Coming along nicely

Al

SUNDAY 05th February 2017 – The Adler Locomotive Build

A very good afternoon to everyone. I hope that everyone has had a good week whatever you may have been up to.

Quite pleased with myself that I have managed to get myself into a routine and have allocated myself Saturday mornings as a minimum to doing my modelling. Life has been so disjointed it feels over the last couple of years and while telling myself “I cannot find the time”, it’s really been a change of mind-set to tell myself “You can find the time”. And I must admit it’s been really good to have an “aiming point” each week to look forward to.

I thought I would start this week’s update by way of a little “On this Day” entry.

On This Day 05th February

1840 The birth of Scottish vet. John Boyd Dunlop, inventor of the pneumatic bicycle tyre which he tested on his son's tricycle and patented in 1888. Two years after he was granted the patent, Dunlop was officially informed that it was invalid, as Scottish inventor Robert William Thomson had patented the idea in France in 1846 and in the US in 1847.

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PICTURE 1, 2, 3.

This week I wanted to complete the boiler bands. This uses 4 pieces of the brass strip supplied in the kit.

The first task again was to anneal the brass as I have done with the other etch parts on this occasion because the brass strip as supplied is very brittle. The brass is fitted by bending over the ends of the strip and pushing these ends between the wood strips I have applied to the boiler. Without annealing I found the brass strip cracked when bending over the ends.

“CALLOUT - PROCEED WITH CARE”

This is Phosperic Acid so handle with care and keep it off your skin.

The parts are then soaked for a few minutes in the Rustin’s Brass Restorer. This takes off some of the surface tarnish.

Having rinsed the parts in cold water its then onto the Rustin’s Metal Shine and as you can see in Picture 2 there is a lot of “dirt” this product removes.

To prevent the parts further tarnishing we coat them with Rustin’s Metal Lacquer. This can be brushed on but in this case it was just as easy to dip the parts into the bottle.

PICTURE 4.

While the metal lacquer is drying I supported the brass strips on a couple of cocktail sticks.

PICTURE 5.

And having wrapped the brass bands around the boiler this is what they look like once in place.

PICTURE 6.

In preparation for the paint I filled some of the short tab areas with wood filler and then rubbed back when dry (you can see these areas with the red/brown colour in this picture.

Another coat of Sand N Seal (still wet in this picture) should ensure a sound base to ensure a smooth finish to the primer coat.

PICTURE 7, 8, 9.

Now this is a strange area. Picture 7 is the underside of the firebox and unless the finished model is turned upside down, it’s never going to be seen. However, the kit will have you install a couple of photo etched ash pan doors and a couple of “pretend” hinges from some of the wire included in the kit.

To glue these into place I have used Loctite Gel Control Super as it’s a product that allows very precise control on these small areas.
And in Picture 9 this is what the final result looks like.

PICTURE 10.

Before we start painting the parts we need to install the 2 axle supports that are fitted to the underside of the smokebox end of the loco. Again use the numbered parts sheet to ensure you remove the correct parts from the wood fret.

PICTURE 11, 12.

The loco side rails are supported using the parts shown in Picture 11 along with a length of 3mm x 3mm wood cut from the piece supplied in the kit.

Once glued into place the ends of the 3mm x 3mm strip are cut back and for this I find the best tool is a very fine x-acto saw blade.

PICTURE 13.

“RECOMMENDATION”

While jumping ahead with any kits instructions can sometimes cause issues in the case of the Occre kits it does have its advantages.

We are shortly going to start painting some of the parts so it makes sense to have parts that will end up as the same colour being glued in place at this point. For one reason you will get better glued joints at this stage than you would trying to glue parts onto painted surfaces.
In this picture I have glued into place a locking collar cut from the brass etch sheet.

PICTURE 14, 15, 16.

Further examination of the instructions shows that the smokebox door will also end up painted black so again a part suitable for fixing in place at this stage rather than later in the build.

