Rob Pulham

I seem to have been really busy with real life and there's not a huge amount to show for the work on the Princess (other than the drawing of the firebox). I have returned to the chassis while I await castings for the back head and the firebox print - Royal Fail seem to be keeping their reputation intact FB posted a week last Saturday and replacement castings from Ragstone posted a week yesterday, no sign of either yet. On the rear axle which is to be driven there isn't a great deal of room on the axle for the gearbox, hornblocks and taper pin. It turned out that after trying everything the taper pin actually sat under the left hand hornblock. Initially I tried cutting down the taper pin so that it just went through the axle and would spin inside the horn block. I obviously didn't make it a tight enough fit as it went walk about. Thankfully I do have a few spare taper pin so I was able to replace it but I didn't want the same thing to happen again so after some thought I hit upon the idea to thin down that hornblock. I took it out and milled 1mm off the rear of it. Which you should be able to see from comparing the first two photos Next I moved onto fitting the representation of the inside motion. I had to solder the eccentric straps together and then make some location points for the slide bars and lotion plate. I have done this with a couple of strips of scrap etch and the plan is to mill a couple of small angle plates to allow the cylinder front to be screwed in place. I will take some more detailed phots once I have finished this. Subject to retaining it, I have achieved what I set out to, you can see the cross heads through the openings in the frames, with a small amount of visible movement when the axle is rotated.

It's all been a little quiet on the Princess front. I got the second test print back and to my dismay there was a large* gap between the front ring and the front of the firebox *I say large it wasn't that big in reality but certainly too big too disguise. I returned to the drawing board and then discovered that I had misread the drawing so I drew it again. After my redraw there was still a 0.3mm gap at either side so I took a copy of that design and hacked it to correct it. Although I managed it I wasn't happy with the way I had gone about it so I took a second copy and tried to adjust the sketches but because I had made the fundamental error of adding all the details before the adding front ring which fits inside the kit boiler and checking the interface between that and the firebox front. The net result of altering the sketches to make them wider created so many errors that in the end I gave up trying to correct them and started again. This time I drew the basics and made sure that the overall dimensions were correct and worked together before I added the details. It's now on it's way for what I hop will be the final print. The good news is that I didn't need to redraw the lower sections of the firebox because I checked that they still fit as I was going along.

Sunday, 26 February, 2023, 20:00-22:00 Online via Zoom Templot Part 3 Following on from the previous two Templot sessions, Ian will be showing how maps can be imported and used as the basis of a track plan, if modelling a prototype location, or to be adapted for a “what might have been” plan. The event takes place on Sunday 26th February@ 20:00 GMT The event is FREE to members or £2:00 for non-members. You must register for this event as places are limited.

I made up some replacement lamp irons for my MOK 8F and while I was at it I also made front lamp Irons for the smokebox door on the Princess and the 8F Once milled I put the bracket iron part down in the vice then annealed the support bracket and gently bent it over at an angle. I left two of them soldered together at this stage. I have another 8 to cut out for stock so I will do the same to a couple of them.

Finally the redraw of the firebox is complete. I ended up redrawing the lower section too because no surprise the existing one didn't match the redrawn main firebox. At the minute they are all separate bodies and I haven't mirrored the lower firebox yet because I need to work my way through and check all the sizes before I combine the upper firebox into one body and the lower one into two bodies, left and right. It's much easier to make alterations when they are separate.

Needing a break from the metaphorical drawing board, I decided to make the lamp irons for the footplate. I milled them from a length of brass bar. Initially I milled a length of angle and then cut slices off with a piercing saw. Then I soldered them edge on to the other end of the bar that I milled them from. Once soldered on, I milled the edges flat. I then turned them over soldered them on again and then milled them down to final size. They were then finished by hand with a file but I notice from the photos that some of the bases need deburring.

Slowly getting there.

Over on Western Thunder I was asked about mudhole covers. I hadn't added them to the original design because they are not present on the DA Firebox casting. Having checked period photos, they are present on 6206 so I needed to add them and it is really challenging my drawing skills, but I am getting there.

The MK II firebox is slowly coming together. I have taken the opportunity to do things in a different order making for a more efficient drawing. I also took the opportunity to make the washout plugs look a bit more randomly screwed in. Still some way to go though.

The prints arrived today and they have printed really well. Unfortunately I have made an error somewhere and the upper firebox is too tall so a revision to the drawing is needed. The length and how it fits to the foot plate is spot on. Please ignore the hole in the lower firebox, I picked up the wrong print. My mate included a couple of cosmetic seconds...

