K3 almost finished! New pictures

Atso · Post by **Atso** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 12:08 am

Hi guys,

This is my first serious attempt to build an N gauge locomotive from scratch. This came about when I got the opportunity to use my grandfather's lathe and milling machine last weekend. The boiler and fittings are turned and profiled on the lathe and mill the rest is scratch built over a V2 chassis and valve gear (the cab is hacked from an old Union Mills J39 body I had lying around and I may well build a new cab as well).

Still some way to go but I wanted to share the pictures with you and get some feed back/ areas to improve on.

Comments and suggestions will be gratefully received!

CVR1865 · Post by **CVR1865** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 1:10 am

in N gauge, very impressive.

The gresley's behind it look good too, but bring up the subject of roof colour for them, as the old white paint was lead based and went grey. I've always gone for grey too, anyway great work on all.

Colombo · Post by **Colombo** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 11:33 am

Atso,

I can't fault what I can see. It looks like a K3. Keep up the good work.

Colombo

Atso · Post by **Atso** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 10:00 pm

Thank you for the kind words guys.

I've been away for the weekend and haven't been able to do any more on the loco. Just to add some further information on it though... The driving wheels are from a union mills J39 with the centre drivers crank pin hole opened up slightly to accept the Farish crank pin. The loco is powered by a union mills tender drive that I had lying around, I've finally decided to build a new cab for the K3 as I'm not happy with the one currently on it (I'm not looking forward to cutting out those windows though!

).

As for the Gresley coaches these are repainted Minitrix and Dapol's with the exception of an old Cav'ndish kit I have for the full break - although it is slightly shorter than the other coaches this is not noticeable and it looks good enough at the end of the rake. The dapol coaches retain their original roof colour with some of the minitrix coaches receiving a couple of coats of grey. All in all I'm happy with the way these have turned out but I could do with some transfers to letter and number them. Does anyone know where I can get n gauge coach transfers?

I will post more pictures once I have finished this model, then I've got to start building a layout to run it on!

x568wcn · Post by **x568wcn** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 12:02 am

Very nice, better than what I can do!
Which V2 did you use, as I need plates for my blank one, and that seems to be the only source for 2mm V2 plates.
I've a 1 in 3 chance you used Green Arrow.

Atso · Post by **Atso** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 1:28 am

I'm sorry x568wcn, I got my bits direct from the Farish spares department and therefore I don't currently have a V2 body.

I did speak to one of the guys at the spares dept asking after a V2 body last week - at the time he informed me that he had all three body types in stock as spares at around £17 each, maybe give him a ring or email via the Farish site?

Sorry I can't help further with that...

x568wcn · Post by **x568wcn** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:10 pm

How much for the V2 Chassis, they don't like to be dropped, and now after taking it apart, the cogs are slipping...need LNER green wheels one, and if I get Green Arrows body, but still want it as 4818....

I didn't drop it though, it fell!

Atso · Post by **Atso** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:33 pm

I didn't buy a complete chassis (as far as I am aware Farish don't sell a complete one yet), but the chassis block was around £10 as were the wheels and valve gear set. If the motor and retaining plate are both good you should be able to rebuild using your existing motor other fittings with just a new set of wheels!

Personally, I'm going to try and motorise a V2 using a Union Mills tender drive as I'm not impressed with the haulage power of the V2 in it's current setup.

On another note (but still involving a V2 chassis), I'm looking to build a V1 tank loco in the future using a 'motorised' V2 chassis but with smaller driving wheels. Has anyone tried to replace the wheels on a Farish axel and if so how easy was it?

Post by **richard** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 5:34 am

Wouldn't the wheel spacing be wrong?

Without checking spacings/etc, I would have thought the Farish or Dapol GWR Prairies would have been a better start. Or the new Dapol Ivatt 2-6-2T for that matter...

Richard

Atso · Post by **Atso** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 7:32 am

Yes the wheel spacing would be wrong, but not by much.

Wheel spacings on protoypes:

V1: 8 ft 2 in + 7 ft 3 in + 9 ft 0 in + 7 ft 6 in
V2: 8ft 11 in + 7 ft 3 in + 8 ft 3 in + 9 ft 3 in

The total wheel base between the front bogie and the rear driving wheel is around 49mm for the V1 and 49mm for the V2!

While the wheel spacings are wrong it wouldn't be by as much as using one of the prairie chassis already available, which have driving wheels that are equally spaced (or close to it), and I would be able to preserve the look of the loco below the footplate (that said the Ivatt locomotive looks great!) I would replace the rear pony truck anyway so I would not have an issue with the huge distance between the rear drivers and the pony.

x568wcn · Post by **x568wcn** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 7:40 am

Cheers, I might have to gingerly send off the motor, although they might be sick of me dropping them!

Post by **richard** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 12:49 pm

Atso: Fair enuff! It looks like you'll have an approx. 2mm error, but it is definitely closer than I was expecting without looking it up!

Richard

Atso · Post by **Atso** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 7:08 pm

Richard, yes I was surprised when I measured up the chassis to the drawings. The main problem is the size of the driving wheels, Farish have put a different size gear in the V2 wheel set so a stright swap won't work. I'm going to have to try transplanting the wheels from something else onto the V2 gear axle and hope for the best...

Atso · Post by **Atso** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:57 pm

Well the K3 has reached the primer stage and I thought I'd share some more pictures with you. I've discovered that the camera is a great tool for picking out ever little mistake made during construction - Oh well... I feel I've learnt a lot with this model and I will try and use the lessons learnt with the next one!

Just filling the gap in the chassis, final painting and lettering/numbering to do (oh, and the safety valves)!

Atso · Post by **Atso** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 11:38 pm

x568wcn, if you check out a certain auction site you'll find that someone has a pair of Farish 'Green Arrow' plates up which have been removed from a V2 body. They look in good nick if you're still looking.

Further to my last post the K3 is now painted black and numbered 114. I'm now just finishing playing around with the chassis to achieve smooth runing with the front pony truck. I'll post some more pics if anyone is interested.

Finally I won a broken V2 on the above mentioned auction site it had a spilt drive gear. After removing the motor and some minor fetteling I've got it running on a Union Mills tender drive unit. It's just pulled all 11 of my Gresley's around my test track with no problems at all!

The LNER Encyclopedia

K3 almost finished! New pictures

K3 almost finished! New pictures

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