Transport Age (Scorpio) 7mm BR Standard 3MT tank

[P A D]

This is a prototype I've wanted for some time but have put off buying in favour of other kits over the years. However, after viewing the sample build on the Scorpio stand at Guildex, I decided I could make something of it and bought the kit. It come in flat pack form with the etchings taped to an A3 sheet of card inside a large ziplock poly bag along with the instructions. A smaller bag containing brass and white metal castings is included. On checking the parts against the list I found that all the miscellaneous items, bearings, handrail knobs and screws etc are missing, along with several white metal castings. I'll be listing them and getting in touch with Scorpio to send them on. Here are the brass etchings.




The taper part of the boiler and the parallel part/smoke box come ready rolled, although misshapen and will require correcting. The smokebox part requires the rivets to be punched and needed to be almost flattened again to do that. Also the seam on the coned section is at the top so will require neat work to hide it.


And the NS etchings. The chassis is designed for rigid axles or side beam compensation on the middle and rear. As is my preference, I'll be building it rigid front and rear with the centre bearings "floating" in elongated holes.


And brass castings.


I laid out the WM castings to photograph but could not find the smokebox door which set me off checking the parts against the list. By the time I'd done that I forgot to take and image. Suffice to say, the castings are of mixed quality but mostly useable. As is the case these days, lack of discipline got the better of me and instead of concentrating on the Stanier Mogul, I made a start on the chassis after scrounging some axle bearings from my brother.


Not a lot of bracing there! Once I've sussed out where the motor will go I'll make and add extra spacers to beef it up.


This is my third Jim Harris kit having previously built his Brittania and rebuilt Merchant Navy and despite the faults and dated design, the chassis do build up easily and squarely.


As was Jim's want, the coupling rods are designed to pivot on the centre crank pin, but I've already modified them and made them up to pivot at the knuckle joint. When I modify the crank pins to accept 10ba bolts we'll see if true to form the chassis rolls first time without binding as I found with the Pacifics.

Cheers,
Peter

 

[Rob Pulham]

It was good to catch up with you at Guildex Peter.

It's great to see that you are back into buying and building more locos too. I will follow with interest.

 

[P A D]

Hi Rob,
It was good to see you as well.

Here are the re-rolled and soldered boiler tubes. The parallel section on the left has a simple butt edged joint so needs a reinforcing strip soldered on the inside, whereas the coned section has half etch overlaps. Getting the rivet lines straight is difficult as the etched dimples are way too big so the punch doesn't automatically centre. Oversized holes and rivet etching is a common fault with Jim Harris's kits.


The rear of the cone is a good fit on the white metal ring on the firebox front casting.


The holes for the wash out plugs look too large as well.


And I've made a start on the main bodywork. Here's the front running plate section.


Adding the front steps was a bit of a trial, but having screwed the running plate to the edge of the workbench drawer, I was able to hold the steps in place with forceps to solder.


The main part of the body is a large one piece etching requiring 12 folds to shape it. 14 if you count the slight turn in for the bunker lower sides behind the cab. Note the size of the holes in the cab door fold ins for the 0.7mm grab rails! The instructions mention that 1mm needs removing from the inner edge of the tank tops to allow the firebox and boiler to fit. This was done in the flat by skrawking and then bending in the vice.


First I folded the grab rail mounts and then soldered some pre drilled strips of waste fret to the rear for mounting the grab rails. It was also easier to add the grab rails in the flat as well.


And after some origami in brass, you get this. It's only tack soldered for now and the boiler tube is just placed for the photo.


Well, it looks like it has the makings of a Standard 3.


And with the boiler cone and firebox front inserted.


Cheers,
Peter

 

[P A D]

When I was looking at the display model on the Scorpio stand at Guildex noticed that the upper lockers on the rear cab bulkhead were leaning forward and assumed it was just due to rushed/poor assembly. However it's a fault with the casting. Looks fine from the front.


But from the side.


So I separated the lockers from the base and cleaned up the saw cut.


And now it will all be vertical when epoxied in place.


Next error in the kit is that the upper part of the bunker is too short. Here's the replacement next to the kit part which includes the rear buffer beam. I'd already separated the beam from the backplate when I took this image. The other error is that the etched holes for the grab rails are way too big for 0.7mm wire! Holes etched too large seem to be a common error with Jim's kits.


