Tonight I reassembled it and took the following photos before dropping it off at Warren’s for painting.
Category Archives: Gladiator B16/1
Gladiator B16-1 First Test Run
After my mistake with the wheels on Saturday, I sorted them out and with the weather being not too bad we cleaned up part of the circuit on the garden line and gave it a try.
Sadly, the rigid chassis doesn’t take well to my less than generous curves but it is alive and now just needs final detailing.
Here’s a video of it running up and down the straight section.
Chris also took a few photos of it in the sunshine. Just a few more details to add before it goes of to Warren for painting.
Gladiator B16/1 Bodywork Complete, Chassis final details next.
Gladiator B16/1 More Body Details
Detailing the loco body
Next I made up and fitted the operating rod on the right hand side that was fitted to some locos. The casting was provided in the kit but I scratched the level from some scrap etch. This was all fairly straight forward as was drilling the foot plate and rear splashers and fitting the other oil boxes with the pipes. The boiler furniture again all went smoothly apart from the dome.
Washout Plugs, Proper
Gladiator B16-1 Loco Body Detailing
Gladiator B16-1 More cab detailing
Gladiator B16-1 Cab Details
Gladiator B16-1 lot’s of little details
Braking News, Revisited, No it’s not Revisionist History!
As described in the last post I made an error in the assembly of the brakes this was due to a combination of things that may not necessarily affect other builders of the kit – somewhat basic instructions, combined with my lack of knowledge of the prototype and struggling to find a photo of a B16/1 that shows how they fit. And finally because the kit had been started lots of the etches had been cut up and finding some of the bits has been a bit challenging – The second lever that I needed to connect the brake pull rod to was attached to a small scrap of etch that I found by chance in the bottom of the box.
Hopefully this will assist anyone when they get to this point in their kit.
NB my subscription to PhotoBucket seems to be retaining my images at present so I will continue to use it. If it goes pear shaped all the images are available on Flickr and I do have back ups so I can re-instate them on this thread at least.
This is where I had got to in my ignorance last week.
This is what it should have looked like – this is a crop from a photo of an NER V Class, which is referred to in the instructions as having the same backhead details as the B16 it was only after spending sometime studying the backhead that I realised that it also showed how the brake gear fits at the cab end.
Then this is the result of last night’s efforts – I had to add a representation of a slack adjuster to make up for my shortening the shaft previously
Finally not the best shot in the world but it does look more like the real thing now
Braking News!!!!!
In my last post on the subject I said
“I also need to shorten the rod that connects to brake the the link below the cab too. The plan is to solder a piece of scrap to the end with the boss on and file a second boss which will allow me to create a forked joint once I shorten the rod.”
Which I duly did on Wednesday night. In fact I was feeling pretty pleased with myself until this morning when by chance I found a photo which showed me exactly how the brake gear should fit at the cab end.
It will be good news to David (Hill) that in fact you don’t need to shorten the rod to the cab rear at all, you just need to connect it to the right lever from the cross shaft.
All being well I should have it corrected on Monday evening and I will post before and after photos to show how I got it wrong initially. In the hope that it will prevent someone else from making the same mistake. I have say that the instructions are lacking in this area being of the ‘fit parts X,Y,Z,’ styke and an email to Steve Barnfield although it elicited a response didn’t help because he couldn’t remember how it fitted.
To give Steve due credit he did offer to assist in person if I was in his area but I am a long way from him.
Gladiator B16/1 – fitting the brakes
After an exciting weekend doing other things I got back to the B16 last night and cracked on with fitting the brakes.
I wound a few layers of masking tape around the wheels to both space the brake shoes away from the wheels and to help reduce the risk of rusting from soldering with the wheels in place.
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I was forewarned by a gent on RMweb who has recently built a 4mm version of this kit that the length of the yokes that fit to the brake spreaders is a bit long and so it was with the 7mm version. I used a diamond disk in the Dremel to cut a slot in the brake spreader to allow the fork in the yoke to slip back and effectively shorten the rod. – see photo above.
I also need to shorten the rod that connects to brake the the link below the ab too. The plan is to solder a piece of scrap to the end with the boss on and file a second boss which will allow me to create a forked joint once I shorten the rod.
Gladiator B16-1 Scratchbuilt Oilers
A slight diversion from work on the chassis has had me looking at the oil boxes that are quite prominent on the sides of the frames above the footplate.
Although I have some castings they are too long and wouldn’t cut down very well so I decided to have a bash at making some from scratch.
I measured the length of three together and marked it off on a length of square bar and then marked a line 1mm from the top, along what will be the front edge. Next I filed the marked section down to the line at the front while maintaining the full height at the back. – To give me a sloping top.
A strip of scrap etch to form a lid and another length with two rivets punched in either end forms the mounting bracket.
Before cutting each individual oil box off the bar I drilled holes for the pipes in the bottom and then added some 08mm OD tube and length of fine brass beading wire to represent the oil pipes. Three down three more to make for the other side but at least two of them don’t need the tube/pipes fitted because they sit on the splasher top.
