Ask Phil: A beginners Gauge 1 loco kit

 Lionel asks: Is the Mercian Models G1 Ruston kit suitable for a beginner? 

This is a difficult question to answer. Everything depends on what you mean by "beginner". 

If your construction skills are hardly up to a simple Lego model, then no, it's not. 

However, if you've done a bit of modelling, then "probably". 

Looking back at my notes on the two models I have built, they seemed to go together pretty well. No significant fettling was required, and thanks to using 7mm scale technology in the chassis, it's modelling rather than engineering. 

It helps if you have some skills forming metal. Sharp corners are easy thanks to half-etched lines inside to put the bend in the right place. Curves are a lot tougher - where do they start and finish? How bent are they?

 

 

The biggest challenge is the bonnet top. The gentle curved is easy enough, but the sharper shoulders need to be in the right place, or the piece ends up off-centre and you'll be taking it off and re-bending it to sort that out. Then the brass work-hardens and won't bend as easily, no matter how much you swear at it.

 

It seems I bent the metal over the supporting framework, presumably annealing it first to make that job easier. Extra bracing for the supports would be wise too, although I suspect I didn't bother. It doesn't help that you have to punch the rivets first, then try to push the metal around without flattening them. 

Aside from this, the shear mass of brass is the other problem. Metal sucks the heat out of solder so you need to get that in fast. I tack the bits together with a 45W iron and then seam the joint with a small gas torch and lashings of flux. Lionel tells me he's a happy solderer, so this shouldn't be an issue. 

The biggest problem of all is that the kit is out of stock, but it's worth contacting Trevor to see what he can do. 

 

Bear in mind that the £300 price of the kit is without motor, wheels and gears. That will drive the final bill up by at least £100. Pop a lovely quality ABC gearbox in and you'll double it.

 

Having said, that, the photos remind me that this is a good looking model. I'd quite like one myself!

 

For real beginners, I'd suggest cutting your teeth on some Severn Models kits. They go together well and are a lot cheaper than a loco. If you don't want to keep them, I'm sure eBay would offer a return on your investment. Just ignore the glue and use them as a way to practise both your metal-forming and soldering. If you can assemble something like the garden shed, you're a lot closer to a loco 

G1 Ruston in Railway Modeller.

Just a quick hello and welcome to any new readers who've spotted my letter on building a Gauge 1 Ruston locomotive in the latest issue of Railway Modeller magazine.

Please browse to your heart's content. There is lots to read so don't forget to add this page to your favourites and come back regularly !

Of course if you are simply interested in the G1 Ruston, the full story of the build is here.

Diesel Electric Ruston

Gauge 1 Diesel Electric Ruston
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

Finishing the Ruston involved a fairly simple weathering job. First I dry brushed scuff and chips in areas where the real locomotives paintwork would have taken a hammering. The steps, handles and cab door bottoms needed a bit of work here. Plenty of rust and gunmetal paint applied carefully. Next all the rivets were brushed with dark grey (67) to highlight them.

In Gauge 1, even a small loco like this one is a big item to paint. The easiest way to get a overall coat of dirt is to use the airbrush. Some well thinned dark grey followed by dark brown all over the loco made the black paint look a lot better as well as providing a unifying effect to the previous work. Dark earth sprayed below the footplate replicates the sort of muck thrown up from the ground. Weathered black and even some matt black run along the top gives the effect of those mucky diesel fumes landing.

That super gearbox made once aspect of the job easier - the wheels can be rotated without power so I avoided "shadows" that can be left behind spokes and rods after spraying.

Once everything was dry, the glazing went in, roof on and the buffers were fitted. Then the wheels were cleaned and model packed up for delivery.

On the layout, a little more commissioning work was required. Rich added the appropriate DCC decoder. The pickups needed a bit of tweaking and some weight adding. Although the kit makes up fairly heavy, there is lots of space for lead in the bonnet and if your wagons are heavy then the loco needs to do a bit more damage to the scales so it can move them !

However in it's new colliery home, the model looks smashing. OK, so it needed a bit more work than simply assembling the kit to produce this particular prototype but it's well worth it.

