Rob Pulham

Finally, here it is with a coat of paint which is as far as I took it.

A couple of sessions this weekend, have seen most of the brass castings and the backhead finished and secured in place. Prior to doing that I had to make a cab floor or rather the front section of the cab floor because my replacement backhead fell through the section that’s not provided in the kit when I tried it in place. I added a couple of 2mm wide strips to the edges of the cab splashers and then soldered the additional cab floor to that which brought it to the same height as the rest of the cab floor. After making the floor it gave me another option to secure the backhead so I made the back head and the cab gauges removable to ease the job of painting. I folded a small piece of 10thou nickel into a U shape with a short leg to the front and drilled a hole for a 10ba nut. The idea of the U shape is to add a bit more strength to what is relatively thin sheet. I added a short length of tube in the corner of the cab front and splasher and the tail of the pipe from the gauge locates into it with the back of the dial fitting over the peg where the vacuum ejector pipe enters the cab. Not strictly prototypical I am sure but it means that after painting a small dab of glue will secure it in place. A few general shots of the smokebox details which is where most of it seems to be on this loco. The clack valve is one of Jim McGeown’s from his most useful sprue of Clack and elbow castings as is the vacuum ejector elbow on the other side. The lubricators on the smokebox are Laurie griffin and the small pipe and fitting is scratch built from tube, rod and scrap etch. The rather nice turned whistle came with the kit and is without doubt the best fitting supplied. Still to fit are vacuum pipes and the whitemetal fittings – buffers, dome and chimney, then balance weights and some lead in the side tanks before track testing. The end is most definitely in sight.

Thanks Ken, They do make a nice change from building locos.

Hi Mike, I am watching this one with interest as I have a 7mm scale kit in my to do pile that is an 07 Models kit. Which then went to George Norton and ultimately through to Gladiator, I wonder if it passed through LRM too at some point like many of the other George Norton kits did.

Once the doors were finished the rest of it went together pretty much as Jim intended. With the addition of LG vacuum, steam heat and couplings. I added a floor from the mount board that the kit comes attached to and I made the roof removable so that the back of the louvres could be blanked off should it be required.

Amongst the castings in the kit were what I originally thought were a couple of Ross Pop safety valves but it turns out that they were in fact the lids for the sand boxes either way they were not great. What a great opportunity to make something meaningful with the new lathe, thinks I. So, I turned up a pair of sandbox lids Finally, one with the obligatory 5p piece for scale I have to confess that these were my second attempt. The first pair were okay but I hadn’t quite worked out how to make the two identical so there were some slight discrepancies in size – probably not really noticeable at this small size but I knew I could do better so I did. After making the first two sandbox fillers I turned (if you will pardon the pun) my attentions to the oilers. While buying other castings I had bought some oilers for the side of the smoke box and a set for the footplate. Having examined the ones on the footplate more closely in the photos I realised that the castings would be correct so I turned up a pair of those too. They were very similar to make, aside from I drilled these 0.8mm to take a piece of nickel rod to mount them. I could have left a turned stem on the oilers but I need to be able to bend it so I reasoned that rod would be better for bending as I thought a turned stem would be likely to break off. And again, with the 5p piece The collets and chuck were invaluable and this type of thing really satisfies my urge to make things…

Next up came the complex but visually attractive NER door locking mechanism. Made from scrap etch and brass rod. Although I didn't take any photos the mechanism does work. Then I made up the basic body and detailed the ends. I was a bit clumsy and managed to melt one of the end post castings so I nicked one out of one of my kits and I will either get a spare from Jim when life returns to normal or make one from brass bar when I get to building it.

While awaiting more building materials I had some time in the workshop over the last couple of days and this has allowed the Class 5A to move much nearer to completion. All the etch parts are now on the body with just the balance weights to fit to complete all the etched parts. From there I moved onto the castings, at the beginning Brian and I discussed the castings and since they were pretty poor (certainly when compared to the castings that came with my kit a few years earlier) and we replaced as much as we could but retained the Chimney, dome and Smokebox door. The dome and the smokebox door did clean up and don’t look too bad now but the Chimney when I examined it closely had some holes in the flare at the base. I filled them with lowmelt and reshaped the flare. This means that I will have to use epoxy to stick it on as I don’t want to risk any heat undoing the work on the flare. The castings after clean up Cab interior details The Safety valves are from Laurie Griffin and they too had a prominent mould line across the top which required a bit of works to remove but still infinitely better than the reject whitemetal offering. I understand that this kit is now with Iain Young of Sans Pariel/CSP and that he intends to remaster all the castings. The kit will benefit greatly from that, I think.

