Jump to content
 

RichardClayton

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    89

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by RichardClayton

  1. RichardClayton
    92061 is now painted, weathered, and ready for action.
     
    An initial outing on South Pelaw was rather unsatisfactory. The pickups were not properly adjusted for the new wheels, so progress was rather intermittent. This problem has now been fixed, and I have also added pickups for the centre wheels, which makes a difference on my test track. During this process, one of the shafts that holds the gears in place within the chassis simply dropped out through the spokes while the locomotive was on its side. It slotted back in place with a slight click, and has stayed in since.
     
    We will see how she runs on South Pelaw, and as long as all goes well she will join her sister engines for a mammoth running session at RailexNE in a few weeks time.
     

     
     
    No crew are evident in shot above, and these have since been added. You can see the driver (a modelu one) lurking in the background of the picture below.
     

     
     
    Those of you who know about these things might have noticed that an air hose is missing from the front of the locomotive. I inadvertently broke it off, and this has now been fixed.
     

     
     
    These pictures do highlight the rather overscale screw coupling, which grates with me a little. On the other hand having a reasonably large loop to pick up under exhibition conditions does make life easier and less stressful. The handrail knobs look a bit big too ...
     

     
     
    Overall this has been a satisfying and fairly quick (for me) project. Now it is on to final weathering of the ore hoppers, tidying up broken bolsters, and fixing one or two missing transfers.
  2. RichardClayton
    Having made the chassis work, then next job was to cut a slot in the footplate for the injectors, comprehensively invalidating the Bachmann guarantee. In his conversion pack, Dave Alexander provides a helpful sheet with the dimensions, which were carefully marked out on the footplate. At the back of the slot, I drilled a line of holes, and then cut the slot using a combination of razor saw for the short edges and a piercing saw with a fine blade to cut through the metal in between the holes. The slot was then filed to size.. Throughout, the handrail and boiler were protected from slips by a double layer of plastic tape. This activity generated a lot of fine mazak dust -- just the job for abrading moving parts, so this was cleaned off very carefully. The photo shows the resulting slot, along with two pins for locating the air pumps. These were inserted into holes drilled in the remaining footplate. The photo below also shows small pieces of plastic rod used to beef up the sandbox filler lids, a replacement clack valve and pipework (I broke the plastic one), and a new capuchon from plastic tube added to the (drilled out) chimney.
     

     
     
    At this point I decided that it did, in fact, make sense to do a proper job with the injectors and their associated pipework. On the shelf I have an unbuilt DJH/Model Loco 9F, kit along with some accessories and so I decided to use a pack of Comet lost wax castings. These are fantastic, and are sold with correct diameter copper wire, which is softer and much easier to bend than hard brass. The photo below shows the live steam and exhaust injectors soldered up, with the Bachmann pipework for comparison. A big improvement I think.
     
     

     
    The next job was to fit the air pumps, and I purchased a pair of Lanarkshire models castings at Scalefour north. The photo below shows one of these (on the left) compared with the Dave Alexander casting on the right. Apologies for the poor quality of this photo. The main difference is that the Lanarkshire models castings include some valves on the side of the pump, which can be clearly seen in detailed photos (e.g. http://southpelawjunction.co.uk/wp/?page_id=2287).
     
     
     
    The air pump pipework was bent up from hard brass wire, and representations of the valves from solder blobs and small bits of black plasticard drilled to fit. The photo below also shows the double layer of plastic insulation tape used to protect the handrail and boiler during drilling and filing operations.
     

     
     
    Eventually everything was fitted, and tweaked to make sure there is no possibility of fouling or other problems. The clips for the air pump pipes along the boiler were made from small pieces of aluminium tape superglued on. This stuff is really excellent -- it is very thin, self adhesive, and just right for boiler bands.
     

     
     
    The air reservoirs and associated pipework were then added on the other side of the engine, along with ATC box, reservoir, and wiring conduit. I have included a poor quality shot (apologies) of the locomotive and tender following an initial coat of paint. At least it gives a general idea of how it will look. As well as the engine, I have also moved the coal partition to convert the BR1B tender to BR1C tender. In this shot the tender is not coupled to the loco -- the gap will be much smaller, and will contain some pipework too. At one point I had fitted some Comet etched front steps, but these came off once I realised they were in the wrong place and completely fouled the pony truck.
     

     
     
    Next up -- final details, a new number, a crew, and some weathering, and she should be ready for RailexNE in July!

  3. RichardClayton
    92061 has run under its own steam (as it were...) for the first time today. I didn't bother to check that it worked OK as an OO loco before taking it apart, so it is a relief that there aren't any fundamental problems with the chassis.
     