Online via Zoom 3D Printing Techniques James will be describing the process of producing 3D printed items. From the initial drawing, production of the file containing the solid shape, slicing it, loading it onto the printer and to what happens after the part is made. The event takes place on Thursday 26th January@ 20:00 GMT The event is FREE to members or £2:00 for non-members. You must register for this event as places are limited.

I have been working away at the ashpan sections during odd half hours where it wasn't worth getting into any physical modelling. I am almost there with it now, I just need to thicken up the top at bottom at the rear to make it match the DA castings and add access holes for the screws in the firebox base. The clamp on the bottom curve is very much a representation as I didn't think anything finer would print successfully and if it did it would probably get knocked off during fitting.

Over on the GOG Forum Ian Allen, asked what I was going to do about the Firebox shoulders and my initial reply was that I planned to see how they printed and then possibly file them down. Ian then kindly posted a really good photo of the offending article so I revisited it yesterday.

I obviously missed clicking the post button yesterday as the previous post was sat waiting for me just now. Since then, it was kindly brought to my attention over on Western Thunder, that the rearmost washout plug on the right hand side was obscured by the cladding band. A detail that I had missed. I have now corrected that so hopefully I can move on to final fitting to the footplate.

I finished adding the remaining details to the drawing yesterday and it now just needs the sketches tidying up and checking/adjusting to ensure that it fits on the kit footplate. It has been suggested that I also look at drawing replacements for the parts of the firebox that fit under the footplate too as the cast on boiler bands don't match those above which would look a bit odd. So that will be next after putting the firebox to bed.

Hi Chaz, No, I measured them manually using a Vernier and used MS Paint to add the text to the images. You could use Fusion to accurately measure items in photos but you would have to import the photo and then scale it first. Which sort of defeats the object if you want a few basic dimensions. The other downside is that an imported image becomes a canvas and in order to measure elements you need to then sketch over the points that you wish to measure and then measure your sketch lines which does potentially introduce an element of inaccuracy. Probably not enough to worry about in our scales particularly as many of the GA drawings that we use have been reproduced/traced many times so won't 100% accurate either.

Chaz, To potentially complicate life even further I have solders with melting points of: 295, 221, 179/180, 145, 100 and 70 that I know about (I say that because I have several other reels of solder whose specific melting points I have no idea of but they are resin cored so I tend to use them for electrics). The others I use mostly are the 179 and 145 but if I am adding a lot of detailed parts I add brass castings first with the microflame and 295 solder this mean that pretty much anything I add with the iron afterwards isn't going to make the castings fall off. I too have an RSU that I was gifted by a friend and I must confess that I too wouldn't be without it now I have it. Mine is an ancient piece of kit built by Bernard Weller but as long as I keep the crocodile clip clean it works wonderfully.

Hi Chaz, I believe that it's a different formula to 70 degree. I am not sure for certain what you mean by does 145 in fact bond to 145 but it's never used because of the high temperature needed? I think you are asking, can you solder whitemetal with 145? and the answer is yes, lots of people do. But you have to be very deft with the iron getting in and out without melting the surrounding whitemetal. I have done the odd thing with 145 but only on very large castings which were less likely to melt.

Chaz, Can I suggest that you get yourself some 100 degree solder? With it you can tin the back of the brass (or the white metal casting if going the other way* ) and solder direct to the whitemetal (*or brass) without the 145 step. It will also help reduce the inevitable build up of solder due to using two types on those tiny parts. I have built a couple of DJH/Tower Streamlined Coronation in that last few years and all the whitemetal to brass soldering was done with 100 degree solder. I only use 70 degree for whitemetal to whitemetal joints these days.