This shows the new backplate resting against the sides with the stunted original behind it.


Here's the completed back plate minus the side grab rails which will be fitted later. The steps are from the kit and had to be butt soldered, as I wasn't going to spend hours cutting slits for the tabs, so cut them off. The model will be one of the locos allocated to Kirby Stephen from new and I'm assuming would have had LM type lamp irons. I haven't found a rear view image to confirm this.


I added an extra plate between the top edges of the sides for the rear plate to butt up against. The slots at the sides are where the grab rails will be inserted.


And after fitting the rear and adding new side plates and beading. The buffer beam has been added with a strip of angle brass section behind to beef up the joint. It will be further reinforced when the rear side steps go on. I intend to plug the over large holes with brass rod, filed flush on the outside and extending inwards to reinforce the step fitting. I'll re-drill the grabrail holes slightly higher up.



Looking at the display model on the stand, I could see something was not right but could not put my finger on it. Still relatively easy to fix.


This image shows the reinforced joint for the buffer beam. The rear screw fastening is as per the kit, with a captive nut inside the bunker on the running plate and a screw through the rear frame spacer, albeit using 6BA instead of 8 as the screw hole was etched too large. Now where have I said that before? The fitting at the front is meant to be via a fold up box with captive nut soldered under the front drop plate, with the screw passing through a frame spacer set below the frame top edges. I didn't fancy that and made a similar fitting to the rear by adding a new spacer to the front of the frames at the top edge as normal, with the screw passing through this into a captive nut on top of the drop plate.


Here's the nut before the cover plate was added. There wasn't enough clearance for a 6BA nut under the cover so I reverted to 8BA.


And with the cover fitted.




This is the "skeleton " for the firebox wrappers. Despite the end plates being tightly soldered up against the "U" shaped spacer, I found that the gap between the plates was slightly too long for the lenght of the wrappers. To overcome this I added a thickener of waste fret to the rear end plate. Belt and braces would have been to add thickeners to both ends but one end was fine.


The wrapper is in two pieces and to shape them before soldering I screwed them in place through the safety valve holes in the top of the spacer using washers to clamp the edges. Worked a treat and I was able to fully shape the half etched wrappers before adding the wash out plugs and backing plated for the mud hole covers.


And I've run out of images.

Cheers,
Peter

 

[Scanlon]

Blimey Peter, you don't waste any time. I have built two of these kits and this was my loco.

Sold some time ago I'm afraid. If I were building one now I'd replace as many of the castings with Ragstone bits.

Enjoy.

 

[chigley]

Hi Rob,
It was good to see you as well.

Here are the re-rolled and soldered boiler tubes. The parallel section on the left has a simple butt edged joint so needs a reinforcing strip soldered on the inside, whereas the coned section has half etch overlaps. Getting the rivet lines straight is difficult as the etched dimples are way too big so the punch doesn't automatically centre. Oversized holes and rivet etching is a common fault with Jim Harris's kits.
View attachment 194816

The rear of the cone is a good fit on the white metal ring on the firebox front casting.
View attachment 194815

The holes for the wash out plugs look too large as well.
View attachment 194812

And I've made a start on the main bodywork. Here's the front running plate section.
View attachment 194813

Adding the front steps was a bit of a trial, but having screwed the running plate to the edge of the workbench drawer, I was able to hold the steps in place with forceps to solder.
View attachment 194814

The main part of the body is a large one piece etching requiring 12 folds to shape it. 14 if you count the slight turn in for the bunker lower sides behind the cab. Note the size of the holes in the cab door fold ins for the 0.7mm grab rails! The instructions mention that 1mm needs removing from the inner edge of the tank tops to allow the firebox and boiler to fit. This was done in the flat by skrawking and then bending in the vice.
View attachment 194818

First I folded the grab rail mounts and then soldered some pre drilled strips of waste fret to the rear for mounting the grab rails. It was also easier to add the grab rails in the flat as well.
View attachment 194819

And after some origami in brass, you get this. It's only tack soldered for now and the boiler tube is just placed for the photo.
View attachment 194820

Well, it looks like it has the makings of a Standard 3.
View attachment 194821

And with the boiler cone and firebox front inserted.
View attachment 194822

Cheers,
Peter ,I like the idea of screwing the buffer beam to a piece of wood to fix bits n pieces. wish i met you at the show, your an inspiration to us mere mortals. Ken

 

[P A D]

Thanks for the kind words Ken.

