Yorkie's Connoisseur 4F build

He'll have fun painting those tiny track circuit dials then.

 

On with the chassis frame build today, everything went together with care and in no time at all I had this as the start point.

 

Time now to put the wheels on, this is important to check the spacers on the outer axle bushes are not causing the wheels to stiffen, it also makes life easier when building up the brake rigging. All axle bushes were reamed out using a 3/16 parallel taper.

 

Now here's a tip to make life easy when building up the brakes, once the brake hangers have been made up with their brake blocks solder one brake hanger onto the wire carrier using a flat stone to make a nice 90 degree angle. Obviously these brake blocks are handed left and right.

 

Feed the wire into the chassis which is tipped upwards and held in place, then rest the brake block onto the wheel and add in the brake hanger on the other side allowing its block to rest on the other wheel, allow for lateral movement and solder in place. Now there is a pair of hangers fixed on the wire which is free to move... don't solder the brake wire onto the frame side yet.

 

I skipped a few pictures here because I lost some of the brake harnessing... goodness only knows which space time continuum portal they went through because I hunted high and low but couldn't find them, anyway it set me back two hours and in the end I had to scratch two side pull rods and a brake hanger cross bearer so I didn't take pictures... no doubt the other lads will have done. Basically what I did having soldered the two other pairs of brake hangers was to make up the harnessing and the spring it into place on the hangers, once done and satisfied with clearances and positioning I soldered the assembly so it didn't move. At this point I should just say because the centre wheels don't have spacers which allows for a little more side play that care must be given to the position of soldering the brake hangers on this middle wheel so as to avoid an electrical short out later on.

 

Anyway time now to fix the tender tank onto the chassis and this is what we have, actually we have a nice level joining with zero twist and all six wheels sitting nicely and making contact with the flatstone. This is the beauty of Jim's kits if the job is done properly there will be no rocking or inbalancement and I didn't even use a jig.

 

And just to prove it here it is again from the other side... I have since added in the final three axleboxes.

 

Finally the posing shot... all Platform 1 builds should have a pose shot, actually the reason for this is to prove the ride height against another wagon which is know to be correct... but hey it all looks good.

 

Great Paul... we all seem to be roughly at the same place, just take time to think the job through as you would do anyway, I found the only fiddly bit was the brake harnessing set up. Are you switched on for skype dude ?

 

Keith I have absolutely no idea how you manage to get such great results from kit building in OO Gauge... but then as the big fella says you are the esteemed builder.

 

So here is the tender in finished form, I say finished because the chassis still needs electrical pick up wipers and the tank needs the vacuum pipe adding but I'm going to order in a lost wax replacement as that is stronger.

 

And the front footplate angle.

 

So with the inner chassis frame completed and the fold lines all seam soldered we have a nice and solid running unit, I'll paint this piece next then add in the pick ups.

 

Turned over for the underneath view, the scratched pull rods over the centre wheels and the forward brake hanger yoke stand out a bit, under paint these will never been seen as replacements for the bits I lost somehow.

 

The coal chute and tank top all completed.

 

So there we have it one complete 4F tender as near as damn it, I would certainly consider doing another of Jim's 4F kits as they are such a pleasure to do, now I'm off to snip the loco etches out of their frames.