JLTRT new build.

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

a bit of a change from the tender build.
This has been a bit of a long term job as the Pway and S&T departments have not been able to decide who should do the job. The S&T say that it should be them as it's a power signal box, the Pway department say that it should be them as it involves them. Anyway after a twelve month dispute they have started work on the new power box.
The first job was to lay in the new power cable (the white one) to the switch box,
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Then onto the foundations for the power box, you can see the piles that had to put in to support the weight of the box, you can see the old track bed in this photo. The Pway department did the job a couple of years ago with no problems as this slip was worked by the old manual box,
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The line manager came down to see how work was progressing, he was not that happy to see all of the spoil and the land slip on the line. As this is the junction between four intensively used main lines,
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At the moment all of the services are have to use the two old lines, at some times they have to use "bang" line running,
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But they did manage to get the gauging train loco down (but not the test train), this is a shot of it heading back to its home shed,
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The interior of the new power box. Due to delays in the supply of parts (a four way screw terminal that will fit where the blue line is) this can not be fitted just yet, the high power unit is installed on it base outside of the power box as can be seen in some of the photos,
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The next job will be to fit the A.T.C. sensors between the running rails, there has been a long discussion between the S&T department and the C.M.E. as to the location for the track sensors and the pick-up gear on the locos, this is still on going.

OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

the S&T department have now down tools and have put in a complaint that the work is to complex for them as it involves more than three wires.
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So the General Manager came down again to have a look!
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He has now decided to open a new department, the electric engineering department (to be know as EEgD). This department has now done an electrical drawing for the work involved. The outside of the power box is in green along with the high power room. Any under floor wiring is now in red with the above floor conduits in black. Any of the outdoor power supplies are in different colours depending on their work load.
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OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

not a lot to report on the new power box due to all of the EEgD taking Sat. and Sun. off to watch the rugby and only two of them turned in for work today, Tommy and Taff, with no sign of Paddy and Jock. But they did get the new sensors in for the A.T.C. along with the new wiring,
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They did get the power box onto it base to check the wires and found them all over length, this will have to come out again as one of the connectors has not turned up,
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But a start has been made on cutting all the wires back to an approx. length. Whether Tommy and Taff will be in work tomorrow is any ones guess as they were last seen heading off to the scrapyard with all of the excess copper wire,
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OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,
well we had the full gang back today and some work got done. the EEgD had a good look at the drawing and deicide where the last connector had to be fitted, that was after a lot of head scratching. As the drawing did not fit the base of the power box,

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After a bit of digging by Paddy the base and all the connections were in place,
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I would like to thank all of the staff that have worked on this job as it is now up and running. Without some of the input from the outside contractors we would not have had a chance of building the new power box.

Paddy, Said to me today "I'm not diggin them foundatioons that close to the fokking railway lines".

OzzyO.

PS. I have tested it and it works. A big smile, from me and all of the gang.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Back onto the tender builds, the two tender bodies side by side, the one on the right after the first stage of cleaning up the curved corners,
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and a closer view, yes it does have a small pin hole in one of the corners.
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The rears with most of the iron work on them. On both of the tenders I did go for the lamp irons above the running plate,
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I've decided to move back to the running gear now. The first job was to clean up the wheels. The first job is to clean up the backs of the wheels by rubbing them on some wet'n'dry that is glued on to a length of flat wood, then giving them a wash in cellulose thinners and then a wash in meths., as you can see the rims have started to discolour,
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Then I metal black them using Birchwood Casey, these have not been cleaned up after the blackening has dried
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Then they are painted using a etch primer,
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Then it was onto the compensation gear for the tender, the first one ready for the solder,
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All soldered up and the pivot beam cut in the middle, this one is using 5/32" axles. The next one will use 3/16" axles,
001 020.jpg

OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

still on with metal blackening, this is the fitting that I use for holding the axles,
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and in use,
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The two sets of wheels, the top set have only been metal blackened, the bottom set have had a very light coat of WD40 applied using a cotton bud. I do find that this help keep them looking a nice black colour,
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Setting up the compensation unit for the 3/16" axles. What do people think about the new Allan screws that Slater's are now using?
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The unit soldered up and with one set of wheels removed,
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Test fitting it in the frames, I did think that this could happen. In that the rims of the bearings could catch on the frames and stop the unit working,
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The answer to this is to cut off a part of the bearing rim, lots of movement now,
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Cutting the pivot bearing tube in half, it looks like I have one of them special saw blades that will cut anything but a straight line,
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Getting ready to fit it in the frames, note the blackening by the pivot pin hole,
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and in place in the frames, note how the brake pivot pin runs through the compensation unit,
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When I was cutting the pivot tube the Stanley knife slipped and caught one of my fingers. This is quit normal for me, I don't think that I've built a loco without cutting myself,
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Getting ready to drill the castings for the water pick-up operating rod,
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Starting on the vac pipe and its drain, I fit this part as two pieces with the joint hidden in the drain,
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OzzyO.
 

