7mm Mickoo's Commercial Workbench
- Thread starter mickoo
- Start date
When he has a glass to his mouth.....
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Last piece test fitted before heading out the door to the Guildford show.
Inside valve block and smoke box drain, I'll add the flap cover and counter weight with hinge from brass as it'll be too fragile in resin. The valve block will come out after the show and be prepped/smoothed before final fitting and securing; brass tubes for the valve spindles on the working inside motion.
The hole in the middle is for the 6BA screw to bolt the chassis to the footplate assembly.
Inside valve block and smoke box drain, I'll add the flap cover and counter weight with hinge from brass as it'll be too fragile in resin. The valve block will come out after the show and be prepped/smoothed before final fitting and securing; brass tubes for the valve spindles on the working inside motion.
The hole in the middle is for the 6BA screw to bolt the chassis to the footplate assembly.
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Mickoo Malta GC looks amazing.
Can I ask which ROD you are doing? The usual arrangement with the ROD tenders is a straight topped rear coalplate/division plate with two stanchions to the rear.
ROD tenders also tend to conform to the earlier 'standard' (no such thing with GC tenders!) in having shorter coalguards at the side rather than the longer type fitted to GC locos from the B8 and O5 onwards. If you've got Part 2 of Geoff Holt's Locomotive Modelling books then that has a GA of the B4 tender showing the shorter coalguards.
Here's a J11 with the shorter coalguards (albeit my tender is still wrong in that the front curve of the tender flare isn't elongated as it should be on these tenders):
As built the middle axlebox on these tenders also had longer springs than the outer two. A complete minefield!
Regards,
Simon
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Long post alert....
More ROD update, what follows is not criticism, berating or any other form of dissent, just observations and heads up for anyone else in the future. Aside from the lack of jogged frame and dropped section between the 1st and 2nd drivers the rest of the kit so far has been pretty much follow the yellow brick road. That changed with the cab, fundamentally it's the right shape and size but in the wrong place, that has had an impact on the way it goes together and generates other issues.
In short the cab is too far back by 2 mm and the cab sides are the right length, which means that there's no practical means to fit the handrail or grab it if you did. To overcome that the cab sides are designed to sit outside the cab front, thus moving them forward 0.5 mm, it's not enough but just about allows the handrail to be fitted (albeit in the wrong place). This means the cab is now too wide and the ledge alongside too narrow throwing off the visuals, it also means that the cab roof has to sit on top of the cab front and that etch has been truncated to achieve that. All of which means that you now have to add the raised angle on top of the cab roof and cab front and then try to blend all three at the front smooth.
The correct thing to do is move the cab forward 2 mm, but to do that you'll need to graft a section onto the floor at the front, cut back the splashers sides and tops at the rear end and deal with whatever else ahead is now 2 mm too long; you'll also have to make a new cab floor as it won't reach the rear drag beam. From experience on previous models of the same genre, that is not an experience to look forward to or take lightly.
So.....in a world of already compromised model I decided the best thing to do was to not try and beat it, but join it.
I took 1 mm off the cab front and rear edges (not the roof overhang extension) and left the cab front where it was, grafted the raised roof angle onto the cab front and fitted the sides behind the front. This results in the floor and roof still fitting perfectly, space for the rear handrail in the right place and roof set behind the cab front like the real engine.
The visuals are restored as best you can expect with the minimum of lost time and reworking, adding the cab sides behind the cab front extends the length by 0.5 mm so overall you're only short by 1.5 mm. You will also need to correct the cab floor at the rear, it's designed to be full width front to back but in real life it's notched to give clearance around the hand rail, I've extended the notch as I'm fitting different sand boxes and they have cut outs for levers that drop down into that cavity.
By spooky comparison, Tony Geary mailed me today part way through these works with exactly the same problems.
More ROD update, what follows is not criticism, berating or any other form of dissent, just observations and heads up for anyone else in the future. Aside from the lack of jogged frame and dropped section between the 1st and 2nd drivers the rest of the kit so far has been pretty much follow the yellow brick road. That changed with the cab, fundamentally it's the right shape and size but in the wrong place, that has had an impact on the way it goes together and generates other issues.
