RichardClayton

It is a lovely kit, but I imagine the chassis might have been more of a challenge in OO. Everything fits reasonably well in EM, but it is complex and time consuming to assemble. The sprung chassis feels spongy, in a nice way , and I am looking forward to powering it up and seeing how it manages to negotiate the point work on South Pelaw.

Here she is, earning her keep on South Pelaw this afternoon.

I have taken some time off the J27 to convert a Bachmann Ivatt to EM, but over the last couple of weekends I have put some more time in on the J27. Here it is, all ready for a clean before I add handrails, safety valves and whistle, and apply primer. I have suspended the inside motion from wire attached to the frame spacer behind the centre wheels. It looks great in the chassis, but is not really visible once the body is on. At least I know it is there, and I have not attempted to make it work! Over the years I have tended to use fluxite paste as flux for soldering. I have found that phosphoric acid tends to get dripped, and other fluxes can be corrosive unless you clean them off immediately after use. Fluxite and clean metal seem to be a great combination. However, it is a paste and models often end up with a greasy residue in corners, which attracts filings and glass fibre fragments. I have tried various ways of cleaning is -- white spirit, petrol (!), detergents etc. All work quite well, but I have recently found that degreasers sold for cleaning bike chains do a fantastic job without the risk of accidental immolation. I'm a keen cyclist, but it took years to make the connection between the stuff in the garage and my modelling activities. I've been using this stuff, which is a thick foam that is good for getting into corners with a stiff brush.

Some substantial progress to report in the last few weeks. Here goes ... This model is supposedly DCC ready, but the chosen chip (ZN68 from DCC concepts was a tight squeeze, so I removed the built in socket and soldered the 8 pin connector onto the pickup strips directly. A bit of a pin, and two of the pickups needed to be replaced with phosphor bronze strip as they broke off. Alls well that ends well, and a working chassis ensued, in fact it runs very nicely indeed. Next job was sandpipes. Inexplicably missing from the Bachmann model. Inspiration struck while my mind was wandering one Sunday morning in our local church, and a couple of assemblies were swiftly put together. The picture above shows these assemblies, along with a fall plate, tender coupling bar, and brake rodding. The sandpipe assemblies were designed to fit the retainer plate. They were coloured using a black sharpie (as are the wheel rims and other sundry bits of pipe work). This is a vast improvement over nasty chemicals, ant takes paint very well. So now we are ready for a good test run around South Pelaw, to be followed by renumbering, coal, crew, and some weathering.

I usually dread fitting wheels to axles, as it can be a painful process. I must be doing something right though, because the last few locos have run very nicely pretty much first go. I tap the crankpin holes in Alan Gibson wheels, and then insert the crankpin screws carefully. There is a high-tech bit where I work out exactly how long the axles need to be using a vernier, pencil, and card (see below). I then cut and file the axles to length. I have found that inserting the first axle part way using a pillar drill keeps it nice and straight. Quartering is then achieved with a GW models quartering jig and the wheels pressed to a back to back gauge. This is when you find out if you can add up correctly, and if the axles are the correct length ... With the Ivatt, all was OK, apart from the dreaded clearance behind the cross head. I ended up filing down the bosses on the back of the coupling rods, as well as the securing nut, to give a reasonable degree (about 0.5 mm) of clearance. There is almost no side play on the front axle, so this should be OK. Apart from the wonky lubricator (sigh), this photo shows that the brake shoes are nicely aligned with EM wheels. It also shows just how far the wheels are from the frames. I did think about adding plasticard frame overlays, but I’m not convinced that it these will even be visible at normal viewing distances. Most importantly, the EM chassis runs very smoothly on DC, and the new wheels and rods look the part. Next job will be to replace the wiring and electrical gubbins with a dcc chip, then it will be time for details and paint.

Here’s a bit of an update, with the new rods — including oil corks! — just placed on the crankpins for now. No dramas with riveting the forked joints as the instructions are very clear and helpful. Both are tight, with no fore and aft slop, but move freely. The oil corks started life as a full length of 0.33 mm hard brass wire, soldered in and snipped off, and are a nice touch. Fortunately I have remembered to do a left hand and right hand set of rods ...

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

Well it has been a while, but some progress has been made -- the chassis is sprung, and everything rotates smoothly. The details are gradually being added, and hopefully next time I will report on progress under power. I rather like the look of the long smokebox. The gap at the front will be covered in due course by a frame extension.

