West End Workbench

[Woodcock29]

Here are my Bill Bedford Dia 148 and 154. The glazing was missing in one kit but no big deal. Also the centre axle was missing in one kit, again no big deal as I had left over D&S components from building artics so I made up one of those on a suspension wire and it works fine. Also after fitting the roof to the Dia 148 I noted that one of the windows had shifted so I had to remove the roof which is a clip fit. To ensure the windows didn't move I painted a some clear varnish across the top of the slots they slide down into.The printed resin is rather brittle if stressed so I proceeded to snap the roof in two and then had to make a repair but it looks ok.

I also recently built two of Bill's GN wagons. A 7 plank mineral and a 4 plank open. Some of the smaller parts in these were broken including the axle boxes off the 4 plank body so I substituted whitemetal fittings that I had in stock. I think if I had lived in the UK I would simply have contacted Bill to get replacement parts but sometimes that's too much bother living in Oz!

Andrew

[jwealleans]

Let me tell you a little story. Are we all sitting comfortably? Regular readers may recall this picture which appeared on this thread on the 5th.



I had a communication from a concerned reader in Grimsburg who thought that although this is supposed to be a J6 of the 536 batch, the boiler position was too far forward and closer to that for a 521. Now I confess that this having been built once, I simply rebuilt the same components in the same places, given that it had all been made to fit like that and it looked like a J6 to me. However, once you have an idea planted in your head.... I thought the NuCast kit would only make a 536, the cab is clearly for one of those, none of the descriptions of building the kit have ever mentioned shortening the boiler or smokebox to my recollection... but I kept looking at that front overhang above the valves and it kept nagging at me. Then said concerned reader kindly sent me a drawing (I only had one for the 521) which showed that the whole thing stuck forward too far. I reckon it's a combination of cab a little too far forward on the running plate, smokebox not as far onto the boiler as it should be (that unit did not come apart when the rest of the loco did) and boiler/firebox maybe a touch too long. Anyway, what to do?

The obvious thing would have been to take it off the front of the smokebox, but that would have meant relocating the chimney and snifter and also making a piece of new cladding to extend the smokebox backwards as it would then have been too short. That sounded like a lot of work and probably not something I was likely to make undetectable. There was really only one thing for it:



Remarkably, after a night in paint stripper then a sudden immersion in boiling water, very little fell off. A twist with a large screwdriver popped boiler and smokebox away and the rest was left to cool so as not to disturb it too much. I then took a big bastard file (not a technical term) to the back of the firebox.

This was the result:



Much less overhang and the firebox front better positioned in relation to the centre splasher. Once the rest of the bits had been recovered from the bowl and reinstated and the whole thing washed, dried and primed again, I stuck up a new picture....



... and no-one could tell the difference. Well, I know. Hopefully when I've finished the LRM one the differences will be much more apparent.

Speaking of which, I spent much of the day working on that.



Frankly, I made a bit of a hash of it. I started by fettling the rods, after all that malarkey about whether they matched the frames. Well, they took almost no work to run smoothly, so if there ever was a difference then there isn't now. That bit was fine. Then I set off into the body construction. Cab... fine, use fuse wire for the beading so it's rounded (tip from TW), make sure it's square on the footplate... check....add the splashers... check...middle one might be a bit short but we have fixing plates to add which will hide it. Then on to the boiler. I used some wire to hold it in shape as Tony Wright's build mentioned that the overlays didn't quite match the diameter of the boiler and he ended up with a gap. What you then do is add a series of overlays which build out the smokebox to the right thickness and also make up the steps in the cladding where boiler and smokebox meet. One of those shifted as or after I put the next layer on and by the time I spotted it it was all too firmly made up to take apart, so the visible step in the cladding tapers away to nothing part way round the boiler. I may be able to fabricate something, I'll give it a couple of days and have a look again. I was also pleased to have followed Tony's advice and made the saddle part of the footplate assembly rather than the boiler as when I offered it up the boiler rose almost 1mm towards the front. I was able to file a slot on the underside for the front of the saddle to slip into and so it will end up level. At the moment it's just sitting on there as I think it'll be easier to do anything about the cladding with it separate.

It's looking pleasingly like a J6 up to now, though and the larger cab and cutouts are quite visibly different to the later series example behind it.

One project which is now finished is the Bachmann ROD for Ormesby Hall:



It was only waiting for crew and fire irons and me to get my finger out. It can go back in the box now in the hope we may be able to run it this season. Plates for these are available from 247 Developments.

There are a few other things going over the bench but I'll save those until more progress is made.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Nice work on the J6's, with the earlier J6, is it one of the engines fitted with a cab from a withdrawn Ivatt single, or were they a bit more angular ?

manna

[nzpaul]

Big bastard file was very successful in making the boiler shorter, luckily you didn't have to resort to the FBH......the official phrase book says something about larger than usual hammers. I've only used said hammer once or twice, when things got really bad.

Paul

[Woodcock29]

HI Jonathan
Hope you didn't mind me posting photos of my Bill Bedford kits above - I should have made a comment when I posted them.

I've got a LRM J6 in the waiting pile to be built as the earlier 521 version so all your comments are most useful. The biggest issue I see with the J6 is that no-one in my view makes a chimney that is quite right for a pre-war J6. They all seem slightly too short. Not sure what chimney you've used on the LRM J6 above?

I've been contemplating starting my own thread but I can't decide between here or on RM web? Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Andrew

[jwealleans]

Morning gents - hope you're all well in your Antipodean bubble?

Terry, I think that was just how Ivatt designed them and I'm not sure I've ever read why Gresley altered them as he did; maybe he just preferred the look. The cab does look a bit angular, I think it's the larger cutout (it's not easy to shape the curve without getting a kink) but it sat perfectly on the Isinglass drawing. The recycled cabs you mention ring a bell - were they used on D2/3/4s?

