Learning by trial and error.. StanB's work messy workbench

I will admit, now that I'm more confident with the butane (successfully resoldered a set of steps back onto the 30XX' tender with no noticable damage to the paint a few weeks ago), I have been tempted to have a crack at the siphon, so many other projects! and I hate having too many on the go. There's at least 4 other GWR vehicles in various states of construction already, plus a pair of Metal models 4 wheelers that weren't begun, so plenty of brass to play with.

You are correct, that is the B16 kit, it must have been a late purchase as its under the Gladiator label, as a prototype I've long had an affinity for, It is one that I would like to build.. one day.

The Q1 is definitely the MTK one, complete with cast aluminium boiler! I seem to recall some consternation when it arrived, I have no idea if I'll ever have a crack at that, given apart from the kits I've already mentioned, there's at least 3 sets of tinplate components from Leinster (Patriot/B1/O4) and 2 sets of similar, but in brass, for a brace of 9F's, then there's (possibly 2) 47's, a Deltic, either a 50 or 56 (not sure which, could be both) and the LMS 10000 / 10001 twins from DJP, on top of the repairs/rebuilds that I'm already undertaking!

You can see why I'm thinking of putting a few of the Pacific's ( David Andrews A1, DJH A2/3, A3, and Clan) on ebay with the JLTRT 40/44 kits already listed - despite already having an A3 I may yet keep that kit, for now at least ,and make it a kylchap/Witte deflector'd one (ya I'm a heretic and really like the A3's in their final form)

Think I might be busy for quite a while before I get that far!

 

thanks rob, I will definitely have to keep your thread in ,mind when I finally get to the B16, you did a magnificent job.

I've been looking at the N8/9,and have come to the realisation that I really should try to get a set of instructions for it (I can glean some idea from the Connoisseur N10 but Jim approached a few things differently). I may have a few bits missing (have cab parts but no backhead for example), and its not always clear what some of the panels are on the etches! There's also the need to workout the minor differences between the 2 classes and whatever variations the kit caters for! Hopefully Gladiator may be able to help, otherwise my original Idea of making the G5, or if my bother has located its tender, the J25 (which surprisingly I think I do have the instructions for) might be a better idea

Fun times indeed

 

I may have just got sidetracked from the Ivatt rebuild... Thanks to Rob's generosity I now have almost everything I need to have a crack at a very old, but hopefully buildable kit of an NER N8 or 9.

A quick test assembly of the frames showed a minor error in bolt positioning that will need attention before I progress too far, With a little help from some drivers from another kit ( this one has wheels, but they are the original, non quartering , press fit type from slaters), I determined I need more side play than is available with the rigid chassis bearings to get around my curves.. a quick donation of a set of slaters sprung bearings, some hopefully careful marking out and the little proxxon got a work out and this is the result



Hopefully they'll work...

At the moment the hornguides are a firm fit, but If need be I can open the slots up a fraction more..next will be mounting them, but first, many years ago when I dabbled in P4, I had a set of dummy axles to use in conjunction with the rods to set the hornguides ... I will have to turn up a set before I progress much further. Then comes my least favourite part: expoxy'ing them on... I've never succeeding in doing more than making a mess with epoxy, so I'm a little nervous about that. Fingers X'd that it works for me

Finally, one that is done, I then have to split the rods to make them jointed. I have a second set that came with the J25, so can cut all 4 and make a pair out of them (and get a set of replacements for the j25), or I can make a dummy rod from scrap, and solder that at the rear of the set, would add maybe a millimetre to the thickness of the rods ( which currently scale up at only 78mm which seems a little skinny)

and when I need a break from the serious stuff of trying to make a working chassis, theres lots of little jobs I do for upper parts...

