7mm On Heather's Workbench - Aintree Iron: an Austerity adventure

Try as I might I can't reconcile the cylinder draincocks in the kit with the real thing. I suspect the castings are from one of the various GWR locos, and not at all suitable for the WD.

It seems I shall be purchasing replacements from Mr Ragstone at the ASLRM Reading show in a few weeks.

Baulked by the cylinder detailing for now, especially as I don't want to assemble the cylinders and valve gear on the chassis until I've finished the main details, I turned attention back to the boiler details.

Lubricator pipe runs along the boiler on WDs are like human fingerprints. No two are alike. Luckily, I have near contemporaneous photos of 90643 showing both sides of the boiler. I set to with pencil and Mk 1 eyeball.





Having mapped out reasonably well how the pipework runs meander about I shall drill small holes at the points where I think there are actual clips on the boiler cladding. These will be twists of fuse wire to hold the fine copper wire pipes. Where things are unclear are exactly how the pipes run into the front of the cab and where they disappear down behind the running plate under the smokebox. For these areas I shall interpolate from other locos.

It ought to keep me gainfully employed for the rest of the afternoon!

After a little cussing, here's most of the way there.





I've still got to work out the pipework around the smokebox on the driver's side, which is why the thicker wire stops short. I've also left the firebox ends longer so I have some leeway in finagling things into the cab later.

I'm reasonably satisfied with that.

Good work, even if they are on the same side they seem to have variety Heather, these were copied from prototype photos:-

Heather Kay said:

Because I'm using old 4mm sprung buffers between the tender and loco, I found the gap was too large. So I adapted the buffer castings to make them more like the supplied kit solid castings. I still couldn't quite get the drawbar to reach without seizing the combination solid.

Lengthening the drawbar holes into slots would mean a sloppy connection, rattling about when rolling along, so the only option seemed to be to lengthen the drawbar etched part.

I split the part at the loco end, sweated a strip of scrap etch from the underframe fret to it and drilles out the loop again. In all, I stretched the drawbar by about three millimetres.

As you can see there is now a slight gap between the buffers and the loco rubbing plate, but this is one of those compromises one has to live with in order to get such a large loco round a six-foot radius. With the fall plate on top, this won't be all that visible. Now I can begin to sort out the interconnection problem - oh, and reinstate the loco brake cylinder and associated fittings under the cab!

Click to expand...

Heather, lengthening the draw-bar by 3mm is going to make the gap between the loco and tender to big. On the real thing it's about 8" or 9", so about 5.5mm.
The better way would be to get the buffer bodies behind the tender drag beam, something like this.

For this I use Slater's 4mm L.M.S. loco buffers with the base flange removed.

So that from the front it looks like this.

Doing it this way you will lose the length of the buffer body so you should not have to extend the draw-bar, have a look at the buffers on this WD tender,


No buffer bodies sticking out.

ATB

OzzyO.

Things are down to a crawl at the moment. Still, I get little things done.

Today I started weathering the frames and wheels. Once the cylinders and motion are fitted, the leading drivers and the frames will be all but inaccessible so I thought it a good idea to make some progress.





This is the result of some patient dry-brushing with a tatty flattie. A little more brownish stuff do go on, with some sort of greasy oily layers in various places will finish it off, I think.

That builder's plate is on the wonk. Best sort that out.

Like it Heather

Very nice!!

JB.

Cheers all! Depending on the state of progress I shall bring the loco to Brightwell in a couple of weeks.

The smooth running of the WD chassis had been nagging at me. It had a slight catch, somewhat alleviated when the additional weight of the boiler was in place, but it wasn't right. I decided it would be worth setting things up in the rolling road to see if some gentle running would solve it.

Well, it helped in that it uncovered several issues. I set about resolving things like tight spots on all the coupling rods, but still the catch. Then I noticed the recessed crankpin nut on the fireman's side second axle had a tendency to unscrew itself.

Cue a couple of hours of careful honing and fettling, with a side order of mild swearing.

It turns out the CPL cast crankpin nuts have a tendency to be not quite as square as they could be. The threaded hole is a teensy bit off centre, leading to a gentle binding and unscrewing in one direction of travel. I carefully opened the coupling rod, and gave the nut itself a once-over to try and make it all better.



As I sit typing this, the errant crankpin nut is firmly attached to the crankpin, and the chassis is trundling away at an indicated 30mph (according to the Gaugemaster controller, at least). I am feeling quite happy that at least I managed to figure out what the problem was, and hopefully resolve it permanently.

A good bit of detective work Heather - well done.


Regards

Dan

Heather Kay said:

The smooth running of the WD chassis had been nagging at me. It had a slight catch, somewhat alleviated when the additional weight of the boiler was in place, but it wasn't right. I decided it would be worth setting things up in the rolling road to see if some gentle running would solve it.

Well, it helped in that it uncovered several issues. I set about resolving things like tight spots on all the coupling rods, but still the catch. Then I noticed the recessed crankpin nut on the fireman's side second axle had a tendency to unscrew itself.

