Nick Dunhill's Workshop - Royal Scot from a JLTRT kit
- Thread starter Nick Dunhill
- Start date
Nick Dunhill
Western Thunderer
So this week I finished the tender and started on the loco chassis. The rest of the scoop details and brake rigging were fitted up. I had to make the rigging removable to accommodate the (annoying) AGH wheels, and insulated the whole chassis from the body to prevent the inevitable shorts that occur when trying to use the US system. It's easier to install pickups than buggering around trying to find the short on a 12 coach train.
On to the body. I started with the rods, then moved on to the chassis. There was a half-day filing off etching cusps and a day assembling the basic chassis. The overlays don't quite fit, so I'll have to adjust that bit when I make the footplate. The kit has a lot of castings (that don't quite fit) to replace etched fabrications that do fit. Where to start, I do not know, the instructions are only a vague guide! There are some rather nice horn guide and axlebox castings that you can only use when making a rigid frame loco (!) Some etched horn guides are included, after the style of Slater's ones, that don't quite fit.....and if you assemble and fit them as the instructions imply the rod and axlebox centres are a country mile out. Always check and use the rods as a jig for locating axleboxes. I made a video about it that is on the Guild's YouTube channel, so no excuses!
Anyway I fitted up the wheels and they run very smoothy first time.
If anyone has made one of these locos, could you give me an idea about a suitable motor/gearbox? There's only a small recess in the firebox moulding, and I want to avoid burrowing in the GRP boiler moulding, as I'm told it lays waste to drills and burrs very quickly. I intend to drive the rear axle.
Haywood and myself are holding court on the naughty step at Stafford if you fancy a chat.
On to the body. I started with the rods, then moved on to the chassis. There was a half-day filing off etching cusps and a day assembling the basic chassis. The overlays don't quite fit, so I'll have to adjust that bit when I make the footplate. The kit has a lot of castings (that don't quite fit) to replace etched fabrications that do fit. Where to start, I do not know, the instructions are only a vague guide! There are some rather nice horn guide and axlebox castings that you can only use when making a rigid frame loco (!) Some etched horn guides are included, after the style of Slater's ones, that don't quite fit.....and if you assemble and fit them as the instructions imply the rod and axlebox centres are a country mile out. Always check and use the rods as a jig for locating axleboxes. I made a video about it that is on the Guild's YouTube channel, so no excuses!
Anyway I fitted up the wheels and they run very smoothy first time.
If anyone has made one of these locos, could you give me an idea about a suitable motor/gearbox? There's only a small recess in the firebox moulding, and I want to avoid burrowing in the GRP boiler moulding, as I'm told it lays waste to drills and burrs very quickly. I intend to drive the rear axle.
Haywood and myself are holding court on the naughty step at Stafford if you fancy a chat.
OzzyO
Western Thunderer
Hello Nick,
I like the horn cheek strengthening plates, you would think that you wouldn't see a lot, but it's surprising what you see when the locos is in motion.
The motors that I tended to use on all of my J.L.T.R.T. builds was the helical motor and gearbox from Ron Chapman. I think that you can get them from M.S.C. ?
The boiler in G.R.P.. For opening out the fire box to fit the motor and gearbox use the round drum sanding drums (you know the ones you don't know what to use them for) well this is the job, lots of dust so you may want to put a mask on.
For drilling the boiler for handrail knobs use a drill of the correct size that won't cut brass anymore. Put it in the Dremel put a good starting centre pop mark in the boiler and drill away it will wear the drill into a point but will cut to size. Keep it to one side for only doing this job. I'll see if I can find a photo of the drills after doing a number of blue boilers.
Have a good time at Stafford (sound wrong not saying Telford),
ATB
OzzyO.
I like the horn cheek strengthening plates, you would think that you wouldn't see a lot, but it's surprising what you see when the locos is in motion.
The motors that I tended to use on all of my J.L.T.R.T. builds was the helical motor and gearbox from Ron Chapman. I think that you can get them from M.S.C. ?
The boiler in G.R.P.. For opening out the fire box to fit the motor and gearbox use the round drum sanding drums (you know the ones you don't know what to use them for) well this is the job, lots of dust so you may want to put a mask on.
