Building the MOK "King Arthur"

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Thanks Steph. That actually helps. But trice bum! as in bum, bum, bum:

I now know what to do to create the whistle linkage. Now I know I'll have to do it....

I checked for oil lines down the boiler. Yes they are absolutely b$$$dy obvious. That's task 2 (with working out where the boiler bands will be so that I can make the clips to hold the pipework cover and then the pipes in place. These are not yer regular pipe clips but more akin to studs into the boiler bands. I can probably make them with dress making pins but the trick will be to get the location absolutely right.) The one on the left hand side will have to be wrangled past the reach rod.

Then, in studying the oil lines I reckon I've found the six way oilers. There's one immediately on top of the splasher above the nameplate on the right hand side and another on the same side pretty much at the front and on top of the splasher. There appear to be none on the splasher on the left hand side which would follow as the reach rod would be in the way of filling them. This rather calls in to question why there's so much detail on these oilers as the oil lines face in to the boiler and won't be seen whereas there's next to nothing on those in the cab which are wide open for inspection.. I'll cogitate over that one and whether to fit some stubs of wire on the splasher bourne oilers, just to show willing you understand.

Oh - and a fourth bum (that's a quartet). Due to the pipework drawing which has just dropped in to my hands I now have the fitting for the condenser tank at the top front of the cab so I suppose I'll have to add that as well. It'll never be seen as it's behind the whistle mechanism..........

I might take a few days off and finish the signal I'm building for club. I may be a bit more rational when I return to the loco. To quote the late, great, Gerard Hoffnung - "At this point I lost my presence of mind".

Brian
 

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Hmm, that makes sense about those 6-feed oilers; rather than having 4off 2/3 feed oilers, have 2off 6-feed oilers. Looking at photos the reason is obvious; if they were on the LHS they couldn't be reached behind the reversing rod! A really good example of why we shouldn't blindly follow works drawings...

Steph
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Having slept on it I reckon a passable job can be made of the boiler side oil pipes by simply soldering the required lengths of 1 mm square brass to act as casing leading to a pair of 0.45 mm copper single pipes coming from the ends. Any representation of the clips, which are actually not that easy to see on the prototype photos, can be added after painting which will ensure that they coincide with the boiler bands.

I appreciate that 1 mm square brass may be a bit chunky for this purpose in which case I'll talk to Hobby Holidays and procure something closer to 1 mm x 0.5 mm - I've not yet studied photos to see what the casing looked like in detail.

Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Here's the most recent 2 days of work. Well, actually more like four when drilling out and fitting pipework is taken in to account. I reckon it's worth it as at least I know it's all there. The cast firebox door is in place purely as a place holder. It'll be replaced with the Finney7 one when it arrives.

IMG_20200604_164342070.jpg

I'm particularly proud of the pipe clips. No-one will ever see them once the backhead is fitted in the cab.:)) These are prototypical according to the original drawings and are still present on the preserved loco.

IMG_20200604_164342070 - Copy.jpg

Very nearly there now. Just the oil lines to run down the boiler and then rebuild the whole shebang. I've chosen to not fit the oil boxes on the right hand splasher as the way they are designed makes them impossible to fit at this stage. I'll also not be including the condenser in the top of the cab - the cab support structure would need removing at the front and the damn thing couldn't possibly be seen behind the back head anyway.....

Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Well, at the time of my last post on here it looked as though everything was nearly finished. Well in terms of the major build it was but there was a fair bit of detail work to catch up with. However, cab now complete (well, nearly - I've just found a dial to go on the right hand side of the cab which I have yet to fit) and this is the finished article.

IMG_20200612_161550298.jpg

I said that I wasn't going to fit the oil boxes on the right hand side splasher. Well, I lied! I thought they'd be a fairly obvious omission so found a way of trimming them to fit.

IMG_20200612_163717636_BURST000_COVER_TOP.jpg

Then there are the oil pipes down the side of the boiler. I ordered some 1.5 x 1 mm brass from Phil at Hobby Holidays but after doing so was concerned that this would be rather oversized, particularly when compared with the dimensions of the reversing rod. I found some 1 mm x 0.5 mm in my waste etch bin and with the oil pipes at 0.3 mm they'd work quite well, I thought. So that's what I did. The pipe clips are by Finney7.

IMG_20200612_164155170.jpg

I'd not fitted any pipework to the cylinders up to this point so did so now. Again pipe clips from Finney7 and after painting those front ones will be fitted to the front of the steps a la the prototype.

IMG_20200612_164127256.jpg

Now, just please indulge me. Photos of the actually finished loco. Smoke deflectors are loose and the smokebox front is not finally fitted and they won't be finally secured until after painting. Otherwise "Sir Sagramore" is complete.

This front on view looks strangely twisted but that's down to the photo. The chimney really is in line with the dome! The other shots give a better perspective of the final article. However, couplings are made and fitted.

IMG_20200612_163655451_BURST000_COVER_TOP.jpg IMG_20200612_163749798.jpg IMG_20200612_163826212.jpg IMG_20200612_164052574.jpg

The loco runs really well in a straight line or across very wide curves. It's shorting on tighter curves of about 6 ft and just before I came in this evening I located one source of shorting - the guard irons on the bogie. I'll trim those back tomorrow and then it'll be time for the final snagging.

