Building a Spaceship

Didn't they have to cut a hole in the bunker so the ringfield motor would fit but all the coal fell out and the project was cancelled...

 

Yes indeed I did Brian, also heard about Heljen being in discussion with the BRB design team to supply nylon gear cogs ... this is probably why some of these 9F's did less than ten years in service.

 

Well I finally got to join the boiler and firebox units together and thankfully they sit comfortably in the runing plate aperture which is a great relief because I recall really struggling with the Scorpio Britannia which has a near identical arrngement. For now I won't solder the boiler / firebox into the frames until the cab is made up as the instructions suggest ... maybe this iswhere I went wrong with the Brit as I soldered that cab in first onto the running plate frame.

The boiler assembly now requires some filling around the firebox joint and white metal casting hich I'll do tomorrow in daylight, once this is done the handrals can be fitted along with the run of pipe conduit which fits over the boiler banding straps... its the long bit by the cab end laminations.

 

The last job to do on the running plate was fitting the sand pipe fillers into their aprons and adding the filler lid handles, this I did by shaping 0.35mm wire into an inverted U shape and drilling the brass castings... 0.6mm was the smallest size I could go for the holes and banked on just enough solder flooding the gaps. Its not perfect by a long shot but should pass muster under paint.

 

So back to the boiler firebox assembly (decided to seperate the various different jobs into individual threads to keep a continuity of process simple to follow) and the join in close up needing to be fillered... I use Ronseal two-pak woodfil for this as its easy to work with, it sticks well to brass and is very tollerant to shaping when cured. The trick is to let it set in a constant room temperature, the downside is it won't feather to a fine edge if used as a fill to cover a dent, from personal experience using wet and dry to smooth back on any brass surface causes the filler edge to constantly disintergrate when the tipping point of thinness is reached.




I made a banding cleat from scrap pieces of thin etch to fit on the centre firebox band, when the fillering of gaps process has been completed a second firebox wrapper band is to be fitted over the join between the firebox white metal casting and the formed etch wrapper and then a final band at the back of the firebox against the cab front.





Finally a pic of the boiler assembly sitting in the running plate frame from the other side and thankfully the three sand pipe aprons butt up against the boiler as they should... not sure how I managed that without making a mess of things but it worked out a treat.

 

Back on the old treadmill again for a few hours today after all the feastive stuff and to attempt tackling one assembly which is quite daunting, the cab with all its strange angles and to make matters worse the cab sheets are all half etch thickness... so I really only get one hit at getting things right, or as near right as I can. I didn't take too many photos as the start point on the cab is simply laminating two profiles forms together which then become part on the inner cab frame, once done the cab sides were folded to shape, glazing marked and cut the the first side tack soldered into position... I took my time getting everything square to shape as this part of the assembly really is the foundation point for everything else. A temporary spacer piece was then added to help further alignment in fixing the other side cab sheet, care taken to ensure both sides are true. I then added the cab back plate to the firebox with two 8BA screws (more on this later on in this thread) with the back plate formed a dry fit of cab onto footplate was done before proceeding onto the forward cab spectacle sheetings. Now these really did take some head scratching to fit in place, the critical point being to get the lower edge set correctly into the corner of the running place valance where the upward curve profile starts.




This picture shows the nickel silver cab back plate held with 8BA screws and the outer edges formed to a 45 degree angle to accept the cab spectacle fronts. Just in front of the stepped part of the footplate by the firebox is the temporary spacer which will be removed once the other cab spectacle face and roof have been fitted.

 

The next stage was to locate the part built cab onto the footplate with the complete boiler assembly to check everything sat straight, no point finishing the coplete cab before trial fitting only to discover alterations have to be made, only a tiny amount of filing had to be done in order to get a happy glove fit. I used phospher bronze strip as the firebox banding and the join between boiler and firebox has been made up with Milliput on the advice of Dundee and Mr S. I still have solder stains on the banding to clear up.




And a shot from the other side showing the other cab spectacle sheet still to be fitted in place, the shape has a shallow curve against the firbox and a couple of angles along the cab side and roof.

 

Thank you Brian... its about the only thing I feel comfortable doing without loosing patience.

 

Every so often out of habit in a kit build taking a few pictures in good light helps me to iron out potential errors and faults that the camera picks up, so this afternoon with fresh light I took some of the 9F work in progress.

Thankfully the tender to cab relationship appears correct, thats always nice to know which is why once the chassis is built I tend to leave the motion build and final detail dressing to the last.




Even without smoke deflectors this one is starting to look a bit of a beast.





The tender was put into matt black primer some while ago now and I'm looking forward to when the engine can be primed up in black as well. The going away shot taken on the small single track diorama which to all intents and purposes could be set on the Ashbourne branch alongside the Rive Dove on the embankment at Norbury between the two big iron bow bridges or maybe up on the Cauldon near Apesford and Ashenhurst.

 

Its the camera angle... the boiler assembly is just a dry fit currently and the smokebox door isn't fixed in place either... once the cab is fully made up I can then solder the boiler unit in the running plate then solder the cab in situ. These assemblies can only go in one way in the slots beneath the cab floor front end so if there were any misaligned of the barrel it would mean I hadn't set all the assemblies properly before soldering... well that is the theory and I don't have a big hammer to correct errors.

No really all is well its just a camera angle and a diorama which wasn't level along with a loose fit white metal door casting.