 

Progress on the N9..yes I'm going to go with 69429, as per fig 138 in RCTS vol 9A, complete with Westinghouse pump and retaining its NER safety valve cover

today I assembled the frame, but realising i needed to get some small clamps to hold the horn cheeks in place while the glue set, started on the superstructure. After shaping the bunker , I decided before I get too carried away with the upper parts, I might be better off doing the footplate. I'm not keen on simple butt joints on thin metal ( I recently repaired my V2 which came to me with a ripped out engine to tender drawbar, was not an easy repair but I managed with only a little damage to the paintwork) , and confident I have sufficient clearance, I reinforced the valance and buffer beams with 1/8" square brass rod. Buffer beams were 2 layers, so I had a chance to try out some older paste on them, but everything else was soldered with 179, lots of flux and the micro torch

Not bad for someone who knew very little about soldering 6 months ago



Tomorrow I'll turn up some guide rods for the Hornblocks, and start expoxying them into place

 

thankyou Paul

more progress today started by turning up some guide rods for the hornguides this morning .. then discovered my epoxy has sealed itself shut forever... so had a good excuse to procrastinate on that until tonight.. anyways, they be done now.. I find out in the morning if this monstrosity was successful or no..


So that led me to other jobs...

realising the the 2BA bolt supplied to secure the body to frames was not going to allow much room if I decided to fill the gap on the frames under the smokebox with something vaguely resembling some cylinders, and not having any 3/16 Rod, I quickly turned up a couple of bushes to bring the holes down to a much more sensible 8BA ( I left the rear a 2BA), then started mucking around with the the superstructure. After a few hours work this is where I am at..

Side tanks, bunker and splashers soldered up. I'm not convinced the rear splasher is accurate, as the Connoisseur N10 is all square, and it is definitely too wide to fit between the boiler and cab sides.. The top of it was also short so will fill the gap at the bottom with some scrap. (Its interesting that the N10 doesn't quite conceal the wheels, so there's compromises all round) and had to cut away quite a bit to clear the boiler and back head - I've appropriated the blackhead and a couple of other parts from my Connoisseur G5 and will use the instructions for that and the N10 to busy up the cab a little .


It wasn't until I'd put all that together, and was trying to work out the rear splasher that I realised the cab window need beading.. oh well, hopefully I wont unsolder the lot trying to fix that up

Finally with a test fit of the boiler.. the boiler needs a large chunk cut away, and quite a few holes drilled ( Chimney/handrails, etc) before I fix it down... but at least it resembles a locomotive!

 

there are some advantages to unemployment.. though this makes procrastination easy

 

after many offerings to the carpet gods, I has a chassis... rolling, kind of..

I realised that it may be advantageous to be able to readily drop the motor so I swapped out one of the old, press fit slaters wheel sets, from the N9, for a set from the G5 since they are the current pattern slaters with quartered axles. Having successfully quartered the rear axle, I attempted reprise on the front, only to bend, then break a crank pin! I ended up using the both sets of drivers that came with the G5, so will need to replace yet another item before I start that one.



there is a slight bind at one point but I think if I open up the holes in the rods a fraction, and finish the articulation and suspension, I may be able to over come that... of course if anyone has better ideas then I'm all ears.

I realised that the drive axle had way too much play for the gear to stay engaged with the worm, so managed to prevent this using a pair of bearings that came with the gearbox, Its tight but everything fits....just . thankfully theres still enough play to make it round a second radius curve so I should be good when I get it on the track.



however things became more disconcerting when I applied power: Forwards all seemed well, but as soon as I reversed the worm disengaged from the gear.. tis a scarey sight. Ideas welcome, have I place the worn too close to the motor, or do I need to open up the mounting holes a fraction to position the motor lower .. not sure which needs to be attempted first.

