll be picking them up this weekend at the brent hosue rally. This is all the woodwork and plasti covered, I’ll update on the steelwork when theres a bit more to it! For the moment, just buffer stocks have been turned, and the shanks fitted to the knees that rest the buffing leaf springs. Well, if your still with me, I must say thank you very much! But when its been near 3 months since the last update, and two wagons have emerged in that time, the tank wagon will probably be finished by February time! I hope some of you find this stuff interesting, to finish I’ll leave you with a quick pick of the pannier tank as it looking at me now, in the lounge out the way, whilst I make some sanding gear rodding for it, and prepare to paint the buffer beams red! So, cheers all, thanks for following this, maybe net time I can cut the length, but enjoy Cheers Mark

Hey devondynosaur I'm not sure they would be too pleased! But yes it is the final shade, though its darker in real life compared to what you see, camera doesn't show it up very well! But its the exact same shade the electrics loco is in, and my mate with the other LT pannier is gonna use the same shade, so they match in all but numbers! But the engine may well run without lining for a good few months, like the pair of 02s did, so after its running it may drag out a few months after as well!

Hi all, i shall do my best to keep the entries coming, but dont be surprised if they come like buses, two at a time or so! Scanman, i started out in 4mm stuff, i built an entire layout in the loft, which atm is sitting abandoned and unloved because i started building some wagons! That's the next immediate project after finishing the pannier, spend a couple of weeks tidying the loft and clearing out all the rolling stock which i am not likely to use for any future project. Most of mywagons will stay but there could be a goodly amount of GW coaches on the market soon! Thanks mikkel, the wagons in the first pic belong to a man over in Gloucestershire, some of the other wagons come from lincolnshire and one or two others from kent, plus the resident wagons, and our coaches from the midlands and we really are a national group! But running any sort of load on that railway does become a battle at times, after about 10 laps with 5 on when i was driving the Caley i gave up and dropped two off, and those coaches are comparatively very light! The caley, neilson 2-4-0 was built by a man called roy amsbury, *edit, was built by a friend of Roy amsbury, after Roy made the first one, so theres another one out there somewhere!* a man well known for his locos and in articular designing locomotives and machinery, so that loco really is a joy to drive (gush-gush to the owner ) But as i said it pulls incredible loads, and pulls better than one of the other scottish railways 4 coupled engines, a Highland railway Loch class 4-4-0! And Paul, i echo mike's call, Loco please! Yes i know you made some excuse about the yard, but steam it up at brundall gardens! i've never seen that loco run in the 2 years i've known you! But indeed, hopefully see you guys at brent house this weekend!

