West End Workbench

[jwealleans]

This is all very useful stuff - I haven't had to weight my Hornby B1 up to now, but it's mainly hauled 8 or 9 Hornby Gresleys and/or Bachmann Mk 1s. It's finished as 61059 which probably precludes it from Easterling duties as it was an Ipswich loco and mainly kept for their best work. The best B1 photo I have of the train is of Stratford's 61236 at Colchester so I'll most likely end up producing that one.

Interetsing about the smokebox void on the B17 too - I did consider pouring and sealing liquid lead in there, but there's no way of telling where it might end up or what it might interfere with so I refrained. I did have a piece of flashing in the cab roof, but the loco fell over and it fell out and awaits reattachment. It won't make two more carriages' worth of difference.

I've moved on to a loco which is highly unlikely to need any added weight - a NuCast J6. This came from a collection I helped dispose of and was one of a couple I kept for myself. It had been nicely built - whomever he was was a very good builder - but had been neglected latterly. The wheels were filthy and the added tender pickups had fallen apart. Under all that, though, was a smooth running mechanism and a solidly built and square loco. It has mainly been glued together, but after a couple of days in the paint stripper has remained solidly glued, so I'll go with that.



I started with the tender. Old pickups and horrible rigid loco to tender coupling bar removed, new loco end hook and drawhook soldered in place. One advantage of these hollow tenders is that you have loads of room for top mounted pickups, so that's where we're going.



I have discarded the designed frames to body fixings, so some new ones were needed. A couple of struts with captive nuts inside the tender body engage with two 10BA bolts up from the frames. The rearmost one is at an angle due to the internal shape of the tender side casting. It slopes forward to clear the rear axle.



Tendr frames with pickup wire in place. You can see the extra bars I've fitted underneath for the body fixing screws. It's all just made from scrap etch, but at the end of the day it's only holding the top in place while gravity does most of the work.



Here's the mech and the front of the loco. It's old school, but while it works it's fine. I can very readily make a new set of frames up as and when it expires. The loco body has had the front buffers reattached and the horrible cast smokebox dart cut off. I'll fit an etched one in due course. The base of the casting serves to fill the huge hole it left in the smokebox door.



It's nice to be able to put it all together regularly and see how it's going to look. I'll have to check whether any still had Ramsbottom safety valves by the later 1930s.

[Hatfield Shed]

It's nice to be able to put it all together regularly and see how it's going to look. I'll have to check whether any still had Ramsbottom safety valves by the later 1930s...

One handsome knick-knack. I'd be itching to replace the flangeless centre driver before thinking about the safety valves. I should think it is 'as you like it' though I don't have a photo to prove it; some of the N2's (same boiler) were sporting Ramsbottom safety valves in BR ownership.

I haven't had to weight my Hornby B1 up to now, but it's mainly hauled 8 or 9 Hornby Gresleys and/or Bachmann Mk 1s...

Both the current Bachmann and the Hornby are good for the normal passenger loads on KX suburban area turns and the Hull job, it's the ability to work an occasional freight that is lacking. The Hornby's more capacious body moulding makes it ideal for the necessary upweighting.

[Pebbles]

I guess that replacing the centre driving wheel would depend on finding a couple of old 21mm Romfords.

[jwealleans]

It would, and just messing about with it generally when it runs fine as is. As and when it merits replacement frames I'll fit flanged drivers - they really aren't that apparent when running (and with the missing centre steps refitted).

[Woodcock29]

Jonathan
From a quick glance at Yeadon it appears quite a number still had Ramsbottom in the 1930s.
During the 1930s it appears that most J6s ran with A type tenders although 21 of these had the unequal wheel spacing - I think these had the cut out handrail at the front.
The Nucast kit has a B type by the look of it.
Andrew

[Pebbles]

It's quite unfortunate that whilst the Nu-Cast D2 had the equal wheel spaced tender, this was never offered as an alternative for the J6. That said, during the BR period the cascading of tenders from withdrawn classes would have increased the likely hood of of J6s being coupled with type B tenders.

[jwealleans]

Andrew has put his finger on a salient point as always. I believe I recall Tony Wright saying only one J6 had a Type B tender in BR days. It's my recollection that more had them in the 1930s. This one will probably end up behind a D2 in the fullness of time. Off to Yeadon and Malcolm Crawley's tender book I go.

[Atlantic 3279]

Would a Class B unequal wheelbase tender really require an unacceptable amount of butchering to turn it into one of the final Class A versions with a similar unequal wheelbase (give or take 0.5mm in 1:76 scale)?

Is the front left loco buffer drooping a bit?