    I drilled out the axles 1 mm using the jig as described in the previous blog entry. A couple of the holes were not central (inevitably perhaps), and looked poor. I fixed this by drilling them out using a larger drill, and filling the still offset hole with solder before trying again. However, the larger holed looked better, and a quick operation with a good photo and vernier callipers confirmed that the hole should be about 1.5 mm in diameter. The axles holes were then opened up with a drill in a pin chuck, and balance weights (Comet), and crankpins (Alan Gibson) fitted. A quick rub with Birchwood Casey gun blue, rinse and buff, and the wheels began to look like they belong on a 9F. Time for the interesting part to commence. The photo below shows a couple of axles in situ, along with spacing washers and a bearing from brass tube that will go in the big end of the connecting rod.
     

     
     
    I have followed the advice given in the excellent conversion sheets that are written by Pete Hill and available on the Alan Gibson website (http://www.alangibsonworkshop.com/Conversion%20Sheets.html). Although there is not a specific sheet for the Bachmann 9F, the sheets for the Hornby Crosti 9F, and the other Bachmann engines tell you pretty much all you need.
     
    Alan Gibson wheels are generally excellent, but there are a couple of lessons I have learned by painful experience. The first is that it is best to force fit the wheels once and once only to the axle, otherwise they tend to become a much looser fit, and this is a recipe for quartering woes. The second is that it pays to work out carefully how long the axle needs to be, and how many spacing washers are required, before any wheel fitting commences. I have an inexpensive vernier calliper, which makes this job easier.
     

     
     
    I assemble the first wheel onto the axle using a pillar drill to ensure everything is square, the second wheel is then added using a GW Models wheel press and a suitable back to back gauge. This process should result in wheels that are both square and consistently quartered, but I usually end up with both wheel wobble and inaccurate quartering. Maybe this is my innate incompetence. One big advantage of re-wheeling RTR locos is that both of these problems can be easily rectified before assembling the wheels to the chassis. Wobble can be fixed by gently tweaking the wheel while keeping an eye on the back to back. Quartering can be fixed by looking through the wheel and lining up the wheel spokes by eye.
     
    All went fairly smoothly. I remembered to add all the spacing washers before pressing home the wheels, and there were only minor issues with quartering. On one axle I had lined up the wrong spokes, and there were slight errors on a couple of others. The basic chassis runs very smoothly on DC, there appears to be plenty of adequate clearance for crankpins, and all that is now needed is to fit the return cranks. Any suggestions for a suitable DCC chip would be very welcome.
     

     
     
    Once the chassis is finished it will be time for the body. Basically it looks very good, although the chimney needs drilling out (eek!) and the sandbox filler caps look a bit small. The pipework is OK -- in an ideal world I would replace it all with brass wire, but we will see how long the plastic lasts. Then there is the small matter of air pumps...
     

     
     
    An as yet unresolved question is whether to model 92061 without cylinder covers, as in this photo on John Donelly's excellent web pages -- http://southpelawjunction.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/92061@southpelaw1.jpg.
  4. RichardClayton
    It is not long until our depiction of South Pelaw and Stella Gill in EM (http://southpelawem.blogspot.co.uk/) will have its first journey to an exhibition, we're booked to appear at Railex NE at the end of July 2018. A lot of work has gone into making and converting locomotives and rolling stock, and in this blog I plan to document some of the activity that has gone on in darkest South Yorkshire.
     
    One of the main traffics on the Tyne Dock Consett route was of course iron ore, in our period hauled by Q7s, O1s and 9Fs. The Bachmann 9F is a good runner, and so the first part of this blog is going to cover conversion to EM and then the addition of air pumps and other paraphernalia needed to operate the ore hopper doors. The aim is a representation of 92061 as running in 1962-5.
     
    The first stage is of course to dismantle a perfectly good model. Here it is, along with some of the components that will be used in the conversion. I don't think I have invalidated the guarantee yet, but it won't be long!
     
     

     
    The photo below shows Alan Gibson bushes soldered into the coupling rod holes.
     
     

     
    The 9Fs had quite prominent hollow axles. Not having a lathe, drilling out the axles presented a bit of a problem. The solution was to make a jig out of brass rod. The jig has a 3 mm diameter hole drilled part way through using a pillar drill, with a 1 mm diameter hole drilled through the remainder. The jig fits over an axle and the 1 mm hole acts as a guide for drilling. The picture shows the jig, and the resulting axle.
     

