Building an A1 'Albert'

Back in July John Flower from A1 Models handed me his latest etched O9 kit, based on the locomotive 'Albert' of the Littlehampton Miniature Railway. Although now 12 1/4" gauge this locomotive was originally 15" gauge, built at Windmill Farm in Lancashire, started by Craig Gluyas and completed by Dave Madden and Austin Moss. The kit certainly captures the style of the loco if not all the details and fits on the Kato 11-103 or 11-109 chassis.

This is the etches as supplied, John had only etched four doors instead of six on the main etch so two extra were supplied! An etched chassis frame is supplied, I think this is from an existing 009 Kit. The purpose of the four rectangular pieces top right was a bit of a mystery at first (I had no instructions), but I eventually fixed them to the chassis to locate the bonnet and cab units.

Having folded up the bonnet and cab parts I opted to remove some of the tabs intended to make assembly easier - although well intended and perhaps helpful to anyone using an adhesive for these joints, they made the fit of the bonnet front awkward and the cab roof did not sit correctly at the eaves. The bonnet front was soldered in place inside the sides/top and the cab joined in the corner, having added a length of scrap etch to pack out the join to keep the dimensions of front and sides equal. The cab roof was soldered in place, aligning it correctly took some time due to the etched ridges underneath just being in the wrong place!

The etched grille on the front had distorted in the heat of the soldering iron, but that was a minor issue really. At this point I took the photo above and shortly afterwards spotted my "deliberate" mistake... I had soldered the whole front panel in upside down!

This was promptly rectified before moving on to the next stage, adding the bonnet side grilles/doors and cab doors. These were fixed in place using a thin coating of Araldite in two sessions, one for each side, in order to avoid disrupting one side whilst working on the other.

I have temporarily added the other grille mesh in front of the chequered mesh, temporary as I have identified this as an area that I may wish to upgrade, not least as it seems to float in the space, and also because the real locomotive has a different style of front grille altogether.

I had to do a bit of cleaning up around the cab doors to remove excess Araldite, there is only about 1mm either side to fix to so a bit of spread under the edges was inevitable. I moved the door up as far as I dared so there wasn't a huge gap above it, overlapping by about 2mm at the top and less than 0.5mm at the bottom. The kit can be built with one or both of the doors propped open at 180 degrees and some cab interior detail, it would seem the real loco often runs in that fashion at Littlehampton.

As well as the grille upgrade I plan to add a shallow curved top to the bonnet using 20 thou styrene and some supporting strips. It cannot curve too much due to the cab front windows but should give a better impression of the prototype it is based on. I will also be adding bufferbeams and a few underframe details to finish the model off.

The kit can be purchased on A1 Models on eBay.

More soon...

Colin

Tramcar Roof Refinements

Having added the nicely curved bulkhead top pieces to the body of the tram I realised that something similar but smaller was required under the roof, both to align with the end of the carriage sides and at the end of the overhang. More pieces of 40 thou styrene were marked out, using the template made from one of the old bulkheads for the top and an A1 Models etched cab front for the bottom. These pieces were then fixed in place, carefully measuring for the inner ones. I also added a strip of 30 x 60 thou styrene over the balcony openings to give some substance the imagined framework.

With the roof in place the effect looking upwards is that there is a frame under the roof holding it all up... However the ends of the roof needed some attention to give the impression that the roof is formed from a thinner material than the edge of the Dapol moulding.

With the roof ends filled with Milliput and smoothed back once set, a strip of 15 x 20 thou Evergreen styrene was carefully glued into place (along the 15 thou side) following the curve of the centre section of the roof. Left overnight to set, the following day this was softened with solvent and gently curved around the roof edge profile. Left to set again this was trimmed to size and more Milliput added to fill the join between roof and extension. Smoothing off followed once the filler was set and a little shaping of the bottom corners finished off the job. 