I'll be honest, i have been a little lax when its come to writing this little blog of workshop antics! But since Gilling, theres actually only been one run, and workshop has mostly consisted of pannier bits and pieces! My other excuses are two fold, Just started my A levels, so thats rather eaten into my spare time for writing, and other time has been spent admin-ing and using the GL5 facebook group! So, anyone interested in getting involved, an easier way to reach us is via that group, its aclosed group but non members can join, so if your on facebook, just drop me a message on here and i'll let you know more. But otherwise, running round-up... Greystones once again... Yes, its back to what is fast becoming my second home it seems, end of september, weekend after my birthday, we pottered down to the west country to run on this excellent if a little testing track. Didnt manage to grab many pictures, mainly because i spent most my saturday driving! The day started well, we arrived, about 11, with a trailer full of coaches, the first time a full set of 5 had been to the track A friend had bought up a Britannia which was an unusual sight doing the circuit! Far bigger than the usual mtive power! removing the side control springs meant it just about squealed its way round! Then some bright spark thought, well lets do a bit of shunting with it! Now anyone who knows a britannia will know it has a screw reverser, not ideal for shunting! So, out came the coaches, and that same bright spark decided he would try and pull them, with a further two teak coaches (commercial items which are really quite heavy) But anyway, see the results... Personally I wasn't mad enough to try it myself, but when the offer came it seemed i spent the rest of my day driving that superb little loco. It may have massive wheels and relatively little tractive weight but it really punches well above its weight! Personally my favourite shot of it, and our coaches, we lent the owner our driving truck for the day just to complete the teak set, but this pic is currently my computer wall paper... Last pic of that weekend, most of us seemed to be busy and very few of us have any pictures! Bt anyway, the day ended with the usual social evening meal. When we got back, we had one last little play. Utilising the newly installed lighting in the coaches, and the dark night, we gave the coaches a couple of laps of the track behind the electric, with full lights on, on radio control. No pics i'm afraid, just that bit too dark for effective photos! To keep this post short but sweet, just a quick round up for the workshop, i'll do some more next week, after the groups annual christmas run, the Freeze your nuts off rally at Brent house! Pannier Lots has been going on n the pannier, a huge amount has been done to it, andi have nowhere near enough space to documentit all here! But i promise more pannier progress for those who want next week, if you can bear anymore that is! So in short, what has gone on is -running plates are all painted and nearly finished, only waitin to be lined -The engine is fully permenatly on its wheels -The valve chest has been sealed after a long delay -I rebuilt the drain cock mechanism because the last one was frankly rubbish I have reprofiled the chimney A new boiler topfeed arrangement has been made Work has begun on the tanks to change the filers to correct round pattern Allthe brake gear hasbeen reassembled the sandboxes have been cleaned and painted the guard irons have been refitted The lubricator has been overhauled and the feed arrangement has been changed The running plates have been dilled and fitted Tonite two of the bufefrs wen on and a drawhook went in. Everythig that needs to be chemically blacked, has been most of a new blower has been done, with fine directed nozzle in it to replace the old arrangement the front buffer beam has been cleaned up again, and is ready to receive some red buffer heads have been reprofiled, as have hooks The sokebox has had a goodly amount of detail put into it, whilstits not perfect, it'll do for now and finaly bits have started to be made to make the non working sanding gear linkages. Below hopefully is a selection of whats gone on, hopefully a suitable amount! I havnt always managed to keep up with progress with accompanying photos so please excuse their lack! But the plan is tohave her steaming by sometime in the new year in a mostly complete state. If shes back in a whole enough entity by this weekedn i may take her to the brent house run, and trundel her through some points, tow itround the track, just to wear in the bearings! Well i hope the wait has been worth it. I'll soon post about whats been happening in the world of the other inhabitan of the workshop, some pretty stunning progress he's made i must say in the time of my absense from RMweb! So, pics to come hopefullly of brent house, and more wagons, and bit of lcuk i'll be playing with another engine this weekend Please let me know what you think, its a little rushed this post, but i hope it doesnt show too mush hehe Cheers all Mark

from what i recall, two central spines that taper down at the bogies with some bracing going down to the sides i think. As an interesting aside, the flat wagon F361? that used to carry the body of the jubilee coach in the acton depot has been moved to the Epping and Ongar railway, where they also have one of the LT BR standard brake vans. hopefully we'll see it restored in the not too distant future.

there were two lengths of the long bogie wagons, 50ft general wagons, and the longer 60ft one which were designed for carrying rails both types are preserved hopefully richard will provide us with the more common shorter type as well

it certanly added to my wet socks! Luckily as the running descended on the monday, being down yard master, you can shelter in the signal box! The pannier is at a bit of a stalemate atm, ican keep going with little jobs, but i am limited until i get the studding to bolt up the vale chest.But i cant easily get over to the local suppliers for the 6BA stuffing i need. And when i do go over, they have shut early and gone home! Part timers! As i said in the post, itsgot a re profiled chimney, am currently makin some new detailing parts for it, which need machining, but cant get at the miling machine, and i'm stil pondering how to make the very small hinges for the cylinder head and valve covers opening. However a friend very kindly made me a very nice GWpatternsteam lance valve for the front. Then i may rebuild the drain cock arms on it, and put dummy springs in the cab. That orjust their covers because some caried them, others didnt! But anyway, may have another post upafter nextweekend,or this week if i get bored! Cheers Mark

