7mm The LNER 06 (MOK 8F) Build is No More

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks Richard, 
It seems to me that you put a nut on the frames and then another nut inside the cylinder which is a little bizarre. I will leave them off for now as it will be easy to add them later when I am sure.

I have just seen your latest post as I was typing this. There seems to have been a bit of an update since your kit. The bits referred to in the instructions as on the supplemental etch are in fact on the main etch now - this threw me a bit until I realised that they had been updated. There is only one set of cylinders that I can see.

Thanks again and I look forward to seeing the Fowler progress.

 

[Rob Pulham]

More progress has been made despite having to do a bit of guess work.

Besides the guess work from the earlier posts (which I am now confident I know where the nuts go I am just puzzled as to why you need them) the other bits of guess work were two 6ba nuts that hold the motor support (there are half etched recesses for location but then no real indication of which way around the bracket goes that they are attached to and it can fit either way). I took an educated guess and soldered it with the nuts on the opposite side as to where I expected the screws to come from. There was a similar situation with two strips that mount on the outsides of the frames each having a 10ba nut soldered to them. I reasoned that anything being screwed to them would most likely come from underneath so I mounted them with the nuts upper most. However with these I wasn't quite as confident so I have only soldered the tabs at present just in case I have it wrong.

Having soldered up the cylinders and the frame (I mounted it in my Hobby Holidays jig to solder the tabs after ensuring all was square before going on to solder all the seams) after I had removed all the tabs and cleaned up I couldn't resist putting the wheels in temporarily to see how it runs and so far so good.

 

[Rob Pulham]

While progress has slowed on this one it hasn't stopped completely. After talking to Mike about he does his pickups I decided to have a go at the american system and took the plunge and shorted one set each of drivers and tender wheels.

 

[Ressaldar]

Hi Rob,

they look good, don't forget the paxolin drawbar and insulation tape under the fall plate and for a final touch, a smear of epoxy on the buffer heads - painted blackish looks just like grease.

cheers

Mike

 

[Steph Dale]

Mike, Rob,

American pick-up is great, second only to split axles; which look to be tricky to fit to that chassis in its original form.

There is a slight wrinkle in the insulation that Mike's proposed though - the coupling is still live.  There are alternative insulation schemes which would leave all the draw gear neutral.

I propose two:
1. Use Fablon ('sticky-backed plastic' of Blue Peter fame) along the underside of the footplate and any points where the frames touch the body, such as behind bufferbeams, dragboxes, on motion brackets, etc.  The chassis fixing screws can then be replaced with nylon equivalents or the chassis fixing holes enlarged and with plasticard washers under the screw heads.
2. Glue the bufferbeams in place, using a little tissue paper as your insulation. Modern 2-part resin adhesives (such as DevCon 2-ton) are quite sturdy in this sort of application.  You could even use double-sided copper clad to mount them if you want to use solder.

Just a couple of thoughts.  But definately +1 for the use of low-friction pickups! 

Steph

 

[Ressaldar]

Hi Steph,

surely it's only a problem, if the axles on the hauled stock are not insulated on both sides. The epoxy on the buffer heads is another plus as well.

I've never had any trouble with the ten tender locos that I have used with this form of pick up. Perhaps I've been very lucky?

cheers

Mike

 

[Steph Dale]

Mike,

I don't know that it's lucky at all - it's just another variable to contend with!  I mean if you're not worried about double heading and your trains have a high proportion of vehicles which are either plastic kits or use slater's wheels then you'll have no problems ever.

I certainly can't argue with your experiance at all; as you know my stuff is split axle and usually set up with the axleboxes insulated from the frames (not as difficult as might be expected!).  So I tend to have neutral bodies and frames.  I've got one exception to that (it's split-frame) which is being worked on at the moment and will use Fablon insulation to prevent the body shorting out the chassis.

