CXW1

Green would be nice (and a challenge) but my plan is finish it off in lined black with the number on the splasher. Thanks Chris

I wasn't planning to build another loco, but with another period of not being able to do much else I thought 'why not?' When I built the D24 I made the error or ordering two sets of driving wheels. The first set of drivers was ordered directly from Markits. I have done this before without any issues but this time my order appeared to go into a black hole. After noticing that Wizard stocked the same wheels (which I knew would turn up within a few days of ordering) I got impatient and placed an order. Then, right on cue, the order turned up from Markits. I know there is a thread on here giving Markits a bit of flak, but I've never had a problem - the double order was entirely my own doing. I consulted the RCTS book to see if there was another North Eastern 4-4-0 which had the same size driving wheels as a D24 (give or take an inch or so). The best thing I could come up with was a D22 (ex NER Class F). So, here is the start of a D22 propped up with blue-tac. The whitemetal roof is a spare part from an old kit. I won't use this as it is the wrong pattern for the period that I am modelling. I will make the correct roof from brass. No. 663 was (I think) the only member of the class which got LNER group standard buffers. I think the D22s look better with the smaller NER tapered buffers, so I will probably replace the GS ones with these. The beading around the splasher and on the cab was made from various sizes of wire and then filed flat. The castings and some of the pipes are just plonked on for now. The mobile phone photo seems to make the sides of the smokebox appear square - it isn't and has the correct profile based on the photos that I can find. I have borrowed the tender from my Dave Alexander J27. A proper looking Victorian engine if ever there was one. Cheers Chris

Following on from the previous picture of the house, here is a picture of it acting as the view blocker on my embryonic 2mm Association Diamond Jubilee layout. As you can see there is still plenty to do, but following on from Boris's latest update it looks like I might have a bit of time on my hands to hopefully make some progress. Next job is to make a backscene and build up the terrain at the back of the scenic area, then make some progress with the scenic bits. What you see below is about 18 months-worth of glacial progress. Points are operated by wire-in-tube and there is a magnet behind the house to operate the DG couplings - and that's as complicated as it gets. The goods shed is based on a few similar buildings on the NER Cornhill branch and the yard office/weigh bridge is similar to the one at Alston. I'm not going to start a layout topic because it is small enough to fit on my workbench, so it is still technically a workbench item. The overall length of the picture below is 60cm. I've also stuck a few more red lines on the D24 tender. Other than fitting couplings and coal, that's about as much as I'm going to do to it. I've got some Kitson works plates on order from Narrow Planet - these will go on the front splasher. Cheers Chris

After spending far too much time making locomotives of late I fancied a change of scenery - no pun intended. I am a relatively inactive member of the 2mm Scale Association and decided to have a go at the Diamond Jubilee Layout Challenge which had a deadline some time back in June. Lockdown resulted in this not happening which was useful given that I hadn't made much progress. I think the DJLC has been postponed for 12 months so with 9 or so months to go I thought I'd better get my finger out. To anyone not familiar with the DJLC rules, you need to make a layout which has a scenic area no more than 60cm in length (representing 60 years of the 2mm Association) and no more than 9.42 inches wide (representing the 9.42mm track gauge). Yes I know it is bad practice to mix metric and imperial measurements but I didn't make up the rules. I think there has to be at least one working point or something along those lines. I am happy to stand corrected on the measurements and rules if anyone from the DJLC committee wishes to bring me into line. A few DJLC efforts that I have seen are fairly complex but my effort will be an imaginary goods depot with an inglenook plan based 'somewhere in Co. Durham or Northumberland', i.e. goods shed, coal drops etc. and built on the KISS principle. The scenic area will have a depot manager's house as a view blocker (idea completely nicked from the Croft Depot P4 layout - sorry) but I have based it on the station house at Whittingham in Northumberland. The grey bit at the bottom will allow the building to be 'planted' into the ground so hopefully there won't be any gaps. As I said, the house will act as a view blocker so the back wall has been left plain. Walls are embossed plastikard, windows are from Brassmasters and the paper on the roof is the same as was used on many of the buildings on St Ruth - it is printed onto white paper and then painted with water colours. The layout is currently gathering dust on a shelf in my garage. I'll give it a clean and stick some pictures on here - there isn't much to see though..... Cheers Chris

Many years ago I knew someone who did lining with a bow pen / ruling pen, and it amazed me how easy he made it look, especially things like BR mixed traffic lining with 3 different colours. It seemed like it was 50% ability and 50% having the confidence to just do it and not ruin a perfectly good model. I'll check out the video - it is something that I would like to get better at. Thanks for your kind comments. Chris

Thanks Mick - I'll give that a go. I agree with you about the width of the Fox lining. The lining on the D24 is the thinnest stuff that Fox sell (0.35mm ?) but it still looks a bit thick. I have found that it seems to stand out even more on photographs but matt or satin varnish and some light weathering seems to tone it down a bit. I do get on better with waterslide lining than pressfix though.

