Building the JLTRT Rebuilt Royal Scot

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Thanks for three really helpful comments.

Heather,

Looks like I've found out the error of my ways the hard way! I'll have another look at the Wild Swan book - in fact both of them - but my initial shuffle through them didn't find me any tender drawings. However (see Len's comment), by comparison of Black 5 and Royal Scot photos it should be possible to establish the principle.

Steph - Yes, I fully understand the need to match loco and tender footplates. However, I have to start building the loco somewhere, and this is essentially "etch 1". It'll be my starter as I begin to build the loco up.

Len - that's useful. I have at least one of the Black 5 books and certainly the Wild Swan Royal Scot book. I'll review the Black 5 book but I took the view early on that it's not possible to rely on it as far as the tenders are concerned as the Royal Scot tenders were different to the "norm" in a few fundamental ways.

Some excellent nuggets there, so thank you all.

Brian
 

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Dad,

Sorry, I don't think I was clear - can you get the footplate height from the loco drawings; use that as your starter for ten. Recognising that these tenders were used with a variety of loco types, you may find that neither of the footplate brackets are exactly right and may need adjusting to match.

You might recall the array of footplate parts in our new tender kits necessary to cover all eventualities. :))

Steph
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi Brian,

IIRC, the rebuilt Royal Scots had their tender footplates built up further, rather than being rebuilt - ie, the original lower base was retained, and a new raised section built on top of it to get the right height. So if you take off your step tread, add a frame and replace the step tread, you should be OK.

It's a good few years since I built mine, but you can see what I mean in this photo.

Royal Scot.jpg

Cheers,

Richard
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Stanier engines have a low cab floor, Fowler engines have a high cab floor.

For Black 5, Jubilee, 8F and almost certainly the rebuilt Patriots (as they had Stanier cabs on rebuilding but I'd have to check my GA's to be sure) use the short tender footplate supports, 5' - 3" above rail head.

For Royal Scot (the cab remained Fowler even after rebuild) use tall tender footplate supports, 5' - 11" above rail head.

The 4000G tender drawing C34222 in the Wild Swan Vol 15 Royal Scots can be misleading, you have to read the text carefully as it explains it's actually an 8F tender for indication purposes, as such it shows the low footplate and is annotated accordingly.

The text also explains that the footplate is higher on the Royal Scots but does not detail how much higher. You need to study drawing D42-16519 to calculate the revised footplate height, noted above.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Hi Brian,

IIRC, the rebuilt Royal Scots had their tender footplates built up further, rather than being rebuilt - ie, the original lower base was retained, and a new raised section built on top of it to get the right height. So if you take off your step tread, add a frame and replace the step tread, you should be OK.

It's a good few years since I built mine, but you can see what I mean in this photo.

View attachment 128553

Cheers,

Richard
Richard, you might be right, according to the records the majority of Royal Scot tenders were originally destined for Jubilees on order numbers 9004-9053, the remaining Scot tenders fall into three batches 9331-9343, 9346-9352, 9355-9358

Photos show two types of tender footplate construction, those with a clear 'extension' on top of the Stanier height, others a single construction top to bottom, 115, 125, 129, 130, 157....I've not checked them all and tenders may have been swapped around within the class anyway.

There is no indication that once allocated to Royal Scots that they moved away to other classes but they almost certainly migrated around the same class.

Logically I'd say the first order of 50 tenders have the extended footplate, the remaining 20 in three later batches that went direct to the Scots have a single construction.

Brian is building #127, I have two photos that show 127 had an extended design.

This Ebay sale shows it had an extended footplate when withdrawn/stored.

pu2511 - Cumbria - Engine No.46127 at Carlisle Upperby Shed - photograph 6x4 | eBay

This small 1961 shot ex Crewe works can just define the same

Crewe Works.

An earlier 1950s shot also confirms an extended construction.

46127

For completeness, pictorial evidence of the two types.

Extended
Image1.jpg

One piece.

Image2.jpg
 
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oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Thanks Steph. As usual I misread your suggestion.:)) OK, I understand what you're saying, but I'll probably get the loco built up to footplate level before I tackle the tender again. I've actually located some drawings but all say to be cautious abut the tenders fitted to the Royal Scots......

Richard - I didn't know about the tender level being built up as you describe but am interested to see that and Mickoo's subsequent comments.

That's some super detail, Mick. I looked at the Wild Swan book and took on board the comments vis-a-vis the tender. It actually advises that there are no known drawings of the tender as fitted to the Royal Scots. Your comments, data and particularly the photos will be sooooo useful. Had it not been for the tender hiatus I'd never have known or had the benefit of your and Richard's advice. Many thanks to both of you.

Moving on...... If I was rude about the footplate etch I apologise. Here it is. The only thing which I'm a bit uncomfortable about is all that folding and ensuring it's square. However, checking on a glass plate it's absolutely true so no complaints so far.

IMG_20200808_161804921.jpg

Brian
 

Genghis

Western Thunderer
Our Stanier tender etch contains an optional raised footplate section with a note on the etch that it is required for the rebuilt Scots and Patriots..........

My rebuilt Patriot build used the raised section but will need to check photos to see if it was needed!
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Next, a diversion.

Laurie's done a check of his Royal Scot castings and kindly let me know quickly that he had supplied me all the castings he had for the Royal Scot tender, so there's no spare sprue to give the pairs of items needed. He is, very kindly, checking his stock of random castings but believes that he's unlikely to find anything.

