7mm 7mm Mick's Workbench - JLTRT Royal Scot

[Eastsidepilot]

.........I'm conscious that I will have to strip it down and paint it red at some point and this may cause some problems when painting, with little bits of oil residue creeping in. Should I be painting the valve gear/frame insides red ? Were they still so treated in 1950 ? If so can anyone recommend a suitable rattle can or brush paint?.......

ATB Mick

Hi Mate,
Certainly in LNER days the insides of the frames were painted red on most loco's, so in 1950, 2 years after the formation of B.R. your loco could well still have red frames inside especialy if it had not had a major overhaul in those 2 years.
I can't find any written info. on this but there may be others that know more, I can imagine that in B.R. days economies may well have meant that the insides were just painted black along with the rest of the loco. They gave up filling the rust pitted metal on goods engines, certainly at Stratford 30A going by photo's I've seen they didn't bother, just painted over it.

As JB I normally chemical blacken and brush paint the insides with matt paint. If it's a colour other than black I add a wach of thinned black to dirty it up ....unless it's museum piece

ATB, Col.

 

[7mmMick]

Hi Mate,
Certainly in LNER days the insides of the frames were painted red on most loco's, so in 1950, 2 years after the formation of B.R. your loco could well still have red frames inside especialy if it had not had a major overhaul in those 2 years.
I can't find any written info. on this but there may be others that know more, I can imagine that in B.R. days economies may well have meant that the insides were just painted black along with the rest of the loco. They gave up filling the rust pitted metal on goods engines, certainly at Stratford 30A going by photo's I've seen they didn't bother, just painted over it.

As JB I normally chemical blacken and brush paint the insides with matt paint. If it's a colour other than black I add a wach of thinned black to dirty it up ....unless it's museum piece

ATB, Col.

A Museum piece, no way Col, Dirty is the order of the day for me I'll use the process you guys do then and hopefully I wont make a mess of it. Can you recommend a suitable Matt red please?

Cheers Mick

 

[Scale7JB]

To be honest, I just use whatever is about.. Usually buffer beam red.

Red is red when it's between the frames and weathered..

JB.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Superb Mick, something to be proud of

 

[Eastsidepilot]

A Museum piece, no way Col, Dirty is the order of the day for me I'll use the process you guys do then and hopefully I wont make a mess of it. Can you recommend a suitable Matt red please?

Cheers Mick

Good old Humbrol matt red, old stock preferably, the new recent stuff is like p**s

ATB, Col.

 

[7mmMick]

Will that do for buffer beams as well lads ?

 

[Eastsidepilot]

Will that do for buffer beams as well lads ?

I tend to finish buffer beams with gloss red before weathering, if you imagine the fireman or a shunter getting in between the buffers to deal with a screw coupling and/or steam/vac pipes he'll more than likely take the dirt with him on his overalls and this will leave scuff marks which means the paint will show through the grime.
bit sad I suppose .....but that's the kind of detail I always see and try to replicate

Col.

 

[micknich2003]

Col, a good and valid piece of observation.

 

[warren haywood]

I do all my painting with gloss cellulose and have some signal red for buffer beams.
It goes straight on over black and gives a nice even coat that has no brush marks.
Weathering rubs off nicely with damp cotton bud leaving smears and dirt around rivets.
Warren

 

[lnerjp]

Mick

I'd bet a king size mars bar that the inside frames would be red even in later BR days, and even when cleaning of engines had stopped, the inside stayed fairly clean as it does not seem to atract the grime that the outside does. Remember when preparing the loco you need to examine it for defects and you cannot do that if vital parts are coverd in crud. Also if has inside motion then it would be cleaned by the driver rubbing against it when oiling up. (ever had to oil up 6619?) you had to crawl up inside the motion and if the engine moved you where a gonner, I belive quite a few drivers got crushed that way in BR days.


By the way just sat my traction exam for type 2's (class 24 an 25's) so best stay away from the moors this year.

Cheers
J.P.

