Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[Atlantic 3279]

Replied by PM.....

[Atlantic 3279]

With Royal Lancer's tender swap completed and a much of the new resin Ivatt tender for my previously deprived J6 put together in the course of a Sunday afternoon, I've now turned to the London Road Models (George Norton) Stirling class D tender. I read the instructions for this etched kit first and I think I'm glad I did. The suggested method involves building the basic open-topped box, then adding the still-flat, mostly half-etched copings and attempting to flare these to the correct curve in situ. Elsewhere the instructions caution against un-soldering these copings when soldering other parts in place. After some thought, I really didn't fancy trying to form smooth curves in the flares with the box structure of the tender in the way, and I was worried that if I managed to produce and kinks or creases at that stage or found that the copings had not soldered to the side sheets securely all the way along it could be a huge struggle to recover the situation.

Rightly or wrongly, I chose instead to attach the copings to the side and rear sheets with these flat on the workbench, and did so using a 60 watt iron and traditional electrical solder, which melts at a higher temperature that my usual 145C stuff. The big iron won't be going anywhere near those joints from now on. The flares have proved reasonably easy to form in each piece, working on the flat. A length of 3/16" brass tubing pressed down firmly on the coping, as nearly as possibly on its top edge, while easing the main sidesheet upwards, was all that was required. Progress bit by bit, inspecting results at each stage was the order of the day. I had Freedom to form and adjust the curves in all three pieces in this way and to check each piece compared to its neighbour to ensure that the rear corners would meet up nicely. I might manage a picture later......

[john coffin]

Well done Graeme, for making the attempt. As the person responsible for the awful instructions, when LRM took the kit over from George Norton, I must offer a couple of suggestions to help further. George's instructions were completely basic, so it was somewhat complex, but I talked with Malcolm Crawley who designed the tender, indeed the other two Ivatt ones too, which also suffer from pretty rubbish instructions by me.

The important thing is to make sure that the soleplate is flat, because if wavy it looks b awful. One could do that by soldering on the valances and front panel beneath the soleplate, but I found that quite difficult that far ago, and indeed Malcolm suggested that making the tank box square and flat was the way to go. Actually, I do agree that putting the flare directly on the tank sides whilst flat is quite a good idea, as long as you get them on straight and level. What I do wonder about is how easy the bending process will now be, and also filling in the flare fingers at each corner, so I look forward to your photos and comments. You have to now make sure that when you have folded up the tank sides, they are flat and level to allow them to sit properly on the soleplate.

Sorry the grammar in the instructions was is so stilted, and anyone who wants to tell us how to re-write them more effectively, then both John and I would be happy to look, it has been a TUIT for many years A major problem for all instructions is that each modeller has a specific way in which they do the work, based on experience, and also to a lesser extent the instructions, so one has to offer guidance, not specific direction.
This why formats like this are really good, since we all learn new techniques which could simplify how we make our models

thanks again Paul

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks for the guidance. I wouldn't classify the instructions as rubbish and I don't envy anybody the task of writing instructions. Reading them gave me the valuable opportunity to think about what would be involved in building the kit. I'm yet to find out whether I've made the right choice to depart from the suggested method....
The kit certainly emphasizes the way that etched kit design has changed over the subsequent years. This one provides perfectly accurate and adequate parts to allow you to build the model, but Malcolm and George evidently saw no need to relieve the builder of the need to think and to apply technique. Hardly any tabs and slots, and very few places where parts handily fold to the desired shape and hold themselves in place ready for soldering. If you want a sharp right-angled joint here, you have to position the parts accurately and provide something to keep them there while you make the joint.

Photographs as promised, taken on a nice clean surface rather than the work bench:

Firstly the main brass etch with some parts already removed, taped together in the foreground the sides and rear sheet with copings formed up, and the piece of 3/16" tube used for rolling the copings.

This is what I meant about holding the copings down under the tube while lifting the sidesheets to form the flares, although when I did it "for real" I was pressing down very firmly along the full length of the tube, keeping the tube almost on top edge of the coping, and raising the lower edge of the sidesheet a little at a time.

