{"id":7882,"date":"2026-07-17T10:19:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T09:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/?p=7882"},"modified":"2026-07-17T10:19:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T09:19:23","slug":"connoisseur-n10-adding-the-details","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/?p=7882","title":{"rendered":"Connoisseur N10 &#8211; Adding The Details."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>New<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As has been mentioned plenty of times it\u2019s the detailing that takes the time. The N10 is no exception. Some time ago I bought a number of Ramsbottom safety Valve cover castings from Gladiator (@Genghis). I have allocated one to each of my ex-NER locos. Oddly the one that I had added to the N10 box had a slightly strange double sprue fixed to the base which had I wished to fit it through the fire box would have needed quite a hole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"841\" src=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-1024x841.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7883\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-1024x841.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-300x246.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-768x631.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-365x300.jpg 365w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot.jpg 1039w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I find that cleaning up and making castings fit the firebox\/smokebox etc that have bottom feed sprues is nigh on impossible without removing the sprue first. Or if there is a way of doing it I haven\u2019t worked it out yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mostly, I grip the casting by the sprue and drill down from the top but in the instance gripping it by the sprue wasn\u2019t feasible. So I turned down the end of a length of brass rod so that it fit the hole in the top of the casting and soldered it in to use as a mandrel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Soldered-to-a-rod.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"566\" src=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Soldered-to-a-rod-1024x566.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7884\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Soldered-to-a-rod-1024x566.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Soldered-to-a-rod-300x166.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Soldered-to-a-rod-768x424.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Soldered-to-a-rod-1536x848.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Soldered-to-a-rod-2048x1131.jpg 2048w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Soldered-to-a-rod-500x276.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then I cut off the sprue as near to the base of the casting as I could and used an end mill in the tailstock drill chuck to remove the remaining spigot to get t to sit down flush. Or as flush as the raw casting would without any additional cleaning up. From there it was a simple matter to wrap some emery cloth around the boiler and rub the casting base until a good seat was obtained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-removed-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"641\" src=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-removed-1024x641.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7885\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-removed-1024x641.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-removed-300x188.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-removed-768x481.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-removed-1536x962.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-removed-2048x1283.jpg 2048w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Casting-Spigot-removed-479x300.jpg 479w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of my pet hates irritations is looking down model chimneys to find them blocked solid at the base. The Connoisseur chimney, although very nicely cast has a spigot on the bottom and is solid for the bottom 25% or so of the chimney. So again, I gripped the spigot in the lathe chuck and carefully drilled out the bottom of the chimney until it broke away from the base. I finished opening out the hole with drill bits turned by hand and finally an end mill held in a spare Jacobs chuck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Hollowed-Out-N10-Chimney2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"941\" height=\"939\" src=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Hollowed-Out-N10-Chimney2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7886\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Hollowed-Out-N10-Chimney2.jpg 941w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Hollowed-Out-N10-Chimney2-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Hollowed-Out-N10-Chimney2-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Hollowed-Out-N10-Chimney2-768x766.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Hollowed-Out-N10-Chimney2-301x300.jpg 301w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 941px) 100vw, 941px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is the chimney base before any cleaning up after drilling it out. It\u2019s not going to take much effort to get it to sit flush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Hollowed-Out-N10-Chimney.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"919\" height=\"988\" src=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Hollowed-Out-N10-Chimney.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7887\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Hollowed-Out-N10-Chimney.jpg 919w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Hollowed-Out-N10-Chimney-279x300.jpg 279w, http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Hollowed-Out-N10-Chimney-768x826.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 919px) 100vw, 919px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A view from the top. Hollowing them out does make locating them centrally more difficult but worth the extra effort in my view.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connoisseur-models-lner-n10"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7888,"href":"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882\/revisions\/7888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.railway-models-and-art.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}