Hi all, like a bus, two post come along at once! Anyway, I'm calling it an excuse to test out my new laptop, so a few more pics of gilling August 2012 Yes the weekend was rather wet, certanly the saturday and by end of monday! train sizes were limited as the track became slick with oil, especially the passenger trains, also as we only had 2 passenger sets, though one could be split to make a 3 and a 10 set, an the timetable calls for it to be split later into 5 and 5. Thius yer there was 4 of these hoppers. they have bottom openin doors, and last rallya coaling stage was kocked up so that they could be bottom discharged. However this was made difficult this weekend by the continual drizzle, meaning the coal was rather reluctant to come out at times! Our coaches spent much of their time with our friends Metropolitan electric, as a suburban set, occasionally getting taged with vans as tail traffic My Friends' IoW 02s also made regularturns, always double heading, often managing decent sized trains, and frequently with only one of them pulling! Right, this one has been very image heavy, so sorry to those on slow download speeds! But anyway, thats it for a week or so, there might be some pannier activity this weekend, i reprofiled and detailed the chimney this wek, and i'm doing the smokebox at the same time, running plates are painted, they just need lining and lacquering before oing back on, then the loco can be rebuilt upwards for now, we'll modify the tank fillers before total reassembly, then replumb and get it a steam cert. A arge hole has appeared in the garden for a some sidings, we're just pricing up ballast atm, so hopefully we'll have somewhere to test the pannier out and photograph rolling stock, especially the new stuff my dads just started. Next weekend is a bit of a clash, two event on at once! Its another greystone weekend, next weekend, but its also the colchester night run, both great events, greystones we may even be persuaged to run into the dark, so we'll have to make a decision on that one! So anyway hope you enjoy, comments welcome as always Cheers Mark

hehe, shhhh don't tell anyone about that! wasn't my fault tbh, rain and your dodgy controller mate! as to the brake van, its been there longer than 6 years, and with a flat that size from aluminium rail, several people are convinced its gotta have been that long, especiallyvwith the size of flat on it. And.yes we probably could have done with a fee flat spotted wagons! indeed many more to come, hopefully with the pannier in the not too distant future and my toplight. cheers Mark

Cheers devondynosaur. The mineral wagons will soon be subject to a similar project that saw that whole rake of tank wagons built by lindsey society. So we could well have a rake of windcutters soon! Would love a few of them, London Transport bought a few fore internal coal duties, so would great behind the pannier when its done. I have a few better shots of the turntable. Unfortunately, the new server restriction means images from my camera are too big to put up without resizing them, which is a pain, especially late at night when i write this!

A friend of mine has a duchess, who'll bring it to the rally next year. The duchess in the photo probably wont be there next year. The intention has always been to get away from the model engineering of passenger hauling, more to a prototypical way of running a scale miniature railway, in a proper manner. Wagons there varied from anything upto thrity years old, from the first years of GL5. Some wagons are begining to show their age though. One brake van had a seized axle we found, and had been dragging locked solid for atleast 5-6 years! Needless to say it had a flat spot around 10mm long! Amazingly, the next day it was back running, the owner had wrenched the axle box free, re profiled both wheelsets and had got it back running the next day! Its great to see trains of wagons running round behind authentic engines being driven in a prototypical manner. Its what the original founders wanted and something i enjoy actually far more than just driving an electric loco, or even model railways these days. Cheers Mark

