7mm Yorky D's LT - The Brill Collection....

[Yorkshire Dave]

At Brizzle O gauge show I picked up some of these from the Connoisseur stand.... although intended for 4 and 6 wheel carriages I could no see any reason why the cannot be used in wagons...



Here they have been prepared and are a simple fold up construction.


Here they have been retrospectively installed by directly soldering to the wagon chassis. Further photos will be forthcoming showing the underside when the other two wagons are fitted out. The wagon here is sitting on the kitchen radiator drying after washing - how considerate of the radiator manufacturer to space the top of the double radiator at track width.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Progress - two ballast wagons have been completed....

The suspension units are soldered to the chassis with no packing required.


Onwards....

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I came across these Met Bo-Bo O scale model construction drawings in my collection of miscellaneous papers inherited from my grandfather.

I have no idea of the date of this but suspect possibly 1950's or 60's so have included two selective enlargements in case anyone knows.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I've traced the signature printed on the drawing as none other than Henry Greenly, who had some books published by George Newnes Ltd in 1933.

Greenly (1933). Locomotive Engineering (Series). Geo. Newnes Ltd.
Greenly (1933). The Vacuum Brake (Series). Geo. Newnes Ltd.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

...... the shed today you're sure of a big surprise
If you go down to the shed today you'll never believe your eyes
For today's the day we made a moul-ld

Spinning time is here again.

Yes, a mould was made of the seat and other patterns I made earlier and pieces I hacked off the Hachette RT to make replacement parts.

The patterns in the mould can (made from a brake disc hub).


After cooking for 2 hours, the mould cleaned and gated.


And after centrifugal casting.

And the results... I require 24 seats for one RT - 12 left and 12 right hand. I've only 18 so far so I will cast some more later. I made replacements using some of the plastic parts in the bus namely: front and rear inner bulkheads, drivers bonnet window frame, bonnet cover, radiator, roof/floor above bonnet and wing mirrors. The seats, indicator lights (ears) and Gibson ticket machine case are from my own patterns. On the railway side to the right the ticket machines, ticket gates and station litter bins are from my own patterns.


And some more of the results - ticket machines and platform gates for 'yellow' tickets - remember those....?

RT seats, bonnets, radiators and cases for Gibson ticket machines.


Wing mirrors, rear inner bulkheads - I corrected the left hand one here to have a square panel for a fare chart, indicator lights (LT 'ears' for RT, RF and RM) and some seats.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

It's finally started....
Having taken delivery of this....

And, no I'm not going spend hours describing the packaging and how to open the box.
This is what's inside - a complete kit nevertheless: wheels, motor, gears, comprehensive instructions including photos and some line drawings, etches (naturally), all the parts labelled and individually packaged and the bit I like is the card with the wire to be used attached and labelled. I also ordered a pair of the cab interior detail kits.

Anyway the first thing I did was punch all of the necessary rivets in the solebars, buffer beams etc whilst they were still on the etch frame. The floor was removed and the necessary rivets punched.
Then I faffed around with the plate below provided as part of the etch. The build will broadly follow the instructions but I will be taking one or two deviations from these - no change there then.

Next were the trucks- it'll already be noted I've not followed the sequence described in the instructions as I wanted to get the trucks operational first.
It was my intention drive all axles but having seen the non-driving truck assembly and carried out a dry run for measurements etc I decided against this as the drive line falls right in the centre of the bolster plate. And I didn't want the hassle of making a new bolster to arch over the drive line coupled with the faff of having to reposition (and risk compromising) the truck mounting to obtain the correct ride height.
Firstly the non-driving truck. This is made up from milled brass and really goes together quite well. The only downside is I do not have enough hands to hold the parts whilst soldering the butt joints. This would have been easier if I had a resistance soldering iron but with the number of kits I build I cannot really justify it's cost. As can be seen I'm using Slaters wheels (re-purposed from the Class 33) rather than the Peartree wheels provided in the kit. Slaters wheels are insulated all round whereas the Peartree wheels are insulated on one side only and as I operate DCC I want to minimise the risk of track current leaking into loco and possible shorting via the couplings and buffers. The Peartree wheels will go into stock.