Cue a couple of hours of careful honing and fettling, with a side order of mild swearing.

It turns out the CPL cast crankpin nuts have a tendency to be not quite as square as they could be. The threaded hole is a teensy bit off centre, leading to a gentle binding and unscrewing in one direction of travel. I carefully opened the coupling rod, and gave the nut itself a once-over to try and make it all better.

View attachment 42714

As I sit typing this, the errant crankpin nut is firmly attached to the crankpin, and the chassis is trundling away at an indicated 30mph (according to the Gaugemaster controller, at least). I am feeling quite happy that at least I managed to figure out what the problem was, and hopefully resolve it permanently.

Click to expand...

Hi Heather.
I have had a similar problem in the past with cast crankpins. I now use the JLTRT ones for Slaters wheels. They are just nuts and you still use the Slaters bushes or turn up specials. I always make a special for the front pin on outside cylinder locos which is flush with the rods but you need a bit of machine tooling for that.
Those difficult to find binds and stickies can take ages to find. I have often had a loco running smoothly until taken apart and painted when on reassembly it has a stutter.
Ian.

Cheers Ian. The Scot has a set of cast nuts in the box. I shall see how I fair with them. I'm not afraid of learning how to machine things, it's more a case of whether our lathe is too big for the job!

It's encouraging to know that even experienced builders have problems.

Heather Kay said:

Cheers Ian. The Scot has a set of cast nuts in the box. I shall see how I fair with them. I'm not afraid of learning how to machine things, it's more a case of whether our lathe is too big for the job!

It's encouraging to know that even experienced builders have problems.

Click to expand...

Hi Heather
Before I had my own lathe I turned a set of boiler fittings, including whistle, on an ancient lathe with a 12" centre height and a gap bed which could turn a wheel 30" diameter. Most important thing is getting turning speed high enough. Smaller needs highest speed but even if not ideal you can still turn at lower than optimum speeds. It just takes a wee bit longer and a bit more patience and determination!
Happy modelling.
Ian.

I was planning to fit out the backhead today. Then I remembered the cab roof needed adjustment to fit better.



After a couple of attempts to get a neatly sitting roof, I gave in and soldered it in place. During the fettling I was trying to figure out how I could leave the roof loose, but I have bowed to the inevitable. Happily, most of the detailing can be done through the main opening.



I'll leave actually fixing things to the running plate for a bit. Another small step towards completion.

Oh, I've also finalised the tender and loco electrical connection. I spent a happy few minutes letting the coupled units trundle up and down my short length of track.

To think I almost popped in to see you today
It's looking good Heather

You are always welcome, John. Thursdays seem to be the one day a week when we have medical appointments and do our shopping, but we are in most days.

I was going to work on the backhead details, but I changed my mind and finished the pipework along the driver's side smokebox.



As with all the pipework draped along these locos this area is varied. I've tried to replicate what I can make out from the one photo I have of this loco, with help by referring to various other images from publications and around this very forum. I realise there should be some bolted unions and bracketry, but I was reaching the limits of my fabrication skills!

So, to all intents and purposes that's the boiler completed.

There are some days where I just have to put everything down and walk away before I break it.

Today was one of those days.

It started out well enough. Perhaps I hadn't planned far enough ahead, because I set myself a relatively simple task, namely fitting the smokebox number and shed plates. I hadn't really thought through any further.



The plates are by Guilplates. Severn Mill didn't have this particular loco in his range, sadly.

Anyway, next up was the sandbox fillers and oil boxes. Back in the early stages of this build you might recall I struggled fitting oil pipes to the boxes. I needn't have bothered frankly. As soon as I started fettling them, in order to lose the pipes down in the murk of the frames, they all fell off. I disassembled them all, cleaned them all up, cleaned out the holes again, and had a think. Much the same occurred with the sandbox bits. The swan neck pipes didn't match with the boxes inside the frames, and the mounting plates were set too far out so I was filing chunks out of the pipes in order to get things to sit.

Then the glue didn't want to, well, glue. I disassembled the sandbox fillers, too.

Out with the RSU, and the various brass bits were in place, after more naughty words. It's a bit dark under the boiler, and I have decided that the swan neck pipes can be ignored. I just need to work out how to fix the oil boxes back to their brackets, and then how to feed fine copper wire into holes on the bottom of each box and down into the frames.

Why not fix the cab to the running plate, I wondered. More naughty words. I'm getting quite a vocabulary of invective. Anyway, the cab's fitted now.

It was at this point I decided discretion might be the better part of valour. I downed tools. I might do some armchair modelling for another build. I might just decide to sulk about the house, harrumphing about things. We will see.

Never mind Heather, your not alone and like you say best left for another day.

Still it is better than losing you mojo completely .

Martyn.

Heather, I hope that you will forgive the 'like' of your post today but I appreciated the eloquent articulation of your frustrations - we've all been there - and all done without using a single emoticon!
Dave