Dave Bradwell J27 So it is now starting to look like the finished article -- obviously there are still some details to add, and sprung drivers will bring the locomotive footplate in line with the tender. However, so far so good, and I can report that this is still a very enjoyable kit to build. I also love the slightly pugnacious look that the longer smokebox gives. One of the reasons it is such fun is the sheer quality of the castings and etches, and the ease with which it all goes together. There is an additional cast weight that fits inside the backhead casting, and shaped weights for the firebox. To my immense relief, a trial fit of wheels to the chassis went well. Despite a tight fit of coupling rods to crankpin bushes, everything rotates very smoothly. I don't think this has ever happened to me before. I'm sure it is down to the kit design , although I have made extensive use of a large-ish square and digital callipers in an attempt to keep everything true. For anyone else building one of these kits, I have used a High Level RoadRunner gearbox with 45:1 reduction, and have a Mashima 1620 lined up for it. This will fit vertically in the firebox. Fitting the gearbox required a fair bit of surgery to the etching for the dummy springs, but it all fits nicely now. Next on the menu will be springing the chassis, adding weight to the body, and fitting all the various details.

Dave Bradwell J27 A short update, in case anyone reads this stuff. The footplate and cab have been assembled, without any major traumas. The fold-up assembly for the sandboxes in the cab was very difficult to get square, so I disassembled it into several pieces, which were then soldered nice and squared to get a good fit. The boiler and smokebox were rolled using the steel-bar-on-thigh method, which was broadly successful. There is a slight flat on one part of underneath of the boiler, which is annoying but should be invisible. The reverse curves on the smokebox were tricky (as predicted in the instructions), and I had to remove some material behind the splasher/sandbox so that the frame extensions fit. Here it is, temporarily in bolted in place. I like the look of the longer smokebox, which will hopefully distinguish it from the OxfordRail models. There has been some progress with the chassis too. I have assembled the dummy inside motion, but need to decide how to fit it. I'm not going to try and make it work (though this is tempting). It could fit on the central axle, but I suspect this will be problematic, and at the moment I plan to have it suspended in space, as has been done for a 7mm J27 -- http://www.raymondwalley.com/loco/other/j27.html. Any other thoughts would be very welcome! The next problem is to fettle the bearings and hornguides to accommodate a gearbox, most likely to be a High Level RoadRunner, or a RoadRunner+ if I'm prepared to file down the bearings. Again, thoughts and opinions would be welcome.

Dave Bradwell J27 The last couple of days have seen the chassis fall together really well. The spacers required a fair bit of fettling until they were the right size (the instructions recommend 14 mm), square, and a smooth fit. The chassis was then taped together and tweaked until flat and square; I have a long piece of brass bar that was used to ensure that both halves of the chassis were exactly aligned with horn cheeks at right angles to the chassis before the spacers were tack soldered in place. This felt very risky compared to my usual approach with a jig -- we will see in due course how successful this stage has been. At least the chassis is 15 mm wide, which should be just right. And it is not banana shaped. Next stage has been the footplate and valances. This was surprisingly time consuming to prepare, along with the overlay. One of the valances went on fine, the other (the first) was a nightmare of bending and heat expansion. Modellers working to EM gauge are advised to remove the back of the splashers, which was a delicate operation. At least I only broke one fretsaw blade in the process. The overlay includes some very fine detail, and has not yet been fixed. So far this has been an absorbing, time consuming, and extremely satisfying kit to build.

Dave Bradwell J27 I bought this kit some time ago, and we decided that it would make a nice addition to the motive power available for South Pelaw. Of course now that Oxford Rail have announced an RTR J27 we will have other options. I have a Dave Bradwell Q6 to build at some point, and it will be interesting to compare with Hornby's version. No one else seems to have documented a build of this kit for EM gauge, so here we go ... It's going to be 65871, which was a Sunderland engine that appeared at South Pelaw at least once in the 1950s, appears to have retained a Diagram 57 boiler with long smokebox to withdrawal, and had a 4-rail tender in the early 60s. If anyone has any further information or photos, I would be very grateful. The instructions recommend starting with the tender. As with Dave's other kits the kit goes together very nicely and the springing leads to very slick running -- I am a veteran of 9 x Consett-Tyne dock iron ore wagons, a couple of single bolsters, and several hoppers and hopper chassis, but this is the first of his loco kits that I have built. All completed except for the brake gear. The only problem I had with the tender was with the internal frames, which I initially fitted outside the tender tank. However this provide only just enough clearance for an EM wheelset and I was worried about the potential for shorts. However, they have holes to locate the rods on which the brake blocks hang, as well as supporting the ends of the axlebox springs, so couldn't be simply removed. Instead I cut them into three pieces, and relocated the middle section inside the water tank, using 0.45mm rods to make sure everything was nicely aligned. The kit was an earlier version, with a fold up chassis. I was somewhat nervous about the instructions for EM gauge modellers than involved crushing the chassis in a vice to obtain the correct chassis width, so I wrote to Dave, who now does an updated chassis etch. This has spacers for EM, and provision for full suspension. The next job is to embark on the chassis, and then find a suitable gearbox that will fit between the bearings.

