7mm Rob's workbench - Gladiator J6

[Rob Pulham]

Modelling time this last week has seen me back on the J6. I have been making progress with the inside motion starting with soldering the front of the slide bars to the cylinder front and then removing the motion bracket and moving it backwards to match the drawing in order that it would then clear the front horn guides.




Getting them square to each other was a little challenging so I cut a couple of rectangles of 10thou sheet to set both the distance between the cylinder front and the rear of the motion bracket and keep them square at the same time. I used a couple of aluminium hair grips to hold them in place while I soldered the ends of the slide bars to the motion bracket.

I still need to plot out and drill holes for the support rods for the expansion links in the cylinder front.





I have temporarily assembled most of the motion but I still need to add the parts to the motion bracket which support and operate the valves.






Having extended the clearance between the cylinder front and the motion bracket so that the cylinder front sits in front of the horn guides, I found that the slide bars still fouled the horn guides. T next task was to reduce the depth of the front horn block in the lathe so my four-jaw chuck got a turn. Because I only wanted to effectively face them off. I cheated a little and fitted a short length of 3/16” silver steel into the tailstock, slipped a bearing on and used that to quickly centre the four jaw.




The next task is to remove a section of the horn guides to clear the slide bars.




As soon as funds allow, I plan to buy a mill to compliment the lathe and boy would a mill make this task easier. I can see now why Nick plans his inside motion fitting as he builds the frames. A lesson learned for the future! Onwards and upwards as they say.

 

[Rob Pulham]

I had hoped to make further progress on the J6 motion today but last night my elderly neighbours' bed collapsed. I have spent much of today regluing and splinting the centre support for them. The splints were made from a couple of strips of oak that we had spare from a replacement pack sent for a damaged in transit headboard for our bed.

The sun was shining and I like working with wood, so what wasn't to like about doing them a favour.

 

[Rob Pulham]

While I am distracted with outside jobs during the good weather, I have been working on another of the key outstanding jobs that is simple to pick up and put down. The back head/plate, is as I mentioned earlier in the build, a GNR Boiler Back Plate set from LG Miniatures. It wasn’t quite deep enough so I added a strip of thick brass along the bottom. Also missing from the set as delivered, were the injectors. Laurie includes a layout drawing in the set and it showed the missing injectors. An enquiry to Laurie had an apology and a pair of injectors in the post.

I am not sure if they were from the GNR set or another more generic pair but a little bit of scratch building had them looking the part. I had to fabricate one of the levers for the right hand injector from a .9mm rod with one end squashed and drilled out for the pin and then tapered with a file in the mini drill (too small to old securely in the lathe).

In the end I only used one of the hand wheels from the set because they came with cast stems on them and I wanted to fit them to the stem already present on the castings so I used some cast hand wheels from the spares box which had holes in the centres. Had I not had them to hand I would have cut the stems of the castings and drilled them for the ones with the cast stems but it would have been a bit tedious.







The GA showed some kind of inline valve down the right hand side of the cab at the side of the back plate so I knocked one up from a couple of bits of tube and a cast handwheel from the set.



My apologies for the greenish tinge it’s reflections from the green storage box that I propped it against for the photos.

 

[john lewsey]

Looking good Rob

 

[Rob Pulham]

Yesterday saw more progress on the motion for the J6, with the valves almost complete.
I still have the arms to make that connect the valve rockers with the expansion link etc. But I am pleased that I have got this far as I had hit a bit of a mental brick wall with concern that attempts at soldering on the valve rocker supports would result in them dissolving into individual parts again.

As happens often when procrastinating, I worried for nothing.

 

[Dave Holt]

But I am pleased that I have got this far as I had hit a bit of a mental brick wall with concern that attempts at soldering on the valve rocker supports would result in them dissolving into individual parts again.

As happens often when procrastinating, I worried for nothing.

Rob
Glad it's not just me, then. Over the years, I've put off loads of stuff that I anticipated would be difficult - the worst was about 10 years - but that proved to be easy when I finally gritted my teeth and got down to it.
Valve gear looking good so far.

