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Barry Ten

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Blog Entries posted by Barry Ten

  1. Barry Ten
    Couple of shots of the 1366 tank after the alterations mentioned in the earlier blog post. After squaring up the boiler and pannier assembly, then fixing everything back in place, I also added glazing, rear cab window grill bars and a load of coal.
     
    The grills are from the Mainly Trains etch and a bit of a cheat in that I simply fixed them as an overlay over the existing window
    apertures. But I think they look better than having no bars at all.
     
    The wonky "G" in Great Western will have to be attended to at some point. I'm guessing the letter moved during application
    of setting solution, as I'm normally quite careful about alignment.
     
     

     

     
    Overall, I'm chuffed with the way this little loco has worked out. I was so bothered about the misaligned
    boiler that I couldn't really stand to look at the model, but it turned out to be a surprisingly simple fix - far less
    bother than I'd anticipated.
  2. Barry Ten
    Bit of a cheat this, since the loco doesn't currently have a decoder, but I'll aim to get that sorted before too long. The 14xx, as I've mentioned before, is the Hornby version of the venerable Airfix model, with the addition of the Mainly Trains detailing pack, and the trailer is an original Airfix one with the Dart Castings detail treatment. It was painted in "faded crimson" then given flush glazing via SE Finecast. I weathered it according to a photo in one of the colour albums, of an auto-train in Ross-on-Wye (I think) which had an interesting combination of grimy crimson and shiny handrails.
     
    I'd like to add lighting to the coach, and while I'm at it, I might as well wire it to the loco for extra pickup. The 14xx is quite a nice runner, in any case, certainly compared to the my original Airfix one which eventually gave up the ghost.
     

     
    I like the look of this crimson so much I'm hoping to repaint my B-set in the same shade. It must have been a real blast of colour in the early fifties.
  3. Barry Ten

    14xx upgrade

    By Barry Ten,

    My wife was unwell yesterday, so rather than retire to the railway room, I did the chivalrous thing and brought a modelling project down to the living room. While she watched tennis, I busied myself with files and drills. Several hours later, I was the happy owner of a spruced up Hornby 14xx, courtesy of a Mainly Trains detailing kit and some bits and bobs from the scrap/detailing box.
     
    The main alterations to the model concern the boiler fittings; the smokebox door is replaced, as is the chimney and safety valve. There are a number of other useful lost-wax and white metal castings in the MT kit, including cab parts, but they can't all be fitted if you retain the Hornby chassis. I added those that I could, as well as wire handrails, lamp irons and some hoops for the shunters' pole.
     

     

     
    My intention is to repaint into BR black, but I thought I'd show these in-progress shots beforehand. Also in the works is an Airfix auto-coach which will run with this loco in semi-permanent fashion.
  4. Barry Ten

    2021 class running trials

    By Barry Ten,


    GWR
    I've pushed on with the Nu-Cast 2021 class to the point where it's nearly ready for painting, although it might be a case of putting it back in the box until I've got another GWR loco to do at the same time (there are some candidates in the stash!). However, it has now begun to settle in when running under load:
     
     
    Not much more to add other than to say I'm always quite relieved when a loco gets to this stage without any major gremlins, as I can then start thinking about another project!
  5. Barry Ten

    28xx

    By Barry Ten,

    Way back, when the likelihood of a new, super-detail 28xx from Hornby seemed slim, I set about detailing the existing, Chinese-era model. My version dated from 2000 and was (and is) a nice, smooth running model, so I didn't see any need to change the chassis - not that I'd have been all that confident about doing so, anyway, as to date I've never built anything with more than three axles.
     
    I showed some pics of the detailed 28 on the old forum, but the arrival of the new model in the shops prompted me to take it out the box and finish a few bits I'd not got around to - replacing the pony truck wheel, adding a smokebox dart, and lamp irons. Along the way I touched up some areas of damaged paint.
     
    The main work on the model was cosmetic, with the addition of various pipes and gubbins to the underside of the footplate, aided by the photos in Brian Haresnape's book. Some of the details are a tad overscale or guesstimated but I'm happy with the general look of the thing, which at least appears "busier" around the wheels than it used to. I also replaced the cab steps with etched ones; I didn't touch the tender steps as they are cast into the frames. The big visual improvement, in my view, lies in moving the pony truck forward a smidge - it's set back a bit too far on the Hornby model for some reason, perhaps because it used common components with the 8F? Anyway, I removed the existing pony truck, hack-sawed it down the middle and inserted a splice piece.
     

     

     
    I'll certainly be looking to obtain one of the new models, but for now I'm glad that my old 28xx can still hold its own. The tender drive will always be obvious - that big coal load, which there's not much can be done about - but performance is good, and the loco has more daylight under the boiler than the new one...
  6. Barry Ten

    2P or not 2P

    By Barry Ten,

    This is my new Hornby 2P, renumbered for 40601, one of the Bath allocation (although I've yet to do the smokebox number, not having any of the right numbers in stock). There's a nice photo in one of Ivo Peters' books showing this loco in lined black with "British Railways" on the tender. The Hornby one came out of the box as 40610 so I decided to see if I could get away with just changing the last two digits.
     
