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Ken, I came across these photos. I'd just increased the height of the cab by a couple of centimetres. It had looked slightly out of proportion and when I calculated the height from the original 4mm drawing I found the problem. So, in the future, no more resizing drawings on photocopiers, I had been warned.

Anyway, all here is held together with bluetack and yes, one of the panels is open, to reveal the "diesel-electric" motor and big red wire...

That's a beautiful loco Ken.

Very inspiring!

Cheers

Simon

Hi Ken, I would very much have liked to have had one panel open but I had no idea what was actually in there. You can see that there is something going on inside if you squint through the joins but that's a Machima with a bloody great flywheel! Co-incidently I managed to get the recent Armstrong Whitworth book out of the library on Saturday, (yes, we still have one...) and besides having a beautiful 7mm drawing of one side of the relevent loco it also has a similar 0-4-0 class shunter showing the internal arrangement of the various motors and gubbins. Curses, next time!

Thankyou David, I'll persevere with CAD for my Earl Cawdor, though I may cheat and pen and paper it first!

There was an interesting article in a recent MRJ about scratch-building and drawing out, it also shows the use of a pantograph engraver. I wouldn't mind one of those!

Some more build photos of the Lady A...

I've a photo of the loco running in summer with the inspection hatches on the bonnet open to cool her off, apparently. I wanted to show the panels individually. So I built them all separately, after adding the beading and then soldered them to the bonnet superstructure.

Hi David, how do you find CAD? I've got a Corel programme and went on a weekend course on how to use it, but my IT skills are currently so lamentable that it's a hundred times quicker if I use a pen and paper. I'm keen to use CAD, particularly for producing art work for etches to speed up my scratc-building, but at the moment it just slows everything down!

Simon

I agree, fantastic seat! Did you use any sort of jig, or is it all by eye? The leather covering is brilliant!

Simon

Thankyou everyone for your interest and replies, all very encouraging. We all tend to think that we are the only ones who make mistakes!

Brilliant advice Ken, and keeping the templates would allow me to make duplicates, although my organisational skills are possibly not up to knowing where I've put the templates afterwards. I have started to keep all the paper-work and sketches in plastic slip folders. I do draw sketches for details and small parts but it's never occured to me to do the same for the main parts. Of course, it's not going to stop me making mistakes but as you mention, it should save time and metal in the long run! As I make a start on my GWR "Earl Cawdor" I'll post what I do. I'd be interested in your thoughts on preparing kit etches.

I have tended to try stuff out directly in the metal, this rather Christmassy view from last year shows how I worked out the angle of the motor and flywheel to clear the bonnet...

Hi Rob, thankyou very much, I enjoy reading your threads. RMWeb is a great resource from which I hope to gain even more techniques and inspiration.

Much of my scratch-building seems to involve the rectification of mistakes, which while slow, really teaches me a few lessons!

I ended up with all these bits...

and then this...

I shaped the cab-sides using a stuck on photocopy of the drawing. After I'd added the beading, the corners looked too square so I soldered on fillets of brass cut from Slaters axle packing washers and filed the corners to the correct profile.

In future I'm going to scribe shapes directly onto the metal before I cut anything out!

You're very kind Ken, thankyou. I was very pleased with the result, they took ages. Wait 'til I get to how I did the buffers!

Cheers

Simon

For the window frames at the front and back of the cab, I cut out brass blanks, rivetted them and soldered to the main cab components. Then I sawed and filed the window blanks.

Hi Ken, thankyou, I got the pick-up idea, along with many others, from an article in the Model Railway Journal. They work exceptionally well,especially with my bit of basic compensation and a hefty flywheel. The completed model can negotiate a Marks and Spencers receipt, I discovered recently!

Ah, I've discovered how to add more photos.

These show; the side-frames, cut from hefty nickel-silver; testing for smooth running including the jack-shaft (carefully sawn from the rimless Slaters wheel) and then the painted, soldered frames showing the compensation beam and back-scratcher pick-ups

Hi Jazz, many thanks for your reply and lovely photos. I'm following your current build with great interest. My drawings came primarily from the Oakwood Press book, "The North Sunderland Railway" which I re-sized by photocopier to 7mm. My IT skills lag so far behind that I have actually finished the loco, I can't seem to do computers and soldering at the same time...it took me a year to finish, including a broken hand and some other distractions. I thought I'd post photos of the build sequentially to show what I did. I was going to put a photo on this post but I can't presently find out how to!

Cheers

Simon

After being inspired by Jazz's beautiful model of this lovely little Armstrong Whitworth 0-4-0 Diesel Electric shunter and being asked to make a model specifically of "The Lady Armstrong" by a friend for whom I'd already built a rake of the four wheel coaches that ran on the North Sunderland Railway, how could I resist?

Now that my IT skills have begun to catch up with my soldering ability I can post up photos of how I did it. Hopefully.

I cut and shut the coupling rods from a set of Rod Neep coupling etches that I'd got from ebay, you never know when things might come in handy. There are two of the longer ones, somewhere. The metal is some sort of steel which is nice as the prototype had polished steel rods. The wheels, including a set without rims for the jack-shaft drive where cheerfully provided by Slaters on Jazz's advice.

Fingers crossed that this, my first new topic post, comes out as I think it should!

 

Have a wander around this site http://www.raymondwa...e/scorpion.html - some lovely models including a Scorpion... dilbert

Many thanks!

Simon

Can I ask in this thread about Brown livery for NPCCS vehicles? I have an early Scorpion carriage truck with a patent (Allen?) screw brake and Mansell wheels on my work bench awaiting painting. Should the solebar and underfloor ironwork be black or is any of it brown? I can't find a written reference in any of my books and i'm aware wagon grey livery extended to these areas. Any help gratefully received!

Hi, could someone please confirm that the rest of the Scorpion would be in brown, I've got exactly the same model in grey primer, small world eh? Also would there be any markings/transfers? Sorry to digress but this forum seems to be a remarkably good resource! Cheers Simon

Hi John, prompted by your thread I dug my old 4mm Craftsman kit for the 36xx out of the cupboard. I'm impressed by the chassis bits you've got there. How are you getting on? And how were you thinking of fitting the motor?

Regards

Simon

Hi John, thanks for your thanks, I'm glad the photos have proven useful, I've got a lot of information and prototype photos if you need more! Here's a photo of the other side of my model.

The conical object on the footplate is indeed a re-railing jack as the last poster has correctly identified, there's just the one on that side and I don't think they lasted many years. The other objects are the springs for the front radial truck. They're grouped as four sets of nested cones and are called, I think, volute springs. I got mine as castings from Laurie Griffin and very good they are too. I'm not sure what you could do in 4mm; Craftsman Models used to do a kit for the 36xx (which may be the origin of your model,) I don't know if they did castings for the springs. Good luck!

Regards

Simon

Hi John, I've scratch built a 7mm 36xx in the original condition with parallel boiler and coal bars on the bunker. The driving wheels are compensated and the trucks built as sprung radials. They're great little locos, full of character and I'm looking forward to building another in the final rebuilt condition with conical boiler etc.

I hope my photos might be useful to you and look forward to seeing your model progress.

Regards

Simon