     
  5. RichardClayton
    During South Pelaw’s outing to Expo EM North a few weekends ago I noticed that on several occasions we had a large number (well 3) K1s lined up in the Stella Gill approach roads. In the interests of variety, and because I like their rather stark lines, I thought it would be good to add an Ivatt 4MT to our pool of available locos.
     
    I have not seen any evidence of 4MTs at South Pelaw, but it is entirely plausible for one of the engines shedded at Darlo, Gateshead, or Teeside would have at least worked in to Stella Gill. So I bought a very cheap secondhand Bachmann model with a broken return crank from Hatton's, an Alan Gibson EM conversion set, and off we go.
     

     
    Further inspection following the not entirely straightforward separation of body and chassis revealed a broken pickup, but nothing that can’t easily be fixed.
     

     
    First job was to sort out the wheels, crankpins, and balance weights. The first set of balance weights I made from black plastikard were based on the Bachmann wheels, but then I looked carefully at some prototype photos, and the central balance weights not only have a different arc length, but also a smaller inside radius. I think the Brassmasters etch may also be incorrect here ...
     

     
    Next problem was the coupling rods — the holes for the crankpins in the Bachmann rods are rather large. Normal practice would be to solder Alan Gibson crankpin bushes into these holes (see the downloads on the AG website), but in this case the bushes were a very sloppy fit and I was not confident about locating them centrally. To my delight I found that Dave Franks of Lanarkshire models does an etched set, and these arrived today. The centres are spot on for the Bachmann chassis, and although not finished yet, they are going to be a big improvement over the Bachmann offering. 
     

     
    My initial investigations suggest that clearances behind the cross head will be OK. We will see...
     
    Richard
  6. RichardClayton
    We took South Pelaw on the road for the first time in July. It mostly worked well, but a few people observed that while there were empty steel wagons going up the bank to the Consett works, there weren't any loaded wagons coming back down. Our next exhibition is in Newcastle on 10-11 November, and we plan to rectify this deficiency. We already have a good number of Plate wagons, and I have been gradually building some Cambrian kits for Bolster Ds and Boplates, which will feature in a future blog entry. What I'm going to talk about here is a Bachmann Bolster C conversion to diagram 1/471 and 1/473 wagons inspired by models built for Canada Road (see here and scroll down a bit) and Black Country Blues (see here).
     
    This turned out to be a moderate project involving replacing the bolsters with the later pattern, the GW brake arrangements with BR brake levers, and the GWR pattern bogies with BR plate bogies. The bolsters and brake gear are available from Rumney models, and bogies from Cambrian models.
     
    So as usual the starting point was destructive, involving the removal of the Bachmann bolsters. This is a tricky job, and the eagle eyed may see a small patch of white in this picture below, which is a gouge that has been repaired using the rather excellent Squadron Red putty. In the background is the wagon underframe, and one of the Bachmann bogie pivots has been filed down to accept the Cambrian bogie mountings.
     

     
    Everything went together rather nicely in a few evenings work, resulting in a model that is pleasingly different to the standard Bachmann offering.
     


     
    During the period for our model of South Pelaw, most of the steel produced by Consett works was either billet or plate according to our main source of information; some of this went to my home town of Sheffield for further processing, but most went to Jarrow. Any further information would be very welcome. Square section billet is easily made up from plastic strip.
     

     
    Next step is to fabricate some securing chains, and then it is the paint shop!
  7. RichardClayton
    The Hownsgill Plate Mill started production during the period that our model of South Pelaw represents, and steel plate was an important traffic that we wanted to include on the model. Fortunately this is quite easy to model using 20 thou plasticard cut to shape, and painted with Humbrol blue grey to represent mill scale.
     

     
    Its really easy to load as well, no scoring chains being used for regular plate wagons because the plate would be heavy enough to be contained by the wagon sides -- although I came across this report of a rather nasty accident that occurred in Sheffield during the second world war when some plate shifted following a heavy shunt.
     

     
    I have built a range of different 4-wheel plate wagons, from Parkside and Rumney Models kits, but in the last few weeks I have also made up three of the rather excellent Boplate kits from Cambrian models. As long as you take great care with the butt-jointed floor, and add extras like buffers, these make up into nice models. The quality of the plastic body mouldings is really good, and several bogie options are possible.
     

     
    One Boplate is a vacuum braked example with roller bearing axleboxes, and is looking rather clean.
     

     
    Billet was another important traffic from Consett, and in my other steel wagon post, I have included some pictures of a billet load for a Bolster C. Here is a completed Bolster D (another Cambrian kit) with a billet load from 0.6 mm x 0.6 mm square section plastic rod.
     

×
×
  • Create New...