Ok, in true WT fashion and whilst having several projects already on the go and should really be designing and building a layout I started another kettle!
It came in a white box from Telford and proclaimed to be a Chowbent crab, I've heard they are pretty good and as it was etches only for £60 I whipped it off their hands after a quick look in the box. The previous owner had written ever so neatly on the label 'complete'....little fibber
So at the start of the week I tipped the box up and had a rummage, first problem, no instructions.....well we never read them anyway, but they'd of been handy for some of the more fiddly bits. The GA and Wild Swan book have helped so far
, further inspection reveals that the tender is actually a JLTRT kit, bargin, except it's not all there. There seems to be one etch sheet missing, that which holds most of the front end plate work and forward bunker plate work, so out with the fret saw and scrap brass to whip something that resembles that area shortly.
Progress so far is all the plate work that does exist and some details + a running chassis, which true to form uses CSB in my usual tube method and a small refinement of adding handrail knobs to the axle boxes, basically to extend the reach of that pivot point and hide the CSB wire from view.
Now the important part....pictures, it's dark now, it's been a long day but they'll suffice for the moment.
Side view, nowt much to see, just OOTB platework soldered up to form the major parts
Nice little ding in the upper sheetwork by the rear coal rails, no idea how that got there, ticked off that it has....even though photos of the really thing are quite battered it's still annoying that it's there by accident and not design. Still have to add steps and other sundry details as and where required, but no castings.
Overhead view
Only thing of note here is the whopping great hole at the front coal space, no parts for that in the box.
Rear view
Little bit of an issue here, the water tank area has an inner structure to which the outer sheets are attached, you can just see it in the previous image as the waffle type structure, well when formed it's too wide and too long which leaves big gaps between the sides and end, solution, remove the rear wall and move forward so the the rear sheet fits between the side sheets, this of course now leaves three big slots in the footplate to fill!
Front view
Not a lot here, that's all the sheet work you get up front, there are coal rails lifting lug flanges and other niff naff to fix to this solo piece of metal work, but jack all else as far as I can find.
Underside
Standard view showing my now usually CSB and insulated hornblocks, this one will have split axles and all pick up will be from the tender, if it's good enough for a 0-6-0 tank engine then it's good enough for virtually everything else. No spreadsheets or math here, just used my eye to guess the tube spacing and then pressed on finished model with finger to see if ok, it was.
Basically your looking for the spacing on the inner axle to be wider that the outers and thus less pressure, so long as they are spaced equally side to side you wont get any sort of lean and it's best to make each end the same spacing, I.E. +-20mm from centre or what ever. At a rough guestimate with the planned weight (600g) added it's going to sit 1mm too low, so I may have to slide the end pivots in to give it more pressure and maybe add two more intermediate ones so that it's +-15mm for the ends and +-20mm for the intermediate, either way it'll be what ever feels right and works on Love Lane next weekend
You can and perhaps should use the spreadsheets, but so far I've found common sense works just as well, you soon get a feel for what'll work and what won't.
Close up of CSB axlebox
Just added a handrail knob to the axle box so that the CSB wire is high enough to clear the openings in the side of the tender frames, 1mm hole, a bit of CA, job done.
In other news, the A1 tender inner chassis was painted today in etch primer, pretty good stuff and leaves a nice finish if slightly abrasive such that it marks easily with dirty fingers, I think a coat of Klear will help that, weather pending the body will be done tomorrow and then left to dry completely before the top coat of kettle green is added, hopefully ready for next weekend at Sudbury.
Y'all have fun now.
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