    Other than weathering, adding crew and lamp irons, about all I've done to it is shorten the loco/tender drawbar. I've got another one in S&D blue to ring the changes and now I quite fancy an LMS example.
     
    Whether you can live with the Airfix-style tender-drive is a matter of taste, I suppose, but for general layout running, rather than ultra-slow shunting or start/stops, I've always found it perfectly OK and the two examples I have do run quite nicely, especially given the good pick-up arrangement on the 2P, whereby the bogie is also wired.
     
     

     

  7. Barry Ten

    42xx tweaks

    By Barry Ten,

    I tried posting this on the main forum in the 42x thread but it seems to have vanished, so better luck here. I spent an evening adding a few tweaks to the Hornby 42xx:
     

     
    Nothing very clever: new smokebox dart (Eileen's Emporium), the old handrails levered out with a knife-blade and then re-positioned to stand out from the body, the cab roof removed to add figures and a little paint to the interior walls, and then a dose of weathering. I painted the smokebox, running plate and tank tops matt black, then went over the other bits with a mix of Tensochrom oil and kerosene active surface agents, followed by Tamiya weathering powders while the Tensochrom was still tacky. Finally, class H headlamps and a Spratt and Winkle coupling bar, and off she goes.
     
    I'm pretty happy with this model - I can understand the arguments against it in terms of detail versus price, but in terms of what it is, there's really not much to fault. Adding the smokebox dart took five minutes, but I suppose I was lucky to have one in my spares box - would they have been better off doing that as a separate detail, rather than - say - the lamp irons? It runs tremendously well, and on my layout at least, there's no question over its haulage capabilities. I have another 42xx in green and look forward to the 52/72xx models when they become more readily available.
     
    cheers!
  8. Barry Ten

    7011 Banbury Castle

    By Barry Ten,

    Although most of my recent heavy duty modelling has been directed at building my S&D layout, I've still got far too many other projects on the boil, much of which revolve around my long-term interest in the GWR/WR. Here's the latest thing off the workbench, which (like my 9F) appeared on the old forum in an unfinished state. Just in time to be made completely redundant by the new Hornby model, here's a detailed and re-powered old-style Castle, numbered for 7011 Banbury Castle. It has a Comet chassis with DJH gearbox. I modified the inside piston casing to represent the correct style for 7011, reworked the cab roof profile, and added/replaced a few bits and bobs. The Dapol style Hawksworth tender has an incorrect wheel spacing but I can live with it. While it runs very well, I probably should have picked a speedier motor/gearbox combo for an express passenger engine, as even flat out it's not doing anything like a scale ton. Hence, I've allocated it to parcels/fish traffic rather than express passenger workings. You live and learn...
     
    The lining on the Hornby model is neat but heavy, but rather than repaint it I opted to tone it down with some weathering.
     

     

     
     
  9. Barry Ten

    7012 Barry Castle

    By Barry Ten,

    I acquired some Modelmaster etched plates a while ago with a view to renumbering and renaming some of my GWR and WR locomotives, but as always I didn't really do my homework beforehand. My intention had been to rename my Hornby model of 7029 Clun Castle as Barry Castle, but as soon as I got the plates and took down my copy of Holden & Leech's book on the Castles, it seemed that this wasn't a good decision. My model of Clun Castle was double-chimneyed, and (as far as I can tell - it's a minefield!) Barry Castle never got a double chimney.
     
    On the other hand, I did have Hornby's model of 5068 Beverston Castle and this was a single chimney model with the right type of cylinder casing and the mechanical lubricator in the right position. It did have the shorter type of superheater cover on the smokebox, though, whereas the photo of 7012 in Holden & Leech shows it with the longer superheater cover. Since I wasn't sure about replacing the superheater cover, I let the plates rest for the time being.
     
    At last week's Manchester show, though, I found a nice set of white metal castings for GWR superheater castings, including the long type. Job on! It turns out that the Hornby superheater moulding pops off very easily, leaving just a pair of locating mouldings which can be filed down and addressed fairly easily - I didn't have to hack the whole thing off with a knife, as I'd feared. As far as I can tell, by the way, if there's a long superheater on the driver's side, there shouldn't be any visible part on the fireman's side - can anyone confirm?
     
    Changing the name proved to be a bit more of a pain than I'd realised. I began to hack away at the name above the splasher on the Hornby model, thinking it would be plastic, before sussing that the whole name, mounting and front splasher is all one sturdy etched metal part. Eventually I removed the entire part (not easy in itself), then trimmed off the name and its mounting plate and then filed the splasher back to a clean curve, before fixing the new name and mounting in place. All in all a bit more work than I'd anticipated, and the splasher mounting still needed to be painted and lined. I'd call this as one of Hornby's occasionally odd design decisions, since it does make the work of renaming quite a bit trickier than one might like. To compound matters, my HMRS lining wasn't a good fit to the Fox etching. You can't just fix the Modelmaster plates over the old, either, since there's a bit of a dimensional disagreement between the two. Since I want to renumber all my Castles, for variety, I'll have to see if there's an easier way to do it.
     
