Paul's workbench

[earlswood nob]

Afternoon all

The Mainly Trains J52 chassis (Scale) is useful as its perfect for the J3 (ex-Kays). I did file the spacers down slightly to allow slight sideways movement on axles.

Earlswood nob

[nzpaul]

Looking forward to the wheel lining lesson Graeme, as are a few others I'm sure. Regarding the tender weighting idea, I have already been pondering how I can achieve that should the need arise. I've seen your D11 and it's impressive performance so I know what you mean.
valid point raised by Earlswood regarding the J52 chassis width, I took a more simple approach and filed the bearing bosses to about half original width, chassis is now up and running with Gibson wheels and Mashima/romford propulsion, photos next time.

Cheers
Paul.

[nzpaul]

Hi All
The J52 is now mobile, the Gibson wheels were not as bad to fit as I feared, I achieved successful quartering by simply marking the crank position on the wheel treads on one side and marking a 90 degree point on the opposite wheel, surprisingly little adjustment was required to get a smooth running chassis. The Mashima 1224 motor isn't as powerful as I'd hoped and if it wasn't so difficult to get the wheels off I'd change it for a Hornby type7/ 50:1 Romford set up that powers my P1 very effectively (no, really it works well, I have proof).
I've set drive up onto the leading axle, for some unknown reason I have more success powering one of the end axles, I can't seem to get the same results with the drive to the middle axle.
I'll have to renumber the engine as the picture of 3111 in RCTS is quite different to the model, lower cab among other things so it'll probably become 8870 which seems to have all the right bits.
Photos show the running chassis, the Hornby Type 7 conversion and my P1, just to prove that it exists, it's ugly but it does work really well.

Cheers
Paul

[mick b]

Mashima 10 series have more power. No idea re the Hornby !!

P2 looks good ,the only thing spoiling it in the picture are the Buffers !! I presume Handrails are yet to be fitted?

[earlswood nob]

Good morning all on a crisp white morning in Surrey

The Mashima 1024 is a much better motor than the 12xx series.

I fitted one in my old BEC J52, driving through a High Level 80:1 gearbox (probably a Loadhauler). It's plenty fast enough for a loco that was essentially a shunter.

I like the P1, but I've always thought they were magnificent locos. I'm sure people would like to see more of it. I really must finish the body conversion for mine.

Earlswood nob

[Seagull]

Hello Paul,

I have been following your thread from the start. I need to find the time and summon up the courage to start on my own modelling.

What chassis did you use for the P1? I assume the body is a chopped Hornby A1/3.

Alan

[nzpaul]

Hi all
Thanks for the tip on the 1024 Mashima motor, I assumed that being smaller than the 1224 = less power, I'll give one a go next time I'm ordering parts for a smaller engine.
Regarding the P1, yes Mick, what happened there was that I ordered some hand crafted, P1 specific hand rails from Handrails R Us of Bulls On Schyte, but they haven't arrived yet, I must follow that up..... , I'm sure the buffers will be easily enough corrected as well, thanks for noticing.
Earlswood Nob, when you say people would like to see more, I'll assume you mean of P1's class in general, I agree completely, possibly the most handsome freight loco of the lot, worthy of a RTR model I'd say.
The P1 is indeed a butchered Hornby A1 body, the chassis was cut and drilled from brass strip, I'd not follow the same path again, I believe that Alan Gibson do milled frames for a P1 and you could fit it out with Comet parts like mine, or perhaps a better idea would be to have a look at Graeme King's P1 (if you haven't already) found in the archive section on rmweb, it's a properly engineered robustly made and accurate looking model, mine is more of a moving s**t box that resembles a P1, it's got grunt but not my best work.

Cheers
Paul

[earlswood nob]

Good morning all

Thanks Paul. I am always interesting in people's solution of problems, as I learn from them. I, also, made the mistake of assuming that the Mashima 1224 was a better motor than the 1024.

Back in the 1980's I bought a P1 chassis kit from RSM models in Middlesborough. It was a milled brass frame with NuCast cylinders and motion. I still have the instructions in the original packet and it cost £25, which was expensive at the time. I then concentrated on computers and didn't have time for modelling until I retired a few years ago. The chassis was quite well made and I have replaced bits of the valve gear etc with Comet parts. I fitted a Mashima 1628 driving through 54:1 gears and it runs well. I still haven't converted the body. I have tested a Mashima 1830 in the chassis and it works, just fitting inside the Hornby A1/3 firebox. I obtained a Dave Alexander A1 (GNR) tender top as part of a job lot I bought at auction. With modification to the copings, and new six wheel chassis/sideframes, it will easily be converted into the 4700gal tender that was fitted to the P1. If I fit the large motor I will have to fill every available space with lead, possibly even fitting lead between the chassis sideframes.
I am suffering withdrawal symptoms from modelling at the the moment as I hurt my back earlier in the year, and I find it impossible to sit on a chair for any length of time. It's OK for walking and leaning on bars, which is how I spend afternoons at the moment.

