7mm A Pair of Piercy’s Finest

dibateg

Western Thunderer
I have a B1 kit in the cupboard Mick, so I shall follow with interest... We've done this before haven't we!

Tony
 

7mmMick

Western Thunderer
Back onto 1167 I’ve fitted the brake gear as per 1166 and pushed onto the cylinders and motion. This is where this version of the kit moves away from the conventional. The kit is designed to have a working reverser so forward or back gear can be selected with a choice of cut off. So with that in mind some thought was needed as I still wanted to be able to remove the cylinders/motion/expansion bracket assembly. First the cylinders are fixed with an 8Ba nut and bolt and then the expansion brackets were drilled and tapped 8Ba with a peg added to aid fixing. The cylinders themselves were straight forward and extremely well detailed, with the ability to fit all the lubrications pipe work. To finish off I’ve used a 12Ba steel nut and bolt to fix the crosshead and connecting rod and treated the nut to some castellation as per the prototype, I stopped short of adding the split pin though :D
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Following the cylinder fittings I constructed the motion which other than the connecting rod is all cast Nickel Silver, which is just lovely and certainly not the norm to be supplied with the kit. .45mm brass wire has been used for corks on the motion parts and big end;
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After the joy of the motion I’m sad to say the expansion brackets weren’t very good and took some real fettling. Not a major issue as the lost wax brass is easy to work.
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The weight shaft ends were drilled and tapped 12Ba and a steel screw used for resilience as these need to come on and off when stripping things down. The bolts will be cut back later and a slot filed so they are discreet as per the brake gear;
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A few shots of things coming together.B9450B47-C32A-4B32-BC6E-563568A012E2.jpeg0CAEF712-1284-4D7A-B889-0C6837C089C5.jpeg 72FD122F-6638-4DF3-834C-263F55098AF8.jpeg
I also had a day constructing the cab, which is a fold up outer, offering many rivet detail options and then inner laminations to cover the back of the pressed rivets and represent the window frames. It’s time consuming but looks great. A quick shot of the footplate, cab and roof just sat together. The large casting on the front carries the boiler, which is removable owing to the footplates needing fixing permanently
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When loco building I like spend some time on each major assembly so I see the thing come together on each area a bit at a time, however the motion and majority of the frames need finishing before moving onto the upper works. So to keep me motivated I can only sit parts together, starting to look like a B1 though:thumbs:
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Genghis

Western Thunderer
I have built a couple of the DJH version of this kit and very nice it was too. I prefer the brass boiler of the original to the large whitemetal lump that DJH supplied.

I first read about this kit in Railway Modeller many moons ago and was intrigued that you could have a model with adjustable cut-off and I really enjoyed getting that to work. However, I did find a small snag that in full forward gear the radius rod would be lifted as the expansion link moves forward. You may need to cut a lot of metal from inside the link to stop this.
 

7mmMick

Western Thunderer
Thanks for the heads up David I’m just at the stage where I’ve started looking at this area of the valve gear so forewarned is forearmed :thumbs:

There’s been quite a lot of progress on 61167 since my last post. I built up the second cylinder and motion and added motion brackets to both slide bars. The cab was fixed to the footplate and the fireman’s side footplate overlay was added and fixed permanently to the frames. Bits of detail were added here and there and the exhaust and live steam injectors fitted. The exhaust injector is white metal which I thought would be a pain and didn’t disappoint :mad: When fitting injectors I like to use 185 to add the soft copper pipe work. Bend the pipes roughly to shape and then attach with 145 which doesn’t effect the pipe work. All can be then coaxed into place no bother. Well the WM exhaust injector ruined all plans and insisted on falling apart all the time :D Oh well got there in the end. I then moved onto the boiler assembly, which is really the largest removable part. There is an option of riveted and smooth smoke box wrappers and a very nice firebox wrapper, which has the bolt detail etched along the top. Like David I really like the brass boiler and prefer it over the white metal one. That said, as I learnt on early scratch builds brass tube is a bugger to solder too as you need boat loads of heat! Blow torch at the ready I cracked on. All went well and here’s where I’m up to with the boiler;
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I chose to add the boiler bands from Slaters 5thou Phosphor Bronze strip as it’s more subtle than what the kit offers. The boiler fittings are lovely castings and take little cleaning up. Also available with this kit is some smoke box detail. This is cast white metal and straight forward to fit. The tube plate holes were drilled through to just lift the look a little. The bolt to fix the boiler through the saddle is captive inside the blast pipe which is a neat feature. Still to be fitted is the piping for the brake ejector. The blower pipe work is fitted;
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And fitted to the smoke box. All fits neatly inside the chimney, which is fitted last of all. The boiler is not sat level as the driver’s side firebox needs trimming, fireman’s side has been done;
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And a few shots of progress to date. The motion sits in full forward gear at the moment and the next job is the reverser assembly, hence the Ivatt look lack for footplate:eek:
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7mmMick

