Mickoo's BR modelling

[mickoo]

Just a small update (scale 1:1 life keeps getting in the way )

Managed to get one water tank (drivers side) just about finished but still need to add the footplate to the base, hopefully with a fair wind will finish the other shortly. I was going to add all the fancy curved and stepped wheel splashers inside the water tank, until working out you'll probably never see them, this lady wears her skirts long, so simply opted for square cut outs internally. I may still add the splasher steel work that faces the ground but the walls won't be seen at all.

Also added the front part of the foot plate to strengthen make sure the tanks soldered up square and then realised that the smoke box protrudes below this, so, two options, cut the existing foot plate to leave two fingers sticking forward. This adds a high risk of damage during construction and opportunities for Captain C'ck up and his merry band to make an entrance with a twisted front end, or, leave as is and cut a corresponding slot in the base of the smoke box to fit over the footplate. NB the front end between the frames (when added) will need cutting back to finish behind the smoke box face which has a slight overhang....forgot to cut that when it was not attached!

Hopefully once the other tank and both footplates are complete I'll get back to the cab structures like finishing the rear bunker and internal splashers, then adding the floor etc.

 

[john lewsey]

That's very nice Mick all of those big tank engines look really good in severn mill

 

[7mmMick]

Great Job Mick, all square and amazing clean, it's really beginning intake shape now. This makes my current build look tiny. I'm no expert with this but I've tried to build my current project almost as per prototype, although I'm sure which ever option you go with will look fantastic. Any chance of a picture of your chosen loco?

ATB Mick

 

[mickoo]

Great Job Mick, all square and amazing clean, it's really beginning intake shape now. This makes my current build look tiny. I'm no expert with this but I've tried to build my current project almost as per prototype, although I'm sure which ever option you go with will look fantastic. Any chance of a picture of your chosen loco?

ATB Mick

Mick, I'm building from the GAs in Wild Swan publication and on the whole am following them where ever practicable, however, for areas I won't see from normal viewing angles I'm leaving them out and tank splashers buried inside is one part as are all the frame stretchers and supports under the tanks, cab and bunker. This is in contrast to the 08 where I'm adding quite a lot of detail that might be seen from very low angles, however with the 4P I'm not bricking myself into a corner and am leaving options to add these bits if required later, you'll 'hopefully' see what I mean as I go along LOL

I don't have a photo of my chosen loco, so the build at this stage is a generic build but the loco will be a Macclesfield (9C) batch I from 1957. Photos of 4Ps, good ones, are hard to come by and ones at Macc even harder, but here's a good one from 1960, note the rear loco is from batch II, the one in front is batch I and there was a third batch (III) built by Stanier, actually he might have had his hand in batch II as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64215236@N03/6159384719/

For references the easiest distinction between the batches are the cab and construction.

Batch I have a rounded cant rail to the cab eave and smooth rivets
Batch II are above but with snap head rivets on the tanks and bunkers
Batch III have enclosed cabs with doors like Stanier locos and snap head rivet tanks and bunkers

I have never seen a cab photo so will run with a Jinty or 4F (Clog as my father calls em) set up or a mish mash of both as best fits what ever I can discern from the GA's, I've also got few top down shots and none of any quality to see exactly how the tank tops look, that's one of the down sides to modelling something that no longer exists, mind the upside is that no one can contradict your work LOL

Yes it is a big beast, it's nearly the size of a Princess loco on it's own, actually some parts are common between the two classes in the valve gear area I believe.

I should also point out that in the latest photos, the cross brace between the tanks is simply there to keep everything square during construction and will come out when the boiler goes in.

 

[7mmMick]

What a fantastic picture Mick. I love the fact that they are both so heavily coaled and although they are realitively clean you can still see where the crew have scuffed the dirt on the bunker back and maybe some fitter has chalked on the number? I know what you mean with shots of tank top etc. I have hunted high and low for such shots and I only managed to find one of a G5 tank top takne from a footbridge. The best shots I have found have been of scrap yard type shots. I found this gem when researching an up and coming kit build http://railphotoprints.zenfolio.com/p748395313/e6d44d60d There's loads and loads of useful modelling stuff here.