Blimey Peter, you don't waste any time. I have built two of these kits and this was my loco.
View attachment 195229
Sold some time ago I'm afraid. If I were building one now I'd replace as many of the castings with Ragstone bits.

Enjoy.

Roger,
You seem to have built everything before me! Did you write it up on your West Midlands Works thread. I dont recall seeing it but if it's there I'll find it to see what I can learn from your experience. It looks very nice even with the kit castings but you make a good point about Ragstone. I'll have a look and see what takes my fancy. That doesn't look like the kit chimney which is a bit spindly to my eyes. Do you recall who's casting it is?

Cheers,
Pete

 

[P A D]

Next I added the etched strip of 4 washout plugs to the inner faces of the wrappers. The kit provides cast white metal backings for the mudhole covers, but they are quite chunky and if used require a fair bit of filing of the corners on the inner skeleton to gain clearance, so I chose not to use them. Instead I used thin brass sheet, which still requires some filing of the skeleton, but not much. Here's the right hand wrapper soldered in place.


And t'other being lined up for soldering.


All done and dusted.


The kit provides no alignment aids for positioning the firebox in the body, so I drilled a central hole in the cab front and firebox back to assist. I made the hole in the cab slotted to allow some vertical movement. I dont know if I mentioned it ealier, but the cab window beading was so over etched and thin that I replaced it with nickel silver rod.


The parallel and coned boiler tubes have now been joined with a strip of brass on the inside to reinforce the joint. This is just a dry run with the cast metal front for the firebox just push fit in the boiler and the boiler unit placed in the body.






Cheers,
Peter

 

[Scanlon]

Thanks for the kind words Ken.



Roger,
You seem to have built everything before me! Did you write it up on your West Midlands Works thread. I dont recall seeing it but if it's there I'll find it to see what I can learn from your experience. It looks very nice even with the kit castings but you make a good point about Ragstone. I'll have a look and see what takes my fancy. That doesn't look like the kit chimney which is a bit spindly to my eyes. Do you recall who's casting it is?

Cheers,
Pete

Hi Peter,
I regret this was an early build and I didn't take any photos. As it was for my collection I rarely photographed my own locos and the other one I built was around 2010. As for the chimney I have no idea where that came from.
The Ragstone catalogue will certainly help you improve the loco. I used the clacks, manifold and steam heat castings and probably more. Unfortunately the injectors etc. were from the kit and frankly only the pipework was represented. These are complicated locos under the cab/tanks and you might want to get in touch with the 82045 group for help in this important area. The Talbot books don't give the modeller much help unfortunately.
Keep building.
Roger

 

[Dave Holt]

Coming along very nicely - and quickly, Peter.
Just a minor point. It looks as if the loosely placed smokebox is not sitting parallel on the saddle sides, suggesting the back end is too low. Perhaps the boiler/firebox joint has dropped slightly?
Dave.

 

[P A D]

No worries Roger.

Dave,
You are correct of course, but it's all loose at the minute.

Cheers,
Peter

 

[P A D]

Not much progress of late, but since the last post I've got the boiler in and added the chimney and dome (both from the spares box). Neither the chimney or dome are 100% satisfactory but are better than the kit parts to my eye. I also replaced the kit part for the roof with my own made from thinner brass sheet. This was easier to form than the kit part which I found to be slightly too short for the distance between front and rear cab plates. It would have been OK if I was soldering the part in place, but I want the roof to be removable to facilitate painting and glazing the cab.




Oh, and the missing parts arrived from Scorpio so the smokebox door has been fettled up and fitted. I've still to add the cladding bands to the firebox.


The hole for the right hand clack valve is in the wrong place and doesn't align with the one on the left. Since this image was taken I've plugged the hole by inserting a 2.5m drill bit throught the hole and drilling another hole on the opposite side of the boiler lower down. I then inserted a length of 2.5mm brass rod all the way through the boiler. It pokes out somewhere inside the left hand tank but can't be seen. I then soldered around the clack hole, snipped the excess rod and filed and sanded smooth. Much more robust than any other method I've tried.