Gladiator B16/1 Loco Brakes
With the tender virtually complete my return from Doncaster saw a start made on detailing the loco chassis. I add the springs to the drivers and then looked at the brake gear.
The instructions are along the lines of fit parts…. with a couple of build photos to assist with the general positioning.
Thankfully looking at prototype pictures helped answer most questions. the first being how the hanger mounts fit
There is a better view in Yeadon but I found this and it saved me scanning the book.
As with some older kits, the forks in the etches for the rods connecting the brake spreaders are a little over etched so needed bushing.
By accident or design some scrap from the chassis etches folded over the spreader was just the right thickness to fill the gap.
They just need soldering together once fitted.
More Gladiator B16/1 Tender detailing, but it’s almost there now
This week has been a good one at the bench seeing the tender almost complete.
The brake/water scoop standards rotate and you now need to unscrew them to get the chassis from the body.
When refitting the chassis during testing the cranks on the bottom of the shafts of the standards I realised that the brake rods were catching on the outer frame and had held one end of the chassi from fitting flat to the underside of the body. There is a plate with a slot in it in which two slots in the front ends of the inner chassis engage this was about 1.5 too high. To cure it I adjusted the offending brake spreaders and the rods inwards and then with the chassis upside down and engaged in the slots I used the microflame to run around the etches of the plate while pressing on the underside of the chassis with a block of wood. After a few moments the plate eased slowly downwards into the correct position and when the solder set again it was as it should have been.
As far as I can tell there is just the vacuum pipe and the axleboxes/spring castings to fit. I may also make the central ‘buffer’ from styrene but I will see how it goes when I test the running to see if it needs it.
Next it’s on to detailing the chassis before tackling the body details.
Gladiator B16-1 More Tender Details
Due to having a lot on at work I haven’t been able to get back to the B16 until Sunday afternoon and yesterday.
Still good progress has been made since then with most of the tender detailing cracked. I found that the rear tender flare overlay wasn’t on straight to that had to come off and be straightened.
The coal space is still loose until I get the brake/water scoop standards in place – I figure it will be easier to drill the floor if it lifts out.
Note the longer hand rail at the front of the tender. This seems to have been a feature of a few of the B16 tenders and thankfully you can make it out on the one photo of 61450 that I have found to date.
The small steps were a bit of a fiddle but worth the effort I think.
Gladiator B16-1 Tender fittings – Tool Boxes etc.
Another session last night brought the tender a little nearer to completion.
I managed to get all the whitemetal castings soldered on. I still haven’t decided whether to fit the small steps at either side of the coal chute or not the jury is still out.
I haven’t soldered the coal space/tender front in yet because I want to be able to get at the hand rails, lamp irons etc from the back before I do, then the last job [s]will[/s] should be making the corners for the flares.
Gladiator B16-1 Brake and Water Scoop Standards – An Exercise in Drilling and Filing
Yesterday having cut short a long weekend up north by yours truly forgetting to take his medication along I looked more closely at the brake and water scoop standards. I had more dialogue on RMweb with MikeMeg on the subject last week and he had remade the 4mm versions. I thought initially that although slightly on the fine side that the castings looked usable. – By fine they are quite slender in appearance whereas the photo posted earlier show them to be quite chunky, especially where the mounting pieces.
These are the castings provided.
The problem came when testing them against the tender front (stuck in place temporarily with bluetac).
Despite my cutting them off the sprue with as much length as possible, they are short in the column length
I couldn’t see any immediate way of extending the column* A better person than me might have been able cut it of and drill out the fixing brackets but they looked a bit on the fine side for me to be confident that I could achieve it so I decided to have a go at making some replacements.
Now I have to be honest at this point and say that this really became a test exercise to see what I could achieve with my Proxxon mini pillar drill with the X-Y table attachment. I have been looking for something to try it out in anger, having only drilled out 4 buffer stocks since I got it at Christmas.
They took me all day to make but I really enjoyed it and I have parts roughed out to make a couple more for a build for myself at some point. to give an idea of scale/chunkiness the new columns are made from 1.6mm rod.
*Thinking about it afterwards I could possibly have joined an extension piece onto the castings where they go through the wooden floor extension that’s shown on the photo of the tender front.
Gladiator B16-1 Coal Plate – Details (Part II)
Following on from a comment about not being able get at the coal by Jim Snowden on the guild forum, further work was done last night to represent the sliding plate on the front of the coal chute.
Without taking the front back off and doing major surgery I had to employ a little subterfuge to give the impression of a sliding plate but I feel that once painted it will look the part.
I also managed to get the front upper coal plate fitted and the lifting rings.
I still need to add the steps to the sides of the coal chute but that’s about as far as I will go on this build (I keep forgetting “straight from the box”…) – I have lots of ideas for future builds of my own though.