Nick Dunhill
Western Thunderer
Happy New Year to all. This is my first post for a month or so, I thought I'd have a break from social media over the holiday......well that and the fact that I wasn't making anything of note. I made a F7 BG Rover such a brilliant kit that there didn't seem much point in posting a build thread (I'll post some pics when I reassemble after paint,) follow the instructions and you can't go wrong. I also reassembled a couple of Peircy B1s after paint that were built by someone else.
Just before Christmas though I started my second annual Scorpio Queen build! I actually made the last one in 2020 but didn't post anything about making it, just a few pics of the finished loco.
My last experience of the Scorpio Queen kit (and the GWR BG Armstrong Convertible I made from the same source) was very good. The instructions are good, although I had to do a lot of cross referencing, but maybe that's just the nature of the prototype. The etchings are excellent and fit together very well, and most of the castings are good too. As you can see above it made a very acceptable model.
I began with the chassis. It has rocking beam suspension which looks a bit Heath-Robinson esque but works very well. I didn't bother with the Scorpio option of a special gearbox fitted with different gear ratios on each shaft of the motor to drive the rear and centre axle. It is designed round an unobtainable Mashima motor and it also looked a bit H-R esque (perhaps I am wrong and it works well too!)
Instead I used the same system that myself and DLOS had discussed sometime ago before he sadly died. He suggested moving the pivot of the rocking beams closer to the centre (driven) wheel. In this way a lot more of the weight of the loco is transferred to the centre driven wheel, and hopefully it will pull a bigger train. I moved it 12 mm closer to the centre axle, a lot of precision drilling is required. I used the old hole for the rocking beam pivot to mount an anchor rod for the motor.
The rest of the build so far is as per instructions. I fitted the model with a Mashima 1833 style motor from Taff Vale Models mated up to a foldy-uppy gearbox from the same source. I like both the motor and gearbox from TVM, if you build the gearbox carefully and shim it out properly it runs very sweetly and quietly, it has Ultrascale gears. The motor seems nice and powerful too. Julian Wynn hasn't paid me to say this!
Here it is having a bit of a test run, and there's a few more pics here;
Just before Christmas though I started my second annual Scorpio Queen build! I actually made the last one in 2020 but didn't post anything about making it, just a few pics of the finished loco.
My last experience of the Scorpio Queen kit (and the GWR BG Armstrong Convertible I made from the same source) was very good. The instructions are good, although I had to do a lot of cross referencing, but maybe that's just the nature of the prototype. The etchings are excellent and fit together very well, and most of the castings are good too. As you can see above it made a very acceptable model.
I began with the chassis. It has rocking beam suspension which looks a bit Heath-Robinson esque but works very well. I didn't bother with the Scorpio option of a special gearbox fitted with different gear ratios on each shaft of the motor to drive the rear and centre axle. It is designed round an unobtainable Mashima motor and it also looked a bit H-R esque (perhaps I am wrong and it works well too!)
Instead I used the same system that myself and DLOS had discussed sometime ago before he sadly died. He suggested moving the pivot of the rocking beams closer to the centre (driven) wheel. In this way a lot more of the weight of the loco is transferred to the centre driven wheel, and hopefully it will pull a bigger train. I moved it 12 mm closer to the centre axle, a lot of precision drilling is required. I used the old hole for the rocking beam pivot to mount an anchor rod for the motor.
The rest of the build so far is as per instructions. I fitted the model with a Mashima 1833 style motor from Taff Vale Models mated up to a foldy-uppy gearbox from the same source. I like both the motor and gearbox from TVM, if you build the gearbox carefully and shim it out properly it runs very sweetly and quietly, it has Ultrascale gears. The motor seems nice and powerful too. Julian Wynn hasn't paid me to say this!
Here it is having a bit of a test run, and there's a few more pics here;
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