JLTRT new build.

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

for some reason work is progressing slowly, the front of the cylinders folded down and the reducing rings fitted, along with the cylinder rears and the bottom slide-bar. Cleaning out the slots in the cylinder covers took a bit of time but it is well worth taking your time over this.
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and from below.
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All of the slide-bars now fitted.
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From the front you can see a bit of the bars sticking out, I'd rather have it this way than only just long enough.
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Testing the cross-heads for fit, these only need a very small amount of fettling to get them running smoothly.
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The front cylinder covers, I was not that happy with the marked position for the pressure relief valves so after checking the drawing it worked out that they are approx. 4.5mm from the centre line, the new position was marked out and the old one drilled out to 1.6mm and plugged with some 1/16" N/S.
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OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

just a quick update. When fitting the cylinders into the slots in the frames I found out the slots were too wide (I did think this when I looked at them). So to keep them central in the slots I fitted some scrap 12 thou brass to the front and rear outside faces only. The rear valve covers are in the correct orientation in having the stuffing box covers sloping in towards the inside, I may have been better of having them the other way around looking at the R/H one.
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I also added some small bits of 2mm angle brass to the top face of the main cylinder body, this is to keep the cylinders central to the frames, the cylinders now have most of the main castings in place. I'll also cut the 12 thou brass off to match the width of the frames.
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Checking the length of the piston rod. On the rod you can see two marks, the green one is the stuffing box when the cross-head is in line with the end of the slide-bars and the red one is the inside of the same.
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The cylinder wrappers formed to shape. Before doing this I annealed them.
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The cylinder wrappers in place, I've still to fit the following. A length of 2mm square brass to the inside top edge of the wrappers, the drain cock frames and the drain cocks. The wrapper only have two holes in them so I'll have to drill one more for the valve drain cocks.
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As seems to be normal with me I always seem to cut myself when building a loco kit. This is what I did yesterday while forming the wrappers to shape, nice!!!!!!!
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One job that I've still to do is check my photos for the position of any oil pots on the top slide-bars.

OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

this will be a long one so as I do always say get yourself a drink, one of the first jobs was cutting the packing bits of brass back. As you can see I got one of the cuts a bits out. This will be sorted out later.
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For the oil pots on the slide-bars I had a look in one of my bits box and found these, the one on the right is how these are cast. Sorry about the quality of the photo, the marks are 0.5mm.
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In place on the top slide-bars.
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and in very close up.
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Starting work on the brackets for the cylinder drain cocks, these still have a bit of work to do on them.
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Starting work on the drain cocks operating linkage, as this kit is from approx. 1991 these were not included in the etch, so if you want them you have to make them and I did want them.
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The two of them cut out and a bit of tidying up work done.
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The curve formed for fitting them to the cylinder body.
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And fitted in place, the R/H end needs a bit of work doing to it to get it to look a bit better.
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The operating links for the drain taps bent to shape, yes I do tend to make more than I will need.
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And them in place on one side, the one for the valve drain tap needs a bit of work on it (the joy of digital cameras).
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Then it was back to the main loco frames and apply the overlays to them, these have had the holes for the brake pivots and the pick-up holes drilled out to size.
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The castings for the brake pivots cleaned up and tinned, for the tinning on these I've used 180Deg solder.
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Then it was onto the wheels. The way I do the wheels is as follows, clean up the back face of the wheels on a diamond sharpening block (or some wet'n'dry on a flat length of wood) this will clean up any bits that stick out. Then clean out the hole for the crank-pin (as I use 10BA for the pins that is 1.4mm) then I counter sink the back of the wheel 3mm. After that it's a wash in cellulose thinners and a quick dry, then clean the brass centre with a small brass brush on the outside only. After that all the wheels are washed in meths and dried using kitchen roil.
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Then it's applying Birchwood Casey gun black to the wheels in the following order. The brass centre, then the outer rim (I don't do the wheel tread) let it dry for a short time then turn the wheels over and do the inside of the wheel rim, and this is what you should end up with.

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After this these will be painted using a black etch primer on the outside face only, after the balance weights have been fitted.

I was in a shop called Sally's it sells nail varnish and stuff for the hair dressing trade when I spotted this set of tweezers (the bottom set) these did cost about £8.50 but they do look a good set. The ones at the top are from Squire's and cost about £6.00 but go rusty when used with flux. How the new ones will react I don't know?
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OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

first post on my build thread for a long time. But it's not going to be the Grange at the moment, it's going to be a bogie bolster 'C' from M&M models Welcome wagons range. As it's not G.W.R. some of you may want to go and have a look elsewhere, but they did run on the old G.W.R.

http://www.modelrail...co.uk/Index.htm

This is the first kit that I've built from this range.

