Winner !

At the Double O Gauge Association AGT last weekend I scored another win in the kitbuilt and scratchbuilt locomotive section. By a small margin my ex-GWR 1361 class took the prize.

It also managed a run on a real live layout with points and crossing and everything. Even this went well with people being impressed with the way it operated. Sadly the layout was wired back to front so the direction switch on the controller was the wrong way round (a minor issue). It was shocking to discover Bachmann are also wiring their locos up the opposite way to me. Why am I the only person in the whole world who can get this sort of thing right ?

1361 - Finished

1361 finished
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

OK, so the blog has been a bit behind. Yesterday this model locomotive was ready for paint, now it's done. This wasn't down to an overnight miracle, just my writing catching up.

The primer coat looked pretty good when applied. There were a few small areas that needed a touch of filler but nothing much. I did plan a pretty heavy weathering job so the finished didn't need to be perfect.

When I went for the black paint my Humbrol tin was beyond saving but I found a pot of Railmatch coal black. I don't remember buying this but as it was on the shelf and liquid (one I broke into the bottle - the cap had sealed itself on and needed pliers to remove) I decided to experiment.

The paint sprayed OK, perhaps a little less thinners were needed than normal but there wasn't much in it. Coverage was excellent and the finish OK once I'd built up enough depth of colour. Coal black is slightly glossy - I hoped this would let the decals sit better than on a matt surface.

Transfers were a mixed bag from my transfers stocks. I think the "British Railways" are waterslide and the numbers Presfix. The loco actually ran with its GWR numberplates so one day I'll get hold of a set but for the minute, this will do.

Finally the model saw a lot of thinned dirty colours. First up was rust which went well right up until the end of the paint cup and then nearly all the pigment shot out over the front. Spraying thinners on didn't diminish the effect but it wasn't entirely unrealistic and subsequent coats of dark brown and grey hid the problem. I even blew a coal black/grey mix along the top to give a smoke residue. The real locomotive was absolutely filty as far as I can tell from photographs. Since it's only a Great Western Railway engine, I didn't think the crew would bother cleaning it much either. :-)

If there is a problem it's that the paint dried very quickly and leaves a slightly textured effect which is probably more appropriate to a 7mm scale model rather than 4mm. Perhaps this is an area where enamel rather than cellulose thinners would be better. The later flash off so fast, which is why I use them, that the paint doesn't get change to spread.

Anyway, glazing (Krystal Klear) a crew (Langley) and some coal (from the coal merchant) in the bunker finished the job.

The end result looks pretty good to me. If you compare it to the original as I bought it, then the work has made a big improvement. After some careful lubrication and a session on the rolling road I've ended up with a nice runner too. In fact at least half an hour was spent later yesterday evening just running the model back on forth on my metre long test track for the satisfaction doing this gives. I look forward to pressing this locomotive into use on the layout.

1361 in the metal

1361 in the metal
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Everything on the locomotive is now soldered together. The front handrail has been replaced with one that runs over the smokebox door, a job that only required a little swaering to complete.

The buffers have been replaced, although to be honest the originals wern't bad. I'd bought some Gibson ones so they were going on.

The smokebox handle has been carved off and replaced with a brass version. This always gives the model a lift.

It all looks right, and not nearly as wobbly as the angle of the photos appears to show. Time for paint.

Boiler section

Boiler section
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

I keep plonking the locomotive body on to its chassis and checking it looks right. This matters more (I think) than strict accuracy. The area under the tank has always looked odd - there is too much air.

The kit didn't come with anything to represent the boiler bottom, hence the big gap. I had to scratchbuild this bit using a section of brass tube. Ideally this would go back to the firebox but if I wanted to get the motor in that wasn't possible.

One feature the kits does have is a pair of unprototypical sandboxes ove the centre wheels The ought to be replaced with springs but I left them in place as they help hide the foreshortened boiler. They look pretty nice too.

With the space filled in, this loco looks a lot better - more waddling saddle tank than 9F.

Cabside - what ?

1361 cabside
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

I don't know what's going on here. The cab sides of the 1361 overlap the front by over a mm. The black areas had to be removed and the rest blended into the saddle tank. Even the GWR didn't rivet into thin air !

It wouldn't be so bad if the cab wasn't a touch short anyway. Ideally I'd shorted the tank but that would be a lot of work and lose some nice rivet detail.

