L&Y Class 27 in P4

[Dave Holt]

As mentioned in my B1 61159 thread, I'm working on a L&Y Class 27 owned by my friend David Clarke in return for him painting, lining and weathering my Ivatt Class 2 tank.
The model is based on a Craftsman kit but with a CSB sprung chassis (I think by Dave Carter). It was partly built but without the centre drivers, motor or gearbox and no chassis for the tender. My task was to get the loco running and finish off the chassis and to build the tender chassis using a Palatine Models etch.
Work on the loco is now complete from my perspective although it still needs the body finishing.
To minimise visibility of the motor and gear box, and to allow filling in the cut-out in the boiler, a compact High Level models gearbox and motor have been fitted. The other main jobs were to make the brake gear and sand pipes, all of which have to be removable to allow the wheel sets to be dropped out for painting and any maintenance. The front sand pipes in particular were a challenge to figure out as they bend round the outside of the front brake hangers very tightly. The solutions was the fix the sand pipes to cross-frame brackets with 14 BA countersunk screws. All very fiddly.
However, some of the ideas can be carried over when I come to build my own model of one of these locos.
Here are a few shots of the loco and chassis during the work.
Bare chassis after fitting the centre drivers (with axle mounted gearbox).

With brake gear fitted.
With sand pipes added.

With the body fitted, before the boiler cut out was filled.

Dave.

 

[Dave Holt]

Having created sketches for further etched and 3D printed parts for my B1, I've switched back to the Lanky Class 27, this time working on the tender chassis.
The chassis is built up from etches supplied by Palatine Models and uses CSB suspension with High Level miniature 2 mm horns and axleboxes. The tender body is already built, so that determines the placement of the frame spacers to tie up with the existing mounting screws.
I've reached the stage of a (temporarily) wheeled chassis - using 0.33 mm brass wire in lieu of the steel wire springs. This will allow the removable brake gear (original Craftsman kit parts) to be assembled.
Here's the current state.
Bare chassis tried in the body.

Chassis out of the body, with axleboxes in horns.

With wheel sets in and brake hanger pins fitted.

The centre horizontal spacer makes feeding the suspension spring through the CSB tags very difficult, so some cutting away to improve access in in order.
Brakes next and proper steel springs (wire in the post!).
Dave.

 

[Dave Holt]

Well, the tender chassis is finally complete, but what a battle.
All seemed to go quite well till a trial fit of the completed unit to the body showed a major ride height issue - the tender riding too high compared with the loco. An attempt to correct this by using the next hole down on the CSB tags corrected the ride height but resulted in the brakes being wrong relative to the wheels and all the suspension travel was used up, with the boxes at the top of the horn guides.
The problem stems from the frames being too deep but the prospect of trying to remove a millimetre from the top of the frames and spacers of a fully assembled chassis was too daunting. My compromise was to deepen the horn slots a tad and to cut off the brakes and re-fit higher up. so as to match the wheel position.
The final result seems OK with the footplate height matching the loco and a small amount of suspension travel available.

Phew!
Dave.