7mm BR Diesels

Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
Great pictures.

If I was doing 40126 I'd finish it with it's patch paintwork just to be different and have fun proving the 'purists' wrong at which point you put the photo in front of them :).
 

Healey Mills

Western Thunderer
Hi Dav
Great pictures.

If I was doing 40126 I'd finish it with it's patch paintwork just to be different and have fun proving the 'purists' wrong at which point you put the photo in front of them :).

Hi Dave,

If you have a look at no 2 end nose side in pics 2 & 3 of post #233 you'll see the patchwork paint job :D

Cheers
Lee
 

Healey Mills

Western Thunderer
As I'm now almost at the finishing post with 40126 the lighting and cab consoles are being fitted. Whilst adding these I have been pondering how best to do this if I am to fit crews to my builds. With the 40's the console is 'normally' fixed into the body which is fine until you have to refit it to the chassis as the drivers hands and feet would be in the way, which are placed on top of controls or deadmans handle.

40126 lighting.jpg
If I were to fix the console to the chassis then as you can see from above, the wires would soon be damaged. I have thought about making the length of wire between back of console and the LEDs much, much longer... but again I'm not sure these won't get caught when replacing the body on the chassis. Perhaps I need to work out a system of brass contacts???

While I ponder that conundrum, here's a pic of the loco front with the headcodes illuminated:

40126 headcode lights.jpg

Just need to get the cab lights in now :)

Cheers
Lee
 

Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
If I were to fix the console to the chassis then as you can see from above, the wires would soon be damaged. I have thought about making the length of wire between back of console and the LEDs much, much longer... but again I'm not sure these won't get caught when replacing the body on the chassis. Perhaps I need to work out a system of brass contacts???

One solution is to cut a piece of veroboard (the one with holes used for electronic circuits) the same the internal width of the nose and the depth of the nose and mount the LEDs and resistors to that i.e. make your own circuit board, then carry 3 wires to the decoder. I would suggest making the lighting circuits before you commence building so they can be dropped in afterwards. I've sketched it but my drawing is not brilliant but I hope it conveys the idea. The lines on the paper would represent the insulated gaps on the board.

circuit board.jpg
 

Healey Mills

Western Thunderer
One solution is to cut a piece of veroboard (the one with holes used for electronic circuits) the same the internal width of the nose and the depth of the nose and mount the LEDs and resistors to that i.e. make your own circuit board, then carry 3 wires to the decoder. I would suggest making the lighting circuits before you commence building so they can be dropped in afterwards. I've sketched it but my drawing is not brilliant but I hope it conveys the idea. The lines on the paper would represent the insulated gaps on the board.

Hi Dave,

Thank you for putting that sketch together, it's a nice idea and something similar to that which I used on my class 20 build. However, forgive me as I don't see how this method will stop trailing wires being snagged or trapped.

I've even thought about sticking the driver to the console (feet to deadmans switch, hands to controls).... at the moment this seems like the most favourable option. I'm sure the solution to my problem is really simple.... but at the moment I just don't see it :(

Cheers
Lee
 

Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
Hi Lee

I would suggest mounting the decoder to the body rather than to the chassis which means you can fix the lighting wiring to the body and reduce (eliminate?) the chances of snagging the lighting wiring looms.

Place the current pick up and motor wires on a separate loom and have a 4 pin plug and socket to take them to the decoder (this also assumes the sound speaker is mounted in the body). That way you've only one loom to fiddle into place when mating the body to the chassis. This is something I'm considering with my P48 GP9 to reduce the 'birds nest' and avoid the wiring being snagged both when assembling the body to the chassis and by the motor and drive system.
 

Healey Mills

Western Thunderer
Following a nice day out at Telford yesterday and whilst waiting for the Shawplan parts to turn up I decided to have a go at the JLTRT ZZA Snowplough.

I know OzzyO has shown what's in the box so I won't bother with that. The parts didn't exactly go together so well... as as well as I had anticipated anyway. You will probably see what I mean in the pictures but the first job was to get the wheels and axles sorted out. A bit of blackening of some Roxey steel wheels and some 0.7mm NS wire for the spring mechanism:

ZZA Base axle springs.jpg

The 'instructions' say to fix the M4 nuts into the base... but I elected to Epoxy the bolts in instead. It just seemed easier to fit the chassis into the plough base with the bolts acting as guides. A little bit of Devcon later:

ZZa Base with bolts.jpg

I had noted from OzzyO's build that the plough base, once put onto the chassis, rocks a little. Indeed it did but by scraping a little of the cast resin away that was soon sorted out but it did take me a while to work out where the excess resin was. In the end I resorted to adding some masking tape in layers at given positions then refitting the chassis to plough base to see if the problem had been eradicated:

Altering chassis for rocking.jpg

Once I knew exactly where to scrape the job was easy to get them seated together properly.

I wish the housing was as easy, it took quite a bit of sanding and scraping to get the parts to fit correctly. Using masking tape I assembled the 5 pieces and once happy they were fitting as well as I could and were square, I added glue :) The pic below is pre-glue:

ZZA Housing.jpg

Lots of sanding and filling ensued. Primarily using the medium Cyano to fill joints and crevasses!!

A bit of time spent with the handle making jig and some NS 0.6mm wire and it's not far off done in terms of building/ sticking bits together:

ZZA Fitted together (test).jpg

ZZA Fitted together 2 (test).jpg

These last two pics show the parts merely plonked together and the joins at the rear of the housing look a lot worse than what they are. The joins are highlighted by the Cyano rather than obscuring them as with filler. I still have the one window to add yet and I'm pondering at what stage to add the glazing.... I think it's going to end up fogged whatever I do as it has to be added prior to the housing going onto the base :(

Hope you all had a good day at Telford Yesterday/ today.

Cheers
Lee
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello Lee,

some nice looking 40s going on there, you 'may' want to have a look at this photo, it shows up a lot on some 40s but not all of them. It's the streak down the side of the end of the nose on the driver's side from the window washer. It's not on all of them though.
Copy of j Newbiggin Class 40 down coal Aug 77 J5759.jpg

OzzyO.
 

Healey Mills

Western Thunderer
Hello Lee,

some nice looking 40s going on there, you 'may' want to have a look at this photo, it shows up a lot on some 40s but not all of them. It's the streak down the side of the end of the nose on the driver's side from the window washer. It's not on all of them though.

OzzyO.

Hi Paul,

Yeah I'd seen that streak on a few locos... I guess overzealous use of windscreen washer fluid. The builds so far didn't need that as those streaks didn't show up on piccies of the real thing (that I used).... but it may sometime soon ;)

Quite a few 40s to build yet, so plenty of opportunity to get that detail right.

Cheers
Lee
 

Healey Mills

Western Thunderer
Starting to get somewhere with the ZZA plough. After getting some yellow onto the plough it just needs a bit of black applied in places to neaten it up, a bit of a wash after my gloves left some powder on the surface and also to add the black stripes. I know that Fox Transfers do a decal set for these but I thought I'd have a go at spraying the stripes... just to see if I could do it. If not then I will strip the paint and redo:

ZZA with paint.jpg

I have an Easybuild Inspection saloon to build and I have been looking for likely candidates to model. I know that there is one likely candidate: QXV AB999508 as seen on the EasyBuild website.

If anyone can put me in the right direction with the Inspection Saloons that can be built from the Swindon Built BR Mk I then I would be really grateful.

Cheers
Lee
 
Top