Next were the truck mounts. Again formed from milled brass and butt jointed, however I beefed up the corners with 2mm square section brass. Probably overkill but the stronger joint makes me happier. I suppose a strong joint would make anyone happy.
I also added some 0.45mm brass wire down the centre line to give a slight fore and aft rock on the driving truck and some lateral rock on the non-driving truck.
Next came the driving truck. Here I substituted the Mashima 1833 motor provided in the kit for a Canon 1833 motor.
Easy I thought, ha ha. No - completely wrong as the Mashima motor has two bosses whereas the Canon only has one and is also a gnats crotchet longer. The idea is to support the motor using the two plates (left in the photo below) however as I am using a Canon 1833 another solution was required. This meant supporting the motor from one end only - again, my solution is probably overkill.
The first step was to ream the support hole to match the boss on the Canon motor followed by soldering the support plate to the truck mounting plate. Worried whether the weight of the motor may bend the support plate I added some brass angle to the front, made some side gussets from scrap etch and added some brass angle in the inside corner.


The rest of the truck was made up and once I had set the gear/worm tolerance I soldered some brass angle underneath the motor - which acts as a support so needn't have gone to the trouble of beefing up the motor mount - Doh! - and more importantly it provides the correct gear meshing automatically when the truck is taken apart and reassembled.


The allen key hex bolts provided have since been replaced with slotted bolts.

Close up of the underside of the driving truck.

Now the truck just needs running in.
As for the loco I'm favouring either no.1 John Lyon or no.3 Sir Ralph Verney however the latter had a slightly different rivet arrangement on the solebar which I'd have to check. But do have nameplates for no.13 Dick Whittington.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Why ?

Aesthetics...

It was mainly to do with what was provided in the kit - four 'normal' top hat bearings and four shortened or pork pie hat bearings for use with the supplied Peartree wheels which are insulated on one side only. I would have replaced the pork pie hat for top hat bearings but guess what - I could only find three top hat bearings in my spares box. As I am using Slaters wheels I mounted the 'brim' on the outside of the frames and filed the 'brim' back a bit to ensure the wheels spun freely.

The kit's instructions (extract below) explain how they were to be used for both trucks... and having a Teutonic approach at times I'd rather have eight of the same bearings - hence the filing back.

I'd also like to think there would be less friction as there is a smaller contact area with the axles - but probably makes negligible difference in this scale .

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Next up the underframe/sill. As the instructions indicate label the solebar ends A and D (LT style) as they are not the same due to different holes in etched in the ends for the pipework.

The instructions suggest installing the solebars first and after some measuring I found it easier to solder one buffer beam to the underframe first.

I clipped the buffer beam to an inverted razor saw mitre box with some cereal box card behind to lift rivets from the box and provide an end stop for the underframe. The underframe was laid on a block of wood and then butted up to end stop. The buffer beam was adjusted until it rested on the underframe. Once satisfied everything was nice an central solder was applied



The solebars fit outside the body mounting slots in the underframe and to assist installation I cut some card to fit into these slots.



The solebar was clipped to the card and then moved up to the previously installed buffer beam. This was then tack soldered, a check to make sure it was vertical and then soldered into position. The single buffer beam also provides a guide to assist in keeping the solebar straight as there are no guides.



The other buffer beam was soldered into position followed by the second solebar. Again this was clipped to the card supports in the slots and hey presto! one underframe.



The cabs - built as per the instructions. Although ready formed some tweaking was required. To assist soldering the cab around the cab base I fixed the base to a block of wood with drawing pins to prevent it moving. The window frames were made up in accordance with the instructions.




And...... all looking good so far as nothing has had to be fiddled, fettled or faffed with to get it to fit.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Been sitting in a coooool house (1840's with 2' thick solid stone walls built partially into a hillside) doing some more on the Bo-Bo.