3 LINK

Western Thunderer
Good to see you back at the work bench, not sure about the close up of your injured digit though :eek:.

Martyn.
 

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Paul,
I notice you've blackened, then painted the rims and tyres of the wheels. Will you be stripping back the paint? How? And if not, why did you blacken the wheels?
I'm suspecting there's a trick going on here, but I can't see it at the moment!
Steph
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Paul,
I notice you've blackened, then painted the rims and tyres of the wheels. Will you be stripping back the paint? How? And if not, why did you blacken the wheels?
I'm suspecting there's a trick going on here, but I can't see it at the moment!
Steph

Hello Steph,

I'll start at the last and work forwards,
the wheel treads only will be cleaned up in the lathe. It's quicker than masking them off.
I don't like the idea of unpainted wheels. I also don't like steel rims on wheels unless the real thing had them.
I blacken the rims so that if the paint gets chipped it doesn't show a bright steel rim.

Also painting the tread has the advantage that I can solder near to them without the flux affecting them.

OzzyO.

PS. a set of wheels cleaned up and in use.
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OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

just a quick up-date, the vac. pipe drain in place along with the vac. tank. The one in the foreground is a Malcolm Mitchell kit. Where you have to make the vac. tank up from some brass tube and etches. The tub that was in the kit was too large so I replace it with some 5/16"? tube that I had in stock. The holes are only there to let water in and out, the flanges are just some 12BA washers.
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Starting work on the water pick-up scoop, the one on the right has the hinge pin in place,
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Starting work on all of the parts for the scoop, normally the lifting link is only made out of two parts but I decided to double up the bottom link,
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The basic scoop in place, in the up position,
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and in the down position,
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With the strengthening rods and the scoop cover. The scoop cover I had to modify due to using the double thickness on the bottom link. This is in the up position,
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and in the down position. I would not recommend running it in this position,
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Test fitting one of the frames in the outer frames, I have also fitted the brackets for the front brake shaft. I also modify these. These should be in line with the outer frames, but I tend to move them inboard a bit to help when you have to remove the inner frames,
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OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,
after painting the wheels I ran out of etch primer so I had a look on Ebay for some more and came across this supplier http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Aluminium...=33d3983972d04ca899b3251c368e87a4&pid=100102&

This is the paint that I got
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The nozzle is a bit different, this part is normal and can give from a wide horizontal fan to a wide vertical pattern,
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This is the part that I have not seen before, I'm not sure what it does yet. It could be that it increases or decreases the width of the fan or it could increase the amount of paint,
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The front brake bearing plate as etched,
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As etched L/h side and as modified R/h side,
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The casting for the scoop operating gear as supplied, this is modified as well,
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The modified parts refitted to the scoop operating shaft, you can also see the new support that is fitted so that the top part of the etched bearing support plate can be removed. This is so that the inner frames will fit over the intermediate buffer bodies,
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The front brake shaft and all its fittings in place. The top flat parts of the brake supports have still to be removed along with a small rebate in the middle support,
001 049.jpg 001 050.jpg 001 051.jpg 001 052.jpg

OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Hello all,

just a quick update on the build, starting on the cast brake gear. All of the casting laid out before removing from the sprue's,
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The parts for one set of brake gear (apart from the adjusters) cleaned up, you have to clean the slots out in the pull-rods, to do this I use a diamond slitting disc, the rivets that I use are some 1/32" X 1/4" round headed ones,
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Assembling all of the pull-rods in my assembly jig,
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The two types, cast at the front etched behind. I know the ones that I like,
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Then I though that I'd try the inner frames in the outer ones, something looks odd!
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Then I looked at this photo, I'd put the middle bearing on the wrong f*&£!"$ side, the joy of working upside down. How I'm going to sort this out I'm not sure, but I have a few ideas going around my head.
Tender11.JPG

OzzyO.
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
Well I got the middle brackets sorted out, by cutting into the bearing and opening it out. A bit brutal but it worked and I could close it back up and the cut was on the back of the bearing.
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The brake pull rods and cross shafts with the safety chain fitted (this I get from Squire's ref. No. 5627/03, at 26 links per inch).
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The brake hanger and shoes for the two kits, I have a plan for these!
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All of the brake gear in place, this was when I notice that something was wrong with this tenders compensation unit so out it came. This also shows my plan for the brake shoes as I had a spare set of brass shoes in my spares box I decided to use the brass ones at the outside and a W/M set on the middle.
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A close up showing the safety chain.
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A close up showing half of the new compensation unit at the top, this shows what was wrong with the old one the wheelbase was out by about 1mm. Anyway the new one is made and fitted so about all I have to do on the inner frames is grit-blast them then clean up and paint them.
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Now I have the Slater's 4mm buffer I can restart on the outer frames, the first job was to turn the base flange off the buffer bodies then fit them to the drag beam over lays. Then fit them to the outer frames.
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Next up is the step treads.
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OzzyO.
 
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