Half round over edge on tender

[Jason]

When looking at other engines I have notice they have a half round over edge around the top edge of the tender. Can somebody advise me what size would be correct for the ModelWorks 5” Black 5 as it does not have this?
Also what is the best way to attach, do I use soft solder or silver solder as I am not use to soldering onto such a large piece of brass?

Thanks

Jason

[Deleted]

Jason,

I used 1/8" half-round brass on my Britannia tender, as recommended by Doug Hewson. Doug said in some notes he wrote on improvements to the Winson Brit:

"The final job on the coal bunker was to fit 1/8" half round beading around the top edge and over the curved back plate as per the full size tender. This was tacked in place all along with 3/64" brass rivets (from Blackgates) and then run along with soft solder using Baker's fluid flux. A very gentle heat from a small gas torch does the trick and you need to have a screw driver or something similar handy to press any undulations out of the beading. If you use too much heat locally it tends to expand too quickly and kink up between the rivets. The rivet heads can all be filed off flush on completion."

I didn't use rivets on mine - instead I made a tool from a strip of brass with the end cut to a right angle with a half-round indentation in the inner corner, tinned the edge of the bunker with soft solder, clamped one end of the beading, and used the tool to hold the beading down and flush with the edge, drawing it along as I sweated the joint with a gas torch. This method worked very nicely for me and left the beading dead straight and flush with the edge of the bunker. I bought the beading in a coil from Blackgates and had to heat it with the gas torch in order to remove the springiness and get it straight before I started.

This was my first and so far only attempt at soldering large areas of brass (I'm about to try soldering the tender joints to waterproof them) so I'd be interested to hear how other people go about it.

Regards, John

[martinjf54]

John
i completed Don Youngs Black 5 in 1987 & the tender was put together with 1/4 x 1/4 x 1/16 brass angle on the inside held together with a few brass rivets & soft soldered along the seams , it has been completely waterproof & very strong
Martin

[dougmaz]

Hi Jason, I have just finished my all soldered tender , cab, and side tanks. The trick is to clean ALL the parts with steel wool then paint the flux on the cleaned brass & angle warm them up with a soft flame torch dab on the solder then wipe with steel wool and another brush of flux this is don before you join the parts together what you are doing is tining both parts then you can clamp the two parts and warm the edge and move along the edge with a little solder and so on . Cheers Doug Maz.

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