This is NOT a bodge

frontfixing
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

No, the front footplate fixing bolt had to be removed because it got in the way of the chassis. I know I should have tested this when I scratchbuilt it but I didn't.

So with the body in pieces I soldered a bit of scrap etch in place and then fixed the fixing nut on this. Al done with new C&L 100 degree solder which allows you to fix whitemetal to brass without tinning the later first. Magic !

Oh, and I would have worked out a way to do this without taking the body to bits eventually. Honest.

1361 in bits

1361 bits
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Time to return (again) to an old project. When I left the 1361 it had a working chassis and a wonky body with hardly any paint. For the last few montsh it has sat on a shelf shaming me to get stuck in again.

So I started looking at the body. Now the plan had been to tidy it up a little and then get some paint on. However the best laid plans etc. - I ended up waggling a few bits and soon had it in the state you see here. A kit with old paint and glue leftovers on some of the pieces.

Obviously this is a good thing. I can clean the old glue off and re-solder the whole thing back together. It was a bit wonky around the back end anyway so things will get better.

Wonky 1361

loco looking wonky
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

With the fishing boat reaching completion I’ve dug out another project in the unfinished pile. As a break from boating it’s back to trains.

The 1361 class had been progressing well with a largely complete chassis that just (just !) needs a body to look the part. I stripped the original K’s whitemetal bits some time ago and they look in good condition.

The missing cab back also turned up. It’s fixing inside the cab for some unknown reason so I’ll have to remove it and put it where it belongs. There was probably a good reason why it ended up where it did. Surely while he was scratchbuilding e new back the builder though, “I wonder why there isn’t a bit for this ? Hmmmm that bit I fixed inside the cab looks very similar to the bit of plasticard I’m cutting out…”

Oh, and the body isn’t nearly as wonky as the photo makes it look. I think that’s something to do with the way I took the picture. Of course it is a Great Western locomotive…

Cylinders

1361 cylinders
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

It’s time to stop building new stuff for the 1361 locomotive and start facing the bits I bought. For the chassis, this means cylinders as everything else goes in the bin.

I’m not sure how these were made originally but what I had after carefully removing them from the old chassis (read: waggling the parts until the glue broke) were whitemetal cylinders with slide bars apparently moulded in and then attached to a metal support bracket. Running in this is a whitemetal crosshead attached to a whitemetal & brass coupling rod. As bought the brackets stuck a long way outside the footplate.

While not a fan of soft metal crossheads, they did work well and looked quite nice so I’ve hung on to them. Originally bolted together, the components are now soldered. The bolt just attaches the coupling rod.

The cylinders were cleaned up which made the brackets fall off, as they were just glued on albeit with loads of old, hard, difficult to remove, glue. The slide bars seemed to vary in length very slightly and were all longer than those found on the prototype. This is (probably) to compensate for a non-scale crank throw so I left well alone.

On one side I simply soldered the casting to the chassis with low-melt and then moved them around until things looked right. Then tested the chassis with the body and moved the cylinder until it looked right and didn’t get in the way. A simple coupling rod was made from rail filed flat on the face. Everything worked and there seemed to be plenty of clearance.

Over at the other side the clearance disappeared. I’m not sure why, but fixed it by building up the missing metal with low melt solder. Not sophisticated but in this case, effective. The result is hidden under the footplate anyway. I did made sure that the cylinders were in about the same position on each side of the model and were level so the front on view looked OK.

The final job was to put a grove in the moulded valance under the footplate to let the body sit down on the motion brackets. A junior hacksaw did the job giving a 1mm wide slot which give enough space for the bracket and allows for my lack of precision in the work.

I’m quite chuffed with the end result. I’ve built a compensated chassis with waggly bits that don’t stick out the side of the body. Everything runs without jamming up solid too, apart from when one of the crank pins unscrewed itself but we won’t mention that. All I need to do is fit some pickups and brake gear then move on to the pretty bits.

Bug-a-Lug

bugalug
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

All this work on the chassis will be to no avail if I can’t solve one little problem. The motor won’t go in the body. Hmmm.

Hopefully (I haven’t done it yet) all I’ll need to do is remove these lugs. I think they are meant to allow you to mount the motor horizontally. Can’t work out why you’d want to do this though as the gearbox is taller than the motor in the vertical configuration so there’s not height benefit.

Anyway, out with the piercing saw…

What a difference new wheels make

1361 chassis
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Time to get back to an old projects. The 1361 class has been sitting in a box for over a month and I really want to get it finished. New readers can read about the fun & games to date in the archive.

