7mm Finney Battle of Britain
- Thread starter mickoo
- Start date
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Moving onward and around the front, Drain cocks and linkages today, as well as the bulk of the fireman's side motion bracket.
Next step is the cylinder wrappers and to make sure it all lines up you need to fit the body, or use the body as a reference point. The rear end is fixed via the cab, which is obviously absent. Never the less the casing casting is spot and and fits snug over the frame brackets and only requires the front end fixings to locate it's position, the rear will simply be held in position by my very high tech rubber band from today's postal delivery.
There is minimal flash on the casting, nothing a sharp knife and some very fine wet and dry will not get rid of.
Sadly what little flash there is on the front is around the marker lamp conduits so it might pay to trim them off and fit new ones and clips from wire and brass strip.
I've not added the oil lines to the motion bracket on this side yet nor the pipework under either cylinder, that will be too exposed at this point of the build.
The steam cock lever bracket is a nice fold up affair, the outer end is easily fixed to the rod passing through the frames, the inner end however is not so easy, it's a simple flat face joint with the frame, which means it needs to be soldered from the outside.
The actuator rods would have you punch rivets from the rear to represent the pins and spigots, however, try as I might, my punch will not form these very small ones neatly.
To overcome this I opened out the ones for the steam cock spigots to give a bit of 3D relief to the assembly. In hind sight I should also have opened out the linkage pins and put some 0.6 mm wire in, I still could by simply taking off each lever, but some engines appear to be fitted with flush pins anyway.
Had I thought about it before I'd got this far, actually way back before the frames were soldered up, I'd of drilled a 1.5 mm pilot hole through the frames behind the fixing flange, that would of allowed a blind solder joint to be achieved, the same would apply to the brake hanger brackets and rear frame bracket. Maybe next time
MD
Next step is the cylinder wrappers and to make sure it all lines up you need to fit the body, or use the body as a reference point. The rear end is fixed via the cab, which is obviously absent. Never the less the casing casting is spot and and fits snug over the frame brackets and only requires the front end fixings to locate it's position, the rear will simply be held in position by my very high tech rubber band from today's postal delivery.
There is minimal flash on the casting, nothing a sharp knife and some very fine wet and dry will not get rid of.
Sadly what little flash there is on the front is around the marker lamp conduits so it might pay to trim them off and fit new ones and clips from wire and brass strip.
I've not added the oil lines to the motion bracket on this side yet nor the pipework under either cylinder, that will be too exposed at this point of the build.
The steam cock lever bracket is a nice fold up affair, the outer end is easily fixed to the rod passing through the frames, the inner end however is not so easy, it's a simple flat face joint with the frame, which means it needs to be soldered from the outside.
The actuator rods would have you punch rivets from the rear to represent the pins and spigots, however, try as I might, my punch will not form these very small ones neatly.
To overcome this I opened out the ones for the steam cock spigots to give a bit of 3D relief to the assembly. In hind sight I should also have opened out the linkage pins and put some 0.6 mm wire in, I still could by simply taking off each lever, but some engines appear to be fitted with flush pins anyway.
Had I thought about it before I'd got this far, actually way back before the frames were soldered up, I'd of drilled a 1.5 mm pilot hole through the frames behind the fixing flange, that would of allowed a blind solder joint to be achieved, the same would apply to the brake hanger brackets and rear frame bracket. Maybe next time
MD
Last edited:
warren haywood
Western Thunderer
Yes it's almost in the same league as the Acorn one, non of your plastic rubbish in that one
mickoo
Western Thunderer
It is rather nice and this is straight out of the box with no additional work, mind, there's probably not a lot you could add anyway to detail it, certainly no substantial items.
About the only thing I'd personally add, if it were an engine you didn't look under, is an oil bath, or the basic shape of one, at low viewing angles it's a big space in there and a basic light blocker I think would help give that area some visual mass.
I'll gather your not overtly impressed with the resin bodyYes it's almost in the same league as the Acorn one, non of your plastic rubbish in that one
I have to confess to being broadly in the same camp but probably for different reasons....I don't have to paint it 
. On the one hand it does speed up the build process by a margin of weeks or months depending on your pace, and what you do get is incredibly accurate and finely detailed. There is no debate about the quality and fit of this casing and I've a copy of the A4 body here as well and it's equally as good, but, and this is purely personal, I'd like more metal in the body.
