Britannia 70013 in 5"g - images

[44767]

Mar 14, 2021 19:25:42 GMT @greenglade said:

Lovely work Norm, I like the rod number detail, I didn't realise that letter stamps were available that small, may I ask where you got them from please Norm Also, any tips in getting the letters lined up so nicely?

Kind regards

Pete

Hi Pete, I'd be wary using a jig/guide for the punches as the position of the letter or number is not always in the centre of the shank. They probably should be but not all brands will have manufacturing processes to guarantee this. One exception would be the brand which has holders for the punches (a bit like setting printing type) but these are expensive for good reason. I think the idea of lining the actual number against masking tape, using a lupe most likely, would be a good method.

Mike

[Deleted]

Hi Mike

Sound advice sir, I have numbered some of the motion but didn't worry too much about alignment. I have some closeup photos of 4472's motion which I took at York 2016. Some of the numbers are all over the place wshowing little attempt to keep in line. So I approached them on the model by trying to keep in line but only by eye, n9 tape etc, I'm happy with them.

Kind regards

Pete

[oldnorton]

The tender chassis was fairly straightforward to sort out. The making of the brass tank was quite a different matter.

I purchased a BR1 kit from Malcolm at Model Engineers Laser. The kits are very well done and I was interested to see whether the 'tab' together design would make it an easier job to assemble. The first issue was getting my head around how it all went together. Les Warnet's drawings are of limited use, but Malcolm's notes gave a sequence of assembly, and he had sent notes from another builder which were actually quite useful.

First was the sole plate. I just went for four big 2BA fixings into the chassis, there will be no little bolts at the ends of the sole plate as the Warnet drawing shows. The hand pump is the modified Modelworks original, the bore seemed about right but I made new levers to utilise the full stroke. The overflow tube fits into an inch deep socket in the sole plate and has two o-rings to seal it. A quick pull-out to drain the tank. Thank you to Steve for that idea, and wherever you got it from.



The MEL assembly scheme is to make the double-walled bulk head, bend up the coal space and solder this on (using the sole plate and sides to check it is square), solder on the sides, being able to work from underneath. Then solder on the sole plate last. Here was the problem, Malcolm says in his notes that getting a solder seal between the rear plate of the bulkhead and the sole plate might be awkward, well it is nigh on impossible. The next photo is before the sole plate was fitted. You are not going to send enough heat through the sole plate to get the inner bulkhead plate hot, even with a few tabs showing. 

Therefore I stood it on end, on the floor, filled the joint area which was two feet down the internal tunnel with flux and solder pieces, and used a very long neck Sievert and a metal vacuum pipe on the Henry to pull out the CO2 from the flame. If you didn't extract the spent gasses it all went out in 15 seconds! The joint all ran and looked ok, but I was left with one gap that is now epoxy sealed.

Malcolm had also said that you could probably put the tank together over a weekend. Well, no comment. To give him credit, it is a very well made kit, but I think the assembly and thus tabbing sequence is wrong. The kit should be built up with just the inner plate of the bulkhead used. Then you can see and access all the seams to make it water tight. The outer plate with its windows and cupboards, etc. should then be added last




I have considerably modified the bulkhead, effectively moving the tool tunnel and the lower cupboard onto the removable insert part. I already had a mind to do this but then seeing Mike's lovely tender build on his thread confirmed exactly where all the new cut lines would be - thank you mate, you helped a lot.

Detailed hatch and indicator plate were added. These two alone took as long as the 'assembling it over a weekend'.



The coal shovel plate is a separate piece that will slide out. Above that sits the bulkhead insert. The tricky bit at the start was working out what the insert slid between to ensure a secure fore and aft fixing. The tool tunnel opening comes out with the insert, but the tunnel will stay fixed in the tender. The tunnel's shape will remain a part of the tender when firing and running. The tiny slide bolts are custom made but the hinges are basic doll's house.



The MEL kit contains parts for four of the inner side reinforcing brackets, and I had made and fitted them as you will see in the second photo. But there should not be any on the right hand side because that is where the tool tunnel goes! Yes, my fault, I perhaps should have known, but will be nice if the MEL kit could be corrected. The Kit does not have a tool tunnel so that was an interesting piece of fabrication relying partly on the drawings of Doug Hewson and those of Warnett.



I took the time to make proper window frames that are assembled with 14BA CSK screws.

The buffer beam plate on BR1A tenders should actually rise higher and fill the gap to the cover plate. I have moved the draw bar pin further forward to enable more swing



The upper steps are a copy of 70013's actual steps with three cut-outs below; normally there is one longer cut-out.

The top plate is the usual lift-out piece to easily remove the overflow/drain tube, and the aluminium solid dome comes out to access the hand pump, the pump handle swings within the circular opening having mounted the pump as high as possible.



Next I will describe the mini-saga of making and mounting filter boxes.

[barlowworks]

Lovely work as usual Norman, your loco definitely deserves a tender to complement it and you seem to be accomplishing that. Well done.

Mike

[ettingtonliam]

How did Henry stand up to being used as an extractor for hot gases? Mines pretty much all made of plastic. Did you clean out all the residual dust and remove the bag first?