Inside the cab

Cab inside - front
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

Plenty of plasticard noodling here. As I mentioned before, the control panel is an etched part but had to be supplemented with lots of levers 'n stuff.

Most of this is from scraps of plasticard - I keep a little drawer with reasonable sized off-cuts in for the purpose. Some digging through the stores revealed a few packets of micro-rod which looked pretty close to the linkages between the various levers.

The red thing, which I suspect has something to do with brakes, is a plastic disk, bent bit of wire and whitemetal wheel discovered in the "leftover white metal castings I couldn't bear to throw away" drawer. I think this is from the coal tank, it needed the edge thinned and a handle removed. Even then the fit behind that top lever thingy is very tight, probably one is too close and the other is too large.

At the back there is a bench and noticeboard. Again, just bits of plastic. The top of the bench is scribed and has hinges fitted. The board has a notice run up on the computer which was taken from one of the prototype photos - hence the odd light areas which I couldn't work out how to darken.

All this of course is hidden away in the gloom of the cab once the roof is on. That's why I can get away with pretty basic modelling as these photos are the only chance you have to examine it in any detail. Despite this it all look (to me) the part and is certainly better than an empty cab in this scale.

Loco in black

Loco in black
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

Not the greatest paint job I've ever done here. Humbrol satin black flew out of the airbrush but I think I might have over thinned it a bit. The result is patchier than I'd like and if I was aiming for an ex-works finish I'd at least have looked at another coat once the first was fully dry. Fortunately this locomotive will be weathered so perfection isn't required, in fact it will add to the finished effect.

Transfers are large 4mm scale which are a pretty close match to the ones on the prototype. Good job the real thing used numbers that were small ! Mind you, this was done by a preserved railway so I wouldn't rely on it being right for BR days.

The cab inside has already been painted in 147 (light grey) hence it has been masked out inside the windows and across the top of the cab. I don't mind touching things up but covering black with a very pale colour wouldn't be fun.

Best thing though - those plates which look fantastic against the black.

Oh, and I will get around to painting the brakes.

Etched plates

Etched plates
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

The makers plates on the Ruston are supplied on the main etch. They are very nicely done but of course, need painting.

Once clipped out and cleaned up I fixed them to a bit of wood with double sided tape. Then the colours were slopped into the appropriate areas. No great care is required, just making sure that the red and black areas stay separate.

Once the paint is dry I like to carefully scrape the raised surface of the edge and text. This won't get everything off so a gentle polishing with a jewelers smoothing stick. This is a bit of wood with fine emery paper stick to the surface and they are available in loads of grades. Mine came from a shop in the Jewelry Quarter in Birmingham but I think some of the model railway tool suppliers also sell them.

Experts will have spotted that the fancy signs aren't correct - the bottom red bit should be oval rather than round. There should be an extra section in the RH bit too. However they look the part and perfection would involve getting some custom plates etched. That costs money and takes a lot of time. Were this a museum piece then it would be worth it but then the cost would be a drop in a far larger bill !

Anyway, I think they look smashing and add a lot to the finished model.

Cab interior fittings

Cab interior
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

As supplied the Ruston locomotive kit is a bit sparse inside the cab. A generic console is all you get. Folded up and fitted in place it certainly fills a bit of space, and in a scale where people are happy to run coaches without an interior, is probably sufficient for most people.

This time a more detailed cab is required and some very useful photos supplied. The console is still usable, although it has too many dials. Removing the raised rings would be difficult without damaging the ones required to I've painted them all in. Strange how some had wide bezels and other narrow. Presumably this depend on the instrument. Some push switches were added using microrod to the flat area.

Levers and supports have been scratchbuilt from plastic. Without measurements these can only be approximate but at least they look the part, or will when painted.

At the back of the cab there is a bench and thin cupboard, both made from plasticard. In the end this won't all be perfect but with the roof on and with the model working on a layout I reckon they will do OK.

Wooden floor

Wooden floor
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

In real life the Ruston locomotive had a wooden floor, so in Gauge 1 the model has to have a wooden floor too.

