Just one more cinder guard to glaze and she’s done

Progress has been steady due to my temporary promotion to head cook and bottle washer but this afternoon I was able to fit the loco body after first making sure that the chassis and tender ran without issue. I still need to test run with the body in place and fit a few final details but she’s certainly looking pretty.

Paint job by Warren Haywood

The photos are not in the best setting but I am not geared up to take photos of something so big in my light tent.

Still to fit are front buffer and coupling, backhead, cab doors, and glaze the cinder guards.

As an aside I was recently discussing cab dials with Chris Simpson and I thought that I would share my solution to the issue. I didn’t send the backhead to Warren as I had already painted it and so I had largely forgotten about the dials themselves until test fitting the backhead after paint. They were still just brass turnings. So I carefully put in a spot of Vallejo grey primer into each face and let that dry for a couple of days then I added a top coat of Vallejo Arctic White. The discussion with Chris had been around printed ones but my struggle was really getting them cut out and although I am sure that I could have probably turned a too, to do it I elected to use a 0.5mm propelling pencil and draw in the graduations and hands of the dials and I am quite pleased with how they came out and will use the method again.

Here we have a few photos of the tender now that it’s reassembled. Onto the loco next.

It’s a cracking livery, my Duchess will be in the same livery at some point.

Late last week I got the Princess back from painting for reassembly.

I started rebuilding with the simpler stuff like the bogie and trailing truck, then the tender chassis, followed by fitting the tender body. All the while being very careful not to damage the paint.
I was just about to fit the tender chassis when I thought it would make sense to fit the buffers first, thus giving me more room to fit the retaining nuts without damaging anything. This was when I found that the buffer heads no longer fitted due to paint build up in the bore of the buffer stocks. I searched all my drill bits and broaches but couldn’t find one of the right size to just remove the paint without enlarging the hole.

A few days ago I scrapped a friend’s old printer and it turned out that one of the recovered bits of rod, was the perfect size to make a little reaming tool from. I turned the outside to the size of the buffer shank and then using a collet block to index as I rotated it, I plunged an end mill into the end to create some small teeth. Then I popped it back in the lathe and took a small amount off the diameter as a relief. Working away from the chuck, towards the end and just leaving approx. 1mm of ‘teeth’. After a slight deburr I tried it and it worked perfectly.

It’s not hardened, in fact the steel is quite soft but it only needed to cut through a layer or two of paint.

I gripped it in a drill chuck as the only pin vice that I had which would take the rod is a bit worn and the rod slipped rather than scrape the paint off.

A few photos of the state of play before I strip her down and pack her up for painting.

Well, I got there at last. Her Royal Highness will now go around 6ft curves without derailing or shorting.

I did have to introduce some springing to restrict the movement of the bogie.

There are two spring wires at the rear which fit between the inner and outer bogie frames. They restrict the sideways movement of the rear of the bogie. The bogie pivot point has side control springs which allow more movement at the front of the bogie. This sort of worked but the front of the bogie was so light that it had a tendency to lift of the track so I added a second element of springing which holds down the front of the bogie and all runs nicely. This spring has a loop which is held in place by the pivot screw then bends over the front of the plate that you can see in the image below before curving onto the front of the bogie frame. Although it looks huge in the enlarged image it’s only 0.5mm spring wire.

All issues of whether the styrene might wear over time aside, even with added weight on the trailing truck, the chassis still wouldn’t go around a 6ft curve reliably so more drastic measures were needed.

Using a piercing saw I cut out part of the inner frames.

Then I soldered a plate across the ends of the frames at the front by good fortune there were two tabs at the rear with could be soldered to.

I then reduced the width of the inner plate and soldered the frame pieces back together with some end plates to take up the gap left by the saw kerf.

A quick dry fit of the rear truck leaves plenty of space either side of the inner swing so there should be no shorting but I may need to remove some of the spring casting to allow more swing to help it get around the curve – it’s a long chassis.

Having solved the issue of the wheels touching the upper frame I then discovered that the wheels were touching the inside of the frames when going around a 6ft curve.

So I added some styrene insulation either side of the inner frames.

This cured the short problem but running trials revealed that although it would now go around 6ft curve without shorting it didn’t do so reliably without the trailing truck derailing.

In an attempt to cure this I tried introducing some weight on to the trailing truck. I cut a couple of rectangles of lead and using a V block and a couple of different sized rods I created some weights that fit on top of the ruck over the axle.