 

[7mmMick]

Hi JP,

That makes absolute sense to me mate, like you say they still had to be oiled up and checked for faults. And with that in mind if you're looking for hair line cracks and all the motion was painted black, along with the inside of the frames and you were I side a gloomy shed, you would have no chance of seeing anything ! You can understand why the BR standards an later designs were so well liked when all you have to do is stand outside the frames and oil up, you knew if fletch was driving you were in for oiling up for him

ATB Mick

 

[7mmMick]

Ok so I know it's been an age but I have been getting the odd hour here and there at the bench. The J73 is almost finished but I'm now down to adding the last little details, which when you have to scratch build every little detail becomes a real slog. So with the smokebox door held on by blue tack here she is;



So now we have splashers fitted, a cab roof, hand rails (LG NER taper) oil pots on the tank fronts, brake gear, steps (there's an injector behind there somewhere) sanding pipes, blower valve and handrail ( not fitted in place until after paint so it's not really squew if )front buffers and lots of other bits. As I say nearly there. The build did stall a little because the pick ups I did were poo basically and having sought advice from eastsidepilot I decided to go with split axle current collection. So the leading and centre drivers have the crank pin to tyre shorted out and the rear is shorted through to the centre boss and a rear split axle fitted. That way all wheels collect current and then pass to a wiper on the rear axle. Having never used this before I was unsure about it but the first time I put it on the track it ran fantastic, so I'm totally sold and will always do this from now on. Here's the buisness end with an eastsidepilot pair of milled hornguides and Slater's hornblocks with the axle split in two places(eitherside of the gearbox )for me by Col;



Here's the next job lined up, driver's side steps. Such a slow job !

 

[7mmMick]

So with the lack of time at the bench and the lack of being able to move through this build quickly I got that frustrated I made a start on these two;



The furthest is a Connoisseur J71 and the closest a John Fozzard J72. The tank tops are not yet fitted on the J72 and the J71 is a little further on. There's not a huge amount of differences in the classes, mainly the driving wheels/splasher size and slight difference in cab/bunker/tank dimensions. Here's a picture of which J72 i'm building;


This was the first built and was a Hull engine all it's life, although it is seen here on loan to Selby. Not sure who the bloke is ? The John Fozzard etches don't allow you to build this loco as the first ten had shorter frames and bunkers, basically about 6inch shorter at the back end. So my etches were marked up and chopped down to suit. I found the John Fozzard etches much better than the Connoisseur but that's only my opinion, both are a good basis for detailing. I was lucky enough to get a couple of detailing packs for these from LG, so a lot of the castings have been replaced from the Connoisseur kit ( obviously the JF kit only comes as an etch ). Here's the J72 frames tacked together and marked out for horn blocks. The rear has to be enlarged as this now will accomodate an eastsidepilot hornguide;


I don't have a copyright free J71 picture but here's a link and you can then see the differences

http://www.lner.info/locos/J/j71.shtml

Here's a couple of pictures of me getting the wheels ready and shorted our this morning as discussed earlier;

10BA crank pin fitted and then a groove ground out with a slitting disc, then brass wire soldered in place;


Cleaned up



All cleaned up, then washed in warm soapy water and finally meths;



Blackened and on the axles;



Good job cotton buds are cheap as I end up going through loads It is so refreshing to just cut out parts from a fret, clean up and fit together after being forever on the J73. I think you sometimes need quick progress to rekindle the mojo,

ATB Mick

 

[dibateg]

Excellent tidy work as ever Mick..

 

[Buckjumper]

Fantastic work on the J73 Mick.

Interesting comment about John's etches being better than Jim's - I think the J71 is one of his earliest kits from 1989 or 1990 and I've noticed a huge difference in the quality of etches between the J69 kit which was released contemporaneously with the J71, and his much later J68.

Still, it's a nice canvas to work your magic on, and I'm sure that both it and the J72 will compliment the J73 nicely

 

[7mmMick]

Thanks Adrian

As you say the J71 is a very good blank canvas. I feel lucky to have a set of John's etches and also unlucky to not have a set of his J25 etches as I'm sure they would have been equally as nice. I'm not sure what will happen to his range now following his untimely and sudden passing, but I am determined to do a good job on what I do have. The etches are a fantastic legacy as are his 4mm kits i'm sure.

