Connoisseurs NER/North Sunderland Railway Saloon Second or Third?

Well, my scullery maid has progressed, the solebars and top steps have been added to the body, a simple task except for the tiny etches that represent the top of the foot board supports. What a waff trying to get them a) in the correct position and b) vertical. All this took place yesterday - a short modelling day.

Today I have been building her Bonnet ready for Sunday Church, or as you and I would know it THE ROOF. Uniquely I have a criticism of Jim’s instructions, the written instructions suggest starting from the centre line of the roof and working out, the diagram is the converse, it’s all measured from the two end inwards. Tut Tut Jim one demerit point! But simple once you establish the positions of the two inner lamp pots.

Now to the fun and games. I have never seen a diagram, photo or drawing of the gas pipe runs over the roof, so what to do. There’s an article by, I think Ian Slater, in the NER Express, which I can’t currently find, it suggest that from the coach end, the gas pipe runs diagonally towards the lamps, then runs parallel to the lamps, with short off shoots to feed each lamp. So that was/is what I have tried to replicate.

Sadly, all good plans cause a lot of heart ache. I am sure Mr. Pulham will come up with stupidly simple solutions to both my problems, but here goes.

The short off shoots to the lamps 2mm long (roughly), what a %$&&&^% to solder, lots of Anglo Saxon, temper tantrums and walking away quite a few times helped.
Finally, it was done, as good as I could manage, but not to my satisfaction, if you know what I mean.

Problem 2, I wanted to model simple clips which must have held the pipe work to the roof.
I found a narrow strip of waste etch, but despite numerous annealing sessions, it never got soft enough to mould around the .7mm pipe, in the end after a very long session of Anglo-Saxon, sanity prevailed and I gave up.

The photo shows the roof after an initial clean, sans pipework clips but still with waste solder to be cleaned off from the more difficult places.
That’s the current state of play. Not perfect but my view is if you don’t push your never going to improve.

Tomorrow if I get chance will be concentrated on the coach ends.

Mossy

 

Rob,

Thanks for the tips from the master.

Your mention of brass shims got me thinking if I could replicate the effect with paper or even thin card glued down with PVA. Later this morning I am going to have a play with some waste etch.

Last night sitting in the cool of the garden with a glass of wine I had some thoughts on the short stubs of .7mm running to the lamp pots. The basic problems were the tiny length of the wire and holding to hold them in position while soldering. I don’t have an RSU to solve the later. I actually cut shallow grooves in the base of the lamps, so if the wire was slightly over length the lamp would still sit neatly. Extending that idea I came up with the following;

Extend the groove in the lamp base all the way to the locating pin using a burr.
Use the burr to grind a hole next to the locating pin hole in the roof or drill a second .7mm hole.
Then using a longer piece of wire, I could fold the wire into the extra hole to give a better location while soldering.
The wire under the lamp then would be cover by the fitted lamp.

All a theory which I need to experiment with using a spare pot and waste etch. There are 2 spare pots in the kit, and I have lots more lamps to do so I need a reliable solution using the tools I have to hand.

Mossy

 

Paul,

That's a good idea, hadn't though of it, anyway 5 mins on e-thief and I have ordered a roll of 5mm x 10 copper foil tape, free delivery £2.22. How do they make any money from that? Anyway will post an update when I have tried it.

I had a play with paper about 1/2 hour ago, very messy, but possible with a bit more care.

Thanks Mossy

 

Rob,

Copper foil: Adhesive EMI Shielding Conductive Repair Tape Single Side Copper Foil Tape | eBay

Mossy

 

Short day today. Brake end of the coach done as per piccies, just more cleaning up to do.
Jims white metal Westinghouse gear has been replaced by cast brass for robustness.
The brake gear is assembled in the opposite sense to Jims instructions, but it's based on diagrams of NER 6 wheel coaches.

I also spent a while thinking how to fabricate the gas shutoff lever for the blank end, but in the end left it for another day.

 

Work has slowed down on the saloon for a variety of reasons, most of today has been spent gardening at our daughter’s house. She doesn’t do the great outdoors even the garden, whilst our delightful granddaughter just loves being outdoors even if she does like to almost drown plants with her dinosaur watering can or better still jumping in to muddy puddles.

Before being condemned to garden I the chance to build the sprung suspension units, covered very well in Toto et al 3some Connoisseurs build by Toto et al so not repeated here. Later, I grabbed an hour and build Jim’s unique screw coupling units. New to me as the two previous builds used bought in couplings and Jim’s rigid buffers, this time I am going to do Jim’s couplings and linked sprung buffer system. Built as per the instructions all went together exactly as described, so again little to report. The proof will be when they come to be used. Photo attached.

