GNR/LNER D2 Test Build

Behind the scenes for a few months I have been collaborating with a gent called Paul Craig to bring to life in 7mm scale, one of his kits currently in the London Road Models 4mm range.

Paul very kindly offered to scale the D2 up for me and after a few etch supplier hiccups I received the test etches last week. This is a bit of a place holder because I have a couple of builds ahead of me before I can get my hands on this.

As I said, this is a test build and an initial look at the etches revealed a couple of small glitches which wont affect the build at all but which Paul has already corrected on the drawings. These were, one of the brake cross beams hasn't etched right through on one edge and one of the cab openings on one of the cab options, again hasn't etched right through. Both are easily cut out with a piercing saw.

I am fortunate in that I already have a spare Gladiator Stirling Tender which these locos were paired with from time to time. I still need to order wheels and source castings but depending on which loco/what period I choose, most of them had been fitted with J6 chimney's and domes by the late 1920's. I can get these as spares from Gladiator if I need to.

More as it happens.

 

To further entice you, these are scans of the etches.

Chassis Front



Chassis rear




Body Front



Body Rear

 

I have been gathering parts for the build since I posted this thread back in March. Most of them have been acquired from Gladiator ,either spares from the J6 that I am building or bought directly from Dave and Trisha. One of the bit's that I didn't buy was a whistle casting, that's because I really wanted to turn my own.

Under the kind tutelage of Ian Middleditch a fellow Gauge O Guild member, I have been playing with turning whistles.

First I made a form tool from a length of 3/16 silver steel rod ( based it on a photo that Ian kindly sent me of some that he had made.

Once filed to shape the cutting end was hardened and tempered using my microflame (the last time I hardened and tempered anything was when I was at school).



Next I drilled out the centre to take a 0.8mm rod and then roughed out the larger top part of the whistle.

Then I used the form tool to create the final shape. It did create the final shape but I think that it would do even better on a slightly narrower piece of rod this one was 2.4mm and I think that a 2mm rod would create a better shape with this particular tool. In the event I touched it with the diamond file to finish it off.

I then parted it off and I took Ian's advice and put a length of 0.8mm rod in the tail chuck and through the hole in the part so that it didn't disappear into the mists when parted off.

Repeat the exercise for the bottom part and solder together on a length of rod with a 0.5mm spacer in between to create the whistle (I used a small piece of 20thou styrene with a hole and slot made in it to slip over the centre rod).



The nuts were added after the whistle was made up and are from microbore tube filed in a pin vice to a hexagon shape.

 

I am lucky that Chris encourages to buy tools that will make things easier.

I am giving up taking loco commission build, so I plan to use the proceeds of the last ones to get a milling machine and whatever I might need to get the best from it.

 

I didn't really mean to start on this is just 'kind of' happened in between working on the Princess , the J6 and teak varnishing the JLRT BG.

I started on the boiler, for no other reason than, I repackaged the etches from the hardboard sheets into an A5 plastic box to make storage easier. The boiler etch wouldn’t fit in the box flat so I decided to roll it to make it fit.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that as I remove each part from the etch I spend time removing the etching cusp. If you don’t, parts may not fit together as anticipated.

The boiler is part no 115 for a superheated loco. The brass is reasonably soft and I didn’t have any physical trouble rolling it with my GW Models rollers. However, they did tend to flex in the middle which mean that the centre of the boiler wasn’t quite as circular as the ends when I had finished. I have a couple of quite thick walled, chrome tubes which are filled with lead and they are really good for forming cylinders/bends.

Using a white rubber mallet, I easily tightened up the centre of the boiler making it uniformly round along its length.

Then I soldered in two of the etched formers, Parts 54 and 55. The latter being a half circle for the firebox end. There are two part 54’s and so far, I have only added the one until I get a handle on how the rest goes together. This I soldered in at the rear of the smokebox.

 

The cat was firmly out of the bag so I did a little more.

The next bit that I did was prepare the valence jog for assembly – Part 50. The 4mm scale instructions, suggest that you remove all the items contained within the jig but having looked at them I felt sure that I shouldn’t need them until later in the build so left them in place to help strengthen the jig.

I made the folds with a set of ‘Metalsmith’ bending bars which got it almost to 90 degrees but I needed to tweak it with a pair of steel rules on my sheet of glass. I suspect that I could have done the entire fold with the steel rules but I have the bending bars so I use them. Rinse and repeat for the other side.

 

Next up is one of the trickiest bits of the build. Bending the footplate (Part 75) to fit the valence. The instructions suggest fitting part 53 to the front section of the footplate to stiffen it up but I elected not to as I thought it might make it easier to form the curves if I were able to lay it flat on the edge of my sheet of glass when forming some of the curves. I started by folding down the drag beam to give me a datum for the first curve. Marking on the etch where the first curve begins, I used a short length of 10mm diameter bar to start to form the first bend.

As I mentioned in the first post the brass is quite soft so forming it isn’t difficult it just requires a gentle hand and steady working of one side and then the other with frequent checking against the top of the valence. Work your way along until all the curves are complete and the footplate sits flush on the valence without having to use any force to get it to sit down at any point.

Don’t worry if you don’t get it quite right first go using gentle pressure its not difficult to ease the curve along a bit to shorten or lengthen between that and the next one. Just manipulate it, slowly and methodically.





When you are happy solder it to the valence cradle made up previously.









After spending all of today rolling a boiler in really thick nickel for a friend, I am back on the Princess tomorrow.

 

One last post on this for now.

I did the sub assembly a bit out of sequence to the instructions, purely because I am fitting this in between a couple of other builds and I wanted to deal with what I perceived might be the more challenging bits first. So next I had a look at the splashers (Part 79). Both splashers come together on one etch with a couple of other parts in the middle.
When bending the splashers down you need to make a really tight bend in order that the splasher tops line up. I managed to get this right on the second side. Although I understand why it's been done as one piece, personally I would have preferred the splasher tops as separate items to suit my way of working.

Nothing wrong with it as one piece and it does make it easier to hold, but it's quite tricky to get the second top curved properly when both sides are folded down. As you may have noted I really like to have the folds/bends a good fit before I go anywhere near them with solder. I have found in the past that joints soldered under tension, have a tendency to pull apart later...







I have to say that so far despite there being some interesting bends to make, the etches are going together as easy as anything that I have built to date. A testament to Paul's design skills.

 

While in lathework mode over the last week after finishing the last re-draw of the Princess Firebox I decided to turn some replacement GNR Tender tank vents. Having looked in my stash I have three ex GNR Tenders two of the are self trimming types (One from Gladiator and the other from ACE Products) and the other a Stirling D type. They all have virtually the same tank vents which in the kits are whitemetal castings. To be fair those from Gladiator are nice castings , the Ace examples less so. Probably because I like making them I do prefer turned example because I feel that they are more crisp.

This was my first attempt and I got the angle for the top wrong 22.5 degrees instead of 45... An easy mistake to make as you get used to splitting measurements in half because you are turning off both sides of the material.







I did manage to salvage one of the first ones by re-turning it to the correct angle but the cutting tool dug into the other one so that's consigned to the may come in useful box of bits and turnings.
I didn't confirm which tenders I had, until I had finished and I now realise that I need a second pair with out collars on the base. The self trimming type have the vent close to the edge of the coal space and the collar has a 1ft radius bend on the edge of it so that it sits over the edge of the coal space. I still have collars to make too Although if I can find suitable washers to modify that might be easier.

 

I agree, those in my Gladiator kits aren't bad indeed I used them on the J6 but I do like turned ones better. At one time that's what you would get in kits as people had the skills but sadly those skills are being lost as the trained engineers move on.