Pierview

This is the latest addition to my road steam collection and is another E-bay rescue. The model as acquired was in the parlous state shown in the first photo and I nearly dismissed it as being more trouble than it was worth. However, I could see that it was a Standard Sentinel steam wagon kit by Langley Models and as these don't come along too often I decided that for the small financial outlay it was worth a punt. The kit had been assembled in an odd fashion with the front apron lower than it should have been and some improvisation had taken place to compensate. The chassis was distorted and the whole thing was covered in a treacle like application of green paint. When I gave it the Dettol treatment the dissolved paint allied with the glue to create a thick sticky mess which was the very devil to clean away from the component parts and I spent a happy few hours cleaning up each piece in turn. At this stage I began to think my first reaction was correct but I persevered and reassembled the kit as shown in the second and third photos. Barry

I have now completed the body for the 15xx class. I get the impression that Autocom must have improved the original K's kit as there appear to be a few extra details and minor changes. The cab front casting has a large rectangular hole , presumably to clear the original K's mechanism, but the back head does not conceal it and leaves daylight showing either side. To get round this I filled the hole with a piece of scrap white metal and then made a smaller hole to clear the front shaft of the motor. The biggest problem I faced with this kit was that there were no handrail holes nor punch marks for them, so I had to work out their location with the aid of plans and photographs. This took quite a lot of time as there are more than a few handrails on these locomotives. The small rear locomotive steps were part of the rear bunker/ buffer beam casting but for some odd reason were facing backwards. I can only think that this was a misinterpretation by the original kit designer and I got round this by cutting them off flush with the bottom of the buffer beam, lengthening them with scrap white metal and then remounting them in their correct position inside the buffer beam. The reversing rod was a hefty casting which neither looked right nor sat properly so I replaced it with one fashioned from scrap brass etching. The injectors were a little troublesome as again they were rather delicate white metal castings and needed to be drilled out for the copper wire. Needless to say, I managed to snap one but manage to effect a repair. I thought that the wire supplied with the kit was too springy so I substituted soft copper wire intended for jewelry work and obtained from my local arts and crafts shop. I have added some extra detail but I am sure that I have missed something as the 15xx is a complicated little beast of a locomotive which is quite different to most GWR types. The painting will follow when the weather settles down sufficiently to enable me to spray outdoors. Might be a few days yet! Barry

I have now completed the 15xx chassis which is running quite well at present although the mechanism still needs to bed in I think. I am always apprehensive about walschaerts valve gear assembly, particularly when an older kit design is involved ,but this one went together reasonably easily. I feel that the motion pieces are of their era though and perhaps a little on the chunky side. I did try to slim them a bit with a file but I am not sure that this has made much difference . The only problem I had concerned the valve rockers which hold the combination lever. The white metal castings supplied were impossibly delicate and both broke whilst I was assembling the valve gear. In my opinion they needed to be made of something a little stronger such as brass in order to do the job. I saw no point in requesting replacements as these would probably also break, so I substituted U shape strips of NS and glued these in the fixing holes instead. I salvaged parts of the broken castings and thinned these down before gluing in place on my replacement strips. The second photo shows the chassis with the completed cab and boiler/pannier tank placed in position for effect . The pannier tank has not been cleaned up yet. I am quite enjoying this build so far! Barry

.For my final winter loco build before I have to turn my efforts to decorating and gardening I decided to tackle the Nu Cast Partners 15xx 0-6-0PT kit which was a Christmas present from my wife in 2020. I remember building the chassis of the original K's kit for a friend years ago and always quite liked the idea of getting one for myself. It was never a high priority however, and whilst I failed to make a move the K's range passed to Autocom before that manufacturer also disappeared from the market. Thanks to the heroic rescue act by Dave Ellis and Brian Osborne in recent years there is new life for many of these old kits, including the 15xx, so I wasn't going to miss the opportunity this time. Inevitably the announcement from Rapido trains about a RTR version then followed so I thought that I should get mine finished first! First impressions are that this is one of the better products from the former K's range although I am not sure whether Autocom upgraded the kit during their ownership. So far I am working on the chassis and progress is shown in the attached photos. The frames are very much as I remember the K's originals although made of somewhat thinner brass. Assembly is by the old fashioned screw in spacers and as this method did not afford enough width to fit my High Level gear box I widened the frames by the expedient of introducing washers between the spacers and frame on one side. Once all was square I followed the instructions in soldering the spacers into position on the inside of the frames before removing the screws and filling the external holes with solder, which was subsequently dressed back to a smooth surface. Unfortunately there is no provision for brake gear so before assembly so I marked and drilled holes for the cross wires. The Mainly Trains etched pack of GWR brake gear provides suitable hangers and these will be fitted in due course. The gearbox is a HL Loadhauler with 90:1 reduction and a 1020FE motor. Barry