For drilling the boiler for handrail knobs use a drill of the correct size that won't cut brass anymore. Put it in the Dremel put a good starting centre pop mark in the boiler and drill away it will wear the drill into a point but will cut to size. Keep it to one side for only doing this job. I'll see if I can find a photo of the drills after doing a number of blue boilers.
Have a good time at Stafford (sound wrong not saying Telford),
ATB
OzzyO.
Dave Holt
Western Thunderer
The Scot sounds quite challenging with lots of "not quite fitting" parts but looks to be progressing well. The kit design looks to have quite a lot in common with the 4 mm Brassmasters kit which I built a while ago. Good luck with the build.
For those of us who are not regular Guildex visitors, what and where is the "naughty step"? It would be nice to say "hello" as I'm a regular follower of you WT posts.
Dave.
For those of us who are not regular Guildex visitors, what and where is the "naughty step"? It would be nice to say "hello" as I'm a regular follower of you WT posts.
Dave.
Lancastrian
Western Thunderer
Dave,
Nick and Warren's naughty step is stand 11A.
Nick and Warren's naughty step is stand 11A.
Nick Dunhill
Western Thunderer
Thanks for the tops Paul. I'll dig out my worst 1.2 mm drill, and buy one of those sanding drums.
Dreading it!
Yes it's certainly all change at Guildex. The new venue is good, but I also still call it Telford!
See you later this weekend Dave.
See you soon
Dreading it!
Yes it's certainly all change at Guildex. The new venue is good, but I also still call it Telford!
See you later this weekend Dave.
See you soon
Dave Holt
Western Thunderer
Nick.
It was a pleasure to meet you at Stafford, today, and chat about your modelling and to see the Scot in progress. I fear you were surrounded by 4 mm scale modellers at the time (myself included!), but good modelling transcends the scale, I think.
Congratulations on receiving your award.
Dave.
It was a pleasure to meet you at Stafford, today, and chat about your modelling and to see the Scot in progress. I fear you were surrounded by 4 mm scale modellers at the time (myself included!), but good modelling transcends the scale, I think.
Congratulations on receiving your award.
Dave.
Clarence3815
Western Thunderer
Tell more.
What was the award?
What was the award?
Lancastrian
Western Thunderer
Bernard,
Someone made a suggestion that after running the modelling competition for 16 years, and for his work on the technical committee, Nick was deserving of a Gauge O Guild Order of Merit.
Rob Pulham
Western Thunderer
Great news, thoroughly deserved in my view.
OzzyO
Western Thunderer
You and me both.
Well deserved Nick. I would raise a glass but I can't drink,
OzzyO.
Clarence3815
Western Thunderer
Perfectly reasonable.
Well done that man.
Well done that man.
Nick Dunhill
Western Thunderer
This week I decided to make the footplate. I noted earlier (above) that the chassis has brass overlays on the outside face. They don't fit very well, and I couldn't decide where to mount them. I decided to use the bottom of the frames where the bogie wheels will sit, and the bottom rear of the chassis. In this position the holes for the brake hangers nearly line up. The overlay overhangs the top of the chassis in various places, so I thought it would be prudent to make the footplate, fit it up and level everything.
The footplate has the valences mounted on a sub frame designed to keep everything flat. It is designed to hold the basic footplate structure square while fitting all the overlays, buffer beams and cab. I couldn't find anything to make the 90 degree fold between the valences and the footplate. I gave up and cut off the sub frame and just bent down the valence gradually with some pliers.
There are a couple of sub-structures to hold the valence at the rear and the front which fitted up quite nicely. All the overlays for the footplate top and the curved bits at the front went on quite easily, as did the splasher tops and the valve chest cover.
I decided to make the cab as a sub assembly to make sure that the curved section of footplate at the rear would match the profile of the cab bottom. It was another rabbit hole I didn't want to go down, but had no choice. The bits of half etch overlays for the rear curvy footplate are a bugger to fit up properly, and are too short by about 0.8 mm (it says so in the 'instructions.') Anyway by this stage I was becoming a bit frustrated by the whole process. The sub structures and fold down allignment parts are, no doubt, designed to help, but were actually becoming a hinderance to the build. Also they're permanent on the footplate structure, and are visible from underneath. They become structures that aren't there on the real loco.
Anyway, moaning aside, it did make quite a pleasing cab and footplate structure.