Modeling wood is an interesting challenge. I've always been very suspicious of the 4mm modellers who insist that only plywood sleepers will do - if you look at the real thing from the same distance as you appear to view it on the model, the grain is invisible. Therefore if you can see anything, it's over scale.

The photos of the floor though, clearly show some grain. I rooted around my bits of dead tree to find something suitable. Balsa is hopeless and it's too grainy and the surface wouldn't look right. Thin ply would have been ideal but all really it needed to be at least 1mm thick and anyway I couldn't find my supply.

So in the end I went for Basswood (Lime to limeys), the ever reliable standby model making wood. Nice fine grain and a good surface with a bit of thickness and stiffness so it can be sliced and laid as a smooth surface. A base of Daler board was then individually planked. The PVA snuck through the joins a bit and even when wiped off obviously remained. The stain didn't soak in quite as well on these but but as it happens they appeared just where you'd expect wear and tear on the real floor from the drivers boots so I thanked my luck and left well alone.

Buffer beam

Lovely detail time. If you want to bring a loco to life, fill the buffer beam with stuff.

In the case the Ruston locomotive, that means buffers (obviously), coupling hook (chain to go on after painting) and the rather nice lost wax casting for the vacuum pipe that I ordered along with the handrail knobs from Tenmille. It comes with a pair of air pipes that are really rather splendid but completely useless to me for this locomotive. Still, the spares box awaits and I'm sure they will come in handy one day.

Another prototype feature is the row of brackets towards the top edge. I'm guessing that these were to hold a shunters pole. There is a similar row on the back. I made them out of the lamp irons supplied on the etch which aren't required for this prototype. A nice touch, they had to be thinned a little but this way you get consistency which is probably more important than precise fidelity - at least these look right and I didn't have any measurements to cut strip to make them any other way.

Cab handrails

Cab handrails
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

Blooming prototypes. Just when I though I'd spotted all the differences between the kit and the real thing, I get bitten by another.

Someone took it into their head to fit extra long handrails on the cab - all the way up to the top of the door. Why ?

Of course this means that I'm four handrail knobs short. And these aren't the sort of thing available at my local model shop or even from most of the on-line suppliers. I seriously considered trying to fake things with a blob of solder on a stick but decided against this. Mainly 'cos in my heart of hearts I knew it would look rubbish.

After digging around I left a message on Tenmille's answering machine. A couple of days later they called back and I ordered a packet of knobs (only one size available now) and vac pipes which arrived a few days later. Fitting is easy enough as described before. Best of all, when I found an extra handrail on the bonnet there were just enough bits in the bag to do this too.

Chassis painted

Chassis painted
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

After a good scrub the Ruston locomotive chassis has been primed and painted. Since the model will be lightly weathered, Precision Paints "Weathered Black" was used on the visible parts. Elsewhere normal Humbrol matt black did the job - the later brushes better and I prefer to get a thicker coat on a chassis than that provided by the airbrush. If you look at a real locomotives underpinnings you'll see that they is a lot of muck under there and so sharp detail actually isn't that appropriate !

With paint on, wheels and mechanical bits were fitted and tested. Not problems there with everything revolving quite freely.

Finally the brakes were made up, fun with 4 parts in each including a short wire stub, cleaned and fitted. Carrs Red is the flux of choice from now on as there's no chance of putting this in the sink any more to remove residues.

Of course I couldn't rest a test fitting of the body, just to make sure that everything lines up of course...

Detailed chassis

Detailed chassis
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

Back on the chassis, it is time to do some detailing. First I attached the sandboxes in line with the filler caps etched into the footplate. These aren't perfect replicas of the real thing as far as I can see but exactly what the prototype items look like is impossible to judge from the shots I have. Of course under the footplate you won't notice as they are pretty hidden away.