Moving on to the pony trucks, I assembled one as per the instructions to show what the kit provides. Not the worst example of a loco pony truck I've seen, but well short of the mark.


The rest of it is not bad so I cut out the etched parts with the side control "springs" in preparation for scratching up something better.


First I made this "U" shaped spacer to fill the gap between the side plates. Then I made those "sticky out" bits for the front and rear from two sizes of tube and 1mm rod. Anybody know what they are? Something to do with the side control I'm guessing.






And with the front sticky out bit soldered in place.


The springs were made by coiling copper wire around brass rod. I made them a little too wide but I'm sticking with them.


I'll add a slab of lead to the top plate to put more weight over the wheels to help keep them on the rails. It's still only a representation of a BR standard pony truck but should look much better now when under the loco.


Cheers,
Peter

 

[Dave Holt]

Very nice. Peter. You look to have managed a neat joint line on the new cab roof, an awkward shape due to the sloping rain strips.
The pony truck looks more like it, now. Don't forget, the rear one had swing link side control and looks quite different to the front. I've attached a photo of the trucks from my Standard Class 2 tanks to illustrate the two types.


Dave.

 

[P A D]

Very nice. Peter. You look to have managed a neat joint line on the new cab roof, an awkward shape due to the sloping rain strips.
The pony truck looks more like it, now. Don't forget, the rear one had swing link side control and looks quite different to the front. I've attached a photo of the trucks from my Standard Class 2 tanks to illustrate the two types.
View attachment 196505

Dave.

Bugger! Thank you Dave. Now that you mention it, I do recall reading that the class 2 had that set up with the trucks, but it completely slipped my mind. What makes it more annoying is that I've just looked at the Beattie drawing and it shows the swing links on the rear truck, so that should have rung a bell. Mind you, the drawing also shows swing links on the front truck!


I just completed the other truck this afternoon, so it looks like some back tracking is in order. Off with the top springs on the rear truck and I may remove and replace the ones on the front truck with shorter springs as well.


Here are the trucks under the frames.


And with the body on.


Not obvious in these images but I've also added the remaing cladding bands to the firebox, but the cleat on the front one is still to go on.


And mentioning the roof, here is the kit part on the left, with my replacement behind. The half etch edges on the kit part would have provided very little security for a removable roof and as mentioned previously, it is slightly too short front to back. I used the kit vent cover which is represented as a two part cover, but will fill the half etch centre line to make it a single cover as per the prototype.


Thanks again Dave for the heads up on the pony trucks. Any other comments as you see fit will be most welcome, as I'm a little short on prototype info.

Cheers,
Peter

 

[P A D]

Just found the reference to the swing link rear trucks on the class 2 and 3 tanks in Vol 1 of the Talbot book on the BR standards, along with some drawings. So double bugger!

 

[P A D]

I had a look at the 82045 website and found some useful images of the trucks that I'd missed before. With those plus the images provided by Dave Holt and the drawing in the Talbot book on BR standards, I've now got a better idea of what I'm aiming at on the trucks. For the front truck I've also got the useful reference of the MOK 4MT truck and with all those in mind I did some back tracking to make some changes. I removed the over wide side control springs from both trucks as well as the central spacer on the rear one. I also had the good fortune of finding a DJH casting for the front truck, purchased some years ago at a show when DJH used to have a box full of spare castings on their stand sold for a nominal sum. I think the dome I've used was sourced at the same time.


To save time I'm using the DJH casting along with a scratch built copy. The casting required some modification, firstly removing about half the thickness of the mount cut off with the razor saw.


I then set about making a copy of it for the back of the truck. Here's the backing plate marked up for sawing.


I then made a mount for the spring, cut down from one of the over wide items and mounted both to the main plate, already drilled for fitting the "sticky outy" thing. I then made another plate to thicken the main plate to match the casting.



Here's the casting added to the front.


And the scratch one at the rear.

Not identical to the MOK truck but more acceptable now. I'll had a slab of lead into the recess on top when I have scrounged a strip from my brother.


And I've made a start on the swing links for the rear truck.


