7mm On Heather's Workbench - a rebuilt Scot

[Heather Kay]

I spent most of this afternoon fretting away at the front end. What a palaver. Here we are with a test fitting of the frames and the boiler casting.



Well, it's done now. It's all made up of various overlays and interlocking bits and bobs. I have started thinking about the smoke deflectors, and the various steps and other fittings. I'm a bit apprehensive about it, if I'm honest. It's the "face" of the loco, and getting it all square and well fitting will make or break the model. Anyway, the cradle had to come off as I need to get under the valence to drill some holes through.

A job for tomorrow.

 

[Heather Kay]

Sometimes you have to just get on with things. I wasn't particularly looking forward to the deflectors, for several reasons. The subtly characteristic curves, finding the relevant bracketry on the etched frets, and how to make them removable for painting, should the need arise.

Well, they're not perfect, but I think they'll do.

The deflectors are made of two main etched parts: the larger upper section, with a smaller infill section for the step. The handholds are backed by brass cast cups, and the various brackets and stitching plates are added as you work. Luckily, I have a nice clear photo of 46134 of the right period, so I could check where the various curves were on the proper loco. Gentle finger pressure over rods of various diameters gave me a satisfactory shape. First hurdle crossed.

Next, I soldered the cups in place. Then joining the two parts with a half-etched plate, as the real thing has. I worked out by eye the location of the hand grab rail, which not all locos had, and marked up and drilled for some wire to be fitted later. Now, how to fit the brackets.



The instructions make reference to using 16BA bolts as an option. I thought that even such tiny bolts would be a little obtrusive. I carefully, or so I thought, drilled out the holes in the footplate, which have helpful oversize holes already in the sub-structure to follow. Aligning the etched brackets, still in the flat at this stage, with the rivets in the outer face, I zapped with the RSU. Once happy with the alignment, I carefully bent them through 90°. Meanwhile, I had soldered some 0.7mm wire into the footplate holes, trimmed and dressed back neatly, to act as location pegs.

Well, it worked. The peg on the front step for the fireman's side, though, was a little off, which meant the deflector was on the squiff. I opted to make the bracket hole a little larger to counteract it. The lower part of the deflector should be vertical, with the upper part springing out to follow the curve of the smokebox.

Anyway, some cleaning up and fettling, and I think I'm okay with how it turned out. The boiler handrail brackets, and the smokebox support bracket, will have to wait until the boiler casting is fitted.

After a week on this, I think I've made some reasonable progress. There is still a lot of kit to get through, mind.

 

[Peter Cross]

I will be borrowing the solder peg to the footplate idea. I would of done it with the peg on the brackets.

 

[Heather Kay]

I'm not really enjoying this build much at the moment.



Today was one of fits and starts. For various reasons I found my temper was on a short fuse, and no matter what I did I ended up swearing at things. Take fitting buffer housings, for example. The castings from JLTRT were actually quite clean and straight. The first job I had to do was drill through the smaller aperture to accept the steel shanks. Next, ream out the holes in the front drawbar. Simple job to solder the castings in place.

Not.

At one point the drawbar laminates came away. So I took a short sabbatical from the bench. Upon return, I cleaned it all up and refitted things, then had another go at the buffers. They now only look like Marty Feldman's eyeballs from one particular angle…

So, to the t'other end.



I'm sure I'm missing something obvious about sweating overlays on. In the traditional JLTRT fashion, a basic shell is formed up, and front and sides overlays affixed later. I elected to make up the shell, with the cab floor, and then fit it to the frames. The overlays were then carefully attached with the RSU, concentrating solder on both surfaces but around apertures and edges.

Rear cab window beading exercised the noggin, but it wasn't too bad in the end. As a final kludge, I fitted the handrails. The instructions recommend a common or garden handrail knob at the base. The handrail would take an interesting route if I did, so I made my own from half-round brass wire bent round the 0.8mm NS wire handrail and soldered into the cab. It's just as well you'd never see both handrails together, because they're not quite the same alignment. They are vertical, but that's about it. It'll have to do.

If my constitution can face it, I'll tackle the internal fittings tomorrow.

 

[oldravendale]

I'm not really enjoying this build much at the moment.

Oh!....... I have one of these to build, complete with super detailing kit and AH wheels (one day, that is, when the conversion of our cottage in to a suitable manorial establishment is complete - my beautiful new workshop sits unused and thinks it's unloved too).

I was actually quite looking forward to it........

Brian

 

[Heather Kay]

Brian, don't be put off. I've seen this kit - even this particular loco - built up into splendid models. What you're seeing is my hamfistedness combining with a general malaise lurking around the place.

That said, I've definitely fallen out of love with this kit - for the time being.

I started the day soldering up some cab fittings. The fireman's perch, the reverser cabinet and a natty little etched variant on the cast flip-up seats that come in JLTRT GWR kits. I got the various parts to fit relatively neatly within the confines of the cab, so things were looking up.

Then I tried the backhead casting. Hmm. The reverser cabinet takes up some of the space, and the backhead wouldn't fit where it ought. Looking back, a pattern was beginning to develop.



After generating quite a bit of whitemetal dust, I had created a mild recess for the reverser to slot into on the side of the backhead. It's NOTHING like the real thing, but… it won't show. Rather like the photo, in fact! Anyway, happy with that butchery, and having topped up my lead content, I played about a bit with cleaning up some dodgy soldering around the frames. This is where my use of low melt solder to "temporarily" fix the axleboxes and springs came back to bite me. One axle box came adrift.

Out with the jig again, and some deft soldering later and I was more or less back at square one.

Having fixed the cab to the running plate, it sort of made sense to turn attention to sorting out the attachment of the boiler casting. There's a whitemetal saddle casting, through which one or more 10BA countersunk bolts can pass, and into the general mix an 8BA bolt is used to also hold the cylinders on. Dimples on the bottom of the smokebox indicated where to drill and tap for the bolts. At the other end, three holes in the cab front plate show where more holes can be drilled and tapped into the firebox. You can sort of see why I opted to allow the smoke deflectors to be removable, as I suspect the boiler won't come adrift so easily down the line.

So, I marked, drilled and tapped three holes into the firebox. Somehow, and don't ask me how, the holes went awry, and the whole boiler was on the squiff. I wondered why the smokebox saddle didn't want to sit in the right place, being sort of pulled off to one side. Do you see the pattern yet?

I'll have to make new holes, as I can't reuse the old ones. Bah!

What about that saddle, then?



There are two holes through the running plate. The larger one is for the cylinder assembly fixing bolt, the smaller for fixing the running plate to the smokebox. Only nine of them line up. Having fitted the saddle to the smokebox with one screw, it seems to align well enough - sort of - with the moulded detail, but seems to be set back on the running plate.



I'll need to consult the drawings to check where it should be. Even allowing for it being invisible behind the deflectors, there's a slightly yawning gap at the front with half-etch numbers and stuff on it. No obvious signs of anything to cover it later, either.

So, at this point, I decided to give the gremlins the rest of the day off. It's all back in its box, and it may be a while before it reappears again.

I might request a replacement boiler from JLTRT. It might be better to start again rather than keep peppering the current one with holes!

 

[Len Cattley]

Hi Heather, I have a boiler you could have if you need it?