SUNDAY 26th 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, and that wherever you have been you have been safe in the windy conditions we have been having.
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 26th February1914 The launch of HMHS (Her Majesty's Hospital Ship) Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, at Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast. She was the third and largest Olympic-class ocean liner of the White Star Line and was intended to enter service as a transatlantic passenger liner. However, she was launched just before the start of the First World War and was laid up at her builders in Belfast for many months before being put to use as a hospital ship in 1915. She struck a mine off the Greek island of Keain in November 1916, and sank with the loss of 30 lives.
This week I have been working on some of the fiddly details and while overall its looks like little has been achieved they are time consuming parts to work with. I have a day’s leave this coming Friday so looking forward to a full day of build time.
PICTURE 1There are a few parts this week that I felt were better being spray painted rather than hand brushing.
For the Steel colour I have used Vallejo “71065 Steel” from their Model Air range with comes already pre-thinned for spraying. It’s a water based paint so clean up is nice and easy with no need for “whiffy” chemical smells. The only slight downside is that it takes longer to dry in this damp weather.
My choice of airbrush for this one was my Sotar 20/20 and for no other reason that this one has a nice small paint cup which was ideal for this limited amount of painting.
PICTURE 2These parts will form part of the engines valve gear and are laser cut from a sheet of fairly thick metal. The parts are only held in place by one tab so I decided it was easier to paint these parts while still on the fret.
The picture you see here is after the coat of steel colour has been applied.
PICTURE 3Here we can see some of the parts that will be fitted to the back plate on the driver’s footplate.
I mentioned in an earlier post that this kit (like so many) comes with the 1.5mm brass rod “nicely” coiled up and twisted so in my book that makes it totally unusable.
What gets me is that kit manufacturers carefully pack all the wood strips neatly in the box but when it comes to the wire it all gets coiled up.
“RECOMMENDATION”To make things easier for yourself consider replacing your coiled wire for straight lengths. In my case I am using stock supplied by Albion Alloys.
PICTURE 4There are a number of parts that the builder has to shape using the brass wire and this full size plan can be used to overlay the brass rod to ensure you get the bends/folds just right.
PICTURE 5 & 6While the etched overlays have the majority of the holes pre-made the same does not apply to the base MDF parts. Therefore, you will need to deepen the holes ready for the shaped brass parts you are making.
A small pack of the drill bits you can see in Picture 5 are ideal and cheaply available from a whole host of retailers. That along with a pin vice makes the task nice and easy.
PICTURE 7Very carefully drill through the guide holes in the etched overlays and through the MDF surfaces underneath.
PICTURE 8Here we can see the firebox door, a control lever base as well as one of the shaped brass parts fitted in place.
As with earlier brass work were the part remains un-painted I have cleaned the brass using Rustin’s brand metal polish and then coated in Rustin’s Metal Lacquer to ensure the part remains nice and shiny without tarnishing over time.
PICTURE 9 & 10Moving onto the front of the smokebox we have to glue in place the 2 cylinder ends. You need to ensure these are correctly aligned. So what I have done here is to use a couple of scrap lengths of brass rod to ensure they are glued correctly in place.
Later on these brass parts will be removed and some shaped brass parts will be fitted in place.
PICTURE 11, 12, 13“CALLOUT -PROCEED WITH CARE”
This is the time that we finally glue the firebox and smokebox end to the boiler itself. As well as joining these sections we also need to fit in place the 4 “steel” bar sections that will support the valve gear itself.
This is one of those occasions that an extra set of hands would help because you need to joggle the 4 bars into the preformed slots in both the front and back ends of the loco.
Elastic bands provide clamping pressure to ensure its all held nice and tight until dry.
“RECOMMENDATION”Its probable worth mentioning at this point that in my kit there is some very slight movement in the joints between boiler and firebox end and boiler and smokebox end. This will allow for minor twisting of the parts and if not spotted and corrected you will find that the wheels do not all touch the surface.
Therefore, I would suggest you put the wheels back in place and just ensure everything touches the ground before these glued parts fully dry.
PICTURE 14
Here we can see another of the brass parts that you are asked to make form the brass rod in the kit. Again I have used the brass rod I purchased.
“OBSERVATION”
The kit would have you use 1mm dia rod for this pipe but both the hole in the ferrule that goes onto the boiler top and well as the cast part on the firebox top are pre-drilled to 1.5mm so in this case I went with 1.5mm brass rod rather than the recommended 1mm rod.
PICTURE 15At this point its time to start gluing up the “skirt” that fits around the loco. I am gluing up each corner in turn and clamping the parts against a square to ensure they dry at a nice right angle.
PICTURE 16The gluing surfaces on these corners are not that big so on the basis this part will undergo a lot of handling, both for paint preparation and fitting I have decided to reinforce the corners with some 1.5mm brass rod.
Here we can see the hole being started off using one of the smaller drill bits from which we will work up to the 1.5mm drill bit. It pays to take very special care when drilling these corners as there is not a great deal of wood to work with. Also being MDF if you go straight in with the largest drill bit there is a chance of splitting open the part and if you do that it’s going to cause you some major problems.
PICTURE 17 & 18Having enlarged the hole to 1.5mm I have superglued in the brass rod. This in turn gets cut off and finally filed down to give a nice even surface.
These reinforcements should allow the framework to be handled without the risk of it all falling apart.
And that completes my update for this week. Hope everyone has a good week next week and I will catch up again with you all very soon.
birdaj2 attached the following image(s):
Happy Modelling
BUILDING: Hachette Spitfire Mk 1A, Constructo Mayflower
SUBSCRIPTION COMPLETE (Awaiting building): USS Constitution, Sovereign of the Seas, 1:200 Bismarck (Hachette)
COMPLETED: Porsche 911, E-Type Jaguar, Lam Countach
US
