7mm Mickoo's Commercial Workbench
- Thread starter mickoo
- Start date
7mmMick
Western Thunderer
Morning Mick. Sounds like it’s been a bit of a fight. The JLTRT suffers some of the same issues in as much as adding after etch development castings doesn’t quite fit. It looks really nice to be fair, especially the cartazzi axle boxes as they’re a prominent pet of this class. I hope the upper works go well 
mickoo
Western Thunderer
They're rim insulated on both sides, the insulation is easy to see on the inside where it is skimmed flat, but on the outside it is hidden up inside the step between the rim and spokes; very clever and neat, virtually invisible from almost all viewing angles and will make for a perfectly continuous paint finish.
I've seen many a wheel spoiled where the material difference is easily visible in the finished paint work.
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mickoo
Western Thunderer
It's not too bad, the usual juggling of different components to make the whole, neither perfect but all just about working in harmony.Morning Mick. Sounds like it’s been a bit of a fight. The JLTRT suffers some of the same issues in as much as adding after etch development castings doesn’t quite fit. It looks really nice to be fair, especially the cartazzi axle boxes as they’re a prominent pet of this class. I hope the upper works go well
The Cartazzi axles boxes are white metal from the kit, very good actually, the springs are aftermarket components as are the keep plates....not yet fitted.....If there had been no supplied cast springs I would have drawn some 3D ones up, then you can tweak to suit the space you have.
Upper works, the A2 wasn't too bad at all to be honest, except the firebox wrapper so I'm ahead of the game there and will swap out for a new one if needed. There does seem to be subtle differences between the A2 and A1 etches so I'm hoping the A1 firebox wrapper may actually be right, I'll find out in a couple of days
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Poor end to the week at the bench, a combination of car and weather woes, not combined happily/fortunately; very hard to solder with no electricity
Anyway, managed to fabricate the cylinder block up, printed valve front covers are in the machine as the white metal ones were not up to muster.
Fitted the cylinder block and tried the slide bar....sigh. For those that may not know, the centre of the piston stroke nearly always passes though the centre of the axle that the connecting rod big end attaches to.
A good check for alignment (and datum point) is to stick a length of suitable rod in the stuffing gland and make sure your cylinder block is set to the right angle and position and work from that.
In this case, that's all fine but what isn't is the slide bar fixing on the motion bracket, it's to low by a couple of mm. You can't raise the bracket up as it's limited by the footplate and it fits perfectly in it's slots; the top end is right, just the bottom at fault.
The solution will be to cut the flanges off the motion bracket, attach them to the slide bar and then grind away the motion bracket until the slide bar is parallel with the piston stroke axis.
Anyway, managed to fabricate the cylinder block up, printed valve front covers are in the machine as the white metal ones were not up to muster.
Fitted the cylinder block and tried the slide bar....sigh. For those that may not know, the centre of the piston stroke nearly always passes though the centre of the axle that the connecting rod big end attaches to.
A good check for alignment (and datum point) is to stick a length of suitable rod in the stuffing gland and make sure your cylinder block is set to the right angle and position and work from that.
In this case, that's all fine but what isn't is the slide bar fixing on the motion bracket, it's to low by a couple of mm. You can't raise the bracket up as it's limited by the footplate and it fits perfectly in it's slots; the top end is right, just the bottom at fault.
The solution will be to cut the flanges off the motion bracket, attach them to the slide bar and then grind away the motion bracket until the slide bar is parallel with the piston stroke axis.
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7mmMick
Western Thunderer
Blooming eck that’s a country mile out that Mick. The cylinder tap casting is nice
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Yes it was, not sure taking the difference off the bottom was the right idea, a lot of faffing around in the end. In hindsight it may be better to jack the motion bracket up, plug the gap at the bottom of the slot in the frames and then trim the top down.
Cylinder taps come complete with pipes and clips, trim off sprue, waft file here and there, 3-4 mins to fit, perfect; wish I could say the same about the slide bar and cross head castings.
mickoo
Western Thunderer
More Peppercorn A1 woes, the front end footplate has several errors to catch the unwary, well you won't be once you hit them.
On the plus side the rear end forms up perfectly with everything just so, the splasher faces line up perfectly with the wheel centres so up to the small drop section at the front is fine.
As an aside, the motion bracket is also too tall on the top side so has to be heavily trimmed down to allow the footplate to sit level. Overall between the top of the slide bar and bottom of the footplate the motion bracket is too tall by about 3.5 - 4 mm.