The D24 has had a lick of paint, and it now has an owner and a number. I have made a start on the lining and this is as far as I got before I ran out of red lines/got bored. Each time I get the lining transfers out I tell myself 'I must learn how to do this by hand....' One thing which has worked out OK is the brass beading on the splashers. These were made by forming the curve with 1mm thick brass strip and then setting the splasher sides back ever so slightly, thus forming a recess. When the paint was still fairly soft it was scraped away to leave the bare brass. Unfortunately I managed to scrape away some paint where I didn't mean to and the picture shows a few areas of touching up. However this won't be obvious when it has had a coat of varnish. I still need to line the splashers with transfers but initial attempts haven't been very successful in forming the curve. Any ideas/suggestions on how to do this with Fox or HMRS transfers? Cheers Chris

The A7 has had some black paint and transfers applied. The pictures below show it just after it had a few squirts of satin varnish to seal in the transfers and it looks far too clean. Most of the photographs of A7s show them in a pretty filthy condition, so it clearly needs some weathering (and some cab glazing and coal in the back). I can also possibly shed some light on the minimum radius curves it will run through. It will happily rattle through a set of Marcway 48 inch radius points but won't go through 36 inch radius points (as expected). I'm not a layout builder and therefore haven't got a clue what this means or whether this is good, bad or indifferent. One day I might get round to knocking up a proper layout so I'm happy to be educated on this matter (by the way I wouldn't use the Marcway points if I ever get around to building a layout - I'll make my own). Cheers Chris

Well, I reckon the A7 is more or less finished. I've really enjoyed building this and I've managed to overcome my fear of outside cylinders. It will now take its place in the paint queue with the D24. The 'does it go round corners' test will have to wait until I can take it for a run on a layout which has curves.

More A7 progress. The chassis is painted and it runs well with a big flywheel fitted. Buffers, steps, sand boxes and a few other fiddly bits done. There isn't much clearance between the front steps and the connecting rods, or the rear steps and the crankpin, but just enough. To answer the question of the minimum radius curves it will run through, I genuinely haven't got a clue at this stage. They won't be particularly tight though. The safety valve casing has polished-up nicely so I will leave it as it is and glue it on it after final painting.

I've been making steady progress with the A7 over the past week. The previously pictured Comet gearbox that I use for testing has been replaced with a High Level LoLoader 90:1 gearbox and a Mitsumi motor. It is fair to say that it runs nicely although this has only been via wires going directly from an old H&M controller to the motor - I will fit proper pickups after the chassis has had a coat of paint. The next few jobs will be making the distinctive L-shaped sandboxes, buffer beams, steps, balance weights for the driving wheels etc. The castings are just balanced in place for the picture. Cheers Chris

More progress with the cylinders this evening. I was going to leave this job until later on but figured if I got it sorted it would be big step forward. Still some small details to add, but we are getting there. A half-section of brass tube was soldered over the '3-sided box' to give the cylinders their round profile, followed by an outer wrapper. On most of the photographs I have looked at, the outer wrapper seems to follow the profile of the cylinders up to a point and then straightens out to fit flush with the valance. The outer wrapper was made from nickel silver strip and it took a fair amount of fiddling about and filing to get it to be a reasonable fit up against the valance. If I'm being honest this is probably at the upper limit of my metal-working skills and it was a bit of a battle. When the loco is painted the join will be less obvious. The wrapper needs to be kept separate from the valance otherwise it won't be possible to remove the chassis from the body. The ends of the cylinders are thin plastikard discs that were made with a standard-sized hole punch. The picture is a bit of a cruel close-up and I reckon it looks OK at normal viewing distance. Oh, and the other side looks the same. Cheers Chris

Thanks for the information, Arthur. I tend to use 0.5mm brass for the frames, so setting the rear frames inside the main frames would definitely work. Probably a bit late to do anything with my A7 now as I don't fancy dismantling it now that I've got it running nicely, but I will certainly incorporate narrower rear frames if I make something similar in the future.