As I require functioning headlights I drilled out the cast whitemetal ones with a 3mm drill and inserted some 3mm o/d 2mm i/d copper tube to accommodate 2mm tower LEDs.



Tube soldered into light housing - here ready for trimming.

A washer was used as a cutting guide and the excess cut flush with the washer using a piercing saw.



After trimming I used a countersink to clean the end. The light housing was cut off the tube and the process repeated for the five remaining lights.



I also temporarily fitted the truck mounts to check the ride height and thoughtfully washers are supplied in the kit for this purpose. In the end one was required at the D (driving ) end of the loco.


With roof plonked on -

The destination brackets were also folded up and installed - following the instructions as they are handed. And there is also an error in this photo.



The schoolboy error - the A end cab is sitting on the D end. Although the cabs look identical there is one very subtle difference between the A and D ends........

The destination boards will be resized in due course - so far I have Aylesbury, Baker Street , Chesham, Moorgate St, and Verney Junction. Missing are Harrow, Liverpool St, Rickmansworth, Uxbridge, Watford, Wembley Park and a host of others.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Little more progress...

Adding the handrails to cabs.



Here are the two cabs side by side with the difference between the A end and D end.



To ensure the cabs are at the correct end of the footplate I temporarily bolted the A end cab to the A end of the footplate and drilled a 0.8 mm hole. The hole in the footplate was opened out to 1 mm and a piece of 0.8 mm rod soldered into 0.8 mm hole in the base of the cab. This forms a locating pin to make sure the body will only fit one way onto the footplate.



Silly me - I've been using metric measurements and the wrong words if today's Times article is anything to go by. You would be forgiven if you thought it was 1st April but it's all summed up in the first sentence... Jacob Rees-Mogg spells out banned words to staff

Gilbert and Sullivan springs to mind -
I am the very model of a modern 19th century politician
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical

A s for me I'd better start using rods, roods, poles and perches .

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

No worries about the hijack me ol' cobbers. Gist gunner get on with the fair dinkum build .

Onwards....

Attention remained with the cabs and the fitting of the interior detail. If you are building or intend building a Met Bo-Bo now is the time to consider the cab interiors or at least make provision to simplify future retro fitting once the remainder of the body has been completed and the false roof installed.

So........ I decided to make the cab interior as a sub assembly for easy removal and installation - mainly for painting.

Firstly the four cab body retaining bolts were shortened so they do not interfere with the false floors.

Two false floors are provided in the kit and reference is made to these in the both the kit and cab interior kit instructions. These were also narrowed slightly in accordance with the instruction to fit easily within the cabs.



This is the underside of the false cab floor and a 3 mm hole has been drilled for the brake stand spigot.


The brass strip was soldered to the cab base as I did not have the correct height/width strip in my scrap etch pile for the edge soldered to the false floor. The edge needs to be the same height as the cab body mounting nuts.



Cab details soldered to the false floor. Afterwards the spigot on the brake stand was filed flush with the underside of the base as is interferes with the footplate mounted body retaining nuts.

The interior sub assembly was trial fitted



Hey presto.... one cab interior.


One thing I hadn't considered is how the cab fittings on the left interfere with the tower LEDs I was going to use. This caused a rethink and I'll now use surface mount LEDs on the inner end of the light with 2mm diameter clear acrylic rod as the lens. More on this will come later.

I'll also summarise my amateurish approach at trying to simplify the build for myself as a 'hints and tips' towards the end which may or may not assist.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Remember this from earlier.... after much running in it was still a bit noisy.

However, there is nothing absolutely wrong with this drive truck as provided in the kit but I wanted something a bit quieter and with less faffing around to get the gear mesh spot on.



It now looks like this.....

For a Rolls Royce solution I ordered and received a Finney 7 'power' and 'remote' 13:1 gearbox. No constructional photos as they were made up as per the comprehensive instructions. This shows the application in a 9'3'' wheelbase with an 1833 motor.

