25 Years a flat pack!

In the late 1980s i bought a cast white metal kit for a GWR 45xx Prairie. This was produced by Alan Searle in conjunction with the 3mm Society. The original kit included a cast chassis which I never got to work. In 1994 the Society introduced an etched nickel silver kit for the 45xx chassis. This was a reduced version of the Churchward kit for the 4mm scale chassis which in turn , I think, was reduced from the 7mm kit. The etchings arrived with 15 pages of instructions and promptly entered the ‘flat pack draw’!

Over the last 25 years they have been in and out of the draw but I had never been brave enough to tackle it. I really wanted a 45xx Prairie for a new layout I am planning at home. Recently I was given a Portescap motor and gearbox and also acquired a set of instructions annotated with all the correct sizes of holes, wire etc for building the 3mm version. This was done by the late Ralph Stueart, a member of the SW group of the 3mm Society, when he was building his model. Armed with this lot I have at last freed the kit from the dreaded draw and built it. With Ralphs instructions I have now found that it wasn’t as hard as I imagined.

One of the biggest problems in doing a 14.2mm gauge loco is the ‘fag paper’ clearance between the back of the cross head and the coupling rods. Taking Iain Rice’s advice I moved the piston tube and slide bars 0.5mm out. In the cylinder etching and used a countersunk crank pin on the leading wheels.

Much to my delight the chassis works!!

Those who know what work I have done in the past might wonder why it is finished in early BR black. Well I am planning a home layout based on Tavistock South in Devon and want to base it around 1948 which is my year of birth.

More about this in the future…………..

Hawthorn class Broad Gauge locomotive

I have now virtually finished ‘Hackworth’ a member of the 2-4-0 Hawthorn class of Great Western Broad Gauge locomotives. It’s mainly scratch built using etches produced for me for the footplate, splashes and valance.

The loco is finished in its final state with double buffers to facilitate working mixed gauge trains. Because of the fine tolerance between wheel and valance I elected to use a slightly smaller driving wheel to prevent shorts. The cab and boiler blackhead remain to be done as well as a suitable crew.

Newbies update

I have now finished the small GWR 850 class saddle tank and have been running it in on Lananta. It is finished in the late Victorian livery of dark green with Indian red frames and wheels.

I have also revamped the cassettes for Lananta so that they are now compatible at either end and I have improved the alignment of them with the rest of the layout. Slowly the general running of the layout is improving!

Also in planning is an extra Broad Gauge locomotive. I have started building a GWR 2-4-0 Hawthorn Class loco which was featured in the latest edition of the Broad Gauge Society Broadsheet. The loco chassis is almost complete and I am now waiting for some etches for the footplate and the intricate valances.

The chassis has a beam compensation with High Level Miniblox horn blocks. The gearbox is a High Level compact+ mated to a 1015 Mashima motor. This will fit up into the firebox and leave the cab free of intrusion apart from the final drive spur gear.

The one I have chosen is ‘Hackworth’ which will be finished as running towards the end of the Broad Gauge when it was fitted with double buffers to enable it to run mixed gauge trains. More about this later when the etches have been delivered………

Newbies………

Here are a couple of new additions;

Firstly is an ex L&Y Pug for use on Lakebank. This is a 3mm Society kit originally built to 12mm gauge by the late Don Hanson, a member of the South Western Group. I have converted it to 14.2mm gauge by moving the wheels out on their axles and also moving the outside cylinders further out to give clearance. This is a very characterful loco complete with a ‘waddle’ as it moves along. The two wagons are also the work of Don.

Secondly is a model of a GWR 850 class saddle tank, now awaiting painting. This is from a kit produced by Andy Shillato of the 3mm Society with additional hand turned brass dome and safety valve and buffers from a plasticard version I built about 20 years ago. The chassis is compensated and driven by a high level gearbox mated to an open frame Mashima motor. This loco is destined to be part of the standard gauge stock on my new diorama layout ‘Lananta’.

Eggesford progress

I have now finished the 3mm Society/Malcolm Mitchell kit of a Great Western 517 class tank which is now running on Eggesford with a rake of 4 wheel coaches which are also from 3mm Society kits.

