'Hibernia' Dublin & Kingstown Railway 2-2-0 Loco Build Gauge O

[murrayec]

I have been hacking away on the Hibernia Loco build which featured way back in my 'murrayec projects' in the Workbench area, I have decided to carry on showing the build here. If you want some background info on the project here is a link;-

 

So after building the test plastic-card chassis I made a few adjustments to the drawings and then sat on the project due to the workload back then.

A couple of months ago I started back at it and set up drawings to mill the parts from .5mm & .25mm brass sheet to build a brass test chassis and other components which will be needed to test fit out and to use to make moulds for white metal castings. I have also set-up a brass tube boiler and machined up a firebox former from 30mm dia nylon bar, again when the fitting is done on the firebox the former will be used for moulding the final unit. The boiler will be worked out when the motor and gearbox are installed.

That's the fire hole in the back, the lower section is the ash-pan and the side cut will hopefully allow the chassis by! 

 

Last week the milling started on the chassis parts, cylinder base & heads, valve gear, bellcranks, and the nameplates in the .5mm brass;-

This chassis has inside and outside frames, with the slot & tab frame stretcher construction I reckon .5mm will be plenty strong?

Bellcranks are half depth milled to give the cast iron look, and in the footplate stretcher one can see the .5mm dia chain drilled holes to be opened up into slots for construction- the chassis frame tabs will stick up through these.

Again half milled nameplates- can't wait to see these painted and the brass text all shined up.

Next will be .25mm brass splashers, footplates, smokebox, smokebox doors, and more chassis fittings.........

Eoin

 

Edited October 26, 2019 by murrayec

[murrayec]

After the parts were machined and cut from the sheet I started to process the bits;-

First the outer frames were stamp with a few rivets, unfortunately the scale spacing of the rivets does not fit the tool correctly so the previously stamped rivet gets a bit squidged when stamping the next one, but I carried on!

They still look pretty

Then the slots which were chain drilled .5mm in the machine, were opened up and sized for the tabbed parts.

All slots done but still a bit of fettling required to fit the chassis together.

It's now I remembered that because of the outside frames I have to use horn blocks to install the axles as the outer frame obstructs the access to thread the axle through if one were to use bush bearings!! I did engrave lines on the inner frames for this- a bit more cutting required.

More parts to process.

Just if your wondering how I opened up the .5mm slots- first I cut through the chain drilling with the piercing saw, using the saw like a file the rough edges were removed, then with a modified .5mm thick diamond coated nail file cut and ground down to a width of 2mm, which is the size of the smallest slot, I used it to clean up the slots to size. The file does loose its grit over time but I got through this work OK and next time I will give it a bit of a grind beforehand.....

Soldering next I think.

Eoin

[debrawenlock]

Fantastic to see your progress on Hibernia. So good to see early vehicles being modelled.

[murrayec]

I did a bit on the Hibernia chassis over last weekend.

The inner frames were modified to take Slaters cast brass horn-blocks and bearings- as mentioned above the outer frames when on will obstruct the axles so now axles and bearings will drop out the bottom!

The frame spacers were folded and soldered, the spacers that go around the motor are made up of two .5mm brass parts sweat soldered together.

After checking all tabs & slots fit, a slight bit of fettling was required to get things square, I soldered the main frames together with 180deg solder.

Next the horn-blocks were soldered in using my home spun chassis jig to hold them in place tight against the frames.

I took a few measurements off the jig to see that all was square and then soldered them in, careful not to solder the keepers or bearings in!

All done, and then the wheels were put on to see how level we are- spot on!

Preparing the outer frames with the out-riggers! soldered on, again some slight adjustments required but tabs n slots are a great way to keep it all square and to hold the parts together while soldering.

One side frame on, the flat plate is the cylinder mount.

Done for now.

Wheels back on.

Eoin

 

 

[Galteemore]

Inspiring work as ever, Eoin. One of her cousins watches over my workbench...

[murrayec]

@Galteemore the Princess is also on my list! the drawings for it are nearly complete, but the Vauxhall will be before it.......

Eoin

[ShaneC]

Hey, sorry to bump such an old thread.

Wondering if you came across any concrete information on the colour scheme of Hibernia in your research @murrayec as personally I've found different sources to be conflicting.. There's at least 3 contenders:

• Contemporary illustrations & Fry's model use a dark green body & red running plates but I've found no sources for any locomotives of this time in Ireland having the red plates, seems like the other D&KR locos had green plates.
• A newspaper snippet that's not dated but supposedly from the 1850s, saying the body was unpainted and the running plate, a muted green.
• A crude drawing from the 1890s showing the locomotive as being painted olive green all over.

I've not been able to get at some resources due to the lockdown though so grateful if you have any insight to give me!

[murrayec]

@ShaneC Old thread!!

Your first enquiry;-

It is believed that the 3 Hibernia type locos were supplied by the manufacture to the D&KR in light battleship grey, they later received livery colours like the Fry model- it's hard to find when this happened! I believe maybe much later in their lives?? but these locos were gone by 1842 with one of them blowing up in Kingstown station and the other two sold for scrapping.

I found this painting in my search;-

https://www.ssplprints.com/image/88968/steam-locomotive-hibernia-1834

© NRM / Pictorial Collection / Science & Society Picture Library

The only problem with this picture is that the locos were originally supplied without tenders, the company believed they could run the locos from Dublin to Kingstown and back on coal & water fills at each end! As time went on with more stops along the way this became a problem and tenders were ordered to add to these locos and the Forresters.

Your second enquiry;-

I would say the newspaper article was taken from the picture above and its the 'nameplate' that's muted green not the footplate- no one would paint a footplate green, even back in those days..... and why would someone refer to the colour of the footplate.

Your third enquiry;-

I would say its not unreasonable to accept it was painted green all over at some time, can you show this drawing?

Also there is this pen & ink drawing, and I believe there is a painted version, showing a D&KR train with loco & tender in a green & black livery;-

The green could be grey on the loco but it's defo green on the tender. This loco looks more like a Forrester than a Hibernia type, but I understand all six tenders acquired by the company were of the same design type.

I will be going for the light grey livery on the model above.

Eoin.

 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by murrayec

[seagoebox]

I know it is not in colour, but still has nice detail.

From the Dublin Penny Journal.

[murrayec]

@seagoebox Yes a fantastic drawing and a great description in the Journal's text of the loco by the indexed letters assigned to parts in the drawing. When I first saw this it confused me, and others to, on the drawing detail of the bellcrank- the crank is outside the outer frame and the driver wheels are inside the frame!! After finding a copy of the Sharp Roberts works drawing  which featured in The Engineer 1883, all was explained! The guy who did the Journal drawing obviously had no engineering experience - just a draughftsman.

Eoin

[Killian Keane]

she's a wonderful machine, Id certainly be interested in building one at some point