Building the MOK "King Arthur"

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Thank you Peter. Comments much appreciated. The "cracking build" is really down to Dave Sharp and a superbly designed kit. It all fits beautifully with very little fettling - whether the bogies need to be quite so complex is another question, but they are a delight to build.

The question of brass vs white metal castings will, I fear, not be easily resolved. Personally I like brass (I have no problem with white metal either) as it's easier to solder and doesn't clog files. I'm perfectly happy to solder white metal too, but have accidentally melted white metal after fitting rather too often for comfort. (I forgot to mention that I've replaced the pegs on the tops of the springs above with 16BA nuts and it would have been quite a task to do this with white metal. Shame my photos don't show them!):)

Brian
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
Thank you Peter. Comments much appreciated. The "cracking build" is really down to Dave Sharp and a superbly designed kit. It all fits beautifully with very little fettling - whether the bogies need to be quite so complex is another question, but they are a delight to build. Brian

I disagree Brian,
The quality of the kit is down to Dave Sharp, but the quality of the build is down to you. Over the years I've seen enough crappy models built from very good kits to know that a good kit does not guarantee a good model. Conversely, a good model can be made from a crap kit if the builder has the right skills, which you showed with your build of the Ace "K".

Credit where credit is due. The cracking build is down to you sir!
Cheers,
Peter
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Thanks again, Peter.

Here's the update for the last couple of afternoons work.

One tender bogie is complete. The brake gear has been assembled but not yet soldered together - and it won't be until the second bogie is complete so that I can work out where the brake gear connections need to be flexible which will allow the bogies to swivel. Out of interest I did a count up of the number of parts which make up this bogie and it's in excess of seventy. No wonder these take so long to assemble.

Initially two photos of the bogie "right way round", the second from the rear showing the brake gear and the fitting to the bogie frame.

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Here's the bogie from underneath, again from front and rear.

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Finally for today the bogie is attached to the underside of the tender showing the brake rod run before fixing. I'm still working out where the flexible joints will have to be made.

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Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Just to keep things up to date....... (Apologies for focus on the first photo which I'll redo for my files, but as it's WIP I'll use it here).

The bogies are now complete and fitted to the tender. Brake rodding is still to be done and so is soldering the brake shoes and hangers in place. That'll be an interesting exercise as the inner brakes are pretty well inaccessible with a soldering iron bit, added to which the bogies can move in so many directions due to the compensation arrangements that the relationship of the brake shoes to the wheels will be down to guesswork. Once the brakes are complete there's just beading to do, buffer beam overlays to fit and buffer stocks to add. There's also some sliders between bogies and tender frames.

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In the side view those 16BA nuts I applied to the tops of the springs can't be seen and will be in the gloom under the tender body anyway, but at least I'll know they are there. Next is to check that the bogie play will allow this tender to run comfortably through 6 ft curves. IMHO these tenders are really elegant and balance the loco perfectly.

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Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
To keep us up to date.....

Fortunately Mr Dale the Younger visited last weekend and found, within my library, the drawings for the bogie tender. He'd already worked out that I was building the brake gear upside down, but the drawings confirmed it. I'm very lucky as I was struggling with this aspect of the construction and would otherwise have got it entirely wrong. I didn't even realise that I had the drawings!:'(

However, here's the brass knitting. Being of a technical bent and a stickler for the correct description for the engineers it's the undergubbins.

Here's the brake gear on the underside of the tender chassis. All the links work OK and are flexible where required so the tender still goes round corners. The pins have yet to be trimmed back.

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This is the complete brake gear, less the front fork which I've used to create a screwed joint, comprising 45 pieces. This is the view from underneath.

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And this is the view from above.

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Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Just to bring things up to date.

The detailing has taken a while. It comprises beading all around the tender, toolboxes and fire iron bracket, lamp brackets, completing brake gear, vac and steam heating pipes and other bits of etch and lost wax casting. The buffers and housings have been prepared but will be fitted after painting - there's no room to fit the buffers if the housings are soldered in place at this time.

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The back of the tender is an interesting variant. It may be appropriate for "Sir Sagramore" or it may not. Rule 1 applies. Most of these tenders retained the orignal LSWR socket fittings until their demise, but there is a photo in "The Book of the King Arthur 4-6-0s" showing three LSWR sockets with irons jammed in them and three SR lamp brackets including a weedy looking thing providing the lamp mount at the top of the tender.

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Loco comes next, but there's Finney7 stuff to be done in the upcoming week so there will be a delay before it reaches the bench.

Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
I've managed a few days in the workshop. Not a step by step explanation of the build, but just an update. This is the completed bogie - it's a thing of beauty indeed.

First a conventional top down view. The side control mechanism is, although not original in concept, very nicely designed.

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Side on.

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And finally, from underneath.

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I hope to be able to make some more photos for tomorrow having started on the loco frames and finished the ashpan.

Brian
 

Genghis

Western Thunderer
I had been struggling to work out which way up the brake beams go on the Maunsell 5000 gallon tender I am building now. I am going to take a punt at it being the same as this one. Like you I had been toying with installing it upside down (even though Adrian Rowland's build photos show them the correct way.) Reason being: getting clearance between the pull rods and the axles will not be easy.

I had also struggled to work out the arrangement of pull rods to the rear bogie. How have you made it so that the bogies can rotate with the pull rods in place? I haven't quite worked that out from your photos.

Lovely build!