I have a couple of NER large tanks like this to build and at the moment they are whizzing round in my head. Your build is certainly helping me to start putting pen to paper and watching your build process will help no end. I know nothing really about these tank engines, were they three cylinder or two? will you etch the valve gear or mill from bar ?

ATB Mick

 

[mickoo]

Mick, they're two cylinder and work at Macc was usually local passenger work too and from Manchester, Stoke, the potteries and Leek (grandmothers birth place...actually about five doors down from the Leek and Manifold Light Rly) and possibly Stafford as well as banking duties from Hibel Road up to the 'Moss'. Macclesfield had two stations, Hibel Road (LNWR) and Central (GC/LNER) both only about 1/2 mile apart on the same line, it's a stiff climb from Hibel Road to the Moss so express trains for London on the Stoke cut off were banked as was freight.

The class fair got about, even photos of them at Peterborough and Stamford but not yet found one in Scotland...though haven't looked that hard for one specifically from there, mind wanderings of a Scottish based for a layout, actually Hibel Road or Macc shed (9C) would be good too, shame it was ripped away when the line was electrified and Central was torn up as well for one of those cookie cut concrete prefab affairs of the 60's LMR electrification program, they have their own charm I have to admit.

A fair few locos lasted into 62-63 and longer so I can run them with early AC electrics and green diesels with small yellow panels (yet another project to photo proof of the earliest yellow panel applied to a class 40, so far I have D206 in May 61 but I think that's a date error, there's quite a few just dated as 62 but on LMR (Crewe North) one dated as April 62 (D384), the date is important as it has to sit alongside my Princess which were all withdrawn by mid to late 62, just had to check those dates...which was a mistake as it meant looking in my LMR project pile of AC electrics, 40's, Princesses, Jubilees and Coronations, that's a cookie jar I like to keep a tight lid on as it'd easily take over my life! And has reminded me I have a DA Jubilee and Princess kit stashed under my desk

I've over 130 photos but none show in detail the tank top, but there will be one somewhere in a book on on the web that'll show what I need, primarily the tank to boiler retaining straps and the cut outs in the boiler clothing to accommodate the straps and fixings, it's not a simple hole.

I'd like to do some ER tank engines, a C13 is on the cards as is an A5 (both very common at Macclesfield Central) and I have an eye for a NER A8, all pretty simple locos to build with their clean lines from an early age, a 'surface raider' Fowler 3P 2-6-2T would be nice too. Actually digressing back to larger locos it was a common belief that the Stoke cut off could not take Pacifics but in recent years photos have surfaced of certainly a Princess at Macc (rebuilt and electrified) so in those years it seemed anything was possible.

Valve gear, noooo idea at this stage, may even etch some up myself of just buy in from Ragstone or that other company that do milled rods and valve gear, though they are not cheap. If I do another then I'll make some changes, probably try to make the footplate in one piece, though with those steps you have to be uber accurate in your cutting and bending and it's a terrible waste of material with all the cut outs in the middle. Plus it'd be a big bit of brass to start with, over 12" and you really don't want to mess that up, maybe when I'm better at this malarkey I'll do a one piece footplate.

Anyway I'm rambling LOL time to get on with some modelling.

 

[Len Cattley]

And has reminded me I have a DA Jubilee and Princess kit stashed under my desk

Hi Mick, what Princess are you doing the short firebox or long one? If you need advise go to the O Gauge website and look on the modelling forum there is somebody building one there, the chap you need to ask is Nigel Dunhill as he is building two, I meet him at Telford and his models is the d*g b*ks.

Len

 

[mickoo]

Len, I've no idea, think it's a long box, same as the Jubilee. As I get older I loose the ability to retain information LOL, so each project I have has a set of notes, books and such like, oddly I can't find the ones for the Jubilee or Princess and the books have been set back on their shelves

I know it'll be LMR green, though I'm warming to BR red LOL, which isn't a colour you see very often modelled and it'll not be #1,2 or 5 and, it has to be running in late 62 and seen at Crewe.

