Of course sod’s law dictates that I had just nicely finished assembling these when I found a second casting on another sprue that was identical to the first. 

I guess that I must have picked up both sprues separately at different times, thinking that they were both the same sprue…

There were no other pipe castings included in the kit. But there was a casting for a pipe flange for the smaller diameter pipe but only the one.

In the end up I wasn’t happy with the first pair of smaller pipe flanges because I hadn’t managed to get the centre hole in the middle. The cross section of the bar that I used was too small for the 4 jaw so I put it in a collet to drill the centre hole.

However I made the mistake of leaving it full length rather than cutting of a short length and I think that the length of the bar, not being properly supported by the round collet was pulled out of square by the length of the bar. So I milled a stub of round bar into a square and remade them. In the end I made five and chose the best three for the pipework.

Working out the pipe runs required study of the GA and reference to photos but I think that I have it now.

Other than the fitting of the handrails I think that these might be the last parts to make for the upper body/footplate but I will double check to be sure.

till working on the body details, I next approached the Injector pipe that runs along under the footplate on the right hand firebox side.
This is the casting supplied.

For Christmas, I received a new four jaw chuck for the lathe and wanted to give it a try so I decided to make the jointing flanges first. I had a length of brass bar which was the right outer size without further machining so I centred it and drilled it 3mm. Just to be sure I also ran a 3mm end mill through it. Finally parting it off to length

I turned a 3mm spigot on the end of a piece of rod from the useful bits box and fitting the workpiece to it I mounted it in the dividing head and used the stub of a cheap carbide drill that I had reground after it broke off to spot drill each corner. These cheap Japanese carbide drills are very good but incredibly brittle even the act of bringing them down to the workpiece can break them off, if you are slightly heavy handed.

Then I drilled them 0.7mm and fitted wire and tube hex nuts to complete the part.

Next I turned a small top hat flange for the other end and then bent the pipe to shape before finally adding retaining straps from scrap etch strips and more 0.7mm wire

Onto the next…

The next bit of the puzzle before permanently fitting the firebox, is the vacuum ejector pipe running from the casting at the firebox to the smokebox pipe elbow fitted some time ago. Making up the pipe was relatively easy, make up the bends and kee trimming the ends until it fit in the right place.

The ejector pipe is retained by four pipe clips. In the kit these are provided by 1.5mm wide etched strips.

However upon checking photos these retaining clips were not flat but rounded like a big handrail knob. A couple of years ago when a friend passed away I inherited a box of 1 metre x 1.5mm brass brazing rods. I cut five lengths and soldered them to a piece of thick brass to hold them while I worked on them.

I then milled off 0.75mm leaving them as half round pieces.

These I removed from the block and scraped off most of the solder. I annealed them and then bent them round a length of the 1.5mm brass rod to form what are effectively brass split pins.

Finally I cut them to length. They look much bigger than they are in the photos

Next up is drilling the boiler and firebox to accept them.

This weekend has been about working out how to fix the firebox and boiler together and to the footplate. I put a couple of 12ba screws through the bottom of the firebox utilising the two holes etched in the footplate. The ultimate intention is to use adhesive but also to use the hole to dd a mechanical element to the fixing so the screws are temporary to allow me to get everything in place. I would also like to get all the soldering done around where the firebox and the lower sections will sit since resin is susceptible to heat damage if I am not careful. Picking up a tip from John Dale I elected to screw the front end of the boiler in place and I was rather reluctant to use just a nut on an internal curve as I didn’t want it to come adrift sometime in the future. A rummage in my useful bits of brass recycling box yielded a former frame spacer from a set of frames that I had replaced with new ones. As a bonus it was already tapped 8BA. I filed the ends to help it seat in the curve and after marking and drilling a hole in the front saddle casting and transferring that through to the bottom of the smokebox I soldered it in.

A dry fit of the boiler and firebox and all of a sudden it starts to look like a loco.

I am trying to get all the small details at least made into sub assemblies before I add them to the footplate once the firebox and boiler have been attached. I have worked on the firebox print and got that to sit down nicely. I needed a bit removing from the underside of the cutouts in the ring that fits inside the boiler to get it to sit down over the rear splashers.

I also assembled the reversing levers which was an exercise in clumsiness n my part. The various parts are all held together with rivets but I decided to turn some nickel pins to do the job instead backing them up with some etched washers.

Using some 2mm nickel rod I fit it in a collet and having the smallest stick out that I could I attempted to turn them down to 0.8mm. I broke the first three off, trying different tools (carbide insert first and then a round nosed HSS tool). Lastly and successfully I tried a new sharp edged HSS bit straight out of the packet. As supplied it had a diamond shaped grind on it with the leading point towards the chuck.. Running the lathe at approx 2000 rpm I managed to make the four different pins needed for this part of the build.

I mentioned clumsiness on my part as I was starting to assemble the various bits on to the turned pins I thought it a good idea to pop a few etched washers onto the longest pin to make filing of the etching cusps a bit easier. No sooner had I got them threaded on than I dropped the thing on the floor. Or rather I dropped it onto my apron where it rolled to the edge, hesitated for a second then dropped off. Could I find it, not a chance. despite moving various items stored under my bench and wiping over the laminate floor with a cloth.

Back to the lathe I went and turned another. I got most of it assembled when I happened to bend down to pick up a file that I dropped and found the missing pin complete with washers. However not 30 seconds later I managed to drop the last pin that I was fitting almost a repeat of the first where it dropped into the ether after slowly sliding down my apron. Thankfully the one that I found has allowed me to escape having to turn yet another.

Below is the reversing levers all assembled but not yet fixed in place.

Lastly I returned to the lathe to turn down the spigots on the bottoms of the safety valve castings so that they would fit in holes drilled in the top of the fire box as they came of the sprues the spigots were anything but round or parrallel.

I wrapped each casting in a slice of aluminium drinks can to protect it and popped it in a collet. Then I faced the ends of the spigots off and turned them all to 1.7mm diameter.

Progress since my last post has been steady with a number of small details added to the build.
I added the door latch and the lamp iron to the smokebox door. It looks slightly wonky in these views something I will need to double check.

As I mentioned earlier I had added the wrong covers for the pipes leading from the top feed so these were removed and replaced with the correct ones.

Finally for this post I also fitted the cab seats after adding a stay which allows them to be lowered into position.

I have managed to make steady progress over the festive period despite the setback of a power cut all day on Christmas Eve.

I now have all the oilers repiped and soldered to their respective brackets or direct to the footplate.

This was the setup that I used to solder the pipes into the rear of the bracket mounted two port oilers. An oak block with a hole drilled in it to accommodate the leadscrew f the handvice. The hole is quite a snug fit so that when the block is clamped to the bench the vice itself doesn’t move. The brackets were clamped in the vice with a piece of square bar supporting them which seemed to make up for the third or fourth hands that I could have done with when soldering pipes to the others.

I won’t fit the bracket mounted ones until I have the firebox and boiler fitted in the next couple of days or so. I have also done work on a few other details but I am not ready to share them yet as they aren’t completed yet.