From there it was just a case of keep adding the details to the doors The ‘barrel’ of the hinges was made by filing a slot in a piece of 2mm x1mm bar using an oval file to give the slope where it meets the strap and then rounding off the other end. The RSU came into its own when soldering them on. I think it’s the first time that I have ever managed to solder on some fine detail without at least one part pinging off and requiring a search to find it or to make a replacement.

Got you, I have only a couple more GCR locos in the pile, an F1 and a B2 (destined to be Sir Sam Fay). For my sins I recently bought a couple more J21's ones a rescue job which came with wheels and the other is an original 07/George Norton kit. It means that I now have 3 J21's to build at some point.

Hi Mark, Do you have a particular loco in mind with outside motion? If you are looking for something North Eastern, the B16/1 has very simple outside motion if you didn't want go go all out on walschaerts on the first go.

Thanks Mike, Some of it I am sure was caused by the bosses on the crank pin and some by excessive side play on the middle axle plus the sloppiness of my rolling road. Hopefully all of these are now sorted and once the upperworks are complete it will be a happy little bunny. I don't recall having the same problems with my own but I built it a good few years ago so I may have forgotten.

Sorry Jeff, the problems were mechanical not electrical the soldered joints are fine.

Despite building it at the same time I completely forgot to post this, following on from the Road van my second victim is a conversion of a Connoisseur LNER Perishables van from one of these – photo courtesy of Jim McGeown’s website http://www.jimmcgeown.com/Wagon Kit Pages/Wagon images/LNER Perishable Van Photo.jpg To a North Eastern Railway version with cupboard type doors instead of the sliding door on the LNER version. The cupboard doors and their locking mechanism will need to be scratch built. LNER Wagons Volume Two by Peter Tatlow has photos and a drawing which will prove very helpful during this conversion. We start off by cutting out the parts etched in the door openings Once they are removed and put to one side for later in the build, the openings need to be trimmed back to the door pillars. I did this with the trusty piercing saw with a no 6 blade. Once I had my door opening dimensions, I cut a couple of replacement doors and scored the planking on them using an Olfa Cutter (skrawker). These were soldered in with some strips of scrap etch soldered all the way around to prevent them being dislodged through handling of the finished van. Once this was done, I started on the hinges. This job was made some much easier by riveting the edge of a piece of 10 thou brass sheet at the appropriate spacing (taken from the drawing) using my GP models rivet press and then cutting the strip from the sheet using my guillotine. I ended up filing a few down to width before I got my eye in despite scribing a cut line…

I haven’t had much workbench time in the last couple of weeks or so but when I have I have been slowly working on the chassis of the Class 5A fitting the pickups and getting it to run. The latter being a bit of a trial. In order to make it so that the motor and pick ups can be removed without having to unsolder anything I made a frame spacer from a spare out of another kit and screwed a piece of Vero board to it This is where the fun began, despite it running lovely when the motor was connected directly as soon as I added pickups in to the equation the rods started jamming at every turn which in turn forces the compensation beams up and down to one extreme or the other. This caused more than a few mutterings. One thing that I noticed was that in retaining the Dereck Mundy Crankpins at the rear albeit in a modifified form on the centre axle the thick boss was still causing issues by pushing the coupling rods in to an open-ended wedge shape. I had dismantled one side with the plan to carefully extract the crank pins and turn the bossed down on my Unimat SL. Life intervened and I bought a Unimat 3 early last week, so having collected it from Driffield on Tuesday, I did them on that instead. It now runs much better on the rolling road but I am sure that once I get some weight in it and on a test track it will be fine. The rollers on my rolling road are set a lit far apart and sometimes that introduces a bit of a waddle which doesn’t help when trying to resolve running problems. – Prompted by typing this, I found and added some small washers which have taken out some of the side play on the rollers and running has improved already.

