[Lancashire Fusilier]

A couple of snaps of where I am at with my first ever loco kit (and first ever white metal soldering too I might add )

Kit is an ancient Wills Finecast of a Fowler 4F 0-6-0 and I picked up the kit cheap at AU$55 totally complete and with its corresponding chassis kit (for what its worth )

Should have taken some more progress shots but couldn't be bothered chewing up valuable modelling time using a camera

Overall view as it stands (literally!)

Front end view. The boiler is not yet soldered together and I have a penchant for smoke generators so one has been procured and will shortly be affixed in position. The lovely old Fowler MR chimney stack is longer than all other variants and will disguise the projection of the smoke generator nicely. For those interested it is a Seuth no 22 with the jacket removed.

Tender view. This was easiest to move on with. All pieces well polished up with 800 grit wet and dry where possible and the hard to reach areas with a fibre glass pen. Totally all soldered construction.

This will be fitted with an appropriate chassis probably from SE Finecast as they are made to fit this very kit I believe. Have ordered brass chimney and other fittings like lubricators, hand rails and all that jazz. Waiting for all that to come. Will be fitted with a 4 Function TCS decoder to run the smoke unit, front light and smoke box fire flicker unit. Livery is unlined black which is nice and easy for a first model

A set of Romford wheels should do the business however I am a little concerned that the interior of the tender chassis will need a lot of modification to have wheels fitted - will see in due course.

 

[Lancashire Fusilier]

QUOTE (harkins77 @ 27 Jul 2008, 14:19) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>How did you find soldering with white metal for a first go was it totally right first time of were there bits that had to be done 1 or 2 times before you had it right?

Thanks for the compliments. White metal was actually quite easy. With out trying to teach the art of egg sucking to anyone I found that the following aided things

a)Antex temp controlled iron set to 200 degrees celcius
b)well cleaned metal surfaces - several evenings were spent with a tray in front of the telly with the missus, filing off mould lines and flash etc and polishing with emery boards and papers
c)liquid flux applied at every joint - I use DCC Concepts Sapphire Flux from Richard
d)I wear latex gloves so my fingers don't contaminate the metal surfaces
e)I keep the soldering iron tip very clean, wiping it on the dampened sponge after every application
f) I don't try to pickup too much solder on the iron tip as it will drop off and be wasted
g)As opposed to brass and say 145 soldering where you apply the iron to the metal then apply the solder white metal is best done by applying a litlle solder to the tip of the iron and then applying the solder to the joint as a kind of tack weld. Then running the iron gentle up and down the seam where you want the solder to go tends to heat the whitemetal sufficiently to allow the solder to flow into the joint.

I will attempt some better shots of my processes if others are interested - well at least its a what works for me type of thing I guess.

 

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Nice stable there Paul M. I look forward to seeing how they progress if you can post shots I find I learn so much from all you fellows. How do you find the Nucast come together as they have plenty of nice old Midland Railway types that could be of interest for my EM layout?

 

[Lancashire Fusilier]

70 degree white metal low melt solder was indeed used for all soldered connections on the loco and tender. This was applied with a 200 degree setting on the soldering iron and not 70 degrees as some may think (at 70 degrees the iron wouldn't have enough heat to do anything other than maybe just stick to the solder and not actually melt it.) I find that with the iron pretty well constantly moving along a joint the heat does not get too localised. If you are holding the ityem in your hands as soon as it gets too hot to hold remove the iron and you won't have damaged the white metal.

145 is reserved for brass only on my models and I apologise for any confusion. When joining the brass item to a white metal item I tin the brass with flux and 145 degree solder (iron set at around 300 degrees) and then turn the iron back down to 200, wait a bit for the light to flash indicating it is back at its lower temp and then apply the 70 degree solder to join the brass to the white metal. I did this last night for instance joining a 1/16" brass tube signal bearing to a white metal post.

I trust this clears up the confusion I created.

 

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Well continuing on with progress and as this is about work benches I felt it only fair to share the current state of play as of close of activities this evening:

The lovely folk at Australia post had delivered a small but exciting parcel of goodies today and those who have purchased from the extensive Alan Gibson range will probably recognise the wee packets shown here:

So it only seemed right to rip open one of the little packets and indulge in some hand rail installations. The small brass stanchions were lightly tinned with 145 solder on their shanks up to their flanges after applying a litlle flux. The holes in the boiler sides were drilled and reamed to an appropriate interference fit such that the flanges seated nicely on the loco's boiler. The 145 solder on the brass gives a better surface for the lowmelt 70 solder to stick to on the inside of the boiler. Flux applied liberally on the inside and checking that the soldering iron had indeed been turned down to 200 degrees the low melt 70 solder was applied to the stanchion that slightly projected inside the boiler.

Process repeated for each hand rail stanchion. Alignment was by eye with a map pin pushed through the stanchion hole and twisted for alignment, while applying soldering iron on the inside if required to correct alignment.

Stanchions then lightly rubbed with emery to remove swarf and the like (too hard to hold before attaching to the boiler I found) and the hand rail holes reamed out a little to create an interference fit with the 0.45mm hand rail brass wire.

The hand rail was threaded through gently using a pair of tweezers and then trimmed at both ends after looking at photos of the prototype to determine a reasonable length to trim off. I then applied a dab of flux at each stanchion after giving the hand rail stanchion interface a rub over with the fibreglass pan to clean it. I then applied the slightest amount of 145 solder, very quickly so as to prevent the heat being transferred through the stanchions and into the whitemetal body work. This solder filled the handrail to stanchion connection nicely and secured it and the whole lot touched up with a couple of wipes with an emery board.

Sorry there is not too many actual progress photos to explain what I have said here. I will take a photo of the enterior of the boiler if anyone interested.

 

[Lancashire Fusilier]

QUOTE (A4_60013 @ 12 Aug 2008, 00:35) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>... in the first image of your last post (the image of your workshop) on the shelf in the background is a picture of a 4F (on A4 paper) i was wondering if you could point me in the direction of finding a large copy of this image on the internet (link) ...

Mate,

I have uploaded these shots to my Flickr account and you should be able to see them in the post here now. Just do a google search on Fowler 4F.

Paul.