Testing results with masking tape to hold positions:

[Daddyman]

The best way I've found of making the flare (and I've tried many ways, and made many flares, cock-ups trebling the number I should have made) is the following:

1. solder the to-be-flared strip to the tender side in the flat, using whatever method you can to ensure they are square to each other.
2. take two pieces of the wood strip (the type used by Eileen's for packing is ideal) and file a chamfer along the long edge of one of them, approximating to the radius you wish to impart.
3. tape the tender side to the chamfered piece of wood, with the to-be-flared strip lined up longways along the chamfered edge, and with the brass sticking up about 1mm above the wood.
4. sandwich the tender side using the other piece of wood and place the whole in a vice, with the long edge of the wood (and thus the tender side) parallel to the jaws.
5. with another piece of wood longer than the tender side, or any instrument of your choice, push down on the full length of the to-be-flared part.

This produces the most uniform flare I've managed, and is actually something like Dave Bradwell recommends in the J27 kit - and a technique I resisted for years!

You can always make adjustments once the tender body is soldered together by rolling the flare with your fingers over a rod of the correct diameter - it's only 5 thou after all, and you're sure you've soldered it good and proper.

What tends to happen with your method, even if very slightly, is that the lower part of the flare, which should be vertical, tends to bend over backwards, to 88 degrees or so. If that has happened (not saying it has), the wood-sandwich method will rescue it.

But even of you waste a flare, it's no real loss - you can soon make another in 5 thou, and make your own beading by shaping a piece of 0.5 wire to the same route as the beading, then soldering the wire to a piece of brass sheet before filing one side of it (the wire) flat. It's actually more realistic this way as the beading ends up curved. In fact, with the incorrect dimensions of the flare in the LRM NER 3038 kit, it's the only way of getting the flare correct.

[john coffin]

Thanks Graeme, nice comments,

My concern about what you have done is that the edges of the flare might well not join together without a considerable amount of fettling, and
that might well give you some holes to fill afterwards. Obviously you have yet to remove some of the cusp on the sides, because you need to make sure it joins together and the sides and ends up upright, and correct.

Have to say that the method suggested by Daddyman has merit, and a softer wood, like bass, makes this easier.

Paul

[mick b]

Re photos I use the free Image editor on RM Web, resize the image , save to hard drive job done. Even easier with low resolution photos ,most will load straight onto Forums without the need to resize.

[Daddyman]

Thanks Graeme, nice comments,

My concern about what you have done is that the edges of the flare might well not join together without a considerable amount of fettling, and
that might well give you some holes to fill afterwards. Obviously you have yet to remove some of the cusp on the sides, because you need to make sure it joins together and the sides and ends up upright, and correct.

Paul

I don't know the prototype but certainly on an NE tender the flare bends over so that it's almost at right angles to the tender side. Not sure if that's the case with the tender in question. If so, it looks like the rear flare (from what I can see in the photos) is pushing the builder towards making the flare less pronounced than it should be. That is, the ends of the rear flare are not curved enough. Hard to say, though, without the whole thing soldered together. And, as said, I don't know the prototype.

[Woodcock29]

Graeme and others - most interesting comments on the Stirling Type D tender as I have the LRM one to build shortly for my old Ks J3 kit (picked up for a song) and to which I will fit a modified Mainly Trains J52 chassis.

Woodcock29

[john coffin]

Since Graeme has the tender book, he has the drawing that is most similar to this kind of tender, but not exactly the same.

However, the flare of almost all GNR tenders seems to be pretty standard, at about 11 radius and standing out about 5 inches. on each side
and at the end.

Keep up the good work please

Paul

[Daddyman]

This looks more pronounced:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8309/8027 ... da5b_z.jpg

As does this:
http://www.nrm.org.uk/globalmedia/pic_1978-7122_2.png

[Atlantic 3279]

It looks like I've created some interest!

In no particular order...

