LNER Q1/2 Build.

[Paul_sterling]

IMG_20190311_174702 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

So this is a rough mock up of the smokebox door, using the dimensions very kindly provided by John. It would need to be filled to be useable, and the dart is obviously a crude soldered effort by moi, but its a good start. I am still toying with turning the door from brass as suggested (probably CNC).

Paul.

[Paul_sterling]

I've done a bit more work today. Over the weekend I made an order out to a supplier for another ROD 2-8-0, which will be the basis of an S1, but also some of DCC concepts Liquid Lead, lead shot for shotgun cartridges in other words, but the price was not a million miles off from buying bulk shot so i'm happy enough.

The purpose of the shot in this case is to fill the voids i designed into the loco body from the start. the basic printed parts weigh 40g, and adding lead shot in the bunker, and side tanks gets this to 170g, with another large void to fill at the front of the boiler, so I thing 180g or more is within reach.

IMG_20190312_204931 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr
This is the loco with the smokebox door given one filling and priming, it doesn't look too bad, but room for improvement, I put the dart on first, then filled, which complicated the job, so another print was filled and sanded without the dart on, as I've put an order into Alan Gibson for that and a number of other parts relating to this project and the S1, which I'll start once this one is done.

IMG_20190312_204938 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr
The fill hole in the bunker. The bunker was hollow with no bottom when printed, but when assembled, the frames close off the bottom, so filling through the top is needed. Now full, I can inject some Hy-sol (2 part loctite brand glue/resin) in which is low viscosity, and will find all of the gaps. with that done, coal can be added

IMG_20190312_204946 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr
The side tank tops temporarily fitted in place

IMG_20190312_205007 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr
And the Lead shot in situ.

I'm waiting on the smokebox dart before I continue and glue the front end, as the smokebox door will be a permanent fitment then. I did have hopes for making the door removable, and having tube-plate detail visible, but its not a huge loss, and the extra weight up front will help offset the weight at the back. the full bunker, and side tanks leaves the balance point of the loco just in front of the cab, and I'd like it a bit further forward to be honest. Apparently the originals were deliberately nose heavy, specified as such by Thompson, I wonder if he had at the time been studying Harry Ferguson's' paper on weight transfer for additional traction, the science certainly works on tractors (if anyone has been what a grey Fergy can pull pound-for-pound compared to bigger tractors of the same era, they'll know that weight transfer certainly works!), but as to Locomotives, I can't help but wonder if you'd end up with far too much weight on the rear axle as the load/traction lifts the front up.

Paul.

[Paul_sterling]

Hy-sol has been applied to bunker and side tanks, so that is currently curing happily. I made the (sort of) mistake of putting it into a low temp oven once the bunker had been filled, and the hy-sol did its usual trick of becoming very runny, and flowed out of, of all of things, the M2 hole for the rear chassis fixing! quickly resolved, and when I loaded the side tanks up, it only got 60 seconds of oven time to get the glue to flow down to the bottom of the tanks. The boiler barrel is next, but will be done only when the bits arrive from AG.

Paul.

[Paul_sterling]

I got the last of the ballast in at Lunchtime, another slightly hairy moment when, in order to get the glue in through the lead in the boiler barrel, I warmed the model up, and this caused the side tanks glue to start to flow again (ordinarily this stuff sets in 1 hours at 90 deg C, but gets very VERY runny before that point), so panic stations, and then followed the need to chill it down to 0 deg to get it to stop flowing. its stable now, but will take a lot longer to fully cure.

Nevertheless, combined with the chassis, this model tips the scales at 375g, which I don't think is bad for a tank loco, and with 8 coupled wheels, should permit a decent amount of traction. I don't have any weights of comparable 8 coupled locos from Hornby, but will do so at home later, Q6, 52xx, a Q4, and the ROD 2-8-0 should be interesting.

Cheers. Paul.

[Paul_sterling]

Okay, hopefully I am not boring people too much.

I have weighed a handful of my loco's

Unsurprisingly, the Dapol Western, is top for weight, 546g over 6 driven axles.

4 Driving Axles
- Heljan Class 35 Hymek, 494g, the highest axle load.
- Heljan 23, 484g
- Bachmann Class 25/1 463g

After this was the Q1/2 at 375g

- The ROD version of the O4, 260g loco 300g total (missing tender weight)
- Q4 (modified O4), 245g loco, 325 total
- Hornby Q6, 221g Loco, 269 total (positively lightweight considering how well it seems to pull)
Last on the 8 coupled was the 52/42xx, 250g total.

three driving axles
- Hornby Duchess (new tooling) was next at 418g total, but only 340g loco
- Bachmann Fairburn 2-6-4, 374g (!) I was surprised by this one, being as heavy as that.

I don't have a P2 to weigh, but I can imagine that to be similar to the Duchess. I should've weighed the Bachmann 47, as that is a fair engine, but probably no more than the CL52. With all this in mind, I reckon the Q1 will have a fair bit of bite. The S1 should be better still as I've got more boiler to play with and more side tanks, might not fill the bunker on that one.

thanks
Paul.

[Paul_sterling]

Late on last night I finally glued the tank tops in place, and fitted the cab to smokebox pipework

IMG_20190314_224929 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

IMG_20190314_224937 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr
The pipe is slightly overscale, but it was material easily to hand (its the filament that the loco is printed from), and glues easy enough. I curved the end slightly to look like the elbow going into the smokebox. At the rear the underside was flattened off, so that it fit between firebox and the tank tops.

