Slaters MR/LMS Kirtley 0-6-0 Goods (Johnson) 7L007

John,

Be careful how much you remove from the front face of Slater's wheels as this can get very thin. I have found that Slater's drivers can vary in width but I have taken some down to 3.16mm which is probably the minimum prototypical dimension. I don't think you'll get down to 2.8mm on drivers, maybe pony and bogie wheels.

Col.

Colin: thanks for that. I've taken your advice and stuck at 3.2mm.

Having tried the wheels in the outside frames I realise I don't have enough clearance between the outside hornblocks for the sideplay needed so I will need to reduce the width of the boss and the back of the hornguide.

I reduced the boss from 4.4mm to 3.6mm using the rim as my guide and rubbing on wet and dry on a flat surface. I could reduce that further, to 3.2mm, once the rim has been reduced but I don't think it will be necessary.

Then I used this fixture to mount the wheel in the chuck of my Unimat. I had the brass blank which was just big enough to support the tyre. I drilled and tapped the centre of the brass rod 6BA and then turned it to fit the hole in the middle of the blank and then the small end of the tapered hole in the wheel. The whole lot is pushed against the jaws of the chuck with the tailstock and tightened up. Then the rim is faced off
to reduce it to 3.2mm.



Here is the wheel in the mounting. I have also shown the lost wax brass horn guide soldered to a piece of scrap brass. This was clamped to the bed of my miller and 0.5mm removed.



I will check that I now have the clearance needed after a well earned lunch.

I have reduced all the bosses to 3.6mm and the tyres to 3.2mm. I have also removed 0.5mm from the back of the outside frame horn guides.

I have broken the splasher fronts away from the fold lines which are perilously close to the tyres when the wheels are in their extreme position. I need to establish how far to file them back while I can still see what is going on. Then I can refit the splasher fronts.

I word of WARNING when removing the plastic from the outsides cranks as shown in my first post. Some of the plastic parts seem to be working loose on the brass bushes. That could be because the plastic got too hot during my machining or it may be because the flats on the bush don't extend all the way through. I think I will need to Loctite them but first I will have to make sure I haven't lost the alignment. I feel a little jig coming on but first I must tap all the cranks and check the quartering with the coupling rods.

Some of my wobbly lines of rivets show up rather badly from this viewpoint. I don't know yet whether I will need to do something about that. But what?

Look at some of the rivets on the real thing John, they wobbled all over the place, If anything yours are true to the real thing.

I wouldn't worry about the rivets, once they are covered in paint.......well you know
Enjoying this build, really fancy a midland loco for my demo stand

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll keep going and see how it looks when I'm done.

I have tapped the cranks and fitted the coupling rods. All seems fine although it is difficult to be sure because the chassis is rather flexible at the moment.

After some deep thought I have reattached the centre splasher fronts much more easily than expected. I soldered a 0.8mm brass spacer behind the outside frame at the centre of the splasher. I clamped the splasher front to this while soldering the ends and then soldered the centre to the spacer. It looks like that has given me the minimum clearance that I can afford. That helps to stiffen the frame so I'll do the front ones next and see how it looks.

I don't think I can put off the bending of the running plate much longer. The instructions reckon that is the most difficult part of the kit. I hope it is not more difficult than the tender tank which is currently stalled.

In the picture below you can see the spacer between the splasher and frame at the bottom. You can also see the bottom of the spacer below the splasher front at the top.

I have added the front splashers and attached the first cab bead as shown below. I think I have a solution for the cab .

A butt join is intended between the half etched cab front and half etched cab side which would be a challenge in itself but I also need to widen the cab by between 0.7 and 1mm to match the splashers.