    I wanted Barry Castle to look like a working locomotive, so Oonce I'd sorted out the nameplates, I weathered 7012 using various brush-applied weathering products, before removing anything I didn't want with wet and dry cotton buds. Personally I quite enjoy not using an airbrush as it means I can get a loco up and running in an hour of easy work, whereas the airbrush needs a lot of preparation and fiddling. And then I always end up adding extra weathering layers anyway, since I find a pure airbrushed finish, at least under my hands, doesn't quite get close to the grimy/oily look I like. I wouldn't dream of weathering a diesel this way, though. It might seem an odd thing to do, by the way, but for steam locomotive boilers I like to add a layer of "kerosene" to the final finish which to my eye imparts the merest blueish tint, suggesting a combination of oil and the reflection of the sky.
     
    I don't know what you'd called this level of dirt - it's obviously not ex-works, but it isn't truly filthy either. The lining is still visible and the base coat is still obviously green rather than some obscure shade of mucky brown. Maybe a loco that's being pressed into hard service during the summer months, half way between overhauls?
     

     

    cheers, and thanks for reading.
  11. Barry Ten

    93XX progress

    By Barry Ten,


    GWR
    Following on from my post of a month or so back about accepting yesterday's standards as being "good enough", here's the sort of finished 93XX, now with the Comet cylinders as promised. They make a big difference I reckon.
     

     
    I say "sort of" finished because the livery and tender transfers are just to get something into BR service without doing a full repaint from the original GWR green. I removed the latter's lettering with T-cut, then added HMRS transfers for the late crest. I opted for the larger of the two sizes as these seemed about right for a photo I had of a Collett goods tender in unlined green. Now I have to fess up and say I've not been working from a photo of a 93 in similar condition, but I've made the assumption some would have carried this scheme  - however that could be an assumption too far! However as mentioned, it's the easiest route to getting it into BR condition without a repaint into black or fully lined green. Another consideration is that the model as it stands lacks the weight added behind the buffer beam that was eventually removed and the engines then renumbered into the 73XX series. However, for now... 
     
    The model was already DCC fitted using a hardwired Digitrax decoder, but after extensive running I found the performance a bit sluggish and inconsistent in speed. I've found that the inexpensive Laisdcc decoders seem to work well straight out of the box, so the model was taken apart and rewired, this time incorporating an 8-pin socket in the tender.  A Laisdcc decoder was tested and resulted in an immediate improvement in the running, having lots more power in reserve and not being prone to inconsistent speed in different parts of the layout. I'm no expert but my guess is that older decoders like the Digitrax one seem to be much more sensitive to varying current draw and voltage irregularities. In any case the cost of a Laisdcc decoder is low enough that I won't hesitate to try a swap if I suspect an older decoder isn't getting the best out of a loco.
     
     
     
     
  12. Barry Ten
    Before the announcement in 2015 of the Bachmann 94xx (which still hasn't appeared, nor appears to be anywhere imminent) I'd already gathered a spare pannier chassis and a cheap Lima body to add another of these locomotives to my fleet. Earlier this week it glared at me from the projects drawer and I thought it was time to crack on and finish it. It's the sort of job that really requires only basic modelling implements and skills - a rotary cutting tool, some knives and files, some filler, a few bits of plastic card, some drills and wire and a few patient hours. I've taken the black one to this state after just three evening sessions totalling about an hour each, so it's really not that arduous.
     

     
    Other than using a newer chassis, the work was very similar to the job done on the GWR 94xx seen in this picture. That one used a split-frame chassis, which is still offering good service ten years after the conversion, as is my other split-frame pannier, now pushing twenty years old.
     
    The Lima body breaks down into a footplate and a body moulding, and being able to separate them makes it quite easy to saw away the excess plastic needed to get the newer chassis to drop into the available space. It's not difficult, just requiring a bit of trial and error until the necessary space is made. The relation of wheel centres to splasher mouldings is not exact, but if you have to live with one of them being out of alignment, I prefer it to be the one under the cab, which is very unobtrusive to begin with. If it bothers you, it would be relatively easy to correct the cab-end splasher.
     
    Then begins the fun work of correcting the body errors on the Lima moulding, and replacing as many of the handrails as you desire. The main fault with the Lima model is the presence of steps on the driver's side of the cab, as well as some spurious handrails which should be absent on that side. Correcting these faults would be easy were it not for the presence of the rivet detail, which it's hard to preserve during cutting and sanding. On approach might be to lose the rivets completely as they are a little on the heavy side anyway. With the green one, I sanded them off then reinstated them with blobs of PVA, the success of which I think is debatable, but something I can live with.
     
    With the black 94xx, I'm trying a slightly different tack which is flood the inset steps with Mr Surfacer (as used by military modellers etc) and see how I get on. If it all goes to plan (which I'm sure it won't!) the Mr Surfacer should form a smooth layer which blends in seamlessly with the surrounding cab. In any case, it'll be a learning curve. Although it'll remain in black, I expect the model to need a repaint in any case.
     

