The Great 3F build off

[MarkS]

Thanks Steve for the encouragement! My soldering skills are certainly improving with this build.

The front of the tender photo is a great help, I have seen bits in pictures, but not quite enough to make a judgment call...
Mine will look similar to your model, but definitely not the same!

[Andy W]

Yes, nice work Mark. Re the chimney - I'd be tempted to check out a suitable Gibson replacement rather than start wielding a big hammer.

[MarkS]

I annealed the slightly bent spare chimney, and with the aid of some steel rod (and a small hammer), rolled the base successfully.
Annealing is the key, not the size of the hammer!

P1040411.JPG

Now I have to repeat with the "final" chimney but armed with experience it should be OK.
Thanks to all for the suggestions, I hope to have some progress to report at the end of the weekend.

[Horsetan]

Has everyone finished their 3Fs now?

[David Knight]

Err, no. Speaking for myself, there have been a few bumps in the road that have caused things to grind to a halt. I messed up one wheel, ran into some problems with the cab interior and needed to do some research on finishing the forming of the boiler wrapper. By the time all that was done momentum was lost but I expect to get back at it in the near future.

Thanks for the interest, sorry to disappoint.

Cheers,

David

[David Knight]

As promised (threatened?) an update. The cab interior presents some difficulties as the etches and the photographic evidence don't quite match but after some thought and some fettling of my preferred etch progress has resumed. The cab beading comes with a convenient groove etched into the middle of the strip so placement is fairly easy. I took advantage of the fret waste to use as a former so as to minimise burnt fingers and tricky jigs to hold the strip in place while soldering.

cab beading.jpg

After tinning the cab edge tacking the top corner in place allowed the remainder to be coaxed into position with a minimum of solder.

Beading applied.jpg

The backhead was designed to fit 00 wheels and with the improved interior left a gap. I filed down some brass sprue to fit and soldered it in place to fill out the missing bits.

Widened backhead.jpg

The next step will be to fit a reasonable approximation of some pressure gauges and then add the roof.

Cheers,

David

[MarkS]

After a long and glorious summer (besides the pipe that leaked over the dining room - big mess...) winter is starting to show signs of snow, thus motivating my modelling efforts for another season.
The tender now has doors and latches for tools and kit, and the boiler has had the smokebox wrapper, boiler bands soldered on. I even went so far as to attach the boiler to the firebox and footplate.
The chimney is just resting at the moment, but it is starting to look like a 3F. The chassis are in front.
Progress yes, but plenty of work to go.

[MarkS]

Not much to report modellingwise, but the dust cover of the book 'Somerset and Dorset Sunset' shows a clear picture of the rear/top of the tender toolbox. I just put the book title into Google images...
It seems I have to add a handle to the top of the toolbox...

[essdee]

Hi Mark,

I wouldn't rush to add that tender toolbox handrail, as sported by your No. 73's sister 72, as shown running as 43216 in 1961. I can not find any such tender toolbox handrails on photos of the S&D engines from the 1920/30s, and I suspect this may well be an 'imported' ex MR tender. In BR days there was a considerable 'mix-n-match' when the engines went for service at Derby (remember, Highbridge Works had closed way back in 1930), and they would be returned to service with the first available appropriate tender. That is one advantage of modelling what is effectively a 'pre-Group' era, the S&D retaining much of its individuality until 1930.

Interestingly, those handrails appear to common if not standard on the tenders with a bulkhead behind the toolbox, often with truncated coal rails as well. So I wonder if Derby had done some 'kit butchery' on the tender behind 41326?

So, one less job for you to do?! Enjoy the rest of the build,

Best wishes

Steve

[nberrington]

photo 3F restart.JPG

Back in the saddle

Well after a major setback last year, I finally got going again. Briefly staring at ones own mortality caused more of a "loss of mojo" than any physical ailment. Mojo is now officially back and the 3F back on the bench.
I spent some of the weekend putting on details - boiler bands, slashers, cab beading and rail. After wiping the rust off the unimat, I cleaned up the lost wax castings of the chimney and dome, and drilled out the chimney a bit.
The little "lathe" is sadly a shadow of the older versions of unimat - positively weak in the knees, and is really lightweight - in my mind a problem for real accuracy. For general trim, drill and polish seemed to work just fine.

Most pleased with myself, I had a wee dram of SMWS 29.97 - a truly delicious and ancient Islay malt.

Reading over the LRM instructions last night had me pondering on the tender. I have a few references, but it is not clear to me which locos were fitted with the low front vs high front tenders. Is there a rule of thumb? How do I tell which is which on a photo, as the tender footplate is generally not visible from most pictures? (Being a LSWR man, the Midland is a mystery)

[Hardwicke]

When you say "high front' or "low front" do you mean the Tender coal bulkhead?

[nberrington]

Eventually figured out the "frontage" issue on the tender.
Thanks to our state in the realm, even us Canucks get a long weekend! Nothing like celebrating Victoria day by building a Victorian locomotive!