Thanks again to Dave Holt for the image of his 4mm trucks. It showed me that I'd also got the bends on the guard irons wrong, with one 90 degree bend instead of two bends, now put right. I think there must have been some trees in front of the wood.

Cheers,
Peter

 

[chigley]

it's always a learning curve watching your builds Peter

Ken

 

[P A D]

Thank you Ken.

I did some back tracking on how I was going to attach the dummy swing links to the rear truck. Here they ready for fitting. The piece of brass sheet with the slot is for placing around the rod in the plates to aid snipping them to the same length with side cutters. The plate is slid around the rods, then the side cutters placed on top, pressed down tightly then squeezed to cut the rods.


And after fitting and further finishing. I didn't have any suitable square section brass to add to the top of ygd spring castings, but had plenty in styrene of suitable size so used that. No problem using plastic now that all the soldering is done.





And fitted to the chassis frames with shouldered and washered 8BA screws.


Rather than solder 8BA nuts to the top of the spacer mounts, I added an extra layer of 1mm brass sheet to beef up the mounts, then drilled and tapped them 8BA to accept the screws.


With the chassis on the rails.


And with the body on. It needs a bit of filing to the bottom of the frames at the front, to clear the back top edge of the truck.


I think they look the part now.





Cheers,
Peter

 

[Dave Holt]

Nicely done, Peter - and a vast improvement if I might say.
Looking forward to following further developments.
Dave.

 

[P A D]

Thank you Dave.

I've been busy with other things lately, but the 3MT build has been moving forward slowly. The cylinders are designed to be built up and permanently fixed in the frames, so some modifications were needed to assemble them separately. First I made a couple of spacers to go between the front and rear plates before adding the wrappers. The kit comes with two sets of front/rear plates, one in brass which give the correct width and a wider set in nickel silver that are not mentioned in the instructions, although they are shown on the fret diagram. I used the brass plates for the correct width, but then added the outer ends of the NS set to the front and rear to beef up the flimsy brass parts.




The gaps in the frames are not etched at the correct depth to correctly align the cylinder angle or height, so some modifications were necessary. Through trial and error I reduced the depth of the frame gaps by soldering in lengths of 0.8mm NS rod, then filing smooth inside and out. You can make out the in-fills in this image, taken after I had set the cylinder alignment and added a mounting spacer at the correct angle. I removed the kit's turned spacer to facilitate soldering the new spacer.


To set the cylinder angle I made this simple jig from a length of NS rod tapped 8BA at one end, plus some 8BA nuts and a drilled strip of brass. A spacer has also been added to the top edge of the cylinder plates, which rests on the one in the frames and the cylinder unit is then locked in place with an 8BA screw.


The rod was inserted through the cylinder gland, centered and tightened in place with the drilled strip and nut.


Once in the frames, I was then able to adjust the cylinder height and angle by trial and error, filing the tops of the in-fills in the frame slots.


I have set the cylinder angle so that the piston rod aligns with the centre of middle driving wheel. Yes, I know the middle wheel won't touch the rails as Jim Harris designed the frames for it to be slightly higher than the other two. However, the middle bearings are not yet soldered as I intend to elongate the frame holes to allow some float.


I have also fettled up the slide bars, crossheads and piston rods and soldered the slidebars in place using the crosshead to align them.


A quick trial to add the body, showed that the valve tail rods will need trimming to clear the drop plate and allow the body to sit down correctly on the frames.


It was pointed out to me by a couple of fellow modellers that the cab locker/coal door casting is totally spurious and one of them kindly sent me a drawing to show the correct layout. Here's the kit offering and the replacement. The brake standard will be to the left of the lockers and there is no water pick handle as this was not fitted to the class 3.


I think it should pass muster when completed. The unit has a backing plate which will allow me to epoxy it in place after painting, which will allow for easier fitting of the rear cab glazing.


I mentioned in an earlier post that the slightly rearward lean of the chimney was only an artifact of the image, but on further examination I found I was deluding myself. As it was only epoxied in place, applying heat to the rim with a gas flame softens the glue and tweaking the chimney with a length of rod easily removed it. After further fettling of the base to straighten it up I refitted it with epoxy. The cylinder angle and height was not set when I took this image.


As well as fitting the mudhole door clamps and clack valves, the smokebox dart has also been added.





Cheers,
Peter