7mm On Heather's Workbench - Aintree Iron: an Austerity adventure

[OzzyO]

Hello Heather,

do you plan to move the supports that are in the coal bunker? As the front one should be right at the back of the top of the tender front coal plate.

For the tender compensation units this is how I tend to do it. Using two dummy axles turned to 29.2mm they set the bearings positions, then a length of 3mm tube that will form the pivot,


After this the pivot tube is cut in the middle using a fine saw blade (this gives a bit of play) it also lets the two axles move independently. To make sure that the pivot pin rod can't come out of the frames I just solder one end of the rod,


ATB

OzzyO.

 

[alcazar]

Neat and good engineering.

To go back to JLTRT, now there is a manufacturer who, should they close their doors, a lot of us would be worse off without.

 

[Heather Kay]

do you plan to move the supports that are in the coal bunker? As the front one should be right at the back of the top of the tender front coal plate.

That's what you get for believing an RTR manufacturer got it right. It should be possible to shift the brackets and I shall consider it soon.

 

[richard carr]

Neat and good engineering.

To go back to JLTRT, now there is a manufacturer who, should they close their doors, a lot of us would be worse off without.

Well said Jeff , we need them, they produce some great kits, and I have to say their packing has been much improved recently, the 2 forty kits I got last Christmas were perfectly packed.


Richard

 

[john lewsey]

Agreed

 

[adrian]

I have to say their packing has been much improved recently, the 2 forty kits I got last Christmas were perfectly packed.

As I see it the kits they have produced themselves have relatively few if any problems, the ones they seem to struggle with are the kits they have inherited.

 

[James]

As I see it the kits they have produced themselves have relatively few if any problems, the ones they seem to struggle with are the kits they have inherited.

That could be said of a few manufacturers who have bought tooling from others - London Road Models produce the old George Norton J21 and J25 and include a note explaining the age of the kits and even which bits the designer forgot to include!

 

[Heather Kay]

Monday was a washout, for a couple of reasons not worth going into here. Suffice it to say, when angry about something I find it safest to leave the workbench well alone.

Back on track, the missing parts arrived from bonnie Scotland, along with the MOK self-contained buffers.



I have also relocated the bunker brace brackets to a more accurate position.



The rest of today will be fitting out the suspension details, making up and insulating the brake blocks, and thinking about how to organise the current collection.

Tomorrow, I shall return attention to the Broad Gauge build for a spell.

 

[Heather Kay]

I've been trying to get the tender further along.

Laurie at JLTRT kindly sent me some spare sprues of the characteristic plain handrail knobs. As supplied, and according to the packing list, there wouldn't be enough to cover both loco and tender.

A survey of the photos showed the short handrail at the top of the ladder was often inset quite a way, rather than being right at the edge as the moulded holes suggested. Muggins here obviously didn't spot this, hence the filler! The longer handrail frequently shows a characteristic bend at one end, and again is not as the moulded holes might suggest.



The centre top lamp bracket is on the centreline. The kit-supplied vacuum pipe stand, which comes in three nicely moulded brass pieces to replicate the various angles and unions of the real thing, sadly needs a bit of adjustment in order to let it sit close to the lamp bracket. I have left the rear ladder for now, as it is a brass construction that may be a little vulnerable at this stage.

I've added the extra tank filler lid grab handle, and the short chain that stopped the lid from vanishing over the side!

Things still to do: work out the water gauge fittings, complete the tender front footplate detailing, repair the slight damage I managed to do to the bunker plate flanges.

 

[dibateg]

Phew, a quick check of my Snowhill tenders shows the ladder handrail to be in the right place!

Some tank fillers later on appear to be hinged, but I didn't have enough information to replicate that, so I've left them as the removable lids.

Regards
Tony

 

[Heather Kay]

How are you planning to make the stirrup shaped footrests under each buffer? There don't appear to be parts for them in the kit.

From what I can make out these steps are just plain bar. There's some plain etch strip alongside the rear ladder that I can use.

 

[Heather Kay]

I realised I hadn't actually featured the brass origami of the tender front steps in detail before. Here are the left and right side steps, one upside down so you can see the back.



The etched slot in the main body isn't in the right place, from what I can tell. It'll make more sense when I fit the steps and photograph it so you can see what I mean.

 

[Heather Kay]

Making better progress than England against India today!



The tender rear ladder has a tidy jig to help build it straight and square. The rungs are formed by 0.7mm wire. I had to broach out the holes for the wire to fit neatly.



Some solder late, and the ladder is ready for tidying up.



Ready to fit, almost. As you can probably make out, there are no pegs to fix the ladder to the tender body. I plan to solder some fine wire to the ends of the legs to fit into holes for strength.

Attention turned to the brake gear.



Can you spot the deliberate error?

All the shoes are left-handed. The etches are laminated, but there's no way I could have made this mistake myself. Hopefully, the error won't be too obvious hidden in the gloom under the tender frames.



Test fitting. Brass wire for the hangers, currently over long. I plan to use brass tube as a spacers between the frame and the brake shoe etches, with the etched washer to hold the shoe on the wire. There are quite chunky cast brass cross shafts to tie it all together underneath.

 

[Heather Kay]

These parts appear to be for the stirrup steps under each buffer on the tender. I think they may benefit from a little beefing up with some wire.

