7mm The Derby Line - Rolling Stock Gladiator Crab

[dibateg]

Here is the whole thing, now pretty well cleaned up and finished. Again, good quality castings, I was able to solder them all with 145 degree solder.


If you are building one of these - leave the blanking plate in place until the whole bulkhead is complete. It doesn't say in the instructions. It can be cut out with a razor saw afterwards.


Assembling the tender body:- I elected to attach the hopper to the bulkhead first:-

 

[dibateg]

And a rainy Saturdays work gets us here:

I detailed up the lighting system on the back panel first. I also disagree with the instructions about removing the half etch on the 'L' section seen here. That allows it to neatly sit in the corresponding half etch at the top of the side...


We have a tender, I do rather like the curvy Bulleid tenders, they are a very tactile shape.. Don't put the rear lifting eyes on until all the panel joins are polished up. The horizontal panels sit in a half etch at the top of the vertical panels. This rebate is a fraction too deep, which allows you to carefully bring it down with files, emery sticks etc to get a tidy edge. The bottom seam can only be done from the outside - there is more solder to polish off. It has to be done. I made the mistake in the past of leaving it on other models and eventually it will move and you'll be able to see the join...

 

[dibateg]

No one spotted the deliberate mistakes...bunker back the wrong way round and the water treatment filler in the wrong place. If you make things, there will be mistakes. So rather than torch the whole thing apart, I removed the detail and re-instated it on the other side of the panel. The 3mm hole in the top of the deck was blanked with lengths of concentric tube, and the top surface polished. A hole still exists to take the vacuum pipe and no one is the wiser... I think I went beyond Viking language. The cover for the tanks will clip into place, and the tanks are removable to facilitate painting.




Not many parts to go on now, and I'll tidy that lump of solder on the bulkhead. Those little upstands on the white metal step lasted about 10 mins, so I drilled them out and replaced them with some brass strip.



Things go wrong, they will do, and its the putting right where you really start learning...

 

[dibateg]

Now it's pretty well finished, just some more tidying required..

 

[dibateg]

The Radial has returned from Paul Moore via the excellent O gauge show at UWE Bristol. So it has taken a couple of days to fit her out and there is some tidying up to do after track test. It's always nervy fitting out a model once it has an excellent paint job and I absolutely hate fitting windows, I made at least 12. She is an attractive little engine.


Once the track test is satisfactory, the DCC decoder can be fitted. Proper crank pin nuts will be fitted later.



I don't really like pictures that are bigger than actual size, but here we go. The back head is loose and needs finishing - and someone needs to close that regulator!

 

[Scale7JB]

I think someone needs to put a drop of water in aswell, it's about to lift..

JB.

 

[dibateg]

One extreme to the other... this set of tarnished etchings is for a LNWR Coal Tank..

It's a Griffin kit, which came from Shedmaster, which we suspect might be a Jidenco, blown up from 4mm scale...

Lets see how this one goes.....

 

[mickoo]

Quick wash in Cillit bang should sort that.

 

[Peter Cross]

State of the art kit circa 1980's, casting are good though.

 

[dibateg]

I like a bit of history, and I wonder if this kit was derived from the original Falcon brass design...

I've marked out for the hornblocks and there is not much meat around them. There is quite a lot of modification required yet and that awful cut out for the radial truck will have to be dealt with. The fact that they come from a hand drawn design becomes more evident.


I'm matching up the frames to the running plate, there has been a lot of fabrication work before we even go near the soldering iron. The dummy silhouette of the expansion link has been removed.


Rear frame plates have been made. I'd like to fit a radial truck, but we'll see how that develops. It will improve the view through the frames.

 

[dibateg]

The buffer beams are a wood sandwich between plates on the prototype and this is represented by a fold up etch which looks nothing like the actual thing. The buffer beams were too short in any case, so I made new ones to form the sandwich.


There is an etched strip for the valance, which would take far to long to clean up, so brass angle was substituted. The sandwich buffer beams are in place, I've already cut wood for the ends. Trying to make a complete sandwich was beyond my patience and I didn't have anything suitable for representing the 6 inch thick piece of wood.


I tacked up the frames, but after studying the photos and Jim's article I decided the firebox/ashpan combo looked like a monolith, so the whole thing was taken apart again.


A new brass ashpan was made up and is now even the right shape with the sloping ends.

 

[Peter Cross]

The ash pan looks a whole lot better. Are you having to adapt the horn guides and boxes to fit the non slotted frames?

 

[Mike W]

Those buffer castings, which are of course the late "Cooke" Turton and Platt type - look really nice.

 

[dibateg]

They are Slaters Mike.

With storm Eric going on, I'm now working on the superstructure.

The kit tank sides feature the beading, except that it should straddle the top of the tank side. I couldn't see how I could add strip, with out it looking like two layers of beading and it also need to go under the cab side sheet. In the end it was quicker and easier to make new tank sides, the originals were also slightly too high in any case.


The cab sides were cut off the original etches and here we have the new sides.



The parts have just been plonked together to see how it looks.

 

[dibateg]

I'm grinding along with this, meeting one problem after another. I had to torch one side apart as I wasn't happy with the fit of the tank side and the cab front and back were sitting too low compared with the sides. I also ditched the tank extensions and fabricated new ones, they made the cab space ridiculously narrow. I've scratched up the raised platform inside the cab and that should give clearance to the tops of the wheels.
The bunker has replacement sides and top ( the one in the kit was too narrow and wouldn't rest on the internal ledges). The tool boxes are just plonked in place, but they are too short, and possibly too high.. The filler is just floating around to compare heights. It's all just plonked together again.
Yep - its made me a tad grumpy...

 

[Heather Kay]

Tony, I have a copy of Jack Nelson's LNWR Portrayed here. He went to town on some loco details in it, so if they might be of use to you just shout and I’ll organise something.

 

[Ian_C]

I'm grinding along with this, meeting one problem after another.

With the amount of rectification and modification required it doesn't end up very far from scratcbuilding does it?

 

[adrian]

Likewise - I have a copy of Bashers, Gadgets and Mourners

Shop | Ingrow Loco Museum & Workshop

plenty of detail photos and drawings, including GA's if it helps.

 

[dibateg]

Thanks everyone - I have been lent the 'Bashers' book and have a GA. I just need some extra mojo to continue. A few days break will help.

Tony

 

[Pencarrow]

I'm grinding along with this, meeting one problem after another.

With the amount of rectification and modification required it doesn't end up very far from scratcbuilding does it?

I was just thinking exactly the same thing. Kudos to Tony for first noticing the errors and then having the skill/ persistence to rectify them.