Sandy Harper

Nice job so far Martin. My preferred starting point is the coupling rods. It is from there that everything else on the chassis depends but there is nothing wrong in building the basic foot plate first as well. On my latest build (A3) you will see that it was necessary to bend up the basic footplate early to ensure that clearance issues with the cylinders and motion parts were maintained during the chassis build. From your description of your solder flow problems, it sounds to me that your soldering iron may not be producing enough heat to keep the solder melted enough to allow it to flow. In my experience a minimum of a 50w iron and 4mm tip are needed. The Antex 50w TCS with a 4mm tip is about the smallest iron I would consider using but if you can lay your hands on a 80w temperature controlled solder station, you will have a tool that should cope with anything you want it to do. I am looking forward to seeing the rest of your build. Kind regards Sandy

It's one of Dapols best. Sandy

I always get super fired up on return from a show and this morning I fitted a sound chip, that I picked up from DCC Supplies, to go into an 08 that I bought a few weeks ago. That went successfully and so I also took the opportunity to get the weathering powders out and remove the 'as new' look. Regards Sandy

You appear to be using rigid rods and compensated axles? Mmmm,I don't think that is how they are supposed to work? If you expect the axles to move up and down then the rods need articulation too! However, the points already mentioned are very valid and should be checked first before proceeding. Regards Sandy

Well that's the valve gear on! My therapist says that with rest and recuperation I should recover with no lasting ill effects! It was a fight! The worst bit was the Radius arm appearing to be too short but, as it turned out, it was the motion bracket that was in the wrong position. After some careful measurements another set of slots were cut in the frames to fix it in it's new position and all was well. The photos show the motion temporarily attached to ensure it all worked as it was supposed to. It will now be taken down and put away until the rest of the chassis is completed and painted. Got to get my kit together now for Guildex. Yipee! Regards Sandy

Look forward to seeing you again Ken Sandy

Just looked at your photo more closely and I now see what you mean. The front of the fall plate should, in reality, sit on the footplate of the loco. Yours appears to be a mill or two below, which is causing the rear of the footplate to be too high. The height of 'shoveling plate' looks to be about right, according to the posted photos, with the loco footplate being about half way between the tender footplate and the top of the 'shoveling plate'. Sandy

Hi Ken, Good plan! I also had to increase the height of my locos but more to give the bogie a little extra clearance for un-even track! See you at Guildex? I'm on the demo stand again! Regards Sandy

The 'shoveling plate', is that the correct term? appears to have been adjusted by Swindon on these 'Standard' tenders to suit the footplate height of the loco. I seem to remember that it was mentioned in the instructions on one of these 4-4-0 kits that I have built and you needed to reduce the 'shoveling plate' supports to get it to the right height. Regards Sandy

Again, apologies for the rubbish photo! I was right, the reversing block was probably a good idea on the CAD screen at the time but in practice, not so. The rear part of the 'block' is separate from the front face and is designed to have 'tabs' ,top and bottom, bent over at 90 degrees to fit in a slot at the bottom of the outer face and a recess at the top. The half etching failed to etch properly o the rear face so I used a triangle file to create a half etch bend line but, even when I managed to fold the tabs over , they were too short and did not give the clearance needed between the two faces of the block. I used some scrap etch top and bottom and soldered the lot up. I like to put my valve gear in forward drive so used a 12 BA bolt and nut to hold the rod below the pivot point. It will be held in place when the reversing drop link is attached. Regards Sandy

Hi Peter, the chassis is what it is! No brakes, no flange on the rear driver, no sand pipes etc If I had done anything with the coupling rods I would have to have gone the whole hog with the rest of the chassis but there was a cost constraint to consider as well and I did a lot more to the body that was initially requested. The owner is very happy with it and that's what counts. Regards Sandy

A way back in post #819, I showed a CCW 14xx kit that I was asked to refurbish. Remove the GWR lettering and turn it into a BR version! The paint job was pretty bad and I suggested a complete repaint which my friend readily agreed to. After closer inspection of the model I found that it had been glued together so as I didn't want to take the chance of it falling apart in the Cellulose thinners, that I normally use for paint stripping, it was a case of mechanically removing the paint. It too 3 days!! I also replaced the over scale hand rail knobs and added a smokebox lub. pipe cover which I had in my spares box. Screw link couplings and lamp irons were also added. At the time I finished the model I forgot to take the completed photographs, so here is one now. Regards Sandy

Hi Peter LG's castings made it very easy to complete this part. The rest may not be so easy! Still, I like a challenge!! Kind regards Sandy

