Mountain wrote:I was going to mention the need to paint the interior before one puts the roof on!
I have a brass narrow gauge kit but I have not started it yet. I do like the ability with soldering to reposition things if needed.
I have shyed off buying white metal kits in the past incase I melt them. At least with brass it will not mind too much if it gets a little hot.
I confess to (usually) chickening out of soldering smaller white metal components - superglue works very well with brass to white metal. With kits that are large lumps of white metal (e.g. ABS) I've (so far anyway) not had a problem, but turn the iron down to c. 200' to be on the safe side. Now I've said than.....
The brake gear. What is it about really crisp white metal castings? Oh, just me then. There's a pile of etches to assemble the various brackets, hinges etc, all very nice. There's spares for most of these. Luckily. "I'll just tweak this... damn." I put everything losely on the cross rods and fixed the rods in place. Then it was just join the dots. The rods that (will) go to the bogies I'll cut/fix when the bogies exist. Enjoyed that bit
Never glue the handles back on tea cups with CA (superglue), you'll end up with hot tea in your lap. Near boiling water dripped on the joint should release brass from white metal, or even use a temperature controlled soldering iron. Must give it a try.
Onwards to buffers and couplings. This is where I go off-piste for a bit. The buffers supplied with the kit are white metal affairs, there's nothing wrong them but paranoid me worries about unintended concussions. So a hunt through the draw of e-Bay bargains revealed an exact equivalent - size wise. With longer shoulders the castings needed some nerve-wracking drilling out and the donor springs cut to length it was done. For the couplings I used some brass casting screw couplings also found in the aforementioned draw fitted to the kit's draw hooks. I have a thing about couplings and buffers...
I like to 'chemically blacken' buffers and couplings, so dunked the buffer heads in blackener. Usually they come out blackish-with-some-rust (look really nice I think) but these came out like miniature back holes! A different grade of steel, perhaps? Couplings not treated yet. Next is fitting the air and vacuum pipes, I may do the bogies first as, even in a bit of a cradle, it isn't overly stable upside down and won't be able to be the right way up without wheels. I have a cunning plan about etch priming the model - Postman Pat awaited there.
Well, damn. I sat down for a happy afternoon burning fingers applying overlays to the bogies sides but when tinning the first one it just went black; like it was covered in some sort of tar! Cleaned it all up and tried again, same result. Then the iron tip oxidised too... Holding the flux bottle up to the light it's apparent it's gone cloudy. Oh. Looks like I've managed to contaminate it somehow. More ordered, so in the meantime.... working platform lights with sub mm soft white LEDs, which I have here. Somewhere.
The flux finally arrived so on with the bogies. I chickened out of using roller bearings - it could be done but there would be very little of the axle boxes left with the way the 'suspension' works. Talking of which, the way the springs work is neat - and even customisable. The bogies are essentially a separate kit (and available so from Conneseur) which makes putting the body aside while building them a lot less error prone. These were in some ways harder to make than the body, very adjacent joints and difficult to hold while fixing and so on, but maybe it was the challenge that made it so enjoyable despite the enormous amount trial assembly and ensuring everything is just-so. Oh, and making the sander pipes - used a lot of brass rod there. So, back to the body and the air and vac pipes and so on.
Richard08 wrote:... What is it about really crisp white metal castings? Oh, just me then...
Not just you! I was so delighted when I first saw the late Adrian Swain's 'ABS Models' range, such a contrast to much of the product then on the market. He used a harder grade of whitemetal than mnost of his contemporaries when the range was introduced, and the moulding masters were works of art. Still got a few pieces left from when I bought up everything suitable in the KX model shop at its closing down sale.
Your job's a goodun. Done the right thing on the buffers, 4mm will break a working (as in makes contact) all cast whitemetal buffer after the combination of a few rough shunts and regular load application, and that goes circa 6x for the greater mass of O.
And finally, it's done. Far from perfect, but makes me happy When fitting the bogies for the first time gravity put in a special appearance and for some reason I dropped the cutters onto the thing - I caught the body but a bogie made it to the floor (carpet!). It got a bit mangled, but a couple of hours of gentle adjustment and re-soldering got it back to as good as new. Phew! Anyhow, the assorted pipes and lamp brackets were fitted, and the drips or whatever they are added to the sides and then the line I was kind of waiting for in the instructions - "Assembly is now complete". Needless to say there followed a length 'checking it runs right' (i.e. playing trains) - which it does, a very smooth runner indeed. I really enjoyed this kit, my 9th all-metal kit, something I only dreamed of trying back in the day. Next for this is painting and glazing. Next in the build queue is an ICI bogie hopper...
Richard08 wrote:... Next for this is painting and glazing....
And that's a fairly major job on such a highly detailed vehicle.
You do know not to make the mistake that the real operators occasionally stumbled into, of sending it on a transfer freight to a yard in North London? Both LMR and ER were adept at 'disappearing' these vans should they ever enter their territory. After all, it all belonged to 'us' now, with the railway nationalised. Much correspondence followed as the rightful owners sought return...
Richard08 wrote:... Next for this is painting and glazing....
And that's a fairly major job on such a highly detailed vehicle.
You do know not to make the mistake that the real operators occasionally stumbled into, of sending it on a transfer freight to a yard in North London? Both LMR and ER were adept at 'disappearing' these vans should they ever enter their territory. After all, it all belonged to 'us' now, with the railway nationalised. Much correspondence followed as the rightful owners sought return...
It seems the WR nicked this one, and it's being quietly kept in service at Soddingham because Guard Kleweless likes it and he's really annoying when upset. Driver Glumm is much the same about the Western which is somehow hanging on in there (he spent years going round nicking spares to keep it going). The 'Aberdeen' 08 is the source of many conspiracy theories... The Queen Mary is the only item of SR stock that does it for me, hence it's here. That's probably heresy, but hey ho!