In short the cab is too far back by 2 mm and the cab sides are the right length, which means that there's no practical means to fit the handrail or grab it if you did. To overcome that the cab sides are designed to sit outside the cab front, thus moving them forward 0.5 mm, it's not enough but just about allows the handrail to be fitted (albeit in the wrong place). This means the cab is now too wide and the ledge alongside too narrow throwing off the visuals, it also means that the cab roof has to sit on top of the cab front and that etch has been truncated to achieve that. All of which means that you now have to add the raised angle on top of the cab roof and cab front and then try to blend all three at the front smooth.
The correct thing to do is move the cab forward 2 mm, but to do that you'll need to graft a section onto the floor at the front, cut back the splashers sides and tops at the rear end and deal with whatever else ahead is now 2 mm too long; you'll also have to make a new cab floor as it won't reach the rear drag beam. From experience on previous models of the same genre, that is not an experience to look forward to or take lightly.
So.....in a world of already compromised model I decided the best thing to do was to not try and beat it, but join it.
I took 1 mm off the cab front and rear edges (not the roof overhang extension) and left the cab front where it was, grafted the raised roof angle onto the cab front and fitted the sides behind the front. This results in the floor and roof still fitting perfectly, space for the rear handrail in the right place and roof set behind the cab front like the real engine.
The visuals are restored as best you can expect with the minimum of lost time and reworking, adding the cab sides behind the cab front extends the length by 0.5 mm so overall you're only short by 1.5 mm. You will also need to correct the cab floor at the rear, it's designed to be full width front to back but in real life it's notched to give clearance around the hand rail, I've extended the notch as I'm fitting different sand boxes and they have cut outs for levers that drop down into that cavity.
By spooky comparison, Tony Geary mailed me today part way through these works with exactly the same problems.
mickoo
Western Thunderer
63601, BR 04 in 1957.
I've checked some photos and you're right, the rear division plate is flat
so I checked the reference photos taken on a visit to GCR and it's also flat, so I have no idea why I made a new curved one 
It will be flat very shortly!
Cab side sheets not cab front???
Interesting that two top notch builders discover the same issue, so we know it's real. Why don't builders give feedback to suppliers? We cannot improve unless we get constructive feedback like this.
David
simond
Western Thunderer
David,
looking back over my own 7mm journey, I suspect the answer to your “why don’t” question is one of confidence. The chances are that the vast majority of kit builders have only built one or two, at most a bare handful of locos, and they assume if something is just not quite right, it’s “their fault”.
Unless the issue is glaringly obvious (like two left hand sets of valve gear etches) the builder is less likely to conclude the kit design is incorrect, particularly if they can measure something simple like a cab side and conclude it’s correct.
Coupled with the likely, and fundamental, truth that few of us at the back of the class have Mick’s (and Tony’s, and a few more on here) encyclopaedic knowledge of the prototype.
just my 2c.
Simon
looking back over my own 7mm journey, I suspect the answer to your “why don’t” question is one of confidence. The chances are that the vast majority of kit builders have only built one or two, at most a bare handful of locos, and they assume if something is just not quite right, it’s “their fault”.
Unless the issue is glaringly obvious (like two left hand sets of valve gear etches
) the builder is less likely to conclude the kit design is incorrect, particularly if they can measure something simple like a cab side and conclude it’s correct.Coupled with the likely, and fundamental, truth that few of us at the back of the class have Mick’s (and Tony’s, and a few more on here) encyclopaedic knowledge of the prototype.
just my 2c.
Simon
Richard Gawler
Western Thunderer
David,
I hesitate to send feedback because I imagine many kit designers are relatively introverted, task-oriented folk who find criticism hard to bear, and really need it served up no more than one thing at a time. I have a list of 27 (twenty-seven) corrective actions I have made on one loco kit just to get it to go together, yes I am a relative beginner but they can't all be my fault. It is going to need some effort to present this in a way the manufacturer will find encouraging and useful.
When a kit has worked out pretty well, I haven't sent feedback and this is a bit daft really. I'll send a PM after I have had a think about my crane jib and chauldron wagon.
I hesitate to send feedback because I imagine many kit designers are relatively introverted, task-oriented folk who find criticism hard to bear, and really need it served up no more than one thing at a time. I have a list of 27 (twenty-seven) corrective actions I have made on one loco kit just to get it to go together, yes I am a relative beginner but they can't all be my fault. It is going to need some effort to present this in a way the manufacturer will find encouraging and useful.