 

[OzzyO]

I think that you may be able to use the brake (blocks) gear on both sides if you turn them upside down.
Looking at your photo of them it looks like that there is a very small difference between the top and bottom of the brake shoes. So maybe there is a left and right hand side to the etches?

To check this out, put a drill of the correct size through the brake block pivot of one of them and try all of the rest of them against it (back to back), if it looks the same you have two sides.

Looking at your photo, you may? have drilled some of the top holes the size for the bottom holes.

It's only an idea?

OzzyO.

 

[Heather Kay]

It's only an idea?.

A very good one. I shall look at doing just that, and I suspect you may be right about my drilling!

 

[Heather Kay]

Meanwhile, the client has seen sense and asked me to weather the loco for him.

 

[Heather Kay]

In an attempt to make some progress, I had a think about the tender brake cross shaft.



My impression is the earlier kit design expected the cross shaft to be made up of rod and etched levers. This kit contains a brass casting, which is obviously - and thankfully - too wide. At first, I couldn't figure out how it was supposed to be supported, as the outer holes in the frames are filled with cast plates.

Sometimes I find it easier to work out how something goes together if I fit other bits first, so I attached the cast metal brake cylinder, and the etched adjustment rods, leaving them free to pivot at this stage.

Although it really isn't at all clear on the drawings I have, eventually I worked out where the cast support brackets were supposed to go.



Of course, they don't fit outboard of the cast levers on the shaft. Oh no, that would be too easy! Oddly, two sprues are supplied, but I can only find a pair of brackets used on the real thing.

The other thing I had to bear in mind was the brake gear is fitted to the inner chassis, and this is removable from the rest of the tender. By a process of trial and error, I cut off the shaft excess and filed until it was a sliding fit between the outer frames. Now I could work out how it might be supported by the brackets.





And here is the slightly messy solution. Each support bracket was sliced through and opened out to let the cross shaft slot in. When cutting the brackets from their sprue, I left the spigot on the bottom, because the bracket has to be soldered to an etched bracket, and the more surface area I could get the better. I filed a flat on the spigot, too, and tinned everything. It took a couple of goes, including an abortive attempt to wrestle things into place while the brackets were on the shaft. In the end, fitting the brackets in place, then fitting the shaft turned out to be the best method. Apologies for the splodgy solder fixing the shaft in place in the brackets, but I didn't want the brackets unseating themselves!

Now I can work out the brake shoe and cross beam arrangements. Oh, and add a handbrake lever and connection. What is it about this kit and the lack of handbrake detailing below the footplate I wonder?

 

[Heather Kay]

I'm really struggling to make headway with builds right now. Perhaps I need a proper holiday or something.

Be that as it may, thoughts have turned to current collection and fitting the brakes. Of course, I can't really fit the brakes until I've painted the frames, and I can't do that until I've fitted pickups…



As the actual rolling frames are internal, with all the outer stuff just along for the ride and to make it look pretty, I don't have to be clever about where to place the pickups. In this case, I have some C&L 4mm x 1.6mm copperclad which I intend to run as a bus bar along the tops of the outside of each side. Careful bending of the phosphor bronze strip allows current to be collected via the wheel treads, while also imparting just a little springing control to the compensated pairs. A slot on the top of the frame will allow wire to run inside without being crushed when the body is fitted, and some veroboard will be used to pass the current forward via a plug to the loco. I hope the wires can be made to resemble, at least in profile, the various water and brake pipes that appear on the real thing.

I've run 0.7mm brass wire across the frames, through the holes for the brake hangers. Over each end, and butted up to the frame, I've fixed a 4mm length of tube which helps keep the hangers a constant distance from the frames. With luck, if the need arises to remove the wheels for some reason, two soldered joints can be undone and the whole shebang will move out of the way.

 

[Heather Kay]

Contemplating the brake rigging, I decided now would be a sensible time to try and finish the odd details on the main bodywork.



You can see my attempt at the water gauge here. I found some square section brass tube that was accommodating to my whims with the whizzy disc to turn it into two small right-angle brackets. The gauge is just 0.7mm brass wire. Fitting the steps, which I've left till this late stage because they are a little vulnerable to damage, needed a little tweaking and some deft manoeuvres with the RSU. The constructions are held by the top bracket, the bottom and the angled bracket.

A note here about the supplied etches for these steps. The top bracket has three half-etched rivets. If you study the drawings and photos, you'll note the steps overhang the front of the tender, the leading edge aligning more or less with the front corner of the footplate. I assume three rivets/bolts exist on the real thing, but I essentially removed the one that would end up fixing the step to fresh air. Now they are fitted, they are quite strong, but I shall still treat them with some respect.



Another angle to show the step fitting.



T'other side.



The rear end now sports the stirrup steps. These are essentially butt-soldered under the buffer beam end steps, and I still think I will reinforce them by running some 0.5mm wire up the back onto the rear of the beam.

The main ladder has been fitted with 0.5mm wire pins on the bottom, inserted in holes that took me a while to align and drill out. The top edges are held by dabs of cyano.

The MOK self-contained buffers work really well, and are not a million miles away from the correct style. Only a true Austerity nerd will notice.