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Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - The A3 almost there!!!!

Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2014 2:56 pm
by Robpulham
2002EarlMarischal wrote:Congratulations Rob on a lovely model of a special engine. Very well done! :)
Thanks EM, it has been a long time coming but I am quite suited with how she has turned out.

Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - The A3 almost there!!!!

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 10:10 am
by Robpulham
As I mentioned in a previous post one of the bits that have been lost along the way is the etch for the lever arrangement that sits under the fireman's side of the cab on the A3 (and A4's) which I think may be the ash pan lever?

In the kit there was a single layer etch that looked (as far as I can recall) a bit like this:

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Thankfully having seen a photo of a Finney A3 posted by Richard Lambert which showed quite clearly the missing part I remade one from bit's of scrap brass:

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It's not quite as elegant as the one on Richard's loco but it's infinitely better than the original etch.

I still need to file down the top arms to form pins to fit in holes in the footplate.

Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - The A3 almost there!!!!

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 10:07 am
by Robpulham
Pete, (Greenglade of this and other parishes) kindly posted a view from his 5" gauge drawing on the Guild site. this has allowed me to add a bit more detail to the ash pan damper lever (I was nearly right in my guess).

It now looks like this

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Continuing last night's roll I made this, fitted it and while I had some epoxy mixed I smeared some on the tender buffer heads, the underside of the fall plate and the top of the tender inner chassis (with the thinking that if I use plastic screws to fasten the tender top on it's another potential short source eliminated. Whilst handling I noticed that some of the tender brake shoes had come loose to they got treated to some epoxy too.

I also worked on the reversing lever - a look in the spares box found me a milled nickel link that I reduced in size and tapped one end 12ba to take a former 4mm scale crank pin that I think came out of a Mainline B1 (never throw anything away!!!). I just need to cut the revering lever to final length now when the glue has dried (hopefully this morning).

Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - The A3 almost there!!!!

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 10:45 am
by Robpulham
I managed to shoot a couple more videos last night before stripping down and doing the work described above.

http://youtu.be/umqvFYnPSUI

http://youtu.be/pvPcQLgArNs



Again if you don't like classic Fm you might want to turn the sound off - the squeaking noise is the pick ups for the lights in the the BG.

Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - The A3 almost there!!!!

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2014 4:59 pm
by Robpulham
I took the A3 along to the O Gauge North West show at Leigh today for a run on the test track.

The optimistic gents on the test track hitched her up to 44 wagons and she sailed away beautifully. Quite surprisingly they let me run her for around half an hour or so (I had expected a few laps at best). So I came away with a much inflated chest.

I also managed to pick up a bargain from the Bring and Buy stall (which overall was a bit sparse) in the guise of a Connoisseur LNER J71 tank complete with a Mashima motor and gears and some additional plungers pickups for the princely sum of £69

All in all a good day out!

Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - The A3 almost there!!!!

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2014 6:33 pm
by Robpulham
Some rather dodgy photos of Papyrus in action....

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But giving some idea of the length of the train.

Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - The A3 just needs buffers!

Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 10:28 am
by Robpulham
I took the opportunity this morning to take some posed photos of Papyrus after her day out yesterday.

I took them with and without artificial lighting. - She's a little long for my photo plank!

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and lastly the damper lever now it's fitted...

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Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - The A3 just needs buffers!

Posted: Sun May 04, 2014 9:23 am
by Robpulham
Papyrus is officially finished Yeay!

Last night I fitted the buffers that arrived true to their word earlier in the week. I don't plan on any photos since nothing much has changed until I get the opportunity to give her a run in the garden.

Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - The A3 just needs buffers!

Posted: Sun May 04, 2014 12:17 pm
by Robpulham
The next project from the depths of the shelf queen cupboard is the 06.

Over the last couple of weeks in between tinkering with Papyrus and weathering cattle wagons I have remade a start on this. In an effort to get back into the thinking without having to pick my way through where on the loco I have got to at this stage, I decided to start on the tender.

So far I have made up the outer frames and the compensation beams for the inner frames.

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Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - LNER 06 from MOK 8F

Posted: Mon May 05, 2014 10:08 am
by Robpulham
I managed to crack on and get a smoothly rolling inner chassis yesterday.

