7mm Stanier 3P 2-6-2

LarryG

Western Thunderer
One can tell that with each loco you build it is a labour of love. While it is a hobby, I wonder if you log your hours on each loco...
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
Many thanks Deano.

No Larry, I don't log the time spent building. Since retiring nearly a year ago, I get to spend most weekday afternoons at the bench, but this week my wife and daughter are away down south so I've had more time to play with my toys. As far as railway modelling is concerned, I only build locos, steam mostly. I'm very interested in other aspects of the hobby and greatly admire the work that you and others do in the areas of layout, wagon and carriage building etc., but as I don't do that I can focus on the locos.

On the build, I spent yesterday's session adding extra detail to the pony trucks. I scratched up parts for the missing cross members on the A and U frames, missing spacers between the side frames, side control springs and bolster. These last two items are just simple representations, but they fill in the gaps and look the part from low head on views, which is only where they can be seen on the track.

Here's the side control springs which I made from brass rod turned down and tapped 4BA to represent the coils. Before cutting to length, the threading was turned down slightly and then polished with a nail polisher to take off the top of the thread and round them off. A couple of 8BA washers was added either end of the spring.
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Here's the trucks with the cross members fitted to the A and U frames. The side frame spacers were made from NS sheet and brass strip. Four basis rectangles were cut and then laminated together, marked up for drilling and filing so that I only made one thick spacer and then desoldered, cleaned up and then added the bottom flange.
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Here's the front one.
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And the rear.
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And the front one from the underside.
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This low angle shot shows what can be seen.
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And the model inverted.
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Here's a closer view of the rear truck. The extra parts added make it a pig to get the chassis retaining bolt in, as the truck has to be fitted first, then the brake crank frame as it is screwed in from above. "One must suffer for one's art!" :)):))
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Whilst I was at it, I added the spring to the floating middle axle bearing. They locate into recesses drilled in the bearings and in this case their main function is to stop them rotating in the frames, as I think the motor and gearbox will have enough weight to keep them from lifting.
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Cheers,
Peter
 

Dave Holt

Western Thunderer
Very nice, Peter. The additional detail on the trucks is quite transformative. Excellent work.
As you say, assembly of rear trucks where the brake mechanism passes through the frame are testing when it comes to assembly. I've had the same issue with my 4 mm BR Standard and Ivatt Class 2 2-6-2 tanks.
Dave.
 

Peter Cross

Western Thunderer
Peter
We're both ponies the same? When I did the Ivatt, one was sprung the other was with swing links. I've no idea if all the LMS 2-6-2's were the same.
Looks stunning. Much neater than the 2P I'm fighting with.
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
The challenge will be for someone to do it this well in 4mm which the kit was designed for.
The kit is very good but it will be much harder to build to the same standard in 4mm, but I'm sure there are guys who can do it.

Very nice, Peter. The additional detail on the trucks is quite transformative. Excellent work.
As you say, assembly of rear trucks where the brake mechanism passes through the frame are testing when it comes to assembly. I've had the same issue with my 4 mm BR Standard and Ivatt Class 2 2-6-2 tanks.
Dave.
I shortened the fixing screw on the rear truck and now it can unscrewed easier and twisted out of the way to insert the chassis fixing screw. Still a bit of a pain but much better.

Peter
We're both ponies the same? When I did the Ivatt, one was sprung the other was with swing links. I've no idea if all the LMS 2-6-2's were the same.
Looks stunning. Much neater than the 2P I'm fighting with.
Thanks Peter, but I have the advantage of a decent set of etchings not the bag of :shit: you are working with. You are doing a sterling job though.

As to the pony trucks, I believe they were the same apart from the different frames. From all the photos I've looked at I can't see anything to suggest swing links were fitted but I could be wrong. None of the GA drawings that Mike provided have a fully detailed drawing of the rear truck, or the front one for that matter. If anybody knows different please let me know, but I'm not changing it now. I'm hoping the swing link truck on the rear was an Ivatt and then BR thing.

Yesterday I added the beading using this half round wire that Mickoo recommended recently. It's good stuff, soft and easy to form at the curves and can be bought in different thicknesses.

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I also made the forward tank breather pipes from 1.6mm brass rod with a ring of the Nugold wire to represent the bracket at the top. I also drilled out the top for a couple of mm.
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I just need to make the whistle to complete this area.
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And I finally made the flanges for the steam pipes, so these are now soldered to the boiler. The steam lance cock has also been added.
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The bottom flange is only soldered to the running plate so the boiler may be lifted out for painting.
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I've got some Griffin brass castings for the mechanical lubricators, so I can look forward to drilling them out for the oil pipes and cutting one shorter for the right hand side, which was smaller than the left and had less feeds, as on the bigger class 4P.

Cheers,
Peter
 
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P A D

Western Thunderer
The footsteps and tank balancing pipes have now been added which finishes off the etched parts. The steps for the front drop plate and the snifting valve covers were not included so these will have to be made. The front footsteps had no fold over tab at the top so rather than rely on a butt joint, I added a strip of waste fret to the top and wrapped it around so that it could be soldered to the hanging plate.
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The valance pipe is a 6 piece laminate but it fettles up nicely.
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The rear footstep is fastened to the outside of the buffer beam.
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At the front I have also added the grab rails and opened out the slots just to ths outside of them.
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To allow access to the rear chassis fixing screw I shortened the pony truck screw, which allows it to be unscrewed and moved to one side out of the way.
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Nearly complete now, but still quite a few bits and bobs to go on.

