The
tender begins to take shape.
The brass sheet has been folded up and soldered. I used a 75watt soldering iron for the assembly, then a 'gentle' blowlamp to make fillets run the length of the folds underneath. Fluxite was used in quantity to ensure the brass was clean, and ordinary plumbers solder to make the joins. I also punched the rivet detail along the sides and back, using a blunt punch and piece of wood, but the definition is not too good. I think to improve on the fineness of the rivets I would need to make a jig from steel.
The bogies have been fitted as supplied. (The loco pony truck is sitting in front of the tender in this picture). The next items will be the drawbar, rear buffer beam and coupling. I need a tank filler, then some small angle fitting to hold the coal load and tool boxes. The soldering needs cleaning up in places, then it's off to the paint shop.
The gas tank and gas pressure regulator have been supplied by Cheddar as fitted to their Hercules locomotive. This tank is too long to fit across the tender, so will fit lengthways. The regulator handle will appear under a toolbox on the RHS of the tender, the gas filler on the LHS in amongst the coal. Painted black, this will be barely noticeable, however, the size of the tank means I expect it will give a very long run before it needs to be re-filled. There remains plenty of space for radio receiver and battery packs for train lighting and the radio. The switch to control the radio and auxiliary power is fitted through the floor and virtually invisible when running.
The floor of the tender is drilled to allow the flexible gas pipe and the cables for the servos and lights to the loco. These will pass below the tender front drag beam. Grommets protect the pipe and wires where they pass through the brass plate. I have dummy tank fillers and vents fitted to the tank top at the rear of the tender - these are from GRS and are whitemetal castings. The radio receiver and aerial are held to the under side of the dummy coal load in order to lift them as high as possible out of the brass box that is the tender body. This is to give the best reception for the radio.
Mock-up of the frames.
The cardboard frames have been cut from full-size drawings, pasted onto mounting board (thick card) which in this case has a grey colour on one side. In these pictures, I've assembled the frame spacers, wheels and cylinders, then laid the front and rear footplates (also card) in place.
This
has highlighted one fault - the bolt heads for the frame spacer to which the pony
truck will be fixed are fouling the bottom of the cylinders. My remedy to this
is to remove the heads from the spacer bolts, flush with the outside of the
frames. This allows the spacer to rotate and hence the pony truck to float up
and down. I haven't had to alter my plans or move the cylinders or the
pony truck.
Boiler Location.
On
delivery, the boiler is tried for size and fit on the cardboard frames and
within a paper template of the cab. This view also shows the whitemetal front
bufferbeam with L&B style cow-catcher (GRS)
Real Frames
The
real (laser cut) frames arrived on Christmas Eve 2003. Save for some draw-filing
to remove sharp edges and a little easing of the holes for the weigh-shaft
'penguin' brackets, the assembly was a bolt together operation. This has been
followed by drilling the floor plates and drilling/tapping the frame stretchers
to suit. The next operation is to get the frames painted before starting to set
up the valve gear/timing.
The First Run
The
frames, wheels, cylinders and valve gear have been set up and test run on air
from a garden sprayer bottle. This proved the operation of the chassis before
getting it all hot and was done exactly as to the supplied Roundhouse
instructions. I am pleased to report that very little tweaking was needed once
connected to the air supply - it all ran straight away. During assembly I made
sure the connecting and coupling rods were all aligned and everything was free
to rotate smoothly.
The
boiler was fitted and piped up to the cylinders via the lubricator, then the
flexible tube from the gas tank connected to the burner. Oil, water and gas was
added, the flame lit and with steam raised, 'Engineer' was mobile!
The cab is made from a sheet of 0.9mm thick brass. Several designs have been drawn and cut out of first paper, then card, paying attention not only to the size and appearance, but also to methods of fixing.
The final design was printed full size then fixed to the brass using SprayMount. A nibbler tool was used to cut the basic shape - with practice you can get right to the line and make a straight cut with this tool. The curves and holes were then drilled and filed to shape.
To
make the bends, two heavy aluminium angles were held in the vice jaws with the
brass between them, lined up with where the bend was to be. A hardwood block was
then used with a hammer to make the bends.
The
firebox is formed from a strip of brass bend around a suitably sized former, in
this case a broom handle was the correct diameter. This is then soldered to tabs
left on the front of the cab. Finally, the whitemetal frontpiece was fitted,
drilled and tapped to take three 10BA hex screws each side. These will be glued
into place at finally assembly before painting, since they are for location only
and will not need to be removed.
A hole in the firebox top fits over the rear mounting pillar on the boiler wrapper is used to hold the front of the cab in place. This will eventually be disguised as a boiler fitting. The rear of the cab is held down by two tabs, drilled through and bolted to the floor plate.
Radio Control
Two
servos have been fitted into the cab, there being insufficient room to fit them
under the floor. One servo is mounted in an L bracket, made from a brass
offcut. This is the regulator servo and is held vertically on the right hand
side of the cab, alongside the boiler. The other servo is a horizontal mount
using two 2BA bolts through the cab floor and extra nuts to enable the position
to be raised or lowered. This servo operates the reversing gear using a rod made
from a piece of small bullhead rail (see firebox picture above). A standard
servo adjuster is soldered to the cab end to facilitate setting up.
The
components have now all been painted and the loco re-assembled. I have used
Precision Paints Doncaster Green and Matt Black with my spray gun, mixing the
paint about 60/40 paint to thinners. I have used Precision Paints air drying
thinners too. First of all however, the loco was thoroughly cleaned using
cellulose thinners (in the open air -otherwise the fumes will seriously get
you!), then Precision Paints etch primer was sprayed on as per the instructions
and left a few days to work. I used several tins of Halfords car spray primers
of red and grey, depending on the top coats and left these a couple of days each
to harden too. The top coats of green and black were then applied - many thin
coats have gone on, especially of the green to get the shade and cover. I left
this for another couple of days then sprayed each part with some Halfords clear
lacquer. This has turned out to be a mistake as the lacquer has reacted badly in
some areas, especially with the transfers I had applied and hoped to protect
with the lacquer, and has bubbled under the boiler bands when I re-steamed the
engine.
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