     
    Also on the workbench this week has been the venerable 2721 class. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, it's now running with a Comet 57xx chassis in place of the Hornby original. There are lots of things not right with the 2721, and using the 57xx chassis is a bodge in that (among other things) the brake pull rods aren't the right type. The main outstanding issue, though, was that the front splasher was now badly out of alignment with the wheel. Finally summoning up the nerve, I reworked that whole area by sawing away the splasher, relocating it, and then building back the detail under the smokebox. Once I'd done that, I had a huge void under the tanks which needed addressing. The motor angle was adjusted slightly and a false boiler bottom fashioned from plastic tube of roughly the right diameter. I then added a suggestion of inside valve gear using plastic rod, only just visible but I know it's there.
     
    After all this, there's just enough daylight under the boiler to look convincing, I hope, albeit tricky to photograph:
     

     
    That's it for now. Happy bodging, one and all.
  13. Barry Ten

    94XX finished

    By Barry Ten,

    A couple of snaps of my just completed 9449. The camera has cruelly picked up a couple of fingerprints in the weathering which I certainly didn't notice on the model, but will be attended to!
     
    Note also the absence of rivets on the cab step on the lower photo, which was fabricated in plastic since the tatty model I bought second hand didn't have one. I think I'll add some rivets ... so, er, not really finished, strictly, but then they never are.
     
    Cheers!
  14. Barry Ten
    Although there are still a few bits to be done on the S15 and C2X (not to mention the on-going saga of the Dean Goods) I felt sufficiently flushed with success to press on to the next "big" project, a pair of GWR long prairies. I have three RTR ones - an Airfix era model which is no longer a runner, and has a somewhat damaged body, plus two later Hornby versions, neither of which I would rate as being particularly smooth performers. However, after seeing a real one at the Great Central Railway some twelve years ago, moving smoothly over pointwork with barely a hiss of sound, I was smitten with the sense of power inherent in this beautiful tank loco. A "decent" 61xx has long been on my want list.
     
    The plan here is to build two engines - one using the Comet chassis under the Airfix/Hornby body, and the other to be built from the SE Finecast brass and white metal kit. Both models will be driven using the same DJH motor/gearbox combinations, so it should be interesting to compare their relative performance. All being well, they should be very similar ... but time will tell. The chassis design is a little different, with the SE Finecast one in effect being a 2-8-0, with a fixed rear pony truck, and the Comet one using a pony truck at either end.
     
    I felt like tackling the Comet project first, as this was the one with the least work involved. I'd acquired the frames and motion parts a few years ago from another RMwebber, only having to buy the wheels separately. I ordered the wheels some while ago from Comet and put them in the kit box until it was time to begin the construction.
     
    That time was last night. In preparation, I tidied my work bench:
     

     
    There. Nice and tidy.
     
    I soldered up the frames in rigid fashion, using Comet jigs to aid assembly. Personally, while being very appreciative of the Comet range, I don't like the lack of locating tabs for the frame spacers. The philosophy is supposedly to allow the modeller maximum flexibility in where they place the spacers, but I bet 90% of modellers just put them where Comet suggest - I do, anyway. For my money the lack of locating tabs does open some scope for misalignment of the frames, although in practise I've managed to correct any such errors before getting too far with the soldering. The moral is to tack the spacers and frames together very gradually, constantly checking for squareness, parallel-ness and so on, before committing to soldering everything up solidly. Incidentally I solder half the spacers onto one frame, half onto the other.
     
    With the frames assembled, I began to test fit the wheels. On the Comet chassis, I'm using a Markits wheelset, whereas the SE Finecast one will have the new plastic wheels from Scalelink. My intention was to fit crank pins and test the coupling rods for free running, and if that was going well I might have progressed to fitting pickups. That's where things got interesting!
     
    Fitting the outer wheelsets was no problem. The axle bushes just need a little tweak with the reamer to get smoothly turning wheels.
     

     
    When I began to fit the middle wheelset, though, I noticed something ... odd.
     
    Can you spot the deliberate error?
     

     
    One of the six wheels has the right diameter, but the wrong crankpin throw. It's not even a mismatched wheelset - it's just one out of six wheels. So that's an end to that, for now, until I can obtain a new wheel, which may not be as simple as that given the supply difficulties with Markits. I have no doubt that Comet would have supplied a replacement, but the firm has now changed ownership and I wouldn't think it fair to pass this issue on to the new owner. Perhaps I should have spotted the error at the time? That said, who really checks wheels until it's time to fit them to a chassis?
  15. Barry Ten
    After quite a bit of testing, I decided to bite the bullet and add a South West Digital DCC sound decoder to the Prairie. I picked up their 2-cylinder GWR Group 3 decoder, which includes generic sounds which are suitable for a range of larger 2-cylinder engines. This was my first hardwired sound installation so I had to summon up a bit of courage to snip the 8-pin DCC plug from the wires, after testing it of course, but I reasoned that if for some reason it didn't work in the Prairie, I could always find a use for it in another GWR loco.
     
    Incidentally, I opened up a Hornby 28XX with a view to possibly putting sound in that, and I was surprised at how little room there is in the tender - not a straightforward job at all.
     
    Fortunately there is a lot of room in a Prairie. Since I'd already filled the bunker with lead, the speaker had to go in the cab, but it'll be all but invisible once crew are added. I mounted the decoder slightly forward/over the gearbox. The only modification I had to do was remove two small pieces of lead I'd added inside the body, which interfered with the decoder. The cab floor is a piece of plastikard with holes drilled in it to allow the sound to escape.
     
