Finney 7 Adam's T3 4-4-0

P A D

Western Thunderer
The next build is for a friend and is something completely different from my point of view, never having built a 4-4-0 before, or anything by the Southern Railway or its constituents. A further first for me will be the inside motion, although being from the " I can't see it and I know it's not there" school of thought, I may just chuck it in the bin! :p

Only joking of course. It's Finney 7 so what's not to like?

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Cheers,
Peter
 

Dave Holt

Western Thunderer
Peter,
Timed to perfection. I was just reading in a current magazine that the full sized version (ex-NRM) is going to be restored at Flour Mill for use at Swanage.
Don't know if they allow public access down in the Forest of Dean.
Dave.
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
Yesterday I got up and running with the T3, which is being built in original Adam's condition. A quick look at the etchings. Sorry about the reflections at the top but these things are a sod to photograph. Almost a shame to start cutting into them, but needs must. 20190618_073420.jpg

Here the main bogie frames and spacer have been soldered and the cast axle boxes jigged up with 6BA bolts to aid fitting.
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Axle boxes on and the equalising beams started. The spring on the left has yet to be fettled after laminating and that was done before adding the beams. For now I have left a small extension of the 8mm rod on the outer face of the beams to represent the fixing bolt. Not sure if that is correct as it's not clear in the instructions, so if anyone knows different, please let me know.
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And completed with the wheels in after checking for squareness on a glass plate.
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The underside. In each case, one wheel has pushed on tightly (although I can get them off), and the other is a looser fit. Don't know if that is intentional or just the luck of the draw, but personally I prefer the standard Slaters wheels with the allen head bolt. The extensions will need cutting off at some point and now that I have a lathe I will be able to add the " counter sink" accurately in the ends of the axles, with a center drill.
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The coupling rods have been laminated and a start has been made on the frames, with decusping, cutting out the axle bearing holes and prepping the axle boxes. The rear ones have been soldered in place ready for the next stage. As expected, it does what it says on the tin.
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Cheers,
Peter
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
This afternoon the frames were assembled with the spacers. All square and correct on the glass plate. The front brass spacer is not soldered until the frame overlays go on later and the spacer over the rear bogie wheel is also loose. This is for mounting the inside motion and is just sprung in to allow removal.20190618_192449.jpg

Yesterday, I should only have added one of the horn guides so had to take one off to line them up correctly.
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Here it is back in the frames and jigged up for soldering.
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The coupling rods are used with a pair of extended axles to line up the other two horn guides for soldering. Here's the frames after soldering the horn guides and removing the tension springs and washers seen in the previous photo.
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And with the bearings removed.
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Cheers,
Peter
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
As mentioned on my 7mm Miscellany thread, I had to break off from the T3 to do some spraying for my brother today. However I did manage to prep the driving wheels and drill out the rods for the crankpin bearings and make a quick test in the chassis.
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All was hunky dory I'm pleased to say. There's no compensation beams yet so the bearings are bottomed out in the horn guides. Without washers on the axles, the cheese head 12BA crankpin bolts foul the frames, but as a belt and braces measure I'll replace them with counter sinks ones.
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Cheers,
Peter
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
Not made as much progress this week as I would have liked due to family commitments, but I've now got a rolling chassis. The three point compensation relies on the bogie being in place so that needed completing first. The instructions say to cut a 3.1mm length of 5/32 brass tube to act as a bush on the 6BA centr bolt. My recently acquired lathe was pressed into service and the end result was pretty close. Also in view are the compensation beams after soldering to the pivot tube.
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Here's a view of the underside of the bogie with the side control wires in place. It is actually on back to front as the bogie pivot bracket, visible under where the spring wires protrude, should be at the rear. The spring wires are only soldered at the front (rear in this view) and at the back can slide when the spring is pushed sideways on the curve. They still need trimming slightly.
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Compensation beams and wheel sets in place.
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A quick check on the rails on plate glass shows all appears to be well, but further checks and measurements will be made to confirm.
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The tape is just stop the rod on which the beams pivot in tube from falling out. The rod will be sealed in place when the detail overlays go on. Yep, I know, the coupling rod is on upside down as I was in a rush to test the chassis before I packed up.
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As mentioned earlier, I don't like these push on wheels, but they do look the part when the extended lug for outside bearings is cut off and dressed back. Again the lathe came into play to face off the axle ends after sawing off the extensions. I was then able to "centre pop" the ends in the lathe using a centre drill. Hopefully I'll make better progress next week.
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Finally, a quick rolling test.

