Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[nzpaul]

Graeme, your work continues to amaze, astound and all those other big words that sum up the wow factor. It must have been a rather heart warming moment when you put that together for the first time to have it look so decidedly K2-esque, all because of the crosshead/slide bars in particular that capture the character of the loco. Brilliant stuff.

Paul

[Atso]

Excellent work Graeme!

The design of the Bachmann V1 cylinders really lend themselves to this conversion, in this respect you are luckier than I am.

With Farish products the cylinder block as a single piece moulding so it would be difficult for me to shave off the top of the cylinders. My own solution will have to be to design the outer portion of the cylinder as an integral part of the running plate (say 1 - 1.5mm deep) and shave the appropriate amount off of the sides of the donor cylinders. This also has the advantage that I can maintain strength along the length of the running plate (which is thin in N gauge!).

Seeing how quickly you've put this together really makes me want to get on with my B1 based MK2 version now!

[S.A.C. Martin]

Here's the thing - if the new Bachmann V3 emerges with the sort of redesigned mechanism that the V2 mechanism did, then this all becomes a lot more easier for Graeme I suspect - particularly with the valve gear (the V2 for instances has a screw in the crank pin, whereas its older chassis and the V3 just have push fit pins). That, and for those of us who use DCC, the newer chassis would be most welcome.

[Atlantic 3279]

The valve gear alterations for the second side of the K2 went together much more quickly and easily, working to known dimensions with certainty of clearances and the resultant ability to assemble most of it off the model rather than having to work in situ and check constantly for snags. A loco to tender drawbar is now fitted too, along with a basic rear coupling, so I can try out the loco in traffic. This evening I've spent AGES making up the fronts of the valve chests with their valve tail rod covers, mostly in brass, cursing as I was trying to cut and shape pieces barely big enough to hold. If only I'd had the correct sizes of telescopic tube in plastic!

[Hatfield Shed]

This has been very interesting to watch, and has set me thinking about using a K3 mechanism and footplate as the basis. Laziness though plays a part in this; going to wait to see if Heljan consider offering the mouldings for at least the GNR tender that will grace their O2. (If they cared to offer the GNR cab form loco body mouldings as well...)

[LNER4479]

After keeping myself busy over a couple of days adding more little bits of plastikard, etched washers, strips of aluminium tape and wire to the K2 body in order to create some of the details which it should be possible to cast integrally with any copies of the body, then going round with filler before applying primer to reveal results, I decided to have a break from bodywork. Today therefore, after getting other jobs out the way, I turned to the matter of valve gear adaptation in order to relieve angst among one or two watchers.

One side done and it runs beautifully!

Ooh - lovely fastidious, fiddly valve gear! My favourite part of a loco. Most people look at chimneys or smokebox doors - I go for the valve gear every time. And yours looks lovely (as always). You haven't got a sideline making Swiss watches by any chance, have you?

[Atlantic 3279]

This has been very interesting to watch, and has set me thinking about using a K3 mechanism and footplate as the basis. Laziness though plays a part in this; going to wait to see if Heljan consider offering the mouldings for at least the GNR tender that will grace their O2. (If they cared to offer the GNR cab form loco body mouldings as well...)

I certainly thought about using the Bachmann K3 running plate, but in view of the need to hack it around significantly both at the front and (if you are going for accuracy) at the rear to bring the cab and s-curve further forward, I though that use of that hard metal casting would not be easy and that results might be inferior to starting from scratch with the brass bars. The Bachmann running plate unless modified by grinding-out also only suits a chassis fitted with undersized wheels. Availability of a spare whitemetal running plate might make life a little easier I suppose. If you use that method I'll be interested to see how it goes.

[Atlantic 3279]

When reporting completion of the second side of the valve gear and ranting on about those valve chest fronts, I forgot to mention that I'd also altered the pony truck. The over-size guard irons plus the remains of the moulded tension lock coupling have now gone and I've altered the tag washers that act both as wheel bearings and as pick ups, extending the tags of these to move the pony wheels forward to the proper mogul position - they are further back on the V1.
I've followed up this evening by making some cab steps, which are only pinned in place at present as they will need to be dealt with separately if I'm to stand any chance of duplicating the loco in resin. Free standing steam pipes (keeping them optional according to choice of K2 and chosen period) have been made up too. After pondering the best way to match their shapes to the smokebox and saddle as well as creating solid pieces that would both simplify and stand up to any necessary filing to shape I decided to firstly build these up in situ, from flat layers pre-cut to roughly the right sizes, each layer pushed into a close-fitting position against the curves of the smokebox/saddle. Filing the outside faces flat after rough shaping from strips had to be easier than trying file the inner curves to shape!
The key features of the loco that can or will be moulded are now almost complete. I'll probably add some small supporting webs under the front of the smokebox saddle and a few more boltheads, but I can't yet decide whether to add a representation of a separable panel in the rear of the cab roof. I imagine that such panels were present to facilitate lifting of the complete loco. I have quite a good picture showing on in the roof of a GN style O2 cab, but I'd like to see similar evidence of one in a K2 cab.

[Hatfield Shed]

The removeable panel in the rear of the cab roof must be present by force of necessity: there has to be access for the lifting tackle to the lifting eyes in the rear of the frames when in works. I can see one has been removed in a picture of a J6 in the Crimpsall, the resulting opening is visible through the spectacle plate window! If there is a want of better evidence, go with the pattern on the O2 cab on the basis that the DO would apply a standard solution for this detail?

[Woodcock29]

Hi Graeme

There are pictures showing views of the top of K2s in Geoff Goslin's book 'Goods Traffic on the LNER'. Page 24 shows 4681 at Sandy and p29 shows 4659 also at Sandy - the photos are by L Hanson. They appear to be in what I would describe as the expected place!

This book also shows a J6 which appears not to have a removable plate?

Regards

Andrew

[Atlantic 3279]

I'll look out for that book if I cannot find other pictures.

a J6 which appears not to have a removable plate?

Possibly hidden by virtue of flush, or nearly flush fitting, fall of light and a layer of muck? I had to check many K2 pictures to convince myself that those circular access plates for the header were present on all locos on both sides of the smokebox - they are invisible or almost so in many pictures, hence I suspect that even my 5 thou thick representations are a little heavy.

[Pebbles]

What has Paul got to say on the subject?

[Atlantic 3279]

Looks like we'll have to wait to find out.

I looked in John Hooper's LNER sheds book, remembering that it contains a view looking down on locos from the coaling tower at Donny. I was glad to find that 4670 is in the picture. While the printed image is far from clear, I think there is just enough of a suggestion of the presence of that plate at the rear of the cab roof. There is also very clearly a rear coal plate in the tender, hard up against the rear of the water chute cover, so I've added one to the first of the GN tenders that I'll be using. With more of the parts now in primer (including some wedge shaped fill ins to the motion brackets) with buffers added temporarily the loco looks reasonably convincing to me. Since liveries are topical at present I'm quite looking forward to finishing off a small number of these in PROPER LNER 1930s lined black livery (none of your post war corruptions) with shaded yellow insignia of the right sizes in the correct positions.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Looks superb Graeme, very much the part.

[earlswood nob]

Good morning all

Looks good and its amazing the quality produced in such a short time.

Earlswood nob