woodbine

Where was I? Ah yes, uploading these videos to Youtube - for ages. To begin back at square one, here are the first two pairs of wheels, quartered using the excellent GW quartering jig, coupled up and running up and down smoothly. I used bits of insulation stripped off layout wire as surrogate nuts. They do tend to cloy it up, but you can still get an idea of where the jammy bits are, and you don't have to keep fiddling with your nuts, as it were. https://youtu.be/alA3BYOLJPE Then the next pair coupled up, and there is a little stiffness at one part of the revolution. The stiff rod is identified by waggling with tweezers. https://youtu.be/STdIJgfGTRo I opened out the hole with a fine broach ...and the sticky bit has gone. https://youtu.be/hTHs7W-3k2A At each stage the coupling rods have to be free to rotate round the crankpin bushes, which were set with Nutlock to stop them shifting when the crankpin nuts are tightened. This involved careful filing of the bushes and the coupling rods to make sure there was no interference. Then it was rolled up and down my patent testing track. https://youtu.be/lXdUGCkUYqo That was all a few weeks ago. Plenty more done since then.

Possibly, but it was a long time ago, it would have meant risking it, the motor worm was already fixed etc. I decided to Loctite it rather than grubscrew it, as there did seem to be some eccentricity when I screwed it tight. Anyway, despite it being a bit chewed up I ran it in against a block backwards and forwards for a bit and it quietened down a lot. The steel on brass is a bit noisier compared with my nylon worms, but I can pretend it's DCC sound!

A tale of Snakes and Ladders now. That's where I'd got to a few weeks ago. I did video it running up and down nicely, and decided it was a good time to Loctite 601 the main gear onto the axle. I pushed the gear to one side and carefully placed a drop of Loctite to capillary itself in, thinking I'd have time to slide the gear back into position, but my bottle is a least 10 years old and set solid as soon as it touched metal, refusing to budge even 1mm within seconds! Trying not to panic, I realised that the only way out was brute force, and quick. Removed coupling rods (after bending one accidentally, as per earlier photo), one wheel, and gripped the gear with stout pliers. Wrenching and tugging followed "and the air for miles around was blue"! Off it came and not too much was damaged. The brass gear was sorely marked by the pliers, but since I'd no idea where it came from I couldn't simply order a replacement, and cleaned it up as best I could with a file. Cleaned it up, moved back three spaces. Rolling chassis in the next post tonight, I promise.

Hairdrier?

Too late for you, but here's the older backhead.

I had to wash it off with water though, so the effect was the same!

There is a contemporary 1880s drawing of a Barton Wright backhead, as opposed to the later ones in all the above illustrations, on p32 of the Barry Lane loco book, which seems to have gone out of print. There are some significant detail differences which I will incorporate into my depiction of an early loco, but which may not be needed for a post-1900 one. I may risk scanning it and putting it up. The brackets support a bar which acts as some sort of fulcrum for the Joy inside motion on the real thing.

Another month actually. Holidays and work and etc...I'll get there in the end. I have managed the odd hour on the chassis here and there, and have now got a smooth runner. First though I epoxied, to two specially positioned spacers, some butchered copper clad sleeper as mounting points for the pickup busses. Then soldered on the busses, bent up out of of .8mm brass wire. The mounts The busses. For the moment ignore the bent coupling rod and the missing wheels, motor etc. Lesson for today. Any soldering using phosphoric acid after the wheels have gone on will corrode the steel axles and tyres, either by spattering during soldering, or by washing the flux off with water. Next time I'll do as much as I can before wheeling up. I think I'll use cored electric solder for post-wheel soldering in future (e.g. pick up wires), which won't need washing off. Is that correct? Anyway, I removed the rust, which had had a week to develop, by scratching, emerypapering, and fibreglass brushing, then applied oil. At this point, before attaching the coupling rods and fixing the main gear, I checked that the chassis ran freely up and down a sloping bit of track. No photos of that, some movies in the next post though.

