7mm Shelf Queen Rescue - LSWR M7

[Railwaymaniac]

As the Admins requested, and in the spirit of . . . well, spirit . . . I have now dumped my previous interest bubble and forced a new one to take it's place.

The back story here is that I bought a kit of the LSWR M7 loco from Martin Finney ( ) at Telford in 2010, and spent 15 months building it.

Then my interest bubble burst and I put the unfinished kit on a shelf.
Here's some pix of how it looked when I took it off the shelf again today. . . . .

 

[taliesin]

A lovely prototype, full of character and well worth finishing i would have thought , cheers Rob

 

[Railwaymaniac]

So what is there still to do here?

On the upperworks, not a lot.
Buffers
Lamp irons
Steam pipes
And that's about it. (Unless you can help by pointing out what I've missed???)

If we remove the body, the chassis looks like this


Martin's finest, and all in nickel silver . . .

It needs a motor (I have an RG7 primed and ready to go in here), pickups need to be added, the wiring needs to be done, and the front guard irons need forming.

 

[Cliff Williams]

RG7s are a bit whiny in comparison to modern stuff - maybe a rethink to something else?
Plus they are a bit of a mare to set up on DCC should you ever need to go down that path.
Drop in an ABC gearbox with Maxon motor and you will be most pleased!
Looks a nice model though.
I have a few shelf queens too, but slowly doing bits n bobs to them as I go!

 

[Railwaymaniac]

In the finest WT scattergun tradition I have also assembled the backhead for this loco. My enthusiasm and knowledge from three years ago was limited, I satisfied myself with the thought that most of this won't be visible when the crew is in there and the roof is fitted . . .
(and right now I wish I knew how to drive Irfanview a little better. Bear with me here . . .)

 

[Railwaymaniac]

Brakes. I just knew that there was something else to go on the body. Brakes.

Brakes and sandpipes. Yes.

And (eventually) some coal in the tender - but that's after the painting project, the lining-out project and the weathering & DCC projects. . .
Oh, dear.

 

[Steve Cook]

Cheer up, what a great journey to embark on

Its a lovely model of a lovely prototype (I have one of these to do, it was the 'Finney' on my bucket list) - how have you found the build so far?
Steve

 

[Steph Dale]

Ian,
I built one of these in P4 about 15 years ago. Such a lovely kit, it took me all of a week to do it was so straightforward.
C'Mon, Let's see it finished!
Steph

 

[Railwaymaniac]

Rob (taliesin) - I agree, I'm going to try hard to finish the thing over the next while. . .

Cliff - thanks for that. I chance to have a Maxon (Canon?) motor + gearbox combo lying around. It is supposed to be earmarked for an 'N' that is another Shelf Queen of mine, but perhaps I'll try it in my M7 instead.
I understand where you are coming from, saying that the RG7 is a bit 'old hat' these days, but as the kit called for it, so I was prepared to fit it. Advice and alternative suggestions are always welcome .

Steve - the build was not too bad. Rolling my boiler was interesting, but fortunately Mr Finney provided me with a spare boiler in the kit (the other type of boiler, yes?. .) which I used as a practice go, and a friend loaned me a set of rolling bars.
The chassis that I have runs like oiled silk - I used the 'pair of long rods and a piece of graph paper' method to get the wheels straight and square, and it all seems to have stood the test of time with Mr. F.'s hornblocks.
In fact, looking over the loco over the last couple of days, I actually can't see what I did wrong on there - Although this is more a testament to the kit designer than my building skills!

Steph - 'Let's see it finished' - be gentle with me here, please? . . This was (and still is (D'oh!)) my first serious kettle build.
I totally agree that it' a lovely kit to build, but I stand in awe of the 'week to build' bit! I think it took me a week just to identify most of the parts in the kit . . . . - It took me an absolute age to figure out why there were three sets of chassis spacers supplied in the kit but only two were mentioned in the text.
My other loco builds were (and still are) diseasels, I'm supposed to be the one who likes post-1950s industrial layouts, this did not exactly help when it came to a mainline steam loco.
And as with IanG, this is supposed to be a piece of rolling stock for the club layout 'Okehampton', it (like the layout) is just a little delayed. The notes that I made at the time, telling me what is left to do, were made exactly two years ago to the day!
I suppose my problem here is that I so rarely finish anything that I have trouble accepting that I've done everything that needs doing before the painting stage. I need to think about these things, and then I need to nerve myself up for the painting and wait for a fine, windless day .

