Being a project butterfly

David asks: I follow your blog with great interest and note that you are starting another loco build. What happened to the TT gauge class 25 diesel that was on your blog ? The chassis and most of the bodywork were described but it would be nice to see it painted.

Good question.

At the moment the loco is sat in a box with all the other bits of the kit. A box it's sat in since January. As you can see from the photo, the model isn't looking bad.

So why have I started something different ?

Because I am a project butterfly. I flit from model to model, alighting on each one for a few moments before fluttering off to have a go at something else. I've always been a bit like this - juggling projects both as hobbies and work. If I stay too long on one job I get bored and since this is (mostly) a hobby, I flit when I feel like it.

I know this isn't the way to get anything done and I apologise if you've been reading and wish I'd crack on with something. Mind you, if you feel like that, do drop me a line as David has bumped the 25 back up the list. Sometimes it's nice to know people are interested. Also, it makes me take another look. I'd forgotten just how good the 25 was looking and how close it might be to completion. A bit of underframe, some grilles and it could go into primer and then paint.

The P Class has been kicking around for a while and I think it will be a pretty quick job. At the moment I need something that gets done and gets done fast. There is pleasure top be had from doing a job like this fast. Hopefully I'll see some changes pretty quickly and that will spur me on to do more.

The other, duller reason, is that it will get me ahead with blog posts. I've had a few magazine projects floating around for a while and there are more to come. Some of these will pop up hear but most won't. Thus, if I want to keep posting daily (it's a good discipline for me) then a project that progresses fast will help me out.

So, sorry if you are waiting to see me finish something. I know that the right hand sidebar contains a few stalled builds. I will get around to doing them. Railway modellers should consider themselves lucky. There is a Brede lifeboat that I planned to complete over 3 years ago. And then the Beetle 7 years ago. And my campervan needs to get MOT'd...

Chassis testing

I hate diesels. With a chuff-chuff, you get to build the chassis and then spend many hours tweaking the thing to make it work properly. Not with the Class 25. I plopped it on the track and it ran around the layout perfectly first time. Where is the fun in that ?

I'm joking of course. Before the Leamington show opened, I took the opportunity to stick the chassis on the track and give it a go. It really did run around perfectly. The only problems were when the wires caught on the tunnel mouth exiting the fiddle yard or around the water crane. Putting the body on brought these under control and sorted this out. Those wires are too long anyway but just twisted together for testing. I'll probably use a chocolate block connector on the finished model so the thing can be easily dismantled.

The BullAnt bogies worked a treat. Even my slightly rough and ready regauging was OK. They didn't rumble over the pointwork or get upset about the curves. Even with one wire disconnected and reducing the pickup numbers, we didn't see any stalling either.

All in all, a very pleasing moment. The hobby can be relaxing after all !

Class 25 Bogie sideframes

The most striking component of the Class 25 kit were the bogie sideframes. Not an easy part to build as I've found out in the past, I am perfectly happy to leave the job to someone else.

Before sticking the bits in place, I re-gauged the wheelsets from 12 to 14.2mm by carefully pulling them out with a gear extraction tool. A dot of superglue on the axles ends before starting this hopefully get s pulled into the axle/wheel join as I work saving me from the embarrassment of another one falling off in service.

A dry run showed that the whitemetal parts were quite wide. In fact if I'd stuck them on as supplied the loco would have been distinctly bulbous down below the body whereas the photos showed the bogies tucked nicely underneath. I massaged the metal with my fingers to squash the convext part in a bit. The wheelbase grew a tiny bit as a result but at least the middle bit got thinner. Then, by cutting the outer mounting point away, I was able to superglue them in place.

A little care was required as the parts seem deeper than expected and it's always a good idea to have nothing poking below the wheel tread. I suspect that the master might have been slightly over scale as everything else is right. At least the space under the model will be well filled.

Class 25 side skirts

Under the Class 25 body on the etch were some odd dangly bits. The general consensus was that these are supposed to represent those parts seen under the locomotive body. Or that the designer had a brainstorm and went a bit mad. Whatever, they aren't there in the real loco, so I cut them off and threw them in the bin.

The underbody bits on diesels are a bit of a nightmare and working out exactly what should be there isn't easy. The plans are confusing and the photos not much help as they show all the bits at once and I have to try and work out what they are and what order to make them. Eventually I think I worked out the basic skirts, or at least figured out enough to be able to cut something out from a sheet of very thin brass.

Cutting was entirely with the Olfa Plasticard cutter and a small disposable knife. No scissors or sawing this time as the job called for lots of straight lines and I'm rubbish at sawing these. You can cut brass with a knife, it just takes lots of gentle cuts. The stuff is thinner than paper and so if you push too hard it will distort.