Earlswood nob

[nzpaul]

Hello again Earlswood Nob, next time your at the pub, you could ask the bar manager if you could borrow one of those bar leaner tables (assuming they have them, you know, the tall ones you stand at), then you could fit a small vice a work light and a tool holder and you can work standing up until your back recovers .
I find that blogging about a model or project does tend to help me get stuck in and make progress , so now that you've mentioned your P1 I'm sure there's a number of curious forumees ( is that a word?) who'd like to see it, complete with its monster motor. I have a fair idea how you'll end up tackling the loco conversion but I'm interested in your tender idea, sounds like fairly major surgery, I scratch built my tender from plastic sheet and it's a bit short on detail so not worth a picture here.

Cheers
Paul

[earlswood nob]

Good morning Paul et al

The large tender fitted to the P1 is virtually an A1 tender on a six wheel chassis. I, also, started to build one from plasticard, but gave up when i obtained the Alexander kit. I'll have to dig it out and show how it compares to the P1 tender.
Meanwhile, back in the archives, here is a pic of the chassis at a trial fitting to the Hornby A1 body.

PS I know the standing tables than you mention, but there's nothing that modern at my favorite local pub. It's the only pub in the town that survived (it was converted into a butchers shop to evade destruction), when Oliver Cromwell destroyed all the local places of enjoyment, and banned Christmas nationally.

Earlswood nob

[earlswood nob]

Hello from sunny Surrey

Here's a pic of the A1 tender sides (from Dave Alexander) against a P1 drawing. They are pretty close. The tender front bulkhead is also sloped as were the P1 tender fronts. All it needs is the six wheel chassis.
I guess it would be possible to modify a Hornby GN tender to get the same result.

Earlswood nob

[nzpaul]

That's a descent looking chassis, looks to me like you've give yourself a good chance of success. I'll look forward to seeing more of this model sometime in the future.
With the tender sides posed on a scale drawing like that I can see where your heading now, the two tenders are far more similar than I'd imagined. I hope your back to full health soon so you can carry on with the build.

Cheers
Paul

[nzpaul]

Back to the task at hand. I've fitted the brakes to the J52 chassis, I started assembling the parts as designed with laminated shoes, but I decided it wasn't worth the extra effort and burned fingers. So, one side has fat brake shoes and the other not, it'll be impossible to tell once they're painted. The pull rods had to be mounted a fair way inboard to clear the pick-ups and avoid short circuits. This chassis wasn't the easiest to set up power collection on, I have another one to build but I think I'll rethink my method a bit.

With the body fitted the difference to the appearance even at this stage is very promising.

Cheers
Paul

[nzpaul]

Hi All
The J52 is now, more or less, ready for a working life. To finish off I have repainted the body and added Pressfix letters and numbers. I was going to make a start on fitting the balance weights to the wheels but as it turns out there shouldn't be any, oh well, one less thing. Most of the photos in the RCTS show the loco's looking a bit dilapidated, so I've tried to capture that with a bit of weathering, not something I usually attempt but I thought this was a good project to practice on, I'll spend some time studying some of the superbly weathered models on this forum to get some more ideas. I've fitted a £10 Hattons decoder and set it up this afternoon, CV2(speed at Step 1) set to 60 to get it moving at step 1, really high compared to other motors, the 1224 in this has a very high starting voltage but it draws a tiny amount of current, I'll have o wait and see how it works out.

Cheers
Paul

[nzpaul]

Hi All
Some time ago I purchased some of Graeme King's resin clerestory coach roofs while in the midst of some other coach building projects. While I had every intention of making quick use of them, I became side-tracked with loco building and alteration. So, last night I got busy chopping and made a start on the first conversion. My intention is to create something a little different so as not to produce a simple copy of the coaches that Graeme made, although there will be an unmistakeable family resemblance.
I thinks it's fair to say that my version will be completely freelance, but hopefully still capture an obvious LNER flavour. Basis for my ideas are some coaches I saw in a photo, they were being hauled by a C11 and had clerestory roofs as well as full length foot boards, it's quite possible they were of Midland origin, but I'm not going off on a tangent to build something prototypically accurate or LMSesque.
First step was to remove the original roof and fit the GK replacement, couldn't ask for a better fit, compliments to the manufacturer.

Next I made up the foot boards from brass strip and wire, removed the stress bars and fitted the foot boards. Photo illustrates the work so far, should end up looking ok I hope.