daifly
Western Thunderer
Persuaded yesterday by the Bath Bookseller to build one of my collection of kits, I chose the Agenoria kit of the ex-Cambrian 2-4-0s nos. 1192/6/7. All 3 locos all can be constructed form the kit in their GWR rebuilt form with most of the detail variances catered for. Since 1192 was withdrawn in 1929 and 1196/7 both lasted until 1948, I arbitrarily selected 1196 to be the subject of this build. I have a second identical kit which will become 1197.
The instructions begin with assembly of the cab and tanks, but my preference is to first build a running chassis. Almost immediately I hit on a snag. This is my first loco build since moving up from 4mm EM gauge and I found that the instruction to ‘ream out the axle holes’ required a considerably bigger broach/reamer than anything that I had in the toolbox. The old, crude standby of the tang of a file did the job but I bought a taper reamer from Squires today from their stand at Swindon ‘Steam’ exhibition so future builds will be easier.
Incidentally this is a particularly good show with substantial content of 7mm layouts and exhibitors including Pete Waterman assembling a JLTRT ‘Bloater’ and David White (of Slater’s) getting into a pickle building a bogie by ignoring the assembly instructions what he wrote and finding that he had bits of brake gear left over which could not be fitted at a late stage!
The chassis is built up using tab and slot spacers. Most of the slots needed opening up using a screwdriver blade to remove the cusp from the etched slots which stopped the tabs entering. A number of tabs were slightly too long but a couple of strokes of a file reduced their length to fit. A number of holes were drilled out in the chassis sides ready to accept wires representing bolts or to hold the brake assemblies.
Time to fire up the RSU tomorrow. Photos and more to follow.
The instructions begin with assembly of the cab and tanks, but my preference is to first build a running chassis. Almost immediately I hit on a snag. This is my first loco build since moving up from 4mm EM gauge and I found that the instruction to ‘ream out the axle holes’ required a considerably bigger broach/reamer than anything that I had in the toolbox. The old, crude standby of the tang of a file did the job but I bought a taper reamer from Squires today from their stand at Swindon ‘Steam’ exhibition so future builds will be easier.
Incidentally this is a particularly good show with substantial content of 7mm layouts and exhibitors including Pete Waterman assembling a JLTRT ‘Bloater’ and David White (of Slater’s) getting into a pickle building a bogie by ignoring the assembly instructions what he wrote and finding that he had bits of brake gear left over which could not be fitted at a late stage!
The chassis is built up using tab and slot spacers. Most of the slots needed opening up using a screwdriver blade to remove the cusp from the etched slots which stopped the tabs entering. A number of tabs were slightly too long but a couple of strokes of a file reduced their length to fit. A number of holes were drilled out in the chassis sides ready to accept wires representing bolts or to hold the brake assemblies.
Time to fire up the RSU tomorrow. Photos and more to follow.
