DLT

With the sound turned all the way to eleven....

Well, its nearly finished, lots more bits stuck on, and weathering added. Still more to do; cab interior needs fitting and a crew adding, coal in bunker, operating rod to sandpot etc. I havent yet lined the skirts on this side of the loco, but I think its needs some. Cheers, Dave.

Definitely!

Hi Raphael and Graham, Not guilty! Afraid I can't claim any credit fotr the chassis, its body only for me this time. As you say its lovely, very well built and runs like a dream Quite so, reshaping the frames is on the to-do list. According to JH Russell in "A Pictorial Record of Southern Locomotives" only the first loco, 530, had frames this shape when built, but was later altered to the concave shape to match the rest of the class. The photo below is the Official SR photo, copied from the Russell book (any copyright issues with this?) Thanks very much for the photo Raphael, wish I'd had it when riviting the smokebox! A question, please can anyone confirm what the plate on the cabside it? It appears on all locos in Southern period, but not postwar. Thanks all, Dave.

Theres a second volume to this book, "The Wee Donegal Revisited" And highly recommended is "The Irish Narrow Gauge in Colour" by Norman Johnston, ISBN 1 904242 13 8 Both by Colourpoint Books. Both are listed by The Titfield Thunderbolt Bookshop http://www.titfield.co.uk/ Colourpoint Books are at http://www.colourpointbooks.co.uk/ Happy searching, Dave

The geometric rule I was concerned with here was finding the circimference of a circle, or in this case a smokebox. It all depends on a figure called Pi (pronounced Pie) which is a ratio that represents the number of times the diameter fits into the circumference. The actual figure runs to many places of decimals, but for our purposes it can be rounded up to 3.142, or 3.14. Pi is represented on your calculator by a symbol that looks like a tiny model of Stonehenge (fans of Spinal Tap will recognise it instantly) Circumference = Pi x Diameter. If diameter = 22mm, then circumference = 22 x 3.142, = 69.124mm. Or 69 and a bit when you are marking out a piece of brass or whatever. The internet can probably explain it better than I can, take a look at what Wikipedia or Math Goodies have to say on the subject. Once you know the circumference you can work out the position of all sorts of other fittings by gauging their distance from a known point, such as the centreline of the chimney. For intance, if the handrails are on the centreline of the smokebox each side, their distance apart will be half the circumference, the disance from them to the chimney centreline will be a quarter of the circimference, etc, etc. If you have a good front view and can measure angle you can get REALLY clever. If the position on the smokebox is, say, 60 degrees from the vertical, dividing the circumference by 360 gives you the length of one degree, In the case of our 22mm dia smokebox, one degree around the circ = 0.192mm, or 0.2mm is quite close enough. So for 60 degrees from vertical, 60 x 0.2 = 12mm, which is the distance from the chimney centreline. Hmm, guess all thats clear as mud (its late...) or can anyone follow it? Cheers, Dave.

I'll have a go, but its easier to demonstrate than it is to describe. watch this space.... Headphones and your most riviting music usually does the trick. Er, I'm not sure how that would help. I do a large fully dimensioned sketch showing the rivit positions and spacings, and then use the indexing dials on the GW Riviter to go straight on to the workpiece, no marking out required. Even when using non-indexing riviters, you only need to know the various dimensions in order to mark out the workpiece, rather than an accurate scale drawing.. Great, thanks. Dave.

That interestingChris, can you remember what was in it? I wonder if any of the bits would still be usefull? I see that nowadays PDK have a complete etched kit for the Q, so if anyone is starting from scratch that would be the way to go. All the best, Dave.

The various parts of the boiler were all soldered together to form one immensely strong assembly. At this point it became apparent that the proportions are a bit off. The boiler barrel is a tad small in diameter, while the smokebox was a bit large. As I was intendind to add a new wrapper, I reduced the smokebox diameter with large coarse files. Examination of various photos plus the application of some rather ancient "O" Level Geometry allowed me to plan out the riviting pattern for the smokebox wrapper. Then it was over to the trusty GW Models Riviting Machine, and half an hour or so of pressing produced this: Once cut to width, curving it around various sizes of bar, together with a lot of trial and error led to this: Finally, after Aralditing in position and cutting to length the loco looks like this: It still looks a little dimensionally out to me; maybe the boiler and firebox are a bit small, or the cab a bit large, or a bit of both! Apart from raising the boiler a bit, I dont think I can correct it without building as completely new boiler assembly, and thats a bit beyond the scope of this project. So, the question I have to ask is: Does it look like a Q?

