Crymlyn A Shop Techniques. GWR 1340 Trojan (Avonside).

[davey4270]

I've made a start on a second hand Agenoria Avonside 0-4-0st kit of GWR 1340 Trojan. The prototype of which is preserved at the Didcot Railway Centre.


This was one of the earlier kits where you have to laminate various etchings to make the crossheads but fortunately I have a spare pair of Agenoria cast brass crossheads supplied as with later kits. The kit also came with a set of Slater's wheels, 40:1 gears and a Mashima 14/24 motor (if my measurements are correct).


Early packaging. I wonder if the previous owner recognises it? I purchased it from the O Gauge Guild online sales site many years ago.


Getting stuck in to "raising rivets". My trusty GW rivet tool was red hot by the end of the day. I prefer to do all the rivet raising in one go rather than unpacking it every time I find an etch that needs treating.


This is where I came across two etches that had been pre formed inside out! The half etch marks were on the outside of the shaped panels and it took some care to flatten them then reform with the half etched holes on the inside. The pre formed lower boiler etch had been formed correctly. I can't imagine Peter Stamper messing up, even on a Friday afternoon!


I made a start by laminating the coupling rods. I leave the excess solder on the bosses as I find these occasionally delaminate when reaming out the crankpin bearing holes and hopefully this will give them more strength. I still need to ream out with the largest of them. I also reamed out the axle bearing holes to be a tight fit on two of the bearings. The two side frames are fitted together with these bearings to align them. I will tack solder the two ends together before cleaning up the frame edges and then cutting the frames to take a set of Slater's sprung horn blocks for the leading axle.

 

[Ian@StEnochs]

I built one of those kits a long time ago when they first appeared. Nice straightforward kits which assemble easily and are good representations of the originals. I have since added to my collection with a few more from the list.

A tip re the laminated rods, although you are past that stage, is to use a piece of brass tube to line up the holes before soldering and then ream out to fit the crankpins.

Ian.

 

[davey4270]

Hi Ian, I use a couple of cocktail sticks through the holes and held in a small vice. I spread some flux between the rods first then apply small pieces of the solder via my iron. Should have mentioned that.

 

[davey4270]

A couple of hours work today saw the coupling rods reamed out to 2.45mm (according to my micrometre) and cleaned up.


The ends of the frames were tack soldered together and the edges cleaned up. The frames were then cut to clear the Slater's horn blocks with the alignment mark aligning with a scratch at the centre of the wheel position. Some adjustment to the frame cut outs will probably be needed to correctly align the horn blocks to the rear axle using my set of alignment axles.

 

[davey4270]

A couple of hours well spent erecting the frames and fettling some components.


The "erected" frames. A pair of axle bearings have been soldered in at the rear which will be the driven axle. The cut outs at the front will take the Slater's sprung horn blocks as seen in an earlier picture. The cut outs will probably have to be extended slightly as the horn block's exact position will be set by a pair of axle jigs using the coupling rods to set this from the fixed rear axle.


Various components constructed and fettled. From the top we have a pair of con rods, a pair of coupling rods, a pair of Slater's horn blocks with sliding bearings and the motor/gearbox mount. I have marked the axle boxes and the horn blocks with small drilled dots (a single dot on one pair and two dots on the other) so that they can be reassembled in their matched position. This is in case of minor dimensional differences.

 

[davey4270]

Good progress with Trojan’s frames. More by luck than judgement, I’ve cut out the slot for the Slater’s horn blocks perfectly.
I’ll still ease the slots sideways slightly anyway before soldering. The picture shows my axle alignment jig set up. I’ve attached a temporary staple to the horn blocks to stop the axle box falling out.

 

[davey4270]

Plenty of work done but little to show. The axle bearings have been fettled to give sufficient side play etc, and the "gearbox" similarly treated and primed. Now to the wheels, as the correct pattern wheels are not available a brass overlay to the correct spoke pattern has been provided. I have Araldited a pair on but am wondering about the best next step. Should they be primed first then painted? I am concerned that the grey primer will show if they get scratched or chipped. Or, chemically blacked then painted. Will the paint stick to this? Previously I've used black plasticard for balance weights which alleviates this problem. The tyres will be blackened anyway.

 

[simond]

I would black the brass, and the steel, probably different chemicals, unfortunately, then spray with etch primer and then black rattle can, and clean up later... I'm sure the chemical black will not deter the primer.

 

[davey4270]

Tyres blackened with Carr’s metal black for steel and the brass inserts treated with their brass equivalent. Methinks another treatment on the brass and Matt black on any original bits of the visible spokes should do the trick. Any thoughts please?

 

[simond]

I guess much depends on whether the Slaters spokes being partially visible jars or not. And, I suppose, whether it’s feasible to cut them back without weakening the wheels.

I think the blacking is fine & paint will bringnit together.