Brian
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Thank you for your kind comments but, as I've said previously, it really is a stonking kit and the fit of parts is quite remarkable.

Brian
 

Martin Shaw

Western Thunderer
I was intrigued by Steph's photo of the whistle operating arrangements since it is almost exactly the same as that on CR419. Now the link between the CR and the LSWR/SR is of course Mr D.Drummond and I would surmise that he originated it in Scotland where it was further used by CR CMEs and brought it with him to Nine Elms/Eastleigh where it was also used by Maunsell. I wonder if the Schools and Nelson were the same. There is a further commonality between English and Scottish practice, the top hinged firehole door orginated with William Stroudley at Lochgorm and he subsequently used it on his LBSC engines, and via Drummond I suspect, the CR used it and is what 419 has. It may well be a good idea in that it directs secondary air towards the bed of the fire, but looking at the front of the firebox is damn difficult unless your 4' 6" or so, perhaps our ancestors were. This is nothing whatsoever to do with Brian's superb model but the diversion occurred to me.
Regards
Martin
 

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Martin,

You're correct, the missing piece in your puzzle is that Drummond was works foreman for Stroudley at Lochgorm and went with him to Brighton before joining the North British.

The whistle mechanism is shared by Drummond and Urie locos and makes its way to the LSWR-derived Maunsell 4-6-0s from there.

The firehole design had an important safety feature on most Drummond locos. With firebox water tubes, the door would slam shut if a tube burst (which did happen!), protecting the crew.

Steph
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
The firehole design had an important safety feature on most Drummond locos. With firebox water tubes, the door would slam shut if a tube burst (which did happen!), protecting the crew.

Steph

Unless your shovel was in the way in which case you went to the dentist and ordered a full set, top and bottom......

That's interesting stuff, though.

rian
 

Dave Holt

Western Thunderer
Brian.
You've created a wonderful looking model. Well done.
I'm amazed that these locos had the cylinder drain pipes run on the outside of the step hangers. They would be extremely vulnerable to impact of heave work boots or even people standing on them.
Dave.
 

Martin Shaw

Western Thunderer
the missing piece in your puzzle is that Drummond was works foreman for Stroudley at Lochgorm and went with him to Brighton before joining the North British.
Steph
I don't know whether I knew that or not, in my mind I have never mentally associated Drummond with Brighton despite having read Chacksfield's biography of the Drummond brothers. Indeed chapter 2 of the book is called "Brighton Days", so I really can't pretend ignorance. In my opinion Drummond is one of the great Victorian locomotive engineers, his two failings are perhaps the water tube boiler which even both the LMS and LNER couldn't make work economically, and trying to stretch the Victorian 4-4-0 into a 20th C 4-6-0. It needed Churchward and Urie to make that happen. More thread digression, sorry Brian.
Martin
 

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Martin,

A worthy subject of conversation in my opinion. Dummond is the classic exemplar of 'a man who made no mistakes made nothing at all', plainly willing to develop new ideas and approaches in an era when the only way to do it was by trying. He so nearly cracked the British 4-6-0, can you imagine what an outside-cylinder D15 stretched into a 4-6-0 would have been capable of? Oh yeah; that'd be a King Arthur then... :D

Steph
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Dave Holt said "
Brian.
You've created a wonderful looking model. Well done.
I'm amazed that these locos had the cylinder drain pipes run on the outside of the step hangers. They would be extremely vulnerable to impact of heave work boots or even people standing on them.
Dave."

You're quite right there, Dave. In fact I was careful to check sources and all the N15s, as far as I can see, had these pipes on the outside of the steps. Even more surprisingly in a few cases the pipes had broken off and there was steam being emitted on to the step itself!

So the big posting above was going to be my last until the painted model was available, but not so..... As you fall in to the sadness of my situation please yell. This is just to demonstrate that assumptions are the mother of all **** ups and always go back to first principles.

My almost final comment was that there was a bit of snagging to do which was a bit of a surprise as I'd checked clearances at every stage of the build including ensuring that the bogie guard irons did not foul the track. I'd already reduced them to what appeared to be a decent clearance but I filed them back a bit more anyway - and moved the sand pipes to give a better clearance.

Are you ahead of me yet?

Whenever the loco stalled I gave it a bit of a wiggle which seemed to re-establish the clearances and the loco would run again.

Tried again having made some minor adjustments and it still shorted so I went to the next stage and removed the body from the chassis to give me a better view of the roundy roundy up and downy bits but despite investigating with bright lights there were no obvious clearance issues.

Are you there yet?

I then started to wonder why it only stalled on the left hand bit of my test "S" curves. If I'd had my brain in gear this would have been obvious from the start. I made a connection with crocodile clips across the fishplated join and the chassis went shooting off, straight off the end of the test track.:rant: Fortunately (as those who know me well will be aware) I'm a great and knowledgeable cricket aficionado so made a leap to my right and caught the thing at silly bugger off, or whatever it's called.

So the moral of this story is always make sure your fishplates are tight and never, ever, make assumptions without checking the bleedin' obvious first.

Brian

PS - There is actually a benefit in having the body off the chassis again. I've now fitted the final cab side gauge and also some lead inside the boiler.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20200613_150851309.jpg
    IMG_20200613_150851309.jpg
    180.5 KB · Views: 16
Top