This is the 'remote' gearbox end.


And the 'power' gearbox end.

View from below. I soldered two plates of lead to the the lowered brass angle cross braces. 'Remote' on the left and the 'power' on the right.

The 'power' without the truck mounting bracket.


And likewise the 'remote'.

View from above - 'remote' left and 'power' right.

The constant velocity (CV) joint made up from neoprene tube and a ball bearing (I had this material in stock from earlier projects but a CV joint kit is available from Finney 7).

The motor and 'remote' shafts were cut back to around 7 mm. Overall there is 17 mm between the back of the motor and the front of the gearbox. This is probably the shortest wheelbase (9'3'') you could get away with using an 1833 motor. Wheelbases shorter then 9'3'' will require a smaller motor such as an 1824.



The only downside to using these gearboxes is you do have to enlarge the hole in the footplate in one direction by 10 mm. I chose to mount the 'power' end towards the centre of the loco as not to cut into the cab area.

This of course allows the part of the hole in front of the mounting bracket to be plated over making it less obvious if the cab doors were modelled open.



The other benefit is you can lower the truck mounting bracket by around 5 mm. Look at the space here and how the motor just sits proud of the footplate. I'll be considering how I can lower (and hide) the truck mount to minimise the impact in the cab.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Following the repowering the drive truck mount was lowered by 5mm. A false floor will be made up to cover the areas in front and behind the drive truck mount.



The doors, body sides and the cosmetic truck frames were made up as per the instructions.

And now for some deviations.

A piece of scrap etch was used to beef up the joint at the base of the single doors between the cab and body.


Instead of using the fold up etch provided to form the angle section soldered to the base of the inner bodysides I used 4mm angle brass.

I also dispensed with the lower cross body retaining stretcher as this will interfere with the speaker I'm planning to install and any internal wiring looms. Instead I added some scrap brass to the angle and drilled and tapped them for 1.4 mm machine screws.


The same was done for both cabs. The 8BA nuts will remain as they support the cab detail floor.


As mentioned earlier the trucks were built as per the instructions and I used the intended nuts and bolts to secure the brass cosmetic frame cross members. Once completed I drilled and tapped new central holes for 1.4 mm machine screws.

The reason for all this is the 1.4 machine screws I'm using are steel and therefore can be held with a magnetic screwdriver making them easy to insert. Furthermore they are discreet and take up less space. The the nuts and bolts are fiddly to install unless you have two pairs of hands, takes several attempts to do up and are prone to launching themselves into orbit.

A note about the truck brake rigging.

Posed on a Peco set track curve.

From above

And by the way the axle bearings have been replaced.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Further progress has been made in the shape of the solebar details being added as per the instructions. Fuse box supports, buffers, MU jumper sockets, pipework, cab steps, coupler pockets (they did have small buckeye couplers!) and the shoebeam supports on the trucks

However, the above buffer beam MU sockets were not used as they were removed from the locos during the 1950's. And as is my want I sprung the buffers individually rather than used the method as supplied in the kit which uses the coupling hook spring and a bar.

Springs are not provided for individual buffer springing so I raided my spare springs box and fortunately found four which were suitable. In order to prevent the oval buffers repositioning themselves into odd angles I soldered some short lengths of 3mm I beam to the chassis and rely on the flat of the nut to maintain the buffer position. They are temporarily held here with paint and some canopy glue. They will be held in by thread lock once the loco has been painted.


Another solebar detail in which the instructions suggest is formed of bent wire is what appears to be the current collection cable fitting as illustrated here on number 10 from Brian's (Oldravendale) thread An Unusual Collection.

And so... I need to acquire some black or brown 0.5mm I/D silicon carp rig tube. The orange on the pipework is car headlight repair tape wrapped around to simulate the pipe supports.