To start with the castings, in this bag, the tie down rings (these look like they could be used in the loose or with tie down chains in position), the side stanchion pockets these come in two types empty and with stanchions in place. There may be more in the bag.

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The deck bolsters,
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Buffers (these are getting replaced with sprung ones), couplings (I may replace these latter on) and some other bits and pieces.

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The replacement buffers.

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Staying with W/M onto the bogies.
These are quite simple as they are only in three parts, but not with out some small problems. The main one being that the holes for the bearings are cast at about 1/8" (approx. 3.1mm) and the bearings that I'm using are 2.5mm, so to take up most of the slack I used 3mm tube.
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The main parts for the bogies laid out, the wheels are from Pear tree engineering ( http://modelrailwayp....com/index.html ) these are steel wheels with a small 'plastic' insulation bush near the axle. The axle bushes are also now fitted.
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The first bits soldered together, this is why I'm starting on a wagon kit first as I want to check how my soldering is before I start on the Grange kit.
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The completed bogies, the only down side that I can see is that there is no brake gear, it's not a big problem as you can hardly see anything of them on the real thing.
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The brass etches, the foot rule gives you an idea of the size of the wagon.
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In the instructions it recommends opening out the half etched folding lines, this is some thing that I strongly recommend that you do. To do this I start with a three square riffler (is that spelling correct?) file then finish off with a square file. You can see the before top and after below.
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The main body made up, this was just a matter of folding the brass up. The way that I did it was the top flange on the sides in my bending bars then the main sides using a flat bar and a flat base, then the ends in the same processes.


Then the first bit of real soldering, the first buffer beam you can also see some marking out lines on the base of the body.
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More to follow so watch this space,

OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

Anyway back to the build, for the new boy or girl in the class (or these that did not know and did not want to ask) this is what a riffler file looks like. If I see a diamond set at a good price I would like to get some.





The sole-bars and inner channels formed to their basic shape, the first side is not a problem as I can get that to 90Deg. in my bending bars but the second side I can only get to about 75/80Deg. But I have a plan will it work or not we shall see.





First fit the channel sections over a length of 6mm steel,





then fit the two parts into my big bending bars (3/4" square) and clamp up,





then into the vice and a full clamp up, it maybe a bit of over kill but we'll see if it worked?

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Getting the truss frames ready, with this set I was a bit over enthusiastic and bent it, not a big problem as I'll pop it in the vice to straighten it, if it still looks a bit iffy I'll use it in the middle of the wagon.

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The trusses fitted in place, I've still to fit one of the verticals in place. But these have to come off due to me misreading the instructions. In the instructions it says to have the bottom of the trusses at 16mm from the bottom of the sole-bar I had it in my head that it was from the bottom of the wagon floor at least I did not start cutting anything (see I do make mistakes), all of this time away from the workshop is starting to show.

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OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

this is the sort of thing that keeps slowing me down, but I suppose it's better that it's long rather then short, you can see in the background how much I've had to drop the trusses down.
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All the main parts of the under-frame in place apart from the inner trusses.


All of the trusses in place, on the cross beams as they have to be folded past 90Deg. so I had a brainwave and folded them with the half etched line on the out side and it worked. You then have to make the four uprights for the inner trusses, not a big hardship as you have some of the brass angle spare to make them from. The cross beams still have to be trimmed to length.


and from the end, this really shows the length and this is not the longest of the bogie bolsters at 45' IIRC it was the borail at 62'.
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Not that much more brass to add just the brake gear and some strengthening beams. Then it's onto the white metal parts.

OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

I'm now back in the workshop more or less full time (at last). I'm now back on to the Castles starting with 5010 first. I'm not going to do a blow by blow build on this loco as I've done this on Castles before. The restarting point is the set of frames at the front in the photo.


The last job that I did today was to make this up notice who it looks like did the artwork,


After the body has been soldered up, I'm going to have some fun fitting it in the frames as the frames have all the brake gear in place. If anyone know what the brackets are for I'd like to know, I think that some of the short ones are for holding the exhaust steam pipe in place under the ash pan.


ATB

OzzyO.

PS. I'll probable do one or two write up per week.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

the first job was fitting the front four horn-guides and axleboxs, I kept the rear fixed bearings in place to use as the datum point both for the front sets of axle boxes but also to make sure that the frames are true across the width.


The rear horn guides and axle boxes.


The ash panes as seen above.




I've marked out the ash pan to see what I may have to remove to make it fit.


The first cut, this will fit onto a frame spacer.


What have I done????


Not enough by the looks of it!


Fitted into the frames, was it worth all of the work? Well it looks the part, about all I have to do to it now is to make sure that the finale gearwheel clears it.




ATB

OzzyO.
 
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