I really am getting worse at this! If anyone is looking for an excuse for my lateness, just started my A-levels! But anyway. The bank holiday weekend of august sees the annual second mainline rally at gilling rilway. The weather looked iffy but still we persevered! Due to previous other reasons for which i shall leave space here to insert excuses [ ] , we didnt get our names in the running roster for the weekend. So, we would turn up to gilling with no guarentee of even a run, but no matter, we were taking the coaches for only their second run as a full set. That didnt matter, it soon conspired that as at all rallies, engine inevitably fail and ther is always cover duties to be had. Arriving at about 9, yes thats a 3 hours drive, getting up at 5 to go play trains, only having had 4 hours sleep! Most our first day was spent helping out elsewhere, amainline rally cannot run without an army of helpers! So, yard duties and generally lazing around watching the trains go by! That and getting the coaches out and ensuring all was right with them. So, anyway, a large collection of some of the finest 5 inch gaugelocomtoives was ssembled in the weekend, some 40 of them, many of them belonging to good friends of mine, and an equally superb collection of wagons and coaches. Day two dawned bright, though not hugely encouraging as the day wore on, becoming wet at times, but all in all a fantastic sunday. Its never good when a loco fails, but my friends electric loco failure mean we got some turns! Covering for a loco thats a good deal more powerful than your own can provide its challanges! One of the most challenging turns on the rally is E pilot, or the bunker pilot. Overnight all rolling stock is put away in a massive 6 road 25metre long underground bunker, with the consequent graded headshunt to reach it. The bunker houses the resident 13 mk 1 set, and 2 or 3 lines of wagons when the rally is on, but is full to the rafters over the rally weekend. The bunker pilot is a very busy turn in the early morning, from 8 am onwards. Our turn, around 10 30 was when the last runs of wagons are pulled out. Our little engine was rostered for the turn and proved itself amicably. Pulling not only our rake of coaches with tail traffic up the two 1:100 gradients, no mean feat in itself, then pulling 39 wagons, including 10 loaded out the bunker, and up into theyard above. If ever i could be proud of a loco that was a moment! The rest of the turn passed un eventfully, ending about half 11. Returning to shed, taking the yard pilot with us, a well used little Y4 dock tank, a favourite amongst many mebers! a second turn just after lunch on a down goods had us back into the up yardby mid afternoon to run our final turn of turn of the day, yet again the E pilot! During the day this is an uneventful turn, more a standby duty, occasionally fetching carriages to the bunker. The Previous engine, an apple green V2 had tripped over to the up yard on a transfer working, and we were booked to accompany it back to erimus yard, with the return steel train, where he was due to terminate, and return to the MPD, which is right back to the up yard. Considering i was going over there, i woukld take the steel train, a train of about 3o wagon lengths, but mostly heavy bogie wagons, only bout 15 of, but still a very heavy load. Doubting my ability to pull out the apple tree siding with the train, we set the train down on the V2, and without its assistance in the end, pulled out the steel train, and tripped it to erimus yard. Thats was all the excitement over though really! There had been muttering of a night run but rain bout 5pm put paid to that! So, yet again the final day dawned bright. Our only turn was a late bunker turn and a the scotch goods, not worth getting up for when last day usually winds down about 3! It did give me the opportunity for some slightly more artistic shots! The early morning light does wonders on wagons! Not ideal as it transpired, though i would love to see some of the phots my mate Kempenfelt took, he hasnt been decent enough to share them yet ;) So, with no booked turns (it turns out the one i did have had been covered already), and seeing noone was covering the duty, thought i'd try my hand at a bit of Yard master! The down yard is the smallest of the yards, but has 2 pilots that dweal with freight trains and any train alterations in the platforms. So in actual terms is quite a busy yard. Many activities involve a bit of light shunting wuith the pilot, organising the odd pic up freight. Removin vans from the rear of trains to collect in the yard to trip over to the up yard to form an up fish train later. It all has significance. But yet again, it turned very wet late on, and rain stopped play, some people carrie on running, but it all got a little shambolic as stok wasnt where it should be and loco failures. Playing yard master is a great way to spend a rally, a sense of control is great in the melay that is a mainline rally! So it is, that this idiot has got himself invited back by a ryedale club commitee member to run a yard next year! It was my intention to limit the words on this post but ah well! so if you've taken the time to read, thank you! Anyway, hopefully you enjoy the pics from the huge variety of rolling stock and activity that was there. Please feel free to comment, GL5 mebers ay hello, and if you wish you are welcome to come along to the next event in May! Cheers all Mark

ooh, what sort of LT stuff... hows the brake and flats coming on? Cheers

Haha thanks devondynosoar Unfortunately i will admit to counting a few rivets whilst doing this! The running plates had existing rivets in them so all i did was drill them out, file them flush and replace with smaller ones, and double the number along the length. in places there should be two line rather than one, and others, in places not easily seen, i havnt put any in. but in all visible places, they are there, more to give an impression than anything else. thats really all that counts, it doesnt need to be mm perfect, as its the look that counts Went to gilling again this weekend, so pics up soon! Cheers all Mark