Climbing back out of successive rabbit holes, I then tried to fit the chassis up to the footplate assembly. It was as if the designer of the footplate had never met the designer of the chassis. Back to the wretched chassis overlays, they needed a fair bit of modification to make the rear and front of the chassis land where I assumed they needed to on the footplate. I had to remove all the outriggers on the chassis and the front chassis stay. The bracket for the fastners had to be cut off the rear of the footplate and repositioned, while the front of the chassis didn't have any provision for screws. Lots of tea and podcasts later it all fitted up.
I then discovered that the footplate on the tender has an extension that raises it up to cab floor level. There's nothing in the kit for this, or if there is the 'instructions' don't mention it. I modified the front of the tender with scratchbuilt parts.
Next up was the cab roof. There's a moulded resin roof in the kit. Mine had curled up along all the straight edges, had a broken rain strip and a finger print in the middle. There are etchings in the kit for a metal roof, which I made up, as I decided it was quicker to fabricate a brass roof rather than mend the snotty resin one.
In the end though it did look well. The chassis was levelled, and the wheels still turned freely.
Back briefly to the valence. The valence folds down from a sub layer of the footplate. The half etched fold lines aren't continuous, and the gaps are a nightmare to fill smoothy when you've fitted the footplate top overlays.
Back next week with more battles.
The footplate has the valences mounted on a sub frame designed to keep everything flat. It is designed to hold the basic footplate structure square while fitting all the overlays, buffer beams and cab. I couldn't find anything to make the 90 degree fold between the valences and the footplate. I gave up and cut off the sub frame and just bent down the valence gradually with some pliers.
There are a couple of sub-structures to hold the valence at the rear and the front which fitted up quite nicely. All the overlays for the footplate top and the curved bits at the front went on quite easily, as did the splasher tops and the valve chest cover.
I decided to make the cab as a sub assembly to make sure that the curved section of footplate at the rear would match the profile of the cab bottom. It was another rabbit hole I didn't want to go down, but had no choice. The bits of half etch overlays for the rear curvy footplate are a bugger to fit up properly, and are too short by about 0.8 mm (it says so in the 'instructions.') Anyway by this stage I was becoming a bit frustrated by the whole process. The sub structures and fold down allignment parts are, no doubt, designed to help, but were actually becoming a hinderance to the build. Also they're permanent on the footplate structure, and are visible from underneath. They become structures that aren't there on the real loco.
Anyway, moaning aside, it did make quite a pleasing cab and footplate structure.
Climbing back out of successive rabbit holes, I then tried to fit the chassis up to the footplate assembly. It was as if the designer of the footplate had never met the designer of the chassis. Back to the wretched chassis overlays, they needed a fair bit of modification to make the rear and front of the chassis land where I assumed they needed to on the footplate. I had to remove all the outriggers on the chassis and the front chassis stay. The bracket for the fastners had to be cut off the rear of the footplate and repositioned, while the front of the chassis didn't have any provision for screws. Lots of tea and podcasts later it all fitted up.
I then discovered that the footplate on the tender has an extension that raises it up to cab floor level. There's nothing in the kit for this, or if there is the 'instructions' don't mention it. I modified the front of the tender with scratchbuilt parts.
Next up was the cab roof. There's a moulded resin roof in the kit. Mine had curled up along all the straight edges, had a broken rain strip and a finger print in the middle. There are etchings in the kit for a metal roof, which I made up, as I decided it was quicker to fabricate a brass roof rather than mend the snotty resin one.
In the end though it did look well. The chassis was levelled, and the wheels still turned freely.
Back briefly to the valence. The valence folds down from a sub layer of the footplate. The half etched fold lines aren't continuous, and the gaps are a nightmare to fill smoothy when you've fitted the footplate top overlays.
Back next week with more battles.
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Nick Dunhill
Western Thunderer
I had a cheeky few days in the sunshine in Greece last week, but back at the bench this week.
I finished the cab roof and built the bogie and motion. The bogie was ok. The instructions were reasonably informative, and once the castings had been fettled, it went together quite well. The rocking beams work, so it has full suspension. Someone tipped me off that the boge lifts the front of the chassis if you assemble as per instructions, and mine did too. Happily I was able to work round this quickly, I think the middle casting thingy for the bogie is too tall. I moved the chassis mount upwards a few millimetres and all was well.
There was a ton of castings for the slidebars, crossheads and all the motion brackets.