I did see Nigels model at Telford and spoke at length to him about it and his inside valve gear and his woes with fine scale chassis restrictions, I mentioned mine would be S7 to whit he replied "that's cheating LOL"

I think DA does an addon pack for the Princess from Nigels work, though it's not advertised and is a request only purchase, must look into getting one of them as it adds a lot of inside motion that'll be required.

I'd also love a BIG 2½" or 5" gauge Princess as a display model, not working except maybe a display with discrete rolling road to make the mains rotate.

I'm no longer a member of the GoG, something else I need to tend to in due course <sigh>





It would appear my LMR bubble has seriously crashed the party now

Warned y'all it was a dangerous can of wriggly things to prod!

 

[Steph Dale]

That 'Nigel' is actually a 'Nick'. And yes, he's a superb modeller.

We had a good discussion on Saturday evening around inside valvegear - he still maintains that Stephenson's with it's extra pair of eccentrics can't be made to work in Finescale. Needless to say I was able to argue most vociferously that in fact it can. And then showed him the chassis I had with me...

Steph

 

[Len Cattley]

Hi Mick I think the first two loco's were short firebox so you should be ok, Nigel said that he does not think that DA would make any more short firebox ones (but I could be wrong) will ask David Andrews when I buy one of his Princesses if he does an add on, this is going to be expensive to buy the kits I want

Len

 

[adrian]

If I remember correctly a couple of Clarry Edwards' M&GN loco's had working inside Stephenson's motion. They were inside twin cylinder live steam so it really did work.

 

[mickoo]

And as if by magic

Note, these are BIG pictures, excuse the forum rule breaking, but 800x600 really does not do this model justice








Not my best photos, but y'all get the idea

If I get even 1/10th as good as this I'll be a happy pig in mud.

You can just see how Nick has crammed it all in with thinning of some of the crank webs, also the foot plate is to scale but the chassis is necessarily narrow for fine scale, which creates a gap between the footplate and chassis, Nick has skilfully added thin strips to the inner edges of the footplate to bridge that gap, I suspect that near scale frames in S7 at just over 29.5 mm (true scale is 30.2 mm for 6203-12) at outside faces would reduce much of that gap.

The frame discrepancy gets really noticeable under where the smoke box would sit and you can see the dummy frames above footplate level toward the front.

Note also resin short non combustion chamber firebox on Nicks model.

 

[mickoo]

Hi Mick I think the first two loco's were short firebox so you should be ok, Nigel said that he does not think that DA would make any more short firebox ones (but I could be wrong) will ask David Andrews when I buy one of his Princesses if he does an add on, this is going to be expensive to buy the kits I want

Len

Not quite, there are three non combustion boilers: 6048, 6049, 6050 these were fitted only to the first two until 1/52 (6200) and 2/52 (6201) after those dates the three boilers then did a merry go round on other locos.

6204 carried 6048 and 6049 from 5/52 until scrapping
6208 carried 6049 and 6050 from 8/50 to 10/52
6210 carried 6048 and 6050 from 11/55 until scrapping
6211 carried 6048 from 7/58 until scrapping
6212 carried 6049 from 10/52 to 1/54

The records are not exhaustive so it's wise to check photos of your given loco at any given time, there are other difference to the production boilers, far too complex to detail here in depth and the production ones are an even bigger minefield of super heaters, domes and what nots.

Just checked my kit and it's a long firebox with 10 Ton tender so a late variant which fits my intended period of late 50's early 60's.

 

[adrian]

And as if by magic
Note, these are BIG pictures, excuse the forum rule breaking, but 800x600 really does not do this model justice

Don't worry they are more guidelines - I'm not that keen on rules! As I'm paying for the bandwidth and space then I'm more than happy to get bigger pictures.

For me it's little things like the lubrication pipework, on the last photo not only is there the pipework but he has the little clamps holding the pipework in place on the inside of the frame. Beautiful work.