On the test build, the sand pipes were pretty rudimentary. Good enough for the garden but this time I've fabricated something a bit more realistic. Some 1mm wire and small brass washers representing unions so the job. To make sure the "pipes" are pointing in the right direction I test fitted a wheel each time - at which point I discovered that the read sandboxes are too far forward. Desoldering them using the gas torch (they were attached with 100 degree solder so fell off when I got enough heat in the nickel) and re-fixing back a bit appeared scarier than it turned out to be.

The brake hangers have metal plates bolted to the chassis, represented here with plasticard and slices of rod. This covers up the original hanger holes. I moved the brakes a lot closer to the wheels on this model which will look a lot better even if it does mean the wheels are trapped.

Finally, more slices of plastic rod were super glued around the gearbox aperture. Not sure how visible these will be but I know they are there.

Bonnet attached

Bonnet attached
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

The big lump is attached. After a fair bit of heat, loads of flux and plenty of solder, the Ruston locomotive is looking a lot more finished.

The kit is very helpful here. At the front a couple of slots and tabs locate the front in the right place in all directions. At the back the cab front is marked with a half etch line to assist location. OK, I still measured and squared to make sure the thing was running parallel to the footplate side and central, but I could have got away without this.

As usual, soldering was carried out by tacking with the electric iron and then blowing the metal around with the gas flame. The localised heating of the later is very handy - running the solder along the cab front/bonnet top join I could see the handrail knobs starting to melt and take away the heat before it became liquid. Fantastic, and surprisingly easy.

If you are a beginner, it's worth bearing in mind that working with a tiny soldering iron is harder than a big one. The low power version will take a long while to heat up a lump of metal and because it's slow will need to bring nearly all the metal up to temperature. This is counter intuitive - you'd expect to be safer with less heat but in this case you'd be wrong.

Attaching Guage 1 handrail knobs

Guage 1 handrail knob
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

Not as easy as it sounds this. A G1 railway locomotive is a large item with enough metal to act as a sink for an awful lot of heat. On the Ruston there's no easy way to get at the back of them either so all the soldering has to happen in the visible areas.

My solutions, which isn't sophisticated but does seem to work OK, is to tack solder the knob in place with ugly blobs of solder applied with the electric iron. Then blob lots of flux over the resulting mess. Finally give this a shot with the small blowtorch.

The torch heats up the knob and surrounding metal faster than the rest of the bodywork can absorb the heat away - something the electric iron can't quite manage - and so the solder metals and is carried into all the places you want it by capillary action.

Result: Handrail and fixing all held in place with no cleaning up required.

Detailed bonnet

Detailed bonnet
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

More bonnet fun. At the front there is an extra section containing a fan. Nothing too hard here, just a wrapper to run around the front part. The resulting unit isn't a great fit against the main bonnet section but it's close enough. Of course if I hadn't used too much heat to join the two, I wouldn't have unsoldered the wrapper again which made for some slightly frustrating work.

The doors are a single etch and lined up pretty well. All the holes for the handles matched up properly and the top is straight. Attachment is from the back through holes in the formers which makes the job easy - no need to clean up excess solder showing as it's all hidden !

Getting bonnet handles identical is important. Luckily spacing from the door can be handled by a jig/spacer made from a chip fork. Drawing a line on this also makes snipping the resulting item to length, using my best flush cutters, easy and consistent. In smaller scales I end up using bits of card but chip forks are so much sturdier...

Bonnet wrangling

Bonnet top
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

Scary job time - fitting the bonnet top.

This is a large, flat sheet which has to be bent and riveted then soldered over some formers with nothing in the way of positive location assistance.

First up I riveted the sheet. Then it was annealed as best I could using a cooker flame. I'd hoped that this would make the metal malleable but if it did, I couldn't tell the difference. The top bend is easy enough, it's pretty gentle and can be formed around any round object. Pondering the sharp corner though I chickened out and decided to use the formers to make sure everything is in the right place. That sounds sensible but it's risky - pull metal too hard over thin formers and you get sags between ridges.

The top was attached centrally and then the bending started. Most of the work was done with fingers. Eventually though, more brutality was required and I clamped the whole thing upside down in a vice with wood to protect the rivets, and lots of heat and solder pinned the ends of the top to the former sides. Not pretty, not fun (the wood kept catching fire) but it worked.