Archer Decals rivets will be used once the model is primed and the number solebar rivets at the end locations shown depends on which loco you choose to model. Sir Ralph Verney has a different number and this is also illustrated on No. 10 above. In addition the style of cab steps varies between locos.


And something to tantalise....






I have ordered LT nameplates for No. 3 Sir Ralph Verney as this is the loco I'm modelling. The roof has not yet been fitted as access is required to install the lights. An ESU Loksound decoder is on order for which I have requested the headlight functions to display (by scrolling) the correct headcode for the various Met destinations viz.


Other details to complete are: Truck safety chains (again visible on No.10 above), lamp irons, vacuum and air brake hoses, louvres and windscreen wipers.....

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Some details added which are not provided for in the kit...

But firstly what I thought related to current collection is actually related to the tripcock. To illustrate this I have cropped and highlighted the area from a photo on from t'interweb. The pipework is for the tripcock mechanism is mounted behind the shoebeam. Only the tripcock lever is visible under the shoebeam. This is the A end truck and the locos always operated with the A end towards London and the D end towards the country. I'll have to study more photos to see if there ever was a tripcock on the other side of the locos as so far all photos do not show one.



So on my model...

The other details not provided for..... The MU hoses

Current cables from the collection shoes

Something I forgot to add to the MU sockets before mounting them - MU cable trunking.

And on the buffer beams.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Neasden we have a problem........

Now resolved as we now have four tripcocks on the loco - two on each side for Vacuum and Westinghouse brakes...

It took a bit of work as I had to retro-solder? some brass wire to the Westinghouse air lines to form the T. Some brass wire was soldered to the shoebeam and 0.3mm I/D carp fishing rig silicon tube represents the air hose.

For the D end vacuum line I soldered some tube with wire inserted to the vacuum T and made up another set of the detail for the shoebeam.

The tripcock levers soldered underneath the shoebeams were made up from flattened brass wire.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Into the final furlongs with detail...

I was not over-enamoured with the castings provided in the kit for the Westinghouse air brake hoses which appeared too crude. However, the vacuum brake hoses were used.

I already had a set of Precision Scale cast brass air brake valves and glad hands and picked up some air brake hoses from Laurie Griffin at Telford last week. Below is a comparison (the Precision Scale ones have been fitted with carp fishing rig silicon tube).



The bottom of the body mounted air brake pipe was cut off and the Precision Scale valve pinned and soldered to this.



This is the A end showing the Vacuum and the two high and low level Westinghouse brake hoses (D end is similar). The Laurie Griffin Westinghouse brake fittings are under the buffer beam to the right.



Another detail added were the truck safety chains. The anchor plates were made from scrap etch and the chain is some I purchased ages ago from a craft, jewellery or model boat supplier (I cannot remember which). The anchor plates will receive Archer Decal rivet detail. A loop of brass wire anchors the chain into the truck end and is held with a spot of glue of which the bond can be broken for disassembly and painting.



Next..... decoder, speaker and lights....

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

These arrived from Guilplates today...



And I just had to - good old blu-tac.


Just need to draw up the decal sheet for fleet name, numbers and overhaul dates...... plus the lettering I need for the rolling stock and RTs.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Aye folks - we now have headlights.

The decoder has been programmed so I can scroll through the headlight codes by tapping the F0 (lights) button on the handset.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

For the lighting looms I made up two PCB boards to hold the resistors and sub-miniature plugs. They are stuck to the false roof with double sided foam tape - the type used to mount car rear view mirrors to the windsrceen.



PCB board used for the current collection and motor connection sockets (rear) and lighting connections (front).

Lighting sockets from Decoder PCB.

Lighting sockets connected.

Speaker connections - the socket is from the decoder and the plug from the speaker. I always wire up my decoder plug and socket connections like this i.e. decoder wires have the sockets to prevent any accidental shorting and damage to the decoder.


The speaker

And finally the louvres - these are cast resin and require cleaning up. I have painted them grey to reveal any small air bubbles from the casting process which require filling - and there are a handful.