 

[Rob Pulham]

After spending a week teaching myself 3D drawing, I was back at the workbench today. I had originally planned to just turn a couple of appropriately sized top hat bushes, file some flats on them where they come together and job done. My recently acquired mill offered more possibilities to make something that at least looks like the original even if it doesn’t attach in the same way. This will be soldered to the cylinder front in between the slide bars, instead of being suspended from a substantial bracket between the frames.

This is my first real item produced with the mill and I am happy with how it turned out.










This is where it will sit in between the slide bars on the cylinder front. I have added some fastenings to make it look as if it should be there, when it’s ultimately lost in the gloom between the frames.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Although I dressed the backhead a couple of weeks or so ago, I hadn’t managed to get it to fit into the cab before now because the stub of the whistle protruding through the cab roof stopped it from sliding in. One of those little few minute jobs that seem to take forever to get around to…. I finally got to it and the backhead now fits in place as if it was made for it.

 

[Dave Holt]

The back-head looks very good in situ, Rob.
I bet that reversing lever took some fair hefting about, especially if shunting.
Dave.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Wow, it's been a while since I looked at this.

Well the tender is now primed along with the back head and I have been finishing the last details on the body to get that too ready for painting.

Getting injectors has been a bit of a challenge and having acquired through the good graces of other and bought a couple of sets none of which are strictly correct I bit the bullet and piped a set up.

I also made up the vacuum pipe that runs along under the valence which required me to make some pipe elbows. In the past I have used a square file to file a V groove in some tube and then created the bend. This time I thought that I would have a go at doing it with the mill

I set a collet block at 45 degrees using a set square and then used a 3mm end mill to cut the slot.

 

[Jon Nazareth]

Rob
That's an interesting holder that you have clamped in the vice. Where did you buy it?
The pipe fittings look just the job.

Jon

 

[Rob Pulham]

Rob
That's an interesting holder that you have clamped in the vice. Where did you buy it?
The pipe fittings look just the job.

Jon

Hi Jon,

It's a Collet Block, I have square and hex versions. I bought them both together from Arc Euro but they can be bought individually. From Arc you have to buy the nut as a separate Item. I cheap skated and only bought one nut though, as I have couple that came with collet chucks already. I swap between them as I need to.

Usual disclaimer, no connection to Arc Euro just a satisfied customer.

 

[dibateg]

Clever stuff Rob, DLOS would have liked that!

Regards
Tony

 

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks Tony,

I do hope that he's looking down with approval.

 

[Rob Pulham]

The next job was to fit them to the loco body. The vacuum pipe went swimmingly

Then I fitted the injectors which is where it went a little south. I made a lovely job of bending and cutting the pipes to fit to the chassis.

And completely forgot that I also needed to fit the wheels DOH!...

While doing all this I also noted that somewhere along the way I had lost the hand wheels from the lubricators so I found a couple of nice cast examples in the spares box.

 

[Peter Cross]

And completely forgot that I also needed to fit the wheels DOH!...

Not the only one who's done that.

 

[Rob Pulham]

After resolving the Injectors pipe work so that I could indeed fit the wheels I realised that I didn't have a brake cylinder for the loco.

A look at the GA revealed that the J6 actually had two 18" brake cylinders side by side.

A couple of hours later I had knocked a pair up from brass rod.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Then the world turned black.

I had initially primed the tender body a couple of weeks ago when the sun last shone. I took the opportunity of sun here in the dales to get the body primed yesterday afternoon.

I am greatly impressed with the finish of the Clostermans etch Primer. I have used it and the cellulose top coat before but only on loco chassis and you don't really get the same effect.

It's also an absolute b***r to light properly for decent photos.

These are my third attempt.

 

[michael mott]

Rob thanks for showing how you made those right angle elbows I will be stealing that for future use, the loco is looking great.

Michael

 

[Rob Pulham]

You are welcome Michael, learning and sharing is what it's all about.