Haha I'm back. I havnt had the time or opportunity lately to be posting on here, partially because of holiday through the finer parts of birmingham on a canal boat, and partly the furious activity in the workshop! Right, having few issues with upload, since the new servers max file size is down to just 2mb, and most of my pics were around the 3mb mark! so sorry if the text isnt fully illustrated! Im scratching my head actually what has gone on in the time since the post. We had another very enjoyable trip to greystones, catch up with friends, good turn out and a good weekend with the social side in the evening was very enjoyable. On the pannier front, visibly not a huge amount appears to have changed however a lare amount of work, cleaning reassembling painting etc has gone in, the largest part in the running boards. Originally the running plates had a series of very large over scale rivets in it as per the orignal design. the detailer in me decided these would not do and so hatched on the plan to drill them out, file them flush and replace them with scale 1/16th ones. At the same time i would double the numeber up, and make it look far more realistic. of course, with this in mind you look at phots and realise theres more and more stuff, until you end up putting them all in. of course all the flat side of the runing plate there are more rivets, and bolt heads. so, in they went. And after teaching myself how to and how not to rivet, and about 180 rivets and 30 10BA bolts later, i'm sorta happy! The last few days and tomorrow have/will be spent cleaning these running plates and prepping for priming. the difficult bit is to paint them finally. The top surfaces are black, but most thing facng out wards is maroon, except some steps, which will be very tricky to mask and get sharp crisp lines on, even before we line i in straw, including a lovely arc over the splashers! Other things include a new set of springs to seat the valves in the chest when no steam is passing them. this means they remain seated when stationary and you can get a nice slow start to the engne when pulling away. The bearing on the big end at the crank axle has been modified, it wa rubbing excessively, The vast majority of parts below the running plates have been cleaned and painted. For an engine that hasnt done 200 yards its was filthy thick with dried oils. But everything is now painted. A new mushroom non return valve has been made for the lubricator. this was giving troule whn we last steamed it, steam was blowing back into the lubricator and condensing, no oil was getting to the cylinders and they we squeaking, running dry. The loco is now back on its springs, this has allowed us to finally set valve gear and the balancing of the valves, though we have found that the loco doesnt achieve full forward or reverse as going by the gear rack, a problem we have yet to sort. it'll probably mean making new gear lever racks or changing th reach rod, it may be a little unbalanced as is. Also brake gear has beeen painted and mostly fitted. i'm retaining the fairly crude looking arems for the moment, just get the engine rnning first, they can and will be changed for some nice cast items at a later date, when i order the kit for the new cab i may get some proper GW pattern brake arms. But for the moment, now that the valve chest is sealed down, and the cover soon will be, i can replace the drain cock lever arm, and get the brake gear back together. attention is turning above the running plates. as seen last time, toolboxes are painted, as are now both the tank supports, now that i have some high temperature black paint. The smokebox was cleaned up, though that will not be painted until the tanks are done. these require extensive work, the original design uses horrific great rectangular fillers which need to be replaced by nice round ones, though we are having trouble tracing sufficiently good drawings, if anyone can help with a 57xx water tank filler i would appreciate it! other minor jobs have gone on, i attempted an air test to prove the valaves worked, they do, but the loco was too stiff to turn over on the pitiful air supply! I'm contemplating a new blower ring, a combined blast pipe and blower arrangement, the current is a little basic i feel. I also have friend doing a nearly identical build who is helping along the way, thanks to john if he reads this, him and his mate simon are detailing theirs, doing a few thiongs i'd like to, including a correct profile chimney with the slotted cap, something i'll do pretty soon, when i work out a way of holding the chimney in a chuck! On other news, We made a visit to Harrow and wembley society of model engineers with a few other members of GL5. We were welcomed with open arms and a warm reception, thanks guys. It was also a great opportunity for the first run of the complete set of the coaches! They've been done for a while now, but building the trailer took plenty of time, so that we can move them safely. But anyway, i hope you agree, my dads done a fantastic job on these... Well that wraps it up really. A trip to gilling for the august mainline rally is for this weekend, the coaches will hopefully be out once again, weather permitting, hopefully get a few turns in, a holiday meant we were late for booking in so have no offical duties over the three days, but there no doubt will be plenty of failures to cover! And finally, GL5 now has a group on Facebook! we formed a group to have a little chat about things, so if you're interested in what we do, just click join group, have a look at our photos, no member ship required, though drop me (Mark Harding a message about it before hand, mention rmweb) and i'll let you in. Any GL5 members reading i hope to see you this weekend at gilling, anyone just coming along,your perfectly welcome to come and watch, its always good fun, please say hello, make yourself know, i'll most likely be on my electric most the day, but please say hello! Cheers Mark

Any time gents. The baby castle belongs to my friend Dinmore Manor on here. Its an engine thats spent a few years on the shelf, and as such its needed a bit of work. hes had a few issues with injectors, valve gear and draughting arrangement. But it was out today, and ran alright, and at brent house, but he retired it early. As to the pannier, i shall be doing my best to have it running for september, there is a run at the Greystones railway which i would not mind having it going for, especially because of all the jibing i've had over it! So steam test towards the end of august, and certify it around then, and have it ready for end of september. I have all the bits for it, and the boiler has a hydraulic cert and basically had a steam cert before i dismantled it,so it is a case of getting this approved and it all running. Cheers Mark