One of the few remaining details to add to the body are the injectors which sit under the footplate tucked away behind the cab steps. From all the photos that I have of J6's seeing what they actually look like is a real problem. Then I remembered that I had taken a few photos of the Injectors on the side of the preserved J52 while it lived at Shildon. While I have a couple of good side views they don't show the pipes and how they fit. Then by pure chance I was looking through some photos that I took in the dark hall at York and found that I had indeed taken photos of each end By cross referencing these with the end that's visible on some better lit J6 photos I was able to confirm to my satisfaction that these are the same type of injector fitted to the J6 Now all I need to do is work out how to scale them to size - Despite taking quite a few shots at both locations none of them are side on allowing scaling from a known dimension.

Modelling time has been in a bit short supply so far this week but I have managed a few bits and pieces. The key one being, on the back of a delivery of a second set of globe lubricator castings for the J6, I got them fitted. I had to order some more because I have misplaced the first lot but I am sure that they will turn up in due course... Still a bit of cleaning up to do under there.

I am very grateful for Mike pointing out that I had the ashpan sides the wrong way around because it’s an easy fix (already done) and it was a detail that I was struggling to find. The GA I have only show’s an outline for the ashpan and all the photos I have the detail is lost in the gloom. I had forgotten to take photos of them before fitting so taking them off to swap them around gave me the opportunity to do so. I measured the space where they were to fit and cut a strip of a sheet of 10thou nickel 30.5mm wide. From this strip I cut two pieces each 17mm long. This left a piece approx. 30mm long and I measured 5mm up from each opposite end and then cut the piece diagonally across. I wasn't sure that I have described that clearly so I knocked up a sketch in paint. Once I had all the parts cut out, I placed each bottom edge in my hold and fold approx. 1.5 mm in and gave it as slight bend and then solder them together in handed pairs to give each ashpan side as below.

It'l be a bob to talk to your exalted self now then mate

Thanks Mike, Typical, two ways to fit them and I pick the wrong one. I have a GA but it only shows an outline and all the photos I have are indistinct so I couldn't be sure. At least it's an easy fix. Thanks again, your help is appreciated.

Today I rechecked the motor and gearbox on the centre axle with all the other axles in place. Sadly, it was as I feared, the tight fit of the motor in the boiler area pushed the compensation beam down and left the chassis rocking on the centre axle. So back to plan A fitting it on the rear axle and cutting into/the brake cross beam. Before doing anything drastic I took time out to knock up some ashpan sides and they have cured the gearbox visibility issue. That still left the gear touching the brake cross beam so I bit the bullet and cut a section out of it.

In between adding bits to the GCR Tank, After drilling and pinning the cranks which was thankfully uneventful. I cut out the axle in between the crank webs and refitted the connecting rods. I had to file a little of the sides of one one the connecting rods but very quickly all was rotating smoothly. So much so that I made a short video. Sadly my camera didn't focus too well on my hands but you get the idea. https://youtu.be/gvvgu-ix_GM

This is a bit of an addendum to the last post with photos showing where I am at. A weak area of the kit which to be fair is admitted to in the instructions is the cab roof. It’s half etched and as a result besides being very thin it also has a tendency to curl in the wrong direction for the curve of the cab. I wanted the roof to be removable so I did exactly the same on this one as I did on mine. After fitting the curved ribs that are supplied, I cut a smaller piece of 10 thou nickel to fit inside between the ribs to add strength and I also added a couple of rain strips from 1mmx1mm brass angle which conveniently hides the holes left by etched slots. . There are not many more bits of etch to add before I get to adding the castings and final details.

The second of Chris's paintings hasn't been seen in public before. It's entitled "Heading to the Starting Gate" and is the last of Chris's large canvases at 24" by 36" Rather selfishly, this one isn't for sale it's mine The original photo copyright Simon Lathlane and hosted on the David Hay site was quite dark in places so Chris has really brought it to life and colour. She kept saying never again but I have persuaded her to do another view of KX from yet another period black and white photo which I will share in due course.

Having looked at it for a couple of days I felt that the second runner wagon looked a little bare so I knocked up another toolbox and I added some hardware to them all. It's starting to come together now. A friend has just sent me some spare 'Crane Runner' transfers so I now have enough to do both runners (assuming that I can get them to fit of course. I am still undecided as to whether to line the counterbalance weight on the crane because the gears on the crane itself will prevent me being able to add any lining around the frame if indeed they were actually lined. A few tools and lumps of timber and some weathering will bring it all together.