A restoration

:cheers Hic!


Good reinforcement of the cut both parts together tip. Works with bridge arches too, as long as the bridge is square on to what it's crossing :roll:


The horn blocks and compensation system makes my mind boggle.


but I'll watch and learn.

Sorry Marty, I decided to push another project  - sick of having nearly finished projects lying around.

John

I got on with the rods today.  Since I've changed the wheelbase, the old rods won't do (they were naff anyway).  Luckily my bits and pieces box had a set of Gibson Universal rods:




These are etched longer than most prototypes and need to be trimmed to length.  First though, deep breath and spend a few minutes studying the fret and pictures of your loco to make sure you get things the right way round.

After an hour or so I ended up with these:




Fiddly job of course, the rod halves are soldered together with the rod pivot representation overlapping in the middle.  Everything is carefully filed and fettled and checked.

Rods are very critical to the smooth running of your chassis, their centers must be EXACTLY the same as the bearing centers.  This is where the jig comes in very useful.

There are cheaper ways to do the job.  I recommend the DVDs Right Track Nos 1 & 2 hosted by Tony Wright.  These showcase the build of three kit locos and, while a bit dear, are around 3 hrs long each.  You'll need to check the second hand market I'm afraid since they are sold out.

Another excellent resource is Iain Rices' Loco Chassis Construction.  It is out of print but you may find a second hand copy.  I built my first chassis (the ubiquitous Pannier tank) by following Iain's lead in the book.  An added bonus was that it worked too!  I also learned a lot about soldering.

John

Over the last while, when not arm wrestling the 7F, I've been working on this.  It has been much better behaved than the 7F.

So, over the last several days, I primed the wheels with metal primer, left that for a day or so, then sprayed on Testors matt black, leaving that a day.

A couple of days ago I used my jig to join the two frames.

Today, I brought it all together:

Scraped paint from the tyres, and polished with fiber pen.  Checked for insulated vs uninsulated wheels and paint the back of one spoke of each insulated wheel white.  You cannot tell which is which by looking and it is very easy to get it wrong (don't ask me how I know).

Ream the chassis bearings just so that the axles fall through by gravity.

Here it is:




This is from the rear.




…and from the front.

The red tubing is wire insulation.  This makes it easy to remove rods for hole reaming to get the chassis rolling smoothly.  This took a few tries and it's good now.

You can clearly see the compensation beam soldered to a tube pivot and resting on the middle and front axle.  The rear axle is fixed and will be driven.

John

 

[user=541]Genetk44[/user] wrote:

[user=6]Petermac[/user] wrote:

How does one dismantle a body glued with epoxy John ?

Carefully Peter, very,very carefully….or dynamite.

Paint stripper (the "Green" or "Eco" variety), or a mixture of methanol/methylene chloride or methanol/paint thinner. Dunk the model in and leave it. It may take a week to a month if the epoxy is of a good vintage. As a bonus it gets rid of the paint. Use a metal sieve to collect small bits. Vinegar (white, not malt) works as well, although I've never tried it, except for pickling brass.

Heat gun helps as well. Not for white metal though.

All the second-hand metal kits I buy go into the paint stripper for a rebuild.

Nigel

I should have dunked the body in the stripper mentioned above first - would have saved a lot of work.  I only found the stuff later (amazing the things one buys and then forgets about).

I agree Nigel,  I think I've said it before, if you buy a second hand kit built loco, be prepared to rebuild it.  If you want the thing, you'd be better off buying the kit - this would save the time and effort of tearing it apart before starting over.

John

Just finished putting the transfers on mine and am waiting for the varnish to dry so will pop a pic up tomorrow.

Great Mick, looking forward to that.  I think brakes are next for mine, but I'll need to wait for the Mainly Trains stuff, specifically brake rodding.

John

Mine is quite simple. No complicated brake gear. Basic Hornby chassis re-wheeled with the correct sized Romfords and a motor swap. Ran fine the last time I put it on the track so will check it again tomorrow. The livery for these is a bit vague. You can't do a Midland version of it unless you alter the firebox to a round top and cut the smoke box back level with the front panelling. Some ran in LMS red but finding an image is almost impossible. The LMS later down classed them to freight for their tendency to derail and they were painted black. Some, but not all were in lined black, some had gold lettering shaded red and some ended up with the plain gold lettering. Mine has been done in plain black with gold shaded red lettering. As I use Hornby couplings I haven't fitted the vac pipes.

Well, being me, I'm getting complicated.

In LMS times, livery was red until about 1927 when it was changed to black with red lining, so that's what I'll do - hate lining though.

My references:

LMS Locomotives Vol 4 and Midland Record which has a lovely article on these.  The article has a reproduction of a works drawing.  Unfortunately, it only covers the MR era and doesn't get into the LMS history.  There was a water scoop I learned.