I think perhaps metal sides front and rear with a resin top would be a nice compromise, the roof is always going to be hard to form, especially the cant rail curves, but the big slab sides would look good in metal I think.
At Doncaster a gent on the technical stand had a scratch built Bullied Light Pacific in predominately Nickle silver and it looked stunning in raw metal, now you'd probably never tell the difference once painted but before paint I think it had the edge.
I am looking forward to progressing the 1:32 one in due course.
MD
warren haywood
Western Thunderer
Mick, I was been sarcastic, the resin is fine to paint if you know what you are doing, a little grainy but it's just patience in filling it up gradually with about a dozen coats.
That Acorn kit was the only kit that ever went out my workshop window, although I've never let my soldering iron loose on an Ace product.
That Acorn kit was the only kit that ever went out my workshop window, although I've never let my soldering iron loose on an Ace product.
oldravendale
Western Thunderer
Oh, Ace Kits are so much fun, Warren. Witness the "K", the build of which will recommence shortly...... And there's a jolly nice S15 on WT at the moment too.
Brian
Brian
mickoo
Western Thunderer
That's why Bulleid insisted on calling them air smoothed instead of streamlined, makes 'em fly better
I'll take your word for the painting, I just bend the metal and glue it with the hot stick
MD
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Len Cattley
Western Thunderer
Your build on here looks fantastic Mick, can you build this in S7 or are the castings only for finescale?
Len
Len
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Len, thank you, hopefully you'll be able to see it in the flesh at Telford
The kit instructions do say that it is for O fine and S7 but there are only one set of stretchers in the kit, primarily because the real engine has narrow frames and copying that allows O fine to be used without special narrow stretchers. Having said that, the frames are a touch narrow for scale width, just over 1.0mm (haven't worked it out exactly yet).
The only issue I can see with S7 are the brake hanger brackets, there are only one set in the kit and even in O fine the hangers are at the extreme outer reach and just clear O fine wheels, so if you S7 then it's going to be very very tight between the etched brake hangers and shoes and the wheel tread.
I've got the brake rigging off the engine right now so I'll grab a set of wheels with O fine and S7 axles in and take a quick photos so you can see how tight it is, bearing in mind that there is no option to move the brake rigging any further out in the kit, not that I can see so far.
MD
Eastsidepilot
Western Thunderer
.............................. I just bend the metal and glue it with the hot stick
MD
Hah !.......a glue gun
....that's how you do it
.....coat's on...
Col.
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Len, here you go, not the best shots in the world.
Front wheel set is O fine, rear is S7, you can adjust the pull rods and move them out on the pins but you cannot adjust the hangers, there is virtually no clearance between the brake shoes and the rim....much like the real thing (MLTRT)....but for models it'll be a bit tight.
MD
Front wheel set is O fine, rear is S7, you can adjust the pull rods and move them out on the pins but you cannot adjust the hangers, there is virtually no clearance between the brake shoes and the rim....much like the real thing (MLTRT)....but for models it'll be a bit tight.
MD
Eastsidepilot
Western Thunderer
One way to stop shoes shorting out on tyres is to line the shoe with thin plastic micro strip, although you will probably have to take a small amount off the edge of the shoe first.
Col.
Col.
Yorkshire Dave
Western Thunderer
VLTRT very like the real thing- surely
.Another method is superglue and tissue paper.
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Yes and no, yes in that the shoes touch the wheel on the real engine, no in the fact that on the real engine the brake shoes line up with the outer face of the wheel, they are of course thicker than the model so do go back almost to the rim, but then the tread is also narrower on the real thing than the model.VLTRT very like the real thing- surely
Another method is superglue and tissue paper.
Visually you just need to make sure the brake shoe outer face is flush with the wheel tyre face. So if you model S7 then the hangers need to come out quite a bit to restore the visuals.
I've heard a thin smear of epoxy and then heated in the oven at 100° or so for ten minutes makes the epoxy thin and level out and harden like glass.
Col, the problem here is not insulation but total lack of side play, any form of insulation would be eroded in pretty short time, unless as you say, you chamfer the rear edge to clear and chance of it touching the wheel.
MD
Len Cattley
Western Thunderer
Thanks Mick, will take a look when I go to Telford.
Len
Len
Overseer
Western Thunderer
Mick, if you were building it in S7 you would skim the wheels to scale width which would give most of the clearance needed. If I was building it I would look at electrically isolating the brake shoes and rigging on each side from the frames instead of trying to insulate potential touching points.