Sandy Harper

Just a few photographs to show that I have been active but, now that summer has arrived, my time is diverted away from the W/B on a regular basis! The valve gear has now been completed and it runs well but still needs brakes and motor/gearbox adding to complete the chassis. Regards Sandy

This is the clever etch that folds up to become the motion bracket for the crosshead/ slidebar unit. The reverser and valve adjusting block are also attached to this. The whole thing is supported by a cross spacer that can be made removable for easy access. We put our exhibition layout up this afternoon, 'Montford', for a spring clean before it goes to the Oswestry/Cambrain open day next month. It is DCC and 'Gordon Castle' was used to test that it was all working well. Regards Sandy

You are correct, these are for alignment and fit into holes in the motion bracket. The attachment point is a very well designed piece of etching that folds up to represent the casting. I'll post a photo of it later. Sandy

This is my first foray into these single shoe slide bars and have therefore I have never studied them closely, until now! I have got them moving quite freely so I trust they will work ok. Thanks for the nice comments. Kind regards Sandy

Made a start on the cylinders and valve gear today. Not come across this before. The cross head and guides are not attached to the cylinder ends!! They are attached to a cantilevered casting from the frames. Different! The instructions for the fitting of the Valve piston is a bit vague. A) I don't appear to have a valve piston casting and B) the instruction says fit using brass wire!! A bit confused at the moment. Need to sleep on it. Sandy

The bogie went together 'as it says on the tin!' Sandy

I'm not an expert but it looks like your paint is too thin. The other skill you will need to master is how to take of unwanted paint. This is described in Ian's book quite well but in essence you need a very fine brush of 'best ' quality 00 sable. Winsor & Newton do one at around £12 so don't use it for general painting. What you need to do is load it with clean white spirit, remove most of it on a paper towel and then draw the brush down the outside of the paint line to remove any surplus. The surplus will be drawn into the brush and it will need frequent swilling in clean White spirit. You can reduce the bumps and wiggles quite effectively this way. Ian's book also describes how to treat bow pen points to get the best results. Regards Sandy

David, Tank engines didn't quite have a void in the middle. The boiler/firebox contained a fair amount of water in it which in effect, was quite well contained, where as the side tanks could have an amount of 'unrestrained' water sloshing around inside them. Internal baffles were used to prevent this and maintain stability but I believe there was one notorious class of tank on the Southern that ,with the right conditions, could cause the engine to leave the track. I think they rebuilt them as tender engines in the end. Regards Sandy

The tender for the 'Schools' is complete and ready for painting. As per the S15 it went together 'as it says on the tin'. The split axles are in the process of being 'split'. I have started the main loco frames and have fitted all the bits that I can in the 'flat' before attaching them together. The rods are two etches laminated together. Here they are after soldering together but before cleaning up. Regards Sandy

Hi Pete It was born out of necessity. Since going over to DCC it became obvious that any electrical short had to be eliminated. Even a small momentary short will shut down your system until the automated reset kicks in and if you have not resolved the short by that time it will keep doing it! The obvious answer is to maintain dead chassis at all times. But that means plunger pickups or back scratchers. Easy enough on a big engine but it gets more difficult on a small tank for instance. Having produced split chassis for a tank engine it was an easy step to do the same for a larger engine but only using the tender. I cannot take any credit for this as I got the idea from Barry Sumsion, Jeff Rodway and Peter Trigwell who build their Southern engines this way and have very high reliability. They are the guys who run the DCC demonstration layout at Guild shows. Once you have a process in place it becomes very easy to convert to split chassis. Brake rigging is about the only thing that may need a bit of lateral thinking! Regards Sandy

I have started on the Schools tender chassis. As per my usual method of pickup it will be tender only with a split chassis and split axles. The chassis was built as normal using the spacers supplied and the bearings inserted. The centre bearings will be sprung and have vertical movement both above and below the axle centre line datum. Once the chassis is built, I cut a series of Perspex spacers to fit neatly between the frames and glue them to the underside of the original spacers. Once the glue has dried I drill and tap through the original spacers and the new Perspex spacers and secure them with 8BA bolts. To complete the insulation the original spacers are cut through with a slitting disc. Next job is the brake gear. This also needs to be insulated and here I glued plastic to the cross beams and again cut through the N/S of the cross beam and filled the gap with Araldite. The chassis is fitted temporarily with some spare wheels until the correct ones arrive from Walsall. I will then carry out the axle splitting exercise to insulate them. This is my method of springing that I stole from Ken (Jazz) on this site. Very simple and effective.

