7mm Finney Battle of Britain

[mickoo]

Just a small update, course work, revision and exams have kept me away from the bench for a few days.

The wheels arrived today, spot the mistake



Fortunately I also ordered the correct 120° axles, not that you can see them, but I know they are there.



They do make a difference to the visuals, need to tweak the ride height and then the brakes to make it all look a tad better, also got a chance to fit the smoke box footplate wing plates and atomisers as well as the AWS battery box cover, still quite a bit of solder to clean up here and there.



The pipework for the atomiser is a new definition of fiddly to me but the more you do, the better you get. The drivers side is done and I'll take a big breath and fresh start one early morning over the weekend to do the firemans side.

Looking at photos I wasn't comfortable with the moulded atomiser feed pipes on the smokebox face and they were not in exactly the right place, close enough if your going to leave them in place, but if being replaced they can be moved the small fraction to align with the inspection cover just so.
In addition, trying to get the copper feed pipes from the atomiser to line up with the plastic ones looked next to impossible, so off they came and whole new runs added in copper wire. In addition I drilled the holes in the footplate to let the feed pipes drop through as per the real engine, the pipes are then folded up underneath and blind soldered, which adds extra strength but not near the holes, it is important to keep them clear so the pipe looks like it is passing through the sheet metal.

I still need to add the retaining straps but already the visuals of real round pipes over the moulded ones is worth the effort, and in all honesty, probably easier in the long run than trying to get the very short sections needed to line up with the plastic ones. Later in life 110 only had one strap each side so I'd have needed to trim one of the moulded straps off anyway.

The wing plates should have a batten along the top edge to bolt to the deflectors, it can't be part of the plate as that's half etched for the rivets on the outside, but I have an idea to use some of the edges off one of the spare cabs to form a clip along the base of the smoke deflector, the cab edges have a half etch rebate along them, this rebate will fit over the wing plate, add strength, ensure is all lines up neat and square and create the visuals for the batten.

Next up the AWS battery box and coupling guard and then some more panels on the roof as well as the fairing behind the chimney fitted to many of the engines.

MD

 

[Steph Dale]

Fortunately I also ordered the correct 120° axles, not that you can see them, but I know they are there.

They do make a difference to the visuals...
MD

Hehe - my eyes aren't far enough apart to be able to see both sides of the loco at the same time...

Steph

 

[mickoo]

Hehe - my eyes aren't far enough apart to be able to see both sides of the loco at the same time...

Steph

I know what you mean but slightly out of context, or my wording wasn't as succinct as it should of been

The wheels make the difference to the visuals, not the axles Up until now I'd been using my Britannia spoked wheels to set things up.

Of course if you drop the wheels out then you can see the 120° crank throw



MD

 

[SimonT]

I wasn't comfortable with the moulded atomiser feed pipes on the smokebox face

I've just won £5 off myself.

 

[Steph Dale]

Simon,

Yeah, that was a fairly safe bet I reckon.
The only problem with those odds is your wager must have been at least a tenner...

Steph

 

[mickoo]

Apologies for being so 'predictable'

 

[Eastsidepilot]

....... spot the mistake



MD

.........what? no S7 axles..

Col.

 

[mickoo]

.........what? no S7 axles..

Col.

uo make oi grin

 

[mickoo]

Ok, picking up the pace again, front bogie all sorted sans white metal axle box castings, those sharp of eye will have noticed there's no white metal in any of these photos, currently the white metal parts are temporarily away with the casting development department. So, all progress is sans white metal at the moment, not that that is an issue as there's more than enough brass to be getting on with.

It's a nice simple neat affair and it took longer to clean the parts free of cusp than it did to build it.

As mentioned earlier I'm not overly happy with the white metal castings forming the main bogie axle bearings and I also need to reduce side play on the front axle to as near zero as possible, to avoid shorts on the life guards. I don't think I can achieve that accurately enough with just washers, so the plan is to turn up some 5.0 mm OD brass tube to act as spacers / bearings. These will be soldered through the frames and limit side play, but will be flush on the inside to allow the white metal axle boxes to be fitted later. In reality both will be reamed to the same dia and both will act as a bearing surface, the brass ones also acting as limiters to side play.



Note one of those etching sprites you sometimes get, an odd area, spot, line or blob that sneaks into the etch process, in this case it could be as simple as a scratch on the photo tool, I've had a couple on the W1 etches but so far, by good luck, all on the supporting material and not the etched parts.