Steph

 

[John D]

Re: the American pick-ups......I've always stuck a layer of  10 thou plastikard twixt tender body and  chassis and, as said, used nylon bolts .......also have shortened the chassis 1mm either end so there's no chance of it contacting the buffer/drag beams ....works a treat with no problems

 

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks for the input Gents.
Almost all my stock has Slaters wheels there are a couple with Haywoods and one I think with Roxey so hopefully I won't have too many issues

 

[Ressaldar]

Thanks for the input Gents.
Almost all my stock has Slaters wheels there are a couple with Haywoods and one I think with Roxey so hopefully I won't have too many issues

Hi Rob,

don't think that you'll have any trouble with the Roxey ones either, if the set that I bought at Telford for the Inspection Saloon are anything to go by - and they have Maunsell inserts in them as well!

cheers

Mike

 

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks for the heads up Mike. I like the Roxey wheels (and lots of their other stuff for that matter)  but I thought that they only did plain disk so I hadn't considered them for anything else.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Well almost 12months on, I have returned to this build.

Last night I cleaned up the castings for the slide bars/cross heads and finished soldering the wrappers to the cylinders - having just had a re-read of Tony's build I should have soldered the castings in before putting the wrapper around. Anyway I managed to get the castings on the fronts of the cylinders without too much trouble and I plan to assemble the motion brackets and test fit before finally soldering the slide bars to the cylinders.

Here is a few shots of where I got to...

 

[dibateg]

Hi Rob -
one modification I did to the motion bracket, and it depends on how picky you are :- In the kit, the weighshaft is supported by two etched lobes, I used modified Griffin Ivatt brackets for the same, and they are not quite right, but to me better than a plain etch. You can hardly see them.... I left the inner 'lobe' in place and filed it's profile, so that is hidden behind but supports the cast bracket.

See page 53 and 55 of the LMS Locomotive Profiles for the 8F.

Regards

Tony

 

[Rob Pulham]

I didn't get any modelling done last week but since then I have made some steady progress on the 06

I have done a bit more at the chassis



Next up was the front bogie.





And lastly just before going on holiday I ordered a set of coupling rods etc from Premier which were waiting for me when I got back. I also took the time to make up some of the rods that came with the kit.





Next up I need to check my stock of scale hardware before deciding whether to try emulate Richard and Adrian's detailing exploits.......

 

[dibateg]

Hi Rob -are the Premier connecting rods the same length as the MOK ones? I found the ones in the kit slightly short..

Regards

Tony

 

[Rob Pulham]

Hi Rob -are the Premier connecting rods the same length as the MOK ones? I found the ones in the kit slightly short..

Regards

Tony

Good question Tony. I haven't tapped the wheels/bushes 10BA yet so I had best do that before going any further so that I can fit the rods to test....

 

[Steph Dale]

Rob,

I suspect you'll be better off using the kit ones. Any discrepancy between the centres of the rods and chassis will lead to poor running. One of the reasons my stuff runs well is because I take a great deal of care to ensure that the rods and chassis centres align exactly.

The alternative (and the approach I use) is to make the rods up as the very first job. They can then be used to align the chassis bearings - rather than getting the parts from two disparate sources and hoping they'll line up. Scale length or not - the fact that the rods are produced by different processes means they're exceedingly unlikely to line up...

Steph

 

[dibateg]

Interesting point Steph, I usually use alignment axles to position the hornblocks. In the case of the MOK 8F, everything was fixed in place and the coupling rods fitted with very little fettling. It will be interesting to see how the con rods compare.

Regards

Tony

 

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks for the thoughts Gents.
I got as far as getting the crank pins etc tapped last night and last thing I fitted the Premier coupling rods and pushed it up and down a length of track and all seemed smooth enough. Tonight the plan is to make up the other side of the MOK coupling rods and give them a try. While I see exactly where Steph is coming from the Premier rods are so much more robust the the etched ones that now I have bought them I will use them if possible. But not at the risk of having something that doesn't run smoothly.

 

[Rob Pulham]

See page 53 and 55 of the LMS Locomotive Profiles for the 8F.

Thanks for this Tony. I have had it on order from Waterstones for a couple of weeks now.....