7mm Connoisseur Models LNER N10 Tank Engine

Lawrence Boul · 4 July 2026

Rob Pulham said:
Thanks Lawrence,

Sadly although I do some 3D designing, I don't have a printer (or room to host one). Although I have a friend who does printing for me, he's not nearby, so it's not convenient as he needs to post things out to me. To make matters worse, we have just received notification from Royal Mail, that they are only going to deliver our 2nd class mail every 3 days going forward.

Prompted by this idea I had a go at printing an arbour with an M14 x 1thread to suit the Unimat3. It worked rather well and was true to the eyeball, though I don't have a DTI. The immediate thought here is a convenient holder to turn crankpins on cast wheels. I can handle a bit of tolerance on position as long as they are all the same.

Ian@StEnochs · 4 July 2026

Rob Pulham said:
Hi Ian,

I confess that I hadn't thought of turning between centres, something to consider if I need to make any bigger rings in the future. I am quite lucky in that many of the locos that I intend to make have the same boiler or smaller so my mandrel will work for all of them. The smaller ones will just need the ring tightening which I can do by hand. The N10 and no doubt most of the other tank engines only have half a boiler at the cab end so turning between centres isn't and option.

You must be much better or patient with a file than I am, my use of a mandrel was to get away from having to file (not very accurately in my case) the remaining quarter of the ring. But as ever when we start to discuss things I have just remembered that in some of my more vintage versions of kits that now reside with Gladiator there are some solid brass plain and machined tubes. While I may struggle to use these on the loco when I get to building them I realise that they would be ideal for use as mandrels

View attachment 267639

Not very clear in the photos being all brass the two that are turned actually have very nicely turned transition ring which would alleviate the need for DIY assuming of course that you can manage to attach all the boiler fittings to the heavy heat sink of a tube without melting them.

View attachment 267640

For anyone who is remotely interested, they are from the following 'kits' (left to right):

George Norton J21

07 Models N8/9 - 07 was the forerunner of some of the George Norton Range, so real ancient history.

London Road Models G5

Rob,

No lathe. A big file, 10" 2nd cut, for the bulk of the material then finished by rubbing on coarse emery cloth.

Lathe. Boiler barrel held in chuck with end supported by tailstock centre. A few light cuts with a knife tool.

If the firebox is part of the boiler then I screw a ring onto the cab end of the former and hold that in the chuck.

As most of my builds are from scratch it is easy to arrange the boilet and firebox to be seperate assemblies.

Ian.

Rob Pulham · 5 July 2026

In between messing about with the smokebox rings, I also detailed up a few of the other parts using either additions from the spares box or those that I made up from scratch.

Starting with the roof, I added the outer skin, fitted whistles from the spares box and the roof vent. The latter I attached to a strip of etch that I bent to allow the vent to be open but so that I wasn’t relying on a solder joint purely on the edge of the vent.

Then I rolled a strip of brass angle to cover the firebox to cab joint.

Then I prepared a few of the cab fittings starting with the cupboard at the back of the cab I made up a couple of door knobs

Plus a third knob for the coal space shutter.

I also fitted a brake standard from my spares box.

This is as much as can be added to the cab floor before fitting or it won’t fit past the beading in the cab openings.

Sticking with the cab I fitted the reverser and made up a mounting/fixing for it.

RichardG · 5 July 2026

Rob Pulham said:
Then I rolled a strip of brass angle to cover the firebox to cab joint.

So simple!
Please Rob, did you do this by soldering two angles together to make a Tee before rolling; or maybe another method?

Rob Pulham · 6 July 2026

RichardG said:
So simple!
Please Rob, did you do this by soldering two angles together to make a Tee before rolling; or maybe another method?

Hi Richard,

Yes, that's exactly how I did it. The strip that you see is actually the spare, which I made a bit longer than the piece that I needed for the N10. Just in case the boiler it gets used for, has a bigger diameter. It now in the bag with the spare joint rings and the mandrel.