I bought this kit in 2010 and the instructions are dated much older than that, however the last revision of the etches is dated 2007.

This makes for an interesting time in places. - For example, on the section of the instructions dealing with the assembly of the compensation beams it mentions using alternate parts from a 15 "thou" supplementary etch which is now one of the main etches - quite easy to work out as the parts are quite distinctive and are clearly duplicated (I just ran the digital caliper over them to find out which ones were 15 "thou").

The next little bit that could trap the unwary is the next page which covers the assembly of the inner chassis is text wrapped around a drawing so it takes a bit of following but the key is that the drawing is in fact of a different bit entirely that isn't mentioned in the text and I almost moved onto the next section without assembling it. I was just double checking and ticking off what I had done when I noticed it. Hopefully this might help someone else when they come to build one.

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This last photo highlights one of the rare bits where a couple of the tabs don't align. Again this is highlighted to assist future builders rather than being a criticism of the kit. As I understand it Dave Sharpe (MOK) withdrew it for a while to correct the few minor errors but there wasn't enough interest to warrant the time so he re-released it unchanged. The fact that these two tabs don't align makes no difference to the accuracy or ease of going together of this section because all the other bits that interlock with this (whose tabs do align), mean that once you snip these two off it goes together nicely.

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Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - LNER 06 from MOK 8F

Posted: Tue May 27, 2014 6:26 pm
by Robpulham
Life has got in the way of any modelling for the last couple of weeks or so but a little progress has been made on the brakes and water scoop gear.

Starting with the brakes.
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I had a proper DOH! moment with these when fitting the crank I read the instructions and worked out where it all went but for some reason I didn't start on it for a couple of days and foolishly didn't re-read the instructions... As I was fitting it the crank should have fitted as it is in the red square but initially I worked on fitting the end of the shaft through the etched holes which I had enlarged before realizing (red curved line).

The next bit of the instructions says words to the effect of assemble the water scoop gear using the 1/32 brass pins provided. Which at the outset doesn't seem very helpful, however there are a couple of isometric drawings, and a couple of prototype photos in the main instructions and a supplement to the instructions which has a useful photo of a made up model and another drawing. Careful study of these allows you to work out what goes where. Thankfully I was also able to confirm my workings out were correct by asking Tony Geary who build one recently.

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In the last photo once I had worked out that the two long operating rods (part 16 for anyone building one) needed to be soldered together I also decided to beef up the two end links that were half etched. I soldered them to a bit of scrap nickel fret, drilled them out and filed them to shape. The prototype photos show balance weights for parts 14 but the photo of the made up kit didn't have them. I couldn't find any castings for them so I made them up from some brass rod that I had in stock. I drilled through the middle and soldered a brass pin in to give some end definition (Tony suggested that I ask Dave Sharp for castings but by the time I saw his note I was well on with making them).

All I need to do now is put it all together.......

Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - LNER 06 from MOK 8F

Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2018 9:56 pm
by Robpulham
A Happy New Year to all.

First a bit of a refresher, those with long memories can skip over this bit.

About 8 years ago my good lady became ill and had to give up work. She was fortunate in that she was able to take redundancy and she spent some her redundancy money on a kit for me. I chose the MOK 8F - MOK = Modern Outline Kits available from here MOK

I wanted the 8F to build as one of the locos that were ordered by the LNER during the war. My initial plan was to build one of the examples built by the Southern Railway for the LNER but further research since has changed that to become one of those built by the LNER at Darlington. You might ask why - because I wanted a riveted tender and I had already bought spoked wheels.

The ones built by the Southern had welded (smooth sided) tenders and most of the LNER built examples had solid wheels as on the tenders of the A3/4's but at least a couple of the Darlington examples had spoked wheels to go with the riveted tender. So mine will now be either 3135 or 3144

Rather embarrassingly I started it around 6 years or more ago and never got anywhere near finishing it. About 18 months ago I had a second bash but still didn't even get the tender finished. Chris has been pointedly asking most of this year when I am going to finish it and I had planned to return to it when I got distracted by the J79 in October. So I made the promise that I would return to it over Christmas and endeavour to get it completed.

