7mm Richard's 9f workbench

richard carr

Western Thunderer
As some of you know 9fs are my favourite steam locomotives, so it is time to get on build the MOK kits that I have.

I did build a DJH 9f about 15 years ago

20201230_121604.jpg

It runs nicely, it is battery powered but it doesn't have all the detail that is could have especially on the chassis.

This one though does have plenty of details

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This is a Lee Marsh one that Martyn Welch has weathered.

So it's now time to build mine to the same standard as 92150

I have three to build, so I think it is going to take me at least 3 years to do them all, 2 are going to be Tyne dock engines and the third 92087 is another Eastern region loco with a BR 1F tender.

20201230_122032.jpg

I always like to start with the tenders and get those out of the way, so it is 2 BR 1C tenders and a BR 1F, I also have a 1C for a 76000 class loco so I'm going to do that at the same time too as at least half the build time for a kit is understanding the instructions !

The most difficult thing to do with the tenders is to get the fold right at the top of the sides.
The instructions give you a guide as to where to begin the fold but they don't mention what radius rod to form it round.

The first one (a 1/C) was a bit of a guess really starting out with a 30mm rod then a 20mm and finally an 8mm. None of those are right, it really wants a 12mm one, so I ordered a 12mm kitchen door handle on Amazon as that arrived the next day, not just 1 but 10 thankfully it only cost 11.99 for them all.

Here it is in action.

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One nice smooth fold over, not to the end of the side as that is still straight.

This is how it ended up.

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Thats near enough if you ask me here are the rest of the sides

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The other thing I would say is the fold should start a little further up the side the instructions suggest.

The 1/F is quite different, the base sides are flat it is only the overlays that are curved, so I will come to the one later.
 

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
Me too. I nearly “drove” David Shepherd’s 9F at the GWSR 15 years ago but it had boiler problems and was replaced with City of Truro. Either way it was a great experience. The Fire and Drive team said I would have found shoveling coal into the 9F very hard work.

Dave’s kits are well designed but do they have a lot of details, even the 64xx. Doing three 9Fs at once sounds a good idea.
 

dibateg

Western Thunderer
I shall enjoy following this Richard - I built 3 DJH 9Fs together a while back. In pieces they take up a lot of space on the workbench!

Regards
Tony
 

Scale7JB

Western Thunderer
Me too. I nearly “drove” David Shepherd’s 9F at the GWSR 15 years ago but it had boiler problems and was replaced with City of Truro. Either way it was a great experience. The Fire and Drive team said I would have found shoveling coal into the 9F very hard work.

Dave’s kits are well designed but do they have a lot of details, even the 64xx. Doing three 9Fs at once sounds a good idea.

Paul, firing City of Truro is far more special than a 9f. Plenty of 9f’s about and COT will probably never steam again. The stars aligned that day!

JB.
 

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
JB, I agree with you about City of Truro. It was great to be on the footplate on a cold day except when going in reverse, but I simply could not imagine hanging on at whatever the high speed was achieved on Wellington Bank. The 9F cab would have been the more comfortable.
 

Scale7JB

Western Thunderer
JB, I agree with you about City of Truro. It was great to be on the footplate on a cold day except when going in reverse, but I simply could not imagine hanging on at whatever the high speed was achieved on Wellington Bank. The 9F cab would have been the more comfortable.

Supposedly the ton, but even if it wasn’t there’s still not much of a cab at say, 90mph!

The 9f cabs are very nice, except in the height of summer. I was lucky enough to get Richard a cab ride on 92214 a couple of years back - best of the bunch. Think he enjoyed it.

JB.
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
Richard (@richard carr),

Three 9Fs at the same time... to add to the previous two 9Fs... you, Sir, have thrown several spanners in the works (1" Whitworth for the weight). Peter and I have worked hard over the past few years in convincing ourselves that we really, really, really do not need a MOK 9F.

Life here is bad enough with Peter's flock of LLG 37/4s which grew after seeing your fleet, now we have to build an inspection pit and an ash pit to cope with the pending Kettles.

regards, Graham
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
A bit more progress has been made on the next 2 tender bodies.

These are all the parts for 2 of the basic bodies

20201231_174740.jpg

There is one awkward fold on the footplate, where you will need some kind of folding aid such as the one in the picture above and below.

20201231_174810_HDR.jpg


I used a hammer to tap it gently into position

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The next thing is to add a couple of overlays to 2 of the body formers and detail the front one with the lockers and the back with the lifting links and coal sprayer. This is much easier to do before you add it to the body.
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Yesterday was a good day on the tender front and I ended up with these.

20210102_221559.jpg

4 basic bodies all ready for detailing, no prize for guessing which one is the BF 1F.

One thing that is not clear in the BR1B/C instructions is when to add the locker front (part 88), the first thing it says to do is to form the body and as this includes part 88 it is tempting to add it now. I would not, this requires considerable detailing with the addition of an 2 overlays on the rear the lifting links each made up of 4 etched parts and all the front detail, this all wants attaching first before it goes in the body.
Fortunately it wasn't too difficult to remove the 1 that I had already fitted !

Here's one waiting to go in

20210102_133815.jpg

20210102_133846.jpg

And this is what you need to add at the front.
The 1F instructions are different and make this a lot clearer.

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If you are wondering what all the holes are in the coal space floor, it is because I intend to use battery powered DCC for these locos. The batteries will fit in the rear space but some of the electronics will need to go in the coal space.

20210102_215723.jpg

Hopefully today will be just as productive.
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
I will be following this thread with interest, as I love watching O gauge locos develop. It is more akin to model engineering. Lovely trackwork in the first post.

Regarding firing long boxes, we were taught to swing the shovel so that it hit the bottom of the firehole. This action propelled the coal to the bottom of the firebox. It was a labour saving action (but noisy) and so throwing coal was not necessary. However, I have never seen this method used in preservation. To feed the bottom corners, the shovel was tilted at an angle as it hit the hole. Jeepers, it's over 60 years ago.
 
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Scale7JB

Western Thunderer
I will be following this thread with interest, as I love watching O gauge locos develop. It is more akin to model engineering. Lovely trackwork in the first post.

Regarding firing long boxes, we were taught to swing the shovel so that it hit the bottom of the firehole. This action propelled the coal to the bottom of the firebox. It was a labour saving action (but noisy) and so throwing coal was not necessary. However, I have never seen this method used in preservation. To feed the bottom corners, the shovel was tilted at an angle as it hit the hole. Jeepers, it's over 60 years ago.

Larry, used quite often in preservation.

I use the same method but to give a sprinkling of coal over a grate. If you’ve got a hole in a ‘long’ box (which a 9f doesn’t have) there’s no substitute for accuracy and technique.

JB.
 

SimonT

Western Thunderer
Richard,
you have prodded me into today's job - making a hole in the 1C tender floor and fitting the R/C and DCC. It's either that or I need to work out where to put the battery master switch in the Western while keeping the Visitron speaker.
Simon
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
9F fans may like this

It was new to me, never heard of this happening. If you read the comments one of the firemen got taken to hospital for burns as the heat was so intense from the firebox !

Col.

Trust me, if you saw it (I did!) you heard it from a fair way off as well!

Adam
 
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