One of the things that I have noted while looking at photos of the rear of Stanier tenders is just how many of them had the lid up while in service. This is something that I fancied replicating if I could so made a basic drawing from the GA and I started with a couple of different thicknesses of nickel bar to make the filler and it’s cap.
I had in my selection of castings and my spares box, a choice of two whitemetal dome castings. While I had a third options of turin a up completely new dome from brass or nickel I decided to see if I could clean up the fairly mediocre castings. I was able to grip the locating pin of the first one in a collet and it didn’t actually take much material removal to clean up the first casting (I measured it at 0.3mm overall)
Water Scoop domeWater Scoop dome
Buoyed up with the results of the first one, I had a go at the second casting which was much better and only required a clean up of the top to remove minor pitting.
There are lots of small etched parts that have a couple of rivets each which are very close together. Aside from those already pressed out, all the parts marked ’55’ also need two rivets each.
To make a better job of these, I took fifteen minutes out and made another rivet setting tool with a finer end to get in between these rivets.
Rivet Setting tool
Like the ones that I made previously, it’s made from 6mm steel rod recovered from empty toner cartridges with the turned ends heat blued to help prevent them rusting.
Photos above taken this morning and like the more observant of you I note that there are a few spots of green to attend to where I haven’t cleaned it thoroughly enough.
PML finally leaves for her new home early next week so I made the effort this morning to try to get some final photos.
My apologies for the photo overload.
David Andrews Princess Royal – Princess Marie LouiseDavid Andrews Princess Royal – Princess Marie LouiseDavid Andrews Princess Royal – Princess Marie LouiseDavid Andrews Princess Royal – Princess Marie LouiseDavid Andrews Princess Royal – Princess Marie LouiseDavid Andrews Princess Royal – Princess Marie LouiseDavid Andrews Princess Royal – Princess Marie LouiseDavid Andrews Princess Royal – Princess Marie Louise
David Andrews Princess Royal – Princess Marie Louise
Completion of another long running build took place in the last couple of weeks during our arts and crafts sessions. This Diagram 129 was mostly complete only requiring glazing, guards grab handles and couplings to finish it off. I am not sure why I didn’t get it finished but hey ho.
LNER Diagram 129 Parcels VanLNER Diagram 129 Parcels Van
Just one more cinder guard to glaze and she’s done
David Andrews Princess – Princess Marie LouiseDavid Andrews Princess – Princess Marie LouiseDavid Andrews Princess – Princess Marie LouiseDavid Andrews Princess – Princess Marie LouiseDavid Andrews Princess – Princess Marie Louise
Stepping back to my last post on this where made a start on the tender.
It was at this point that I realised that I was missing the whitemetal castings for the tender. All the brass ones were present and the whitemetal castings for the loco were there but I couldn’t find those for the tender. Now I bought the kit second hand at a decent price so i wasn’t too perturbed. I knew that I had drawn up the dome and water filler having turned replacements for the Princess and a look through my spares box revealed that I had a few bits in hand.
Stanier Tender Spares
At this point I was really only missing brake hangers, Axleboxes and springs and the water scoop. I had a feeling that I might have some etches for the brake hangers elft from the Princess as I had used cast replacements on the tender. an I had some 3D printed shoes so I set of looking for those. I looked through one box of etched spares without finding them and then looked at another small box on my bench. Having picked up that box and searched it to no avail I noticed a round plastic tub that it had been sat on. Opening that revealed the missing tender castings. So now I have everything I need I just need to get back on with it.
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
Princess Marie LouiseModified by CombineZP
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.
I was going to add that not long after the last post I discovered that the whitemetal castings were missing from the tender so in spare moments I have been looking through the spares boxes and examining working drawings that I have created to see what I ultimately need to buy. I have already turned some spare rear tank vents and drawn up the water scoop dome, tank filler and brake vacuum cylinder and a number of the various rods etc. are present cast in brass. This left (so far) axleboxes and springs, water scoop and brakes hangers/blocks. Now I have spare brake blocks from the Princess and while looking for the spare etched hangers from the Princess which I didn’t use because I had been supplied with nice cast ones I found the plastic pot with the missing castings. Now admittedly some of these are a bit ropey so I will be replacing some of them anyway but I now have the ones that I would struggle to remake.
The rebuilding of the Princess has reached the stage of needing to test the chassis before fitting the body. I don’t have a layout but I do have a test board with various diameter curves on it. Unfortunately said board lives in the shed and when needed is temporarily erected in the cloakroom. Over the last couple of days the weather here has been really windy making bring the board in undamaged quite a precarious proposition so in the bits of time that I had in between looking after Chris and doing the various household chores I decided do pick up the Just Like The Real Thing Stanier tender. This came with my JLRT Royal Scot but needing a welded tender for the 8F now that it’s changed to 8425 and having found the spare teched sides and rear panel for the MOK version I am now building the JLRT tender bt fitting it with the MOK welded spares and then I will swap the tenders and use the MOK tender for the Royal Scot and the JLRT tender for the 8F.
I bought the kit second hand and the gent that I bought it from hadn’t taken into account the sheer weight of the JLRT cast boiler when packing it. As a result it had shifted somewhat in transport and it had pretty much crushed the inner cage for the tender by the time it arrived with me. Much careful straightening has got the cage back into shape and soldered together and a good start has been made on the inner frames.
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.
Tool for removing 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.
Recently I bought a another job lot of old tools via eBay. I bought them specifically for a scribing block with a round base which I intend to turn into a tool height gauge for my lathe.
In amongst the other tools most of which appear to have been made during an engineers apprenticeship was this.
Something Missing
I had no idea what it was or whether it was complete (I suspected not). It turns out y suspicions were correct and it is a shop made combination universal bevel with one of the bevels missing. Someone who knew what it was point me at a photo and from that photo I have been able to make replacement parts based on the sizes of the original parts.
These are the parts that I made. The thumbnut and the retaining screw were made from a scrap large bolt and the bevel itself was a part of a piece of plate which a friend who repairs heaters on poultry farms gave me from his scrap bin.
I haven’t had much time in the workshop for modelling recently as I was doing a little turning job for a friend. I have managed a little on the gun shield though.
I managed to get the mounting lugs made and fitted albeit they need a bit of adjustment in order for the barrel to fit between them.
Emhar 18pdr Gun Shield
I finally managed to find a photo from the rear of the gun that allowed me to work out where the crank handle that goes through the front of the shield at an angle goes to. – The right axle as looking from the rear of the gun.
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.