I'm not sure about the absolute minimum radius as I don't have a layout with tight curves, but I deliberately have some horrible 36 inch radius Marcway points on my test track which it can get through. I work on the basis of 'if it goes through those it will go through anything'. The N13 also has a little bit of side play on the middle driving axle which helps.

Apologies for posting the same picture twice. Tonight's job is cleaning some wheels I think.....

OK - like the A7 front bogie this isn't going win any engineering awards and there are probably far-more technically correct ways of doing things, but it seems to work. The first picture shows the basic A7 rear pony truck. It is made from some square brass section with a couple of small-sized 2mm bore frame bushes pressed into the end. I'm not sure what the inside dimensions of the square section is but the bushes are a snug fit and need to be pressed in with a vice. This is as far as I have got with the A7, so the pictures below are of my N13 0-6-2T. A potential problem with the A7 pony truck is the fact it isn't very long, which means it probably won't travel very far from side to side (but this is counteracted by the fact there is a front bogie). I can't make it any longer as there is only 24mm between the centres of the rear driving wheel and the trailing wheel, and there is also the issue of the gearbox to be fitted to the rear wheel. Anyhow, on the N13 (which has a longer wheelbase between the rear driver and the trailing wheel) I have attached the pony truck to a frame spacer. The pony truck has had some lead fitted to it to weigh it down and is kept on the rails with some light springing made from something like 0.4mm brass wire. Please excuse the dirty wheels!! The next picture shows the same arrangement from above. As you can see, the pony truck doesn't move much, but it is enough to get through a set of B6 points without any issues forwards and backwards. I guess if you wanted the truck to swing from side to side a bit more you could joggle the frames at the rear. I stuck some sellotape to the rear of the frames before painting so there aren't any issues of 'metal on metal' if the rear wheel touches the frames. Like I said above, this isn't going to win any engineering awards but I found this system to be dead easy to make and so far it has been very reliable. I have used this idea on the N13 and also my N10, N12 and F8 tanks and none of them jump off the track. I think another benefit of this system is the fact that it only needs a small square cut-out in the frames which eliminates the amount of daylight, and looks OK from normal viewing distance. Incidentally Mick, the above picture shows the separate fabrication of the cab and the side tank typical of H&BR tank locos as per our discussion about the lining on my N12 a week or so ago. Like all things like this, there will be different theories on pony trucks/radial trucks and there will also be ideas out there that are way-more technically correct than what I have done. But, I am working with basic tools and materials and not in the game of commissioning my own etched designs or owt like that, and therefore need to keep it simple where possible.

I think that would be a good idea. I had some brass square section which just so happened to be the correct size from top to bottom. I cut off one of the sides to end up with what you can see in the pictures. Probably a case of the materials I had at my disposal lending themselves to what I ended up doing. The slidebars are 0.8mm x 0.8mm nickel silver from Eileens - these had to be narrowed ever-so-slightly to fit in the slots on the Markits crosshead.

This is probably down to me not reading your email properly as opposed to developing my own theory!! With the benefit of hindsight I can see that the front and back approach would probably avoid having to use some scrap brass to hold the crosshead tube in place. However, the top and bottom approach gives a nice strong and level fixing for the slidebars.

Haven't got that far yet but it will be the same simple arrangement as I've used on the N12 and other 0-6-2s. I'll post a photo this evening - it will be easier to show you a picture than try and write a description.

I started work on the cylinders last night and, much to my surprise, they work. Following some advice provided by Tony Gee (t-b-g), the working part of the cylinders were made using a 3-sided box section. The slidebars were soldered to the inside of the box which gives a nice strong construction. The box itself was then bolted to the frames and set to the correct angle, following which a small amount of solder was applied to hold everything in place. The box can be removed if necessary by melting the solder, but I don't see any reason why they will need to come off now. The tube that the crosshead slides back and forth in was secured with some scrap brass. The next job will be to make some cosmetic wrappers to go around the cylinder 'box' but this can go on the list of things to do now that I am happy that everything seems to work OK. Here is a picture of the cylinder fabrication with the body just plonked on for now. The cylinders and slidebars are on a slight angle as per the real thing, and the excess tube at the front of the cylinders has been cut off since the picture was taken. And here it is going for its first test run along the workbench. The gearbox is an old Comet 50:1 job that I use for testing things. I will end up using a High Level gearbox to make sure there is no visible motor in the cab. OK - I will admit that a photograph with a couple of wires sticking out of the motor doesn't prove that it actually moves, so you will have to take my word for it. There is also sufficient clearance between the rear bogie wheel and the slidebars to suggest that it will go round modest corners. As Hannibal Smith used to say, I love it when a plan comes together..... Cheers Chris