[oldnorton]

Feb 20, 2022 16:02:24 GMT ettingtonliam said:

How did Henry stand up to being used as an extractor for hot gases? Mines pretty much all made of plastic. Did you clean out all the residual dust and remove the bag first?

Ahh, poor old Henry. There is quite a big air flow, enough to 'suck out' the big Sievert flame, so it was perhaps 9 inches away to avoid that, and thus not over-hot. And it had three feet of metal pipe to go up first. I don't think I checked the pipe for temperature, I was too stressed trying to get the solder to just run and not too much more.

[ettingtonliam]

Mines got a plastic pipe, not a metal one. Don't think I'll risk it somehow. Henry is too useful.

Just remembered, I've got a similar device intended for sucking ashes out of the fireplace, which I never use because its too much faff carrying it and out of the house. That, presumably, is intended for use in hot conditions, might try that.

[franstrein]

Hi Norman,
Beautiful work!
I am building the same kit from MEL , but for a 3½" scale Britannia. Because of that scale I am leaving out some of the details you showed.
I happened to encounter similar situations in putting the kit together (also the "one weekend" challenge :-) ). Getting the water tank to be water tight, especially at the rear bulkhead was a big issue. After many soldering attempts inside the tank, still tiny leaks appeared. I solved that by using two-component epoxy after finishing most soldering work. That closed the leaks at once.

Can I ask one favor?
My drawings (from LBSC and MEL for 3½") don't have much details on the back cover top plate. Do you have dimensions for the dome and for the positions of the handrails on the top plate? That would help me a lot.

Thanks,
Frans

[oldnorton]

Feb 21, 2022 10:17:30 GMT franstrein said:

Can I ask one favor?
My drawings (from LBSC and MEL for 3½") don't have much details on the back cover top plate. Do you have dimensions for the dome and for the positions of the handrails on the top plate? That would help me a lot.

Hi Frans

I will give all the dimensions in inches from the Warnett drawing for a 5" tender and you can multiply them by 3.5/5.

Dome is 2 11/16 dia x 9/16 high with 1/2 radius top curvature, located on centre line and centre is 4 5/8 from tender rear edge.

Both side rails are 3/16 from edge of insert, stanchions at 2 5/8 centres, rearmost is 1/2 from tender rear edge. Stanchions lift the rail to 7/16 height (but you have to use the commercial item's height).

Rear rail also inset 3/16 from rear edge (don't copy mine! I moved it in further) stanchions 1 1/2 centres, inner one just clear of filler tube at 5/8 from centre line.

Hope this helps

Norm

[franstrein]

Hi Norm,
Thanks for the fast reply. I can convert these to my design and construction of the tender.

Frans

[oldnorton]

Building the basic tender tank was one thing, it was the amount of time spent on all the detail additions that dragged it out.

The BR Standard tender water filter boxes are a clear feature and perhaps need to be modelled in some good way. I thought of fabricating them, but life would be so much easier starting with a pair of castings. (Funny how many things in life become easier if you use money to get someone else to make bits).

Steam Workshop were very helpful in coming up with two Hewson castings. Problem was they were both right hand side items and after I had sent one back they found they had no left hand ones. I spoke to Adam Cro, who previously had none and was waiting for new castings to be made, and he went through his box of 'rejects', and they were all right hand! I had already devised a plan to convert a 'right hander' to left hand so I gratefully took his 'reject', which was actually fine.

The photo shows the Cro right hand casting on the left, and the Hewson casting, with the triangular water pipe outlet cut and moved, still in its post-silver soldering state. On the reverse are the square bosses for the water valves, but I did not bother moving the Hewson one as they are so near the centre line. I did beef-up the top of the Hewson casting with a plate to match Cro's design.



I doubled the thickness of the pair of lids I had, to try and make them more capable for the job of sealing on the faces. The lids, and tops and bottoms of the bodies, were milled flat. Filter sieves were made to slide into the bodies (slightly different sizes for the two castings) and these look like they will make a reasonable seal for filtration purposes.

I wanted water from the tender to flow into the box, through the filter, and out of the pipe flange in prototypical manner. I did not bother with the water valves and fitted dummy heads. I cannot see the point of having a valve there; if you really want to keep a tender full of water (perhaps over night if away for a weekend?) then screw little PTFE nipples into the ends of the rubber tender connectors?

Mounting plates, with a single water hole into the tank, were screwed and gasket paste sealed to the bottom of the sole plate, and 10BA studs screwed and set into these with hard loctite. The boxes are affixed on to gaskets by 10BA nuts. The result is immensely strong, but a ridiculous amount of work. The 10BA nuts will never be seen unless someone puts their chin hard on the gravel of a ground level track!

The lids seal to the body with a thin neoprene rubber gasket. Well, I say 'seal' but you cannot get much force from that tiny scale thread and lever, it need to be bigger. I am left with tiny water droplets that grow so a wipe-on soft sealant might be the answer between filter cleans.