To the left, south of this bridge. If you look carefully at this view you can see the scars on the landscape of the filled in cuttings. And on this map if you zoom in to the larger scale, you can see the contours of the cuttings before they were filled in. Cheers, Dave.

Third ??? What is under it at the moment? The current etched version from SEF is superb, make the rest of the kit look rather dated. Cheers, Dave.

Well it certainly looks impressive in the photos! Do you have a thread or gallery on the layout anywhere? Many thanks, Dave.

I wasnt sure whether the sideskirts should be lined, so I've tried it on one side only. I need to carefully varnish over the lining as its very shiny at it is, and catching the light too much, playing havoc with the photos. By the way, the sandpot is just perched there at the mo, and not fixed at a wonky angle! Cheers, Dave.

I had hoped to be able to do the work without dismantling the body, but with handling it started coming apart anyway, so I decided the best thing to do was take it to bits and start again. The Q has a footplate that steps inwards about halfway along. This is correctly represented in the footplate casting, but they are the full width again at the front end. So if assembled as they are, the footplate splays outwards towards the front. I made up my usual cradle from plywood to support the loco and keep the footplate flat and true during assembly. I filed a bit out of the middle of the footplate castings to bring them in to the correct width, you can see the overwided bufferbeam casting in the photos. The chassis is an etched & compensated beauty, all I've done to it is fit my usual springy wired to the contacts, to support the rear of the motor. Cheers, Dave.

The Railmatch Indian Red seems to have been a good choice, and its been followed up by some HMRS Pressfix Lining; GWR Looc to be precise. Boiler and one side lined so far, then eyesight needed a break! Cheers, Dave.

DLTs Southern Locos thread is active again. Dave.

Time to kick this thread into action again, the next job is finishing a Maunsell Q Class, previously described in the Southern Q Class on the Workbench thread, where there is much prototype information. Built from the South Eastern Finecast kit, the chassis is all the new fully detailed etched kit, beautifully built with full compensation, and running very nicely with a Mashima motor and HighLevel gearbox. Tender is the current Bachmann model, which would be very hard to improve on and will be left well alone. The loco body though is still the 1960s vintage Wills whitemetal. Whilst its pretty accurate dimensionally its rather lacking in detail, and suffers from being designed to fit on a Hornby-Dublo or Wrenn chassis. As a result there is no cab interior, or bottom on the boiler; its one enormous cutout. What detail there is is very nicely cast on the bodywork, such as the pipework for the steam reverser, but theres not a rivit to be seen on smokebox or buffer beam. Cheers, Dave.

Had a few problems with the red paint used, it never really hardened properly. And as I wasnt entirely convinced with the colour I washed it all off again Once I'd done this I realised how nice it looked in plain black, but I persevered with red and its now been painted with Railmatch Indian Red. Looks great, photos later. Dave.

That is awesome.... Dave.

Terrific shot Stubby, a real sense of scale. How on earth did you get the camera in there? Cheers, Dave.

Moved on to the the painting stage now. The whole thing was sprayed matt black with a Halfords spraycan, and the colours applied by brush. The body colour is LMS Red from the old (and much missed) Humbrol "Authentic" range. One coat today, another one tomorrow and that should suffice. Buffer beams red and cab interior buff. Looks a bit plain at the moment, but will look a lot better when lined, weathered, all bits added etc. Cheers, Dave.

Very nicely done Mudders, I particularly like the scrap load, very effective. Cheers, Dave.

With almost all the detail bits done, its time to think about painting. First job is cleaning and blackening. The whole loco was scrubbed with scouring powder and an old toothbrush, rinsed off and cleaned in an Ultrasonic cleaning tank. Once dry, all the bits were dunked in/brushed with Carrs Metalblack for Brass, rinsed and dried again. Blackening is beneficial as it prevents the bright shiny brass showing through should you happen to chip or wear off any paintwork later on. Cheers, Dave.

Orchard Road was looking great at Exeter, many thanks for letting me have a play. You were a bit tucked away in a corner, but you always seemed to have a good group around the layout. All the best, Dave.

Yes, but its not dcc fitted (yet) so I cant test it on your layout. It would foul the loading gauge anyway...