You can just see how Nick has crammed it all in with thinning of some of the crank webs, also the foot plate is to scale but the chassis is necessarily narrow for fine scale, which creates a gap between the footplate and chassis, Nick has skilfully added thin strips to the inner edges of the footplate to bridge that gap, I suspect that near scale frames in S7 at just over 29.5 mm (true scale is 30.2 mm for 6203-12) at outside faces would reduce much of that gap.

This is the very reason I went to S7 - building an Ivatt 2 loco in fine scale I had to make the running plate 2.5mm wider than it had to be to meet the narrower frames. It might not sound a lot but the running plate was only supposed to be 15.5mm wide so the extra width was a 16% error.
I'm impressed he's managed to enclosed the back of the splashers in fine scale but I suspect that the balance will look slightly out once the boiler is in place.

 

[mickoo]

Adrian, I've used my compression routine on the pictures so although they are physically big their hit on bandwidth is about the same as a normal 1000x800 image. I used to do a lot of work on flightsim planes and file sizes were critical to game play to retain detail and flight fluidity. This has been my hang up with a lot of places where they restrict image size on the pretence that bigger slows the loading down, it's not the physical size but the file size in Kb that's critical.

I will conceed that if they were all this big it'd be an issue to many who view with smaller screens so I tend to restrict mine to 1200x800 as the norm

Anyway, I agree on the little details and a lot of that will be seen under the boiler, big as they are (Princess and Coronation boilers are all but identical) the smaller driving wheels and lower running plate does allow a view of the inside motion on the Princess. My concern when I get to mine is hiding the CSB arrangment I want to use, if you add it on top of the axle boxes it will be visible over the cast horn guides...and they are very nice on this loco though those screws on top would have to go! Those screws perplex me, for all the detail in there leaving them in rather spoils the effect, either you can't see them when the boiler is on, I think you can, they why add much of that other detail or even have cast horn guides? I think they can be seen so I'd probably trim the cast horn guides as per prototype and try to add CSB to the underside some how.

I suspect Nick has taken the only practical option and used the cast horn guides as they come and allow suspension, having said that, he has a working chassis, mine is still a flat pack in the box, so I'd best mind my P's and Q's until I attempt mine LOL, talk is easy, doing is a might harder

 

[Steph Dale]

Mick,

Nick made the patterns for the hornguides and had them cast. It's worth noting that even the strap across the guides is not prototypical, let alone the screw in the top of them! Nick will eventually complete the chassis levelling and then grind the screw heads off.

Your comments about CSB are the main reason I haven't progressed very far with them, they're just too noticeable on a model with detail inside the frames, or at least are too noticeable for my liking!

Steph

 

[mickoo]

Steph, yes, wasn't sure about the strap across the top, at work and no GA's here to cross reference, I didn't add the Princess books to my tuck bag this morning

Grinding the screw head off would be a good and acceptable compromise.

CSB, fully agree, it has its place in models where between the frames isn't visible, but for locos where inside working motion and frame work can be seen then adding CSB above the axle box is prohibitive, you might get away with it if it were added below the axle box but then that would depend on the depth of axle box below the axle (could be trimmed, but then so would the lower end of the horn guides) and the depth of the side frames between the axles, some locos have quite and up sweep between axles where as others have almost flat frame bottoms.

I have a few ideas bouncing around for CSB below the axle but need some cast horn guides and axle boxes and some GA's to fiddle with it all, ideally real leaf springs would be the answer and you'd need some careful weighting to get the balance right so it sits level.

 

[Heather Kay]

Alright, I give in. CSB? En inglés por favor.

 

[mickoo]

LOL Continuous Spring Beam suspension, in laymans terms guitar wire springs, they're fitted to my 08 in earlier posts and I'm impressed with it's fluidity over track work, it has one advantage over most other methods, free movement upward, not set screw to impede motion or fully compressed springs. It also has the disadvantage of not being the solution for all models and oft requires some lateral thinking to work it into a model.

I'm sure I've seen you use it or something similar on some of your coach bogies?

 

[Steph Dale]

Heather,
Loads of info here: http://www.clag.org.uk/beam-annex3.html
Steph