The water supply pipes run to the front of the tender where they connect to black rubber pipes and screw-on couplings to the engine. The nature of the bend is exactly as per prototype, copes with flexibility and the couplings are simple for two fingers to spin on and off. The higher connection behind is from the tender hand pump. It uses heavier wall fuel injector hose and the ends are connector crimped. The little chains stop the pipes falling down into the dirt when the tender is disconnected.



Edit: apologies, typing error that brain didn't detect at the time, the fixing stud and nut size for filter boxes to sole plate now correctly read 10BA.

[oldnorton]

This is perhaps the concluding posting in this thread. The model of a BR Standard Class 7, Oliver Cromwell 70013, is now finished and it passed its club hydraulic and steam tests on Sunday. Now I finally play with it and and draw a line under hours of enjoyable construction, but also stress at times as things went wrong. 

I purchased the slightly tired looking Modelworks engine three and a half years ago, have spent 25 months of regular five or six days-a-week work in that period, and the diary records 550 days spent. If we say 6 hours for each day that is 3,300 hours. And all for a rebuild!



This image above is not the model, it is the real thing in 2019. I have been fortunate in having this engine available for photographs. If we make prototypical models then we hope it might have a feel of the real thing when it is finished, and I am reasonably happy that this one does. I confess now that the painting of my model is not strictly 1950's BR standard: yes I have made all the top pipework green but the under-cab pipework should all be in black. I have chosen to leave it in copper, it does lift the appearance and I am using the excuse that it does look like 'Cromwell' today.



The line of the boiler and cab at the top has come out well, but the cab does sit too high as the firebox is too tall - can't do anything about that. It was making the Hewson cab that 'ruined' my plan for a simple rebuild of the Modelworks engine. Once I saw it finished with all the rivet detail I knew I would have to clothe the engine to the same standard or be unhappy with what I had made.



The Metcalfe exhaust injector at the bottom of this photo is a dummy, but water from the tender hand pump feeds through it and on up to a top feed clack. The two injector steam valves in front of the cab are worked by universal joints and they feed the left and right model injectors that are hidden beneath the cab floor. The cab front windows each have two brass frames screwed together with 14BA CSK screws sandwiching 1mm glass in the opening. The sliding side windows are also glass, and edged with mahogany laminate



Below the cab on this side is a dummy 10X injector, but the model injector does feed through this and up to the left hand top feed. All the talk about "you must have short and easy feeds for the injector" is not strictly to be believed. It is working fine at the moment.

The painting took a couple of months. I have used Craftmaster BR Green, Phoenix transfers and there is one coat of Craftmaster clear lacquer over the whole boiler, on the cab sides, and the tender sides only. It was all sprayed with a Paasche air brush, the large number #5 nozzle giving adequate boiler coverage. Just two coats of green went on in one session. I did have a problem with paint on some lower cab rivets just starting to sag and agonised for a day or two about dropping it all in paint stripper and starting again, but common sense came to the fore and I made myself leave it alone - it is going to be a working engine!



The cab shell lower interior is green, but I think the standard should be black. The driver has been treated to foam cushions with waxed material covers. We can see what happens when a piece of burning coal lands on them.

Once painting and reassembly was finished I had the fun (!!) of making it leak tight. A few pipe connectors had to be sorted, the whole pedestal had to come out as the previously tested steam brake valve now decided it liked leaking all the time. The water gauges also gave me problems and next time I would do things a little differently.




I sorted out its working with compressed air for the big leaks, then hydraulic tested and steam trialled at home. I arranged for fifteen feet of track by linking two trollies and was mightly relieved to find that the PTFE head piston valves did not bind, and that the industrial regulator ball valve I have found worked perfectly - I was able to run the engine forward and reverse, with drain cocks open, up and down the fifteen-foot. A very satisfying day. Next day another steam test, another hydraulic to find out what had opened up, and then the Club official test a few days later when I knew all was good.



The tender now has coal dust and bits in it, the cab is dusty from ash rising through the fire door after disposal, and oil is dripping from the motion. I am happy that I just escaped the easy trap of thinking "this is too precious to use and get dirty". That is the inevitable side of trying to get anywhere near perfection (which this is not). It should, hopefully, be steaming this weekend at a GL5 event at the best track in the country, so if you are there do please come up and say hello. Thank you again to Jim, Steve and Mike from this forum for their many helpful Britannia postings in the past.

[springcrocus]

Absolutely stunning.

Regards, Steve

[simplyloco]

Excellent.
Regards
John

[Deleted]

Now that is a work of art...a truly superb miniature representation of this famous locomotive.

Well done Norm, you can rightly be very proud of your work.

Kind regards

Pete

[flyingfox]

Well done, an excellent job, you should be proud of. Another modelworks dud transformed.
regards
Brian B

[barlowworks]

That is absolutely gorgeous Norman. If I can get mine anywhere near that I will be well pleased. Perhaps we can get them both together at some time in the future.

Mike

[gwr1509]

sincere appreciation for this masterpiece, a beautiful steam locomotive has now emerged from it.
Regrads Helmut

[dhamblin]

Wonderful Norm, you can be very proud of what you have achieved with the improvements.

Regards,

Dan

[Midland]

Norm
It is this kind of work that imspires us old muckers to try a little harder even if we know we wil never be that good!!!!
Cheers David