Rob Pulham · 6 July 2026

After wrongly starting to fit a representation of single slide bar inside motion to the N10 I, resorted to drawing it up in Fusion.

Courtesy of a friend, I received the prints today and they look superb.

I couldn't resist priming a set

Then I tried test fitting it in the chassis as I expected there was a bit of rubbing down to do to ease it in but it fits perfectly.

It's not fully authentic, but it fills a gap between the frames.

Rob Pulham · 8 July 2026

Not having much time yesterday, I decided to put a top coat on a couple of the inside motion sets to see what looked like. When priming I had done the first set in light grey but the detail could barely be seen so I switched to red oxide.

With the top coats, I sprayed the grey primer with Vallejo Oily Steel (I initially tried brush painting it but that wasn’t going to work) let down with screen wash and the red primer with Vallejo Model Air Silver with a small blob of Vallejo German ‘Cammo’ Black-Brown mixed in. Both were then washed after drying with a wash of Vallejo Charred Brown.

Grey Primer

Red Primer

In fairness, the ‘Oily Steel’ coat didn’t really need much in the way of further weathering from the wash. But the Vallejo Model Air Silver was much easier to spray.

I’m going to try some further tests using a black primer.

lankytank · 8 July 2026

Rob Pulham said:
let down with screen wash

Screen wash........??? :eek:

Sorry, did I miss that lesson at air brush school.......?

Rob Pulham · 8 July 2026

lankytank said:
Screen wash........??? Sorry, did I miss that lesson at air brush school.......?

It would seem so. I read somewhere that it worked for letting down acrylic paints so I tried it. It does work with Vallejo paints or at least the stuff supplied by Mercedes does (they fill my washer bottle when I have it serviced and any that left over they leave in the car). My washer bottle seems to last a year or so in between services/fills so I have a number of part bottles.

Edited to add that there was a warning about not breathing the atomised fumes, so do wear a mask if you try it.

Dave Holt · 8 July 2026

I think both versions of the painted slide bars look equally good. Do bear in mind that the outside surfaces of inside slide bars were often painted the same colour as the inside of the frames - mainly red?
Dave.

adrian · 8 July 2026

Rob Pulham said:
With the top coats, I sprayed the grey primer with Vallejo Oily Steel (I initially tried brush painting it but that wasn’t going to work) let down with screen wash and the red primer with Vallejo Model Air Silver with a small blob of Vallejo German ‘Cammo’ Black-Brown mixed in. Both were then washed after drying with a wash of Vallejo Charred Brown.

Looking good - I was going to do the same for my Precursor tank just to fill the void. However I do like the AK true metal paste for the steel colour. It's wax based and just brush paint on, however once dry you can then polish up the "steel" surfaces with a cotton bud or similar.

Buy TRUE METAL STEEL online for 4,96€ | AK-Interactive

Buy TRUE METAL STEEL online. In addition you will find acrylic paints, brushes for modeling, pigments, oils and filters for scale modeling and the latest releases from the best model brands of the world which we offer you with the best price!

ak-interactive.com

P A D · 10 July 2026

I got mine from here. It's much cheaper than buying from the EU.

AK Interactive True Metal - Steel (20ml) AK-457

Wax-based metallic paint with high-quality pigments for steel tone. Apply by brush, fingertip, or cotton swab. Dries to a polishable metallic finish. 20ml tube.

www.scalemodelshop.co.uk

Rob Pulham · 10 July 2026

These are a little out of order but I thought continuing the discussion about the inside motion created a better flow for anyone reading this in the future.

I started by making a replacement for the upper handrail support. These are included on the etch but are quite vulnerable during handling and assembly so I managed to knock one off. I made the replacement from a strip off the nickel chassis so it’s a little more robust.

Then I moved to fitting the sand box fillers and sanding levers which I figured would be much easier to fit before I fit the boiler in place.

As it happens the sandbox filler caps were missing from my kit or at least, I haven’t found them yet. I know that Jim would have happily let me have some more but I bought the kit some time ago and it was easy enough to make some replacements.