I will be interested to hear how you get on Jon. I might even be tempted to make an improved version myself! If I recall correctly I didn't build the card kit as a fold up model but cut it into individual parts before treating them with model aircraft dope (or whatever it is called these days) to stiffen before assembly. This gave a sharper outline and was a tip picked up in a 1970's MRC. Barry

Some superb modelling there Phil. Did you use the Lledo Foden as the basis of your conversion? Also, I am very impressed by your 1 1/2 ton steam crane, which I assume is scratchbuilt. Did you have any plans to work from? Barry

Ah the minefield of GWR tender variations! However it looks OK to me so I think I will live with it.

Hi Jon A thought that occurs to me if you are contemplating scratch building a Yorkshire is to get hold of a RIKO card kit and use the parts as templates for metal or plastic construction. I haven't measured the RIKO kit but it looks right against my other models. Barry

If you don't already have it I would recommend Iain Rice's book "Locomotive Chassis Construction in 4mm". Like all his books it is very readable and has a chapter on compensation. It certainly helped me to understand what i had previously thought to be a dark art! Barry

Keith Yes it did. I did a web search and found a colour photo of 2538 at Welshpool. The plates are definitely red! Larger locos had red plates as well and there is a well known photograph of 2934 " Butleigh Court" at Swindon in lined black livery with red backed number and name plates. I did the same with my model version. Barry

I have the Dean Goods finished now apart from the tender works plate, which is on order. I made the rolled up storm sheet from thin foil from a wine bottle. I am not sure that I really like the early BR fashion for red backed number plates but as the prototype had them I thought that I had better follow suit. Ah well, the next project beckons.... Barry

Jon Yorkshires are a gap in my collection as well. Many years ago Rowland Miniatures were rumored to be adding some Yorkshire wagons to their range of cast kits but nothing ever came to fruition. As you say, the otherwise excellent Matchbox Yorkshire wagons are modelled to a strange scale and are too big for 4mm. To the best of my knowledge the only Yorkshire kit that has been produced was a cardboard one by RIKO in the 1970's and examples can still be found on E-Bay. Here is my model which I built a very long time ago. The kit is very basic but captures the essence of the prototype. If I was going to build another one though I think that I would add a lot more extra detail . Hope this helps! Barry

Whilst waiting for the arrival of a couple of bits to finish my Dean Goods I tackled some recent E-Bay purchases in the form of 3 road steam vehicles. The Foden 3 Way tipper is built from an EAMES kit and the Wallis & Stevens Advance road roller is built from a Springside Models kit. The green Aveling & Porter road roller is an ancient Lesney model which has been re-painted and titivated. It scrubs up very well. Road steam models is a secondary interest of mine and I have a very large collection of mostly kit built examples. Does anyone else share my interest? I am relatively new to the forum but despite a couple of searches I have not been able to find any other references. Apologies if I am posting in the wrong place! Barry

I have now finished detailing the Dean Goods apart from the smokebox door handle, which is on order. Replacement Dean buffers are fitted together with lamp irons, vacuum pipe and a reversing lever in the cab. So far as the tender is concerned I have corrected the water scoop, and fitted a buffer beam. The latter item was not present with the Hornby underframe and I suspect that it was an integral part of the original tender drive unit. I thought that the original handrails on both loco and tender were far too chunky so I replaced them. The original boiler handrail knobs were countersunk and their removal exposed large holes which were much too big for fine scale knobs. I therefore found it necessary to fill the holes with Milliput , sand down when dry, and re-drill for the smaller knobs. I fretted out the unrealistically large plastic coal heap (which was designed to hide the tender mechanism) and fitted a plasticard "floor" which I covered with black plasticine as a base for the crushed coal that will follow in due course. The final job is the repainting which I hope to do in the next week or so. Barry