When I left the model the big problem was with the wheels. Lack of anything suitably round to go under the footplate had slowed the project so much I had to move onto other things. However, I did manage to get two set of wheels to go in the box and so I started by removing the dogy K's originals and replacing them with a nice shiny set of Romfords.

What a difference ! Straight away all the effort jigging the chassis paid off. The wheels roate in both directions smoothly at all controller settings. Assuming I can cram this lot into the body, I will end up with a very nice little loco.

You can even watch the chassis work on YouTube.

Today's post

Wheel pack
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

The Romford wheels for the 1361 class have arrived. With a bit of luck this means the problem Markits has been having with the post have been solved.

The package also contained a shock. Each wheel cost around 4 pounds. That put these wheels at 9 quid an axle !

In comparison, a set of Gibson wheels will cost just under a fiver an axle from Mainly Trains while they are still available.

Romford wheels have never been particularly cheap. You are paying for some beautiful engineering and excellent quality. They aren’t easy to make either – but the pay off is the extreme ease of use. That alone will keep me using them.

I suppose in the overall cost of most of the models I build it’s not a huge chunk of the bill and since even I can’t destroy them (something I’ve managed with both Gibson & Sharman wheels) then they are a good investment.

Look what rolled in

gibson wheels
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Look what came through the post today – my Gibson wheels ! After a bit of a misunderstanding, Mainly Trains came through as usual and delivered the goods.

This leaves me with a dilemma. These are good looking wheels but they aren’t self quartering. I also have a set of Romford wheels on order from Markits who apparently are suffering from a local postal strike. These are easy to use but perhaps don’t look as realistic for this prototype.

Whatever – I’m going to wait as another project has been unearthed. More on that later.

Back in the box

1861parts
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

This was supposed to run on the layout last weekend. I had a vision that the locomotive would cruise around the model smoothly and silently. People would marvel at the quality of the modelling and ask if it was an etched kit. When I identified it as an old K’s model they would gasp in admiration at the wonders I had performed with 40-year-old material.

Instead it’s going back in the cupboard. There it will stay for the foreseeable future.

Why ? Because I can’t get any wheels for it. Currently I have an order in with Mainly Trains (4 weeks old) and Markits (2.5 weeks old) and at present all I have in my hand is a single pair of Gibsons. That’s four wheels too few for a reliable chassis.

At present I’m not sure how or indeed if this situation can be resolved. In the meantime the model sits in its box, packed up with all the other goodies I bought to improve the body awaiting the day when the essential round parts arrive.

I know you are saying, “Why don’t you just get on with the body ?”,well I don’t want to. There’s no point it doing the top bits if the bottom bits don’t work, so my heart just wouldn’t be in it. Besides, to be practical for a moment, I’m not sure how the two halves fit together. I think some of that whitemetal will have to succumb to the attention of a dental burr and so there’s no point putting things on that are only going to get knocked of with clumsy handling.

Cranky Pin

wheelpin
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Well, after plenty of testing the old K’s wheels have given up the ghost The non-powered end worked fine but the powered axle to middle rod gave me endless grief. I even had to remake a couple of the rods as I’d reamed out the crankpin holes too much in an effort to make things work.

I actually managed to get the whole chassis to run smoothly in one direction. Reversing involved either a clank or at least a long pause in rotation.

Eventually the crank pin on one of the driven wheels worked loose. The plastic surrounding the pin broke away terminally – I’d already glued it back in place several times but this wasn’t enough. I suppose these wheels were at least 30 years old so they had done pretty well really.

The pin may have been the cause of the problem. Certainly the fact I was beyond relying on the K’s D-shaped axle holes wasn’t helping. Unfortunately these give up after a few uses and become round so the automatic quartering doesn’t work.

I need new wheels. About a month ago I ordered a set of Gibson wheels from Mainly Trains but they are still awaiting delivery from the manufacturer. The good news is that the death of the Romford wheel is greatly exaggerated. A perusal of the new Markits Catalogue showed they were back in production. I couldn’t get a 15mm 10 spoke (problems with the pattern maker and the new mould) but a set of 14mm one has been ordered. I know they are a scale 2 inches under size, but who’s counting ?

Assembling the chassis

1861chassis
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Sticking the chassis together was suprisingly painless. First I cut some strip to act as spacers. Lengths of this were bend into L-shapes and soldered to one side. Then the whole lot was set up on a flat surface (an old CD) with a square across the end to fix the other sides.

