Work on the 77XXX is progressing although not as fast as I would have liked. This is not surprising given the kit is very old and hand drawn, stone age when compared with the latest outputs. That said I did expect the cylinders and slidebars to allow the side rods to pass behind the slidebars. Wrong! The only way to achieve a decent frame without any interference was to space out the cylinders by about 1mm. Fortunately the overall width is almost to scale!
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Having fought with the cylinders I was ready for the next fight, namely the cab. Thankfully this built up quite easily although a lot of solder was required to fill gaps above the front windows. I had thought to insert wire to fill some of the gap but I could not keep it in position. There is no roof detail other than the vent so the guttering was formed of inverted T brass bar with one edge filed off to leave an L, needs must in these days of lockdown. After cleaning up a very good representation of the cab has been achieved.
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The running plates have now been formed up and soldered to the cab and the bufferbeam. To ensure everything was square the bufferbeam assembly was bolted to the frames and the cab firmly clamped at the back end. Adding the front "apron" revealed that one of the frame stretchers was completely in the wrong position. Fortunately it was a separate etch and using the gas torch was quickly extracted and relocated. To ensure the front apron was at the same angle as the running plate small pieces of scrap etch were soldered to the underside of the running plate.
View attachment 127294 A start has been made on the boiler and smokebox as shown above.
As mentioned earlier normally I would start a build with the tender. Looking at the etches I was perplexed as to how to create the various curves and angles. The etches being very thick brass, completely flat and devoid of any half etching or fold lines. So I put it aside for the moment.
View attachment 127295 I have built two other BR2 tenders from DJB and the sides came preformed only requiring minor work to make everything match up and then rivet before soldering. I sought advice as to how to proceed and the Bucks Hill group offered useful advice, including throw it away but one brave "member" offered to form the sides for me. Never turn down a volunteer, but when he got the etches home even he suggested that after separating the main etch into three parts he would have very great difficulty to hold the etch to form the very tight bottom curves.
While this was ongoing a discussion with my customer revealed while at the Bristol show a few years ago he had acquired a near complete BR2 tender! Given the issues with the original etches he suggested I use the donor tender which turns out to be a Transport Age product. Inspection revealed it was fairly well built but covered in a red oxide colour paint, here is the before look
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and after the early bath look.
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The major components of the tender are half etched and were very crisp. The whitemetal fittings were poor compared with the DJB products and a lot of solder had to be removed. In addition the coal space was missing and the upper sides of the bunker were very flimsy. Thankfully it was built square and when placed against the DJB frames and cab the heights matched!
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Heaven knows what solder the original builder used but it has taken a lot of work to get the excess off and this is still work in progress. The DJB coal space inner etch has been slightly modified to fit into the donor tender and the bunker sides have been strengthened by soldering 0.3 beading around the upper edges. The axlebox castings were replaced and the buffers and other detailing changed for lost wax castings.
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The inner frames left a lot to be desired and were put on the chassis jig to be squared up. They had to strengthen up especially around the middle axle as there was no frame stretcher at this point. The frames as built flexed badly and was causing the middle axle to snag. Rudimentary brake gear is in place but only on 4 wheels so I shall trawl through my spares box to hopefully find a suitable set of hangers and stretchers.
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As you can see there is a lot of cleaning to do and some castings still to fit. Needless to say the volunteer is hugely relived the donor tender has proved to be suitable.