Anyways jobs for next time; Finish the articulation, and resolve the drive issue. I will put the pickups on after than, but I will leave the brake gear for now: Realising that the brake rodding etc will make it impossible to remove the wheels , I've decided to use a series of screws, 14BA in this case since 16BA nuts are scarcer than hens teeth, as the mounts for the brake hangers... Hopefully the nuts and bolts I ordered today will arrive early next week. I also am thinking of having electrically neutral brakeshoes, so debating whether to carve up some from plasticard, or printing some up in resin. There's plenty to do on the body in the meantime, and I want to put some form of side control on the pony truck, a sheet of phosphor bronze arrived today so I will try something similiar to what I used on the ROD.

 

It Goes!!



after a few hours toing and froing with the mashima I gave up on it - I suspect the problem with the gears meshing will never sort itself out, and was possibly caused by a not quite accurate fold on my part. anyways, maybe next time i will get a ready assembled gear box an avoid all the fun I had with this one.. As can be seen the N9 has had a slight upgrade in power!

The power issues resolved, next was to articulate the rods.. the following pics showed how I achieved that. I duplicated the crankpin holes on some .8 mm brass strip, cut the strip and the rods so they overlapped on the centre crank pin, and soldered them together, Voila, articulated rods without spending too much


the final result, although i will need to touch up the rods a bit before final painting


next will be pickups, and to sort the pony truck. I'll probably put an 8 pin saddle in as I wire up the pickups,and theres a few details to be done, brake gear etc, at some point I will probably see if I can put something that implies valve gear in as well...

 

More progress today, Whilst perusing Jim McGowens instructions for his N10 I noticed a comment that it would be a good idea to do the cabside beading prior to assembly. Yup, it would be easier, but I am well advanced .. oh well, some 1/16 brass strip was annealled and away I went., got there ok....following that I felt now was a good time to drill lots of holes in the boiler, for handrails, ejector pipes and so on.. most drilled fine, but the chimney, and left hand smoke handrail... maybe the brass was harder than the rest but never mind,I have somewhere to mount the handrail knob.. and will have to live with a less than full sized hole in the chimney...

I unsuccessfully tried to fix the rear splashers inside the cab, but with the body moving around on the footplate... I felt I may as well start fixing the superstructure to the footplate, which was duly done. I may still do a completely different set of splashers: Not being designed for a cast backhead, the kits splashers are too wide at their top, and actually encroach the backhead itself. Referring back the the Connoisseur kits , the splashers there are a simple set of boxes, so can be easily built from scratch, so that's a job for later.

At this point I figured I was getting close enough to starting the fine detail, and really needed to get the large boiler fittings down. All the parts were tinned, the cast brass with 145, and the whitemetal with 100 degree, and the boiler warmed with the micro torch until warm enough to get the solder to flow, so far so good... I only scorched my self once ! I did unfortunately soften the rim on the dome when I tinned it, so will have to re-sculpt that when I get to filling any gaps.

Finally I decided she needed her lid on, At this stage the cab roof is removable, and shall remain so until painting and weathering is complete. It doesn't quite sit properly, so may get glued down at that point. I need to cover teh bunker floor then can detail it with the coal rails etc. but its almost ready for fine detail. One thing I did have to do was open up the openings in the footplate to clear the wheels at their maximum height: if built as a rigid as intended I doubt this would be necessary, and this was at max travel, but its done, and hopefully all drivers will clear

anyways here is how she looks tonight

 

More fun and games with the N9 today. I started by adding the steps, which ultimately proved a bit pre-emptive, then tackled the issue of the rear splasher. This time I tried a 2 part affair, Following the lead lead by Connoisseur I started with a basic box over the wheel, then used the original splasher to form the rear tank. Initially I set the box at 12mm wide, which was the width available to clear the back head at a height of 9mm A few juggling acts later this was the result:

The G5 donated the reversing bar, as O7 chose to supply an inaccurate wheel for trhe reverser.. Laurie G is going to like my G5 replenishment order!
All looked good so I decided while I was at that end, I'd tackle the bunker, Probably nothing like the prototype, but its filled it in rather nicely, and under a load of coal no one will know

The rest of the afternoon was done pottering around doing odd jobs, the bunker rails were attached, sheeted in with some 0.0254 shim, and having bent the steps a couple of times, they were reinforced them with some 1/8 square on the cab and some scrap from a parkside kit of the front (had I realised the parkside was a suitable size and guage earlier I would have used it all round).