Making steps

The trouble with looking at prototype locomotive photos is that you find more work. At the front of this Ruston as some nice, inset steps. Entirely different from those provided in the kit. Yippee.

The photos were quite clear on the design, but a hard to work out precise dimensions from. Again, I went for something that looks right compared to the rest of the loco. The buffer beam for example gives a pretty good idea of depth. The width is shown by the spacing between sandbox filler and front. Then all (!) I had t0 do was draw the holes to be cut on some metal. Time was saved by soldering the two sheets of nickel silver together once the vertical fold lines had been scribed heavily with a skrawker.

A bit more cutting and filling later I had a pair of U shapes with step holes. Some more nickel at the bottom with a small lip strengthened it all up. Then the footplate hole was cut and the steps fitted. Ideally I'd have soldered them to the underside and then cut the top but again, the pictures showed the top edge of the steps poking up so I had to replicate this as well.

Hopefully the rest of the model will be similar to the kit. Why can't prototype loco owners leave things alone ?

Modifying the back

Modifying the back
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

Having learned a lesson with the chassis mods, I have been examining the photos of the Ruston locomotive closely before touching the metal. One of the first changes between the prototype and the kit I spotted was the cab back. At some point during the locomotives life, the windows were enlarged and squared up a bit. This looks more modern and for the driver, would have improved visibility quite a lot.

Luckily the shot of the cab back is pretty square on so with a bit of measuring and scribbled match I could use this to work out the correct sizes for the new windows. With perfect accuracy unlikely without a plan, I have tried to make the proportions as close as possible.

Drilling holes in the corners followed by a bit of work with the piercing saw (2 broken blades) and finishing up with a flat file has resulted in a much better view into the cab. Good job there are shots of the inside so I can detail this a bit.

Big rivets

GW Models riveter
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

Last time I built the Ruston locomotive kit, I used the traditional hammer and blunt nail technique to form the rivets. While I own the best rivet forming tool in the business, the GW Models press, the supplied anvils only go up to O gauge. In G1 the results are far too small.

Now GW Models do produce a version suitable for the larger scale but it is £150, which is rather a lot for the occasional model. Mind you, like all their products, it is a beautiful piece of kit and worth the cash.

A phone call (no web site here than you, this is a proper traditional engineering company) to the proprietor was instructive. The tools for the G1 rivetter won't fit in the standard one I own. However it might be possible for me to do something myself, he could supply a couple of anvils for a fiver which I could drill out , harden and then try in my machine.

Off went the cheque and few days later the anvils turned up in a jiffy bag complete with some handwritten instructions. Following these I drilled the hole out to 1mm and then hardened the steel by heating it to cherry red and dropping the hot lump in some oil to quench it. Not having done this before, I used a small pot of oil left over from an oil change on my camper van. The big surprise (for me) was the colour change in the metal. It went from a shiny silver steel colour to a shiny black. The same colour as the anvils supplied with the tool in the first place, which I guess means I've done something right.

In use, the tool produces lovely domes in the metal. You have to use the punch intended for forming raw metal rather than the half etch version - that's too sharp and either gives a tiny lump or punches clean through the metal.

Gear perving

ABC Gears
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker

Will you look at the quality of this gearbox !

Oooooooh, it's loooverly. Thick brass sides encasing high quality, accurately cut gears all beautifully meshed. Even a spiral cut first stage and all mounted on a Portescap motor. I suspect there are mechanism fetishists out there who have drooled all over their keyboard.

And yes, it runs as well as it looks.

For the technical, this is an ABC models gearbox, I think one of their units designed for O gauge as the locomotive is designed around 7mm technology. It's tiny for the space available but unless you want to stuff a washing machine motor in, then that's going to happen in the cavernous interior of the Ruston.

As a test, I put the wheels and mechanicals into the bare chassis and using a slightly flat 9V battery, had it perform a circuit of the garden railway at walking pace. If I'd wanted slower then 3V from a pair of AA batteries was more than enough to turn the wheels.