Andrew, it's always a pleasure to see anything you've built so please don't apologise for posting. I'm sure were you to start a thread it would attract a great deal of interest. I post here and then copy to RMWeb, generally and I keep this one almost exclusively LNER. You get a better quality of comment on here, I find, there's more of a spectrum of readers on RMWeb from experts to idiots. No names.

The chimney above (on the NuCast kit) was from Tony Wright's spares box. I didn't like the one which had been used and it was a BR era one anyway so I asked Sir and was allowed to rummage through his spares. I have no idea where it came from and nor did he, but it was quite close to the drawing in the Railway Modeller at the time.

Paul, I keep the FBH at work in case I'm tempted to use it. There might be too many casualties.

[manna]

G'Day Jonathan.

As far as I know, only J6's received Ivatt single cabs, which would make an interesting variation.

The very early Ivatt J6's had a slightly different wheelbase, a little bit longer.

manna

[Pebbles]

It may be slightly pedantic, but the LRM J6 was originally a George Norton kit, although Paul may be aware of an input by Malcolm. I've never heard that there was any variation in wheelbase, but it is the case that a batch of J6s used parts of Ivatt A5 single wheeler cabs. A fairly comprehensive survey of the J6, (GNR J22) can be found in Vol 3b Great Northern Locomotive History by Norman Groves published by RCTS.

[jwealleans]

I was going to ask Paul about that - he mentioned Malcolm Crawley, but the etches have George Norton's name on them.

It will be interesting to compare this kit with the other GN 0-6-0s I have to make, which I think are Malcolm and Paul's work.

The Groves book is one I don't have and it's well into last year when I read through the LNER Greenie when I was researching these.

[65447]

The Groves book is one I don't have and it's well into last year when I read through the LNER Greenie when I was researching these.

JW,

RCTS has the first 3 volumes available at sale prices: https://rcts.org.uk/publications/produc ... e-history/

[Volume 3b is comparatively slim and covers 1911-1922 viz. The Gresley Era]

[Dave]

Afternoon Jonathan, I thought that was the difference between the photo's of the J6.......
They are dangerous people those that live in Grimsburg, with strange ways, I put it down to the amount of fish guts and donkeys weird bits in thier diet, plus I did not know they could read, learn somthing new everyday.
Great modelling as always.

[Atlantic 3279]

Although the locos that became LNER J6 were originally an Ivatt design, beware that buying the first 3 volumes of Groves won't help you out, as they are all covered in the Gresley volume, 3b I think, the one that I do not have of course...
The original GN J22 (saturated) class, later LNER J5 is covered in the Ivatt volume (3a), but the superheater version, still GN J22 just to confuse things, is excluded.
I have not heard of any wheelbase variations until now. Can that claim be confirmed?
I certainly knew that one small batch constructed during the Great War made use of salvaged cabs off the withdrawn Ivatt singles, an understandable economy in use of precious materials at the time.
The comment that Gresley's decison to move the boiler back in the frames "gave better weight distribution" appears somewhere. I suppose that makes sense if it shifted weight off the leading wheels, ever prone to bearing wear in a 0-6-0, and put weight onto the trailing wheels where it might enhance adhesion. I gather that re-design of the rear horns was necessary to accommodate the firebox further back. The fireman's journey from shovelling plate to firehole was shortened a little too.

Fish for tea here today, oddly enough...

[john coffin]

Well, let's see if I can clear up a couple of questions or myths that seem to have been perpetuated here.

Firstly, the George Norton K2 and J6 were designed for him by Malcolm Crawley, and there is certainly a problem
with the coupling rods for the K2 being a little off, but that is easily sorted if you use sprung type hornblocks and
the coupling rods with a jig to resolve it.

There were NO J6's built with a wheelbase other than 7ft 3 +9 ft. None were built with another wheelbase.
It is quite possible that this information might be caused by the look of Ivatt ones and the Gresley ones with
the cab placing being set back, and the different front sandboxes.

Although it is true that the cabs from scrapped Ivatt 4-2-2's were re-used, on the group from 601-610,
I think many of the spectacle plates were also used on N1's. Certainly not on 4-4-0's. The spectacles were smaller.
The cabs would not have been any squarer than a normal Ivatt style cab, although it seems they did in fact have
shorter vertical handrails and different height horizontal handrails, going back to the first batch.

Another important point is that the maximum difference in height of chimneys was 5.5 inches, which in model
terms is 1-1.875 mm. and frankly if you can tell that from a photo graph at platform height, rather than as most
model photos which are full on side, then I am bemused to say the least. What is more likely, is that the smaller
domes change your view of the chimney height because they are so related.

The LRM J3's/J4 were a joint effort between Steve Barnfield and Malcolm Crawley, with Steve doing the initial work.
SO far I have only done a J5 and I am not sure you have one Jonathan YET!

Sadly, the book you want Jonathan, is the Groves Vol 3B and not easily available now.

Model looks good though, take care, and look out for your own personal a lert

Paul

[jwealleans]

...I have only done a J5 and I am not sure you have one Jonathan...

I do and if I can face another GN 0-6-0 after this one, it's next in the queue.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

I mentioned the slightly longer wheelbase on early J6's after reading an account of a couple of locomen trying to turn a J6 at I believe Hitchin's turntable, after many years of turning J6's there, imagine there frustration when they took a J6 onto the turntable and the loco wouldn't fit, the foreman was called, and after a double-check, no, to big. The foreman did some checking up and learnt that some of the early Ivatt J6's had a slightly longer wheelbase. I'll leave it there.

manna