Anyway - some progress on the tender.

DSC_0067.JPG

[Andy W]

That's a good idea to assemble the tender chassis with top hats first - not having the rods to align to.

[nberrington]

Something very satisfying when a brass kit starts to look like a locomotive:

[MarkS]

looking good Neil,
I have actually done some work on my 3F - I spent some time this morning with some Milliput adding the wheel weights, with the final day of the Giro d'Italia in the background.
Not picture worthy, but progress all the same.

So, is the new build off completion date going to be GBTS 2014?

[David Knight]

Yes, well done Neil. I can make no such claims as domestic duties are currently keeping me occupied.

GBTS 2014? I can live with that although I'm sure our devoted readers would like to see progress sooner than that.

Cheers,

David

[nberrington]

I hope to get her done by the end of summer. I am anticipating a bit of a hiatus as we leave for France in 3 weeks, and I won't get at it again until late July.

All the same sunning myself in beautiful Collioure is a small price to pay for this particular delay.

Now if these jolly playoffs would wrap up sometime soon, I may also spend less time looking at the lunatics lamp.

[MarkS]

Hey Neil, have you finished yet?

Over the last couple of days I have returned to the abandoned 3F, completed the tender, installed the gearbox (HL Roadrunner) and coupling rods.
To my surprise, the chassis rolls almost perfectly, despite using tighter tolerances than I normally would and only "eyeball" quartering... The wheels are Maygib that came with the kit.

I was interrupted today though, being that it was a perfectly sunny 3 degree C day, I went for a bike ride...

[David Knight]

Time I got back at this. Mark sent me a pic the other day that has aided digital extraction so I've been doing a few small bits to get back in the routine of fitting and soldering.

so far.jpg

I decided to see what I had accomplished so far (see above) and map out the road ahead. I need to find/fabricate brake pull rods for the engine and sweating the wrapper onto the boiler tube would be a Good Thing. Quartering and fitting the wheels will also help progress. I've recently made up the splashers and need to attach them to the running plate and fit the valences in between them. Right then, one step at a time, by the left...

Cheers,

David

[MarkS]

This is the pic I had sent Dave, slow progress, but progress all the same.
The smoke box front needs some serious thinning down, but the empty space between the frames really is noticeable...
I feel I will have to fabricate some reasonable facsimile of cylinders/valve motion. Which takes us back to page 2 of this thread.

[David Knight]

A few small steps but in the right direction! Fitting the splashers is a fiddly job that involves assembling the front splasher/sandbox combination and the middle splashers, the rear wheels being covered by the cab for the most part. The splashers themselves are the usual arc with a cover but behind them lurk extensions of the frame that can cause a bit of grief if you're not careful. The kit is designed for all three gauges and thus needs to leave room for wheels in the frame extensions that is not needed in P4, hope fully the following pic will illustrate what I mean.

mind the gap.jpg

The top part is my solution to the problem, the middle, the kit's offering for the 812 class and the bottom the kit's offering for the 652 class. The order of operations in the instructions is as follows, attach the middle splashers, then the front using the temporarily added cab as a reference. Then add the frame extensions. If you are modelling the 652 class this is fairly simple but the 812 involves a bit of a balancing act that I did not feel up to, so I took some fret waste, used the kit parts as a pattern and made up a set of my own extensions which you see at the top.

Splashers in.jpg

So now with those parts in place we carry on to the next stage.

Cheers,

David

[David Knight]

A small step backwards . I worked on the cab roof but failed to refer to photos before doing so thinking that it was straightforward enough. I was wrong. On the plus side I learned that although it is not called for in the instructions, annealing the cab roof main section is a great help in getting it to the right shape so my second attempt (ordered parts are on their way, thanks Jim) should go better. In the meantime I have rivets to press in the smokebox wrapper and other parts that require attention so nil desperandum and carry on!

Cheers,

David

[David Knight]

Moving forward again in little bits and pieces. The cab roof is finally sorted. The Mk3 version can be seen in the pic below along with one of the cabside lamp irons. That roof is made up of 9 separate pieces and has given me the incentive to look into an RSU as did the fitting of the lamp irons. But, never mind, it is done so we shall carry on!

cab roof & lamp iron.jpg

[David Knight]

Since this was never intended to be a stationary model it was about time that I got the motor in place. I had the gearbox sussed out but it was not until I was reviewing a post by Will L that I was able to sort out how to set up the torque reaction link. Photographic evidence follows:

torque reaction link.jpg

The link can be seen just ahead of the motor mount on the gearbox. It consists of a pigtail of NS wire soldered to the 'box and passed through a loop soldered to the frame spacer. This was necessitated by the location of the cab and rear wheel which can be seen here:

cab and motor relationship.jpg

The whole rig has yet to turn a wheel in anger but the day is getting closer

Cheers,

David

[Russ Elliott]

That's a neat location for the torque reaction link.