Using the handrail knobs supplied with the kit, and some straight brass wire (0.5mm?) I spent a thoughtful couple of hours bending the handrail to shape. I won't dwell on the difficulties of that as it's not peculiar to this kit of course. I then soldered on the chimney and used it to line up the safety valve - which I think I may have set a little too far back for the period despite lining up with the hole, though not disastrously. At that point I should have turned off my iron I think, and got out my Milliput for the whitemetal dome (or even the chimney and safety valve). No more soldering of whitemetal boiler fittings for me in future, but I just about got away with it this time! The gap under the chimney doesn't look as bad as this in real life, but I've made a mental note to be more picky next time. Next I soldered on the buffer bodies. I hope that they are high enough, some of the photos show the top trimmed off a bit. We'll see. I can always pack the body up a bit if needs must. The washout plugs were different on the earlier boilers, so I filled in the etched depressions with solder (surprisingly difficult to do neatly, so ruined a couple if files with solder. Is there a better material for this, like smooth cellulose filler? I have some Green putty but it's very rough and fibrous.) and made some new ones in the new position. To do this I soldered a long piece of brass rod with a small washer on the end, then snipped it off and filed it. You can see that I'd fixed the smokebox door (before I did the handrail), and fabricated a hinge from the supplied part plus a bit of wire. Harder than it looks - solder everywhere. And smokebox dart. I'm leaving the cab interior until after most of the painting is done. Next it's back to the chassis. Another day.

Sorry for the gap, busy elsewhere. John Redrup of London Road Models came up trumps with a very quick and considered reply to my email, when I finally got it sorted out. I sent my order, and it arrived by return of post. Thanks John. Here are the original whitemetal castings on the left - still nice and clean, just wrong for my period except for the dome, which I kept. And the new brass ones on the right. In the meantime I'd fixed the strengthener on the back end of the cab roof. The part that came with the kit was laughably flimsy, but I wasted 15 mins trying to fold it anyway, - then chucked it and used a bit of channel from the scrap box instead, filed down into an L-section. In position. Note to self - get some angled brass so that I don't have to file it down from channel in future

I'm within a whisker of solving this now with the help of London Road Models, but my email program is playing up so watch this space.

So I soldered the spectacle frames on, the thick on the inside of the cab and the thin on the outside. The instructions had them both on the inside but photos show that some had a raised rim on the outside so that's what I did. I'm fairly sure that the spare four must have come from elsewhere and don't belong with this kit. The clamp I used while soldering was a bit overkill but it's all I had and it worked OK. I'm a bit stuck with the boiler fittings now, until I can source a chimney, smokebox door, and Ramsbottom safety valve, as shown in this photo from Barry Lane's L&Y loco book, to replace the Ross Pop Valve, straight later chimney and later smokebox door that came with the kit. Suggestions welcome, specially for the door.

Just half an hour spare this evening, so detailed the outside of the cab a bit. To fit the cab side centre beading I first soldered in place the two vertical handrails of 0.6mm brass straight wire, holding them in place and soldering from underneath. Then i snipped off the excess. I left plenty spare at the top to locate the centre bead, in which I'd opened up the slightly undersized holes with a fine tapered broach. Which I soldered on, followed by the very delicate cab side rear edge beading. I see from the cruel close up that I'll have to revisit that! It looked not too bad with the naked eye. I think the next job could be the spectacles, of which I seem to have rather a lot. I can only find mention of the inside ones, the top four, in the instructions, and I can only find four of these eight on the diagram. I wonder if the bottom four have wandered in from another kit?

And another shot of a backhead here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/48251-bacup-mills-in-the-hills/?p=2356878

One of the jobs coming up is the cab interior, so I thought I'd gather up some collective wisdom. From the following pictures it seems that the Barton Wright 0-6-0 backhead and other cab furniture was pretty much the same as the Aspinall 0-6-0, unless it all changed when they were reboilered sometime. I cannot so far find any early pictures to substantiate that though, so I'll assume any of these pictures will do. Here's Coachmann in a cab in 1960 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/48251-bacup-mills-in-the-hills/?p=1332212 And here's a picture he references later in the same thread, in this case at Railpictures http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=450888&nseq=1 There is also some debate about how long the cab stayed cream once a fire was lit! Noel Coates Lancashire & Yorkshire Miscellany Vol 1 has a good shot on plate 70, which I don't think I can put here because of copyright. Not much cream in evidence there! The L&YR Trust have some splendid colour photos of Barton Wright 957, which shows the same cab layout as the Aspinall http://www.lyrtrust.org.uk/ And here is the casting in the kit as a starting point.

I've eventually found an excellent photo of the current backhead of 957 here, where I could have looked in the first place, I don't know why I didn't think of it. It seems to be pretty much the same as the A class, or you could point out any differences Coachmann? Or is it because it received a later boiler?

Hi Coachmann, Scuze me butting in, I'm modelling a Barton Wright 0-6-0 Ironclad tender loco LRM kit, but I can't find an illustration of the cab and the backhead, either on the web or in my collection of L&Y mags. Do you know did it differ significantly from this pic of you in the Aspinall, and do you know of any illustrations of it?

