4mm Terry's venture into P4 - MTK class 59

Terry Howlett

Active Member
I dabbled in model railways in my youth, and then again around 15 years ago. Now fully retired I think it's time I did it seriously. A challenging subject though, especially for P4 - the MTK class 59, dusted off from deep in the stash.

The challenge:

IMG20210304154436 by terry.howlett, on Flickr

Progress so far. This is a very old kit and has a lot of casting flaws, but most should be rectifiable. The approach will be to remove flawed detail and replace with scratch built. The aim is to construct the basic kit and super detail after that. Where filler is needed (in many areas) I'll use milliput after all soldering is done. My soldering skills got a bit rusty, but I soon got the hang of it again.....

IMG20210309202336 by terry.howlett, on Flickr
IMG20210314152018 by terry.howlett, on Flickr
IMG20210311235038 by terry.howlett, on Flickr
IMG20210314172110 by terry.howlett, on Flickr
IMG20210314180346 by terry.howlett, on Flickr

Pretty pleased with progress.Sides are tack soldered for now, roof is dry fit as seen below.

IMG20210314180357 by terry.howlett, on Flickr
IMG20210314180751 by terry.howlett, on Flickr

A very long journey ahead I know, but I'm enjoying this. I'll probably regret saying that when I get to the compensated sprung chassis bit ....................

Terry
 
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AJC

Western Thunderer
I haven't seen one of these in a couple of decades and I really, really admire your bravery. The one I saw had inspired the builder into scratchbuilding really very good models of the entire fleet (but I seem to remember that he worked for Yeomans and knew the real thing very well). That said, it does look, more or less, like a 59 which is to purpose, I suppose.

As for the real thing, I think I last saw 59003 (it must have been), in the far distance in Tonbridge west yard a couple of years ago. They're old friends, I went to a few Merehead open days and saw them often at Westbury and Reading. Keep going!

Adam
 

Terry Howlett

Active Member
I haven't seen one of these in a couple of decades and I really, really admire your bravery. The one I saw had inspired the builder into scratchbuilding really very good models of the entire fleet (but I seem to remember that he worked for Yeomans and knew the real thing very well). That said, it does look, more or less, like a 59 which is to purpose, I suppose.

As for the real thing, I think I last saw 59003 (it must have been), in the far distance in Tonbridge west yard a couple of years ago. They're old friends, I went to a few Merehead open days and saw them often at Westbury and Reading. Keep going!

Thanks for your interest Adam. Maybe I'm brave, more likely stupid! I recall buying this after seeing the real thing sitting humming away at Hither Green Station, all on it's own alongside one of the main platforms. I spent a good five minutes chatting to the driver and looking it over and being very impressed. That was maybe 15 years ago I reckon. It did leave quite an impact. Then a couple of years later I used to watch these, or maybe 66's (back them I couldn't tell the difference) thumping through Winchester station with their incredibly long freight load, as I waited for my commute up to town. Such impressive engines.

Of course there is an RTR today from Hornby (I picked one of those up a while back also), but this one appealed to my desire to turn it into something decent. I've built many aircraft and vehicle kits over the years, and even scratch built one or two, but never a locomotive. We'll see how it goes anyway. There is even a broad plan to build a small P4 layout...........

Incidentally I did just spend some time trawling through your EM Workbench thread, and I must say, I feel very inspired. All great stuff, and I love those old commercial vehicles.

Terry
 
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AJC

Western Thunderer
I just about remember them new! I was quite small then... Thinking about it I’d have seen them regularly at Eastleigh when I lived in Southampton (they served the stone terminal at Botley and occasionally paused there going the long way round to Westbury) but they get around a fair bit. I’ll be interested to see how you go about making it go - good luck! Dad made a pair of the big Yeoman hoppers, from Intercity Models a while ago, and soon they’ll be available from Dapol which is incredible really.

Thanks for the kind words about the various bits and bobs: the commercials are quite fun to do, all part of the wider scene, and they make appealing models. I’ve already got too many for the layout!

Adam
 

Terry Howlett

Active Member
I managed to make a little more progress on the 59, but have been hindered by a minor arm injury which is taking ages to heal.

All three roof pieces now soldered firmly in place, but as you can see there is much cleaning up yet to be done.

