45609
Western Thunderer
So, despite the stifling heat over the last couple of days, I'm very much back in the saddle with modelling. Thankfully, my modelling room is the coolest place in the house. I'll come back to the Gresley buffet coach at a later date. This weekend has seen me recommence work on my J39. The basis is a Bachmann body with a Dave Bradwell loco chassis and his complete 3500 gallon tender kit. It has made an occasional appearance on Tony Geary's (@dibateg) and Dave Holt's (@Dave Holt) workbench threads in this sort of state.
The large amount of Milliput on top of the boiler was the result of an unfortunate encounter with a heat gun while I was trying to squeeze the boiler in a bit to better fit the casting for the bottom of the boiler supplied in Dave B's kit. It worked a treat until I turned it over and said..."Oh, dear!"
The tender was finished some time ago, and the chassis is mostly complete. It's been a runner for quite a while, and my list says the chassis still needs injectors, front sandpipes, blowdown valve, ashpan rocker lever, the top end parts of the valve gear (weigh-shaft and lifting links) and a couple of bits snipping off the rear frames to represent a steam brake only loco accurately. I'll do all of this when I strip down the chassis in preparation for painting. This model will be 64747, the last J39 to be scrapped and a long-time GC/GN resident around the Nottingham area.
The weekend's efforts have made good progress on detailing the loco body. I wasn't that satisfied with the boiler fittings and smokebox door, so these were removed and have been replaced. A friend made the dome and snifting valve for me. The new chimney is an Alan Gibson casting, but I've had it on the lathe to bore it all the way through. This involved machining a simple flat-bottomed cup to fit on the outer diameter of the chimney, which was then super-glued and araldited into the cup.
Cast brass is not as free-cutting as brass bar, so machining out had to be done very carefully with light cuts and progressively larger end mills, but eventually I had a 5mm through-bore.
It was then pried out of the cup and temporarily super-glued to the drill shank so I could clean off the glue and polish it up.
Next was to detail the smokebox front and door. I'll admit I did the replacement smokebox front a couple of weeks ago. The door itself is one of the excellent 3D prints that Dave Holt commissioned for his B1 from Justin Newitt (Rumney Models). The door is a NE Darlington style that was fitted to some B1 boilers, but also suits a J39 and many other LNER locos. It was quite delicate getting it off the support structure, but it really does look the part. The smokebox front is a piece of 15 thou nickel silver that was rough cut, oversize, with a piercing saw and then soldered to a piece of brass so it could be mounted in the lathe and trued up. The bottom was then trimmed off and filed flat.
Detailing the door has involved a fair bit of lathe and mill work to fabricate a smokebox door handle from 0.9mm and 0.5mm nickel silver wire. I also had a go at the small knob to the left of the door for the loco crew to pull the door open.
Other work in this weekend session has seen a new buffer beam fabricated from 10 thou brass, front sandbox fillers turned up, and all the handrail knobs reinstated. I have cheated and reused the formed Bachmann boiler/smokebox handrail, combined with Gibson shoulderless handrail knobs and a simple jig to set the stand off from the boiler to suit the original handrail.
To end this fairly long submission, here are a couple of general shots of the loco as of this evening.
It certainly feels like I'm closing in on completion of this build. It has been in the works for a very long time, and it is about time I finished it. There are still many details to add, and it's always the way that the last 10% takes 90% of the time.
Cheers...Morgan
P.S. I haven't missed the front handrail knob on the smokebox. The front is just being held on by a couple of tiny pieces of double-sided tape, and the handrail won't be slid into place and fixed until after painting.
The large amount of Milliput on top of the boiler was the result of an unfortunate encounter with a heat gun while I was trying to squeeze the boiler in a bit to better fit the casting for the bottom of the boiler supplied in Dave B's kit. It worked a treat until I turned it over and said..."Oh, dear!"
The tender was finished some time ago, and the chassis is mostly complete. It's been a runner for quite a while, and my list says the chassis still needs injectors, front sandpipes, blowdown valve, ashpan rocker lever, the top end parts of the valve gear (weigh-shaft and lifting links) and a couple of bits snipping off the rear frames to represent a steam brake only loco accurately. I'll do all of this when I strip down the chassis in preparation for painting. This model will be 64747, the last J39 to be scrapped and a long-time GC/GN resident around the Nottingham area.
The weekend's efforts have made good progress on detailing the loco body. I wasn't that satisfied with the boiler fittings and smokebox door, so these were removed and have been replaced. A friend made the dome and snifting valve for me. The new chimney is an Alan Gibson casting, but I've had it on the lathe to bore it all the way through. This involved machining a simple flat-bottomed cup to fit on the outer diameter of the chimney, which was then super-glued and araldited into the cup.
Cast brass is not as free-cutting as brass bar, so machining out had to be done very carefully with light cuts and progressively larger end mills, but eventually I had a 5mm through-bore.
It was then pried out of the cup and temporarily super-glued to the drill shank so I could clean off the glue and polish it up.
Next was to detail the smokebox front and door. I'll admit I did the replacement smokebox front a couple of weeks ago. The door itself is one of the excellent 3D prints that Dave Holt commissioned for his B1 from Justin Newitt (Rumney Models). The door is a NE Darlington style that was fitted to some B1 boilers, but also suits a J39 and many other LNER locos. It was quite delicate getting it off the support structure, but it really does look the part. The smokebox front is a piece of 15 thou nickel silver that was rough cut, oversize, with a piercing saw and then soldered to a piece of brass so it could be mounted in the lathe and trued up. The bottom was then trimmed off and filed flat.
Detailing the door has involved a fair bit of lathe and mill work to fabricate a smokebox door handle from 0.9mm and 0.5mm nickel silver wire. I also had a go at the small knob to the left of the door for the loco crew to pull the door open.
Other work in this weekend session has seen a new buffer beam fabricated from 10 thou brass, front sandbox fillers turned up, and all the handrail knobs reinstated. I have cheated and reused the formed Bachmann boiler/smokebox handrail, combined with Gibson shoulderless handrail knobs and a simple jig to set the stand off from the boiler to suit the original handrail.
To end this fairly long submission, here are a couple of general shots of the loco as of this evening.
It certainly feels like I'm closing in on completion of this build. It has been in the works for a very long time, and it is about time I finished it. There are still many details to add, and it's always the way that the last 10% takes 90% of the time.
Cheers...Morgan
P.S. I haven't missed the front handrail knob on the smokebox. The front is just being held on by a couple of tiny pieces of double-sided tape, and the handrail won't be slid into place and fixed until after painting.
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