7mm Rob's workbench - Gladiator J6

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Hi Brian,

Yes, they come as standard with the Proxxon Vice. What I am not sure of whether they are replaceable but to be fair I think that I only ever use them for forming flares.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Having made the second grill for the N7 I then picked up the tender front for the J6 and made the last small piece to get the main structure of the tender front ready for fitting and final details.

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Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Last Thursday evening I made much progress on the tender for the J6.

The coal plate is now in as is the front section of the tender.

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There is still a goodly amount of cleaning up to do and the sides of the coal space are still to solder in but I feel that I have broken it's back now.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
More progress last night. Despite starting quite late I managed to get the two coal space sides in place.

I had anticipated that one of them may not fit very well and might leave a gap that would in fairness be hidden by the coal but I was pleasantly surprised when after a little tweaking with pliers and a rub of some abrasive paper it went into place as it should. Just the details and coal rails to add now.

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I am not sure why but I chose to use shiny sinks to clean it up after I finished instead of my usual Bar Keepers Friend and it turned all the solder black making it look to be worse than it is.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Further progress on the tender for the J6. Starting off with a slight backward step.

While struggling with the instructions I hadn't read the text when fitting the lifting eyes I just followed the drawing which unfortunately showed the wrong type of backing plate. Reading through the text late last week I saw my error and by coincidence David Hill of Gladiator pointed it out the day after on the Guild forum.

My customer had seen the post and said it didn't matter if they didn't show too much but it was only a few minutes of a job with the microflame and a scalpel to take them off and swap them for the right ones.

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Next I added the vacuum and steam heat pipes to the rear of the tender.
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Then I started on the front.

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The brake standard was one that I had in my spares box that was left over from the B16 build. The other levers are bent wire and scrap etch.

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The bucket is one of Jim McGeown's castings that I had sat on my desk for a long time after I had made a bit of a mess of trying to hollow it out.

I took it back into the workshop to see if I could do anything with it after being informed that the hole in the left hand side was for a bucket. I then remembered the collets that I had made for drilling the valve guide castings on the Streamlined Duchess and used one of them to tidy up the inside of the bucket top using a dental burr and lastly soldered a handle on from scrap etch.

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Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
I didn't seem to make much visible progress in last night's session but I got the lamp irons on and hopefully you can see why I prefer to replace etched versions with cast ones where possible.

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I have also fitted one inside the side sheet at the front of the tender but alas the camera decided to focus on the nearside so the added lamp iron came out so blurred you couldn't see it.

I will try again when I next take photos.

I did manage to add the tank filler though so another detail bites the dust.

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Coal rails next I think.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Thanks Heather.

Because we stayed in Wakefield this weekend it gave me an extra evening at the bench - usually I am worn out by the time we get to Bishop Auckland and rarely do anything once I arrive on Friday evening.

As luck would have it I was able to finish work early too so I had around 5 hours at the bench which saw off the remaining upper works details.

The coal rails were too long and I had to split them at the rear of the tender. I think that this is a result of the cut out in the tender flare for the hand grip which is a feature of this type of tender.

I followed David Hill's example and soldered half round beading over the coal rails and what an improvement it's made. - Half round beading from our very own Barry of Metalsmith Leeds Fame:thumbs:

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I also put half round beading in one the inside of the front hand grip sections to make it a round profile. and you can see the additional lamp bracket too which wouldn't focus on my last photo session.
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I also got around not fitting a nut to secure the front of the tender top by tapping a piece of tube and soldering it in when the nut should be.

This just leaves me with the chassis which I have made a start on.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Yesterday saw the tender completed apart from wiring the pick ups and setting the ride height which will be done towards the end of the build.

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You will note that I have added an extra frame spacer. I did this because I am using the tender for pick ups and wanted to ensure that there was no flexing which might affect them - The brass spacer was a scaled up P4 spacer from the spares box which I cut down to fit.

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Back onto the loco next.
 

GrahameH

Western Thunderer
Hi Rob,

I'm interested to see you're using the tender for the main power pick-up.