First I must apologise for the crappy pictures. Since my Lumix packed in I have not had access to a camera with a Macro feature. Anyway I am pleased with the last two days efforts to get the motion brackets attached, in the correct place, and the cylinders and slidebars erected. This was not without issues, as you would expect! Using the etched slots in the chassis frames to locate the front and rear plates of the cylinders looked straight forward until I attempted to fit the cylinder wrappers. They were nicely etched in N/S with edge bolt detail but, were too narrow to fit around the front and rear of the cylinders. Decision time. Do I make new wrappers or move one of the spacers? I decided to assemble the cylinders, as a unit, off the model and to fit the wrappers as they were and adjust the sots in the chassis to fit. I also made the decision to make the cylinder unit removable (not catered for in the kit). The cylinder wrappers needed annealing as there was a 90 deg. bend at the top with about 1.5mm of turnover, another slight bend half way down the cover and then curved for the rest of the wrapper. Annealing made the bending and fitting very easy but left the N/S tarnished. It will probably help with paint adhesion later. I decided to adjust the front slot in the frames and had to take off about 1mm to get the unit to fit. This can just be seen on the photograph showing the front of the cylinder block. By fitting a vertical spacer in front of the front cylinder cross piece, I have managed to disguise the gap. I drilled this spacer 2.2mm clearance for a pair of 8 BA bolts and drilled (1.8mm) and tapped the cylinder spacer 8BA to secure the cylinder block. The slidebars and crosshead units are from the Laurie Griffin range and were included in the kit when I got it so, it seemed churlish not to use them! They do need a lot of fetteling up to get a nice sliding fit, using needle files, grinding discs and abrasive rubber wheels in the Dremel and once soldered on to the rear of the cylinders look the part. Now that I have got this far the rest should be straight forward, if the outside motion fits ok. But of course it will! Regards Sandy

Scale7 perhaps? Sandy

I reckon the door has been 'robbed' from the one in front and will have the number plate refitted later OR maybe the cab side sheets have been swapped???? Nice to see your still on here mate! Best regards Sandy

That's what your files are for!

According to my sources the website is being rebuilt. I'm not sure what you mean by your first statement? As I understand it, the history of the Falcon Brass/Jidenco and Mega Kits ranges, they were designed and drawn up to facilitate the designer in scratch building and were never intended to be issued as complete kits. Subsequent owners of the ranges increased or reduced the scale without making the necessary adjustments to the etching tools (additional expense) and without correcting any dimensional errors which were acceptable to the original owner. Ace kits seem to be of a different breed although this is only the second one I have built. I think William has bought in other kits, or parts of kits, and also designed some of his own. So far, on the A3, the chassis and footplate, apart from the front attachment holes which didn't line up, have gone together reasonably well. The Motion bracket, I think, may have been lifted from another kit as it doesn't fit and needs modifying and the cylinder front and rear plates were too long by the width of the footplate valances and had to be filed back to fit between them. I'm attempting to fit the Laurie Griffin slidebar and cross head assembly but there appears to be no obvious way of attaching them to the rear of the cylinders. More head scratching me thinks. Regards Sandy

Hi Tim Are these any use to you? Sandy

Probably for the best! Sandy

Yes, you could 'get away' with 15thou. It would be suitable but, with the limited space between the frames, in say a 0-6-0T, you would need a lot more spacers than if you went to 18thou. Is your issue, with wanting to use thinner material, to do with the cutting out of the frames? Sandy

Well, it appears that Slaters have resolved the rusty wheel problem! They now coat them in a clear gel type coating which I suspect will need cleaning off before use. Motion brackets now located. but, I think I am going to have a few clearance problems with the rear drivers? Regards Sandy

The kit had a Laurie Griffin cast slidebar and crosshead assembly included so, obviously, they will be used instead of the w/m offering. Yes, the axle in tube is suggested for the trailing axle! Sandy

The footplate was a lot easier to bend up than I had expected . I didn't use any rods etc to create the bends, just my fingers. The area of the bends have a half etched area underneath the footplate which makes the brass very easy to shape by hand. The valance, which I had left in the etch initially, was used as the former to get the shape right. Once the bends were in, the valances were carefully removed, cleaned up and soldered into the half etch locating line on the underneath of the footplate. I put together the footplate, at this point in the build, because I suspected that the etch, which folds up to form the expansion block bracket, was too big and would extend outside the footplate valance. I was right and the photos below show that I will need to remove about 4mm from each of the etches. Sandy

Hi Peter, The valve gear components are very fine and I will mix and match as the build progresses. So far, the main chassis sides and spacers have fitted reasonably well although I had to narrow the front spacer quite considerably as, with the cylinder ends slotted into the main frames, it was over size. No big deal. Sandy