Eileen does some convenient brass T sections. 3 x 1.5 is nominally 0.35mm thick and 4 x 2 is nominally 0.5mm thick so one of those should do the trick. The plan is to solder T sections to the inside corners of the cab with the short legs pointing to the centre. The legs sticking out the front will be filed back flush with the cab front having increased the width by 0.35 or 0.5mm each side. The other legs will give more meaty fixing points for the cab sides. This will affect the roof profile. The roof provided is plenty wide enough so I might need to remove the beading from the cab front and add beading to the roof instead to hide any slight gaps as it approaches the sides. I might also have to replace the beading on the cab sides. Hopefully that will all work when I have collected the brass sections from Eileen's at Bristol.

The next goal is to be ready for another test on Dewsbury Goods mid-February. If all is well I can then add the running plate and splasher tops.

Well, my plan for widening the cab has worked using the 3 x 1.5 x 0.35mm T section from Eileen's as shown below. I have also managed to keep the half etch beading. I had to remove a little bit from the bottom of the cab side sheets which sat in a half etch groove as supplied. My widening required them to sit on top of the full etch.


The clearances look fine so I need to prepare loco and chassis for another trial at HMRS in a week and a half. All looks fine on my test track, this time with the proper wheels and outside cranks.


I have machined some bits to allow the boiler furniture to sit on the boiler. They are not fixed yet. More work is need on the fit of boiler and firebox. I also have to do some more research to decide on options for the smokebox.

I bought the inside valve gear from Laurie Griffin at Bristol last Sunday so I will have to see how that is going to fit the inside frames.

Disaster! When showing the Kirtley chassis at a local 3mm meeting on Monday it locked up. The cause was one or more of the outside cranks moving on its brass bush. I was afraid this might happen after removing the plastic sleeve.

One of the bushes could be completely removed from the plastic crank and two others could be rotated in the plastic. I used the following setup aligned using one of the good bushes and checked with the other two.

The round brass bar has a hole in the middle to take the crankpin. The packing piece is needed to clear the collar on the crankpin. The bush is held on the square end of the Slaters extended axle which is held in the chuck. Having aligned everything with the good cranks I locked the slides and adjusted the faulty ones.



For the crank that had separated I smeared Loctite 603 around the plastic hole and then pressed the bush into position. I tried running the Loctite into the seam of the other two but it didn't take so I drilled those 0.5mm and pinned them with nickel silver wire.

The loco is now running perfectly again so I will pin the remaining bushes, double check the running and refit the pins with Loctite. That should fix it forever!

If I were doing this again I would pin the cranks before removing the plastic and machining the bushes.

A very neat solution. I've just done a somewhat lower tech' version of this operation to get one of the wheels on a 4mm Terrier to stay put (it had been on and off the axle once too often). Sometimes a pin and some Loctite is the only way...

Adam

Very elegant solution..

JB.

Thanks for your encouraging comments.

We had a good running session on Dewsbury Goods a couple of weeks ago. No shorts, so it looks like the clearances I have allowed are sufficient. We had to add considerably more weight to keep the flanges from climbing over the rails despite the heavy machined brass boiler in the kit. Now I can move on with the chassis.

I cut two plates from K&S brass strip to fit exactly between the widened frames. The strip fitted perfectly between the frames as they were but I needed them to be 1mm wider. At least I was starting with two parallel edges. I cut the chassis down the middle and soldered the new plates under the existing half plates. The picture below shows the result. I have also fitted the drag beam and drag box bits and reduced the centre hornblocks and hornguides to accommodate the inside motion. In the process I have lost the holes for fixing the keeper plates. I will have to dream up a new arrangement. I might try two small tubes and a wire bent at both ends to hold it in place. I have managed to keep the clearance needed for sideplay.

I think I will be able to adapt the Slaters motion bracket. I have already opened out the slots for the wider frame spacing and I will use the T sections to fill the gap in the same way as I did for the cab. I also used that trick on the drag beam.

All looks well on my 6ft radius S test track but the frames still need stiffening up. That should come with the tighter motion bracket and I think it is also time to fit the ashpan.

The 2-4-0 No.158A in the Matthew Kirtley building at Swanwick Junction looks very similar in many respects to the Kirtley Goods. It will help with details of the inside motion and ashpan. Maybe a model of that should be my next Scale 7 project!

