7mm Scale ACE C1 Atlantic - LNER 4419 Gresley Booster Engine fitted Loco

Prompted by the discussion about buying plates for kit's recently and having had a notification of Narrow Planet despatching my C1 builders plates, I decided to start a thread for the subject of one of the builds.

The first build which is some way off yet, is to be of LNER 4419, the C1 Atlantic that Gresley fitted an experimental booster engine to in order to assist on difficult starts with heavy loads. This loco is dear to my heart because it features in one of Chris's paintings.



The starting point is the ACE Kit, this was chosen despite known shortcomings primarily because at the time I bought it that's all there was available. For the next one (to be build as the prototype 251) I may have a go with the Gladiator Kit.

When I enquired of William Ascough of ACE Product as to whether he did a kit specific for 4419 he advised that he didn't but he would sell me the etches for a Gresley Cab for an extra £10

Having received the kit I noted the whitemetal crossheads and on a flyer included in the kit an advert for a set of brass replacements for a further £18. Some were ordered and collected at Telford.

On to what you get in the kit

The chassis:



Now the observant amongst you (who will be better than me because I hadn't noticed it until a recent post on the Guild forum) will note that there is a bearing support/hole right in the middle of the arch where the rear of the front bogie would swivel within the frames! Whoever designed and thought this a good idea needs some meds I think.

Now that I am aware of it it isn't a problem because I bought the kit knowing that as a minimum I would need to extend the chassis frames so chopping a bit out is a small matter. I can imagine the dismay of a first time builder trying to get that to go together as is though Ouch!

The Body etches:








The extra Gresley Cab etches:



The Tender Etches.



Thankfully there appears nothing too untoward with the tender etches other than them actually fitting together of course which I won't know until I build it of course. That said a friend of mine has built a couple of these so I know that you can get them together.

I will continue on a second post before this one has too many images.

 

Moving swiftly on we get to the castings



Rather worryingly the bag with the bearings etc in is marked C13 rather than C1 so I may not have all I should have but most of it won't be getting used due to my fitting hornblocks.

This is the whitemetal crosshead!!!!



The additional brass castings:



The is in fact a second rod with a nut on the end which lodged in the bag so missed the photo. without checking my guess is that these are the valve guides.

For me William should include these in the basic kit and put the price up accordingly, it would make the kit so much more buildable.

On that note I was admiring another friends build of an ACE D49 which apparently only comes with one side of the smokebox saddle in the etches the other was missed off so you either need to scratch build one (easy enough if you no about it) or againapprently ACE do a whitemetal casting for the smokebox saddle that will cost you and additional £7. Why on earth its not included when the part is missing in the first place baffles me. It seems a strange way to do business.

Finally I have these:


They are Walsall Model Industries Castings which were turned for me by Colin Dowling ( the photo of them is courtesy of Colin and his copyright).

I also have quite a bit of research materials:

Issinglass Drawing for 4419
GA of the cab area inc booster engine.
I also have another couple of GA's for the C1 but I can't for the life of me recall which bits they cover at the minute, although I have a vague feeling that one of the is for the Great Northern cab.

The book Great Northern Atlantics by OS Nock which also includes a GA side view and a detailed plan of the booster engine which I do hope to replicate in detail now that have the lathe.

 

Thanks Paul,

I am expecting a challenge - there is a guy in Oz tearing his hair out with one on the Guild forum but as I said a friend has built a couple and I have seen the finished result so I know it can be done.

I also have some sides/end etches for Pullman cars so that I can replicate the whole train in time.

You may wish to eat that popcorn, I have a few others to finish before I make a start on this one.

 

Hi Pete,

As chance your arm with the ACE J69 (which don't have a good reputation) there are some J69 kits on this list that might be worth a punt - http://www.steamline.co.uk/yeovilton/ You are looking for KYC16, 17 and 44 which are listed as Easy Build brass kits - a couple of them come with wheels. This is the list that I got the second Connoisseur J79 from for £50

 

Hi Pete,

I have only ever heard of Easy Build in relation to plastic coach kit's but I did query Chris at Stemaline and he did say that the etches were stamped easy Build. At the price they can't be any worse than the ACE offering and you never know you might drop on a winner.

 

I was busy muttering to Chris about waiting for my plates to arrive from Narrow Planet when I noted the post man had been.

I am most impressed. Steve also does the negative lettered GNR plates which I will probably be ordering for the J6 now that I have these to show the owner of the J6.

 

Well, I know that ACE don't have the best of reputations but up to now I haven't really been aware first hand at why that might be. - Bear with me this is going somewhere...

