Coal Tank test build

David Varley

Western Thunderer
A little bit more progress.

Muffs shortened slightly to allow for springs/pickups and wheels added ... motor mounted by dint of super gluing a strip of double gapped PCB to it and then soldering that to the frames from below ... clearances checked with body and boiler in place ... and then the motor was connected up to the frames and power applied ... and thankfully the wheels turned!

Now for the quartering and the coupling rods ...

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adrian

Flying Squad
Regarding Ultrascale gears, they quote up to six months for delivery. I've never had to wait that long but it depends where they are in their cycle. The last couple of orders I've put in have between about three weeks and three months.
The gears were ordered on 11th. April and I've just got an email to say they have been posted so not too bad. I might have to draw up a shopping list for the Supermeet at Tutbury!
 

David Varley

Western Thunderer
Latest in-progress shots:

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Weight has been put into the body by dint of tungsten sheet in the sidetanks and tungsten copper granules in the boiler and the bunker.

The smokebox front is from the etch and the wrapper is a Mike Bryant etch which was kindly passed to me by Steve Dunkeyson.

The wrapper needs a bit more fettling yet to clear the front sandboxes but otherwise is a nice, snug fit. Might try and get some very thin nickel silver strip between it and the boiler just to get it sitting a bit better and to replicate the real two layer step down from the wrapper to the boiler.

Couldn't resist putting the various bit together to see how it's looking!

Regards,

David
 
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David Varley

Western Thunderer
David,
Where did you get the tungsten sheet and granules from? Sounds like handy stuff.
Steph

....and how did you fix the granules?

Brian

Steph,

The tungsten sheet is from troutcatchers - Tungsten Sheet - and the granules from Ebay - TUNGSTEN COPPER GRANULES (WCU) 250g 0-1mm - W 44.34%, Cu 47.27% FREE P&P!.

Brian,

The granules were put in dry and then I dribbled some Loctite 603 on top - soaks through and sets the whole lot solid.

Regards,

David
 
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Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
David,
Thank you for the links. And the loctite 603 is an idea I'll check up on. Certainly it avoids the lead chlorite issue that's a problem with using liquid lead and PVA. I must admit I tend to use runny superglue or epoxy to fix any ballast granules in place.
Steph
 

David Varley

Western Thunderer
Work and real life limiting modelling time again, but made a bit of progress on the smokebox this afternoon - added the inner wrapper and made up the smokebox door which was then loosely fixed in place for the purposes of taking a photo.

Hopefully might not be as long until the next posting!

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David Varley

Western Thunderer
Almost ground to a halt with this now, mainly because I've reached the current limit of my skills with a soldering iron.

The body had been going together reasonably well, but one of the big challenges was always going to be the boiler assembly, especially given that the boiler in the 4mm kit is a resin casting.

Anyway, I've done the best that I'm capable of for the moment but I'm not happy with it - got the boiler between the side tanks ok, but made a right pig's ear of affixing the smokebox assembly and not happy with the result - it's not sitting square on the boiler but I can't persuade it to move round at all so if I can't get the boiler back out I'll probably have to build another body.

Not happy with the way the chassis's running with either so may also be back to the drawing board with that as well.

Slightly frustrating, but this build was about making mistakes and learning from them. Not giving up on it either, but going to put it to one side temporarily and build something a bit simpler and practice a couple of things and then come back to it.

Not sure how others who are building it are getting on, but would be interested to know and would also welcome thoughts about how to go about getting a better fit of the smokebox front, the smokebox wrapper and the boiler, especially when it comes to getting the wrapper to fit the curves of the smokebox front.

Progress photos attached.

Regards,

David

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john lewsey

Western Thunderer
Hi David I shaped it around a paint brush handle so that it was smaller than the boiler and once it fitted tightly I put solder paste on the boiler and used a blow lamp to heat it up but I put the heat on the boiler not the wrapper then it put the front smoke box etch on and did the same .Does that make sense I hope that it helps
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Not sure how others who are building it are getting on, but would be interested to know and would also welcome thoughts about how to go about getting a better fit of the smokebox front, the smokebox wrapper and the boiler, especially when it comes to getting the wrapper to fit the curves of the smokebox front.
Thanks for the update - interesting to see how it is progressing. All I've done so far is collect bits and pieces for it and not actually made a start yet. I still need to order the wheels and then after the summer break I'll start having a look at making up the chassis. It terms of the boiler and wrapper I'm afraid I don't have any suggestions. I think anyone would struggle with it due to the brass boiler, especially as you have already filled it with weights. It's just going to act as a huge heat sink so soldering anything is going to be difficult unless you are confident enough to tackle it with a small torch, but then again that might have an adverse effect on the loctite.
 

Mike W

Western Thunderer
Being used to MUCH larger models this may be a silly comment, but do none of the customers fancy making a resin boiler/smokebox unit or is there some reason why that would not work in 2mm?

Mike
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Being used to MUCH larger models this may be a silly comment, but do none of the customers fancy making a resin boiler/smokebox unit or is there some reason why that would not work in 2mm?
The feedback I get from other 2mmFS modellers is pure and simple : weight. In 2mm you need as much as possible, they have been known to make footplates out of tungsten to get the weight in! So I don't think a resin boiler and firebox will be heavy enough. My intention for this will be to make the boiler out of nickel-silver sheet and then once all detailed fill it with tungsten sheet.
 

David Varley

Western Thunderer
With hindsight, I'm beginning to think that I should have assembled the boiler and smokebox separately and then married them to the rest of the body - would have been far easier to put right mistakes that way. As Adrian said the whole thing's become a giant heat sink now and getting the smokebox off is going to be a real struggle. Might just have to abandon this body and build another one having learnt a few lessons and picked up a few tips. Going to have a break from it and build something else first though.

Almost every other 2mm modeller I've spoken to has always been concerned about getting as much weight in as possible, but Mick Simpson also wnet to some lengths to stress that it wasn't just about how much weight you could get in, it was about getting the balance right as well. That's actually one aspect of the build that seemed to be going quite well with the weight in the bunker balancing the weight in the front half of the boiler.
 
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