Been trying to get back to some of my North Sunderland Stock today. I started a second saloon to go with Bamburgh back in November; having built a clerestory bogie carriage made up of about 400 parts in a week, I thought a four-wheel saloon with only 200 or so parts would be a doddle. But I ended up a gibbering wreck and haven't been able to look a soldering iron in the eye since.
Regarding the saloon, I need two models of the same vehicle: one to run with the Y7 in 1951 condition, and one to run with Bamburgh in 1934 condition; the late-life version of the vehicle appears on page 1 of this thread. The model below represents it as running in the mid-1930s, when Bamburgh had been overhauled and the livery simplified - the condition I'm modelling it in. This is the same Connoisseur kit with BB spring units, scratchbuilt roof, modifications to the bodywork to represent the alterations done by the NSR in 1934 when the BoT demanded a separate guard's compartment. Whereas late in life the carriage had no lighting at all (well, a loco oil lamp hung on the partition between guard's and passenger accommodation), in the 1930s it still had gas lighting - hence the lamp tops, gas feed and end gas taps; it was also dual braked, though the NSR wouldn't have a VB loco until the late 1940s when the Y7 was converted.
Jeremy's photo from earlier in the thread of the real thing in 1934:
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Comparison of the original late-life model and the new 1934-condition vehicle, at the point when I got gibber-y and wreck-y and put it to one side.
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View of the nasty end with scratchbuilt gas taps (0.6 tube with a loop of 0.193 wire stuffed in each end; 0.6 tube filed flat on the outward-facing face, and the whole threaded through handrail knobs) plus the scratch VB and W/house hoses:
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So if I can find where I hurled the soldering iron in November I may get back to this tomorrow. But this evening I've been having a look at what needs doing to the Y7 to get it finished. I'd got to this point last May:
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However, there were always a couple of issues with the chassis. One was that I'd "smoothed" the outer, sliding edge of the High Level axle blocks with a bit too much gusto, resulting in slop. So this evening I've binned the original blocks and put new ones in, which are sliding without slop.
For the other problem, I need the help of the forum. The loco has CSBs, and because of the large cutout in the frames, the only way I could position the centre CSB fulcrum/anchor thingy was by having it about 15mm from the rearmost anchor, which made it 25mm from the front anchor. Obviously, this made the rear axle springing much stiffer than the front one. I was hoping I could overcome that with weight. It may be that one of you sanctions that, and that would be option 1. Option 2 would be: with a bit of jiggery-pokery I could probably move the centre anchor forwards and get the distances to about 18mm and 22mm respectively. Alternatively - option 3 - I could put a fourth anchor in ahead of the cutout in the frames, making the front spring as short as the other. Any thoughts on what would work best - if at all? Here's a photo which may help - anchors ringed in red:
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