Fitting to the chassis involved scribing some lines and using these as a guide. A hot iron, lots of flux and speed were also required as the metal is so thin, heat can distort it if you linger too long.

Finally, the buffer beams are whitemetal castings. I think the buffer shanks are a bit short so had to pack the beam forward with a strip of metal, but it looks the part and that's what matters. To me anyway.

Basic Class 25 chassis

I don't watch a lot of TV and when I do it's usually while I'm doing something else. However, I do quite like those American shows set in custom car or bike workshops. For some reason the producers seem to focus on the personalities though, rather than the construction of the vehicles. They forget that normal people will get bored of this stuff and the real market is anoraks who want to know the welding method or what CAD package is being used to machine the parts.

Anyway, watching people welding stuff with carefree abandon made me want to do something similar. Make an item from scratch and wield the soldering iron like only I can. On the shelf was the Class 25 and I reckoned that in a couple of hours, I could get the chassis together well enough to support the newly delivered bogies.

The design is simple - a flat plate into which the BullAnt bogies are bolted. I just had to cut a length of nickel silver sheet to width, mark some holes, cut some even bigger ones and the job would be done !

All of this took about 3 hours. The same number of piercing saw blades were broken hacking out those big holes. Marking out was done with a combination of pencil, scribe and a pair of compasses which have two points. This last tool was particularly useful when a lot of identical dimensions needed to be marker such as the position of the bolt holes.

To stop the plate from bending I soldered a couple of thick bits of brass down the sides inset about one and half millimetres from the edge. The leftovers from old kits come in ever so useful ! More etch edging is fitted inside the body to provide a ledge for the chassis. This was fiddly to fit but with the aid of a couple of clips and a little tack soldering, I managed.

Finally, a long brass bolt reaches inside the body to screw into a nut soldered to the inside of the roof. Doing this up provides the body with a nice flush plate filling the bottom. Now I can bolt up the bogies and look at the under-body embellishments.

Class 25 bodyshell

Normal service on other projects was interrupted for an evening so I could test the Class 25 model kit to see if I could assemble it. I'm not getting a couple of BullAnts in if there are fundamental problems that I wouldn't be able to solve.

As you can see, there aren't. In a couple of hours I had what you see in the photo.

The first stage happened while the model was in the flat - under the bodyside there are some odd lumps and bumps etched in. These were removed with a pair of scissors and a file. I think the designer was trying to replicate the lumps under the body of the prototype but didn't spot that these are set back underneath. No matter, I can make those myself.

Next the corners on the top edge were formed in bending bars. The metal is thick and I didn't anneal it so they didn't come out sharp, but slightly radiused, just like the real thing. I'd like to claim I knew this would work as well, but there was a lot of luck involved. The main roof curve was formed with finger pressure around a aluminium round bar. This sort of job people assume is cleverly done in one hit by us "experts" but I just prod and poke away until it looks right.

The doors go on with normal solder, the ends fitted with 100 degree solder and gaps between cab top and roof front filled with low melt. That's three different types in one little model. Finally the cab front detail was filed off in preparation for some new nose work.

Which gets me to the stage I was with the Class 26 by picking the resin body out of the box. I know how the rest should work out now so at least I have one kit underway that I can be confident about !

3mm scale Class 25 diesel kit

After the Warley show, I decided that our Class 26 diesel had been so successful, it should be joined by a Class 25 as well. I knew there was a kit advertised on the 3SMR website and it looked decent enough with etched sides and cast details. In my head this meant a quick build using the same motorising techniques as the earlier model.

The problems started when I rang the company to be told that the kit wasn't available any more and had been replaced with a resin body intended for a RTR chassis. The cost had risen to - my original plan would have come in at around 100 quid. Not cheap but then I'm working in an odd-ball scale and using read to run motor unit. The new version was half as much again. I want a loco but did I want it that much ?

I also didn't fancy the resin shell much. It was OK, but the etch version would be better, or at least I hoped it would.

Anyway, in desperation I stuck a plea on the 3mm scale mailing list to see if anyone had one of the kits in their stash of bits. 3 offers came in and I quickly secured a deal for the one you see in the photo.

One other reply pointed out something I hadn't spotted by fans of the class will see immediately. The model is unbuildable.

Class 25 locos were built by several builders. The early ones has doors in the nose and grilles dotted around the bodyside in a slightly random fashion. The later versions moved the grilles up into the roof and removed the nose doors allowing a bigger window. On the kit we have the early grilles and later nose. Putting the grilles in the top would be a nightmare, so it's a good job that I wanted the earlier version isn't it ?

Wikipedia article on the Class 25