Hi Pete I agree , and it would have been nice to have done it in olive! It is a big engine, with that bogie tender, and I don't have a box that it will fit into! Sandy

You doing things in the wrong type of green again Sandy................................!!! But it will be Olive Green!!

Hi John The kit was bought some time ago by the owner which is why the Pittman was included with the kit when I received it. It looks to be a very well built item (American I think) Regards Sandy

For those of you that were following my S15 build; I have at long last managed to get it painted! It still needs numbers and logo complete. A few photographs for you. Regards Sandy

Hi Jack, Lined Olive. Sandy

Next up on the workbench is another offering from North Star Design, a Southern Schools 4-4-0. This one will be fitted with AGH wheels powered by a Pittman motor attached to an ABC gearbox. It will be finished in Southern, lined, livery as No. 928 'STOWE'. Regards Sandy

Hi Jack, Thank you. The colour came out of my paint selection, Humbrol Gloss, Why I had it, I don't know? It very closely matches a photograph I was given of a preserved Sentinel painted in green on a railway in Lincolnshire. In model form the loco is representing a contractors loco on an industrial site. From a friend who worked at the Sentinel factory in Shrewsbury, the large vents were needed due to the intense heat in the cab from the vertical boiler. Regards Sandy

I intend to put in sprung hornblocks and a compensated chassis Hi Bob, Did you really mean both springing and compensation or should it be hornblocks with compensation? You don't usually do both as you will end up with one system working against the other! Regards Sandy

And finally!! She is complete and will be appearing in person at this weekends Leigh '0' Gauge Trade Show. She will be performing on the 'Leigh Locomotive Works' layout. Come over and say hello! Regards Sandy

The U/C's are great and the process I have found to be ideal, but not necessarily for everyone, is to keep your model clean throughout your build. When finished building, scrub with Bar Keepers Friend, find someone with a grit blaster and give it a going over, then into the U/C for a couple of sessions. After that lot the brass or N/S model will be as clean as it is ever going to be and ready for undercoat. Sandy

The Sentinel just needs a couple of painting touch ups and a coat of varnish to be ready for duty at next weekends Leigh Show. (The vertical boiler seems to be a bit wonky but it is attached to a loose floor at the moment.) Sandy

I bought them as part of the kit but I think they are Roxey Mouldings offerings. Sandy

I was a bit delayed in assembling the motor/gearbox to the chassis as I was waiting for some nylon 3/16" bearings to arrive. These bearings are needed to insulate the gearbox sides from the split axle. You may recall from earlier posts that the axle, with the gearbox on it, requires two Z cuts but there is not enough room to have them both outside the area of the axle covered by the full width of the gear box sides. Hence the need to use insulated bearings. I obtained mine from Brian Clapperton at ABC Gearboxes and had previously used them on my 'Gordon Castle' split chassis build. He supplies insulated bearings as an alternative to the normal brass bearings. You just have to ask when ordering your motor gearbox. When building a 0-4-0 it is essential that all four wheels pick up. A piece of copper-clad 'Vero' board was glued to the side of the can motor to make the connections for current transfer to the motor from the chassis sides via a DCC chip and keep the wiring as tidy as possible. This combination of gearbox and motor is a neat fit inside the bonnet of the locomotive and doesn't require any additional restraining. I have had it running-in for about an hour in each direction on the rolling road, at various speeds, and it will now crawl along a length of track on the '001' speed setting of my NCE controller. I managed to get some primer on the body a few days ago, just before the recent bout of cold weather, but a top coat could be a few weeks away yet! Regards Sandy