I have now reached the point where I am waiting on a hobby supplier sending me an axle jig, it was ordered almost 2 weeks ago but so far, I haven’t heard anything, a follow up email will go on Monday 14 days after the first.

Where is the build up to in summary:

Body built but needs the door handles and grab handles fitting, I also need to fabricate the gas shut off handle but keep putting it off – my scratch building isn’t up to much.
Lower step boards to build, they could be done tomorrow, but we are planning a walk on the North York Moors, so it may be held over till Sunday. Having done two sets previously I have confidence they will be straight forward.
Sprung suspension units built but need blackening, as do the wheels.
Brake gear still to do.
In the IT world we often referred this as the 95% line, i.e., the plan says 95% done but actually half done. More updates as and when the pesky jig arrives.

Mossy

 

Well you can put things and put them off some ore, but in the end you just have to go for it. The dreaded gas shutoff handle.
The lefthand photo below is an etched version from a D&S NER 6 wheeler, the righthand photo, is the third version of my scratch shaped one.
What a fight, the vertical handle sections are 1.2mm wide, the cut out drilled with a .9mm drill, top and bottom roughly shaped.
I'm glad this will be barely seen when the coach is coupled up in a rake of coaches.

Close up photography is so, so cruel, when seen by a mark 1 eyeball it isn't anywhere near as bad as in the photo.

I have a couple of questions for the experts on here:

Wheel blackens, I have never had a lot of success with this, I have a bottle of Birchwood Super Blue. Ant tips, especially Rob suggested polishing the results - with what.
Positioning of Jim's Sprung Suspension units, how does anyone go about positioning these as the need soldering from above, but positioned from below.

Mossy



Door and grab handles easily done. So just everything below the waist line to do and the scullery maid will be ready for the paint shop.

 

Cheers Rob, I will give it a try.

 

Ignore my question on sprung suspension above, hawk eye has just spotted the etched line in the solebar and notch in the casting. You just fit the etched line on the sprung unit over the etched line on the solebar. Clever Jim.

I j ust have to figure out to align the units longitudinally now and NO there aren't other etched lines I have already checked.

 

Hi Pete,

I had a look at your build thread to see what you did, that’s quite a neat solution.

As I am only dealing with two suspension units, I figured I could use a piece of .7mm wirw (or perhaps .9mm, or waste etch, if the .7mm is too springy) thinned down so it fits into the coupling slots. That would define the centre line of the coach and could be used to laterally space the suspension units correctly, then line up the witness half etches to get the longitudinal spacing.

Finally a quick spot solder to the wire and coach sides, test and if happy solder solid. All a bit of a theory, as I am waiting for some brass black to treat the units before proceeding.

I think I am going to give this a try and will post it up assuming it works.

Mossy

 

Three of the ladies in my life, wife, daughter and grand-daughter decided on having a girly day, meaning I could do some more work on the scullery maid, which turned in to a 7 hour session while listening to England getting a kicking in the cricket.

The tragedy - blacken the sprung suspension units. My brass blackening arrived yesterday. All went well except being a clumsy sod I manged to spill three quarter of the fluid down the sink, just after blackening the last part.

The toil – fitting them. The idea of using .mm wire to define the centre line of the coach sort of worked (see photo). I set up the first unit and tack welded it. Reviewing the results, I realised my major 765499 up there was no way of inserting the wheels and anyway the unit wasn’t quite correctly positioned so off it came. The eagle eyed will have spotted I had already fitted the brake shoes and axlebox casting which were also in the way, so off they came. I have never unsoldered white metal before, but it proved quite easy.

Second time around, I had bent the .7mm wire, so I filed down some replacement stiffer .9mm wire and also fitted the wheels before tacking the suspension units. Then refitted the axleboxes and brake shoes. A spin off from all this was an improved confidence in white metal soldering, you just have to be quick.

Triumph, well a quick test on some straight track and a couple of Peco curves and it runs very smoothly while each wheel independently springs very neatly, but that’s down to Jim McGovern’s design. I had already asked Jim if he thought they could be used with standard 3’ wagon wheels. His response was yes, but you need to add 2mm of packing to the units.

So, with it suitably posed with the roof balanced just for show I took a few photos. Not up to Rob’s standards, but I’m really satisfied with the build it’s as good as a happy amateur could achieve. Just the roof fixings and a floor to add before it needs painting, my nemesis.

Mossy