West End Workbench

[jwealleans]

Bit of a treat for myself as it's now the start of my holidays. You can never have too many, you know...

[jwealleans]

I wish I knew why my camera keeps going through these phases of taking photos uphill?

[jwealleans]

Had a couple of productive days while the rain beat down outside. Scottiedog's horsebox is now finished.



Now a bit of a departure, something I wasn't expecting to make. In the post two days ago was a large envelope which turned out to be for me, from Bill Bedford. Now as those who order from him know Bill makes things to order so there can be a bit of an interval between ordering and delivery. In this case I had forgotten what it was I'd ordered. Turned out to be a Great Eastern Milk Van. I had a look at the etches and the 3D printed axleboxes and buffers and then put it all back in the packet.

But later... well, the packet wouldn't go into the box I keep NPCCS kits in and so it was there just in my line of sight, looking at me... and I have never been good at resisting the blandishments of a tasty bit of NPCCS... and so:



It hasn't been in the house 72 hours yet. I can't remember the last kit I built this quickly. It is nice, though. One buffer has made a bid for freedom and despite the best efforts of the highly trained Search Children and copious offers of a bribe to the winner remains at liberty on the WB floor. I expect it'll turn up just after I source a replacement. The axlebox/spring/J hanger assembly is all printed as well as the buffer housings. They come in what looks like translucent plastic, but once painted they look absolutely fine.

Flushed with that, well, Christmas is a time for opening things, isn't it? I bought this about two years ago, started. I'm not usually keen on other people's half-started efforts but I was told that this chap knew what he was about and to be fair he did. It's a Crownline J19. The loco chassis was built and is free running and square. The footplate had also been built - all I've done this evening is add brakes and guard irons. There's a 1424 and multibox with it - not necessarily what I'd have chosen but I think I can see how he intended to mount it and I don't really want to undo all that good chassis work to move spacers. We'll see how it goes.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Love the GE milk wagon, Like J19's but didn't know they made them with a tapered boiler

manna

[jwealleans]

Manna, you may have been more right than you thought. Good progress this evening - one of the advantages of following where someone else has already cleared the path. Disadvantages include lost parts (nothing serious, fortunately, so far) and not quite understanding why some of the preparatory work has been done, or what else might be necessary. I think the boiler has a very slight taper, or perhaps the firebox sides aren't quite even. I'll get to that tomorrow.



Tonight the cab and centre sandboxes have been fitted and the smokebox wrappers added to the boiler. They still need cleaning up. I see from the photo that some of the handrail holes may be in the wrong place now as well. I'll have to check that tomorrow. Once that's cleaned up and the boiler is on the footplate I'll start the tender and also assemble the motor/gearbox. I don't want to detail the body any further until. I see how that fits and whether anything needs to be cut back to allow it to fit.

[jwealleans]

Wasn't in a gearbox frame of mind so I started the tender. The original builder either pinched a load of bits from this for something else or didn't like it as most of what I've put together tonight were scratch parts. He also didn't finish as I have some parts missing from the front of the tender. Fortunately I have an Isinglass so I can work out what I need to make.



It's starting to look the part, though. Quite chunky locos, these.

A very merry Christmas and prosperous (and productive) New Year to all my readers and friends on the forum.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Hi jwealleans,

Been studying your model of 61058 against the photograph in LNER 4-6-0s at work. It's a terrific livery variation which you've captured very well.

May I ask, did you tackle the front numberplate, and if so, did you manage to get one with a curly 6 on the front? As I am Looking at 61058 for my own stocklist as it is recorded in another publication as being used out of KX for a brief period on loan in 1949, and it looks as if this livery may be that it was carrying at the time, but have no idea as to where to source that plate (if at all).

[jwealleans]

Hallo Simon,

Well, thank you. I hesitated before taking a punt on the livery but in the end decided that the picture gave me enough evidence to go ahead with it.

I did get a plate but it has the correct 6. However, perversely, 61059's plate from 247 does have the curly 6 - they offer both variants. I'm sure Gary could do a curly 61058 if you ask - the only requirement is that you want until he fills a sheet for the etcher which can be up to a year. I didn't try anyone else and I didn't fancy cutting the two plates in half and trying to swap the 6s over.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Thank you kindly, I'll certainly give it some thought. The alternative I suppose is to print out my own smokebox transfers. I've done some numerals for cabsides but not smokebox numberplates yet. An etched plate though has a depth which a printed one rarely captures.