You can just “eyeball” the fit and glue the part in place but if you get it just slightly out of line it will stand out a mile later on.
Pencil in a line and then you can guarantee the part will be fitted straight and true. Again for these white metal parts I have used the Loctite Gel super glue.

PICTURE 17.

Having put together the large central wheels last week it’s the turn of the 4 smaller locomotive wheels

“CALLOUT - PROCEED WITH CARE”

It’s well worth at, this point, referring to the numbered parts plan as this fret holds 8 wheel halves for the tender as well as 8 wheel halves for the locomotive. They are different in size so make sure you are working with the correct parts.

PICTURE 18.

And this is what it looks like with the additional wheels (still in need of some clean-up) in place.

PICTURE 19, 20.

I have now applied a white primer to the smokebox and firebox ends. This will be allowed a few days to dry out completely before I then add the black top coat.

There is a lot of RED used in the paint finish of this model and I am still in two minds as to what to use.

In these pictures I have applied a single coat of Humbrol Virgin Trains Red from their Rail match colours but I am not sure if it’s giving me the result I really want. All of the red is gloss finished so if I use this throughout the build I will have to end up over coating with varnish.

My other option would be the gloss red from Humbrol enamel range so a bit of thought as to which way I go with this.

Also requiring some thought is the driver platform as this requires some kit supplied plastic mesh to be glued in place in order to produce the diamond pattern tread plate finish.

I need a glue that will spread thin onto the wood part in order not to fill in the squares in the plastic mesh, but something strong enough to stop the mesh lifting at any point.

I do have an old (half tin) of Evostick contact adhesive, but not sure if it’s still useable as it’s been in the shed for over a year now.

And that completes my update for this week. Hope everyone has a good week next week and will catch again with you all very soon.

Nice work and looking good

Great job Tony, those brass bands look really nicely done

SUNDAY 12th February 2017 – The Adler Locomotive Build

A very good afternoon to everyone. I hope that everyone has had a good week whatever you may have been up to.

As in previous weeks I thought I would start this week’s update by way of a little “On this Day” entry.

On This Day 12th February

1808 A mortar-fired lifeline was used for the first time to save a person from a shipwreck, at Gorleston. It was invented by George William Manby who lived in the Norfolk village of Hilgay. He also invented the first modern form of fire extinguisher and built an 'unsinkable' ship but the boatmen rocked his boat back and forth, so that it eventually turned over. It's said that the men thought Manby's mortar a threat to their livelihood as they depended on the cargo left over from shipwrecks

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This week I have not strictly keep to the instruction sequence and this is mainly due to the fact a lot of painting takes place at this stage but with the cold damp weather this week (and that is indoors ) I decided to concentrate on build rather than paint.

PICTURES 1, 2, 3, 4

This stage sees the instructions calling for the driver’s platform to be covered with the supplied plastic mesh to give the effect of a diamond tread pattern. Now the instructions show a “Glue” symbol and you are left to your own ends as to how best to glue plastic to wood.

Initially I spread on some tinned Evostick contact glue and even though I put this on really thin, having clamped on the mesh I found that the little squares in the mesh filled with glue.

So on to “PLAN B”. Having given some thought to it I decided to use some extra strong double sided carpet tape. The stuff I have is very thin so I fixed that to the wood, rolled it into place, to ensure best contact, and then placed the mesh over the tape.

All looks ok to me and when primed and sprayed up black should look just fine.

PICTURE 5

I mentioned in an earlier posting that I had used “Virgin Red” from the Humbrol Rail Colours range. However, with a matt finish I would be left to varnish all of the parts and in this model there will be a lot of Red.

So a change of plan and I decided on good old fashioned Humbrol Gloss 19 from the enamel range.
Red is one of those colours were one coat is never enough even over a white primer coat. Two coats later and all of the locomotive wheels are complete apart from the metal tyres that we add at a later stage.

