TFW’s workshop

[Tim Watson]

After the summer recess, I’m now back up in the garret working away; also thought a new thread would keep things together. I have just made the steps for Lord President, as can be seen below:

Quite a simple job, making up a length of appropriately dimensioned n/s strip with the supporting bracket pre-bent into place. The edge protector to stop boots going the wrong way was then bent up, having filed a nick into the bracket strip. Not quite accurate, but good enough for government work. They are surprisingly large steps on an LNER eight wheel tender (or maybe we have become used to commercial models where the frames are too far apart and the steps are then narrowed).

Lord President did a bit of running on CF at our last exhibition in Peterborough. This youtube video shows it storming up through Belle Isle with 20 coaches on the back.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

Just been using the Mangle, built by the late Peter Clark to finish off two loops at the South end of CF.

We have been re-working the layout control systems, which will hopefully be operable, for our next Keen House Open Day on December 10th. The two turnouts were made by Mark Fielder and will have final installation on Sunday.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

I am now more holy than righteous (or at least Lord President will be). I have started marking up and drilling LP for handrail knobs, the ejector pipe, lamp brackets, washout plugs and mud hole doors.

http://i64.tinypic.com/2uo0wvo.jpg
Trusty calipers being used in the way they’re supposed not to.

http://i65.tinypic.com/zyh8op.jpg
The holes are centre marked with another trusty tool, a gramophone needle with the point ground to a pyramidal shape to cut a small countersink. The ejector pipe is made from 0.4mm pivot steel. The handrails will be 0.3mm, but I have currently run out and I’m awaiting stock from Cousins.

http://i63.tinypic.com/15p4yug.jpg
The wholes were drilled by hand/or drill press in the white metal. These were far harder to do accurately than I expected and quite a bit of solder filling and re-shaping of the front end was required.

http://i63.tinypic.com/11uce21.jpg
Part of this required re-marking the lines for the cods mouth doors. The originals that I had scribed weren’t quite the correct shape. A piece of insulating tape was used as a scribing guide.

http://i67.tinypic.com/146x3t.jpg
Now all I have to do is make a few lamp irons and handrail stanchions / knobs....

Tim

Not quite sure why the images are not appearing directly.

 

[daifly]

Not quite sure why the images are not appearing directly.

It’s because you have added links to photos rather than uploading the photos themselves. Use the ‘ upload a file’ option and add the photos as full images not thumbnails.
Dave

 

[Tim Watson]

I am now more holy than righteous (or at least Lord President will be). I have started marking up and drilling LP for handrail knobs, the ejector pipe, lamp brackets, washout plugs and mud hole doors.

Trusty calipers being used in the way they’re supposed not to.

The holes are centre marked with another trusty tool, a gramophone needle with the point ground to a pyramidal shape to cut a small countersink. The ejector pipe is made from 0.4mm pivot steel. The handrails will be 0.3mm, but I have currently run out and I’m awaiting stock from Cousins.

The wholes were drilled by hand/or drill press in the white metal. These were far harder to do accurately than I expected and quite a bit of solder filling and re-shaping of the front end was required.

Part of this required re-marking the lines for the cods mouth doors. The originals that I had scribed weren’t quite the correct shape. A piece of insulating tape was used as a scribing guide.

Now all I have to do is make a few lamp irons and handrail stanchions / knobs....

Tim

 

[adrian]

It’s because you have added links to photos rather than uploading the photos themselves. Use the ‘ upload a file’ option and add the photos as full images not thumbnails.

Although that is the easiest way to guarantee results it's not strictly true - the forum will hot link to images on other sites which is why we had all the palaver when photobucket changed their terms and conditions.

If you use the image button in the editor you can add the link to an external image. In the post where the images don't show they were enclosed by [ URL ] tags whereas the ones that do display are enclosed by [ IMG ] tags which is what you get with the image button. I hope that helps.

 

[daifly]

Although that is the easiest way to guarantee results it's not strictly true - the forum will hot link to images on other sites which is why we had all the palaver when photobucket changed their terms and conditions.

Which is why I would prefer people to upload directly to the forum. Another problem arises when someone spring cleans or reorganises their linked albums and the usefulness of a thread is destroyed instantly.
Dave

 

[Heather Kay]

Which is why I would prefer people to upload directly to the forum. Another problem arises when someone spring cleans or reorganises their linked albums and the usefulness of a thread is destroyed instantly.

Or when a picture hosting provider moves the goalposts. I often spend time researching builds, and looking at how other modellers have tackled a certain kit. Since the Photobucket debacle so many potentially useful forum threads are now pointless digital noise.

 

[Tim Watson]

Third Copenhagen tunnel & lines under construction. Can you spot the contractor’s loco?

 

[mth]

That looks alot better than the lump of concrete that's there now

 

[Chris Veitch]

Or when a picture hosting provider moves the goalposts. I often spend time researching builds, and looking at how other modellers have tackled a certain kit. Since the Photobucket debacle so many potentially useful forum threads are now pointless digital noise.