I was getting low on lead but just this week we have had a couple of chimneys repointed and re-leaded as well as four wet verges I asked the roofer for the lead that they removed so I now have sufficient to see my days out I think.

It’s been getting on for six weeks since my last update on HRH. I haven’t been idle and the process of eliminating shorts has been a journey of education, frustration and determination to not let it beat me.

Starting with a belt and braces approach I remade the drawbar in Delrin.

Next, having already added insulated washers to the wheels which are insulated at the hub I turned my attention to the driver which are rim insulated. I had previously made inner balance weights from Nickel sheet and although I had stuck them to the wheels with epoxy I was concerned that they be be helping to bridge the insulation gap should they touch the frames. My answer was to remake the balance weights for the insulated side from styrene.

Then I noted that the cross piece pf the rear inner frames was touching the tyres of the rear truck wheels. You can see the plate with the half etched rectangles in the image below.

A look at the instructions mentions the possible need to remove the half etched sections in case of shorts so the plate was removed and the rectangles removed.

Sadly, this didn’t cure the problem so in the end I took of the outer sections leaving just the brace in the middle.

As it turned out that solved one problem but left another which will be the subject of another post

Since my last post I have been beavering away identifying and curing the shorts on the tender which I am happy to say that I have done.

As with many things in life getting there required at least one side project. During last Thursday’s GOG online modellers meeting the consensus was that I really needed to dig my multimeter out of the depths of the shed. On friday morning I bit the bullet and started to pull out plastic stacking boxes (having first removed the lawn mower, petrols cans, oak kitchen cabinet doors and finally my router table). An hour and a half later I had retrieved one of my two multimeters and put everything back.

Sadly the one that I found was the one with the missing probe, the wire was there but the common probe which had broken off in the dim and distant wasn’t with it. Before embarking on making a new probe I fitted a new battery to test that it still worked which thankfully it did. The metal section of the probe was made from a length of brass rod which sat atop my useful bits box on the workbench and I quickly drilled one end to accept the wire and turned a step onto the other to fit snugly into the yet to be made insulated delrin handle.

I didn’t take photos along the way but this is the finished article alongside the original ‘live’ probe.

Once I had it I reassembled the tender chassis test along the way without find any further shorts.

The last week and a bit of modelling time has been spent tracking down shorts on the tender and isolating them. This has required me making a number of additional bushes and delrin/acetal washers.

I also had to rethink the way that I had mounted the two U shaped brackets which fit across under the tender. Unthinkingly I had mounted them in the same way as on the MOK Stanier tender using small pieces of brass angle drilled and tapped for 14ba screws. Sadly when assembled these frames touch the brakes which although the shoes are insulated the hangers are not and between the two breached the insulation between tender chassis and body.

I made up some wire supports and then shortened the brackets to clear the outer frames. Below are a couple of shots of the sets that I used to get them soldered vertical to the brackets and then cut them off to the right size. I read recently on one of the forums someone say that you cannot have too many engineers clamps. I agree wholeheartedly although when used as soldering aids they do have a tendency to rust. I do have a cunning plan to get around that, I have a length of brass bar that I have had for about 10 years which will be just enough to make a pair of brass jawed clamps which shouldn’t rust.

I used the Expo pliers that I recommended recently to bend the corners pretty uniformly.

I also had a feeling that the washers which I had used to reduce the side play in the axles, might have been bigger than the insulation gaps in the wheel hubs thus creating a short, hence my making the delrin washers.

Those who are observant, will have noted the jaunty angle that the return crank is sat at, in the top photo of the post with the sand pipes fitted. Having had this pointed out by someone this came back to bite me.

Initially I just thought that in lifting the loco up I had dislodged it causing it to unscrew and come loose. However no matter how much I tried I couldn’t get it to tighten back up in the right place. I tried shortening the bush but realised too late that the crank pin itself must have shifted in the wheel. Then having shortened it I found that when tight it was nipping the conrod and coupling rods so that they wouldn’t move.

Making a replacement bush was the order of the day.

The sand pipes are now fitted without interfering with anything. I did get them fitted a couple of days ago but when I added the front bogie they stopped it from moving. I removed the two front ones and moved them slightly further back which did the trick.

Well I have the replacement sand pipes assembled ready for fitting let’s hope I have more luck in fitting these. One pipe is soft brass and the other slightly thinner one is copper.