[jwealleans]

Well, the loco has been fighting back for a couple of days. I had a long session on Boxing Day when I completed the tender. I had to scratchbuild all the front as none of the parts were present. I can see what he might have been getting at - there are significant differences between this and the Isinglass drawing - but it would have been nice to have at least some of the bits to alter or make use of.

Anyway, tender done I stuck the boiler on yesterday and I knew there was something wrong but it took me a while to twig what - viewed from above, by the time you reached the smokebox the boiler was about 2mm right of the centre line. I'm still scratching my head a bit as to how this happened - I thought I might have got the wrappers slightly misaligned and created a twist like that, but the chimney and ejector pipe holes line up perfectly. I wonder if he's rolled the boiler slightly off? Anyway off it came and after adjusting the wrapper at the smokebox end and at the third attempt I think it's about right. I'm still not convinced the boiler doesn't drop slightly towards the front - I've measured several times and it's fractions of a mil if it does, but you know how you get an idea into your head and can't shake it out? Hopefully the photos will help. I shan't be touching it for a couple of days now so I can come back to it with fresh eyes.

I've also illustrated the way the Multibox goes into the chassis. That is assembled and running but still to be run in and have pickups fitted.

[Tom F]

Looking very nice Jonathan!

[45609]

Hi Jonathan,

I sounds like you've had a few problems with what should be a straightforward loco. Why was all the tender front missing? The boiler looks to be level as far as I can tell on the second photo. But on the photo of the left side, to me, it looks a bit nose down....or is it the cab side tilting back a little? The lower edge of the running plate under the cab looks slightly bent down. The human eye is surprisingly good at spotting errors but can also miss the obvious that photos often show up. Take a look at the photo of one of the A3s I've just posted on my thread. That pigging cab handrail is not level...grrrr.

Cheers....Morgan

[jwealleans]

Hi Morgan,

It's my punishment for buying a cheap third hand kit...I was told that the chap didn't like a lot of the original and was scratchbuilding replacements but I either wasn't told or didn't twig that he'd chucked the other bits out. I think he's replaced the upper frames as well as the piano front was too high for the ones which he's made and I had to lower it.. which explains why I seemed to have too great a gap under the smokebox front and also why there's a gap each side of the saddle as he'd set them wider apart. Why he didn't just scratchbuild the whole thing I'm not sure. I don't know him but I do know that he now has another one of these, professionally built straight from the kit without any of these alterations. I wonder if he's pulled it apart to make them?

I think you're right about the footplate rear left; yet the front of the cab is square and there are no gaps or overlaps on that vertical join. I'll go back to that. I also think you're right that the front left corner of the boiler may be low and that's why I can see it as low sometimes and not others. I'll try sitting the chimney on there and see if it looks cocked over.

That A3 is still a beautiful job, sloping handrail or not.

[jwealleans]

Well, things looked up after that last post and we're finishing the year with a positive. I got the boiler level - at the cost of a slightly sloping gap under the smokebox front. The chassis fettled up beautifully - I don't think I've ever had to do so little work to a chassis to get it running smoothly - and once it's been apart for painting we'll fix the con rods on permanently. Most of yesterday and this afternoon has been gilding it.





I may well have another of these to build later in the year and it will be interesting to see what difference there is between the straight kit and what I got here. I seem to have two sets of castings - perhaps there's someone else who bought something from him without any? - and what I think are extras. The chimney and dome are brass castings, I suspect Gibson. I got rid of one of the truly awful tender toolboxes and replaced that with a Gibson cast one I had in stock. The other was too firmly attached and better looking so it stayed. I had no snifting valve, so that was pinched from a K3 kit. The cab vent I made up from plastic strip - the kit one looked nothing like the drawing - and I also added the sleeve over the reversing rod which doesn't seem to be in the kit. I've made up sander operating rods and sandpipes from wire and added some lubricating pipe runs which aren't on the instructions either.

All that said this is not a bad kit at all to build and would have taken a lot less time if it had been complete. But, hey, if it all went that smoothly it would be boring, wouldn't it?

Flushed with that success I went into another half built kit I got in the same lot, but this one does seem to be all there. More on that story later.

A very happy new year to my readers and all those on the forum.

[60800]

Looks lovely