Gladiator LNER/BR J6

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks Chaz,

 

Once it all fits and starts to move as it should it's very satisfying. I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago who has been putting inside motion in locos for years. He said that once you have done it once, building a loco without inside motion will seem very strange and the frames will feel empty. Having done it now, I rather think that he's right. I have actually collected a few inside motion sets so I will be able to do it in at least some of my future builds.

 

Brassmasters still do an inside motion set. I bought one to put in a 4mm LMS 4F but when I moved to 7mm I sold it before I to around to attempting to fit it. You can find it here The downside is that it only seems to be the eccentrics it doesn't have any cranks, crossheads or slidebars.

[Chas Levin]

Thanks Rob - serves me right for not doing some research before posting the question! Very interesting though - I shall order one and investigate further... 🤔

[Rob Pulham]

My appologies Chaz, I didn't actually look at the instructions only the photos. Having had a look at the instructions you do get Crossheads and slide bars so that's a bonus.

 

Much cheaper than 7mm. A full inside motion set is over £100 these days.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Rob Pulham

[Chas Levin]

18 hours ago, Rob Pulham said:

My appologies Chaz, I didn't actually look at the instructions only the photos. Having had a look at the instructions you do get Crossheads and slide bars so that's a bonus.

 

Much cheaper than 7mm. A full inside motion set is over £100 these days.

Excellent - thanks Rob. I was going to order a couple of their sprung wagon subframes to try, so these can be part of the same order. Not that my Roundtuit pile needs additions... but... 😎

[Rob Pulham]

It's alive at long last. I fitted the final parts of the motion, and the motor and gave it a test run. Thankfully it ran straight off without any issues with the motion itself but the chassis had an odd wobble on the rolling road when running forward that wasn't evident when running in reverse. 

 

Initially I wasn't concerned, because running on my rolling road is never as smooth as it is on track. But then I noticed that the middle driver had a pronounced wobble and thought that the screw had worked loose. When I lifted if off the rolling road and felt the wheel, it felt loose but when I tried to tighten the screw it barely moved and the wheel was still loose. This was a bit dismaying because this is the axle that I have spilt for the motion.

 

My first test was to swap the two centre wheels over to see if I had the same issue and much to my relief, both tightened up as they should and the wobble went away.

 

 

Edited June 15, 2022 by Rob Pulham

[Chas Levin]

Marvellous: the presence of the inside motion really does make a huge difference to the appearance of realism doesn't it, as you commented further up the thread. Very taken with this - I've ordered one of the Brassmasters ones to have a play with...

[Rob Pulham]

A couple of weekends ago I was demonstrating Loco building at the Stainmore Railway Model Railway show. I took along the chassis for the J6 and had it running on the rolling road all weekend. Besides giving the motion a really good bed in it attracted a lot of attention. 

So much so that I plan to make up another chassis with inside motion for my demo stand.

On the back of a great weekend out I decided to see if I could crack the construction elements of the J6 last week.
The remaining jobs were.

Fit glazing
Add Milliput to the back of the balance weights to make them solid rather than just an etched front.
Fit the sand pipes
Fit the remaining linkages between the brake pull rods and the brake cylinders
Fit some Frame extensions under the boiler between the front pairs of wheels to hide the rear of the wheels – following Tony Geary’s lead.

 

Balance weights, I added a coat of primer to bled it all in before final paint and weathering.

 

The first bit of the brake linkages

 

Front sandpipes and Frame extensions. Before fully soldering them in I tested the frame extensions at one side by tacking them in and the seemed perfect. But the chassis mustn’t have sat down properly because I noted while testing for clearance on the rear sandpipes that they need trimming down a bit.

 

Rear sandpipes. I had to fit the tops of them very close to the frames to avoid the injector pipework but I got there after two or three adjustments.

 

 

Last but not least a couple of shot of the remaining brake linkages. Although soldered at the rear the ends of the rods are a loose fit in the turnbuckles so allowing removal of the brakes. 

[Chas Levin]

Beautiful work Rob!

Can I ask, how do you avoid brake shoes fouling wheels when they're that close, given the axle movement of a compensated chassis?

[Rob Pulham]

15 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

Beautiful work Rob!

