7mm Dikitriki's Dark side: A WD 2-8-0

mickoo

Western Thunderer
I recall an article in BRILL - 'Surface Raiders' - does that ring a bell Mick?
It does LOL and there a few others around Kentish Town I think, BRILL often has close up detail shots smattered around and as small (relative) a class as these are, they seem popular with photographers. Then theres BackTrack and Steam Days to go through as well, though those collections are not complete, unlike BRILL where I've just got my last four issues to complete the whole collection from the first publication to the current one.

Flickr turned up quite a few, but there your dependent on people adding relevant tags or names to their images, often it's up as 1mg000456 or dsc04523, no hope of finding them in a search, I did find another three sites last night with BR steam to wade through and explore, so that's another 3-4000 photos to look and save if they're good enough, on top of the 500 or so ER / LMR ones I got last month that still all need sorting into their relevant folders, and! the 1000 plus US photos collected ready for sorting.
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi

I had some very nice couplings arrive from Laurie Griffin. The Fowler couplings have a bar and two drop arms for the top link rather than the more usual loop, and a couple of evenings were spent assembling them.

P1010373.JPG

P1010374.JPG

However, the buffer beams were rather devoid of detail in this area; so I had to scratchbuild a pair of coupling pockets.

Blank piece of 10 thou brass

P1010372.JPG

Two horizontals soldered on:

P1010376.JPG

Two verticals added:

P1010377.JPG

Cleaned up, hole drilled and filed for the coupling, and 4 rivets at the top. Ready to instal.

P1010379.JPG

Apart from adding detail, the existing hole in the buffer beam for the coupling was far too big, so this resizes it nicely.

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Thanks Guys,

Coal Rails were provided as a fold round etch. The horizontals were a bit ragged and the verticals were in the wrong place. I tried chopping it into bits, but that was a non-starter - far easier and neater to make my own the old-fashioned way. Angle in each of the corners, 4 uprights from nickel-silver strip and 6 pieces of strip for the horizontals. Just as quick and no faffing around with poor etches.

P1010382a.jpg

You can see on the above that I have also completed the cabside beading - glad that's done.

P1010386a.jpg

I have also done the first of the breather pipes, with a small clip to the top. These were in fact provided as castings and were pretty accurate.

P1010383a.jpg

P1010385a.jpg

Most of the detail on the rear of the bunker has been done - only the protective shield above the vac pipe to do.

Cheers,

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi

I mentioned that I had a gap at the smokebox/front frame join. It's not provided in the kit, but a close examination of pictures shows a plate over the lower part of the smokebox front. This is wider than the smokebox, and tapers in at the top, as this crop illustrating the point shows:

smokebox plate.jpg

It didn't take much to fashion such a piece, and with a couple of tiny squares of strip soldered to the back of the drop footplate/smokebox join, all traces of the see-through gap have gone.

P1010389a.jpg

Now to see if I can find my Rebuilt Scot and a chip to do the necessary prior to tonight's running session.

Cheers

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi,

I had to put the Fowler down for a period as I was awaiting delivery of some bits from Laurie Griffin. They arrived, and part was sent back as a reject casting, so a further delay. All is now well - Laurie exchanged the reject without any fuss - but in the meantime I have found, chipped and played with the Royal Scot, and picked up the crab again after a couple of years. I am being nagged to get the crab finished as a signature loco for Heyside ... or indeed any ex L&Y area. So I shall persevere with the crab for a bit as it is all on the workbench.

First the Scot:

P1010393a.jpg
It's fitted with a Crailcrest, is heavy smooth and powerful, and in truth is not far from completion, although that is not on the immediate horizon.

The crab. This started out as an Ebay purchase, well-built and painted. I was just going to upgrade the loco chassis, but one thing led to another, out came the blowtorch.....well you can see where this is going.

So, here is the current state of play:

P1010449a.jpg

P1010452a.jpg
I'm working my way round upgrading all the detail, and, again, not too far off now, though I don't yet have a number for it. The tender was one that came from my basket case Patriot - remember that? The original crab tender will eventually run behind the Patriot. They are identical Chowbent tenders.

Richard
 
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demu1037

Western Thunderer
Hi,

I had to put the Fowler down for a period as I was awaiting delivery of some bits from Laurie Griffin. They arrived, and part was sent back as a reject casting, so a further delay. All is now well - Laurie exchanged the reject without any fuss - but in the meantime I have found, chipped and played with the Royal Scot, and picked up the crab again after a couple of years. I am being nagged to get the crab finished as a signature loco for Heyside ... or indeed any ex L&Y area. So I shall persevere with the crab for a bit as it is all on the workbench.

First the Scot:

View attachment 43143
It's fitted with a Crailcrest, is heavy smooth and powerful, and in truth is not far from completion, although that is not on the immediate horizon.

The crab. This started out as an Ebay purchase, well-built and painted. I was just going to upgrade the loco chassis, but one thing led to another, out came the blowtorch.....well you can see where this is going.

So, here is the current state of play:

View attachment 43144

View attachment 43145
I'm working my way round upgrading all the detail, and, again, not too far off now, though I don't yet have a number for it. The tender was one that came from my basket case Patriot - remember that? The original crab tender will eventually run behind the Patriot. They are identical Chowbent tenders.

Richard

With that tender, I'd go for one of 13235-244 batch - unless you have a picture!

Andy
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
With that tender, I'd go for one of 13235-244 batch - unless you have a picture!

Andy

Hi Andy,

I'll have to dig a bit. I think the front frames differed (from memory, my loco has the shorter frames - and the solid slidebar step, but it's a long time since I read the tomes), so I might have done my usual trick of building a loco that never existed:(

I do have a non-riveted tender if I run into difficulties, but that needs stripping. Oh well!.

Richard
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Hi,

Well, I have found a few pictures of crabs in the configuration I have built with a riveted tender, even ones around Manchester, so that's OK....except that they are all AWS fitted .... another thing to do. However, Ragstone produce the necessary bits (arrived today, thanks, Andy) so I can motor on.

Over the last couple of evening, I have been working on the exhaust steam injector. As always, the castings you can buy are never quite right, particularly for a crab where the injector is at 45 degrees to the frames and some pipes are relocated.

I have cut off flanges, moved a couple of pipes from front to back and vice-versa, added a bit of detail etc. I have now got it ready to fit - there are 13 separate bits in the revised injector, all attached with a microflame, and fortunately, nothing dropped off while I was adding further bits.

P1010461a.jpg

P1010462.JPG

I was not really looking forward to this work, both from a point of view of being confident I knew what went where, and then actually doing it. I guess one more session will see it mounted and the pipes fitted.

Richard
 
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