MOK 8F - LMS 8425

I managed to progress the tender for the 8F a little more over the weekend and now the outer frames sport axles boxes and springs.



As can be seen from the inside, I soldered them on (with 100 degree solder). Before fitting them I added a small blob of 100 degree solder to the back of each spring damper. Once I had soldered the spigots from the inside I pressed on each damper with the none pointy end of a pencil and used the RSU again from the inside to quickly melt the solder, firmly attaching the dampers.

As an aside, as I got them out to the box I noted that one of the dampers had broken off and I spent sometime reattaching it using 70 degree solder. I was just about to fit it when I saw that I already had the six that I needed. Dave sharp must have noted the broken one when he packed the kit all those years ago and popped in an extra.

 

That's a bummer Ken,
I have had a couple of similar experiences both at Guildex but on different years with different suppliers.

First I bought a set of Joy motion from Laurie Griffin (before he gave up attending shows), I was showing Richard Lambert the castings on the Saturday night and he pointed out that there was only half the set there. Thankfully I had planned to visit again on Sunday and Laurie gave me the missing bits with much apology. Then last year at Stafford I bought some set of WEP compensation units from Walsall. Again I was examining them on the Saturday night and found that one of the packs didn't contain etches but lots of copies of the assembly instructions. When I went back to the Walsall stand on Sunday they were quite relieved as they couldn't find the instructions...

 

Ah that's a bu**er, He will probably swap them if you ask I would think.

 

Today I finally cracked my enigma. One of the reasons that the build stalled back in 2018 was that I couldn't for the life of me work out how the water scoop mechanism went together.

At this point I need to say a big thanks to fellow Guild member Ian Allen for pointing me in the right direction. As with all things when you know what to look for it is there in the instructions it's just not that clear.

My problem was the arm that goes alongside the inner chassis.


I initially had it located in between the clevises at the front. When it needs to fit behind. This meant that when trying to fit the wheels the rod fouled them


Once I knew this it made things a bit clearer then I discovered that I had the linkage that the water scoop attaches to upside down.



With that corrected I was able to get it to fit together. It still needs fixing permanently in place but I have the balance weights to fit yet so I will wait until I have done that before making anything else that I might have to undo!



For Paul and Toto's benefit, there are higher resolution photos on my Flickr site that you can zoom into to get a better idea of what goes where.

 

Having worked out how it all fit turned out to be the easy bit!
Assembling all the elements together with the balance weights was like trying to plait fog. You have to slip the cross pin through eight separate holes in the subassemblies. Much muttering ensued before I got it all together.









Although they are shown on the isometric drawing there is no provision for or mention in the instructions of the support adjuster rods for the scoop. I made them from some lengths of rod and microbore tube.



I have made a few of these Stanier Tenders by now and this is certainly the most detailed that I have done to date.

 

In between times I have managed a little more on the 8F. The next job was reassembling the brakes. One thing that has bugged me for a few years is that one of the clevis castings hadn't fully formed when casting.


It would have been easy enough to just solder it on and have done with it but I remembered fellow modeller Tony Geary making some clevises to add detail to the brakes on one of his builds so I decided to have a go at one myself.

I started with some square bar and turned a round spigot on the end. Then I reduced the next few millimetres down to the size of the arms of the clevis using a small Dremel burr as a milling cutter


a bit of hand filing gave me the basic shape



Then I drilled a couple of holes in either end of a stub of brass bar and temporarily soldered the two parts into it.
This allowed me to cut the slots. I do have a full sized slitting saw for the mill but a couple of years ago while in one of the cheapo trading stores I bought a set of slitting saws for a Dremel type tool (notice a theme here?). I think they were a fiver for the full set.


I fitted it into the mill with a 0.8mm blade (the pack has several different thicknesses from 0.4 - 0.8mm) and I was really surprised at how little run out it had.




This is the end slit and then finally the finished clevis

 

Having finished the Princess I have promised my good lady that the 8F (which she bought me in 2010 would be the next loco to be finished. So in the spirit of things I took the pretty much complete tender and the loco chassis along to Stafford so that I had something to talk to people about in between dealing with the modelling competition and the Sunday display of members models.

I was surprised but not too dismayed when three separate people advised me that 8F's didn't have water pick up gear fitted. I say not too dismayed because I have no intention of taking it apart to remove the water scoop and associated fittings and it will solve a little niggle that I have had since deciding to model 8425. 8425 had a welded tender and Dave Sharp does provide sides/rear plates to make up a riveted tender when originally building the tender to be for an LNER 06 I chose the riveted sides. I never felt confident that I could remove the riveted sides and fit the welded ones and as I couldn't find the welded ones I feared that I may have cut them up and used the metal to make other parts.

Fast forward to about a month ago, while looking for something else, I found that by good fortune I did keep the welded side overlays. Also in the stash as mentioned on Nick's current build thread, I have a JLRT Rebuilt Scot. So I intend to swap the tenders and use the Scot tender built without the water scoop and fittings with the MOK welded sides which are a perfect fit when dry fitted over the JLRT etches.

I have made a small start this evening and I thought I might have to make a new anvil for m rivet punch but it seems I had already made one for smaller spaced rivets so that was a bonus.

 

I did last year, I sold those that I was sure that I wouldn't get around to building.

 

Ha, you know me too well!
I did put five up for sale but one didn't sell.

 

Just before Christmas I had arrived at the point of needing to test the Princess on my test track which lives in my shed and is erected in our cloakroom as needed. At this time it was really windy for 3 or 4 days making it quite unsafe to bring the board with the test track in from the shed (I would have probably taken off with it and ended up who knows where) so only having short amounts of time at the bench in between domestic duties I picked up the JLRT tender and progressed it a bit.




It was at this point that I realised that I was missing the whitemetal castings for the tender. All the brass ones were present and the whitemetal castings for the loco were there but I couldn't find those for the tender. Now I bought the kit second hand at a decent price so i wasn't too perturbed. I knew that I had drawn up the dome and water filler having turned replacements for the Princess and a look through my spares box revealed that I had a few bits in hand.


At this point I was really only missing brake hangers, Axleboxes and springs and the water scoop. I had a feeling that I might have some etches for the brake hangers elft from the Princess as I had used cast replacements on the tender. an I had some 3D printed shoes so I set of looking for those. I looked through one box of etched spares without finding them and then looked at another small box on my bench. Having picked up that box and searched it to no avail I noticed a round plastic tub that it had been sat on. Opening that revealed the missing tender castings. So now I have everything I need I just need to get back on with it.

 

Just stepping back slightly, I realised that I didn't post any photos of the completed MOK tender












Photos above taken this morning and like the more observant of you I note that there are a few spots of green to attend to where I haven't cleaned it thoroughly enough.