My "Fell Diesel" build....maybe a 'build too far?"

Hi Rob.
Yes, I gather Mike's kits do have a good reputation, maybe I'm not "advanced" enough as a modeller to attempt one, but as I said, although he says in the instructions (and parts are on the frets) that the model can be built compensated, there is no information as to how to do this, what modifications or alternative build instructions are needed, or hornblock cutouts etched into the frame frets, despite the instructions clearly stating "cutouts for High Level hornblocks are also marked on the inner frames"........nothing on mine anyway. I guess I shouldn't have decided to go the 'compensated' route, although with 4 pairs of driving wheels, all of which are flanged, I decided to go for compensated to hopefully avoid any derailment possibilities on curves, points or crossovers, but as it is, (assuming my 'work-around' is successful) by allowing each outer wheelset of the 4 pairs to have some up/down movement in the hornblocks, a sort of 'part compensated' arrangement, I should still end up with enough to avoid problems. I did look at Mike's finished kit at the York show, but as I recall, his was built to the 4-8-4 rather than 4-4-4-4 arrangement with a single drive as opposed to the dual drive I'm using, and uncompensated. If all else fails, I'll cut a new set of frames and start afresh, 'cos I won't be beaten by it, it'll just take a while longer.

 

I've reached the stage of chassis painting, followed by fitting the Mashima motor, gearbox and 'dual drive' box, wheels on and given a run on a 9 volt battery, all runs fine so far, so I made up the outside cranks, each one comprising 4 layers laminated together by soldering. Unfortunately I then found that I'm short of enough crankpins (Alan Gibson 4M42B), so ordered a couple of sets of 6. At least Alan Gibson are usually fairly speedy at delivering, Could be October if I had to wait for Markits! Here's where the job's at presently.

 

Well, I AM retired Rob, so as long as SWMBO doesn't keep finding me jobs, and the kids don't call me with "Dad, can you just........" I have the time to apply myself to a problem and hopefully find a 'workaround'!

Keith.

 

Got a little further this afternoon (SWMBO's out shopping with a pal, so no outstanding jobs presently!) , having painted and assembled the bogies, I fitted them to the chassis and set the spring tension to keep the bogie wheels on the track but not lift the driving wheels above track level. The Veroboard pads are glued in place ready for pickup wires to be fitted in due course. This is about as far as I can go with the chassis for now until my ordered crankpins arrive, but I'll continue with the body getting it ready for paint.

 

After a few months of retirement Rob, you'll wonder how you ever managed to fit work in!

Keith.

 

After my return from holidays, the crankpins were awaiting me, so I finished the cranks, carefully opened out the centre holes to just below size with a broach, and using a vice, pressed the cranks carefully onto the axle ends, my 'belt & braces' approach being a tiny drop of the "Thick" superglue on the axle ends/centre hole of the cranks. Next step (after checking the connecting rods fit ok) will be to paint cranks in situ, and rods in BR 'Buffer beam red'.

 

Got the cranks and rods painted and reassembled, and further run testing. Pleased to say it all ran very smoothly, so a bit of 'running-in', followed by final painting of the crankpin 'nuts' after cutting off excess pin and filing flush. Next job on the chassis will be sorting pickups out in between slowly plodding on with the body, Dad always said "Make haste slowly" so I'm doing just that!

 

This kit leaves items such as electrical pickups to the builder, and despite planning where they'd go, I had a 'light bulb' moment the other day, and realised that trying to fit pickups above the chassis was a no-goer due to the fact that the body side rails sit directly onto the chassis, so no room for pickup wire......Doh! As it happened, I was able to use the pads I'd glued onto the top of the chassis for the pickups, to solder a strip of brass onto to prevent the motor moving up or down depending on running direction. I've since had a look at fitting pickups under the chassis and have glued on 4 further Veroboard strips and wire linked them together, adding brass (can't find my phosphor bronze wire at the moment!) wire to bear on the back of each outer pair of drive wheels. This worked perfectly, though I'll attempt to fit pickup wires to the inner drive pairs as 'belt and braces', though due to brake linkages, there ain't much room in that area. Be that as it may, I gave the chassis a run on the rolling road and all ran fine, though I've not had it on the layout track yet as I can't run that on DC and have not yet fitted a DCC decoder to the chassis, that'll come later once I'm totally happy with how things are.

 

Body is about ready for final paint coats.

 

After the best part of a month with very little spare modelling time, I've managed to get the body shell painted, decals done and satin varnished ready for glazing the cab windows before 'inserting' the cab interior (such as it is) with seats and crew in from the underside. I made the mistake of primer coating the shell with white rather than my usual grey primer, which meant umpteen coats of the Brunswick Green before I reached a satisfactory dark colour, but at least the cab interiors stayed white, since before I top coat sprayed, I stuffed the cabs full of kitchen paper, ensuring the interiors stayed clear of the green top coat. I'm just about to start my garage roof renewal project on Monday next, so it may be a while before any further progress with the model, but here's where it's at presently.

 

I was fortunate that I had enough of the Orange/Black lining left over from my previous "Merchant Navy" project, numbers were already a stock item. Buffer beams may look 'different', but according to information in the models paperwork, only the centre portion was Red, buffers being black, cab handrails White, this being after it was repainted from the original Black body in 1957 to Brunswick green with the later "British railways" totem. Progress has been somewhat slow of late due to other demands on my time, but I'll get there eventually. This pic is of the underside, into which the cab interiors slot and are glued into position before fitting the body onto the chassis. I have yet to fit a DCC decoder to the running chassis although it's otherwise just about complete. Next job is the somewhat fiddly fitting of glazing to the cab windows.....that's gonna be fun (Not!)