Horsetan

This has opened an excellently well seasoned can of worms!

Goes well with Guinness.

How much are the books?

Between six and eight quid each so far. Depends on the class, really. Every class member is listed, as well as some useful photos. There is also a weight diagram at the back.

I've picked up "S", "V", and "WT" so far. Waiting for "Q" and "800". Not sure the author will touch the 101/J15s - there are too many of those and, anyway, a very good book "Steam In Three Centuries" has covered that class.

Ahhhh... The BCDR trust....... Hmm!

Yes, I've heard about the dark side of those fellas. But the books are useful.....

...As Horsetan pointed out, a J15 just might shade it because there were so many of them and because they had a long innings....

 

I generally agree with this comment, except that the J15s existed in a multitude of forms and with different tenders. So which one would you do? - you wouldn't please all the people!!!

 

Tooling technology means you can create one main tool for the footplate, splashers and cab. Separate tools could then cover the two main smokebox / boiler / firebox types: you just clip in / screw in the one you want onto the footplate assembly. The loco chassis is the same, anyway.

 

The only real complication is the tender: I'd agree you would need dedicated tooling for each tender type, and that's where the real expense is.

Regarding a book on the 800 class, Minister, I agree it would make fascinating reading. I suspect,though, with only three of them, the number of people who knew them intimately was relatively small, and indeed the great tragedy is that they never got a chance to properly stretch their legs following the advent of diesels and prior to that the fuel crisis.

 

If anyone ever fancies taking on such a project, I would be delighted to provide any assistance I could....

Richard Pue will be covering the 800s later in his ongoing series of monographs on various Irish locomotive classes, but he's doing all the GNRI and NCC ones first.

His books are limited to 500 copies per class, with proceeds going to the BCDR Trust.

Already available from here:

 

http://www.studio-scale-models.com/

I think SSM includes all the names in the express engine kits, e.g. the "S". The classes were so small, it doesn't cost that much extra to fit all the names onto the etchings....

Another project I'm working on is a 650 tank. I happened to notice that the Hornby LBSCR looked a bit like the GSR/CIE 650 class....

I did wonder if the Mainline/Dapol/Hornby Gresley N2 would have given you a better head start, as well as a ready-made 0-6-2T chassis (5'8" driving wheels)....

The 387 looks the business, nice one. Have you thought about doing any cement bubbles. I am trying to collect the materials for a rake of them but the kinder egg has changed recently. It has a hinge now and will need a lot more work.

check out the link below, it might be of interest to you.

http://newirishlines.org/2009/06/19/scratch-building-a-cie-cement-bubble/

I wonder what became of this?

I'm loving the general consensus from JB's original post, they all make my mouth water

 

B4, J15, AEC Railcars, 800, S, A-Class, and a 50's laminate coach.

 

 

Mmmmmm.

As long as they don't take away sales from SSM

Meanwhile, one "S" class continues to take shape......

Smokebox front overlay soldered on tonight - the bottom of it has an upward curve, which had to be formed using the handle of a needle file to get close to the right curvature.

Front frame laminates also assembled but will not be added to the footplate until the smokebox wrapper is on......

I think I have made a mistake with the buffer beam. Can anybody spot what it is.....?

If he does Ivan I wonder will there be a finders fee.,

...forgot to put the T in Christmas

Chris will be pleased, though.

Thanks any other loco ideas

Well, you could try building a loco kit from Studio Scale Models......

oh the thought of rtr steamers! 1- no 4, 2- 186, 3- Merlin, 4- Slieve Gullion, then the three 800's.....well, you cant stop a lad from dreaming!

All except no.4 available as SSM kits. And even no.4 may yet emerge as a full-ish kit from Worsley Works......

I think only the J15 and NCC "WT" have any prospect as RTR, and even then they would need to allow conversion to 21mm. Most of the other Irish steam classes were mostly small in number, reflecting in part the lack of money of the railways that had them built. I derive my fun from building kits, and having a J15 in RTR means one less sale for SSM.....

.....These etches were done 30 years ago and the handdrawn artwork has long since disappeared and is certainly not available to me. I would have to recreate the etch design from scatch using the etch transparancies as a template.....

Ah, that's a shame. Lost in the mists of time. Never mind, it was just a question that occurred to me as I went along.

Send me up an etch Des, i'll redraw it for ya

You'll have to build it, though....

Will he not get some sort of cash prize...?

It's not all plain sailing, as we will now discover. First, I took out the post-1938 front frames (Part P16 and P17) from the etch:

These have two layers, with the riveted layer being attached last of all.

The inner layer has no tabs at all along the base, so trying to hold it in place is going to be the very devil:

Note that the left-hand frame has a tiny notch in the top - this is where the lubricator and its bracket will be places.

Now, let's have a look at the underside, so yis can see what I mean: if the slots in the footplate are going to be that long, why not have tabs on the base of the front frames to fit into these, and provide a stable location?

"Weshty": what d'ye think? Is it worth modifying the etch artwork?

The interior shots were filmed at the former Bushey School (which was already being developed for expensive private housing whilst all the filming was going on!) near Watford.

Now, some photos of what was done over the weekend....

The smokebox is the subject of our attention, and the kit provides a basic fold-up shell (Part P13) which we saw out of the fret:

Stick it in the vice:

....and start folding:

As can be seen, there are tabs underneath the smokebox sides which are intended to fit into slots in the footplate.

The front and rear of the smokebox shell have tiny etch marks; these act as seats for the tops of the smokebox sides:

...and this is how they fit:

A minimum of solder is now run into the inside corners, and eventually, we get this:

...which means we can test-fit it onto the footplate:

That is the poverty of Communism.

He looks like Lenin.

I have put a few more photos up showing the area requested. Hope they are ok .....

Brilliant!!!!

Right so, I'm just after completing the shell of the smokebox. Photos to follow as Windows Phone 8 will not work directly with the Forum upload software.

The smokebox shell is easy, but mounting it on the footplate reveals some flaws in etch design which "Weshty" might want to have a look at if he gets time to revisit the original artwork that he inherited. These flaws also affect the mounting of the front frame plates, making the job a little harder than it should be.

The real killer is forming the smokebox wrapper - you have to go slowly and carefully on this, and it helps to have the use of a rolling mill. The reverse curve where the smokebox sides become vertical must be marked out because if you get it in the wrong place, it will be the very devil to correct. I'll show yis how I did mine.....