This week has mainly been about returning to the elephant in the room, the Firebox. There had been some discussion Western Thunder some time ago about issues with the resin casting and I must admit I didn't get 'it' and after a (very!) rudimentary measure up, it didn't seem far out so I left it at that. Fast forward to last week and Nick Dunhill posted on my thread on the GOG forum and mentioned how far out his had been on all the ones that he built (he built four in total) and how much work it had been to rectify the problems. The talk also mentioned a whitemetal cast firebox produced by DJH for Gladiator (prior to David and Trisha buying the range). After seeing the discussion the guy that I am building it for rang me and told me that he had one of the Gladiator/DJH fireboxes which he would send me. Once I had it in hand, I imported some GA's into Fusion from the Wild Swann book scaled them and started to compare the castings to the real thing. Once I had done the comparisons it all clicked into place. Because the ends of my casting were at 90 degrees to the footplate I thought that I had better castings once I realised that Nick had lowered the front by circa 2mm and raised the back by another 1mm it made sense why his front and rear face were no longer at right angles to the footplate and why the subsequent chopping and gap filling. Nick's advice was to scratch build one or get Mick Davies to draw one up and print it for me. I have initially opted to have a go at drawing it myself. This is where I got to after the first session. Subsequent study made me realise that I needed to bring the curve under the front down a bit. After my second session I had this - I did a short video capture of Fusion as being easier than taking multiple renders which I was struggling with. https://youtu.be/C93dJolSCNA

Next I added some details to the boiler, starting with the boiler band cleats. The instructions advise you to tie them together with 0.5mm brass rod but I couldn't resist adding some adjusting nuts to finish them off. A curios fact picked up from the Wild Swan GA drawings is that on the Combustion Chamber boiler fitted to 6206 in the time period depicted (and others at various points) the front two cleats which were fitted under the boiler, were offset by 3" from the centreline. The one at the rear of the boiler and the front band on the firebox were fitted on top. I then added some of the details to the smokebox

More done on the Princess in the last day or two. Fitted the window stays above the windows in the cab these are extra from now extinct HobbyHorse Range. I also fitted the Chimney and the boiler bands. Normally Warren doesn't like boiler bands fitting as he prefers to do them to scale using transfers. The problem in this case is that they are designed to be fitted to hide the joints between the smokebox and boiler and once you add one you need to add the others... Finally I am working on cleaning up the top feed casting which although nicely shaped had quite a castings step in it which is taking a bit of work to clean up. Here it is part way through the clean up process.

If you liked them before Jeff you will like these even more. Following my previous post fellow Guild member Chris Simpson contacted offline me to tell me how he had articulated his doors both to the body and in the middle. Chris's method was to use a piece of tube and a piece of rod. Never one to shy from the challenge I used Chris's method to articulate the middle of the doors which is a massive improvement in my opinion and one I shall use again in the future. Here's a shot of them in situ in the cab.

Since my last update the loco seems to have fought back a little. I am not sure whether it was that I had folded the sides of the cab floor too tightly but the sides needed trimming down to fit. That said it's a snug fit in the cab so it's probably unlikely. My next task which again needed a lot of work for very little to show for it was the upper frame sections that fit between the splashers. Each piece was between 1mm and 2mm two long so they had to be patiently cut and filed until they fitted in the space between the splashers and seated properly. Still a bit of cleaning up to do. Having sorted the cab floor I looked at the upright pillar that support the cab doors. These have a pair of slots in them to take a half etched tabs on hinges of the cab doors. Again I am not sure if it was me but once I had folded the small section that is bent at right angles the slot was completely closed. To be fair that wasn't an issues as I had already decided based on past experience to make the cab doors removable. This I did by soldering a couple of short lengths of micro bore tube in between where the holes should be (even though the holes were no longer visible, there was a half etched recess). Then I used a small broach as a spacer and folded the half teched tabs on the doors around to make a hinge and inserted a cut down dressmakers pin to hold the doors in position while leaving them free to move and removable by lifting out the pin. Next I fitted the rear cab roof arch and started to form the cab roof. The cab roof was a challenge in it's own right and required quite a bit of coaxing to get it to curve to the right shape being half teched nickel I was very conscious of it wanting to crease across the top where the two strips either side of the opening are. In the end to get it to stay in shape with a chance at being soldered to the top of the cab I used a piece of scrap etch as a former/stay. this fits just inside the rear arch frame. I dropped lucky in that where one of the sections of arch was removed from the etch left this strip which was at exactly the same curvature as the front/rear so perfect for the task once the cusp etc was cleaned up.

The Gauge O Guild - An Evening With John Buck about building buildings. Saturday 26th November at 20:00 GMT by Zoom Using buildings from his layout Hope Street, which featured in the January 2021 Railway Modeller, and was seen in our virtual show. John Buck of Keighley Club will tell you how to build authentic buildings. This session will include information about doing the research, the tools required, materials which can be used and the techniques for building buildings. The event takes place on Saturday 26th November@ 20:00 GMT The event is FREE to members or £2:00 for non-members. You must register for this event as places are limited.