Back to working on the big engine (Raven 4-6-2 class) with lubricators, sandbox filers and a small footplate handrail.
The lubricator was ‘lost plastic’ cast from a very detailed 3DP courtesy of Simon Grand. It is amazing how the detail has picked up in the casting.
The base peg was used to help locate the steel running plate that is also held down by magnets. The sand box filler also started off as a peg through a hole into the brass sub-structure. As always, easier to start with a large component - to hold whilst soldering - and then trim to size.
The little nickel silver handrail was bent up with two locating holes in the running plate and a spacer gauge whittled from a scrap of paxolin.
This was then soldered in place clamping the handrail between some jaws of titanium tweezers (they don’t take solder) and soldered in place from underneath. Any excess solder and wire was simply filed away.
Finally, a picture of the prototype for comparison.
Turning attention to the cab spectacle e on the NER 4-6-2 class, I have put in the quarter light separator bar within the window frame. This was made from brass strip let in to a notch cut in the spectacle plate itself with a large piercing saw blade.
The over width strip was then paired down to be flush at the front. I’m not sure how much lining out was applied to cab fronts on NER engines, but the brass window surrounds will probably just be achieved by scraping the edges of the windows.
The gap between the firebox and the cab will be covered by a cleading strip.
The steel cab roof has also now been fitted, making for a suitably rigid structure. Does anyone have any details of the cab roof ventilators on these Raven cabs?
After 2.5 days at Missenden Railway Modeller’s summer school, the Raven 4-6-2 class now has a completed cab roof and front buffer beam.
After massively zooming in on the GA drawings, I decided that the cab ventilator on the cab roof would have been a semi-internal sliding variety.
The front buffer beam was drilled out, being soldered to some sacrificial brass angle to ease holding in the vice.
It had a very significant pair of cut-away to avoid platform faces with the side swing of the engine front end.
I have now worked out how to make the smokebox front, which will probably be the next job.