The flares: They seem to have formed as smoothly as I would have expected, although I could see some of the limitations inherent in rolling them over a hard tube before I started the process. The prior presence of the beading means that the curve will not form all the way up to the top edge, the beading lifting the sheet clear of the former, and there will inevitably be slight irregularity at the front where the down-curve of the beading also interferes. A wooden former could have advantages, especially if the bending force from the other side of the flare is provided by something very rigid, since the beading will then be able to bite / sink into the former slightly, allowing a fuller and smoother formation of the curve. In not quite the same way, I've also noticed in a number of cases where experienced builders have declared that it is "much easier" to apply beading to GN cab sheets before rolling the cab to shape that they score an own-goal, the extra stiffness of the beading resisting the formation of a smooth curve at the rear corners of the roof. I apply beading after forming, and I don't find it difficult. Anyway, as far as I can tell 'in the bare metal' the flares look acceptable, the curves seem smooth enough and the overlap to the sidesheet appears to have remained upright (save for one end of one sheet that I pushed too far and had to correct), but a coat of paint may reveal some unpleasant truth. Also, as far as I can tell by dry trail fitting the flares come together nicely at the top rear corners and should not require substantial filling and filing, but again time will tell. I accept that I ought to be looking closely at photographs in order to try to emulate the curvature as closely as possible, but I'm not in this case intending to take on a lot of alteration if the kit doesn't quite do the job. I'm hoping to stick to Plan A, which is is to just build the kit as provided, otherwise I'll be falling ever further behind what little remains of my "plan"....

Keeping the soleplate flat: That was a highly relevant comment! Last night I came to soldering the sideframes to the soleplate, and in fairness to the design there are in this case some tabs on the tops of the frames to locate them correctly in the plate - but they project too far through the slots "as supplied" making it impossible to just press the inverted assembly down on a hard flat surface and solder up without getting unwanted undulations. I tried one tack, looked at the results, tutted, undid the soldering, then struggled through the rest of the job with much more care. Had I bothered to think about it, the problem was easy to solve, either by filing back the tabs a little, or finding a groove in an otherwise flat surface into which the tabs could drop while I soldered up the joint .

Images: The RM Web image editor works perfectly well, although I don't need that for re-sizing images as I have a suitable program installed anyway. I agree that the images are safer if kept on one's own hard drive, which I do. My reasons for using remote hosting were originally two-fold. Firstly that method (at the time) gave a larger display size on this forum, although that may have changed. Secondly, after I started directly posting images enthusiastically, I soon reached this forum's then limit for image storage, so I had to switch to remote hosting. Both reasons may no longer apply, but old habits die hard.

[Atlantic 3279]

Something is puzzling me. I've built a number of etched brass kits in the past using only my 25 Watt iron, 145 C solder and phosphoric acid flux, by and large getting the solder to flow. A clean bit and clean metal are obviously essential. For some reason this tender kit seems to be more effective than most at sucking heat away from the iron and producing disgustingly dull, lumpy soldering results, thankfully only on the inside so far, but I'll have to solve the problem before I get to the external work....

[john coffin]

Not going to make any excuses from our end, but it is a large piece of soleplate, and as such is quite likely to challenge a 25 watt iron, but also I do not know how old the etches you have are. They do get to be a little "ripe" after time, and maybe a little more cleaning would help.

Personally, in the past, I have found that spot soldering and then flowing was the way to go, but we all have a technique we favour, sometimes though we need to change that for the kit in mind.

How have you cleaned the brass, and are you sure the tip of your iron is properly cleaned and scoured. Maybe a new tip?


Paul

[Atlantic 3279]

I've given the bit of the soldering iron a special "birthday" clean up. It looked "good" anyway, but now looks better still. I'll make sure I don't skimp on the cleaning of the brass either.

Here's the basic underframe assembly, seen inverted, revealing my horrible soldering from last night:

Right way up now, with prepared sidesheets standing loose in the half-etched guide grooves on top of the soleplate, whose sides I believe are still straight enough to pass reasonable inspection.