Here's where the smokebox sits, note the retaining nut. The kit provides a cast whitemetal saddle, for which I saw no need, and a fold-under firebox front, again which I won't be using, as I'm going for the earlier form with the wings, as you'll see a bit lower down the post. I had to file a fair bit off the splashers to get the boiler low enough. I had to enlarge the hole with a tapered reamer to get it over the nut. The ragged end of the boiler in position with a blob of solder onto the chassis retaining nut, before filing. If I was going for the later version smokebox front I would have filed the tube back before fitting and affixed the smokebox front to get it flush, but as I am making a smokebox front with wings across the splashers I only needed to file it flush. If that makes sense. Here's what I'm after. All the early photos show the wings to the smokebox front, and the smokebox door has a different shape to the one provided with the kit. Ready to make a smokebox front, and here's the door provided with the kit. I had a go at filing the door to the old shape, but didn't dare to take any more off what was a very thin edge. I may have to go with that but would prefer one more of the correct shape. Does anyone know where I could get one? I've had a quick google with no result so far. The diameter is just short of 18mm. That's all for now, next job is making the smokebox front.

Here's the cab stuck together, a bit fiddly and headscratchy to start with, tabs and slots would have helped. A couple of cutouts where it doesn't show have to be made for the wheels, but I just followed the LRM instructions. By good fortune my boiler ended up with an outside diameter of 19mm, which proved to be exactly right for hooking the rear boiler band half etch into the cab, though it was necessary to do some serious fettling with a file to get it to settle in properly. Also you have to snip a corner off to clear the rear wheels. I'm afraid it was rather scruffily done but it won't show under the paint Since I now knew it would fit I added the boiler bands and the smokebox wrappers x 2. The firebox front fits between the firebox sides and gives the correct width for the sides to drop into their slots. I had to file the bottom a bit, again to get the boiler to sit down. Here's a shot from under the cab, to show the cutout to the cab front. The wheel would foul it otherwise. And notice the slot to take the firebox side. And from above with the boiler in place to show how it all fits together, which it did after I'd sorted the pointy end out, as you'll see in the next post

While waiting for my GW wheel press (which arrived promptly) I decided to get on with the body. It wasn't fully rolled and I had to guess at what diameter it should end up as. I opted to close it up to the half etched mark, trapped it together in the vice cushioned by a piece of thick paper, and held it shut with tweezers while I soldered. It wasn't very round at the end of that, perhaps I should have annealed it Too late to anneal, or it would have melted the solder, so I pushed and shoved with long pliers, fingers, and vices, of which I have one or two. Checked for roundness with my measuring thingy. I didn't want to go any further with adding boiler bands and smokebox wrappers until I knew I didn't need to unstick it all again, so the cab is next up.

Brand new from the manufacturer £26 inc P&P. A day and a half to go and it's £51.28p on Ebay, used! http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222150853708?_trksid=p2060353.m1431.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

To answer my own question it's the right hand (foot?) that leads, according to this webpage here http://modelengineeringwebsite.com/Wheel_quartering.html which lists most companies. My excuse must be that the first loco I built was LNWR, which is left foot forward, and I just carried on from there!

I haven't done anything substantial since the last post, apart from painting the chassis, due to having too many irons in too many other fires and money to earn etc. Next job is installing the Alan Gibson Wheels, for which I fancy getting a GW wheel press. Looked into it and found that my previous two efforts have left hand lead quartering, whereas the norm seems to be right hand lead. The wheel press from GW seems to be one or the other, but not both. It's so long ago since I did them that I can't remember why I did it that way, other than it must have been information from somewhere. Can anybody here confirm which wheel should lead on Lancashire & Yorkshire locos?

I realised that I had still to attach the springs before I could apply paint. Here they are. And separated from the etch. More fiddly stuff ahead. At this point I wondered whether to bother, given that they're not exactly visible - here are two of my previous from a decade ago, both with springs already attached on the etch. One is a George Norton design, which I presume came later than my current one. In for a penny, in for a pound. There wouldn't be much sense attaching the springs and then leaving the huge holes where the pickup plungers weren't going to go, so it tinned some fret waste bits and the springs and soldered them on - not as difficult as I feared, and despite appearances the springs will be plenty strong enough, specially as they'll be protected by the wheels. Then the holes were filled out with Green Stuff and will be sanded down prior to undercoating. The wheels, brakegear, and pickups will come after the main paint job. No more today, I've got a gig to go to.