Thanks folks, I will make the necessary correction. Just shows the value of this forum! Barry

I worked from the drawing in Russell's GWR locomotives book as shown. It's a Branchlines casting which is described as a GWR scoop but is not an exact copy of the type shown in the drawing. Perhaps I need to turn it around. What do you think? Barry

I now have the tender chassis completed as shown in the photos. The Hornby plastic underframe needed hacking around to make the Comet internal frames fit and I added a plasticard floor to enable me to attach the frames with a couple of self tapping screws. I also compensated the tender chassis as Comet made provision for it. I now have to sort out the loco body fixing and tender coupling before moving on to body detailing. I will have to do something about that monstrous coal heap in the tender! Barry

Thanks 5050, your Dean is rather more sophisticated than my humble effort and lots of good tips there. I thought that there had been a previous thread but I couldn't locate it. Barry

No, I was tempted but opted instead for a Comet internal frame set, Barry

I removed the Hornby weight, sawed off the firebox portion and replaced the rest in the boiler. More lead to be added where I can squeeze it in! Thanks for that . It's a useful tip for the future. That's encouraging to hear! I believe Chris Gibbon went to a lot of effort in developing his new range of motors and I am impressed with the two that I have used to date. Barry

Having completed the LNER J52 loco recently described,I decided to tackle another long standing project, namely a GWR Dean Goods 0-6-0. This is another Hornby upgrade for which I have been slowly accumulating the parts over a period of time. I have always wanted a Dean Goods although I didn't see any in service as the class had become extinct long before I started spotting. I did however see the preserved example 2516 in store at Swindon works awaiting restoration, so perhaps that counts ! Regarding the project, some years ago I was fortunate in being able to purchase at a very reasonable price loco and tender bodies on E-bay. Both items were in as new condition and would cost me considerably more these days. As this is a fairly common conversion I won't dwell too much on the construction details but the photos show progress to date. I am using Comet chassis kits for both loco and tender. The loco chassis is complete using Markits wheels (which I had in stock) a High Level Road Runner compact 60:1 ratio gearbox together with their 1015 motor. This is the second of the High Level "cost effective" motors that I have used and by mounting it vertically I have managed to fit it nicely in the firebox. I suspect haulage capability will be modest though. As I model in OO I seldom bother with compensation, but decided on this occasion to do so just for the hell of it! I used the excellent High Level hornblocks .The tender chassis has been assembled but is awaiting brake gear. Barry

I've now finished the J52 apart from it's shed plate, which is on order. I normally try to model engines that I saw in service, but as I didn't see any J52's I have chosen 68838 as my subject on the basis that it appeared to be a fairly standard class member without some of the subsequent modifications. It was a KX engine and withdrawn about 1956. After this rare foray into things LNER my next project will be a Dean Goods. I have spare Hornby loco and tender bodies and intend to do a similar upgrade. Barry

I have now managed to complete the detailing of the J52 body. Most of the parts came from the very comprehensive Mainly Trains detailing pack but I also added some extras including lamp and fire iron brackets, sand box operating lever and RH bunker steps. In this connection Allan Sibley's article in MRJ 35 ("Plastic Surgery on a J52") was extremely useful in identifying the differences to be found on this long lived class. I do take the point made by 31A about the smokebox door, but as I have nothing better to replace it with I have decided to live with it. The old girl is just about ready for the paint shop now! Barry

A quick progress report on the J52 with more body work done. The splashers have been replaced in their amended positions and handrails fitted. The chimney and dome have both been reduced in height to suit my BR era model and the under tank balance pipe fitted. Etched overlays have been added to the buffer beams and the new body fixing points have been made and glued in place. It shouldn't take much to finish it now but the next update will be after the festivities. Happy Christmas everybody! Barry

Thanks for your kind comments. The injectors have been removed as they will be replaced in due course by some nice brass castings which are included with the detailing kit. Are the plastic ones of interest to you? Barry