Morning all A little later than intended but a quick catch up before another visit to Greystones this weekend, and pictures i'm sure. Yes the last few weeks have mainly been pannier overhaul, most of it covered in the last post. The frames have gone from rolling chassis to flat pack and back in a matter of days, with a layer of paint in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Qg-yjXxyg&feature=plcp The air test, a short clip above revealed the expected niggles. The biggest problem, revealed just by rollling it over on the bench was tightness in the frames. Its perfectly normal for a locoto be tight after being built, i'm sure many will be familiar with running in. But this tightness was patchy, nad while most would wear out, as much of it did under air, just half an hour of running had freed considerably. A partial solution is to take a fraction off of the right hand big end bearing surface, frees it up further. Another solution is taking a little off of the axlebox faces, so that there is a little movement sideways.What many model engineers have failed to understand is that a loco needs a bit of slop all round, and cannot be made absolutely tight, like this one is. Elsewhere a few bits are being disassembled, stripped down and painted in preparation for the final modifications to the chassis, and reassembly in the next few weeks. A few things like tank suports and tool boxes have been painted, but i wasnt happy with the finish so they need to be re painted. Rods have also be reassembled, painted and ready to go. Another project in the workshop has been our riding truck, now a fully fledged Milk van, a ventilated van for carrying milk churns before tankers became widespread. We found that we were using it so little now for its purpose, that we decided to make it look a bit more presentable. So with the addition of semi scale footboards and a new roof (we are retaining the old padded one of course) it looks like this. Also added is a water tank for the ever approaching pannier tank, so we can draw cold water from a seperate tank for the injectors. Injectors dont tend to like warm water, and if you were to draw water for them from the side tanks, the injectors would most likely stop working. I may put a tank in the bunker for use of injectors on a raised track where they are little used when you have an axle pump. On top of all this tinkering, we went to the brent house railway once again. Pictures below. Over the day i drove a friends little great western saddletank.The class escapes me but its a fantastic model. A clinkered fire is my excuse for battling to maintai n pressure, so in the end bynthe end of the day we retired it, though for a small 0-6-0, it did fairly well with the heavy lump of myself, 2 rather old passenger coaches and two parcels vehicle. Right, later maybe down to greystones and have a play there, into the evening and stay over to tomorrow, and come back after a good catch up. Cheers all Mark

haha, thanks for that devondynosaur! it really doesn't have to be hard. all my parts I dump in a pot of panel wipe to remove all traces of grease. I then use a halfords spray can for my paints, but many others brands will do. For using brush paints I'll paint on a very thin coat, I mean really thin of a good quality paint like phoenix precision paints, and let dry and harden for 12-24 hrs. Then give it another coat and perhaps a third if it needs it.that's what I do for mine, I don't know about you.

The overhaul is gatherring pace, should be running by september. Some bits are a bit of a pain but overhaul its really quite enjoyable!

