Part 9 - The body is a foot... plateHaving got a rolling chassis or two, the time has come to check that my design for the power chain will fit inside their respective bodies. To do this we need to produce the basic body box.
Starting from the bottom upThe beginnings and the basis of the body is the footplate. For both J65 and J69 this is made up of two layers, the upper layer is the visible footplate, the lower layer contains fold down elements for the footplate valance, buffer beams inner layers, and the back plate for the footsteps, plus fold up lamp irons. The J65 also has a fold up cradle piece on which the boiler will sit and cab “step” up-stands to support the cab floor.
The implications of building in P4. By making the frames wider than the original design intended, on neither loco would they now fit through the hole in the centre of the footplate. The reasons for this were different but the effect was the same.
On the J65, the footplate was intended to sit on the frames front and back, with an upward frame extension over the horn blocks standing ever so slightly higher than the footplate.
On the J69, the chassis kit was originally designed to fit the Wills cast J69 kit, with its thick white metal footplate, and as a replacement for the original Hornby(?) chassis the Wills kit was designed to sit on. As a result, most of the chassis stops a millimetre and a bit below the etched footplate. At the front the footplate has a pad constructed behind the buffer beam that the chassis is supposed to sit on but now fitted neatly between the frames. Under the cab, however, the profile of that long lost Hornby Chassis extends upward through footplate level.
On both locos there were wider cut outs in both layers to clear each wheel. They also had a section right across under the tank fronts for which there is no prototypical justification. At the front where the footplate up to the frames is visible, the under layer had a cut out over the front axles, and the upper layer was half etched above the wheels to give the maximum clearance.
A way throughUnder the cab and tanks, having footplate up to the frames all seemed a bit unnecessary and was certainly invisible, so to fit in the wider frames, the simple answer, which worked for both, was to cut that section of the footplate back to the full width of the wheels. The section of footplate above the front wheels which was left in place was just filed back a touch so that it was clear of the frames. That unprototypical bit across the footplate under the tank fronts was left in place, for now. I did the major surgery by the score and bend technique while the etches was still flat. The results show in the pictures at the end of part 8 above and below.
Taking StepsBefore you start bending up the etches, you also need to consider the footsteps, as at some point you are going to have to fit the steps proper, and once bent down the footstep assembly becomes vulnerable to damage. Master Rice’s instructions says don’t bend them down too early because of that vulnerability, but as I want to fit the chassis quite early on, unbent down steps would have been very much in the way, so the bend down step cannot be long delayed. I chose to attach the steps proper to the backing plate while the etch was still flat because it was going to be much easier and less fiddly to do then.
Once the modifications had been made to the original etches, the two parts were bent up, or down as appropriate, including the now completed steps, and the two layers were then soldered together. The buffer beams proper were added at this stage too. The bent down steps and the valance now have a fairly narrow gap between them so, to reinforce the steps, I filled this gap with bits of bras scrap and soldered it up solid. This didn’t entirely stop the steps being vulnerable to getting bent but did mean they didn’t get broken off. If I was to go round again I think I would have reinforced the step backing plate with another layer of scrap etch before fitting the steps, just to toughen it up a bit. But with the steps attached it is a bit late to attempt that now, without being in danger of unsoldering them.
Forming an attachmentAll that is left to complete the basic footplate is to arrange the attachment points for the chassis. These locos follow the Rice-ian dictate of only having one bolt holding body to Chassis, but this single bolt is at opposite ends. One 10BA captive nut was fitted to both where the designer intended. Under the bunker on the J65 and under the smoke box on the J69. When I do this I hold the nut in place over the hole provided in the footplate with a cocktail stick, solder down the nut with plentiful solder and run a 10BA tap through the lot to clear the thread.
The other mounting points are unique to each loco.
On the J69 the back of the chassis which comes up through the footplate has rear facing “fingers” on each side that fit through pockets in an up-stand from the footplate. This ends up out of sight under the cab floor, but is visible in the photos above and below. Strangely, given the surgery required to suit a P4 width chassis, the slots to suit EM gauge fitted P4 frames without any adjustments. These fingers also set the height of the body above the chassis at the back of the loco, so the fact that the footplate and the top of the frames don’t meet doesn’t matter. But it does at the front and, as reported above, the pad behind the buffer beam isn’t wide enough to support our P4 chassis. Thus the original, that folds down from the buffer beam, was replaced with a wider bit of scrap brass.
On the J65, there is a similar fold down shelf from the front buffer beam, in this case the leading frame spacer fits under it not on top of it. As the frames do meet the footplate in this kit there are no level problems but the fit between body and chassis is at best very sloppy. So I added scrap brass to the underside of the front edge of the frame spacer so it was a comfortable, but not tight, fit under the “shelf”. Said shelf isn’t wide enough to ensure the P4 chassis is central under the body, but as the upward extension of the frames over the leading axle passes through the footplate, they serve to locate the chassis accurately under the body.
Finally the frame spacer body mounting holes, drilled undersize originally, are opened out so that they match the position of the captive nut on the footplate. Bolt chassis to footplates and take the photograph. As we haven’t had a picture recently here is another one of the two locos at this stage from a different angle. J69 left, J65 right..
buck B+S 2.jpg
RC 30238