PICTURES 6, 7

“RECOMMENDATION”

With so many types of paint available these days you can end up with an equal number of different thinners to clean out your brushes and the like. Some of these thinners are not pleasant to use in terms of the fumes they give off for instance and the fact that many are flammable.

I came across this product some time ago. It’s part of the “Deluxe” products range and is called “Brush Magic”. It’s virtually odourless and at cleaning up paint from brushes, even dried on paint, it works very well indeed.

PICTURES 8, 9

So as I mentioned earlier, this week is not major painting weather so I decided to make a start on the framework that surrounds the entire Locomotive and carries such parts as the train buffers.

I approached this area with great “worry” as it’s to this part my built of the earlier kit came to a dramatic stop as the side rails would not fit the brackets on the loco.

Really pleased this time to find that they have corrected this major error from the earlier kit so with that in mind I decided to cut out the parts from this section. Quite a large number of wood parts as you can see and attached to these will be a number of etched and cast parts.

OBSERVATION:

Looking at the earlier kit it is now easy to see what these areas never lined up. In the version 2 kit the firebox and smokebox rivet detail is added by using the thin etched parts supplied in the kit.

In the version 1 kit the rivet detail was applied to 2mm predrilled ply overlays using round headed pins. When these ply panels were glued in place this had the effect of pushing the firebox 2mm backwards and the smokebox 2mm forwards meaning the slots in the side rails would not line up with the support brackets on these parts.

PICTURE 10

The first stage is to glue and clamp on two centre reinforcing sections. I have a feeling these will be used later in the build to support the large centre wheel arches.

PICTURES 11, 12, 13, 14

Each side rail need to have 2 cast metal springs gluing in place. Now this is where some adjustment of both the side rail and the cast part is required to get the required close fit.

As you can see in PICTURE 11 there are some fit problems due in part to the springs centre “spike” being too tall for the slot it fits into causing the arrowed areas to fail to connect to the side rail.

OBSERVATION:

You may wonder why I did not just file down the “spike” and that would be a fair question. However, over these springs we have to glue some additional wood and etch parts and they have to all line up and having tested this area that can only be achieved by adopting the methods shown to adjust these parts.


A small diamond coated square section file allowed the side rail slots to be made deeper.

In Picture 14 I have arrowed the areas were some additional filing is required to reduce the height of these parts.

“CALLOUT - PROCEED WITH CARE”

These cast metal sections are very brittle and if you try to bend them, even a fraction, they will snap on you. Equally if you intend to file these parts then make sure you have the part well supported to avoid it breaking.

PICTURES 15, 16, 17

“CALLOUT - PROCEED WITH CARE”

These cast springs are only detailed on one face only so when gluing into place on the side frames take a minute to ensure you have glued them on the correct way around.

PICTURE 18

This is just a dry fit of the framework so you can see what the end result is supposed to look like.

Still a lot of work needed on this area with many more wood, cast and etched parts to glue in place at which point this will get primed and painted.

PICTURE 19

And for this week this is how far I have progressed. At this stage it’s all dry fitted together but as you can see the firebox and smokebox ends have received their first coats of satin black.

Still requires a second coat once the weather is not so “moist”. Rather pleased with how these 2 parts turned out because I was really worried about how those brass sections would fit but happy to report that they went together a whole lot better than I expected they would.

And that completes my update for this week. Hope everyone has a good week next week and will catch up again with you all very soon.

Looking good and nice work

Looking good.

Nice to see that you are looking forward before making adjustments to parts. Many a kit build has stalled due to ongoing fit problems, so well done for having the foresight to think ahead.

Keep up the good work, I`m liking this.

Regards
delboy271155
(Derek)

Hi Tony this is coming along a treat, very nice work. And really like the layout of your diary. Cheers mick.

Some quality work going on there Tony progressing well.

Al

Tony it`s looking a great build lovely work mate regards Phil