When a kit has worked out pretty well, I haven't sent feedback and this is a bit daft really. I'll send a PM after I have had a think about my crane jib and chauldron wagon.
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Correct, bad grammar. I took 1.0 mm off the front and rear edges of the cab side sheet.
Here's Tony's build (the last of four I believe) he posted on Facebook, I'm sure he won't mind me posting it here to show how the kit builds without alterations.
Tony has fitted the cab side sheets outside of the cab front which has gained 0.45 mm at the rear end but made the cab too wide now by 0.9 mm. You could trim the cab front width but then the spectacle plate surrounds would be too close to the edge and look wrong.
Tony's words were the handrail is a bit cramped due to only having about 2.5 mm at the rear end to get everything in, it should be a smidge under 4.0 mm from the drawings. The cab sides in this position also place the handrail base directly over the valance underneath so you can't drill right though making fixing a little harder.
Tony also noted some issues with the cab roof ribs being too short, my gut feeling at this moments is that is due to the cab sides being slightly wider so if you put the longitudinal gutter in the right place with reference to the cab sides then they're too far apart by 0.9 mm.
Here's a reference shot of the real deal.
You can see that the footplate ledge is larger and the difference between the splasher side and cab side smaller, if you place the cab side behind the cab front you gain that visual aspect back as the cab is narrower and more to scale. You can also see the clear space around the handrail at the rear and the different sand boxes which I'll be fitting.
At the end of the day we're talking 0.45 mm difference each side in width, but it does make a visual difference, well, I think so
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Regarding feedback, I've heard feedback was and has been given over the years and has (to be polite) been bluntly ignored.
There's also an ambiance within the community that some fettling is good character building and part of the journey in making kits, being relatively new to the scene I find that approach utter bollox.
It takes as much energy to do it right as it does to do it wrong.
I've found there are basically two types of error, one is highly likely down to lack of information at the time, the ROD cab is almost certainly that, the cab overall is quite accurate (sans width) but the position is wrong.
The other is down to mistakes in the artwork, for example you'll have a 4 mm hole in the tender inner chassis to fix to the body, it'll be 10 mm from the front; yet the corresponding hole in the body is 6 mm and 14 mm from the front. Spigots on the back of cast axles boxes to aid fitting at 6 mm dia and holes in the frames at 4 mm, really!
Another is a tender bulkhead 40 mm wide and slots for the side sheets at 43 mm wide, thus leaving a 1.5 mm cap each side to fill; those are the blood boiling errors, easily found in a test build and easily corrected with the will to do so.
mickoo
Western Thunderer
To be fair, when you're building commercially there is an expectation to get things right and from that context you look harder at the base kit and find more issues, more so than I suspect a casual builder would, or dare I say it, worry about.David,
looking back over my own 7mm journey, I suspect the answer to your “why don’t” question is one of confidence. The chances are that the vast majority of kit builders have only built one or two, at most a bare handful of locos, and they assume if something is just not quite right, it’s “their fault”.
Unless the issue is glaringly obvious (like two left hand sets of valve gear etches
Coupled with the likely, and fundamental, truth that few of us at the back of the class have Mick’s (and Tony’s, and a few more on here) encyclopaedic knowledge of the prototype.
just my 2c.
Simon
I suspect there have been hundreds of these kits built over the years and all with a slightly wide cab and tight rear handrails and I expect all the builders and owners are very happy with them.
At the end of the day that's what DA and Gladiator do best, they are what I call, good old stomach warming cod n chips/pie n mash kits. If you want Partridge Pâté with caviar you have two choices, get the big knives out or do it yourself.
I will also acknowledge that these kits date back decades (the ROD instructions are dated 1991) when detail expectations/accuracy were less demanding and they still have a place today for mainstream modelers.
Dave Holt
Western Thunderer
I had a bad experience when pointing out a significant error in a 4 mm kit to the manufacturer. The loco was almost complete when I stood it alongside an existing model of a related, similar loco and realised that the cab roof was far higher on the new kit. I wrote to the supplier who replied, in fairly strong terms that he was a member of a master craftsman's guild and couldn't possibly have made such an error and, basically, that I was lying. to prove the error I did a table of comparisons between prototype dimensions, scale equivalent, measurements from a published scale drawing (a copy of which was included with the kit!) and my model covering height to footplate, top of side tank, top of cab side and to crown of the roof profile. The footplate height was within a quarter of a millimetre, the top of the cab side was slightly high but the roof was a full two millimetres too high. I had no further reply from the manufacturer.