Hi again, thought you got rid of me didnt you!? Nope, back after a while since my last post and alot has happend in the intervening time. Most importantly the pannier has moved on in leaps and bounds. If you look back to previous posts you'l see when last shown the frames we all bare metal, i was having varying issues, and it was realy grubby and covered in oil. After a call from my grandfather to come over and stay for a few days, view latest progress on his 7 1/4 B1 and other things, i realised it would be an excellent opportunity to set all the valve gear, as he is abit of an artist when it comes to sorting the most intricate and tricky part of any loco.Theres really only one way to have valve gear set, anything else is bad. This was Monday before last, and ideally i would want all the loco frames painted, the valve gear painted where it wasnt rubbing and th rest of the wheelsets finished in maroon. No small order in 5 days till the weekend. To make it worse I had some sixth form inductiojn days mon/tues, so actually had only 3 days to strip the loco so it resemmbled an ikea product, deep clean it to remove any trace of grease (paint wont stick over it), prime in etch primer grey, mask off any bearing surfaces, spray the black bits and hand paint all the red, everything had to receive atleast 2 cots of this (precision paints buffer beam red, pretty good stuff. And then reassemble into somethingi could work with. In 3 days. Let the Marathon begin! The buffer beams were the first things off. They had been painted red, but this was flaking as the original builder hadnt used any primer, and the rivets he used, not real, just dummy this time we so easy to pop out it was untrue, several had already come loose. So armed with a can of ambercleanse and plenty of kitchen towel, i removed all the grease and removed all the paint by hand. the buffer stocks themselves got the same sort of treatment. they were spin up in the lather and the paint removed. I also replaced the step pads on the them with some lovely cast ones i had left over from my dads Britannia. All the dummy rivets were popped out, partially as they were copper in a steel buffer beam (would have suffered from bi metallic corrosion) drilled out deeper, and replaced with steel ones. The whole beam was then all primed up, everything seperately, and the backs of the beams painted black. The masking tape has been left on to keep the primer pristine for when i put on thestocks and paint the whole lot red. On Wednesday, the whole frame assembly was stripped down into flat pack. Anything like valve gear was reuced almost as far asit can be disassembled, and placed in panel wipe to remove the grease. The frames were stripped and seperated, and wiped down repeatedly with varying cleaners and panel wipe, before being primed with etch primer. Then the outside of the frames were sprayed black (Halfords satin black aerosol!) and the insides sprayed upto the point of the middle frame stretcher. everything forward of this is painted red. Red was used as a rudimentary form of crack detection, the principle being that dirt gathered in the cracks and showed against the red. Anywhere red received 2 coats of best bufferbeam red bruch painted on, great care being taken to make a sharp edge with the black. This was done by temporairily bolting frame stretcher, motion bracket and cylinder block in and painting upto them. After that anything else that could be painted, was. The crossheads, the sides all receive a coat of red, as did the lifting arm, the con rods and the coupling rods. The thin parts of the eccentric straps also received a coat of red. As did the rear face (facing inwards to the frame) of the cylinder block. I'll reserve judgement of this for the mo, the cylinder block will get quite hot under steam, and as this is not high temperature paint. So it may flake off, but for now, i dont mind, it wont show. The rods on a london Transport pannier sport a rather interesting paint scheme. As many may have noticed coupling rodsare rarely painted on a steam loco, even rarer two tone! The LT rods are red with black bosses around the bearings. After a clean up, andf thall the brass bearing surfaces masked up, the rods were primed before after a tricky masking session, the ends around the bosses painted black. After that had dried (a fairly quick time compared to the brush on!) the red was then painted on, in two coats. this was a crucial appearance item, because they are visible items and noticeable, especially if you have a spoiled the paintwork! The wheelsets were the final major item. The inside wheelset wasnt painted before so after a bath in panel wipe, and a liberal application of masking tape, it was primed, and then painted in my shade of London Transport red. The axleboxes was left in panel wipe for a good few hours and afterf much investigation (caused by me not recording which was round the wheelsets came out, locoframes, even slightly out of alignment are very sensitive to bits not being in the right way round, as i'm sure many have found!) was reassembled. All this, waiting for parts to dry, especiallly anything in red, and cleaning up and priming of various bolts, took me to friday night. I had arranged to meet my grandfather at the guildford society rally on saturday, and go to his for the week. so it needed to be reassembled that night ideally, so i could set all the valve gear over next (this week) I was up till midnight reassembling frames, and dropping wheelsets back in.i however reached a point where i couldnt do anymore until i had drilled some new oil wells in the con rods, so i finished at half midnight with the engine with rods on, wheels in but no valve gear. In Farnborough, under the sound of roaring jets at the airshow, i finished the chassis, drilledin oil wells and went through the motions of equally setting the eccentrics, balancing the valves and getting the best out of the valve gear. We ran it on air, and noticed it was very lumpy, and there was a massive air leak. So after liberal application of thick steam oil, much of the leak in the cylinder was sealed into the valve chest, but the tightness still persisted. i tried several things, with varying success, until on wednesday, i felt reasonably comfortable with putting it back under air. Wednesday is the trackwork day at the Frimley Lodge miniature railway, and a perfect opportunity for a good air run. So after back breaking work restoring ballast shoring, and a delicious curry, i had the chassi on the steaming bays, and ran it up and down on bay.It was then a case of chocking the chassis up and turning over for about half an hour on the air line. All the time it got steadily freer and knockings became less or more apparent. all in all a useful little session. I'll leave it to a second post to expand and fill in on everything else. Hopefully i'll have a video up as well, just to prove it does work! Right, sorry this has all kinda been one subject but its been a massive marathon charge to do it! Other things going on have been the odd bits and pieces, sorting the trailer out, the milk van riding truck has received a bit of an overhaul and detailing. And today i worked on the next stage of the engne overhaul, the running plates, springs and brake gear, as well as fixing the outstanding niggles. Cheers all, next post will hopefully be sooner, though it may not be tillsunday evening, as its off to brent house again on sunday, driving an SR Q1, possibly if i'm lucky mike a 32XX. Cheers all Mark