There has been some discussion on Western Thunder about various alternatives to using an arbor/mandrel to turn the rings and suggestions of using a 3D printed mandrel. This discussion reminded me that in some of my more vintage kits there are some thick walled brass tube that has been turned down to make the boiler and smokebox from.

Now what’s no so clear in the photo above is the nicely turned transition ring which is what I’ve been trying to replicate.

Now I may not use these for the kit boiler as they will be quite a heat sink but thinking about it hasd I remembered that I had them I could have used one of them as a mandrel for turning the rings.

Sticking with the theme of transition rings/covers Tom Burnham emailed me to share that on the full sized locos that the brass cover also incorporates a flange for securing the cover to the boiler. This sits under the leading cladding band which as a result appears slightly thicker than the others. After learning this I set out to replicate it in miniature. By good fortune in amongst my saved scrap etch stips was a piece a little thicker than the supplied boiler band and exactly twice the width.

At this point the inner tanks and the boiler are just sat in place for the photo so there will be some adjustment when the boiler is finally fitted.

I’m happy with that so far.

I managed the first bit of modelling for nearly a week a few days ago. I need a number of 1/4 round brass rings to represent the brass cover over the joint between boiler and smokebox on my ex NER engines. Thankfully many of them used the same boiler so that simplifies things a little.

In the past I have used copper wire rolled into a ring and soldered to a piece of sheet, then filed to half thickness. Remove, re-roll with the flat side innermost and repeat. Which, not only isn’t very accurate, it’s tedious and perhaps more importantly the outer face of the final ring gets coated in solder. Neither solder or copper for that matter look like brass so I sought an alternative.

Some time ago I bought a length of 2mm x 1mm half round brass beading and using an Arbor made from rolled 0.7mm nickel sheet. I rolled a length and turned it down for my friend’s G5. Although much better than either of us could have managed by hand, I wasn’t satisfied with it because the rolled Arbor wasn’t very rigid and being thinnish sheet which was rolled, I couldn’t tighten up the chuck too much to get a better grip without crushing it. If I’d had a collet big enough (just under 32mm) that would have worked, but ER32 collets only go up to 25.5mm and my set only goes to 20mm at present. So the three jaw it has to be.

I decided to see what I had that I could make a more rigid Arbor from, and in amongst the bits and pieces that my local Agricultural repair guy had given me, I found a short length of 1.25″ thick walled steel tube. which just happens to be just under 32mm.

I faced off each end so that I could be sure that it sat square in the chuck and turned a 1mm long recess in one end so that I could fit (with the aid of superglue) the ring with 1mm of the width protruding. It worked perfectly, aside from my first attempt was a little short, so I made another.

The first one will go in the spares box for my J71 kit which has a smaller boiler.

Still flitting between the 8F and the N10 and managing to make good (for me) progress on both.

On the N10 I was able to get the brakes fitted – I did cut the brass shoes off and fit some 3D printed shoes that I had drawn up and a friend printed for me.

On the image of LNER no 1138 which is my chosen loco I noted that there is a tap and a clamp at the side of the ashpan.

You may think that I have made a bit f a mess of cutting out the hole for the clamp but although I have seen some photos with overlapping round holes in the frames for the clamp, on 1138 it looks to have been crudely cut out with a gas axe.

As you can see from the comparison so I was able to get away with not managing to cut out round holes so easily.

Both the clamp and the tap could really do to have been a little higher up the frames but due to the way that Jim has designed the ashpan mountings it was difficult to make the holes higher up so I’m working on something even if a little low is better than nothing.

I also popped the air tank in the lathe and cleaned up the ends. To prevent the cast rivets from being damaged I wrapped the casting in a strip of aluminium sheet recovered from empty shaving foam cans. This is a bit thicker than the aluminium recovered from drinks cans so does a bit better job of protection. A note of caution. I also use antiperspirant* which comes in exactly the same cans but is much higher pressure so I don’t tend to use them for recycling.

In between fitting the oil boxes to the 8F, I have also made up an ash pan for the N10 and fitted the driving wheel springs (which retain the hornblocks).

I was pleased that it ran nice and sweetly without any adjustments. My buying and repairing those two Shogun motor gearbox units has proved fortuitous although I didn’t know it at the time. Having elected to drive from the rear axle none of my other gearboxes were long enough to clear the cab and bring the motor into the firebox. The Shogun units are and I will earmark the other one for the N8/9 that’s in the stash. As I can foresee that having similar issues, if I want to drive from the rear axle.

I have also got a number of other bits near to being finally assembled.

Frame spacers, I found another two or three in the box afterwards but you get the drift.

Inner cab rear with locker and coal chute door.

Inner tanks

Rear cab lockers and horn guides

Inner cab roof. I didn’t attempt to roll the outer roof without rolling bars I managed to do the inner with just manipulation between my fingers and the edge of the cutting mat.

Cab floor and front lockers/rear splashers

Frames. I had marked and cut out roughly for the horn guides and was painstakingly filing them when I thought it would be much easier to mill them slightly but accurately over size so that I can use my chassis jig to fit them. I also invested in a set of Premier joined rods.

Wow quite some time since I updated this particular topic (June 2019). My N10 has been out to numerous shows since then the last one being the recent Wensleydale Model Railway show at Leeming Bar.

The loco build has moved on quite a way since then.

First as often happens when talking to people at shows – a step in the wrong direction. In my last post I had fitted the smokebox wrapper and I had done a lovely job of it even if I say so myself. However do pop back and have a look you will notice a half etched recess low down on the side. This is meant to be on the inside… Sadly I made a bit of a mess taking it off so had to make a new one from nickel sheet.

The body work has progressed a bit too.

This posting is a little bit of a surprise because I wasn’t expecting to do much with it. 
I have been using this kit when I demo loco building at shows, I would rather take one of my kits along than one that I am building for someone else just in case anything happens to it. 
Up to Saturday I had only managed to cut out the frames, remove the cusps and bend up the frame spacers (at Newton Aycliffe Show in March) due to being far too busy talking to people.
Although I did have lots of interest I seemed to really crack on with it after showing one gent how to solder up the boiler.
This build will get updated intermittently because I will be only working on it at shows until it’s well on its way.
I think that this amount of progress in between talking to people really is a testament to Jim McGeown and the quality of the kit/fit of the parts.

I didn’t take my rolling bars along nor did I have anything thicker than a scriber. So to roll the smokebox wrapper I had to sit and bend the etch between fingers and thumbs. Working steadily away until it reached the right shape.