I started with some 5mm brass bar and turned a short length to 4mm. Next, I turned a section to 3mm leaving 0.5mm at 4mm to give a step.

Repeating this, I turned a 0.9mm spigot on nth end again leaving a 0.5mm step at 3mm. Then I popped them in the spin indexer and took some off of each step to leave me a pair of flats on both the 4mm and 3mm steps. These once parted off gave me the oval sandbox filler caps.

And yes, I know that once fitted the right way up very little can be seen but I know it’s there…

Here they are fitted along with the sanding levers. I also turned some small upstands for the levers.

Those with a keen eye will also note that I filled in the back of the splashers so you can’t see the back of the wheels when looking between the frames.

I also fitted the inner tanks and filled them with strips of lead shaping it to clear the middle wheels.

adrian · 10 July 2026

P A D said:
I got mine from here. It's much cheaper than buying from the EU.

AK Interactive True Metal - Steel (20ml) AK-457

Wax-based metallic paint with high-quality pigments for steel tone. Apply by brush, fingertip, or cotton swab. Dries to a polishable metallic finish. 20ml tube.

www.scalemodelshop.co.uk

Yes I use scalemodelshop for a lot of things, the only problem is although it might be cheaper per item it ends up costing me more money as I usually end up adding other tools and gadgets into my basket!!

P A D · 10 July 2026

adrian said:
Yes I use scalemodelshop for a lot of things, the only problem is although it might be cheaper per item it ends up costing me more money as I usually end up adding other tools and gadgets into my basket!!

If you are just buying the steel paint then it's about half the price if you buy from the UK, as AK use DHL for the delivery which is relatively expensive coming from Spain. But I agree, when you find one of these "Alladins caves", you tend to loose control of the purse strings after seeing all the shiny shiny things.

Rob Pulham · 2026-07-17T10:14:41+0100

As has been mentioned plenty of times it’s the detailing that takes the time. The N10 is no exception. Some time ago I bought a number of Ramsbottom safety Valve cover castings from Gladiator (@Genghis). I have allocated one to each of my ex-NER locos. Oddly the one that I had added to the N10 box had a slightly strange double sprue fixed to the base which had I wished to fit it through the fire box would have needed quite a hole.

I find that cleaning up and making castings fit the firebox/smokebox etc that have bottom feed sprues is nigh on impossible without removing the sprue first. Or if there is a way of doing it I haven’t worked it out yet.

Mostly, I grip the casting by the sprue and drill down from the top but in the instance gripping it by the sprue wasn’t feasible. So I turned down the end of a length of brass rod so that it fit the hole in the top of the casting and soldered it in to use as a mandrel.

Then I cut off the sprue as near to the base of the casting as I could and used an end mill in the tailstock drill chuck to remove the remaining spigot to get t to sit down flush. Or as flush as the raw casting would without any additional cleaning up. From there it was a simple matter to wrap some emery cloth around the boiler and rub the casting base until a good seat was obtained.

One of my pet hates irritations is looking down model chimneys to find them blocked solid at the base. The Connoisseur chimney, although very nicely cast has a spigot on the bottom and is solid for the bottom 25% or so of the chimney. So again, I gripped the spigot in the lathe chuck and carefully drilled out the bottom of the chimney until it broke away from the base. I finished opening out the hole with drill bits turned by hand and finally an end mill held in a spare Jacobs chuck.

This is the chimney base before any cleaning up after drilling it out. It’s not going to take much effort to get it to sit flush.

A view from the top. Hollowing them out does make locating them centrally more difficult but worth the extra effort in my view.

Lawrence Boul · 2026-07-17T19:13:30+0100

Rob Pulham said:
As has been mentioned plenty of times it’s the detailing that takes the time. The N10 is no exception. Some time ago I bought a number of Ramsbottom safety Valve cover castings from Gladiator (@Genghis). I have allocated one to each of my ex-NER locos. Oddly the one that I had added to the N10 box had a slightly strange double sprue fixed to the base which had I wished to fit it through the fire box would have needed quite a hole.