I've decided to do a similar thing with a Warren Shepard Dean Goods that is close to completion ( famous last words ! ). I see from your photograph that you have fitted Slaters ? plungers, I'm certain you've already addressed the spring pressure on the wheels, may I ask if you have encountered any binding or wheels not rotating ? I only ask as they are obviously smaller and not driven as the loco is.
I hope that makes sense!

I'm assuming that the tender is also of a good weight to help.

ATB

Grahame
 

Scale7JB

Western Thunderer
Good work on the half round beading, I was just about to mention it as I was reading from a few posts back. I've done two of these tenders before for the K2's. It seems it took you a lot less time then I to work out what the hole in the tender footplate was for too :))

These tenders are quite light in weight so a good deal of lead is required, especially if it's sprung.

JB.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Hi Rob,

I'm interested to see you're using the tender for the main power pick-up.

I've decided to do a similar thing with a Warren Shepard Dean Goods that is close to completion ( famous last words ! ). I see from your photograph that you have fitted Slaters ? plungers, I'm certain you've already addressed the spring pressure on the wheels, may I ask if you have encountered any binding or wheels not rotating ? I only ask as they are obviously smaller and not driven as the loco is.
I hope that makes sense!

I'm assuming that the tender is also of a good weight to help.

ATB

Grahame
Hi Graham,

It isn't weighted yet but there is plenty of room to stick in lead shot/epoxy. I haven't done anything about checking for binding as at the minute the ride height isn't set so the tops of the wheels are touching the cutouts in the underneath of the foot plate
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Good work on the half round beading, I was just about to mention it as I was reading from a few posts back. I've done two of these tenders before for the K2's. It seems it took you a lot less time then I to work out what the hole in the tender footplate was for too :))

These tenders are quite light in weight so a good deal of lead is required, especially if it's sprung.

JB.

Thanks JB,

I can't really take credit for working out the hole for the bucket - a friend who was offering advice on the tender type mentioned it in one of his emails.
 

GrahameH

Western Thunderer
Hi Graham,

It isn't weighted yet but there is plenty of room to stick in lead shot/epoxy. I haven't done anything about checking for binding as at the minute the ride height isn't set so the tops of the wheels are touching the cutouts in the underneath of the foot plate

Thank you Rob, I hope it works and will watch with interest.

Very much enjoying your builds.

Grahame
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
I spent 2 and 1/2 hours last night preparing the cradle for the foot plate which contains the valances....

Some this was my own fault because it's quite thick nickel silver and like David found out when he built one recently, you need to file a lot out of either side of the fold lines to allow the valances to sit vertical. I had attempted to fold up one side some time ago which needs a bit of brute strength but then found that it wouldn't come to 90 degrees.

The first job was to straighten the side already bent enough to allow me to file out the fold line. I did this by annealing with the microflame and then using the vice to squash the etch back almost flat. Once I had filed the fold lines, I bent it as far as I could with one of the sides off a set of bending bars and then used a rubber mallet to bash it to the final 90 degree fold while the middle section was firmly gripped in a second set of bending bars to ensure that it stayed flat.

Hopefully I will get the footplate shaped and soldered on tonight so I will take photos after that.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Despite being head cook and bottle washer at the minute I have found a little time to pick up the J6 again.

The cab of the J6 has half round beading both around the cab opening and, after studying photos closely, around the front of the cab too. - On the cab etch there is a half etched lip for both and initially I thought that the one at the cab front was to allow for the front to fit better but realised that on the other side were half etched dimples in rivet locations which meant that the half etch would be on the outside not the inside where it would need to be if the cab front sat in it. This lead me to have a look at the photos more closely and note the beading on the front. Despite seeing Tony's recent build I was doubting myself.

The kit has options to build both the Ivatt and the Gresley versions of the J6 and I am building the latter. The kit has two wrap over cab etches and two etched beads, (because the cab openings were a lot bigger on the Ivatt version). Having seen Tony's build I elected to follow his lead and use half round soft brass wire instead of the etch supplied to give more shape and definition to the bead.

Because of the need to shape the bead around the cab openings I added it while the cab was still flat. the half etched guide on my cab was slightly over etched in places so it made for an interesting job but enjoyable task. Despite carefully finding the centre and measuring the start of each bend I still needed to do quite a bit of adjusting of the bend before it sat nicely on the front.

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