West End Workbench

[jwealleans]

I am now insanely jealous.

All the best people have them, you know. I hope you'll understand if I don't offer to swap for a Thompson A2......

[mick b]

I aint letting go of either version thanks

[Atlantic 3279]

I'll get you at playtime Weallans.

[jwealleans]

I'm staying in... I have a note from me mum.

[Atlantic 3279]

Hiding indoors with the fat wheezy boys won't save you forever, Watch out at hometime....

[Danby Wiske]

Ah, but his dad's bigger than your dad...

[45609]

Where do you get your neoprene tube and ball bearings from?

A good question. IIRC the tube came with the Northyard gearbox that I bought from Andy Mullins not long before he sold the Branchlines business. I'd imagine that the new owner could supply. This particular installation didn't have a ball bearing in the tube. If I needed some I might pop down to my local push bike shop and ask. Many many years ago I had a Saturday job in a shop like this and there used to be loads of packets of loose ball bearings of various sizes in the workshop. However, the problem may now be that most new bicycles have sealed cartridge type headset and bottom bracket bearings.

Cheers.....Morgan

[jwealleans]

Hiding indoors with the fat wheezy boys won't save you forever, Watch out at hometime....

Thanks, Morgan. By the way, did you notice King calling you fat and wheezy? It's all very sad, because at the end of the day all our boilers will still be longer than his......

[45609]

Hiding indoors with the fat wheezy boys won't save you forever, Watch out at hometime....

Thanks, Morgan. By the way, did you notice King calling you fat and wheezy? It's all very sad, because at the end of the day all our boilers will still be longer than his......

Yes...it wasn't missed. An instruction has already been issued to the Scalefour Society brown shirts to intercept at the moment he walks through the door at Wakefield and apply gauge widening to any models in his bag. Squashing them under a size 11 boot should do the trick. Ve shall zee who iz smiling zen......auf wiedersehen.

[jwealleans]

Well luckily the caretaker let me go out the back gate so I got home without any trouble from the Grimsby Gang.... and I felt up to a little brake action last night. Brake gear is on the same etch as the chassis, which is quite a hefty gauge and when folded over (as a lot of the components are designed to be) it's a satisfyingly robust set of parts.



There may be a trick to putting it together - I just threaded it all on to the transverse wires and then positioned it all at once before soldering up. It made an assembly Mike Clark himself would have been proud of, especially the minute washers and shackles on the pull rods, but they all went on and I didn't need too many of the plentiful spares provided. It did all goes together as it should - I suspect someone who needs professional help could make it work if they put their mind to it, but I'm not there yet.



The sharp eyed will notice that the rear shoes are angled differently to the others (Arthur is probably holding his head in his hands now) - that's because I've managed to get the cross rod through the wrong holes. It has been corrected now. I've not been well, you know.....

I should point out that everything you need to mark out for CSBs is provided on the chassis, you just add the High Level hornblocks and wire and away you bounce.

[jwealleans]

Moved on to the body last night. This is where the instructions are less useful as there are a surprising number of differences between this and the smaller version. However the major subassemblies are obvious and one of the great things about Arthur's kits is that you can slot them together in the confidence they'll fit and work out in what order you need to solder things.



So from these, applying overlays and slotting together, I managed to build up this:



Still more to do before the body and base plate can be attached and lining it all up with the chassis shows that I've got the fore and aft spacers the wrong way round, but it's all very encouraging up to now.

What I don't have is an idea of the tender faceplate arrangement; nothing in Hoole or the NE Record, I don't have the Yeadon and a look at the DJH instructions for this type of tender shows that theirs is completely different. Anyone know of a picture or drawing?

Finally an idea from Arthur's instructions which was new to me - apologies to those who've been doing this for years. It's for forming the tender flares. I remember one of my first etched kits (may have been a J17) spending ages working out how to do this and even longer tidying up after I tried it. Anyway, this works and was very simple.

First of all the etched flare piece and the 1/8" rod I would have used to form it. Use the masking tape to atached the flare to the rod (think carefully about which way it has to bend).



Then find a hard piece of rubber. Arthur suggests insole material, but Mrs W put up too much of a fight to get hold of her slipper, so the hardest available piece of rubber I had was a large elastic band. I taped this along the rod over the top of the flare.



Then the whole lot went into the vice and became compressed.



It works. What more can I say.

[ten ten]

PM on way.Thats two ArthurK tenders on the go! Am making the Q5 version for my Q6.Awaiting Gibson wheel sets now on order .The quality of the etching and accuracy of fit is astounding,a work of art.The kit is almost foolproof- if I can assemble it ,anyone can. Much easier than whitemetal.Having scoured shops looking for rubber soles with no luck ,found a bit of flexible floor tile which did the flare a treat.The only advice I would give is NOT to remove the fold cusp from the vertical front beading until all soldering is complete.I did, it moved, and it took a lot of cursing to get it back into its right position. This kit for the 4125g tender opens up possibilities for variations on Bachmann J39s,and with minor changes to coal rail for Hornby D49 Shire, and possibly a couple of Hunts.

[52D]

JW I take it the rubber was sufficient to prevent the vice jaws marking? I wonder if a set of soft vice jaws would be ok instead of the rubber.

[ArthurK]

You must have something between the flare and the jaws. It has to be pushed around the rod, anything will do as long as it is fairly tough and pliable. They may be called "soft" jaws but they are still harder than the brass.

ArthurK

[jwealleans]

Hi George,

Yes, the rubber was sufficient - I didn't close it up too tight, although I gave it a good tweak. Arthur's right, though, you'd need something softer between the jaws and the piece you're forming.

Thank you to all the people who pointed out the picture in Hoole which I'd missed and those who sent drawings. I haven't got to the front yet, last night was devoted to flares (apparently they're back, you know) and coal rails. I also managed to work out what I'd done to the frame spacers which stopped the fixing holes lining up.



The flare and corners worked out pretty well, I thought.



Among the details which give kits like this their class are these rather fetching lifting eyes.