Having solved that the front frame extensions were fitted and it was pretty clear there was a problem right after tack soldering the first in place. Basically the extensions protrude too far by about 2 mm, there's a slot in the footplate that needs extending rearward and the long finger of the upper frames that butts up to the small riser is also too long by the same amount and needs cutting back.
The next issue is the actual drop front, it butts up to the side valances but these terminate flush with the footplate edge which means the whole front platform sticks out past the frames by a mm or so. You have to trim the valances at the front so that the drop plate sits under the footplate itself.
On my etches the slots for the frame extensions were over etched badly, about 0.4 mm slop so it's hard to centre them for the final smoke box saddle base plate and middle cylinder cover plate fitting.
That cover has the front end securing nut on the underside and the cover is supposed to sit flush with the top of the frames, it sits too high so the small fold up support needs trimming down as does the rear fold down edge, then.....sigh...the sloped middle cylinder front is now too long....you get the picture.
The cover can have a tendency to flex and distort this area if you over tighten the front fixing. I added two small strips of square casting sprue to prevent that to the footplate.
The valve chest covers have an issue with the half etched slot for the cover walls, on the footplate part of it is in the wrong place, the lid etched slot fits perfectly, the etched slot on the footplate doesn't so some creative hacking is needed to get the covers to sit flat.
Finally, way back on the LH running board is a rivet that presses out into a slot for a footplate fence, don't press it out, it shouldn't be there.
The outer footplate frame extensions is out by quite a bit and does not line up with the front bogie wheel.
The inner core frame is perfectly aligned with the bogie wheels.
On the plus side the rear end forms up perfectly with everything just so, the splasher faces line up perfectly with the wheel centres so up to the small drop section at the front is fine.
As an aside, the motion bracket is also too tall on the top side so has to be heavily trimmed down to allow the footplate to sit level. Overall between the top of the slide bar and bottom of the footplate the motion bracket is too tall by about 3.5 - 4 mm.
Having solved that the front frame extensions were fitted and it was pretty clear there was a problem right after tack soldering the first in place. Basically the extensions protrude too far by about 2 mm, there's a slot in the footplate that needs extending rearward and the long finger of the upper frames that butts up to the small riser is also too long by the same amount and needs cutting back.
The next issue is the actual drop front, it butts up to the side valances but these terminate flush with the footplate edge which means the whole front platform sticks out past the frames by a mm or so. You have to trim the valances at the front so that the drop plate sits under the footplate itself.
On my etches the slots for the frame extensions were over etched badly, about 0.4 mm slop so it's hard to centre them for the final smoke box saddle base plate and middle cylinder cover plate fitting.
That cover has the front end securing nut on the underside and the cover is supposed to sit flush with the top of the frames, it sits too high so the small fold up support needs trimming down as does the rear fold down edge, then.....sigh...the sloped middle cylinder front is now too long....you get the picture.
The cover can have a tendency to flex and distort this area if you over tighten the front fixing. I added two small strips of square casting sprue to prevent that to the footplate.
The valve chest covers have an issue with the half etched slot for the cover walls, on the footplate part of it is in the wrong place, the lid etched slot fits perfectly, the etched slot on the footplate doesn't so some creative hacking is needed to get the covers to sit flat.
Finally, way back on the LH running board is a rivet that presses out into a slot for a footplate fence, don't press it out, it shouldn't be there.
The outer footplate frame extensions is out by quite a bit and does not line up with the front bogie wheel.
The inner core frame is perfectly aligned with the bogie wheels.
mickoo
Western Thunderer
More Peppercorn A1 progress. Not a lot to show for what has turned out to be quite hard work. Nothing drastic just frustrating little niggles here and there.
The loose fit and little errors can bite you if you don't keep on top of them; it's important to make sure everything is in exactly the right place as you go along. If you're not careful you'll end up with a big compound error that'll be quite time consuming to put right.
Common sense really, but some of the errors are not that obvious until you come to fit other parts later on, unfortunately that can mean going back and undoing something, correcting it to match the new parts and then moving on.
The cab is just placed for the photos and will need a tweak once fully secured; I can already see that the rear LH roof/cabside joint needs a little tweak to adjust the gutter alignment.