David
 

Peter Cross

Western Thunderer
David

When I did one of these type tenders. I found the pull rod for the rear bogie was long enough to flex, and act like a centralising spring.
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Hello David and Peter.

I suspect your tender is probably substantially the same as mine. If it's for a King Arthur or S15 it will be - if for a Lord Nelson there are differences but as far as I can see the underpinnings are much the same. I was fortunate that Steph dug some drawings out of three of my books so I had something to which I could refer. However, you have the separate brake gear as assembled in pictures above which should help, I hope.

The gear is cleverly designed so that there's a fulcrum behind the brake cylinder which allows swivel to the front bogie and the other joints are pinned and soldered but not as solid joints allowing a degree of flex. As Peter says, the lack of a flexible joint in the pull rod from front to back bogie relies on the pull rod flexing and acts as a centralising spring.

Clearances when all assembled are very tight but the pull rods clear the axles which is all that's necessary after all. The only difficulty in assembly is that, as designed, the brake gear has to be in place on the bogies before these are installed on the tender pivots which rather relies on a bit of screwdriver origami to get them in place.

Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
The efforts today will, I hope, give Mickoo cause to be a happy boy.....

The chassis construction is far from easy but creates an "interesting" set of spacers. I reckon they are trying to reproduce the real thing.

Firstly the ash pan. This is a separate sub assembly and on fitting to the frames comprises one of the spacers.

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Here's all the bits in place - a dry run on one side.

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Bear in mind, please, that this is a dry run and depends entirely on the design allowing everything to stay together by the power of friction alone. Even more amazingly, the next photos show the whole assembly together with both sides, but again there is no solder involved.

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And finally the sides have been soldered together with the spacers, on a sheet of glass to ensure that everything is square. The overlays are in place, but those have not yet been soldered.

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This is an exceptional kit. My only reservation is that the instructions for this part of the assembly could be better and some of the part numbers didn't match when the instructions actually worked..... but we've all been there, haven't we.

There'll be no more updates from me tomorrow or Saturday, but I hope to get back in the workshop on Sunday.

Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Next update.

I've now pretty well finished the frames, without springs or brake gear. Here they are. The outriggers are held together by willpower again on a dry run.

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With a certain inevitability this lot had to be soldered up and this is the result.

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The photos above rather hide the construction. Just as an example..... (and the instructions left a bit to be desired). This bit is five parts - a sixth if you include the section bet out from the main frame.

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Next is a sub assembly for the buffer beam (overlay not fitted) and front steps.

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And here it's not fitted, just put in the right place and again held on by willpower and gravity.

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Next is springs.....

Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
I can't believe it's just over two weeks since I last posted. Stuff has been happening, though.

First I prepared and fitted the springs and hornblock retainers. The configuration as designed, recommending soldering all, means that the hornblocks cannot be removed. Although this isn't a huge problem if using Slaters wheels I wished to be able to remove the hornblocks if it became necessary. Here's the frames with springs and hornblock retainers in place.

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There were holes in the retainers to help accurate location and I used these for 14BA screws and nuts on the other side. Thus, if I had to remove the hornblocks I could remove the retainers and bend the spring castings out of the way. (Just as well I did - see later). So here's the hornblock retainers as fitted.

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Next was to fit the brake hanger pins.

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Then the brakes were fitted to the hangers ready for attaching to the pins in due course.

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Next in the instructions is to fit the compensation beam for the front axle. I tried (truly!) to wrangle it in but it wouldn't go - or that's to say that I couldn't make it go. So I unscrewed one of the retainers and dropped one of the hornblocks and, even without actually removing the hornblock, by just dropping it a bit, the compensation beam could be fitted.

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Next is the bogie fitting to the frames. This is from the Dave Sharp instructions, and I can't do better than his drawing. (If you're reading this please forgive me reproducing this, Dave. I'm not sure I could describe the construction.....)

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And these are the parts.

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and with the bogie

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Then the ball was fitted in the socket.

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Finally for today the bogie fitted the frames. Having lost one of the circlips to the carpet monster (Dave kindly provides a spare, and I have one left over from the Q1 as well), and knowing that I'd have to remove the bogie, I made a temporary fitting with some soft iron wire wrapped around the spindle.

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Now comes the cylinders. That looks like quite a challenge so you might have to wait a while......

Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Thanks Mike.

I'm trying - I've been told that many times......

Cylinders. These are the components.

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I didn't take a photo of them in the nude, but here's one of them fully clothed.

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And then in their rightful place.

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Next the slide bars and crosshead in their raw state. They look a bit rough but this is only the surface.

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They clean up rather well!

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But that piston rod may need trimming back a bit.

Brian

.
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
I spent two full afternoons refining the castings before joining the piston rods to the crossheads. The soldering of the crossheads to the rods took a number of tries before it was right. Having achieved that everything slides freely as it should.

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I dunno how 7mm Mick manages to build this bit so quickly.

So I'm now up to the valves, cylinder fronts and valve fronts. Here are the parts. It appears from the pictures in the instructions that the valve rods may be bigger than the piston rods. That may be so but it's not specified. I've sent an email to Dave to ask for clarification. I'd like to drill or open the holes in the valve backs before removing from the sprue if possible.

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The parts are jolly nice. One of the cylinder fronts has a crack in it and is probably the least good of any of the MOK castings I've seen but the crack was easily filled with car body filler. (Dave would have replaced but it's perfectly usable).

Hopefully I'll be able to move ahead tomorrow.

Brian
 
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