Feeling a little bogged down on the Coronation I decided to cut out the frames for the C1 so that I can place them on my Isinglass drawing to get an idea of how much I need to add to the frames to get them to the right length. The silly bearing mounts in the front of the frames were offending me too so out them came.

Apologies for using the same photo again but it was easier to show those who hadn't looked too closely initially what I am talking about with my latter comment



Here we go much better.



In the photo above, if you enlarge it and look closely you can also see some etched dimples marking where rivets are to be pressed out. Nothing wrong with that you might think, apart from the fact that they are etched on the wrong side.

More by luck than design, this is redeemable because the section of the frames with these rivets on, is in fact removed and soldered above the footplate later in the build. So it's a simple matter to reverse them at that point to get the rivets on the right side.

Having done the preparation above which included de-cusping the frames I decide to have a peek at the Gresley cab which William kindly supplied. I am not sure which kit this comes from it could be one of quite a few in the range (Gresley A1/A3, P2,02 etc.) and it may even be a mistake in packing (although I suspect not having heard of similar issues before) but I have two of the same cab sides.





For me and this build it's not the end of the world, I will just drill out the etched dimples and put proper rivets in where needed or fill the holes with rod and file them smooth. For this build I won't need the washout plug type fittings on the lower cab side and I would have had to do something about them even if they had been handed correctly so again I will drill them out and fill with brass rod.
It's those little details though that could and would stymie an inexperienced builder who is attracted to ACE kit's by the lower prices when compared to kit's from other suppliers. Sadly even the small mistakes like this don't seem to get corrected but add great weight to the poor reputation of the range.

I bought this kit knowing full well that I wanted to significantly change it to get the model that I want at the end and as such any issues would be dealt with as I went along. I have another couple of ACE kit's in my collection (J52 and GER Coffee Pot) and there are at least a couple in the range that cover prototypes that I would like to model, however it will be interesting to see, when I get to the others what issues I may encounter with those that could so easily be sorted to enhance the reputation.

I do plan a second build of a C1 now that I have the plates so at the end of the build I will make the decision as to whether to buy a second ACE kit or to buy the Gladiator ex Modellers world kit, which may have issues of it's own after reading the blurb on the Gladiator site:

"This is the original Modellers world GNR/LNER C1 Large boilered Atlantic loco and tender kit. Our plan is to redraw the kit but initially we will produce as before but in thicker material."

I have only had experience of Modellers world 4mm coaches before and the etches were like tissue paper. Etching them from a thicker material sounds like a plan but it may have a knock on effect on the fit of the parts. It would be good to see a build of the re-released kit before taking the plunge.

 

Further to my notes on the cab details a little time was spent today scanning the photos that I have gathered in various books (mainly Yeadon) and getting as many details as I can lined up.

Below are a few cropped views from Yeadon showing the cab details that I will need to replicate





This research has also highlighted something else that I need etched - if I can get confirmation of size and what it actually says - I am pretty sure the wording on the top curve is L&NER and below that 1419 which was the original LNER Loco number. What I am struggling with the the lettering on the bottom curve which may be something like " Built at Doncaster Works..."

An additional question that I need answering is were the plates recast when the loco was renumbered to 4419? Photos that I have show the plate but are so far away that it only appears as an ovla outline



All photos are copyright Booklaw/Yeadon and are used purely for illustrative purposes

I have put some queries onto the LNER Forum in the hope that someone will be knowledgeable on the subject.

 

Excellent, I look forward to seeing them - which two have you gone for the ones with wheels or without? If they are like the J79 they will come with cast wheels which may or may not be correct - My kit was listed as no wheels but did contain a set of cast wheels. They have been quite crudely insulated which is fixable but it turns out that the crank pins are in the wrong place for the J79 so I may use them on a NER Class H crane tank scratch build which they are correct for.

You need for the J69 (according to Mike Sharman's wheel bible) 4.0' 10 spoke with the crank pin inline with a spoke as opposed to between them.

 

Although I haven't made many meaningful posts recently I haven't lost interest.

Further to my posting on the Ace Cab above and the challenges it presents. From time to time on eBay I have seen Gresley cabs listed presumably from the Hachette A3. I have bid on a couple but for various reasons I was outbid and forgot about them or thought they were too much etc.
I hadn't seen any for a while and had forgotten until the week before last when another was listed. This one I did manage to get and for under a tenner posted.

This should be a much easier proposition than the Ace example which I shall either put for sale or make it up and use it as a wagon load.