[wiggy25]

Ok so I'm mad!

At least I can blame it on the tablets, plus I may as well make the most of it as I have no idea whats going to happen when I see the consultant next week!

But too much time laying here resulted in me buying two old airifx kits for cheap money:-

A 'schools' class Harrow and
A 9F Evening star plastics OO kit.

Had a quick look at them, and I'm going to have a bit of play around.
Just ordered the full replacement chassis kit, motor,gearbox and wheels from Comet models, who do the complete kit for both of these Airfix kits.

Only ordered the Schools class first, need to rob a bank just to pay for the wheels!! Hate to think what it's going to cost for the 9F..2-10-0 far too many wheels!

Probably works out that it would be cheaper to just go buy a brand new, but where's the fun in that?
Which really does make this suited to the niche market of locos that will never be made as RTR.

Anyway I want to see if it's possible to use as much of the original kit as I can, before using the replacement chassis, why?
I want to see if it's possible to do! If I can do it Airfix can, with slight mods to the kits of course!

Plus I've never built anything like this before so it needed to be done, next progression as they say.
If my employer can let me loose on million pound machinery then I'm sure I can do something with this, it may end up as a brand new 4-8-4 'Night school' loco (that was lame

)
But hey the fun is in the trying!

Who else could keep you guessing with what obscure plan I'm going to do next!

As always photos will become available when I take them.

Cheers

 

[wiggy25]

Does it look like this?

Looks like Key kits do a 4-2-2 chassis:-

KEYKITS milestones range

ML6/9 Looks like the one....No excuse now

 

[wiggy25]

David,

On the comet website, there is a downloads tab, click on this and there is a list of downloads; scroll down to the :

"Building Loco Chassis the Comet way"

A very useful read, gives hints tips instructions and photos to get the best results.

Will post photos as and when, I had to buy just about everything though...jigs and special tools as I've not done anything like this before.
Should come in handy though for when....or if I build another!

Got to have a go at some point!
I'm more bothered about the painting and lining than any of the building works!

Cheers

 

[wiggy25]

QUOTE (dwb @ 13 Jun 2008, 18:13) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Thanks for the pointer. I have read it and it scared me a bit, but I think I probably worry too much....

David

I have some Diazepam tablets left

I'm sure they wil take the worry away from probably most things!

I've just thought if I build it while on the tablets it's bound to look perfectly square!!

There's another point to that though "If you build it" who exactly might come

If I don't have a go now I never will. If I make a hash of it, the frames can be bought as a separate item at £11.00 so not too bad.

Cheers

 

[wiggy25]

Here we go then,

The original Schools Class Harrow as it came from Airfix, the typical glue together kit:-



This is the kit chassis components with cylinders, slides all the connecting rods, front bogie and all those lovely wheels, which happen to be attached to the sprues on the wheel edges!!! So that keeps them round!
I have dry assembled this lot and to be fair it does all work, a little tight but the slides and motion do work!



Ordered the complete chassis kit from Comet models yesterday and today a little box of goodies turned up, I have to say the guy i spoke to was very helpful and knew his stuff, told him what I wanted to do and that I'd never done one, he did warn me that I'd picked one of the hardest due to the cylinders and motion!
He just said take your time, follow the instuctions and just call if I needed any advice or help.
Customer service or what!, here's what I've got:-



This is the full chassis kit as can be seen in the lefthand side packet, along with motor, Romford nut spanner, gearbox and all new spangly wheels!

So open up the Full Chassis kit bag and we find this little lot, all of which can bought individually:-



Which contains:- the frames, front bogie, Cylinders and the motion set.

Oh what have I done

all for the princely sum of £91

As the original plastic kit cost £12, I suppose in the grand scheme of things it's not too bad, saying that though I could have bought a RTR all painted and running for less than that!
I wouldn't have built it then though would I!
If I wanted to buy a complete brass kit I'd be looking at another £100 at least on top of that I reckon, so I think it's a good way to make a start on my first ever kit buit loco.

This one may take some time!

Cheers

 

[wiggy25]

QUOTE It's a scary thing looking at those 2D etched frets knowing you are supposed to make a 3D model out of them

I didn't actually now what was meant by fret until a few months ago!!

QUOTE (Brian Considine @ 14 Jun 2008, 11:48) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>look forward to seeing the progress & the finished model.

Brian.....so am I!

 

[wiggy25]

You know you want to see it!!!

Well David the first 2D etch now 3D just lots more to go!

My first ever brass soldering, started doing this then realised it's the most expensive part!!
It also happens to be one of the most critical getting the motor and gears lined up!

I'm well happy with it, put power on, and it all drives as well

Looks like there's loads of solder, there isn't! you don't need hardly any, just put a little bit on the soldering iron hold it on the brass, some smoke a fizzle of flux later and it just flows everywhere!
Everything needs to be clean though, I found that out, when I soldered the bearings into the side plates. Pushed the bearing into the hole after slapping a fair bit of flux around it, held soldering iron against the base of the bearing and you can see the solder start running all the way round!
The bearings did stick out a fair bit on the outside, it says file them down if your short of space, so I filed them down anyway as I don't know, better then than when it's all built!