Ian

 

[Ian G]

Its good to see this loco out of the spare bedroom Ian, I am sure you can finish it this year

Ian G

 

[Cliff Williams]

Ian I would suggest you speak to Brian Clapperton at ABC (or Karen) and tell them "Finney M7 O gauge, was to be RG7, please make me a top whack alternative" and the rest will happen by magic in a few weeks. You just write some numbers on a bit of paper and jobs a good 'un!
Works for me.

 

[Railwaymaniac]

Cliff

Interesting thought! It's a bit late tonight to go phoning people, I'll give this a go tomorrow and see what happens. . .

thanks

Ian

 

[Railwaymaniac]

O.K.
I've now remembered why this loco turned into a shelf queen.

It seems that the compensation isn't working quite right.
On three of the four corners the bearing bush goes up and down in the hornguide just nicely, but this pic shows the fourth corner where the bush doesn't go far enough up.
What I'm trying to say here is that I think the compensation beam has cusps on it that are interfering to hold the bush off from where it should go.
(actually, the chassis was upside-down when I took the photo - the bush isn't going far enough down in the photo)

(And 'sorry' that it's a little blurry, but you get the idea)

As I can't take the compensation apart on this loco (it is all sealed in behind the frame overlays) I think that the only way to fix this is to mill some metal off the lower face of the bearing so that the whole thing sits lower in the slot and down against the comp beam. I have a friend with a milling machine, I'll visit him tomorrow evening.

Unless, of course, anyone else has seen this before and has an alternative suggestion?

Ian

 

[Steph Dale]

Ian,
I wouldn't mill the bearings as you'll alter the ride height (and it's correct from my experience).
Can you provide me a shot of the beam and bearings on that side from inside the frame, please? It's worth checking that the issue with that bearing moving up isn't caused by the compensation beam failing to rock correctly - and the most likely obstruction is going to be the bearing/guide on the other end of it...
Steph

 

[Railwaymaniac]

So I visited the '0'-gauge show in Bristol (good day . . . good to meet other WT-ers ) and took my M7 along for a friend to have a look at.

His response was 'J-D-I' - Just Do It - as in just finish the thing. So I will.

(Actually, his response was 'J-F-D-I', as in 'R-T-F-M' but I suppose that I should keep this conversation clear of swear words, right?)

I'm working on the brakes.
The simple solution is to solder them in place, and have no trouble ever after. Except taking the wheels off. . .
But I like the idea of making them removable, as described in numerous places. Specifically, as described by John Edwards in his article 'Distracted by a Drummond or two' in MRJ No 136.


The idea is to make up the brakes into a 'cradle' that has the brake blocks spring onto the brake pivot wires, with spacers on the wires to hold everything in place.
Here we have the brake blocks for the rear drivers in place and the pull shaft disappearing off to the right. The holes in the rods to the extreme left are where the front cross shaft and brake blocks go.

Ian

 

[Steph Dale]

Ian,
Take your time with that and it'll be well worth the effort. On my 4mm scale M7 I allowed a slot in the brake fulcrum (under the cab) so that the assembly was completely removable.
If you're not sure how long to cut the tube to fit over the brake pivot wires you could use fine wire (I used 5A fusewire) to wrap the pivot wires; put more turns on to increase the spacing, take turns off to decrease the spacing. When you've got it right remove the brake shoe/pullrod assembly, hold the wire taught, use loads of flux and touch with a hot iron and small blob of solder and you're done.
Steph

 

[Railwaymaniac]

Thanks Steph

That idea of using 5A fuse wire is a good one.
I actually used some 1.6mm tube, it had a 0.8mm hole up the middle and I was filing the little pieces of tube down to the desired length.

This is the brakes as of right now, you can see the 0.8mm holes that the whole cradle is suspended from


And "Your wish is my command . . ."
Here's a shot of the brake fulcrum, complete with slot cut into it so that the little 'tang' at the top will rest on the brake fulcrum cross rod and not move when installed.



Ian

 

[Steph Dale]

Ian,
Neat. Well done that man.
Steph

 

[Railwaymaniac]

So, After an exchange of emails (and, eventually, cash) Mr C. has now delivered his best.
And very good it is, too.

Here's a few shots of the chassis with the new motor/gearbox combo fitted.....













The last shot has a certain .. .. .. eagerness? .. .. .. power? .. .. .. about it, I think?

Next is going to be the rear bogie, now that the brakes have been sorted.
Mr Finney has a whole paragraph devoted to this, so it is probably (a) important and (b) difficult. Let's see what happens here.

Ian

 

[Steph Dale]

Rear bogie looks/looked good to me Ian, what needs doing to it?
And yes, the chassis is coming together well. Nice to see you made best use of that Escap!
Steph