It's a bit of a digression from the OP but it's worth noting (for those who don't know already) that there's a Chrome extension which circumvents the Photobucket charging issue. No doubt Photobucket will block this - I think it's been done once already - but it should rejuvenate broken threads for now.

 

[Tim Watson]

Well, forty 0.5mm holes later, Lord President is ready for a load of fittings. The handrail stanchions will be epoxied into place on the boiler, as it is solid gun metal. The four washout plugs at the top of the boiler are simply dimples, whilst the three mud hole doors in the Wooten firebox are drilled depressions and then carved to make the oval shape with a scalpel. These are slightly small, compared to full size and do not have any raised detail. They are to be lined out with a white and black line, whence they will be the correct size. Lining out is monstrously difficult to do around raised details. In 2mm scale it is better to simplify details to aid painting. Less is more...

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

Lamp irons are little beasts that are always vulnerable and need to be well attached. I normally drill a 0.5 mm hole to locate the irons.

They are made from 0.5 mm wide nickel silver strip.

The strip is bent back on itself leaving a small piece visible, which will be the future lamp support base.

The long arm of the strip is then bent at ninety degrees to make the upright lamp support.

This is then tinned and soldered where the material is double thickness and then the long arm cut to length for the upright.

A few strokes with a file and the lamp iron can be put in the hole and with a bit of flux and a fairly dry iron sweated into place.

Final trimming (the lamp base is a touch too long) and fettling can be done when all four are in place, to ensure consistency.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

Lamp irons crossed off the list now.

The front end of a Gresley streamliner is a very subtle collection of shapes. I am pretty well content that Lord President is about right. Whilst LP started off as a Phil Kerr white metal casting, there is absolutely nothing left of the original shape.

All the front end needs to be complete now is a whistle which will, of course, be made of a non-tarnishing alloy.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

There is quite a lot going on in the front truck of a P2; but one of their weak links (pun intended). The pony has been modelled with the bearing splashers and stretchers: very characteristic of a Gresley engine. Not sure how long the small guard irons will last in the hurly burly of an exhibition layout.

The cylinder drain cock pipes will need to be made. These will probably be made of phosphor bronze wire, silver soldered together at the front where they run together and then soft soldered to the main guard irons and plugged in to the cylinders, which have both been made electrically live to the relevant chassis side to avoid any electrical shorts. The real thing is attached to the front guard irons, with massive side clearance allowed for the swing of the pony truck. I have built in potential for a side control spring for the pony, which may be helpful. It currently relies on significant weight for road holding as it is made of solid copper tungsten alloy, gapped electrically for spilt frames with epoxy resin. Not sure where the drains for the centre cylinder exited (A4s have three pipes at the front), but I won’t loose too much sleep over that one.

Tim

 

[Tim Watson]

Took a bit of a diversion today from the front end to the rear end of LP. I have now acquired the 0.3mm pivot steel for the handrails so started making the knobs for the tender. The technique I use is the split pin method, as it will generally produce a nearer scale representation than a turning in 2mm scale. I think the originator of this particular ruse for making them was the great Pete Wright. The starting point was some 8thou by 0.3mm nickel silver strip which was bent into a hook. The ‘jig’ was simply a piece of steel about 3mm thick with a 0.5mm hole drilled in it whilst the knob was formed around some 0.25mm stainless steel syringe needle (actually a dental syringe needle - the white nylon hub is visible in the picture).

The two ends of the n/s strip were threaded through the plate and the loop pulled on to the syringe needle by a pair of plyers below the steel plate: rather like garrotting it.

The plyers were used to nip up the loop around the stainless steel syringe.

The split pin was then tinned with a generous amount of solder. It could not, of course, stick to the stainless steel.

The same needle was used to locate the stanchions in the 0.5mm diameter holes already drilled in the body work. These were then sweated into place with plenty of liquid flux (a little bit too generous with the solder here!).

After cleaning up the pivot steel can be slipped into the holes, which being formed around a fractionally smaller rod give a firm grip on the definitive handrail. The advantage of this is that it is black, dead straight and can be put in place after painting, which makes lining out a lot easier. The photos are a little blurred, but I think quite an amazing testimony to a phone camera held single handed!

Tim

 

[jonte]

All simply, Wow!!

 

[iak63]

Staggeringly good stuff.
Whoooosh!

 

[Tim Watson]

Cab doors and fall plates help to make a tender engine look ‘joined-up’. In theory that should pivot, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon in 2mm scale. Some sheets in the correct place do help however. On the big Gresley engines the cab doors are in two pieces, but just one will suffice. The doors and the fall plate were simply soldered to the cab and backhead/interior casting. Hopefully, with careful trimming, they should clear the tender on our 600 mm radius curves, although engines do funny things on layouts....

The cab details are significantly simplified, but they are nigh on invisible, especially with the weather tarpaulin in place. Suppose I’ll need to get a suitable crew sooner or later.

Tim

 

[farnetti]

Brilliant modelling as always. Could you post a photo of your Midland Baldwin, I watched you building it in the 1980's but have never seen it finshed.

Ta, Ken