    Department of cruel close-ups:
     

     
    I kept all the decoder leads long, including those I haven't used, just in case I want to try adding extra functions at some point.
     
    Initial running was a bit hesitant, but a wheel clean and some tweaks to the pickups sorted that out. You have to play around with a couple of configuration variables to get the chuff rate properly optimised, and I still need to work on those. The SWD chip has a lot of play value, with plenty of sounds and modes to keep you occupied.
     
    Here's a link to a short YouTube clip showing the Prairie moving about a bit.
     

     
    DCC sound is very much a personal thing, and I'm sure there will be differing views on the realism of the supplied sounds, but I find that it helps to make a small-ish layout seem bigger, as it encourages you to drive slower.
  16. Barry Ten
    Test-running of the Prairie continues, it's been fairly painless so far, plodding around at very slow speed with a decent freight, although there's a dodgy track joint which is tending to throw the leading driving wheels off the rails every now and again. Since it's not just the Prairie it affects, the solution will be to fix the track, rather than blame the engine, although I might squeeze a bit more weight over the leading drivers. I filled the bunker with lead, and if anything it does need a bit more weight nearer the front to balance things out.
     
    Next will be early crests and plates (already ordered) and then I'll possibly see if I can squeeze an SWD sound chip in, once I'm fully satisfied with the running.
     

     
    On a slightly related note, here's another Prairie (this time a 4575 class) moving through the paint shop...
     

     
    This was a Tower Brass model purchased at the Bristol show in 2010 in its unpainted state. The chimney was on a bit skew-whiff, so a year or two later a friend (with a gas torch) helped me unsolder it; it was then reattached, along with one or two other details that were a bit off. However, it wasn't until last year that I finally got around to wiring up some Peco O gauge track and giving it a test run! Shocking really, but luckily it did run. I then dismantled the loco and began painting it. Primer went on, followed by several coats of GWR green. Earlier this year, again at the Bristol show, I picked up some etched plates and decals, but it still took me a while to get around to adding them. As you can see, there's a bit of carrier film visible around the lettering but it's not really as obvious in the flesh. I should probably have applied a coat of gloss under the decals but I couldn't be bothered at the time. I painted and glazed the cab, and added some figures. All that's needed now are some lamps (already bought) and a touch of very light weathering.
     
    All I'm waiting for now is a sunny day so I can set up a loop of O gauge set-track out on the decking and give the Prairie a decent running session, along with the two wagons I've built to go behind it. About time I built that Toad kit, really...
  17. Barry Ten
    The construction of a Comet GWR long prairie chassis continues.
     
    As mentioned in the last entry, I had to order a new wheel to replace the wrong one in the set, which had an incorrect crank throw compared to the others.
     
    The new wheel didn't take long to arrive (thanks, Wizard Models for the excellent service) but in the meantime the delay allowed me to crack on with assembling some of the other parts of the chassis such as the coupling and connecting rods, slidebars, cylinders, pony trucks and so on. With the new wheel in hand, I put the wheels on their axles and inserted them into the chassis, using Peco fibre washers to restrict the sideplay on the first and second axles to almost nothing, with more sideplay allowed on the rear axle. I also added the DJH motor and gearbox at this stage.
     
    Pickups were added using my normal method, using nickle silver wire soldered to copperclad pads (I use C+L sleepers, cut down to size) fixed in turn to plastikard mounts under the chassis. With a prairie, you do have the option of using pickups bearing onto the tops of the wheels, as the tanks hide all that business, but I didn't like the idea of having to remove the body to adjust the pickups, so plumped for the usual approach. As always, I dithered over whether to fit the pickups before or after the brake gear. There's no right or wrong way, in my view: if you fit the brake gear first, then you have to add the pickups in a much more restricted environment. On the other hand, if you do the pickups first, you may find that they get in the way of the brake gear. With the prairie, I've added the brake hangers and shoes, then the pickups, but I've yet to add the cross-links or the pull rods. Only time will tell if I need to tweak the pickups.
     
    At this point, I wired up the motor, placed the chassis on the track, applied power, and was rewarded with a high-speed whirring sound! This was due to my not having tightened the grub screw onto the centre axle. However, it was encouraging that the pickups seemed to be working, as when I pushed the chassis along by finger power, the motor kept whirring. Progress! I then tightened the grub screw, added the coupling rods - just placed temporarily in place - and gave it another go. I'm pleased to say that the chassis ran pleasingly well, even with no body on, sailing off without hesitation and being capable of a very slow crawl with no tight spots. I'd take credit, but really that's just down to Comet's excellent design, as well as the quality of the DJH gearboxes. Anyway, good news, and it's always a magic moment when something that was just some flat pieces of brass a few weeks ago gets up and moves on its own...
     
    I then soldered the coupling rods on, constantly testing to make sure all was well. Notice I've left the middle crankpin unsoldered, as I'll be adding the connecting rods next.
     