Cheers,
Peter
 
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P A D

Western Thunderer
Next, the front sandbox fillers. Again they are made from rod drilled at one end to accept the Griffin cast lids. The backing plates were made from scratch and a tab was included so that they could be soldered to the underside of the running plate. The top edge of the plates just rest against the boiler to allow it to be removed.
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And a view from the top side.
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Drilling out the Griffin cast mechanical lubricators was not as daunting as I thought it would be, as there are dimples cast where the feeder pipes go and the the castings are hollow. After drilling the holes in each side and the front, 8mm lengths of the supplied tube are inserted through the casting and soldered in places, leaving about a mm each side to represent the fixings for the pipes. The pipes are made from 0.4mm copper wire fed through the tube and secured with a drop of superglue. Here's the right hand ond ready for fitting. The left hand one is smaller and only has four feeds per side, with the two front feeds plugged. I cut is short by a couple of mm or so before the tubes were fitted.20200227_135522.jpg

Here both lubricators are ready for fitting. I formed the pipe runs by superglueing the castings to my anvil to hold them steady and then routed and soldered the pipes. When complete a quick tap with a hammer released the lubricators from the anvil.
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It would not have been easy to solder the lubricators to the running plate so I used epoxy instead. Before fitting them I marked and drilled holes for the operating levers. The top rivet on the steampipe flange was damaged during cleaning up so I will drill through and replace it with a piece of 0.5mm brass rod.20200227_180824.jpg

On the other side the ejector has also been fitted. This was from the spares box and is a modified Gladiator Duchess part that I replaced with a Griffin casting. It's starting to look busy in this area now and all that remains to be fitted is a two feed oil pot just ahead of the smokebox saddle. There will be ond on the other side as well.
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And from a lower angle. I've now fitted the reversing lever to the weight shaft and it is just visible in this shot.
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The bunker footsteps have now been filled in and will be tidied up later when the filler is fully set.
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Some gratuitous shots to finish off.
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Clearly the truck spacers can be seen so were worth adding, but the side control spring could have been left off with no visual impact. Just noticed that the upper lamp iron is not straight, so I'll add that to the to do list.
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The reversing lever can be better see in this view. There is some pipe work to add in this area which on the prototype ran from the injector to the top feed.
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Cheers,
Peter
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
Thanks for the kind words chaps.

Although I have painted most of the locos I've built, my painting skills are not as good as my building skills. Having had one of my locos painted by Warren Haywood with two currently going through the process, I've seen a lot of his work up close and I know I will never be able to get anywhere near what he does. Yes it's very satisfying to do the whole thing yourself, but I have no qualms with somebody of Warren's ability painting my locos.

Anyway, a little more progress. This morning I made the brackets for the oilpots under the smokebox and also added the remaining lamp irons to the running plate. I didn't have an exact match for the oilpots so I had to fettle up a couple from Sanspareil. I made the brackets overlarge, soldered the oilpots in place and then held them in a pair of forceps while I filed them down to size. They aught to be smaller but I was worried about the adhesion between oilpot and bracket if I removed much more metal. On the left as they come and on the right after filing. There's a hole in the base of the bracket that allowed the pipes to be fitted.
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And soldered in place. The lamp irons are from Laurie Griffin.
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And t'other side. Whoops! I see the top lamp iron has taken a knock.
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Cheers,
Peter
 

Dave Holt

Western Thunderer
A very nice looking model indeed, Peter. Fantastic work.
7 mm scale certainly does allow much better detail than 4 mm - but needs it in order not to look bare.
I'm with you regarding painting and lining! I have done some in the past but prefer to lets someone with better skills do that whilst I get on with the building.
Dave.
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
A very nice looking model indeed, Peter. Fantastic work.
7 mm scale certainly does allow much better detail than 4 mm - but needs it in order not to look bare.
I'm with you regarding painting and lining! I have done some in the past but prefer to lets someone with better skills do that whilst I get on with the building.
Dave.
Many thanks Dave. I like to put on everything that can be seen from normal viewing angles, but am not not too concerned with stuff that can't be seen. However, I have been known to engage in vanity projects. :D As this is a direct scale up from the 4mm etchings, it included some etched parts that might pass muster in the smaller scale but not in 7mm. Although I gave it a go with the slidebars and crosshead, I'm glad I went with the castings in the end.



Absolutely inspirationally stunning.
Well done!

Much appreciated Cliff. I thought the same about your Finney 7mm Duchess when I saw it in the Gazette some years ago.

Cheers,
Peter
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
Yesterday was mostly making parts not included in the etchings or available commercially.

At the rear, a representation of the injectors based on photos was knocked up from brass tube, 14BA washers and copper wire. According to the GA they were Gresham and Craven #7 on both sides. They should be fastened to the frames but as the pipe work loops between the steps and tank balance pipes, it made sense to fix them to the body. Here's a view from underneath. The pipe that runs behind the step is just loose, with the drain pipe soldered to the step and the remaining two soldered to a bracket under the cab floor.
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There's another pipe and trap to be added above the injector on this side.
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Not a great deal of the injectors can be seen so they should pass muster after painting and weathering.

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At the front I made the valve tail rod covers from 6BA bolts with the head turned down to act as a flange inside the running plate and the thread removed and cut to length. The snifting valve covers and steps were made from 10 thou NS sheet. 20200303_090055.jpg
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And finally the cylinder drains which are Griffin castings.20200303_090616.jpg

Still a few bits and pieces to make, but I'm closing in on the finish line.
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Cheers,
Peter
 
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