Connoisseur Models LNER N10 Tank Engine

This posting is a little bit of a surprise because I wasn't expecting to do much with it.

I have been using this kit when I demo loco building at shows, I would rather take one of my kits along than one that I am building for someone else just in case anything happens to it.

Up to Saturday I had only managed to cut out the frames, remove the cusps and bend up the frame spacers (at Newton Aycliffe Show in March) due to being far too busy talking to people.

Although I did have lots of interest I seemed to really crack on with it after showing one gent how to solder up the boiler.

This build will get updated intermittently because I will be only working on it at shows until it's well on its way.

I think that this amount of progress in between talking to people really is a testament to Jim McGeown and the quality of the kit/fit of the parts.











I didn't take my rolling bars along nor did I have anything thicker than a scriber. So to roll the smokebox wrapper I had to sit and bend the etch between fingers and thumbs. Working steadily away until it reached the right shape.

 

Wow quite some time since I updated this thread. My N10 has been out to numerous shows since then the last one being the recent Wensleydale Model Railway show at Leeming Bar.

The loco build has moved on quite a way since then.

First as often happens when talking to people at shows - a step in the wrong direction. In my last post I had fitted the smokebox wrapper and I had done a lovely job of it even if I say so myself. However do pop back and have a look you will notice a half etched recess low down on the side. This is meant to be on the inside... Sadly I made a bit of a mess taking it off so had to make a new one from nickel sheet.



The body work has progressed a bit too.

 

Either way it would still need to be black, so since I have LNER transfers N10 it shall be.

 

I have also got a number of other bits near to being finally assembled.



Frame spacers, I found another two or three in the box afterwards but you get the drift.



Inner cab rear with locker and coal chute door.



Inner tanks



Rear cab lockers and horn guides





Inner cab roof. I didn't attempt to roll the outer roof without rolling bars I managed to do the inner with just manipulation between my fingers and the edge of the cutting mat.



Cab floor and front lockers/rear splashers



Frames. I had marked and cut out roughly for the horn guides and was painstakingly filing them when I thought it would be much easier to mill them slightly but accurately over size so that I can use my chassis jig to fit them. I also invested in a set of Premier joined rods.

 

I too have an N8/N9 in the stash. Mine is the original 07 Models version which I believe then went to George Norton, then Fourtrack, then Gladiator so I hope that yours has benefited from a few upgrades along the way. At the minute I am thinking of building it as an N9 but may revise that once I start looking at it in earnest.

 

Thanks for the head's up. Opening out the hole for the smokebox door should be reasonably easy for me as I have a boring head for the mill which should take care of it.

I have just had a peek in the box and mine is just the opposite. The mounting boss on the back of the smokebox door casting is as you describe quite big but the hole in the smokebox front plate is even bigger and will probably need me to machine a spacer of some sort to centre it.

Did yours have an etched boiler and etched coupling rods? That's the sort of thing that I was thinking of by upgrades. Mine has rigid milled coupling rods similar to those I let you have from my 07 J21 kit.

 

Since posting this, I'd had a brief thought that I might get a set of jointed rods to replace the rigid set. However having noted the milled chassis in the box, I think that I will build this one rigid... That may change depending on how well I get on milling out the horn guides for the N10.

I spent a little time this evening in Fusion working out the distances between the horn guides for milling them out accurately.

 

Thanks Stan,

I spent one weekend at a show making sure that the hornblocks slid freely in the guides so assuming that I get them in squarely then I shouldn't have a problem with them being stiff.

 

It seems that I hadn't taken any photos when I assembled the chassis for the N10 which I did some time ago.

A couple of days ago I managed to get around to fitting the hornguides and the last (front) frame spacer. The latter needed to be modified to fit around the front horn guide.

 

In between fitting the oil boxes to the 8F, I have also made up an ash pan for the N10 and fitted the driving wheel springs (which retain the hornblocks).

I was pleased that it ran nice and sweetly without any adjustments. My buying and repairing those two Shogun motor gearbox units has proved fortuitous although I didn't know it at the time. Having elected to drive from the rear axle none of my other gearboxes were long enough to clear the cab and bring the motor into the firebox. The Shogun units are and I will earmark the other one for the N8/9 that's in the stash. As I can foresee that having similar issues, if I want to drive from the rear axle.

 

Still flitting between the 8F and the N10 and managing to make good (for me) progress on both.

On the N10 I was able to get the brakes fitted - I did cut the brass shoes off and fit some 3D printed shoes that I had drawn up and a friend printed for me.



On the image of LNER no 1138 which is my chosen loco I noted that there is a tap and a clamp at the side of the ashpan.



You may think that I have made a bit f a mess of cutting out the hole for the clamp but although I have seen some photos with overlapping round holes in the frames for the clamp, on 1138 it looks to have been crudely cut out with a gas axe.



As you can see from the comparison so I was able to get away with not managing to cut out round holes so easily.

Both the clamp and the tap could really do to have been a little higher up the frames but due to the way that Jim has designed the ashpan mountings it was difficult to make the holes higher up so I'm working on something even if a little low is better than nothing.

I also popped the air tank in the lathe and cleaned up the ends. To prevent the cast rivets from being damaged I wrapped the casting in a strip of aluminium sheet recovered from empty shaving foam cans. This is a bit thicker than the aluminium recovered from drinks cans so does a bit better job of protection. A note of caution. I also use antiperspirant* which comes in exactly the same cans but is much higher pressure so I don't tend to use them for recycling.

 

I managed the first bit of modelling for nearly a week a few days ago. I need a number of 1/4 round brass rings to represent the brass cover over the joint between boiler and smokebox on my ex NER engines. Thankfully many of them used the same boiler so that simplifies things a little.

In the past I have used copper wire rolled into a ring and soldered to a piece of sheet, then filed to half thickness. Remove, re-roll with the flat side innermost and repeat. Which, not only isn't very accurate, it's tedious and perhaps more importantly the outer face of the final ring gets coated in solder. Neither solder or copper for that matter look like brass so I sought an alternative.

Some time ago I bought a length of 2mm x 1mm half round brass beading and using an Arbor made from rolled 0.7mm nickel sheet. I rolled a length and turned it down for my friend's G5. Although much better than either of us could have managed by hand, I wasn't satisfied with it because the rolled Arbor wasn't very rigid and being thinnish sheet which was rolled, I couldn't tighten up the chuck too much to get a better grip without crushing it. If I'd had a collet big enough (just under 32mm) that would have worked, but ER32 collets only go up to 25.5mm and my set only goes to 20mm at present. So the three jaw it has to be.

I decided to see what I had that I could make a more rigid Arbor from, and in amongst the bits and pieces that my local Agricultural repair guy had given me, I found a short length of 1.25" thick walled steel tube. which just happens to be just under 32mm.

I faced off each end so that I could be sure that it sat square in the chuck and turned a 1mm long recess in one end so that I could fit (with the aid of superglue) the ring with 1mm of the width protruding. It worked perfectly, aside from my first attempt was a little short, so I made another.

The first one will go in the spares box for my J71 kit which has a smaller boiler.