    The only snag is I don't have a set of crossheads, unless I open another Comet chassis pack and pinch them from that one. The trouble is I always forget I've done that, until I come to build the next kit... am I the only one who does this?
     
    The body, as you'll notice, is in a bit of a state, missing cab steps and the top of the safety valve - and that's before we get to the teenage weathering job. But fear not, I've got an unmade Dapol kit which I'm planning to use as donor for some of the missing parts, so there should still be life in the old body yet...
     

     
    Cheers, and thanks for reading.
  18. Barry Ten
    A little bit of work over the weekend - ably assisted by Florence & The Machine's new album - saw the chassis essentially finished apart from the leading pony truck.
     
    As reported in the last post, the basic 0-6-0 chassis ran very well, but as always, there is scope for things to go wrong as you start adding cylinders, connecting rods and so on. Although Comet kits are great, I've found that their outside cylinder parts need a lot of fettling before things work... whereas the two DJH kits I've built with cylinders both needed a lot less attention before I had smooth running.
     
    The slidebars are a simple fold-up etch which I sweated together without too much hassle. The crossheads need a lot of material removing from them, though, but the danger is that you go a bit too far and end up with a fit that's sloppy rather than just right. I've done that in the past, and was determined not to do so this time ... but even so it can be tricky to be sure you've eliminated all tight spots between the crosshead, slidebars and cylinder. Compounding the issue, the clearances are very tight. There's not much room between the leading crankpin and the back of the crosshead, but I was prepared for that and filed the crankpin washer down as far as it would go. Also, due to the crankpin throw on the wheels, the connecting rods come very close to the slidebars when the wheels are at 6 0'clock and 12 0'clock ... and some careful tweaking is needed.
     
    Nonetheless I got it all running very sweetly, and then comes the pain of fitting the motion support brackets, or whatever they are - those "C"-shaped brackets that link the slidebars. I've never found these things to be anything other than a flaming nuisance, partly because clearances are tight, partly because you can easily upset the good running you've just struggled to get ... and also because there isn't much of a contact surface to get a really solid soldered bond. All the same, they have to go on! Fitting these took a couple of hours, and at one point I had to walk away and come back because the running had deteriorated so badly, presumably because the brackets were "squeezing" the slidebars a little. It then occurred to me to position the crosshead at the end of the brackets to act as a spacer, and once resoldered, the brackets worked fine, and running was back to how it should have been...
     
    Ah, the joys of even a simple outside cylinder loco.
     
    I fitted the rear pony truck first, as I had the right diameter of wheel for it - I'll have to search the spares box for the leading one. However, so far the pony seems to track pretty reliably, given that it's got no weight on it.
     
    As mentioned earlier, the SE Finecast chassis (correctly) has the rear axle in a fixed frame configuration, as (if I'm not mistaken) the Large Prairies didn't have separate rear pony trucks like the 44xx class. However, I'm not sanguine about the chance of such a rigid chassis making it around my 30" curves, as even the Comet one seems to have the pony truck at quite a deflection on curves ... but we'll see, perhaps I'm being unduly pessimistic!
     

     
    Anyway, this Comet chassis is nearly done and runs superbly, even without the body on. Top marks to Comet.
  19. Barry Ten
    Nothing dramatic to report here, but for some reason I always enjoy seeing locomotives "in the raw", with detailing parts added and so on, prior to painting - is it because the end is in sight, but at the same time, there's still a pleasing array of different bits and pieces visible, not yet unified by paint?
     
    I decided to strip the dodgy weathering, and with it came most of the underlying BR black applied by Airfix. However, the black proved quite stubborn in some areas despite two goes with the Modelstrip, so I resorted so sanding in places. It's a nice GWR green underneath! Presumably the models were moulded in green as a production economy.
     
    I'd added handrails using the cutting-edge methods of the early 80s - a hot needle to melt the holes, then staples bent to shape and jammed into the holes! Unsurprisingly these all fell out with the stripping. I filled the worst holes, then redrilled and applied proper handrails. The cabside ones, using proper knobs, had come loose as well so these needed to redone. I repaired the top feed using a donor part from a scrap loco body. I also had a pair of 247 tank filler tops in the spares box, acquired at some show, so the moulded ones were sawn off and replaced with these castings, which needed a bit of filing down in height before they looked right. I soldered up the little handles on the top from brass wire - how sturdy they'll prove will remain to be seen, but since some of my Bachmann panniers are missing theirs, at least I've got a possible replacement method now.
     

     
    Meanwhile, the front pony wheel has been replaced with one of about the correct diameter, give or take a scale inch, although the number of spokes is wrong. At some point I'll replace it ... or maybe not. Testing proved surprisingly problem free, with no further derailments running forward or back. I crammed a little lead into both trucks. Other than the slightly nasty reverse curve for accessing the goods sidings, there's no point at which the lead pony fouls the cylinders. I could file a little away from the cylinders, or just restrict the Prairie to through trains which don't need to shunt the yard ... undecided on that one for now.
     
    Onto the paint shop next, at which point decisions will need to be taken. I'm erring toward plain BR black, early emblem, with a decoder. It seems to run smoothly so DCC should be OK, I think, but the proof will be in the pudding...
     