I have two elderly Romford wheels, nickel silver tyred, insulated by the look of it, 20.7mm tread dia, 18 spoke, cast-in balance weights, not likely to be much use to me, if you really want flanged middle wheels. Could be yours in just a couple of weeks, BUT... I think you'd have to reduce the flanges if you want the same appearance as the others. I make these 22.8 dia over flanges.

[jwealleans]

It would depend whether i'm in a butchering mood, which I'm not, presently. I can live with it having an incorrect tender until I can build a Class A for it. I can always use this one behind a D2 as suggested or maybe an O2.

I'll have a look at that buffer. It does look odd from that angle.

Tender pickups fitted and a good test run this evening - but then an irritating and up to now undetectable short between body and frames made itself apparent. More testing required. Enjoy this first run while it was working as desired.

[jwealleans]

I didn't post this video of the J6 hauling a test train the other night, so here it is for your pleasure. The intermittent short, I think, was off the pickup wire from the top of the motor which was catching on the armature as it rotated. I've routed it away from the problem area now.





Loco is now as detailed as I can do from stock. It's missing a set of cab steps so I'll be on to Brian tomorrow. I also need a smokebox dart - that'll be the other Brian at 247, whom I expect to see on Sunday. It still needs tender brake gear adding. I've used the Gibson plastic shoes here. They're not quite GN pattern but being plastic they can save a lot of grief and shorting and once painted black and in motion not many are going to spot them. I found enough material on the tender rear to drill for a self tapping screw and add a Kadee which will greatly increase its usefulness on Grantham.

After that it was a few odd jobs. I've put a little more weight into the Hornby B17 - when the glue has set I'll see what else I can squeeze in. Otherwise, I was talking Perseverance GC clerestories with Red Leader yestereve and then as if by magic mine came into view this afternoon. The clerestory section has been a bit of a problem with this build - it developed a bend and has over time pulled and broken the solder joints on both securing screws. I've remade the joints and then had to replace the glazing material which had behaved as you'd expect from plastic heated to over 300 degrees. Remarkably the paint finish is unmarked now it's all cooled down.



Final job was to attach the cast car to the Lowfit. It has a self-tapping screw up from underneath, then the ropes and sacking cosmetically on top. We'd also managed to lose a buffer head, so that has been replaced with one from Wizard Models.

[jwealleans]

In the spirit of tying things down, I attached the bowser to the Warwell this evening.



It's actually held on by two lengths of steel wire twisted round the axles and then taken through holes drilled in the floor, bent through 90 degrees and superglued in place. That's to try to keep it in place as it bounces round the country between shows. They're behind the wheels so not obvious unless viewing end on. Cosmetically it's attached by a pair of chains round the chassis crossmembers and tightened with a turnbuckle, pulling in opposition to each other.



I've deliberately photographed it before blackening everything so you can see the means of keeping the chains taut. I use fine copper wire (from multicore mains cable). I've drilled out the moulded lashing rings on the wagon floor at each corner and one strand of copper is bent round a fine wire ring and then twisted along it's length. That twisted length goes through the floor and is superglued up against the underside. The ring is .33 wire wrapped in a spiral round a screwdriver and then cut to form a series of rings. I threaded this onto the turnbuckle (Roxey) then soldered the ring shut. The fine chain (Ambis) is attached to the turnbuckle with another short piece of the copper wire. The chain goes under the tank to the other side where it's attached to another copper loop, the end of which goes through the floor again. The advantage of the copper is that should the chain go slack, you can bend it to tighten the whole thing up again. Once it's all blackened the small subterfuges are much less apparent.

[Dave]

Are you bringing anything to show us tomorrow ?? like your dick

[jwealleans]

Darling, if you want my Dick that badly I'm sure it'll fit in my bag.

[Atlantic 3279]

A bit difficult to bring my latest modelling project, at short notice, unless anybody can lend me a van and help me to load it in the next two minutes.

[jwealleans]

The Dick made it to Wakefield.



Here posed on Adrian Walby's Kyle of MacAllan Engine Shed layout. Thanks to Adrian for allowing us to hijack it for a while this afternoon. I think once the innuendo started to flow, though, he was having second thoughts....



There were quite a few forum members there today; myself, Dave, JASD17 and Atlantic 3279. Notascoobie was demonstrating as well so we were able to have a catch up. Dave had brought his Pooley van and bogie wagons, so while we had a suitable backdrop:





I was handed some unexpected gifts on arrival, firstly a set of J6 cab steps, hand crafted in the finest resin North Lincolnshire can muster. Along with some smokebox darts from Alan Gibson, they have been fitted this evening and since acquired paint. I'd forgotten that 120 also needed one, so it was fortuitous I'd got it out for a test run last week.



I was also handed some wagons kits to review. They aren't LNER so I shan't post them on here but you can find them on my RMWeb thread in due course. Attention will now turn to Grantham until next week, so things will quieten down on the modelling front.