Cheers,
Peter
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
Had a bonus session this afternoon as my daughter wanted to call in on uncle Mick, on the way home from an outing. Took the opportunity to take up the sideplay in the chassis and bogie axles with washers.
This image shows the bogie pivot bracket at the rear. I'm not quite sure of its function at this stage.
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I also added extra washers to the 6BA bogie retaining bolt as the chassis was nose diving. Looks about right now but I will check it later.
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With my daughter working the phone, Mick and I were able to give the chassis a rolling test on a length of track.

Cheers,
Peter
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
Another stonker in the making....

Thanks Larry.
So far so good. The inside motion will be a new experience for me, but I'm looking forward to it. Can't wait to see all those bits a pieces moving between the frames when it's rolling along.

What some people do in their kitchens. . . . .

What else are kitchens for? By the way Paul, since I centered the wheelsets with axle washers, the heads of the crank pin bolts no longer catch on the frames so no need to counter sink them. As usual with Finney kits, it does what it says on the tin.

Cheers,
Peter
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
With regards to the motorisation of the model, the instructions mention that the compensation beam pivot will need cutting if an ABC Canon combinaction is used. I'm not keen on that as the pivot rod for the tube on which the beams pivot then has to be soldered to the frames. It would concern me that they could come adrift later and then be extremely difficult to repair. The kit has been supplied with an RG7 so I scetched the outline onto the drawing to check what clearance there will be and all looks fine. Hopefully nothing on the body will impinge on the gear box but I will check that as well.
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Next step is to add the frame overlays, but first the brake pivot rods are added. Where possible I prefer to leave the rods intact across the frames, but in this case the rear one would impinge on the compensation beams and the front one on the valve gear. After fixing I first cut them with a sliting disc and then snipped with side cutters.20190624_233343.jpg

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Here are the overlays ready to go on. The brake pivot rods also serve to accurately locate the overlays. In this view the front sections are butted up against the main rear overlays but there is a gap for the cylinders when in place.
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The compensation beams and pivot rod must be inserted before the second main overlay is fitted. The pivot rod it then sealed into position so no soldering is required and no risk of gumming up the pivot tube. Here you can see the rod is slightly over length so it was faced back in the lathe.
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Overlays in place.20190624_233214.jpg
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The front spacer, loosely fitted till now has been centered and soldered.
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Adding the "mudguards" for the bogie wheels was a bit of a trial, but I got there in the end.
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The flanges for the sandpipes, sandboxes, running plate support brackets and dummy compensation beam shaft have also been added.
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And some shots with the wheels in.
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The chassis was rolling perfectly freely after I added the spacing washers to the axles, but now with the overlays on, the crankpin bolt heads are fouling the rivet detail, so will need counter sinking after all.
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Cheers,
Peter
 

P A D

Western Thunderer
Another issue with the free running is the coupling rods fouling the running plate support brackets, in a very unfinneyesqe manner. But of course that's not a design error as the coupling rods fit outside the connecting rods and will clear the brackets when correctly spaced.

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Moving on to the cylinders, the base structure has been prepared.
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The extension at the rear is to restrict the movement ag the rear of the bogie on the curves and will be linked to the rear bracket o the bogie via a pivot.
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A quick test fit in the frames.
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And then on to preparing the crosshead/piston rods and slide bars. The two lengths of coffee stirrer glued to the board are for lining up the crosshead top piece with the crosshead for soldering. The length of NS wire top right is for making the piston tail rods. The end of the piston rods have been drilled 1.2mm to take a length of the rod. This will pass out of the front of the cylinder and reciprocate when the loco is moving. Once again the lathe came into play to face off the ends of the cylinder glands, after sawing them from the mould spruce. It gave a much better finish than could be achieved with a file and was easier to do.
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Cheers,
Peter
 
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