AJC
Western Thunderer
“Have you built it yet?”. So ran Mike Edge’s cheerful greeting at Expo EM. The ‘it’ in question was his new kit for Sentinel’s more innovative industrial designs, an 0-6-0 (and here it defies the usual definitions). I’ve had the kit since March, and he knows I’ve built one or two of his kits in a week so it’s not as outlandish a question as it might appear!
Aesthetically, they’re perhaps an acquired taste, but I gained that taste some time ago - 4mm - The Sentinel (and derivatives) in EM - and have built two of their post-war designs and one of the later Thomas Hills, already.
So what is it? A geared, 6-coupled, oil-fired (actually even that isn’t simple - the idea was to warm it up on diesel and switch to heavy oil once hot: a bit like a petrol/TVO tractor), vertical-boilered loco sold to the steel industry, at Dorman Long on Teeside and to GKN in Cardiff. They were mechanically interesting, since the boiler was harnessed to the usual high speed Sentinel engine units atop the 6-coupled chassis which was also paired with a decidedly eccentric ‘fireless’ system (that one didn’t work but was quite attractive in a sleek ‘50s sort of a way). The soundness of chassis element of the design was eventually coupled to a Rolls Royce diesel and the 0-6-0 Sentinel is still just about in use in industry today.
Anyway, the kit is typically Edge in concept: lots of sub-assemblies, bolted together, in relatively sturdy brass, and everything fits. Here are the first two assemblies, the basic chassis, and the footplate and outer frames.
The one slightly puzzling element is that Mike seems to have missed off a lifting bracket from the artwork so I had to raid the spare etch box which happens to have a few bits that could be modified to suit. The baseplate for the bodywork is bolted on and the next job is to solder the nuts on: I’ve blackened the footplate so the solder shouldn’t stick, I hope.
Adam
Aesthetically, they’re perhaps an acquired taste, but I gained that taste some time ago - 4mm - The Sentinel (and derivatives) in EM - and have built two of their post-war designs and one of the later Thomas Hills, already.
So what is it? A geared, 6-coupled, oil-fired (actually even that isn’t simple - the idea was to warm it up on diesel and switch to heavy oil once hot: a bit like a petrol/TVO tractor), vertical-boilered loco sold to the steel industry, at Dorman Long on Teeside and to GKN in Cardiff. They were mechanically interesting, since the boiler was harnessed to the usual high speed Sentinel engine units atop the 6-coupled chassis which was also paired with a decidedly eccentric ‘fireless’ system (that one didn’t work but was quite attractive in a sleek ‘50s sort of a way). The soundness of chassis element of the design was eventually coupled to a Rolls Royce diesel and the 0-6-0 Sentinel is still just about in use in industry today.
Anyway, the kit is typically Edge in concept: lots of sub-assemblies, bolted together, in relatively sturdy brass, and everything fits. Here are the first two assemblies, the basic chassis, and the footplate and outer frames.
The one slightly puzzling element is that Mike seems to have missed off a lifting bracket from the artwork so I had to raid the spare etch box which happens to have a few bits that could be modified to suit. The baseplate for the bodywork is bolted on and the next job is to solder the nuts on: I’ve blackened the footplate so the solder shouldn’t stick, I hope.
Adam
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