I think the color in these pictures is rather saturated and gives a misleading impression -- on the actual layout the colours of the foliage for example appear much more muted, and the backscene blends in rather nicely, to my eye at least. The backscene certainly didn't detract from the pleasure that our model of South Pelaw gave to many members of the public in Newcastle over the weekend, including those who worked in the signal box or on the Consett line in other capacities. This is one of the benefits of modelling an actual location on a large scale. Thinking through the different types of traffic, the purpose of each signal (there are a lot of them!), and figuring out how to make the moves efficiently has been an enjoyable challenge for us. It was a busy place -- one of the visitors on Saturday said that when he worked in the box he was so busy that he didn't usually eat his sandwiches. Although we have some way to go to fulfill the operating potential of the layout, we did seem to attract a consistently large crowd, who often seemed totally absorbed by it. So large finescale layouts are an attractive aspect of our hobby -- although I will admit to being a tad jealous of the speed with which some of the smaller layouts were packed and out of the hall on Sunday night! Richard --

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.

The paint shops have now been visited, and here are a couple of photos to show the almost complete wagon with and without a load of billets. The loading chains are next, and then a coat of Testors Dullcote to dull everything down. So here is a dilemma -- I have retained the original Bachmann number, mainly because I find making up wagon numbers one letter at a time quite dull. Has anyone noticed that the number is incorrect for wagons to this diagram ... ?

We are taking South Pelaw on the road to the Newcastle show this coming weekend 10/11 November -- show details at http://www.ukmodelshops.co.uk/events/17221-NewcastleandDistrictModelRailwaySocietyExhibition This time we should have additional coal hoppers, as well as some steel products coming down the bank from Consett. Hope to see some of you there...

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!

Thanks Paul — it means a lot to us to know that we are operating it properly. You must have missed the spads (there were a few). We have really enjoyed figuring out the moves and signals, and building them has kept us busy. Joe (aka Grosmont junction) did a superb job as our signalman over the two days, and as Johndon has already said, it was a blast. Roll on the Newcastle show...

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.

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!

@JRG1 -- I have no idea why I still get wheel wobble with the GW press, apart from my incompetence. Maybe a more wrap-around back to back gauge would help. I'm certainly open to suggestions. I don't use cyano or loctite -- neither seem to work particularly well for me, and the interference fit it pretty firm first time. I have now drilled out the chimney, using a small drill and reamer. The chimney parted company with the body as it is glued on (I guess to allow single/double chimney during manufacture). It was a bit of a disappointing moulding, not round, and and with a feeble capuchon that I have replaced with plastic tubing. It looks OK now but might replace it with a brass one. @Bob -- Thanks! I appreciate the offer -- I already have some Modelu 3D printed cylinder covers though. it is really a question of whether I want to model 92061 in early 60's or mid-60's guise. I like the idea of modelling something a bit different, and the Tyne Dock 9Fs did seem to lose their cylinder covers on a regular basis, but I would rather model the loco in its prime rather than in its declining year(s)!

Thanks Martin and Porcy, I thought the Bachmann injectors looked a bit shrivelled. I have some Comet lost wax castings that I was saving for my Model Loco kit, but maybe I should just use them on 92061 rather than hoarding them :-). The plastic pipework is very fragile, and I have already broken part of it so it probably makes sense to replace evrything -- at least if I replace it with wire it will be round ... I hadn't realised Lanarkshire models did a slightly better air pump, so very grateful for the heads-up -- I might pick up a pair at Scalefour North on Saturday. Richard --

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.

Thanks Nick -- I've found that conversions with Alan Gibson components usually go quite well. The EMGS have a library of conversion worksheets for RTR locomotives, and the Alan Gibson website also has a set of excellent data sheets written by Pete Hill that cover some popular prorotypes -- see http://www.alangibsonworkshop.com/Conversion%20Sheets.html. Richard --

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.