I thought I would ease back into it with something easy, or so I thought. I started on detailing the backhead a week last Saturday.

These are some of the many parts that make it up.

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I had to make this up from a couple of pieces and I drilled and soldered a spigot to the back to make it easier to attach to the backhead itself.

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Then the myriad of spaghetti that will be the pipework.

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Having seen Nick Dunhill's masterpiece a few weeks back I was keen to replicate the gauge glasses that he did. On this particular backhead this entailed cutting off the levers, and then cutting out the rectangle of brass to insert the square perspex later in the build and then reattaching the levers to the sides.

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These are the almost finished article that has taken just over a week to put together. - Most of the parts are removable to allow the backhead to be painted.

Because there are a few much better builds than mine on the forum I am not going to go into the level of detail that I might do normally but just show the key stages as I complete them - the main goal is to get it finished.

Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - LNER 06 from MOK 8F

Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 10:44 am
by Atlantic 3279
When I saw this topic back at the top of the board I thought I'd inadvertently walked along Timewarp Terrace.

Nice fancy bits!

Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - LNER 06 from MOK 8F

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 3:12 pm
by Robpulham
I know what you mean Graeme, this time I intend to finish it.

I am having a little more one step forward and two back with this build and it’s my own silly fault. In my eagerness to crack on I hadn’t noticed a photo in the Wild Swan LMS Loco profiles book on the 8F’s that shows the inside of the cab and more importantly the backhead. It seems that I have too much pipe work for my period so some of it needs to come off again.

I am thanking myself in that I took the extra time and effort to make most of the parts removable because that will make redoing it much easier.

This shows how the parts are removable

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Below is a crop of the cab photo in the Wild Swan book. The photo is credited to the National Railway Museum and is used here purely to illustrate the differences between what I have done and what I should have done.

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Re: Rob P's 7mm Loco Workbench - LNER 06 from MOK 8F

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 8:24 pm
by Robpulham
Although there are glaring gaps in the instructions, one part is explicit, that of forming the smokebox and boiler.

The boiler comes pre rolled and according to the instructions so does the smokebox inner but mine wasn't. That wasn't an issue and I soon had it rolled.

Now for the 'I'm a dummy' bit, the instructions are quite explicit about using two of the formers for the x71 and x72 (sorry I can't remember if the preceding number is 1 or 3). Leaving x70 to go in the smaller end of the boiler. Because they all look identical (but aren't Grrr) I managed to pick up the wrong one and only discovered my error when I had it all nicely soldered together.

My only saving grace was that I discovered the error (part x70 is slightly bigger than x71/x72) before I soldered the other wrong bit (x70) into the smokebox). At 11:15 on Tuesday night I didn't have the headspace to sort it out so I went to bed.


This morning I set to and using a pointed scalpel and gentle heat from the micro flame I slowly worked my way around easing the boiler away from the former with regular quenching to take it out and replace it with part x70.


Thankfully I got away with it, in part I think due to the fact that I had soldered it in initially using the microflame to chase around a tiny amount of solder which meant that although it was held very securely it was easy to break the bond from the thin layer of solder.

This is the boiler and smokebox assembly after my recovery.

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Those with sharp eyes will not the piece of scrap protruding from the front of the smokebox.

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There is a clever bit of the etch designed to ensure that you get everything lined up by inserting a piece of scrap into a slot etched into each of the three forward formers

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I left it longer than suggested and used it to view down through all the apertures in the boiler top. In fact I left it in place as I soldered on the castings on top of the boiler. To solder these cleanly I flattened a couple of small bit's of 145 solder in some pliers, placed them either side of the chimney opening after using a taper broach to open the hole up to take the spigot from the casting as tightish fit. a squirt of flux and then I place the chimney on top ensuring that it was square I heated the casting with the microflame until the solder melted allowing the casting to sink into place. - Repeated for the next casting (which I have to be honest and say I have no idea of the name or purpose of it).

At this point the Firebox, boiler and smoke box are all a nice tight push fit I won't make it more permanent until I am happy with everything.

Finally, I had fitted the cab roof on Tuesday but I still need to sort out the subframe under the floor.

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