7mm Scale DJH/Tower Models Streamlined Coronation

Thanks Tom,

Once the rear bulkhead was soldered in, next up I concentrated on getting the many details on the rear of the tender added.







It's quite busy back there...

 

Thanks for the kind words All,

Following on as you might expect from detailing the rear I started adding to the front Bulkhead and the Inner coal space.









Now getting nearer to the finish line - I didn't get it finished on Thursday evening as I had hoped

 

The final chapter on the tender ended on Saturday morning.







Up the thread Gary said:

On the conservative side I have 49 hours in the tender alone. I am now on with the loco chassis.

 

Hi Ron,

It came with some Premier couplings, which along with the tender axles boxes will be fitted by Warren Haywood after painting.

 

Hi Ron,

From here - http://www.premiercomponents.co.uk/accessories.html

 

Hi Toto,

Because of the design of the tender prototype and the battleship plates that make up the tender sides it is remarkably robust. The flares at the back protect most of the detail and scrubbing with Shiny Sinks and a toothbrush after completion only had me slightly bending the top of one side of the ladder and dislodging one of the L shaped levers on the tender front.

Compared to other builds where the scrub down has left me with bits in the bottom of the sink I count myself quite lucky.

Usually I rinse after each soldering session, if it starts to get really grubby I dunk in a solution of soda crystals to kill the acid of the flux (Soda Crystals are Alkali) before scrubbing with Shiny Sinks or if it's really bad Bar Keepers Friend I use a combination of old toothbrushes and plastic pan shiner sheets which I cut into little squares for scrubbing brass work.

Before it's painted Warren dunks it in cellulose thinners to clean prior to priming and because it can be some time before he gets to painting it no matter how clean I deliver it, it will have tarnished by the time he paints it.

 

So it's onto the loco chassis,

I made a start on Saturday afternoon and up to last night I had made it to













Which brought me to the end of drawing number 2 of the chassis instructions.

I made one minor error in that I got one of the chassis spacers/supports the wrong way up which meant that the hole for the brake cylinder was in the wrong place. Rather than take the chassis apart again I just redrilled the hole at the other end of the spacer and filed the tabs of a couple of brackets that should have fit into some slots. Job done and brakes fitted as they should be.

 

I was cracking on quite nicely with the chassis but when I got to the next phase of the instructions I found one of the castings missing.

This is the offending article, there should be one at each side.


After umming and ahhing as to what to do I decided it would be simpler to scratch another than to wait for the owner to source one from Tower/DJH.

Poor photo but this is it made from scrap etch and some wire filed half round.







Last night saw me make up the coupling rods which all went swimmingly until I got to pinning them together at the joint. The instructions have you tapping one side 12ba to screw a cast threaded pin into. Having done the first side I quickly realised that the thread on the pin is way smaller than 12 ba Bah!!

The other side I tapped 14ba and I ran a 14ba die down the cast thread, I screwed it into the tapped hole and the threaded section promptly broke off in the hole Tonights task is to solder the pins into the back of the hole as I would have done with a rivet of Premier Rods. Onwards and Upwards.....

 

Thanks Pete,

I have to agree, and it might well have stymied a few builders.

That said and admittedly it's based on limited experience (only the second 7mm DJH kit that I have built) but the method and instructions were exactly the same on my A3 and that worked as suggested and is still going strong. For which I am glad because it was only my second 7mm loco build and my first 'big loco' so I would have been a bit panicky if it had happened back then. I do wonder if the castings might have shrunk a bit, which again is unusual because DJH lost wax castings are superb.

 

Thanks Bob,

You are not missing much, the link was for a smiley, it was from the forum smiley library so I am not sure why the link has broken.

 

Following on my my note on the coupling rods I managed to get a couple of photos of them now that they are soldered up.





And then a couple that will hopefully show how much I had to file out of the cylinder castings....





Essentially the slots bottom left and top right were almost full of whitemetal so I used an older square file to remove the material. Now that I have the lathe with the milling attachment I suspect that I might have used a burr to mill out the material much more efficiently. Something to remember should I encounter anything similar in the future.