The loose fit and little errors can bite you if you don't keep on top of them; it's important to make sure everything is in exactly the right place as you go along. If you're not careful you'll end up with a big compound error that'll be quite time consuming to put right.
Common sense really, but some of the errors are not that obvious until you come to fit other parts later on, unfortunately that can mean going back and undoing something, correcting it to match the new parts and then moving on.
The cab is just placed for the photos and will need a tweak once fully secured; I can already see that the rear LH roof/cabside joint needs a little tweak to adjust the gutter alignment.
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Passing through for a quick repair is this Lee Marsh 9F.
The guard irons had impacted something and had both been bent and ripped off, I've heard they come from the factory mounted very low and sometimes even touching the rail head, thus causing damage or the leading axle to not rotate. I have no evidence that was the case this time though.
The guard irons are a very nice brass casting, so once all the paint was stripped off they could be reshaped back to true and soldered back to the fixing plate. A quick waft of matt black to blend them in and job's a good un
The guard irons had impacted something and had both been bent and ripped off, I've heard they come from the factory mounted very low and sometimes even touching the rail head, thus causing damage or the leading axle to not rotate. I have no evidence that was the case this time though.
The guard irons are a very nice brass casting, so once all the paint was stripped off they could be reshaped back to true and soldered back to the fixing plate. A quick waft of matt black to blend them in and job's a good un
mickoo
Western Thunderer
On some engines both windows can be slid open, this tends to be more common in LMS and BR types, though the B1 has dual windows.
Generally the front one was the outer unit (less draughts) but I've seen engines with that reversed, which is a good sign that both can move independently as seen in this cab crop shot. Copyright unknown.
The model windows all move so can be posed where ever the owner chooses.
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mickoo
Western Thunderer
Slow progress on the Peppercorn A1 for a variety of reasons, but progress none the less.
Most of the limited time has been spent on the kettle bit, not as bad as the A2, or as I might suspect, forewarned and two years more experience.
It's still a massive lump to form and build up straight and square, the boiler comes ready rolled with all the woes there in that entails, luckily not to bad along the joint at the base on this one. The smoke box is roll your own as is the firebox, unfortunately the etches do leave a bit of a gap between the firebox and boiler at the point where the two sheets overlap at the combustion chamber area.
Not really sure how to blend that in and retain the pressed rivets, so I'll sleep on that whilst I get on with the other details before finally fitting it to the footplate/cab assembly.. If you close the gap up then the top of the boiler sits proud of the firebox crown by a good 1 mm, clearly that can't be done so you end up with two gaps each side to fill in.
Most of the limited time has been spent on the kettle bit, not as bad as the A2, or as I might suspect, forewarned and two years more experience.
It's still a massive lump to form and build up straight and square, the boiler comes ready rolled with all the woes there in that entails, luckily not to bad along the joint at the base on this one. The smoke box is roll your own as is the firebox, unfortunately the etches do leave a bit of a gap between the firebox and boiler at the point where the two sheets overlap at the combustion chamber area.
Not really sure how to blend that in and retain the pressed rivets, so I'll sleep on that whilst I get on with the other details before finally fitting it to the footplate/cab assembly.. If you close the gap up then the top of the boiler sits proud of the firebox crown by a good 1 mm, clearly that can't be done so you end up with two gaps each side to fill in.
Compton castle
Western Thunderer
Very nice, as Eastern Pacific’s go I think the A2 is my favourite.
I’m sure you’ve said but is this one a double or single chimney ?
I’m sure you’ve said but is this one a double or single chimney ?
mickoo
Western Thunderer
The A2 is well proportioned but the bigger wheels on the A1 give it a more powerful look for me.
Chimney is double lipped, all A1's had double chimneys, only a handful of A2's were double (those fitted with front end throttles), the rest were singles.
Compton castle
Western Thunderer
Of course they did! Lipped or stove pipe was the question. I prefer the A2 with the double chimney. Seems more purposeful
mickoo
Western Thunderer
Aha, in that case early 60's lipped
Richard Spoors
Western Thunderer
I note that the holes in the boiler for the chimney and dome are more of a marker than full diameter holes for the castings. My thinking would be that this is good practice by the designer to minimise distortion when rolling the boiler. How will you cut the larger diameter holes required for the castings to fit without distorting the shape? Slowly ease them out by hand with tapered reamers? I'm pleased to see the firebox wrapper is a better fit than the A2!
Lovely build once again.
Lovely build once again.