I'll admit that this probably won't win any engineering awards but I might have come up with a solution to the expected problem of the A7 bogie wheels shorting out on the slidebars when going round the slightest of corners. Please ignore the dodgy soldering - it will either be cleaned up or won't be seen on the finished model. Following the offline conversation with Mick, Mark and Barry yesterday I have come up with the following dodge. I have fitted a spacer onto the bogie between the rear wheels. The 'arm' (or whatever it is called) from the Comet bogie kit has been re-shaped and soldered to the new spacer. The works foreman looks on pensively. The next thing was to kill two birds with one stone. The bogie is attached to the frames using the same bolt which is used to fix the frames to the body. The bogie therefore pivots/swings from behind the rear axle. He still doesn't look convinced..... This has the effect of allowing the bogie to swing from side to side and hopefully allow the loco to go round corners, but the rear bogie wheels (which will be behind the problematic slidebars) clearly move less than the front bogie wheels. I may fit something to limit how far the bogie can actually travel, but this will be easier to do once the slidebars have been fitted. At the end of the day the loco isn't going to be expected to go around trainset curves so hopefully it will all be OK for prototypical points, especially if the ends of the cylinders can be made with plastic or similar. The front of the frames sit on top of the bogie (thus making the bogie 'load bearing'). As stated earlier - the dodgy soldering won't be seen. I have also made a start on the connecting rods. These are made from nickel silver strip and 0.5mm nickel silver wire. The wire was soldered to the strip in the basic shape of the rod and then filed flat. Not perfect, but I'm happy with them for a first attempt. The Markits crossheads are really nice. I also did the final fiddly and boring jobs to the D24. Hopefully the next time it appears on here it will be painted and lined. Cheers Chris

Sixty quid - bargain of the year!!! I note it is described as 'nicely made and painted, and a great item for your collection' I assume it is prototypical for the little known electrified section of the Wisbech and Upwell?

Sounds like a right old bodge. The thing that gets me with these badly made jobs is that someone at some point in time has looked at the model and thought 'that's a good idea and it looks pretty good' when it clearly doesn't. As you say, all very bizarre. I am also planning on using a Comet bogie so hopefully it will all turn out OK.

Hello Mark My comment about not capturing the prototype may have been a bit harsh. I think the footplate, cab, tanks etc are pretty good but the only completed A7 kit that I have ever seen (many years ago) was, in my opinion, let down by things like the chimney, dome and cylinders being of a questionable shape. In reality these are very minor things and more accurate castings would probably make a huge difference and lift the original kit to a far better level. I also recall the boiler appearing to be too thin (and a completely different profile to the boiler on Mick's model), but it was a long time ago so I could be wrong. Cheers Chris

Hello Mick, I have been following your fortunes with the A7 after Hermes kicked it around their warehouse floor. I dread having anything delivered by them - it usually turns up late or damaged, and sometimes both. I ordered some chocolates for a few relatives last Christmas and they were delivered by Hermes. It appears that someone somewhere in the supply chain had opened the boxes and helped themselves to the nice ones. Of course we could never prove what happened but I got my money back for damaged item. Anyway, back to the A7. I don't have any pictures of the tank/boiler join. However, it looks like on the larger boilers the front of the side tank is profiled to the shape of the boiler, which suggests there wouldn't be much of a gap at the top. On the newer/smaller boilers it looks like a plate has been attached to the front of the side tank which fills the gap between the original tank and the smaller boiler - in this case my educated guess is there would be some sort of a gap at the top. I think the difference in boiler sizes was 5ft 6 inches versus 4ft 9 inches minus the cladding - therefore a 2mm gap could be slightly too large but not too far off, but only if you are modelling the newer/smaller boiler. I haven't soldered anything together yet so this is something that I ideally need to get some certainty on before I do anything else. I have scratch built my chassis from brass strip. The front bogie currently pivots in the middle but I anticipate some clearance and shorting issues once I get the slide bars attached (it is EM). A tried and tested solution is to pivot the bogie closer to the rear wheel and I suspect I will have to do this. I will also use a HL gearbox - not sure which one yet but the available space means that pretty much anything will fit. I'm not going to think about gearboxes and motors until I can get the outside cylinders sorted and rolling chassis that goes around corners. This is probably going to be a slow burner over the winter. Good luck with yours. One small thing - I haven't seen a photo of an A7 with tank vents. I think the A8s had them though....