Question for those in the know, the worm gear on the motor shaft and the idler gear are both held on by a very small grub screw, does any body put loctite on these, not glue!!
I have a range in my works tool box from super concrete I think thats 243, to just thread lock which isn't so bad, or do you just not need to bother?

Cheers

 

[wiggy25]

Update time,

It's not been too bad, so far!
The cross heads and motion gear for the valves is a nightmare!! Hence you can only see the mounting plate sitting on top of the frames.
The cyclinder frame is bent to shape and that is alos sitting on the frames right at the front, still need to solder the overlays to the sides of the front bogie.

But it rolls very free and easy!!!!!
For the very first go at a brass kit I'm well chuffed!
Long way yet to go but getting there!

Click on images to see them at a larger size.






Cheers

Oh, consultant believes it's a slipped disc, MRI scan on Monday!
Fantastic, I've now had pins and needles in my left foot for three weeks, and there's nothing they can do about it until they have seen and reviewed the scan!
I'm going to fire up my rip saw and chop the bloody thing off!

 

[wiggy25]

Neil,

Having looked at quite alot of the brass kits, I was never going to risk the sort of money involved without doing something a bit cheaper first!

I didn't actually know about these old Airfix kits, so when I saw these on Ebay and won them for cheap money it made sense to have a go.

What helped was cometmodels actually making the chassis sets for these Airfix/Dapol plastic kits.
The whole kit including motor, gearbox and wheels was £91, which to me is fairly cheap when you look at the cost of other 'full' brass kits.

Ok the detail in the plastic kit isn't anywhere near that of a full brass kit, but it gives me a starting point and confidence booster as I've never built one before.
I could also file some of the plastic mouldings off and replace them with brass components, such as hand rails and the like, not that I'm going to.
I just want to see if I can get a reasonable model out of a plastic kit.

I would just go for it, it looks like there are plenty of these Airfix/dapol kits knocking about for cheap money, then just get the chassis kit for it.
It looks like I will have to do more surgery on the plastic kit than on the chassis, to get it all to fit correctly!

If you have a look at the Dapol web site under OO and look under kits, scrolling through that lot shows lots of available kits.
Check on other sites first to see if you can get the chassis for it, then just go for it!

This link shows one of the many Dapol kits.

Dapol Evening Star kit

This is the chassis kit for the above loco from cometmodels,I actually have the Airfix kit of this model, so this one will be next!

Comet Models 9F kit

When I called comet, you have the choice, of buying and building a complete new tender or just buying the chassis and wheels then using this fitted to the tender that comes in the plastic kit.

Have to start somewhere, and for me this was the cheapest option, and it's not going too bad at the minute, although that will no doubt change!

Cheers

 

[wiggy25]

Ok so I have no idea what I'm doing!

I have the Romford wheels and crankpins and spacer washers.
Reading the instructions, I place the connecting rod onto the crankpins of the two large wheels, followed by the coupling rod from one large wheel to the crosshead valve mechanism, on top of this fits the return crank.

Then what, do the washers fit on last thing?
Are these washers soldered to the crankpins to hold the connecting rods on?

I'm a bit lost now, instructions do tell you which order to put everything on in but not where the washers go or how you fix things to the crankpins, any help would be useful!

Cheers

 

[wiggy25]

Thanks Richard,

This is the link to the loco that I'm actually building!

Schools class

Hopefully that should help!

Cheers

 

[wiggy25]

Thanks Richard,

The advice about soldering on the crankpin washers is what I needed to know.
Having never fitted any, didn't have a clue.

The link was just meant to give an idea of what I'm building, I doubt if the body will look that good though!!

Need to test run it then paint it all, before any of that, which is going to have to wait!

Not slept properly in 4 days and the pain down my leg is crippling, pain killers just make me constantly feel sick.
This is not good! Hey ho MRI on Monday, then another week before I see the results to find out whats going to happen!
Nightmare!

Anyway will try and get some photos of the chassis, it's all nearly complete, should be able to connect most things up and run it up and down to see how it goes.
Trying to work out if there's a way of connecting the return crank and valve arm to the crankpin just to test the complete motion without soldering it all up.
Will look into that one!

Thanks again for the info, exactly what I needed!

Cheers

 

[wiggy25]

Thanks for all the help and info guys!

I have to say this Comet Models chassis kit is actually very good, each part comes in it's own bag with it's own instructions, which are easy to follow.

The only area where I was unsure was on the fixing of the crankpins and washers as all of the wheels axles crankpins are in their own bag, with no instructions.

As I've never done one didn't actually know how everything fitted on the crankpin.

Reading another forum, it looks like DJH are not holding much 4mm stock anymore, so yuo may need to put an order in and see if they have what you want or are likely to be making it.

Cheers