The depicted model is a late BR version so requires the AWS set up. The front bar stretcher being removed and replaced with the bracket to hold the AWS sensor.

Underside.



Nice and simple arrangement of side control, all fits nicely and from basic tests so far works very well. I'd designed my own set up on the W1 but this is much simpler and more elegant so the W1 side control will get adjusted to take on lessons learned from this build, the W1 being a fully enclosed side control where as this is open below which makes it easier to fit once the bogie is assembled.

Overall ¾ view.



Checking the ride height with other stock it all seems to be in the right area but everything still needs final tuning and set up. The kit has you simply bolting the bogie to the chassis and relying on the weight of the bogie assembly to keep it on the track, I've added a coil spring around the fixing pin to give it a little extra down force, just visible below the engine frames under the cylinder.

Profile view.



Starting to look like a Bulleid Light Pacific now, initially I was a little concerned over the gap between the leading bogie wheel and main frames, but looking at profile shots of the real engines shows that the gap is actually rather large, much more than those I'm used to on Gresley engines.

On top you can just see the chimney fairing, not fixed yet so sitting a little on the wonk at the moment, and there's a little fillet at the rear that needs filling, solder would be best but I'm thinking smoothing filler might actually be easier once it's been primed.

Right, onward, trailing delta truck next, which I'm hoping to wrap up this evening, leaving all of Sunday free for the cab build. Having had a trial run on the 1:32 test build I know already how difficult this is going to be, especially to get all the bends in exactly the right places without creasing or stressing the metal in some critical areas.

MD

 

[Scale7JB]

Want one...!

Look lovely on the front of my eastern region parcels train.

JB.

 

[mickoo]

Want one...!

JB.

Coming soon to a store near you

MD

 

[mickoo]

Build date +42

Trailing delta truck completed, a simple fold up affair with just a little care needed to bend the curved bits inside and outside of the box section at the front.



Underneath the axle fixings are a new concept to me, the instructions simply ask you to retain them with the 0.8 mm wire, however, try as I might the bearings still tended to rotate in the brass work rather than the axle rotating, a dab of solder fixed that. The idea is to simply unsolder and extract the wire and the whole axle can drop out with bearings.



Under the loco, happy with the fit and movement, side control and downward force comes from a single centrally mounted 0.8mm spring wire, something I'd considered for the W1 but had not got round to trying, it works well so another little redesign required on the W1 trailing trucks.



Works for me so the delta truck is signed off.

Just a big hole now where the cab should go! Which is today's task.



Overall view of progress so far, looks a lot but still a fair way to go before paint, lots of fiddly pipework to add here and there.



Enjoy

MD
T-13

 

[Simon]

I know you shouldn't "model a model" but this thread is going to be an absolutely brilliant reference when I get to grips with "Project Watersmeet"

Thanks very much for posting all the details

Simon

 

[mickoo]

I know you shouldn't "model a model" but this thread is going to be an absolutely brilliant reference when I get to grips with "Project Watersmeet"

Thanks very much for posting all the details

Simon

Thank you and your welcome,

You wait until we get to the 1:32 project and development then

I've also got an itch now for a 7mm modified Battle of Britain

The build photos will hopefully all go on the Finney7 site at some point in the gallery or under a specific header for the Light Pacific, that way if people just want to look at photos rather than trawl all through this thread can get access to the original desk top sized images direct. The idea is that they will be an online reference for others building the kit, or even building other Light Pacific's.

MD
T-13

 

[mickoo]

Well, that went better than expected, but the trail of devastation and scrap parts is vast.

It's not an easy shape to form up, the top of the side windows is easily deformed as is the half etch window frame detail within, I do have one spare cab side left and may chop the frames from that and graft them into this one, we'll see how it looks once the thicker internal frames are added for support. Or I may bend that one up as well and see if it comes out any better.

The half etch rivets on the inside are tiny, even the 4mm punch and die is way too large, the instructions note it may be better to leave the cab rivets off, I tried that and it looked really nice, but not against the riveted body. The other cabs were sacrificed to try and find a way of replicating all the rivets but at the end of the day the GW rivet press was used and those two lines where the rivets were close together simply halved, I.E only one line put in, for the purest it's wrong, but sat on my desk two feet away I can't see they're missing.

Two ways forward from here, turn up a new punch and die specifically for these very close lines of rivets or draw up an over sheet with etched rivets on it.

