7mm Finney7 5972 Olton Hall ( aka )

[7mmMick]

Ok so I’ve moved on somewhat from the last update and due to some home PC issues I’m having to work solely from my iPhone for updates and photos so apologies for the poor quality pics The tender is now complete all but a couple of tiny cast parts which I’ll mop up as and when. The one thing I really don’t like about the tender construction is that the wheels are permanently trapped ! I’m not happy with that at all so I thought of a couple of ways to overcome this. In the end I settled for brass tube on the centre frame and outside frame plates. A female and male section soldered to each and the male tapped 10Ba to accept a screw with a washer to hold in place. If I remember the centre section is 3/32 and the out 1/8?? Anyway this meant that I’ve been able to assemble and reassemble to my hearts content here. Pictures hopefully paint the picture;


The securing screws aren’t fitted in the assembled pictures but you can see the black holes where they should be. Next was the footplate, which is straight forward;
Then onto the tender tank. The tank wrapper and all the top coal space surrounds take sometime to get sorted and are a real fiddle at times but it really does look the part. Welded lamp irons are fitted as per the prototype;

And finally a couple of the complete tender on its wheel sets;

photo limit reached so onto another post.....

 

[7mmMick]

I’ve also been cracking on with the loco itself, which to date has been straight forward. The footplate is the usual Finney number of laminations and once together capture all the blot head and river detail and make for a strong assembly;


Then the dreaded firebox! Luckily I’ve got some brass bar that I got free with a Javlin Black 5 years ago and this came in really handy for the firebox construction. The secret here was to just take it steady. Once the wrapper is on I got a good photo of Pitchford Hall and rounded the top corners and crown area, first with files and then wet and dry, getting progressively finer with the grades. Final polish was with some 1200 grit
The boiler and smoke box are rolled and soldered to N/S formers and are screws together with a 6Ba Bolt so that final adjustments can be made once fitted to the footplate. The boiler firebox joint is two 0.8mm wire pegs to ensure accurate alignment;

And things sat together loosely for now

I’ve also built the bogie and made a good start on the frames, more to follow soon;

 

[7mmMick]

Recent weather has meant that photography of progress of the frames has been almost impossible, so that coupled with the fact that I didn’t take any early photographs of the frames sees the first pictures (taken in a very brief sunny spell today) of the frames well advanced. The construction follows the usual Finney method of compensation beams and front rocking axle. The beams needed some adjusting to make sure they assembly sat level. I also found that the front frame profile around the leading bogie wheel needs adjusting to allow the front wheel to pass just underneath the frame on a 6ft radius curve. This probably wouldn’t be required if you used the smallest frame spacers, but I went for the middle option. One important note is the heavy modification to the front area of the frames to accommodate the ATC shoe bracket, which mounts of the rear of the front buffer beam.


I’ve struggled to find any pictures of the exhaust steam injector assembly so have just followed the instructions, hoping that they’re prototypical. The live steam injector is modelled from pictures online of Hinderton Hall at Didcot. I’ve also used a couple of little brackets to carry the top feed pipes as they will be vulnerable if not secured. These don’t come in the kit per say but because of the different bogie size options there’s more than enough brackets and straps left over to chop up and make what you need;




The brake gear is also assembled and as the instructions advise I have made this removable. It just sprags slightly and is removed. This lot takes some time as it’s all laminations but does make up into a convincing representation;


This evening is CPL crank pins and sanding pipes

Mick

 

[7mmMick]

So the cylinders are finished, well apart from the valve rods. These cylinders are really a test build for the new Finney7 cylinder upgrade. They have the correct profile slide bars instead of just flat etch and also now have the cut out at the rear for the connecting rod as per the prototype. The stuffing glad is represented by a really neat etch and the motion bracket is beefed up a little. The cylinder rod is also larger and more convincing. On the whole I think they look much better. There’s also a cast crosshead being developed which will finish off the upgrade;

The cylinder taps and control rodding is fiddle but represents the prototype really well;