Can I ask, how do you avoid brake shoes fouling wheels when they're that close, given the axle movement of a compensated chassis?

Thanks Chas,

 

The answer to your question is with a lot of trial and error. They will definitely need adjusting, or at least the front pair will. Having got everything else together now, I think that I will need to add slightly longer pull rods between the front and middle pairs.

[Chas Levin]

Difficult compromise between the cosmetics of wanting the shoes as close to the wheels as possible (to resemble prototype) but allowing for axle movement as the chassis negotiates possibly non-prototypical bumps and curves - leastways, they're certainly non-prototypical on my layout! The first loco I built had a rigid chassis, which made it considerably easier to accommodate brakes.

 

Mind you, that's a bit like saying the listening to music in mono is easier because you don't have to worry about a good stereo sound image! Easier, but less realistic 😉

[Rob Pulham]

I wasn't really happy with how far away from the wheels the brake shoes needed to be to ensure that they didn't short. I rew up some brake shoes in Fusion and a friend kindly printed them off for me. 

 

Today I had the chance to test fit one of them. After checking that I hadn't messed up and that the etched hanger would go between the flanges. I bit the bullet, unsoldered the etched overlay and cut of the brake shoe from the hanger. 

 

The next question was how to attach the printed brake shoes to the hangers. I hoped to have the shoes free to move and after considering and discounting various options which involved superglue I settled on a dressmakers pin and short length of microbore tube soldered to the pin and then filed down.

 

 

[Chas Levin]

Nice idea - I hadn't thought of substituting non-metallic shoes!

[Rob Pulham]

7 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

Nice idea - I hadn't thought of substituting non-metallic shoes!

Me neither, and that's embarrassingly from someone who has several sets of Slater plastic brake shoes in unmade kits and some 3D printed examples in a couple of others....

[Rob Pulham]

I got to fitting the rest of the 3D printed brake shoes  to the J6 brake hangers today and then refitted them onto the pull rods. I don't think I have shown the loco sat on the body since it's pretty much complete. Just a few final bits like wiring it up and testing it before painting the chassis and weathering the whole thing

 

 

 

I also fitted the back head a couple of weeks ago but didn't take any photos

 

 

The rear view shows that making up the brake cylinders was worth it as they are quite visible when the loco is separated from it's tender.

[Rob Pulham]

Over on Western Thunder there was some discussion on the merits or not of Slaters Plunger pickups from a gent who had used them for the first time I mentioned that I was about to wire up the tender for the J6 with Slaters Plunger pickups and I offered to take photos as I went along. I thought they may be of use to someone else who may be contemplating using them but hasn't seen them before

 

First I guesstimated the lengths of wire needed to reach from the plunger to the connections on a piece of Vero Board. These I soldered to the tags provided with the plungers

 

 

 

Connection between the tender and loco is to be by a mini plug sold for PC's and bought via eBay some time ago.

 

One thing that makes life a little easier when dealing with the 12BA nuts on Slaters Plungers is a pair of flat 12BA spanners available from Eileen's Emporium

 

 

 

Here it is all wires connected to the plungers and ready to solder to the Vero Board

 

 

Finally all wired up. - The observant amongst you will note that the size of the Vero board has changed in the last photo. I made a right pigs ear of soldering the first piece managing to bridge the gaps between the strips with solder so I did it again. Thankfully I hadn't got all the wires on before I cocked it up.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Not too much done on the J6 this week but it's almost there now.

I had a bit of a fright when I fitted the motor and I couldn't get the body on but thankfully I had just put it in the wrong way round.

What it did need is a motor mount/steady to stop it moving backwards and forwards inside the body. I cut a small piece of nickel sheet as a sliding fit between the frames and then cut out the mounting hole. I worked out where I needed to fold it and then decided to give the bending shear on the MiniFormit a try. I am pleased o say it bend it perfectly. Not being used to using it, to make bends. I didn't follow the bend through to a right angle. instead I finished it off in my hold and fold.

 

 

 

I just need to solder it in now.

[Chas Levin]

Please excuse the question Rob as I'm sure you've thought of this, but just in case you haven't... if you solder that very nice solid looking mount in place, will you still be able to remove the motor in future, should you need to, for replacement etc?

