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Brassmasters Duchess test build

8509 Views 19 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  dwb
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Hi All

I am currently embarked on building a test build of the forthcoming Brassmasters Coronation or Duchess kit. Way before I got distracted with Brettell Road I always thought that if Brassmasters ever did a Duchess i would have a go at building one as 46235 'City of Birmingham'. Well now they are and so I am!

Of course its a personal opinion thing but I never really liked streamlined steam locos. While the Duchesses were a little more thoughtfully designed than the god awful GWR efforts I always thought they looked a bit like an upturned bath tub and have to admit the A4's did look a fair bit better. However with the streamlining taken off the Duchesses were 'it'. The steam locomotive version of the Concorde moment. To my eyes, at least, the pinnacle of steam loco perfection.

Anyway enough hero worship and on to the model. Starting with...


The main sub-frames. The loco frames come in 3 sub sections related to the wheels. A driving wheel section, a pony truck section and a bogie section.


The chassis upside down, test fitting the main coupling rods.


The main frame with the brass overlays fitted.


The front or bogie area sub-frame.

More to follow.
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Well that's looking impressive. Has the designer quoted a minimum radius curve required for the finished vehicle? I am imagining scale
for six chains...
I don’t know at this stage
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So progress continues on my Coronation build.



The front frame is as far as I can go for the moment. (I don't have the cast bits for the loco yet. If you are wondering about the cylinders they are a separate sub assembly.



No problems with the pony truck so far. The kit provides for both the earlier and later types. This is the later one.



The bogie is compensated. As the bogie is the only part of the loco that traps the wheels in place I have used some old/rejected wagon wheels for the moment. I ideally only want to put wheels onto the axle once if I can.



Without the wheels in the way.



I couldn't resist a temporary mock up to see get a better feel for the loco. I've used a High Level Road runner + gearbox. The main drivers don't have their springs in place yet so its sitting a little off at the moment.

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*** As with all BM kits, lovely. I love working with their kits.

Question. The bogie.

One bearing plate seems to overhang the top plate but the other does not. Is it just the photo angle that makes it look that way as in the image, one looks slightly higher than the other

regards, Richard
It’s compensated but shown without any weight a Richard. The whole beam rocks on a center point so without weight (or wheels) it sits lower.
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I've moved away from the loco for a while as the next stage of the build is the cylinders and I don't have the castings i will need for them just yet. So attention has shifted to the tender.


The first stage is the outside sub frames - a simple box really. The kit allows for springing or internal compensation. I've opted for springing.



Underside of the tender showing the sub frame, brake gear and water scoop gear. A little fiddly but its been fun to build so far.
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Thanks for posting. The pictures aren't showing up for me I am afraid.
Are you guys using safari as they don’t show for me on that, none of the pictures on this forum do for some reason. Seems fine on chrome though.

They are on my site too www.p4newstreet.com/workbench
I don't see them in 'Edge' on Windows 10 either. Previously it has been suggested that photos which are hosted on a plain 'http' service aren't displayed since the general move to 'https' pages in the last year or so. No idea if that's correct or not.

David
I use Firefox on Ubuntu, running on an old Dell laptop. I am fairly sure that the software is up to date.
*** Firefox currently shows me the image icon, but a right click and "View image" works fine. A lovely kit as are all of Brassmasters offerings. I can feel several purchases coming on once it is released :)

regards

Richard
In Chrome, right click and Open Image in New Tab worked, bur strangely Load Image did not.
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The tender chassis is now effectively done - Not a lot else to say really so here's some pictures.


Right hand side


Rear end


Front, or loco end.
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Moving on to the tender body...



Brassmasters supply a basic sub structure with different overlays for the 3 main types of tender found behind a Duchess.





This is the coal chute and front bulkhead assembly.



The 2 sub assemblies test fitted together.
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Progress on my tender build continues. This is the front end with some of the detail started.



And the rear end.



Inside showing the fire iron tunnel and and the coal pusher which is a 3d print.
Below are the some images of the tender in its nearly complete state. There's still a few bits I need such as the ladder etc but focus will now shift back to the loco.





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Like it

David
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