The LNER Encyclopedia

I'm building a whitemetal kit of a D3. On replacing the split pins with cast handrail pillars I find that short on the smokebox don't give a straight handrail run with medium on the boiler.

Squinting at the photos (the appropriate volume of Yeadon's) I see a hint of a kink in the handrail at the join of smokebox and boiler. Should I get some long pillars or can someone confirm that the kink is real?

Hi Clive,
I just had a look,I see what you mean but my guess is they were intended to be straight-there appears to be a pipe running down from the handrail rhs which may be causing a slight kink.
Where is the imbalance in length?If its an excess its possible to countersink the holes for the pillars a bit into the w/m allowing a more even run for the rail.I note that in the photos the rail looks unusually close to the smokebox on this as other GN classes.
Whose kit are you using btw?
Rob

I don't know if this is of any help....

When I built a LSWR 700 class in 7mm I had a problem with the handrails. These were straight on the prototype but on the model I couldn't find a combination of handrail knobs to deal with the differing diameter of the smokebox and the boiler. In the end I used very fine split pins pinched tight around the handrails, adding small brass washers (14BA?) for the handrail bases. When the resultant handrail "knobs" were flooded with solder and titivated with a fibreglass pencil the effect was acceptable. In 4mm you might have to make your own split pins using fine brass or copper wire but you might as well! - by the time I had finished persuading the copper split pins to be a snug fit around the 0.7mm wire I was using for handrails they bore very little resemblance to their original shape.

If you find yourself some thick-ish brass sheet and drill a hole just large enough for both legs of your split pin (home made or not) to pass through you can put a piece of your handrail wire in the loop of the split pin and pull the "stalk" of the split pin through the hole in the brass sheet with a pair of engineers pliers. This will form a tight loop around the wire. If you have a problem with the edge of the forming hole cutting the wire use a larger drill to "countersink" the hole slightly. This will ease the forming and help to form the reverse curve.
Worth a go?

Chaz

This is a part-built M+L Premier kit I found on Ebay. A nice, simple prototype for a first essay in kit-building. I might do a thread on the ensueing trials and tribulations if I can get reasonable photos from my camera.

I'll see what the provided split-pins look like on the boiler run of the handrail.