Western Thunderer
A month on and time for an update. I’ve been doing little jobs here and there on 61166 as I want to get this one finished soon and more into sister 61167. I thought it best to move onto the tender and get this finished so mentally I’ve reached a milestone. So first I turned my attention to the tender inner frames. The kit supplies very nice lost wax cross beams but then let’s itself down with white metal hangers and blocks. These were exchanged for etched hangers and Finney7 plastic brake blocks, which look a lot better and run close to the tyre. I did have to re drill the hanger pivot holes as they were just too far away and didn’t look right. In addition to the brake gear the two cross beams were suspended so they can be seen through the outer frame cutouts. I think this is called doing a @Dikitriki :D Also fitted is a switch as per the customers spec to allow switching between DC and DCC controlCCE5A66B-1B4A-4E26-9D1B-9285863FBADA.jpeg8BCD9AAE-8A9D-41B4-B1FA-F2FE12856588.jpeg4F5B3C37-AF02-4409-9B4F-D2B15FD693EA.jpeg
Some surgery has also been carried out on the tender footplate and tank to accommodate the DCC gubbins and switch gear;
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And a snap of the underside to see everything fitted and show the exposed switch end, which will mean trouble free switching of control methods
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And finally some pictures of the completed tender. The only addition here is some Laurie Griffin lamp irons. They’re much nicer than the etched kit offerings. The only pain here was filling the etched holes before fitting but all looks tidy now. I have to say I’m not a fan of so many white metal fittings, it makes construction much slower as it’s a case of tin, clean, fit white metal, clean etc. I’m happy with the results though
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7mmMick

Western Thunderer
I’ve also made a start today on finishing off the valve gear jobs. Here’s a few quick grab shots of the working reverser being fitted.

First the reverser is constructed, and fitted to allow the crank on the cross shaft to be marked up;
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The shaft was then removed, drilled and tapped;
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More to follow soon hopefully
 

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7mmMick

Western Thunderer
Cheers Fellas,

I’m pleased with how they’re coming together. I can understand DJH not wanting to take on the turned brass tube for the boiler as the production involved would probably be too costly as 5thou has to be turned off for the smoke box and firebox overlays. And the brass tube has been problematic to solder as it needs so much heat ! That said an etched boiler would have been nicer than the WM one, but that’s personal preference I suppose. The other thing I love about this kit is the cast valve gear, I’m hoping the DJH version kept that but I’m not sure it did ?
 

7mmMick

Western Thunderer
Right time for a bit of an update on the B1’s. 61166 is almost complete but more on that later. I’ve been trying to get 61167 caught up. This is the model that was already well built so cylinders have had lubrications pipes added along with corks here and there. All the valve gear runs well so I turned my attention to the boiler. The model has been built for some time and unfortunately over time has sustained damage to both the smoke box and firebox wrappers. The kit of 61166 supplied a replacement smoke box wrapper as both riveted and smith are supplied as options, so that was fitted. Unfortunately the firebox could not be daily’s repaired properly filled so off it came. Nerve racking surgery;
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The wrapper was flattened as a template and the old tube scrapped;
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I then used some 10thou N/S as a new fire box and mated it to the old. I’ve used Finney washout doors and Slaters 5thou strip for boiler bands. All castings refitted and the smoke box gubbins are also complete. I have to say I’ll be glad to move onto something without huge lumps of white metal. Everything thing that needs fitting is extra time consuming......tin it, white metal fitted and clean back. Some more photos from the bench to illustrate what I mean, working with brass or nickel silver alone is so much easier;
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And a couple of shots of where 1167’s boiler is now;
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Right now for progress on 1166.......
 

7mmMick

Western Thunderer
So I’ve got 1166 to the point where it just needs the sand guns to finish pre paint and the odd little thing here and there, like adjusting the height of the cab doors on the tender. But before some final shots a couple of the back head. The castings in the kit are nice but have the copper pipes cast in brass. These were all removed and replaced with copper pipe, which was time consuming but well worth the effort IMHO. Painted copper never looks as good I think. The back head was sprayed black first so here’s the finished article, less a bit of detail painting, but that will be @warren haywood ’s job:thumbs:AA2D3D23-85AD-4353-AD2A-D0AD51F8F8BA.jpegDD37CF62-55E5-484B-AE80-F63C5F054E95.jpeg
A lot has been done on 1166 since the last post, the most time consuming has been the lubricator runs and atomisers. I’ve used some Finney atomisers as the kit ones seemed over sized. Because the boiler is removable there’s been a bit of artistic licence here but I’m happy with the finished article. I used a number of photos from John Turner’s 53A models site. They’re great close up shots of theses areas and are used here with his kind permission. At his request he has asked that they are not reproduced elsewhere though :thumbs:AD3FC2F4-9C2A-460F-BB9C-F7E8E1B85B2E.jpeg

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And some final shots of the model768C4581-EAFD-4E37-ACED-76CA1FD55D36.jpeg

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And now back drilling sand guns out .3mm :headbang::))

Mick
 
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