IMG_20190314_224943 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr
The smokebox with the blue-tack removed after the glue had cured enough.

IMG_20190314_224955 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

Thanks,
Paul.

[Paul_sterling]

A bit more progress

IMG_20190318_133208 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

The smokebox dart is now fitted. I ended up with both the two handle, and the handle & wheel types, but preferred this style, most, if not all ended up with this form by withdrawal.

IMG_20190318_133213 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr
Whistle temporarily fitted in place. the 0.5mm drill required was the second smallest I have.

IMG_20190318_133230 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr
Handrail grab mount holes drilled to 0.9mm. I ordered the medium length handrail knobs by mistake, they are too long for the job, and short are what is needed.

Paul.

[Paul_sterling]

Hi Folks,

I've completed a few more tasks on the Q1/2.
IMG_20190325_141931 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

I bought a set of steps from the Markits range. clumsily at first I did not realise that they were in a set of different sizes, and worse, the steps to solder in had different size slots too, ah well, live and learn.

Only the big set were immediately useable as something near what the Q1 originally had, the medium size steps had to be cut down to make passable front and centre steps.

IMG_20190325_143604 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

I used some of the periphery brass from the kit to make the bunker access steps. I didn't know if a suitable alternative could be bought, and this obviously cost nothing extra.
IMG_20190325_170602 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

These haven't photographed as well as the appear in reality, but I will tweak them to come up a bit better. Moreover, I think its coming together.
IMG_20190325_170618 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

IMG_20190325_170818 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

So, getting there a bit at a time. Hoping to see some short grab rail knobs this week, but nothing from AG, seem to be hard to get hold of at the moment, by phone, email or smoke signals!

Paul.

[Paul_sterling]

I've been quiet for a week or so, mostly because of the continuing work on fitting a new floor + joists in my homes' living room (I'm sure you can imagine the domestic authorities reaction if I back-heeled that work to continue the Q1!), I have managed to make a bit more progress.

A pipe (Vacuum) runs along the right side of the loco to just above the crosshead. I've fashioned this from welding wire, which if I am honest, is slightly under-size (whereas the ejector pipe is slightly over-size), but as it was to hand and readily form-able, I've gone with. The Loco is far from perfect, it is a reflection of me in that respect, but I am happy with it, and that is what matters. I am toying with using some brass scrap to wrap around the pipe to simulate the brackets which hold the pipe on the original as well.

IMG_20190331_222804 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

IMG_20190331_222814 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr
The Comet steps I used fixed to the underside of the running plate, which is not how they look on the real Q1's, so used some of the waste brass from the etching, I fashioned a cover piece to help fix the wire in place, and also capture some of the look of the original steps, I'll have to do the same for the front steps, but the rear's are as per the originals, sort of.

IMG_20190331_222903 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr
Since taking this picture, I have since fitted the Vac pipe, and joined it to the pipe which runs along the loco. I still need to work out a suitable coupling position to take ideally an NEM pocket, and fitting this has probably made that more difficult.......

Thanks, Paul.

[Paul_sterling]

Conscience has got the better of me, I've removed the Ejector pipe that was made of filament surplus, and i've started on a piece of wire 1.5mm dia, which looks to be closer to the right size.

Paul.

[mick b]

I doubt if the pipe would be more than 0.9mm diameter or less in size.

[Paul_sterling]

I doubt if the pipe would be more than 0.9mm diameter or less in size.

I think you might well be right Mick, from pictures, it looks roughly twice the size of the grab rail, which according to AG is 0.45mm, so 0.9 would be about right.

Admittedly, I did offer up some 0.8mm wire, and that looked way too small (the wire i've used for the Vac pipe).

On that basis I will try and get hold of some 0.9 or 1.0mm, and offer it up.

Thanks.

Paul.

Edit - It looks like the Ejector pipe is slightly bigger on the Q1, than the Q4 which I had compared for the above pipe, but would still be at most 1.1mm

[Paul_sterling]

Hi Folks,

I acquired some "wire" 1.2mm dia for the ejector pipe, but sadly it was tool steel and way too brittle to form, so I went back to the 1.5mm dia wire, and it looks okay it situ.
IMG_20190407_222438 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

I've also got on with the handrail knobs, finding a little time late last night after fitting the boards to the living room floor. The tank side ones were pretty straightforward to fit, I was wondering what you folks used to secure the wire into the knobs?

IMG_20190407_222428 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

The bit that I was really dreading was the wraparound wire for the smokebox door grab-rail. To ease the stress, I fitted the side knobs on first, aligning them using a piece of scrap 0.45mm brass wire, and leaving them to dry. I made the basic shape of the wire, and manipulated it to somewhere near, before realising I had not fitted the centre knob! Easing one bend out, I managed to slip it into place.
IMG_20190407_231745 by Paul Sterling, on Flickr

It is far from perfect, but grabrails seldom were. once trimmed to length, i'll be able to move onto the little grab handles which sit on the front of the running plate. It also looks like I have a few areas to add a little more filler before more painting, in all honesty it doesn't show up anywhere near as much in the flesh.

Paul.

[mossie]

Hi Paul

The Q1 is looking very nice, should be a lovely looking when painted.

To secure the wire in the knobs I use superglue, but that is just my preference.

Richard

[Paul_sterling]

Thank you Richard, I'm pleased you like it. Thanks also for the info on the grab rails, I had wondered if anyone had soldered them, but that surely would be on the tricky side. I've added a dab of glue to mine now as well.

Cheers. Paul