I only ask because that kind of very solid looking arrangement is the sort of thing I would go for (I tend to over-engineer, verything from railway models to bookshelves you can stand on!) and then realise I've boxed things in too much for maintenance...

[Rob Pulham]

Hi Chaz,

My thoughts exactly, and you have preempted my next post. I have made it so that it screws on and is removable. I also fastened my wiring harness (a piece of vero board) to it too so all the electrics are removable without having to use the soldering iron. 

Photos to follow. 

[Rob Pulham]

Contrary to my last post I decided to see if I could make the motor mount removable. It proved not too difficult to add a screw and retaining nut to the adjacent frame spacer.

 

 

 

The motor mount also made a convenient place to mount a piece of Vero board which means that I can now remove both the motor and mount together without having to unsolder any wires which I count as an unexpected win.

 

The hole in the tender plate which supports the bottom end of the pivot pin was much bigger than the screw itself (8BA) and after fiddling around for about 10 minutes trying to get the screw to engage in the nut I decided to turn a small bush to centre it.

 

 

 

 

I am getting dangerously near to painting the chassis. 

[Chas Levin]

Nice job(s) Rob, particularly like the motor mount, not to mention the nice view of the inside motion in the first photo!

[Rob Pulham]

The wind dropped enough for a couple of short bursts of painting outside. This enabled me to get the chassis primed and then top coated.

 

I also did all the other little bits that I missed when doing the body and tender, fall plate, doors etc.

 

 

 

Before risking gumming up the motion I asked Warren Haywood and Tony Geary how they painted inside motion. Tony hand paints his and Warren sprays it. Warren did suggest that since the brief for this is weathered black rather than red to metal black it. Thinking this a good idea I had a go. I gave the chassis a liberal dose of acetone to hopefully remove all the oil then a liberal dose of Birchwood Casey Brass black. It kind of worked, the motion itself looked fine but the insides of the frames and motion plates etc. were quite patchy. 

 

In the end I bit the bullet and lightly sprayed it with black etch primer. Thankfully it all still moves as it should but I did mask it before putting the final coat of the rest of the frames.

 

[Rob Pulham]

In between cutting down the weeds on the railway embankment, I indulged in a little figure painting.

Not something I do very often so I am quite pleased with how the loco crew turned out

 

The fireman's shovel is still work in progress

 

Unfortunately this one looks like they are taking a leak...

[Chas Levin]

On 07/08/2022 at 10:21, Rob Pulham said:

The wind dropped enough for a couple of short bursts of painting outside. This enabled me to get the chassis primed and then top coated.

 

I also did all the other little bits that I missed when doing the body and tender, fall plate, doors etc.

 

 

 

Before risking gumming up the motion I asked Warren Haywood and Tony Geary how they painted inside motion. Tony hand paints his and Warren sprays it. Warren did suggest that since the brief for this is weathered black rather than red to metal black it. Thinking this a good idea I had a go. I gave the chassis a liberal dose of acetone to hopefully remove all the oil then a liberal dose of Birchwood Casey Brass black. It kind of worked, the motion itself looked fine but the insides of the frames and motion plates etc. were quite patchy. 

 

In the end I bit the bullet and lightly sprayed it with black etch primer. Thankfully it all still moves as it should but I did mask it before putting the final coat of the rest of the frames.

 

Love the finished look Rob and still very taken with the whole inside motion thing.

 

Can I ask though, did you remove the blackening - or treat it in some other way - before using the etch primer? If not, did the primer go on as normal?

[Chas Levin]

17 hours ago, Rob Pulham said:

Unfortunately this one looks like they are taking a leak...

No - don't worry, I don't think anyone would think that!

 

Mind you, it might be best to avoid any dark or shiny patches on the cab floor in front of them...

Edited August 9, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Rob Pulham]

46 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

Love the finished look Rob and still very taken with the whole inside motion thing.

 

Can I ask though, did you remove the blackening - or treat it in some other way - before using the etch primer? If not, did the primer go on as normal?

 

Hi Chaz,

 

No I didn't remove the blackening, I have read and found by experience that metal black for what ever reason (probably that it etches into the metal) actually acts as quite a good primer.