4mm Shrewsbury’s big beast: early season wasps

Ian@StEnochs

Ian@StEnochs

Western Thunderer
Overseer said:
I can think of three options -
1. 4mm scale Austerity locos,
2. 4mm scale CSB pivot points,
3. 7mm scale Sentinel loco handrails.

Personally, I recommend option 3.:)

PS. Just remembered another use - smokebox handrails on Beyer Peacock built locos from the 1860s onwards.
Click to expand...

Andrew Barclay pugs from the late 40’s used ‘Austerity’ style handrail pillars, Cannot call them knobs as they are just round bar drilled for the handrail.

Ian.
 
AJC

AJC

Western Thunderer
One of the tricky bits: cab steps. Obviously the real thing were welded steel strip and with the aid of Mike’s scale drawing and some good photos, I’ve managed the first one. A touch of a large file of the back has removed the cusp and gained a fag paper's worth of clearance...

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Note the two slots in the frames - one allows the outside frames to drop over the brake shaft (part of the working chassis), and the other is cosmetic: on the real thing it’s for the steam pipes serving the brake system. I only noticed these after assembly…

Adam
 
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Tim Hale

Tim Hale

Western Thunderer
Adam,

Thanks for sharing this project, I find it extremely interesting with a eye on a future build.

Tim
 
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AJC

AJC

Western Thunderer
Well that was a while ago, wasn’t it? Finally, I’ve picked this up again and fabricated some brake linkages. There should be a steam brake cylinder atop those linkages but I'll make those (I have lost those supplied, I think), once it's painted and working. The basic chassis is then almost ready to paint.

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Adam
 
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AJC

AJC

Western Thunderer
Chassis painted and wheeled up. It rolls along very nicely. The discs on the fly cranks were a safety measure on the real thing - obvious as to why when you see where the cab steps were. I hope that they don’t make quartering too difficult…

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Adam
 
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AJC

AJC

Western Thunderer
Brake gear, next. This is tricky, because the pull rods have to go in front and back and, obviously this is EM, it’s overscale. On the real thing these are two independent assemblies, the cross wires are for convenience and durability.

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Get this painted, fitted, and I can fit the chassis out for power, hopefully before Expo EM in a few weeks.

Adam
 
AJC

AJC

Western Thunderer
This hasn’t made it for the test track at Expo, unfortunately: I ran out of inclination to fit pick ups, though I did have time to fit the motor and to resolve the fit of the body over that. If that sounds like a euphemism for brute forces, you might be right: it took a fair amount of work with a slitting disc in the mini drill. You can’t see that, even without the boiler in place.

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With all the clearances ok, this should be ok from here. I hope!

Adam
 
AJC

AJC

Western Thunderer
What with one thing and another (the school summer holidays), this hasn’t progressed until now. The pick ups are fitted, the odd scrap of foil used as a solder barrier removed from behind the crankpin retainers, which didn't effect the thing when it was in push-along mode but caused a hard to trace tick under power, pick ups fitted, lots of minor fettling, clearances checked, checked again...

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The motor is one of the cheap High Level iron core ones and on first inspection it's quite a nice bit of kit. It runs smoothly, has a nice bit of overrun when the current is taken away. Quite independent of this, I even wired it up the right way round first time!

Adam
 
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AJC

AJC

Western Thunderer
So now that it goes, time to complete the details. The three that went to East Moors in Cardiff had great big hooks to go with slag ladle wagons, and these aren’t in the kit (which is probably fair enough), and I do have kits for a couple in the bottom drawer, perhaps this will force me to finish them? Hence this exercise in fretting - they're about the size of 7mm coupling hooks but a completely different shape.

I've been putting off making them for a while, but once you compare them to pictures, it's a case of circles a foot in diameter in steel c.3" thick, tapering slightly to enormous mounting brackets. These are laminated from etch waste and cut out with a combination of piercing saw, slitting disc and files.

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Two down, two more to finish and then the mounting plates. Yes, I already wish that I could etch these...

Adam
 
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AJC

AJC

Western Thunderer
Here we have the makings of the mounting brackets, just need to drill the corners for the fixings.

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It’s pouring with rain today so I doubt I’ll get more done, but you never know. Anyway, I saw in the current Hornby Magazine (I sometimes have a glance through for Tim Shackleton's weathering features), that the 3D people have had a go at the same prototype - I think Mike Edge's drawings appeared in the 'Modeller - and Tim has done one on a Hornby chassis. The print looked a bit crude, but I daresay @jameshilton's version, previewed here: Rediscovering an old friend… will be better, certainly quicker to build than mine! Both featured the low Dorman Long cab, I note. I think the taller cab looks better, but that's my prerogative!

Adam
 
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AJC

AJC

Western Thunderer
And now, it’s ready for a coat of etching primer.

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There’s some resin castings, for springs and sandboxes, to add and a couple of details (vents above the cab windows), that I could faff about with for hours shaping brass or knock out in minutes from a bit of plastic strip.

Fun paint job on this - striped ends to the bonnets, otherwise black with yellow lining and red details below the footplate.

Now, where did I put that pair of slag ladle kits?

Adam
 
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AJC

AJC

Western Thunderer
After an age, a coat of etch primer has been applied and the various witness marks for folds and joined treated to Milliput. I need to make the fold out vents on the cab fronts anew - the brass in the kit is really too thick for this and a bit of plastic strip shaped into a triangle section would be better. You can see it needs a bit of a clean, partly because I've added a lot of ballast, somewhere north of 150 grams secured with epoxy. The lens is cruel, I hadn't noticed the muck on the buffer beams until now...

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Resin castings for springs and sandbox next, then undercoat and the mix of yellow ends, red buffer beams and wasp stripes to add to a basic scheme of black with yellow lining. That is probably a month or two away...

Adam
 
AJC

AJC

Western Thunderer
The next stage is to fit the detail mouldings. These are resin and are fine, more or less, but there are some unfortunate bubbles. I'm sure that Mike would replace the worst of these, but they are simple enough to mend.

First, I primed them so I could see what I was doing:

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A bit of Milliput in some of the holes will help, not that they're terribly easy to see given the safety plates in the flycranks. More serious are the spring ends. Here, I filed a rebate in the rear of the moulding and I've superglued some 20 thou' plastic so I can build up the detail later. The excess will then be trimmed.

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Once fitted, I shall stick them on and add a grey undercoat when the weather allows.

Adam
 
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