David Andrews Princess Royal - 6206 Princess Marie Louise

I haven't touched it for a while. I watched a couple of videos but they were so complicated to try to follow. One of them had sped up several hours of work into 3 minutes making it impossible to learn anything from it. What a waste of time....

 

That's about it unless I think of anything else. I am struggling as to what was fitted the 1930's and what was fitted later. The Wild Swann supplement has a photo of Princess Elizabeth as built and there is a lot less on the back head than is shown in the GA in part one.


All the parts are removeable until I have painted the main casting.

 

True, but it's all part of the build. It's quite remarkable how many locos you see for sale on eBay that don't have any detail what so ever in the cab. I just happen to really like dressing back heads.

 

In between other things I found time to prime and top coat the back head today.





I also managed to get the bling back on but ran out of time and energy to take photos so they will have to wait until tomorrow.

 

Here is it is with most of the bling refitted - just resting in place it will be soldered in from the back later.








I say "most of", because the production locos from 6203 onwards had a double regulator handle and I have only just got around to making it.

 

Hi Andy,

The back is unpainted and the metal is quite thick. I will be using 100 degree solder so none of it will get very hot.
To be honest I have solder repaired quite a few painted models and even when using higher melt point solder I haven't had any damage to surrounding paintwork from the heat. Usually the damage is from scraping the paint off to get the solder to stick to bare metal.

 

More detailing of the cab has ensued since my last update. The reverser is a mixture of David Andrews and Ragstone castings.




The David Andrews Seats are reasonable castings but I was struggling to work out how best to fit them. They look like the idea is that the two pegs fit into holes but I didn't really want to be drilling holes in the cab side sheets for them. With the pegs removed there is very little to secure them so I made some replacements with a rear strip to solder to the cab side.



What is unclear is whether they fold up or down. At the minute They just drop down but if they fold up I can make a couple of stays to hold them when folded down.

 

Recently there has been much work but not a lot to show for it. I returned to the chassis in an attempt to get that running before carrying on with the body and cab. much of the time has been spent fine tuning the fit of the gearbox so that it doesn't rub and getting the rear axle to pass through the gearbox and be a tight fit but still be removable for painting etc. This is more interesting because of the wheels being fixed to the axle stubs and the gearbox having ball races which want to grab onto the axle.

I also had a rather frustrating time trying to make a pin for the outer end of the return crank which attaches the eccentric rod. I had tapped the small end of the return crank 12ba and the plan was to make a small shouldered pin threaded 12BA with a large flat head that I could attach an etched cover to.



This gives an idea of the desired pin with the etched covers below


The observant amongst you will note that the threads look very undernourished on the pin. This was possibly my fifth or sixth attempt and I kept putting it down to my having the pin too thin, too thick etc. as each time the thread came out too small for 12BA. Eventually I examined my 12ba die under some magnification and realised that one of the three cutting edges is out of line with the rest and is what I am sure was causing all the failures.

I can't actually recall if I have used the 12BA die at all (I use the 12 BA tap set regularly but generally for fitting bought hardware) and if I have I would have only used it on brass or nickel so I very much doubt that I have deformed it. It has been consigned to the bin and a new one ordered from Chronos. in the meantime I will probably modify a a couple of 12BA set screws to get on with the job but when the new die arrives I will have to make another to prove once and for all that it's not something that I am doing wrong.

 

I got around the problem last night by modifying a 12BA screw and soldering the etched covers on, making a small bush from tube threaded 12BA and a small spacer. Once I get them assembled, I may not need the spacer but if I don't they will go in the spares box.






I still need to add oil corks to the eccentric rods.