The picture below shows a busy time at Eggesford which, I’m afraid, has become rather “Westernised”! The 517 can be seen on a Down local passenger with a  steam rail motor on an up service and a LSWR Ilfracombe goods shunting the yard

A Merry Christmas to all my readers. I look forward to progressing more in the New Year with reducing my store of flat pack kits!

517 has progressed

The loco is now looking like it should. I must admit that I haven’t put on every part that the 4 and 7mm models would have, as many of the etchings are so tiny I can’t see them!! I think the overall effect shows what delightful locos these were.

Now to clean the whole body up and get it painted then move on to the next flat pack. Also, looking at the track in the photos, I must get the ballasting finished on Eggesford. 

GWR 517 Class

I have at last made a start on those draws of flat packs that every modeller has! Quite a few years ago I bought a 3mm Society kit for a GWR 517 Class 0-4-2T. The kit is a Malcom Mitchell kit which has been reduced to 3mm scale. I have looked at with all the etches and pages of instruction many times and tended just to put it back in the box!! With the need for an early GWR tank loco I decided I had to take the plunge. 

Actually the kit is beautifully designed and all the parts fit together with very little if any fettling. However with all the tiny parts supplied as well as having to laminate two or three layers at times this is not a kit for the faint hearted. 

As can be seen from the photos I have assembled the chassis with society Finescale  wheels, a High Level gearbox and Mashimas motor to 14.2mm gauge. The body has got as far as the main structure and a trial fit of the boiler and firebox. The next step is the smoke box and then lots of fine detailing. The kit comes with white metal castings but I intend to turn up a brass dome and safety valve on the lathe.

Poppy’s loco building box

Following a discussion at the St Albans show I commissioned a 3mm scale version of their new loco building jig. It is made from laser cut plywood and comes complete with 1/8″ axles turned down at the ends to take coupling rods.

I am now trying it out to build a chassis for a 0-4-2 GWR 517 class tank. This is the 3 mm society kit reduced down from Malcolm Mitchell’s 4/7 mm kit.

The instructions suggest using the supplied silicon tube to hold the chassis central in the box but I was worried about keeping it square. The first axle is inserted in a central hole and the second is fitted through a slot and the wheelbase is held by using the coupling rods. I have threaded top hat bearings with the flange towards the centre of the box onto the rod first. When the side frames complete with bearings are threaded on they can be pushed tight up to the other bearings and this keeps it all square. 

I am building the chassis to 14.2 mm gauge but not compensated as there isn’t enough room to get rhe beam around the gearbox. If building a chassis with hornblocks this will be ideal to get them in the correct position before soldering up. 

The chassis spacers can be tack soldered to one of the side frames and then the whole lot is set up in the jig  before finally soldering up the spacers.

   
 
Overall I think that ,compared with other more complicated and expensive jigs ,at £25 this is good value. My only worry is that the central, fixed axle hole will wear in time. I may fit brass bearings to this hole to stop the wood wearing. 

AGM success

The 50th anniversary AGM of the 3mm Society was held at Swindon last weekend. I was extremely pleased at the reception that my entry for the ’50’ challenge – 50 x 50 shades of grey- received. I was especially pleased by the comments of Maggie and Gordon Gravett who were the guest judges and also all the smiles that the diorama put on people’s faces. The effect of LED lighting gave the whole scene a feeling of a typical dull, grey day in a misty industrial setting where there is little if any colour.  The reactions were totally not what I expected.

I was also pleased to be runner up in the Tony Birch Award competition for locomotives with my model of the LSWR Metropolitan Tank, or Plymouth Tank as it was known. Construction of it was recorded earlier in this blog.

Metropolitan Tank-finale

Below are two pictures of the finished model. It is painted in the late Beattie livery, used between1874 and 1878, of Purple Brown. The boiler bands are homemade transfers with black and white lining. The lining on the tank sides was scribed through the top layer of paint to expose the undercoat which gives a reasonable representation of the fine lines involved.