Caprotti 5

The strip down for painting has started with a coat of etch primer on the body and tender tank, next job is to dismantle the frames and get them painted then build up the electricals and motor.




A lot of scratch making of smaller parts went into this build including making the banding cleat over the firebox and some oil lubricator reservoirs for the slidebars. I also installed quite a bit of additional plumbing which had been omitted from this kits build instructions.

 

Apologies for being a bit absent with uploads recently but work and getting the veg plot ready have been the main reasons for my absence, anyway here's an update on the state of play with the Caprotti 5, still have to reprime the tender as the original undercoat primer failed against the base curve line above the frames. The 129 parcels unit still needs glazing and marker lights fitting and just sneaking out of view is 75030 the Standard 4 which is next for completion... with luck this loco will also receive a new motor and gearbox.

 

And with the good old Leek water tank as backdrop here is 73142 again... work on the Leek layout is running very behind and now I've got the basic DCC stuff there really is no excuse not to progress this build... best make a start of cutting the first base segment me thinks.

 

Cheers Paul, I personally wouldn't do another of this kit unless it was the standard valve gear type because once the drive shafts are soldered into place it is impossible to extract the centre axle when it's time to commence painting, as it was I had to drill the middle of the cam box out to fit the Slater's Allen key in to remove the wheels, otherwise for a Scorpio model its a nice loco to build and is nearly over the line. I'm not sure why some find difficulty building these kits, I've got a few of the Standards and the worst one by far was the Class 4 which had incorrectly positioned cylinder saddles. I think the next engines to build will be LMS types or NSR stuff unless that rebuilt Merchant Navy has been reworked in which case the joint build with Keith can happen.

 

Today the sun was shining and 73142 had just had its tender lined out so the day was right for a few pictures, this build is not finished as te glazing and cab backhead and draw hooks still await completion but things are coming together nicely now. Hopefully the works plates and smokebox number will be here soon from Chris at Severn Mill then the final finish of heavy weathering can start... I'm not aiming for a filthy engine just something work stained and sooted up.





I need to bring the bufferbeam red colour further up the vacuum pipe neck as it looks wrong as it is... the casting is good but amazing how a touch of paint colour can alter the perception of something, and of course the drawhook and shackle coupling will make a big difference with appearances.





The tender lining came good this time... lessons learnt from the Britannia tender lining out process... when transferring such a large decal use a carrier to slide the transfer onto from off its backing paper, that was the lining won't become a tangled up mess.





Now there we have it, progress report up to date so far and next job is finishing the backhead and fitting out cab interior and painting. Just to say the BR Standard cabs were painted Freight Bauxite on the roof internals and down to the windows, this was a practice which carried forward into Green liveried DMU's where some of the floor mounted fibre glass covering were painted Bauxite.

 

Thanks Rob, I'd though about the Allen Key mod but in this case the camboxes which sit on the end of the return crank and are aligned dead centre to the axle have about 1mm clearance behind... the concept by the designer is to make the cam appear to swivel on the rotation of the return crank arc. I ended up drilling a 1.2mm down the centre point of the cambox to access the wheel's fixing screw which allowed me to release te wheels but not extract the axle. At this point I had two options either de solder the drive shafts from their respective mounts or gently bend the castings to give enough room for axle extraction from one side... I opted for the latter which meant some paint touching up was necessary but using flat pliers did bring the drive shafts back onto their correct plane. In a strange way building up Walschaert valve gear is a much easier option in terms of access.

The way I dealt with the Odometer cable was to make the cable "swing" at the loco end by making a very simple pivot allowing the assembly some flexure of movement, at the crank end the cable and bearing box just slipped into the crank which allowed for gentle access to the wheel fixing screw using the Pulham Pattern modified Allen Key.

 

Thanks Andy, to be honest the tender did need some careful prepping because the curve on the tank bottom next to the chassis doesn't align very well... remember these are the original untouched Acorn etches so I'll leave it to you to make what you will of that, but a good clue is badly drawn, incorrectly fitting and very weak sides all contributed to not helping the finished look. Without going into details I overcame the issues of side on mis-alignment after several build attempts and the final prep working with primer did the trick to get a good result. Advice to anyone building this kit or the Acorn BR1B or 1C tender is don't pull the sides in to the frames without first soldering in some sort of lateral skeletal frame support which will give a nice straight line down the length of the tender... its worth considering this and only going with the tender build instructions as a guide. Another point also worth mentioning to avoid tears later is the inner frame needs shortening at the cab end by some 7mm or at least to the point where the brake down rod to shaft bracket sits otherwise it becomes impossible to release the inner chassis due to the drag box buffing and coupling bar getting in the way. All in all the engine is a straight forward build and goes together well with pre planning and thought (abate of course for the cam box issue), I'd certainly build another Standard 5 but this time the version with standard valve gear. Funnily tho the BR1 tender from the Brit and the Standard 4 BR2 tender has assist line along the dreaded bottom fold area but both need their respective inner frames shortening to aid release if needed. The "layout" is a short single line diorama which was originally for another project but comes in very useful from time to time as a stand in until the Leek layout is looking more like.

 

Spot on Paul... sadly the garden is unable to recreate Glebe Street, Bridgewood Sidings, Carter's Crossing or Folley due to the distinct lack of bottle ovens and slag heaps in East Yorkshire ... but we can however go some way towards making the more rural country branch line look..

Thanks for the nice compliment tho... much appreciated.

 

I bet you're dead pleased Pete that the GE Thaxham branch didn't have anything other than those nice GER / LNER types of simple and traditional design which we all love running on it.