I also prepared the buffer bodies, in this case , my chosen prototype, 69429 was fitted with Group standard buffers, The NER cones will go back to the G5 kit where the slaters LNER set was sourced..

At this point I decided to make sure everything cleared and.... The rear wheels did not clear my boxes! In my enthusiasm to try a different approach, I failed to realise there may have been a reason the splashers were 15mm deep!

Finally got them widened this evening, and added the cab handrails tonight. I also ran a few beads of 145 around the seams to help fill them a little, but here is where I'm at:

I only realised I hadnt reinserted the firemans side tank wall when I took these pics, so guess what is first cab off the rank next time

 

Starting to really take shape now. Boiler now permanently fixed to the footplate, and details starting to be fixed. Its nice to see her with a face too. Still got the westinghouse pump and associated pipework, lamp irons, valve and cylinder covers , and eventually vacuum and westinghouse pipes to go, although the later may wait until painting nears completion There's a couple of oil boxes needed on the front face of the tanks that I'll file up some rod for, and

The frames need detailing as well, guard irons need soldering on,etc.. I want to fill the cylinder space with something, and its very open where the slide bars should be.. I'll dummy something up for there, and hopefully I'll get the 14BA bolts I want to use to mount the brake gear on in the next few days..

anyways onto the pics!

Min approves I think!

Oddly enough I couldnt find any sign of tank filler caps in the parts list, and what was supplied as the "bunker tank filler lid" was actually from a Wordsell tender... Connossieur G5 to the rescue ( and another thing for the LG list!)

 

a little slower with the progress over the last couple of days: the change to daylight savings (summer) time, and a few very warm nights was not conducive to good sleep, and I gave up before I really had an accident ( came close when my soldering iron swanned dived out of my hand, catching my left as it went, I'd only just turned it off, ouchies). and gave the work space a much needed tidy. I did get the vacuum pipe under the valance in place but the clips holding it defeated me

Today, progress was better, I machined the oil boxes on the from of the tank out of some 1/8 square brass, soldered them into place, and made lubricator leads out of 0.25mm brass wire, Next time I will solder down all the dangly bits before I fix the item in place! I fitted the tank handrails ... a few of the brackets I folded up out of some 1/16 scrap nickel silver were sacrificed to the carpet gods but got there in the end. . The sandbox lids were fashioned up from some suitably sized cheese head screws then I put the smokebox handrail on, I also replaced the rather anaemic hinge straps with something a little more solid looking, then attacked the Westinghouse pump. Its bracket was carved up out of a length of 1/4 channel, a few holes were drilled for the various bits of piping, which was made from 0.5mm brass wire. Finally tonight I gave her a bit of a clean with some IPA, as she was becoming slick with flux and a mixture of brass and solder dust..

I'm not sure if she was meant to have a second pipe under the valance on the firemans side or no, its not really clear from my references ( RCTS and Locomotives Illustrated 160), and neither has a pic of the cab layout, that vacuum pipe entering the cab next to the cab window must go to something, and there is a smaller pipe just above it in my pics that goes somewhere..

Anyways here she is tonite...


Rather than knock off the lamp irons multiple times I will leave them for a bit: My chosen prototype has prominent valve and cylinder covers and there's some lockers in the cab that I will draw up and print in resin: I also want to put something that resembles cylinders between the frames as well, so there's a bit to do 3d wise. My 14BA Bolts arrived yesterday so I can now start detailing the frames as well. As far as I can tell the rear sandboxes appear to be in the cab, as the rear sandpipe seems to be feeding from behind the steps, but if anyone knows for sure, let me know