I managed to file about 1.5 mm off the spectacle plates which reduced the height to give an acceptable appearance but altered the roof profile to something really not right but the best I could do with a fully built loco.
So, overall, a not very satisfactory experience of contacting a kit supplier. hopefully, this was an exception and I'm sure David's response would be much more positive.
Dave.
I managed to file about 1.5 mm off the spectacle plates which reduced the height to give an acceptable appearance but altered the roof profile to something really not right but the best I could do with a fully built loco.
So, overall, a not very satisfactory experience of contacting a kit supplier. hopefully, this was an exception and I'm sure David's response would be much more positive.
Dave.
3 LINK
Western Thunderer
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Sadly I think that is the norm rather than a one off I'm afraid, usually you get the "no one else has complained" response trotted out, to which the answer is "perhaps no one else was looking or cares", but it's still wrong. The fact that you had to justify the error is a good indication nothing will happen, if they're not man enough to take your initial approach and check themselves then it's usually a lost cause.
There is also a cost involved if there's an error on the etches and the phrase "it's too expensive to redo the whole sheet" is true, some kit photo tools are the size of A3 sheets and a new tool just to correct a cab front error would be heinously expensive.
However there is a cheaper way around that, one that Finney7 and MOK employ, supplementary sheets, you only need do one small sheet that'll hold (depending on part size) many replacement parts.
There is a niggle on the GC tender which I didn't air until speaking with first with David this past weekend. The flared section is three strips of metal soldered to the sides and end and the flare formed, the flare should be 4 mm radius and overhang by about the same amount. However, there is not enough metal in the corners where they join so you're left with a gap which is near impossible to fill.
The only solution is to reduce the flare radius and overhang to about 2.5 mm, the result of that action is that the division plates and side rave angles now no longer fit, it takes an age to carefully rebend the angles and frankly it's quicker to make new division plates.
The overall solution is to simply provide three new strips with the correct material to form the corners, a single A4 sheet would probably do 20 tenders and save builders hours of swearing and shouting about how nothing fits.
Other than a small gap at the front of the tender between the sides (which is easy to solve with a sliver of metal) and a mismatch between inner and outer chassis with the brake weigh shaft (much harder to resolve without a lot of cost) the tender goes together well.
I have another GC ROD tender to do next year, this time from DA so it'll be interesting to see how close they are, I suspect very close, in which case I'll get new flare strips etched up and if they work will gladly pass on to David if he want's to add them to his stock.
Dog Star
Western Thunderer
Peter and I have five GCR tenders from DA so maybe we can knock on your door when you have done replacements as etches.
regards, Graham
mickoo
Western Thunderer
No problems
63601, BR 04 in 1957.
I've checked some photos and you're right, the rear division plate is flat
It will be flat very shortly!
I think the preserved 63601 tender has been fairly heavily monkeyed around with and might even have lost the twin rear stanchions on the division plate.
In BR service 63601's tender was a typical ROD one with the short coalguards too.
To get my head around the differences in the GC Robinson tenders for my own modelling, I've started a thread on the dark side:
GCR Robinson 3250 and 4000 gallon tenders
I've put this in this area because the following is an aid to modelling rather than a type history, and is an aide memoire for me whilst building GC locos in 2mm scale. The Standard GC tender is another of those railway items where standard is a complete misnomer. Whilst the 3 basic sorts of Robi...
www.rmweb.co.uk
This is an Immingham tender, but this is the general arrangement of flare and coalguard at the front of a ROD tender too:
Regards,
Simon
Having just built a tender for a Jersey Lily I have to agree with Mick about the flares. I certainly agree about supplementary sheets: I am building a list of things that need to be put on new tools and that is the way to go.
Another issue with the tender is the difficulty of constructing the axlebox/spring/damper assembly. So in future we will be adding these to the kits:
And for those who believe that resin is the spawn of the devil, we'll keep the whitemetal bits for those who want them.
Another issue with the tender is the difficulty of constructing the axlebox/spring/damper assembly. So in future we will be adding these to the kits:
And for those who believe that resin is the spawn of the devil, we'll keep the whitemetal bits for those who want them.