ATB Mick

 

[Scale7JB]

That all looks great Mick!

I am using the same pick-up principle on the two N7's, and looking forward to seeing how well it works.. Just awaiting a couple of gearboxes from steph, and I can give them a go.. May have to hang fire on the inside valve gear for the moment, as I'll need £200 worth of Laurie's valve gear kits...

Are you at WM for the Christmas bash?

JB.

 

[7mmMick]

That all looks great Mick!

I am using the same pick-up principle on the two N7's, and looking forward to seeing how well it works.. Just awaiting a couple of gearboxes from steph, and I can give them a go.. May have to hang fire on the inside valve gear for the moment, as I'll need £200 worth of Laurie's valve gear kits...

Are you at WM for the Christmas bash?

JB.

I'm sure you'll be happy with the pick ups pal, I was unsure about using the coupling rod as the conductor but it works great. It was only then I realised that some of the brake blocks were a bit too snug a fit I'm hoping to make the Christmas bash, I should try at least one meet a year

Hopefully see you there,

Mick

 

[7mmMick]

J72 Progress; The etches don't come with buffer beams or footplate angle, so the first job was to knock these up. For reasons unknown the first twenty J72 had a timber sandwich front buffer beam and single plate rear. I had a ponder over the sandwich as in the past I've used brass as I wanted to keep an all soldered construction. However this ends up acting as a huge heat sink and when attaching the details (especially the thin lamination's ) it causes a real problem. So this time I had a rummage in the spares box and found this white metal one. The rivet/bolt pattern isn't correct and I only wanted to use it for the sandwich so I dressed it back.


So the front went 15thou back, white metal timber section and 10thou front. And the rear just single 15thou. All were sweated together and then drilled for the buffers. The buffers are lovely turned brass, I'm not sure where I got them from but does anyone know where I can get more? I added scale hardware bolt detail and for this I simply drilled an interference fit hole in some MDF and inverted the housing, marked and drilled. This worked ok and stopped the buffer being damaged by an over keen grip;


So I got to this stage. The good news is the coupling plates are in the kit. The foot plate angle is 2mm brass;



Once these were fitted I worked on the the tanks and cab. Castings here are LG and I especially like the tapered handrails. I used 1mm half round strip for the coal rails as I have in the past as I prefer it to the etched representation. You will see from the rear foot plate that building an earlier version with smaller bunker has left some hols to fill. I will do this before the lamp irons are fitted.



Final bit on the main body here was the splashers, which folded up lovely. I used 188 degree solder here and then attached the sandbox lids with 145 degree so it all didn't ping apart. I trimed the lids down as I think they are too deep as they come from LG. An easier way would be to drill out the splasher top to the bottom diameter of the sand box lid and then the casting needs no work, I'll try that on the J71;


Next the boiler.......

 

[7mmMick]

The smoke box front needs a little modifying as I want the cylinder block front to be at the correct angle and the front inspection cover to work and reveal the front of the block. Although the Stephenson motion is no where near as intrusive into the smoke box as the Joy gear on the J73, I still adopted a similar method to allow it to look right;

Front and riveted overlay marked to cut, with the rear and floor folded up with the wrapper fitted;

The thing I love about these etches are that if you want an opening smoke box door a lot of the work is already done for you. The main structure together with the rebate to accept the cylinder front, which will be part of the frames;

I then fitted the riveted overlays and the front handrail and lamp iron. The lamp iron may need tweaking on there, but I wanted to stick it on any way. I do like the LG lamp irons;

The side closest the camera looks like it needs more solder but its a shadow on the shot, a cruel close up. With that done I couldn't resist sitting it all together. Looks like a loco now;


The chimney is Connoisseur and needs shaping to fit and bolt detail at the base, the dome is LG and needs a little more shaping and the safety valve bonnet is George Norton, luckily I have two of these in stock, one for each loco. The boiler now needs shortening as it comes into the smoke box about half way. I'll save that for next time,

ATB Mick