They took a day to fettle properly, and to make the crossheads move nicely inside the slide bars. The castings weren't too bad actually, and they fitted the chassis quite well. There were no alignment marks on the chassis, and I lined everything up using photographs. Everything seemed to fit ok, so I moved on to making the rods.
I made the con rods first and then the return cranks and eccentric rods. The instructions made no mention of the etched bosses for the con rod big ends present on the etches, I put them on anyway. The return cranks were a lamination of two parts, and made quite thick levers. When all were offered up, and the crankpins cut to suit, the front end of the radius rods fell about 0.9 mm outside where the expansion link would hang. The outer bosses on the con rod big end were reduced in thickness, and the return cranks were re-made from thinner material (now closely matching the thickness of the real thing.) This moved the eccentric rod inwards to line up nicely with the expansion link. All the rods were now parallel and cross in front of each other without conflict. Very satisfying!
Annoyingly the etches only had one lever for the lifting links. I had to fabricate the other 3, and the spacers to make the items. They can be seen in front of the chassis in the last pic.
I simply soldered the lever that was present to some scrap etch and cut more out. I just have the radius rods and lifting links to fit on monday and I can move on to the brakes.
I finished the cab roof and built the bogie and motion. The bogie was ok. The instructions were reasonably informative, and once the castings had been fettled, it went together quite well. The rocking beams work, so it has full suspension. Someone tipped me off that the boge lifts the front of the chassis if you assemble as per instructions, and mine did too. Happily I was able to work round this quickly, I think the middle casting thingy for the bogie is too tall. I moved the chassis mount upwards a few millimetres and all was well.
There was a ton of castings for the slidebars, crossheads and all the motion brackets.
They took a day to fettle properly, and to make the crossheads move nicely inside the slide bars. The castings weren't too bad actually, and they fitted the chassis quite well. There were no alignment marks on the chassis, and I lined everything up using photographs. Everything seemed to fit ok, so I moved on to making the rods.
I made the con rods first and then the return cranks and eccentric rods. The instructions made no mention of the etched bosses for the con rod big ends present on the etches, I put them on anyway. The return cranks were a lamination of two parts, and made quite thick levers. When all were offered up, and the crankpins cut to suit, the front end of the radius rods fell about 0.9 mm outside where the expansion link would hang. The outer bosses on the con rod big end were reduced in thickness, and the return cranks were re-made from thinner material (now closely matching the thickness of the real thing.) This moved the eccentric rod inwards to line up nicely with the expansion link. All the rods were now parallel and cross in front of each other without conflict. Very satisfying!
Annoyingly the etches only had one lever for the lifting links. I had to fabricate the other 3, and the spacers to make the items. They can be seen in front of the chassis in the last pic.
I simply soldered the lever that was present to some scrap etch and cut more out. I just have the radius rods and lifting links to fit on monday and I can move on to the brakes.
Dave Holt
Western Thunderer
All very neat and looking good, Nick, as we've come to expect.
You may have created some extra work for yourself as, on the prototype, the eccentric rods do slope inwards, slightly, from the return crank end (7'- 8.75" ctrs) to the expansion links (7' - 7" ctrs), mainly because there's quite a thick boss on the inside of the rod. Return cranks are 7' - 5.75" over the outsides.
Dave.
You may have created some extra work for yourself as, on the prototype, the eccentric rods do slope inwards, slightly, from the return crank end (7'- 8.75" ctrs) to the expansion links (7' - 7" ctrs), mainly because there's quite a thick boss on the inside of the rod. Return cranks are 7' - 5.75" over the outsides.
Dave.
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Nick Dunhill
Western Thunderer
Oh thanks for that info Dave. I wonder what sort of bearings the radius rod had to cope with that movement?
Dave Holt
Western Thunderer
Nick.
Plain bearings both ends. The rod ends were kinked so that they aligned with the return crank and expansion link pins (the return rod boss was 3" wide) and only the portion of eccentric rod between the bosses was angled. Interestingly, the fluting of the rod was on the outside only, with the back face being plain.
Dave.
Plain bearings both ends. The rod ends were kinked so that they aligned with the return crank and expansion link pins (the return rod boss was 3" wide) and only the portion of eccentric rod between the bosses was angled. Interestingly, the fluting of the rod was on the outside only, with the back face being plain.
Dave.