IMG20210413193319 by terry.howlett, on Flickr
IMG20210413193337 by terry.howlett, on Flickr

And here is a rather crude underside shot. I'm currently thinking through what I need to fabricate underneath in order to accomodate the motor and bogie units and other components from any RTR doner, plus the PenBits chassis. I have a Hornby 59 to study, and a very helpful lady at Bachmann has sent me some exploded diagrams of how their 66 is made up component wise.

IMG20210413193427 by terry.howlett, on Flickr

I have also acquired a Bachmann motor from ebay and am looking around for other potential donor components. All of course are available from Bachman directly, but I really need to get a solution worked out before I can progress much further. Hornby bogie outer frames seem readily available and they are of course much better defined than the MTK castings which need much cleanup and improvement. I will make some decision on that at some point.

IMG20210413193548 by terry.howlett, on Flickr

The locomotive ends are still to be soldered on and thats the next job, plus any obvious filling of large gaps with solder. I'm intending to use milliput to get a lot of the imperfections filled and better defined, but will only do that once all soldering is done on the body shell - dont want heat damage to any non metal work.

One obvious and challenging example area that needs sorting are these corrugations on one of the panels.

IMG20210413193402 by terry.howlett, on Flickr

The plan for those is to use Milliput to fill the sunken and pitted areas and when semi hardened I will sculpt/blend in the corrugations with a suitably profiled tool - maybe a rounded cocktail stick. There are many other small blemishes that will get the milliput treatment.

Progress is slow, and I do have some other projects on the go, but little by little, I hope to tame this beast eventually!

Terry
 

Overseer

Western Thunderer
For the rough pitted surfaces I suggest using water on the Milliput when first applied rather than wait for it to semi harden. The water makes it easy to get a smooth surface finish using dentists tools or similar without the Milliput sticking to the tools.
 

Terry Howlett

Active Member
For the rough pitted surfaces I suggest using water on the Milliput when first applied rather than wait for it to semi harden. The water makes it easy to get a smooth surface finish using dentists tools or similar without the Milliput sticking to the tools.

Yes, thanks. Thinking about it a bit more I realise that is how I have done similar sculpting before. It is quite remarkable stuff!

Terry
 

Terry Howlett

Active Member
Both ends now firmly in place. Time for a good clean up and rest from soldering. What you see are the labours of soldering 19 pieces of white metal into what I am rather proud to say is a fairly square and rigid body shell! To be precise:
6 side pieces
3 roof sections
2 end sections
4 side frames
4 frame connectors

IMG20210416215501 by terry.howlett, on Flickr
IMG20210416215439 by terry.howlett, on Flickr
IMG20210416215754 by terry.howlett, on Flickr
IMG20210417115326 by terry.howlett, on Flickr

Much cleaning up to be done, but for now I need a break from this part. Time to get the thinking hat on for what needs constructing inside in order to take some modified Bachmann bogies (using the PenBits sprung chassis) and the motor unit.

Terry
 

Terry Howlett

Active Member
Whilst waiting for various bits for the class 59 in the form of appropriate components from ebay, I decided to dig out an old Kelway chassis for motorising the Airfix Mogul, that I'd started years ago. I'd used OO frame spacers, so I took it apart and re constructed using P4 spacers. Much fettling was needed around the piston etches and how they fit to the frame (cut outs on the etch too narrow).

We are this far, and pushing it gently along the workbench reveals that it works!

IMG20210506162414 by terry.howlett, on Flickr

More bits awaiting their fete........

IMG20210506162456 by terry.howlett, on Flickr

And of course there are even more bits still on the frets and in the bag!

Being very unused to constructing anything like this, I'm trying to work out the next steps, not so much how to construct it all and what goes where, but painting sequence for wheels/chassis etc and what gets permanently fixed and what can be removed for inevitable maintenance etc. Obviously, still lots to do on valve gear etc, but Kemilway will have you soldering up everything like crank pins and valve gear components that are fixed, making it (in my view) impossible to ever remove the wheels, let alone paint them and the chassis.

Thinking mode will follow, and meanwhile I'm also trying to source an Airfix Mogul (or two) from ebay!

Terry
 
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