That gives me a bit of a problem. I could possibly fabricate them using the etched parts and building up layers of brass. Alternatively I could try casting them myself, so here's my proof of concept, which is the posh way of saying this is what I tried next. If you are going to fall around laughing please do so quietly and with a measure of decorum.

Let's start by saying that I have neither casting nor moulding materials and didn't want to buy them in as the quantities I required are tiny. I was looking for something convenient and using stuff already in my stores. I had the items below. Worth a try, thought I.

IMG_20200809_133755578.jpg

"Newplast" is a commercial sort of Plasticine but I reckon normal childs' Plasticine would work just as well. I gave it a good work out to soften it up, laid it inside my plastic box and ran a roller over it to give a good flat surface.

Next I pressed the sprue in to the surface, first one side, then the other.

IMG_20200809_134858493.jpg

.... dusted the mould with talcum powder which I hoped would act as a release agent (we only had Mrs D's L'Occitane but she won't know unless you tell her) which I knocked out so that the detail was not clogged and then filled with 2-part Devcon 5 minute epoxy.

IMG_20200809_140530234.jpg

I left that for about 2 hours before removing the castings from the mould. Frankly the talcum powder didn't work as the castings came out encased in Plasticine which I removed with IPA and then soap and water leaving me these:

IMG_20200809_155609612.jpg

These look a mess but probably no worse than some of the white metal castings I've had in kits from certain manufacturers who shall remain nameless!

I've reached this stage so far, which is a rough cut and rub down of back of the parts from the epoxy matrix. Very difficult to see the detail which is actually pretty good although there are one or two air bubbles as, even when quite warm, two part epoxy is quite viscous so tends to trap air bubbles. The rubbing down was not easy as the parts were quite soft and flexible. I checked this morning and they've hardened off nicely so should now take some filing and more intense rubbing down.

IMG_20200809_173001580.jpg
I'm quite aware that I'm probably reinventing the wheel so will welcome thoughts and comments. If and when I do this again I'll apply the talcum powder to the surface of the Plasticine before I press the master in to the surface as removing it cleanly is not easy. I'll also try scraping over the surface of the mould after pouring to remove the excess epoxy - I didn't do it this time because I suspected that the scraping action on a viscous material would probably remove most of the epoxy from the mould, but it'll be worth a go, won't it?

Certainly quite a bit more cleaning up to do and the new castings will not be as fine as the original. However, hidden among the underpinnings of the tender I suspect they won't be too noticeable anyway and they'll fill what would otherwise be an empty space.

Of course, I'm now expecting Laurie to locate the missing part and that a small package will drop on my doorstep any time now........:D

Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Our Stanier tender etch contains an optional raised footplate section with a note on the etch that it is required for the rebuilt Scots and Patriots..........

My rebuilt Patriot build used the raised section but will need to check photos to see if it was needed!

Thanks for the advice. I suspect that the tender I'm building could be used with the raised or original level. The difficulty is that there's no written instructions so it's down to interpretation of the drawings provided in the kit and, as mentioned previously, my two sets of drawings are subtly different.

I will push on double checking on the way.

Brian
 

Lancastrian

Western Thunderer
This is what is required:

Derby series, 187 30 11858 List of drawing nos for standard & "Royal Scot" tenders Jan 1931 LMS

At least we could then see which drawings are missing.

Ian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Thanks Ian.

I'll see if I can find that in my collection of gubbins. I suspect, however, that if I do it'll lead me down another rabbit hole.......

Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Oh ye of little faith!

Even Dale Jnr has sent me a message accusing me of "faffing" and that I've created "faffage". I'd have hoped for a bit more respect and support. So that's one Christmas present less for this year.......

Against all the odds part of it worked OK - not totally stellar, but OK......

Here are the parts I cast against the master. This is the state when the backs were rubbed down to the required thickness and they are ready for joining together.

IMG_20200810_162508094.jpg

I used thin cyanoacrylate with both halves clamped together. When joined I further rubbed down to remove the join witness mark, drilled holes and cut slots as required.

IMG_20200811_141638568.jpg

There's still a bit of rubbing down to complete as they are somewhat oversize as seen here but I'm satisfied that, once this is done and the parts are washed they'll pass muster in the nether regions of a tender.

Except....... I'm the first to admit that the brake adjuster is not up to par in any way. This probably indicates the limits of the process, such as it is, although I'll have another go with a finely detailed part in the future using my newly gained knowledge as the starting point. The other issue with using a cast epoxy part is how to join it to the brass components in any way which will be as strong as brass to brass. I think it would fail at this hurdle anyway. However it certainly indicates, to me at least, that simple parts which will not be subject to excessive scrutiny or handling can be made to work in extremis. I'll be using the water pick up balance weight and the crank but not the brake adjuster.

However, there Re castings including adjusters in the materials I have from Laurie. This is not precisely the same pattern as the one as shown in the instruction drawings but, even though it's a bit skinny, it'll probably do the job. All is not lost.....

IMG_20200811_141919311.jpg

In any event, having gone to all this trouble it's a pound to a penny that Laurie will find a spare of the missing casting.

Brian
 
A

Arun

Guest
Interestingly the Gladiator/David Andrews Stanier tender does have the optional etch in it to allow the raised tender footplate to be created. As I recall, the elevated footplate also distinguished the tenders required for the Jubilees as well as the Royal Scots from those used on the Black 5s and the 8Fs. I don't know whether they were required for Patriots.
 

simond

Western Thunderer
A quick google for “faff etymology” suggests that it is an honourable bit of fairly old English.

And there’s me thinking it’s an acronym; “F***-About Factor”.

I suppose it’s more a comment on the parlous way my mind works :(

ho hum
Simon
 
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