Alan's grubby little shunters thread

[Tullygrainey]

Now I am inordinately proud of this. Four separate bits plus 3 bits of wire. Just a pity it'll be hidden away inside the cab. I'd like to solder it on the cab roof

[Galteemore]

8 minutes ago, Tullygrainey said:

Now I am inordinately proud of this. Four separate bits plus 3 bits of wire. Just a pity it'll be hidden away inside the cab. I'd like to solder it on the cab roof

No definitely deserves a wagon of its own with spotlights and a theme song. Beautifully done 

[Patrick Davey]

4 hours ago, Tullygrainey said:

Now I am inordinately proud of this. Four separate bits plus 3 bits of wire. Just a pity it'll be hidden away inside the cab. I'd like to solder it on the cab roof

Great - now I know who to call for my next signal box interior details........

Edited July 5 by Patrick Davey

[Mol_PMB]

16 hours ago, Tullygrainey said:

 I changed the title of this thread rather than start a new one because what follows is more of the same really. After a fairly protracted period of building Irish locomotives of various persuasions and getting Kilmore, my BCDR exhibition layout up and running, I'm changing tack for a while and indulging one of my other interests - grubby little shunters, both steam and diesel. I've gathered a motley collection over the last few years with the intention of running them on an industrial themed layout which, to date, exists only on the back of an envelope. 

Anyway, here's the latest proposed addition to the roster.

 

The kit consists of a single brass etch, some resin castings and all the necessary bearings, nuts, bolts and handrail knobs. Just add wheels, gearbox and motor.

 

The chassis can be built rigid, compensated with all axles floating on pivoting beams or compensated with one fixed axle and hornblocks on the other two.

Using hornblocks is my usual route and I intended to do that with this one before changing tack to try out pivoting beams. With hornblocks, the coupling rods are used as jigs to set the wheelbase correctly and so they get made first. Using the rocking beams method, the etched beams set the wheelbase so the rods aren't needed at this stage (the instructions don't mention making them until near the end of the build). 

However, old habits die hard... 

 

Chassis frame and rocking beams, pivoted in the middle, to hold front and middle axles. The beams for the rear axle aren't in the photo. Drive will be to the middle axle.

 

A check after the event to make sure the wheelbases match the rods. I couldn't shake the notion that they mightn't!

 

Chassis more or less complete. The vertical plate at the rear axle position is a knife edge on which the axle will rock.

 

Footplate taking shape with baseplates for smokebox and cab. The 14BA nuts are captive, soldered to the plates so the body shell can be dismantled for painting. Lots of Vaseline under the plates and on the threads of the bolts to stop solder going in the wrong place and locking things up. it still did anyway once or twice, necessitating unseemly language, recovery and burnt fingers, in that order.

 

The Resistance Soldering Unit came in handy to add the cab spectacle frames with a minimum of solder

 

And this is as far as we got before bad light and the World Cup stopped play.

More soon, Alan

 

I’m looking forward to seeing this come together. You’re much better at finishing things than I am! 

[Railway Lyons]

8 hours ago, Tullygrainey said:

Now I am inordinately proud of this. Four separate bits plus 3 bits of wire. Just a pity it'll be hidden away inside the cab. I'd like to solder it on the cab roof

Stunning but of work.

Maybe plant one at a yard point to be admire in the open?

[Tullygrainey]

Sometimes when soldering, no clamp does the job better than your fingers. There is a small price to pay for this though

[Tullygrainey]

More Hunslett. The cab is well on the way now.

 

Trial fit of the usual High Level gearbox, a RoadRunner + for this one. Gibson wheels on order.

 

Boiler next. Laminating layers for the smokebox is always a challenge - four layers in this case if you count the boiler. Getting enough heat into the thing and keeping it neat and tidy takes time and patience. There's always work for the fibreglass pencil when the soldering is done.

 

Thanks to the smokebox front plate not seated properly and the difficulty of wrapping each layer tightly, the final wrapper came up short. Rather than dismantle the whole thing and start again, I've added small strips either side to bridge the gap. Not ideal but better than a space. The sand boxes will hide this to some extent anyway. I might have another go at it tomorrow.

 

 

[Tullygrainey]

Gibson wheels have arrived.

 

The Hunslett is a pretty diminutive loco and the boiler diameter is only 16mm in model form.  The High Level coreless motor I was intending to use fits inside ok but would require hacking lumps out of the bottom of the boiler at the back to get it in there when mounted in the chassis. To minimise the amount of surgery needed (I hope), I've ordered a smaller motor. So job parked for now.

 

Here are a couple of the locos already on the grubby shunter roster - a Sentinel 0-4-0 Vertical Boiler steam engine and a Thomas Hill rebuild of the Sentinel into a Vanguard 0-4-0 diesel. Both built from RT Models kits. High Level 4wd bogies and Mashima motors.

 

Edited July 9 by Tullygrainey

[Tullygrainey]

Some progress with the Judith Edge Hunslett 14" kit. The saddle tank was tricky to keep square and took ages to do. Annealing the metal made it easier to roll. A number of goes to get those little steps - one each side - to solder securely. 

 

Trial fitting of the tank. It's just wedged in place. The instructions suggest weighting it so I'll put some lead in there though it might be somewhere to stow a decoder. There's precious little space elsewhere.

 

Wheels are tiny - 13mm diameter this scale. The usual struggle to get the crankpins in straight seemed even harder with these for some reason.

 

Having fitted running plate supports and brake hanger cross shafts to the chassis (not to mention painting everything), I realised they'd prevent my GW Models wheel press from being used. I find that more reliable than trying to quarter the wheels by eye so all that stuff had to come off again. In the process, 3 of the four guard irons let me know they weren't firmly attached either  

Once wheeled up the rolling chassis moved freely under finger power which is always an encouraging sign.

A High Level Iron Core motor fits better than the coreless one but it's still a squeeze. The gearbox has to be tilted backwards, as in the photo and fed into the boiler.

 

First runs on the rolling road weren't great. A tight spot and weird things happening with the middle axle. But after pickups were fitted on the front and middle axles, things improved. First tryout on the shuttle plank.

 

Seems to run ok without pickups on the rear axle so I might not bother with those. We'll see. Brakes next - I decided it would be easier to fit the brakes round the pickups than vice versa. 

 

Alan

 

Two more  from the shunter roster - a pair of Hibbert Planet diesels of very different construction. On the left a whitemetal body kit from Roxey Mouldings on a  High Level 4wd bogie. Weighs a ton! On the right a Planet Industrials kit  - 3D printed body shell with nickel silver overlays and a 3D printed chassis.

 

 

[Mol_PMB]

I love your Planets!

This, 95% finished, has been sitting in my cabinet for several years. I never have been good at finishing things…

Planets of this ilk are lovely to drive! 

[Mol_PMB]

Mine (in 7mm scale) is a Taff Vale Models etched nickel silver kit. The prototype initially worked at Weaste (about 3 miles NE) and later at Cadishead (about 4 miles SW) so I consider it a local machine. It then migrated to Preston (a bit further afield, but still Lancashire).