Atlantic's works: Portable layout update

[Atlantic 3279]

A bit more progress on the loco this evening, which doesn't look like much achieved although it all helps. Valve gear and motion bracket off, simple new cylinder stretcher constructed and cylinders re-mounted higher, inclined, and further to the rear, i.e. behind the bogie. Further tinkering has improved the fit of the two new sections of running plate. A plug-in piece made to fill the old chimney hole in the smokebox top, and a larger one also made to fill the gap in the bottom of the rear half of the smokebox. This can only be fitted if the screw-on weight atop the front of the chassis block is removed or modified. Some might be just as happy to merely extend the smokebox sides down a little to disguise the gap (and exposure of chassis block) caused by removal of the old saddle, as after all a sand-filler and steam pipe each side will help to hide this area. I'll have to see how it looks when the loco is more complete, but I do now have the necessary master part for those who want this area to be "right".
I may get the re-useable parts of the Hornby motion back on tomorrow evening, and do something with the lower firebox. Full valve gear will have to wait - I haven't even asked Comet for an etch yet!

[Atlantic 3279]

Although in the end I've reach a stage at whish bogie and cylinders are in the right places and the loco has successfully run through my nominal 3' radius curves, including crossovers, it wasn't quite such plain sailing as I'd hoped at the end of last night's semingly successful session.
When I started measuring up with thoughts of at least re-fitting the re-usable bare bones of the Hornby motion, I found a snag. With the cylinders themselves unmodified, and merely a new stretcher provided, they had appeared to fit in a convincing loacation. So why, I soon wondered, did I appear to need con-rods at least 34 or 35mm long, when the Isinglass drawing appeared to show 33 and the RCTS book indicated that the scale length ought to be 32. It was also going to be difficult to get the tail ends of the slidebars far enough back to suit the probable position of the new motion bracket without giving the piston rods freedom to drop right out of the back of the cylinders on the back-stroke! Further study showed that I had mounted the cylinders 1.5 to 2 mm too far forward, and that it was not possible to move them rearwards unless I did some trimming of the "inside rear" of each cylinder moulding which would otherwise foul the flanges of the leading coupled wheels. So I sorted that out, further adjusting cylinder height and inclination too, but while I was measuring up I noticed that other dimensions of the valve gear, such as the length of the eccentric rods as per the Isinglass drawing, don't match comet's version of the V2 valve gear that I am hoping to use. The Comet eccentric rods appear to be too short, so rather than "simply" fitting mainly standard Comet V2 valve gear it looks like I'll have to brew up another combination of Comet's parts and longer items (shortened) from the RTR model. In any case, those "clever" representations of the inboard splashers that I've modelled prevent use of the Comet motion bracket and stretcher in simplest form...........Oh joy

[Horsetan]

.........Oh joy

Who'd be a modeller, eh?

[S.A.C. Martin]

When I started my original 60113 project four years ago, a friend of mine kindly lent me an Isinglass drawing, and I ran into the same snag with the cylinders and valve gear. I thought it was just me being an inexperienced modeller, but reading your thoughts above Graeme, I do wonder...!

[Blink Bonny]

Ay up!

I ran into this when fitting my Crownline V2with Comet valve gear.

The Crownline running plate has the splashers so I ended up repairing the oringinal motion bracket which had been broken by the original builder (probably why it was on a club stand for less than the price of the wheels!) and fitted the Comet gear to that.

Hang about! The Crownline range went to DMR didn't it? Worth an email?

[Horsetan]

Ay up!
....Hang about! The Crownline range went to DMR didn't it? Worth an email?

Errm, not quite. The detail castings and bits did end up in DMR's possession - at least for a while. Would be worth checking if they still have them amongst their own bits.

The Crownline range of full loco kits were, in effect, "reborn" under Dave King's "PDK" label, but with subtle changes to distinguish them from what had gone before.

[mick b]

If you need any measurements from my A1/1 PDK built version let me know .

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks Mick, I'll bear that offer in mind.

Although the A1/1 still needs a whole host of details such as lubricators, sand-fillers, brakes pulling on the front of the wheels rather than the rear, most of its valve gear etc. plus I will have to do something to straighten the edges of the sidesheets at the cab doorway, it is nonetheless now "complete" in the most general sense - enough to give me viable patterns for resin parts in due course anyway. I've even got some smoke deflectors on. I was going to post some pictures of the current state, even if I had to leave the details of "what and how" to a later stage, but it seems that my image hosting site has paralysis this evening, so I shall have to leave you all in suspense for the time being........

[Atlantic 3279]

If and when I'm able to sort out my image hosting problem, you'll also see that I still have to add the main steam pipes to the cylinders, the lower extension/detailing to the firebox below the new running plate, and the reversing rod plus its cover.

My Imageshack facilities seem to be recovering from paralysis to some extent this morning. I can now get to look at my previously uploaded images reliably, which was not the case last night, and the image uploader appears to work too - except that the uploaded images fail to appear in "my images". Oh dear

You'll just have to endure the suspense a little longer.

[Atlantic 3279]

Hmmm, well it would appear that I can upload images, one at a time, and create links to LNER forum, but the images still refuse to appear with the rest of my collection. Better than nothing I suppose, but not good if I want to flick back through them at some later stage.

Above is a view of the replacement cylinder stretcher under construction, at this stage 2 layers of 0.040" plastic around 19.5 x 9mm, plus two side pieces about 3 x 9mm. Whilst I initially positioned this stretcher directly over the top of the original, before cutting that out in the area over the middle gap, I later had to trim 1.5mm off the rear edge of the new stretcher and adjoining areas of the original black moulding, so as to get the cylinders far enough back. In order to get the right cylinder height and inclination I also had to add a 0.020" strip to the top front edge, and 0.025" to the top rear edge, before fitting this new unit up against the underside of the chassis.

[Atlantic 3279]

Here's the underside. That notch in the front edge was meant to clear the mounting screw for the bogie carrier plate, but was not really necessary once I'd moved the cylinders back by the extra 1.5mm or so.

[Atlantic 3279]

Cylinders on in about the right place, and severely pruned parts only of Hornby motion refitted, including shortened con-rods:

[Atlantic 3279]

Preparing to make the best of the rather wide Hornby bogie carrier, which has to fit between reasonably spaced from frame overlays. I've managed to keep the full original slot, but soldered on thin up-turned ends in lieu of the thick, flat originals. I probably saved about 1.5mm of overall width, which is not much, but it helps. The front frames can now sit the same distance apart as those on my A2/3 - about 17mm back-to-back - not to scale but not too hideously wrong "at a glance".

[Atlantic 3279]

Because the front of the Hornby chassis itself is much narrower than the bogie carrier plate, and much narrower than the Bachmann chassis for which I designed the overlays, 2.5mm thick packing blocks have to be glued onto the rear of the frame pieces:

[Atlantic 3279]

The frames can then go on, like this, disregarding the odd small gap which will either be hidden by the eventual blackness under the running plate or will have to filled.