View attachment 268500

I find that cleaning up and making castings fit the firebox/smokebox etc that have bottom feed sprues is nigh on impossible without removing the sprue first. Or if there is a way of doing it I haven’t worked it out yet.

Mostly, I grip the casting by the sprue and drill down from the top but in the instance gripping it by the sprue wasn’t feasible. So I turned down the end of a length of brass rod so that it fit the hole in the top of the casting and soldered it in to use as a mandrel.

View attachment 268501

Then I cut off the sprue as near to the base of the casting as I could and used an end mill in the tailstock drill chuck to remove the remaining spigot to get t to sit down flush. Or as flush as the raw casting would without any additional cleaning up. From there it was a simple matter to wrap some emery cloth around the boiler and rub the casting base until a good seat was obtained.

View attachment 268502

One of my pet hates irritations is looking down model chimneys to find them blocked solid at the base. The Connoisseur chimney, although very nicely cast has a spigot on the bottom and is solid for the bottom 25% or so of the chimney. So again, I gripped the spigot in the lathe chuck and carefully drilled out the bottom of the chimney until it broke away from the base. I finished opening out the hole with drill bits turned by hand and finally an end mill held in a spare Jacobs chuck.

View attachment 268503

This is the chimney base before any cleaning up after drilling it out. It’s not going to take much effort to get it to sit flush.

View attachment 268504

A view from the top. Hollowing them out does make locating them centrally more difficult but worth the extra effort in my view.

This won't help you at all directly

:

One of the things that I've always done is reflect on any aspect of a model that causes me problems and to engineer it out for the future if I can see a way to do that. Solid chimneys and domes are a pain to clean up, difficult to add things to (whistles/valves etc) and, in the case of chimneys, ugly. Definitely a candidate for improvement.

For many years I've sprued chimneys by the rim and domes via a spider. In both cases you get a thin wall casting that is very easy to clean up and fit fittings to if needed.

I generally turn up an acetal plug with a thread that I glue in to fit the domes, although in a larger scale it's possible to 3D print the plug including a thread for screw fixing.

I don't have a handy raw chimney casting image, but the render will give the idea. The bronze coloured bit is is the sprue, The rim is simple to clean up, the walls are thin and the flare needs virtually nothing. Only simple tools required.

Rob Pulham · 2026-07-17T22:27:19+0100

Thanks Lawrence, although I have drawn up both chimneys and domes in 3D, I have only had chimneys cast in brass.

With those the guy who did the wax print and arranged the casting, fitted the supports to the flare which made the clean up a bit more interesting. In the end I used a fly cutter to clean it up and get it to sit flush on the smokebox.

Thankfully neither of the castings for the N10 required me to resort to fly cutting to get them to seat properly but it was always an option.

Lawrence Boul · 2026-07-17T22:58:57+0100

Rob Pulham said:
Thanks Lawrence, although I have drawn up both chimneys and domes in 3D, I have only had chimneys cast in brass.

With those the guy who did the wax print and arranged the casting, fitted the supports to the flare which made the clean up a bit more interesting. In the end I used a fly cutter to clean it up and get it to sit flush on the smokebox.

Thankfully neither of the castings for the N10 required me to resort to fly cutting to get them to seat properly but it was always an option.

Back in the day I've hand made patterns and cleaned up chimneys etc. It's all doable of course, but I don't see it as essential, and it's not my favourite thing. This being a hobby, I try to make sure it's enjoyable as possible. Digital patterns and optimised spruing means time spent on cleanup and re-manufacturing is minimised and I can just build things. I can't say it's faster. My productivity over the years is low. But problem solving and getting a good result without biting my tongue off is where I get my enjoyment.

I know some people enjoy wrestling with average parts and making silk purses (all power to them), but it's not something that turns me on. But from time to time needs must all the same.

7mm Connoisseur Models LNER N10 Tank Engine

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer

Flying Squad

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer

Flying Squad

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer

Attachments

Western Thunderer

Western Thunderer