 

[Hayfield1]

I am looking forward to seeing this build progress, I now have four 7mm scale etched kits to build but taking the easy option of building the whitemetal ones first

John

 

[davey4270]

This stage of construction usually means a lot of fiddling with little progress to show and Trojan has proved no different as Trojan will now sit a free rolling chassis. I had a problem with one of the wheels being a very tight fit on its axle. I had pressed it on using the centre screw as recommended in the instructions and unfortunately the newish Allen key turned in the hole. @&%k! Anyway, Percy Veerance and bending the key at quite an angle managed to unscrew it. Phew! I dressed the axle end flats gently and equally until it became an easier fit. I reduced the height of the crank pin bearings by inserting a 5thou. shim over the bearing base and reversing the con rod so the excess bearing then protruded from the rear of the con rod. This was then filed flush before reassembling and giving a 5thou. clearance.


The chassis at end of play on Sunday. A spot of oil on the axle bearings and it rolls freely on a slight slope. The angle of the light shows up nicely the spokes behind the overlays. I decided to give them a coat of matt black as even after two treatments of "black for Brass" there was still a brass tint showing through the black. Hopefully the spokes will not be too visible under normal lighting conditions beneath the footplate and behind the motion.


Not the best of pictures but hopefully you can see the reduced crank pin bearings.

 

[davey4270]

Update on TROJAN.
I like to match the frames with the footplate before adding any detail as any adjustments needed can cause damage. Some basic work on the footplate saw the valances added along with forming the fold down step underneath the smoke box. I also soldered up the rear buffer beam or should I say plank. The folded down front step was too wide to fit between the frames and, of course, broke off when adjusting it. The rear buffer plank wouldn’t sit in its correct position which was obstructed by the valances even though they were soldered inline with the front of the footplate. Am I glad I only tack soldered them in position. Anyway, off they came and I decided to solder up the front buffer plank and use this as a datum point. This was soldered in position and the valances tacked back in butting up against it. The rear plank now fits almost perfectly, just needing a fraction off one of the valances.
I had help and encouragement from Iron Maiden today and by the way Bruce, the Titanic doesn’t quite fit inside (the R101).


The footplate as originally folded up with the valances only tacked in place.


The second attempt. The two straightened fold down bits at the front will probably snap off when I try to reform them.



The beauty of soldering inside means virtually no cleaning up.

 

[davey4270]

Today’s work on Trojan has seen the rear buffer plank fitted which allows the frames to sit correctly in position. The cosmetic axle box springs have also been laminated together and soldered in position.
Apologies for the strange colour on the first picture, LED lights under a kitchen cabinet, but it shows the solder on the inside so to speak.
The instructions indicate that you should check the fit of the smoke box in the running plate, so I will construct this before adding the plate work where it will be located.

 

[davey4270]

Progress on TROJAN sees the brake gear fitted, the smoke box assembled and placed in position and the main part of the cab folded up and soldered in position. The brake gear is a tad anorexic so I beefed it up slightly by using 1mm wire instead of the recommended 0.7mm wire for the upper supports. The lower parts looked too delicate for the thicker wire so were assembled with the 0.7mm. The smoke box slipped perfectly into its position without any adjustments other than filing off the slight excess of the wrapper. This is ideal as some kits have parts slightly undersized which can only be rectified by making a replacement piece. So, after checking the size of the tank wrapper the cab was soldered in position, again a perfect fit.

 

[davey4270]

I should have looked at this picture earlier, I have attached the front bracket too low. I have fitted it with the lower flange level with the bottom of the frames. Oh well, another job for tomorrow!


Anyway, after fitting the cab the extensions the rear of the roof was prone to damage, so I soldered the rear handrails/roof supports in position along with the cab rear top piece. This has strengthened the cab assembly somewhat and hopefully it won't get in the way of future interior cab work.


The next job was to form the slide bars. These are two pieces of etches n/s strip that fold together and can be flooded with plenty of flux and solder. I hold these together with some lady's aluminium hair clips, soldering the gaps in between and moving the clips as required. I finally run some solder along the inside faces. How do you do it?


I also made a start on forming the cylinders by folding up the main part of the body and soldering the fixing screws in place The instructions stated to affix with 8 BA screws although 6BA were supplied as with every other Agenoria kit I've built so the holes in the cylinders and frames were reamed out to suit. The cylinders are only positioned for the picture and the assembled slide bars look like they are going to need some cleaning up.

 

[davey4270]

Today’s first job was to move the front plate to its correct position. This was easily done with the help of a 40w iron and slipping a scalpel between the plate and the frame once the joint had melted. The nickel silver metal conducts the heat very effectively so the trick is to get in and out quickly with a hot iron before the heat spreads to other joints which could be a disaster. It was then a simple job to resolder it in its correct position this time using my 25W iron.
I’ve made a start on cleaning up the slide bars and cross heads by filing away to get matching dimensions. Still got about 0.1mm to go before the dimensions match then it will be a matter of assembling the cylinders and then just some minor fettling until a sliding fit worked by gravity is obtained.
A lot of filing on small components is hard work on the fingers so enough for today. By the way, Metallica, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest helped me today. I listened to Judas Priest’s “Better by you, better than me” several times and nothing suggested that I should try and blow my brains out with a shotgun.

 

[welshwizard]

Doing the same for a freind at the moment

 

[welshwizard]

Doing the same at the moment .

 

[davey4270]

Doing the same at the moment .

Twins.