    Again, thanks for reading.
  20. Barry Ten
    Apart from the wheel balance weights, the first Prairie chassis is now finished, and is now beginning running trials. I was expecting all sorts of bother with the pony trucks derailing, but so far - touch wood - they've been fairly well behaved, although perhaps a bit of extra weight in them wouldn't go amiss.
     
    I didn't have a front wheel of exactly the correct diamete (3' 2" I think), or the right number of spokes, so it's running with a slightly too small 3' Gibson wheel for the time being. The next wheel size up I have is a 3' 3" one, which is slightly too large, but I think will be a better compromise. At the moment, at least, the wheel doesn't foul the front of the cylinder. In another first for me, all the brass and white metal bits of the cylinder were soldered together - the only glue that's gone anywhere near this model, so far, has been for the sandboxes.
     
    I fitted the final brake gear, soldering the two main rods together and managing not to get into too much bother with the already-fitted pickups. To be on the sage side, though, I also added heat shrink insulation over the pickups, where they might touch the chassis parts.
     
    Onto the body, and the damaged steps were transplanted with those from the Kitmaster/Airfix/Dapol Prairie kit, and I've got a replacement for the safety valve cover to go on next. The sandboxes were also sawn off the plastic frames and spaced out with plastikard blocks before being glued to the Comet chassis just ahead of the steps. I've now started adding weight into the body, but I'm nowhere near done with that - luckily there's bags of room in a Prairie! I also need to fabricate a cab floor and some suggestion of an interior, but I don't think I'll bother with a backhead as it'll be all but invisible once I've added crew.
     

     

     
    Incidentally, I'm re-watching Tony Wright's DVD on loco kit construction where he does the SE Finecast Prairie, and it's clear that the kit's frames jog inward to allow the rear axle more lateral movement. So provided I don't cock it up, that model should be able to cope with my curves as easily as the Comet one, which is one less concern.
     
    Cheers and thanks for reading again.
  21. Barry Ten
    Just a minor update here on the perils of being too clever...
     
    The Prairie chassis went together easily, and even though they had to be bent around the springs, the pickups were problem-free from the start. One of the good indicators of this is wheel cleanliness - if, after a few hours of test running, the wheels are still shiny, there's nothing wrong with the pickups. If pickup is intermittent, the wheel will begin to accumulate dirt which will only worsen things, leading to more dirt ... etc. I was very pleased with the Prairie as the wheels stayed shiny and it trundled over even my dodgiest of track areas without hesitation.
     
    Once I'd got the cylinders working, I thought I'd be "professional" and add some heat shrink insulation to the pickups, just to avoid any possibility of a short against the chassis. The chassis on this engine is electrically dead, but if two pickups on either side were to touch it at the same time, there would be trouble. As I was considering dding DCC, I wanted to avoid any such possibility.
     
    All seemed well, but over the coming days I noticed that the running was deteriorating, and the wheels were getting dirty ... very quickly. I'd clean them, and then they'd be dirty again after a couple of laps. The problem, it slowly dawned, was that the heat-shrink was impeding the springiness of the pickups. There was nothing for it, then, but to unsolder them and add completely new pickups - this time without any extra complication of insulation. This was tricky because I'd since added the brake pull rods, but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. And they've been problem-free again and the wheels are still shiny. The moral here is that you can sometimes create a problem by anticipating one that hasn't happened yet...
     
    A more pragmatic approach - and the one I've always used before - is to rely on the paint on the frames to insulate against shorts, and - if there's any doubt about that - add a smear of araldite where the contact might occur.
     
    I've now fitted a decoder, incidentally, and the running is fantastic on DCC, with a barely perceptible crawl on speed step 1. That settles the identity of this engine so it's begun to be painted in BR black.
  22. Barry Ten
    Other than a rear vacuum pipe, this one's about done, and I'm very satisfied with the way the model's come out.
     

     
    After a lot of testing, I added an additional set of pickups to the rear truck, and this seems to have made the running pretty much 100% reliable, even over some less than fantastic track joints, so I'm well pleased with that aspect of the model. The SWD sound decoder is incredibly good fun, the only downside being that I'm so impressed by it that I've started considering adding sound to some other engines that were already considered done and dusted - a potentially slippery slope. It used to be that I was content with one or two sound fitted engines just to add a bit of interest now and then, but there's something so convincing about these latest steam decoders (in my view) that I fear I've gone over the tipping point. It's hard to articulate it, but because they almost demand that engines be driven with slow starts and stops and realistic final speeds, they make the layout as a whole seem larger, and it's fantastic to hear the way the acoustics change as the trains move from embankments to cuttings, tunnels etc - it really does make a heck of a difference.
     
    Thoughts on the project as a whole: the Comet chassis goes together very well and is - thankfully- spot on in terms of the relationship between the wheel centres and the coupling rods. The main problem I had was with the slide bars, which - being the standard Comet fitting - are a bit too close together to work well with the swing of the connecting rod, given the crank throw of the drivers. The solution I came up with was to flare out the ends of the slidebars slightly (up and down), just to give a fraction more clearance. I also struggled with the slidebar bracket, it being too tight at first, squeezing the slidebars, but after some filing I got there in the end. One defect is that the bracket should line up exactly with the bracket casting which sits above the footplate immediately in front of the tanks, but in this case it doesn't quite correspond, being slightly too close to the cylinders. It's something that could be fixed on a subsequent build, either by ignoring the etched guides on the slidebar, or spacing the slidebars a bit further back from the cylinders with a packing piece. But on the whole, it's not that noticeable. The DJH gearbox and motor are problem-free as ever, and very easy to work with.
     