I have been a bit distracted working on my garage as shown here:

Hamworthy Junction - Swanage in 3mm

but, having managed to drill through 2 ring main cables and a 50 amp cooker cable yesterday, today I have been sitting quietly looking at my crank axle for the Kirtley Goods from Laurie.

This is the crank axle on the 2-4-0 at Butterley:


and I think this is how Laurie's kit should be assembled:



It looks to me as though the axle is handed. It should be right hand lead. I think the top of the first picture is the right hand side with eccentric number 4 on that side. Can anyone confirm, deny or comment or whether I have got this right.

TIA
John Walker

I'm not 100%, but I think you're a teensy bit out on the eccentrics. On the sets I have I've not got the flanges all heading off on one side. But you're roughly there, it's certainly right-hand-lead and the eccentrics should be about right once you've swapped a couple of them over.

One could argue that few are going to know whether you're 100%, but it looks as though the prototype is indeed right-hand-lead (as most locos are) with the forward eccentric/strap closest to the loco's centre-line, with the reverse eccentric outside it. I appreciate this detail this might not be correct as the layout can vary, but it is the centre set of eccentrics that lead the crank, the outer ones appear to lag.

Steph

Steph Dale said:

I'm not 100%, but I think you're a teensy bit out on the eccentrics. On the sets I have I've not got the flanges all heading off on one side.

Click to expand...

I'd agree - I've not seen the LG eccentrics so I don't know the specific setup but I have made a few similar from brass bar. For each pair (left hand and right hand) I would put the machined surfaces together, i.e. flanges to the outside. I think you'd have to check it with the eccentric rods in place but I think the alignment would be straighter, As the eccentrics are displaced relative to one another the eccentric rods will be held in place.

Adrian, John,
Yep - funny that flanges on the eccentrics business. It appears that's a relatively recent change to Laurie's components; which will make life a bit tougher for those working in FS, like me! From my thread on inside valvegear here's a pic of the assembled GWR crank axle:

This is right-hand-lead with the outer eccentrics leading (i.e. probably forwards gear). So in my case the front of the loco is towards us. In your case, John, the front of the loco would be going away from us and the inner eccentrics would the leading gear ones. Note there's no symmetry in the crank axle.

Recognising this is currently a bit like early snooker commentry ('for those watching in black and white, the red ball is behind the pink...') I should perhaps add that the forwards/reverse eccentrics thing can be a bit erroneous depending upon how the gear and valves are laid out in the loco.

Steph

This is a complicated subject!

My previous pictures show the same arrangement. The first one has the proposed right hand side at the top with the front towards you and the second one has the right hand side to the right with the front away from you.

Here is a drawing from Midland Engines No.4:


Without symmetry it doesn't help with the left hand side.

Here is another picture of my original arrangement with the eccentric straps in place and the middle ones raised. It is in the same orientation as the previous picture of the 2-4-0.


Assuming that Laurie's eccentrics should only be installed in their numbered sequence and that 1 and 2 are oriented the same way and 3 and 4 similarly there seem to be 8 possibilities.

1F2F3F4F
1F2FF3F4

F1F2F3F4
F1F23F4F

and the same again with the sequence the other way round.

If those sound like correct assumptions I could try them all and choose the best match.

Here is a picture of Laurie's eccentrics:


I have just realized that 2 and 4 have their numbers engraved on the back. That may be significant. Is Laurie on WT?

I now realize there is a 5th eccentric, and getting worse. That's me!

Regards
John Walker

John,
Well, that drawing confirms that the centre eccentrics are the forward ones. My guess is that grouping the eccentrics in pairs as Adrian suggests will soon tell you if you're correct or not. If not then I think you'll get two eccentrics matching, which can't be correct.

From memory the order 1,2,3,4 is correct for right hand lead. You'd still have to get the axle the correct way round in the chassis to be perfect.

Steph

Flanges to the outside of each pair of eccentrics

Col.

Using your notation if you arrange them

F12FF34F

what does it look like?