John

Here's the pics as promised. Not the finest model in the world but it does work well. In the second pic the coal on the floor of the cab has been removed and the bump in the chimney is due to it breaking when I drilled it out to take the body fixing screw. The camera can be so cruel.





Some time in the future I might well strip the paint, replace the chimney and repaint and letter it. Might even get the lettering straight the second time around. Oh, and fit some cab handrails.

Looks very attractive Mick.  Most important is that it runs well.  Yes, I have found that the camera can be cruel.  It can also point out flaws missed by the naked eye - double edged sword.

Probably worth getting on with something else for a while.  Too much time spent on one project can lead to frustration and loss of drive.

John

Too right John. The next one to come under the hammer (so to speak) is a Midland 3P 4-4-0. It's been hanging around for years waiting for new steps on the tender and a couple of other tidy up jobs doing. I runs fine with a Hornby 4-4-0 chassis and I think Gem body kit. This is to be followed by a Hornby LMS 4-4-0 which needs a front bogie sourcing. And both need to visit the paint shop after cleaning off the originals. Should keep me out of mischief for a couple of days.

I've got the Mainline 2P and Hornby 4P in a box with loads of Comet bits.  Most of the original locos are there too.  The intention was to rebuild them with new chassis and loco drive.  Well both Bachmann and Hornby have beaten me to the punch.  I don't much like Hornby's 2P because it's got traction tyres - naff!  I'd get the Bachmann 4P if it came out in LMS red (not NRM red).  These parts are unlikely to ever get used now - shame!  If you send me a list of bits that you need I may have them.

John

Thanks John, will do.

One of the tasks that I need to do for this loco is to make a decent bogie.  As is so common, the bogie supplied is a vague lump of whitemetal.

From the drawing, the bogie has a 6' 0" wheelbase - this matches the W/M bogie.

I want to use a Comet bogie but the closest they come is 6' 3", only 1mm out but I will correct it.  Here's how:

First I mark out the fret with my scriber for centerline and where I want to axles to be.




I think you can see the scribe lines.  The frame slots have been widened by 1mm.  I've cut the overlays and shortened by 1mm.  The frames also get shortened by 1mm.

Next, I solder the overlays in place being careful to get the inner slot to align with the inner slot of the frame.




Next fold everything over and solder.  Fettle the slots for the axles, slip the wheelsets in and retain with 0.45mm NS wire through those holes you can see in the bolster.




The finished bogie.  The drawing shows a leaf spring but it appears to be behind the frames and is not visible.  Actually I still need to open up the slot in the bolster.

John

Looking good already John. Have solved the 4-4-0 problem, I found the missing bogie in with some Dean Goods Parts (don't ask). Thanks for the offer anyway.

As usual with excellent modellers, phrases like "fettle the slots in the axles and slip the wheelsets in" disguise the hours of patient, careful and accurate work that is required just to get to this stage ……………….:roll::roll:

It's looking really good John although for now, I'll let the likes of Hornby and Bachmann have the headache of "fettling" ……….  Maybe when I'm a bit older, and one heck of a lot wiser, I'll do my own ……….;-)

You're right Peter, every step is a problem to be solved and the solution often takes a lot of time etc. as you say.

The thing of it is, Hornby et al would, today, probably produce something with outstanding detail and accuracy and all you'd have to do is open the box.

Even so, it's nice to be able to overcome these hurdles and get something that is over and above the stock kit.

In fact, this and the MR 0-4-4T are two locos that I'm surprised none of the manufacturers haven't tackled yet.

John

More self inflicted problems today.  I decided to work on sandboxes and springs.




There are 'orrible great lumps of whitemetal that came off the original model.  After I carved away the lashings of epoxy, they actually resembled sandboxes.  However, upon comparing them to the drawing, they would have required a load of effort to get right.  I figured it would be easier to make fresh ones from Evergreen strip - as you see.  These were measured and scaled from the drawing.  You can also see that I drilled and soldered some 0.032" wire into the frame to hang the boxes off.  A much stronger joint.  CA was used.

I also bodged up some leaf springs by carving and filing some NS scrap strip to shape.  I had thought about using the springs on the original chassis but again, they look nothing like the drawing.  A piece of strip soldered to the middle to represent the strap.  0.45mm NS wire was soldered to the back and fixed to the inside of the frames.

Now, the front axle, according the source material, has coil springs.  (The 2P and 4P compound also have these).  Quite a faff to make these.  Basic material was 10BA brass screws sandwiched between NS strip.

It all looks a mess at the moment, but, as they say in the theater trade - "it'll be all right on the night".

John