The hornblocks were fixed using some jig axles that allow the connecting rods to set the wheelbase. In theory this will set the wheels exactly the right distance apart to ensure free running. As I’ve already mentioned, I did this once and realised that I’d set these too high – the axles would need to be at the very bottom of their travel to be level with the fixed axle. Fortunately a bit of heat and a sharp blade separated the parts and I was able to put them back in the right place.

And no, I don’t know if this will really work. That’s the next step.

Old tricks

1861 stripped
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Since bleeding the brakes on the camper, I have a load of second hand brake fluid kicking around. Now, I could try selling it on eBay but I reckon even the muppetest eBayer isn’t going to buy that – not unless I can convince them that I’ve seen Princess Di’s face mysteriously floating in it anyway !

So plan B was to try stripping paint with it. It’s often written in old model railway magazines that brake fluid has excellent paint removal qualities. It's not something I’ve ever tried, preferring proper commercial paint stripper for fear of damaging the model itself.

Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. The fluid was poured into an old jam-jar (marmalade actually but we use the generic term) and then the loco body was dunked in and left overnight.

In the morning I took the photo so you can see the result. Paint made very wrinkly and loose. A bit of a scrub with an old toothbrush (Why do articles always say this, is anyone really likely to use a new one ? Surely being that stupid would have killed you years ago ?) saw a reasonably clean whitemetal loco body emerge. A little picking was required in the corners to finally remove the leftovers.

Sadly the glue the kit was assembled with wasn’t attacked so I had a little work to get the cab roof off to get at the paint inside. The cab back also turned out to be made of plasticard making me wonder if the original modeller had bought the kit second hand and found a bit missing.

Hornblocks

hornblocks
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Soldering the chassis together didn’t take long – about an hour and half, which even included sort of watching some television at the same time. I’ve decided that this locomotive should have a flexichassis so great chunks were fretted out to allow for the hornblocks.

Because they are handy I’m using MJT hornblocks. These assemble easily enough – you bend the guides up, push them in and run the tiniest amount of solder around the edge. Then the bearings are fitted one at a time. A lot of delicate filing later (use a big but fine file) I have four sets which slide freely.

You might notice solder on the face of the guides – this is ‘cos I remembered to take the picture only after I had removed the hornblocks from the chassis where I had fitted them too high the first time around…

Flat pack chassis

1861chassisflat
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

According to “experts” you should always start your day with the worst job you have to do. After this then everything seems easier. Therefore, much as I might want to ponce around with the body of this model locomotive, I should get started on the difficult chassis.

This is no great hardship as I’ve always tended to build the mechanical bits first on the basis that the pretty bits are easy but if I can’t make something that works properly then there is little point in carrying on.

So, I took a photocopy of the plan from Railway Modeller and stuck it (with Bostick non-solvent glue) on two thinknesses of nickel silver sheet. Next I have to dig out the fretsaw table and cut along the lines.

GWR 1361 class

GWR 1361 class
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

A few years ago I picked up this little beauty for 8 quid from a second hand stall at a show. At the time it seemed like a bargain. I also felt sorry for it as at that price it’s the sort of thing a kid could buy for their train set, yet it’s no runner and will take quite a bit of work to make it one. After discovering they had bought a pup, the loco would be heading for the bin. A shame as it’s a nice model built from a K’s whitemetal kit.

Since the loco is a dock shunter, it’s ideal for Melbridge Dock, and since that layout is booked into a show in a few weeks time, if I pull my finger out I might have it to run there.

Anyway, I started with research. A bit of work on the web uncovered this plan. Some questioning on the Double O Gauge Association message board brought the handy info that I could find a plan in the July 1970 issue of Railway Modeller. There is a bit more info in Wikipedia too.

My plan is to ditch the chassis and replace it with a scratchbuilt version. This will be a flexi-chassis as I’ve never built one in OO, only 3mm scale. I’ll try and re-use the cylinders and cross heads but the rest will have to go. K’s chassis were rudimentary at the best of times and this one has the wrong wheelbase.

The body will be stripped of paint. Handrails will be replaced with ones featuring smaller knobs. A bit of detailing, including a fake boiler bottom, and then a coat of BR Black paint.

OK, so it is a bit of a comedown to built a GWR model but I’m sure I can slum it for a while. Besides I need something to occupy me while the paint dries on the fishing boat.