Below are the first ones that I made earlier in the build. I made myself a rod for my own back (if you will pardon the pun) by using hard brass rod for the thicker of the two pipes which when it came to it, was almost impossible to bend where I needed it to go.

Well after fitting the brakes, I have spent far too much time in the last week trying to fit the sand pipes. What’s so difficult you might as yourself? Well they fit inside the frames and they also need to fit in such a way as to allow the wheels and brakes to be removable (the wheels won’t come out unless you remove the brakes). the key issue has been getting the pipes to bend in a tight enough bend to allow them to fit without touching the next wheel along.

In the end I have started again by stripping all the pipe work off the brackets and the plan is to reinstate them with finer soft brass and copper wire. I have cut all the parts and I will share picture when I have them reassembled ready to fit.

The Princess is keeping me entertained to the end.

Almost the last thing to fit are the sand pipes but in order to do that I needed to refit the brakes so that I can work out how the sand pipes will fit around them.

Previously after fitting the 3D printed shoes I had fixed the hangers to the frames via soldered pins with the top of the hanger slipping over a square rod (the holes were etched square) for mounting. Having come back to it I wasn’t happy with that arrangement so I removed the pins and substituted some lengths of 12BA stud instead (cut down screws) next I soldered the square end into the hanger brackets. Then I enlarged the holes in the frames so now I can insert the studs through and put nut on the back to hold them.

A bonus to this approach is that not only will it be easier if a little fiddly to get them on and off the studs will rotate in the frames before being fully tightened so that positioning of the shoes against the wheels will be more adjustable.

These are the drawbar options as supplied. I have a confession to make at this stage. I couldn’t find them and had asked a couple of fellow modellers who have the same kit for dimensions. As it happens one was able to supply part numbers and the other the key dimensions.

Then as is often the way, I opened a box where I keep useful bits (actually looking for a piece of plug pin to see if it would be suitable to make a draw bar from) and there on top of all the bits and pieces was the square of etch containing the two missing drawbars.

While I completely understand why they would be supplied as etches I wanted to see if I could make something more 3 dimensional.

I made a complete hash of my first attempt due to getting the machining operations in the wrong order. I had started by milling and drilling which left the part too weak when I attempted to turn the dog bone section.

This was at the end of the turning operation on the second attempt.

This is the end result greatly enlarged of course. The insulated bushes were made from knitting needles. Sadly the only one I had of the right thickness was green. I did think that I had a suitable grey one but having turned one and subsequently dropped it, it landed with a decidedly metallic click. Further investigation revealed that it was in fact aluminium not plastic so not much cop for insulated bushes…

New

Following on from my An Evening With session last night (which I thoroughly enjoyed and I hope all those that joined me, did too) I can now share with you how I managed to hold the chimney centrally in place when soldering it.

Whilst machining the base of the chimney I had deliberated from the outset how I might best hold the chimney in place after machining and I had considered boring the base out and adding a short length of tube to locate it when it occurred to me that solder doesn’t stick to aluminum so why not use the arbour to centre the chimney.
I parted the end off the arbour and machined the sides so that the chimney sat down properly the other way up.

Then using a makeshift arrangement of blocks and strips of wood I fed the modified abour up through the chimney hole in the smokebox.

There was enough solder remaining on the smokebox from where the chimney hadn’t sat down flush initially, so some flux and a waft with my microflame had in place in no time with no cleaning up.

One of the things that I have never been entirely happy with on previous locos is the fitting of additional lead weight to the boiler. Tank engines are a bit simpler because the lead sheet can be fixed in the tanks and enclosed. It’s not so much the fitting of the lead, so much as how to retain it and stop it from shifting over time.

Previously where needed I have used epoxy or 100 degree solder to fix it in place (I have built a number of DJH kits and on those the weight of the cast boiler was more than enough without adding additional weight). This time I thought I would try a different method first I rolled up some sheet lead and then some adjustment to make it fit. I used a hollow punch to cut out a section to fit around the base of the top feed which helped to hold the lump of lead in place next I drilled the bottom of the boiler being careful to site the hole behind the middle splasher so it wouldn’t be seen from the side. Then I tapped the hole as deep as I could 10ba and then screwed in a 1 inch 10 ba screw being soft lead once the screw got beyond the tapped section it continued to cut it’s own thread and now the ballast is held firmly in place.

I would be interested in the methods used by other builders to retain lead ballast in boilers.