    As mentioned in an earlier post I kept encountering derailment of the front drivers, for some reason, and it took me a while to track down the problem. I thought it was due to insufficiant weight over the drivers, but it wasn't. I eventually realised that the problem had only arisen after I swapped the smaller pony wheel for one of correct diameter. Even though the front pony truck itself was staying on the rails, it was able to nudge the cylinders enough to occasionally throw the main wheels off the rails. The solution was to grind a little rebate in the front face of the cylinders, and that was the end of derailments.
     
    One nice thing is how well the Comet chassis fits into the Airfix body, and the designers have given a lot of thought to how you mount and retain the chassis, with two suggested methods, which is nice. With the chassis screwed into place, it all feels reassuringly solid, almost like a heavy RTR model. It pulls well, too. The five-coach rake of Toplights and bow-ended stock is heavy, stiff om bends, and can induce a little wheel slip in Hornby Castles and Bachmann Halls, but the 61XX just walks away with it.
     

     
    Ignore the incorrect headcode, I was inspired by a BR black 61XX in a Barry Freeman painting on a goods service, so that's the main duty this one will end up on, I think.
     
    By rights I ought to crack on and tackle the SE Finecast Prairie next, which I expect will throw up a bunch of subtly different problems, but I may work on one or two other projects before returning to Mister Churchward's finest. However, as they say, watch this space.
  23. Barry Ten
    Just in time for the Dapol announcement of a new 00 61xx, here's my SE Finecast one being put to its paces on a test train. It's been a very nice kit to put together and the resultant model is nicely smooth and powerful, with its DJH gearbox and motor giving trouble-free running.
  24. Barry Ten
    Back in 2015 I posted a series of entries on building upgrading an old Airfix Prairie with a Comet chassis, and mentioned that a second Prairie was in the works:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/257/entry-16401-a-brace-of-prairies-one-down-one-to-go/
     
    It's taken a while, but the second one is now coming together, courtesy of the SE Finecast kit:
     

     
    The model uses the same wheels, motor and gearbox as the Comet one, so - all being well - they should be very similar runners. The Comet one (with its ESU
    sound decoder) has settled down to being one of my best-running locomotives, so the new boy has a fair amount to live up to. Whether it'll be be DC or DCC,
    though, remains to be decided, depending on the livery I finally apply.
     
    The chassis went together very easily except for the crossheads, where I had to deviate from the kit design in order to get enough clearance between the back
    of the crosshead and the leading crankpin. Once all was tested and adjusted, though, I was very pleased with the running. You'll note that the Finecast slidebars
    are set further apart than the Comet one, which makes life a bit easier as there's no chance of the connecting rod clouting the ends of the slidebars at top and
    bottom of each wheel rotation. Tonight I added the brake gear, which is one of those jobs I always find fiddly but immensely satisfying once done, as they lend
    and immediate presence to the chassis. One of the failings of the current Hornby model, other than that my two don't run particularly smoothly, is that the brake
    gear is very wimpy in appearance.
     
    Next I have to attach the pony truck. Fortunately, having the done the Comet one, I have a good guide as to how much material needs to be trimmed from the
    inside faces of the cylinders to enable the truck to swing.
     
    The quality of the body castings is top notch, and most fit with very little fettling. A bit of a contrast to the Gem 2-4-0T I did last year!
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/257/entry-18366-cambrian-2-4-0t-and-dean-goods/
  25. Barry Ten
    I wanted a typically South Wales-looking chapel/church for Paynestown but as the layout developed, it didn't look as if there'd be room for it. However, I've since decided that I don't like the hill on the right side of the model (behind the carriage shed), which was done in a hurry and has never looked quite right to my eyes. By slicing the top off, I can create enough area for a reasonable sized building which will help reinforce the location.
     
    There are enough chapels in my neck of the woods that one hardly needs to do any "research" (my nearest one is now a Jewson builders merchants), but rather than copy a prototype, I wanted to make use of some bits and pieces already in the scrap box and produce a representative hybrid. The main problem was going to be the windows, so I looked around to see if there were any chapels that used a similar style to the Wills wall/window pieces. My concern was that these windows wouldn't have the pointed arch that I associate with churches, but a quick trawl of Google soon threw plenty of chapels and churches that had round-topped windows much like the Wills ones, both in single and double storey varieties. I also spotted that there are often smaller windows above the door, for which the Ratio industrial windows would be just the ticket.
     
    Other than that, it's largely imaginary; I don't know whether it's Wesleyan or Methodist or what have you. I do know that it won't be a Jewsons!
     
    Paint to follow, it'll probably be red brick and stone trim although part of me likes the idea of painting the bricks white or cream and then offsetting this with red trim.
     

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