More annoyingly, I've noticed that the cab base is wider than the resin body base which means the cab front is too wide, but it matches the rear for width too, the solution will be to get the blow torch out and split it all down again, the rear wall is only tacked in anyway and the front partially soldered in, then the front and rear walls can be re-profiled and it all assembled again. It's annoying because I should of offered the cab front wall up to check, but in my defense, thus far every single part has fitted with virtually no adjustment or trial fitting required.

Measuring the etches, both the front and rear walls on the 9' - 6" cab are too wide at the base by about 1.0 mm and just to be clear, both the narrow and wide cab engines are the same width at the base and match the firebox cladding width.

Splitting down will be handy as I've also just spotted three rivets not pressed through

Firemans side



The profile of the brass roof matches the resin roof perfectly as does the small section in front of the windscreen, once I solder it into position



Height wise it's a perfect match the cab crown lines up with the firebox crown and cab base lines up with firebox base.



Rear view, note damage to window frame pillar, partially from being half etched, partially from being annealed from the surrounding area to get a neat bend above the window and partially from my big fat fingers. It does straighten but still has a little ripple in it which I'm not happy about, no fault of the kit, just my poor skill set.

Drivers side



Again the small section of casing in front of the windscreen is not fully fitted but overall everything lines up, except the cab base, the extra width is very obvious on this side, the firemans side is about half of this, but overall still too wide.

Right time for a nice stiff drink and break out the blow torch

MD
T-13

 

[djparkins]

I've also got an itch now for a 7mm modified Battle of Britain

Thats the stuff!!! Three for me please.

 

[bogusman]

Looking really good makes me want to start mine. One thing I brought extra for mine were etched inserts for the slater wheels as to me they looked a bit on the thin side and I must admit when I fitted one to one of the drivers it certainly bulked the wheel up. Just 2 questions how do you keep the build so clean and on the wheels are they leading on the left or right?

Pete

 

[mickoo]

Moving on, to ensure the front and rear walls are aligned I tack soldered them together, onto which I added the 8' 6" cab front wall as a reference point, the plan is to shape the lower 10 - 15 mm so that the base width matches the template. I can't go too high as the cab floor is a set width and I don't want to fiddle with that and that just leads to adjusting something else, yada yada yada.



Sharp of eye will notice the rivets along the edge of both the front and rear walls, I'd already decided not to punch these as they will just blow out the edge and make it rippled and I've yet to find a photo of these on the real engine, they are clearly there as there's an angle inside to attach the side and front / rear skins but all seem to be countersunk rivets.

I'd also forgotten to drill the hole under the drivers side front window for the AWS conduit.

MD

 

[mickoo]

Looking really good makes me want to start mine. One thing I brought extra for mine were etched inserts for the slater wheels as to me they looked a bit on the thin side and I must admit when I fitted one to one of the drivers it certainly bulked the wheel up. Just 2 questions how do you keep the build so clean and on the wheels are they leading on the left or right?

Pete

Pete, no idea which side leads, I'd read somewhere that the majority of UK engines lead from the left, I've some photos of Light Pacifics from below and craned up so can probably work it out later this evening.

Etched inserts? New one for me, do you have a link or reference, I'm assuming they are an etched overlay?

Clean, it's an anorak thing basically I use as little solder as possible, especially where it can be seen, the inside is no where as nice and clean! I also clean up with a fibre brush a lot and use scrapers to get all of the solder off. I wash in bicarbonate soda to kill the flux fungus and then wash with fairy liquid and hot water, if I want it shiny I'll then give it a blast with Cillit Bang but only for 10-20 seconds only other wise it leeches the metal and turns it orange, wash off immediately with hot water.

Mostly it's finger prints or oily / dirty hands (no matter how clean your hands are they will always leave an oily sheen) so recently I've been using latex gloves, they seem to help on the cab area and front bogie.

But, at the end of the day, brass just tarnishes sitting there on the shelf, I'd like to find a way to preserve it straight after cleaning and so far I've found not touching seems to hold off the tarnishing for longer. Flux leaves stains but I think it's actually fingers and oils that cause the most discolouring.

Mick D

 

[mickoo]

And the smart - dumb balance is restored



What I should of done 24 hrs ago



Plus hole for AWS conduit, just need to put it all back together again and add the rest of the cab structure now.

I will make sure this photo and some notes go in the instructions as a heads up for other builders, it could be that my body casting has a little bit of shrinkage, mind in that case the 8' 6 " cab ends will be too narrow. Either way, forewarned is forearmed and it's an easy tweak to ensure the cab base matches the firebox base.

MD