Way back in July 2022 I made some additional anvils for my restored Double Leakey Rivet Press which for some reason I never shared.
Laeky Rivet Press additional Anvils
A conversation with fellow Guild Member Michael Holland had me on the anvil trail again. We were discussing my Leakey learning experience while making the recent gun shield for the 18 pounder gun. Michael mentioned that he had turned round anvils for his similar rivet press with specific anvils for each spacing. Still having material from one handle of my recycled die holder, I made a series of anvils for small rivets (0.63mm hole).
Leakey Rivet Press – additional anvils for precise spacing
I also took the opportunity to hot blacken them all. I also intend to make a similar set for slightly bigger rivets (0.8mm hole) which should them allow me to cover most eventualities.
Over on one of the forums that I frequent, it was suggested that I might add rifling to the barrel. Well not quite rifling in the barrel but perhaps equally mad.
From the photos of the real thing I note that the wheels have brass hubs. Nothing unusual there you might think but unlike most hubs etc which have hexagonal collars for tightening with a spanner these have octagonal heads. Now I have a hex collet block and a pin vice which at a pinch cut be brought into service but they would still only have six sides. Again I could have drawn them up and had them 3D printed then painted them with brass paint and job done.
However on one of my favourite machining YouTube channels the guy who does some amazing things uses a “5C Spin Indexer” For those that are not familiar “5C” is a type of collet. I don’t possess any 5C collets, so although I could make use of the functionality of a spin indexer the likelyhood of my buying one was very slim. Then some time ago I discovered that Arc Euro Trade the machinery omany that I bought my mill from stock a 5C spin indexer that has an ER32 collet adapter. Now I don’t have any ER32 collets either but I could see me getting more use from them as they are much more flexible in use than 5C collets. With 5C collets you pretty much have to have a separate collet for every size whereas ER collets usually have approximately 1mm range so a 10mm ER collet would Hold stock from 10mm diameter down to 9mm diameter so you need less collets to cater for a wide range of stock sizes.
Having said all that the 5C/ER32 spin indexers were still getting on for £200 so I couldn’t justify buying one. Then just after Guildex I got a sales email from Arc reducing them to just over £130 so having not spent up at Stafford I took the plunge. I still didn’t have an ER32 collets but my son bought me a set for my birthday.
To get it to mount on my mill table I had to mill a couple of slots to accommodate the width of the T slots but that done I was able to give it a test run yesterday. – The delay in getting to it was working out how I might hold it to actually cut the slots.
That done I gave it a test run on some 3mm brass rod. Unfortunately I hadn’t noticed the hole in the end which precluded me from using it for one of the hubs.
Since my last post on Saturday I have made a bit more progress. As I mentioned I wasn’t too happy with the way that I had done the ‘hinges’ principally because the gap in them was too large but also because I had an itch to try to make them articulate.
I started on the bottom section because that was where the the gap between the two plates was greatest. I took the plunge and cut off all the lower sections of the hinge leaving just a small overhang behind. Then I cut some 2mm lengths of microbore brass tube and soldered them under the overhangs of the remains of the hinge plates. Then I measured the gaps in between and cut and fitted some more lengths of tube in between these were nominally 10mm but since I didn’t get the 2mm pieces exactly perfect they had to be custom fit in to each gap.
Then I fed a length of 0.4mm wire through all the lengths and tack soldered the longer lengths to the centre section of the shield.
18 Pounder Gun Shield Parts18 Pounder Gun Shield Parts
As reported elsewhere, I have been attempting to catch up with a few unfinished projects, some of which needed painting. When I was getting set up to paint I opened my spray booth door and the 18 pounder was sat there on the turntable awaiting paint.
So in amongst the railway wagons I also made a start on painting the gun.
Emhar 18 Pounder Gun
I confess that it was at this point where I thought sod it and painted the supplied gun shield. Once painted I couldn’t live with the moulded on rope and set to with a diamond ball tool in the Dremel to carve/grind it off.
Emhar 18 Pounder Gun Shield
I blew it over with paint but ultimately I decided that I couldn’t live with that either, so back to plan A and scratch build a replacement.
Those of you who have seen my post on the rivet setting tool, will now know what I need all the riveted strips for.
Those of you familiar with pressing out rivets especially on metal kits will know that the action of the formation of the rivet has a tendency to distort the metal slightly usually resulting a in a slight curl or wave along the line of rivets. Like those below
Rivet Strips
In between applying paint to Mossy’s wagons I also picked up another unfinished model which I initially was going to cheat one but decided against it and as a result needed a number of riveted strips with rivets at various different spacings. The rivets were pressed along the edge of a sheet of 0.25mm (10 thou) nickel sheet with my Leakey Rivet press and then cut of with the guillotine. it’s a very satisfying process but as described it does leave the rivet strips with a bit of a curl.
Until today I have for a number of years ‘set’ the rivets using some jewellers stone setting tools after seeing the technique demonstrated on Western thunder by Peter Dunn.
Gemstone setting tools
These are two of the set which I use most often and I have fitted semi permanent (bonded with loctite 638) handles to them. As they come they have a wooden handle with a collet nut that allows you to change the size. To use them press out your rivets then place on a firm surface and go over them with the tool placing it over each rivet and a small tap with a light hammer sets the rivet and the surrounding metal.
This is fine and as I say I have used the method for a number of years the only minor downside is that the dome in the end of the tool is quite shallow and I have had it squash the rivets sometimes and the edge is quite reasonably sharp so if you don’t get it quite vertical it can leave a slight half moon mark around the rivet.
While pressing out rivets this morning it struck me that a few minutes on the lathe could improve upon the tool.
Home Made Rivet Setting ToolHome Made Rivet Setting Tool
Using more of the steel rod recovered from waste toner cartridges I faced off the end and then having measured my most used rivet size I drilled a .93mm hole in the end of the rod and then turned it down to allow a flat bottom to not cut into the sheet but narrow enough to allow passing between close fitting lines of rivets. I have recently made a second punch for my rivet press to allow the slightly bigger rivets on Connoisseur kits to be punched more accurately so I made a second ‘rivet set’ to set those. That has a 1.3mm hole in it. The recycled printer rods machine lovely but I have noted a tendency to rust where they have been machined so I heated the machined ends to blacken them in oil.
Way back in 2015 I started building five PO wagons from Colin Ashby kits picked up from the now defunct GOG Executor and Trustee service. Over the intervening years I had slowly added brake levers and guides and ultimately a couple of them just required buffer stocks before they were painted. In my recent quest to move a few of my shef queens along I fitted the last ones with buffer stocks and I have painted them ready for transfers.
Modified by CombineZP
When we lived in Wakefield we were just up the road from the former Newmarket Colliery of J&J Charlesworth and that’s whose I livery Intended to do them in. Powsides do J&J Charlesworth transfers but they are the rub down type so I think that I will get some white transfer paper and draw up my own for cutting on the Silhouette Cutter. Hopefully it won’t be another nine years before you see them finished.
A couple of days ago I finished the painting of the brake van and then glazed it and refitted the buffers.
The result is quite unusual when compared with the normal SR brown or BR Grey liveries. Spray painted with Anitas Acrylics Sunshine Yellow and Vallejo Model Color Black. The interior was done with Vallejo Game Bone White and Model Color Medium Sea Grey for the veranda floors.
Connoisseur LSWR Brake van finishedConnoisseur LSWR Brake Van FinishedConnoisseur LSWR Brake Van FinishedS1280Connoisseur LSWR Brake van finishedConnoisseur LSWR Brake van finished
It will be on it’s way to it’s new home this afternoon.