With the roof pieces in place the next job was to add the headlights to the front dash. These are Details West mouldings (LT 1015) designed for an HO scale EMD machine but work just as well in O9. Being clear plastic they don't photograph well... They have separate lenses that will be fitted after painting, one thing I had not realised is that there is no back to the headlight moulding hole so I have subsequently added Araldite as a filler so that the plank effect does not show through.

The holes for the door handles were drilled into the side using a 0.7mm bit and opened out a touch with a cutting broach, to suit 7mm NGA door handles, to be fixed after painting. With all parts in place we might be ready for a good scrub down and a trip the paint shop

Colin

For England, Fourdees...

Some years ago now I looked at a drawing of a Ffestiniog Railway 'England' saddle tank and wondered if a 15" gauge version was feasible, along the lines of the Fairbourne Railway's Darjeeling style 'Sherpa' and Ruslip Lido's 'Mad Bess', itself based on the Ffestiniog ex-Penrhyn Hunslets (let's not get any ideas about that new Bachmann model!).

Thanks to a new entrant in the O9 market I can wonder no more...

Photo: Fourdees

Fourdees have become an established name in the 009 market offering a range of finished 3D printed locomotives and more recently kit versions based on their older models and also taking opportunity of new chassis such as the Bachmann USA 'Peter Sam' and Kato/Peco FR England. This new O9 model uses the latter chassis, which has a saddle-tank filling weight that sadly reduces the opportunity to build much else on it (although Fourdees do have some interesting 009 variations for it).

The coaches in the background are also new kits from Fourdees and despite being freelance have a real feel of 15" gauge stock, and come complete with Peco coach bogies/wheels and couplings. I can see these being very popular and those brake pipes look superb! 

This is all very encouraging for those wanting to model 15" gauge railways in 7mm scale. Sadly my current stance is that I have enough stock to be going on with (especially with 'Shifting Sands' in storage) and like many 15" gauge railways limited investment funds... I have however ordered an another nifty Fourdees product - a static 0-4-0 chassis designed for their England models, but equally useful as a basis for a scratchbuilt loco for display or diorama use.

Fourdees products can be purchased via their eBay store.

Colin

Tramcar Tribulations

Time to catch up with the O9 Tramcar project. The Milliput around the joins has now been smoothed back, most noticeably on the fake clerestory on the roof. I was then able to add the resin sides to the plastic superstructure, fixing one side at a time using Araldite, clamping along the bottom of the sides to get a firm bond and to straighten out any warping in the resin parts. 

Whilst the Araldite was out I created an impression of handles on the controllers and brakes by creating a blob using the end of a cocktail stick, they are not perfect but should look OK once painted.

Sadly the more I looked at the tram after taking this photo the more something did not look right - Trying to tie in the bulkheads with the window dividing bars was showing up a discrepancy between the two bulkheads and the more I looked some of the bulkhead window openings appeared wonky and I had doubts about the squareness of the whole thing in places. 

So I took the sides off, and re-fitted them, but the issue still wasn't fixed and more drastic action followed with the sides coming off again... After trying to work with the existing seats and supports I opted in the end to clear the decks between the front seat supports and start again. New supports and seat bases were created from 40 thou styrene and new side supports cut from 60 thou x 3.2mm Evergreen strip.

I started work on two new bulkheads, 10 thou styrene backed with 30 thou strip and sheet sections. The intention was that they would be thinner than the originals and align directly with the window dividing bars. I had made the window openings taller than the originals - too tall in fact as I had to reduce them along the top edge. However on offering them up into position I found that the outer supports, combined with the thickness of the sides, just looked too bulky.

So I had a bit of a rethink and the decision was made not to have a bulkhead but instead just a seat back. In a lazy mood I decided to use more Chivers seat back mouldings, "borrowing" these from a kit in the stash (you get one spare in each kit so I'll have to owe this kit one!), setting these in place with careful measurement against the sides and the window dividing bar location.

In front of the chassis can be seen the parts that will replace the top part of the bulkheads, cut from 40 thou styrene using the better of the old bulkheads as a template. The triangular pieces will re-enforce the joint with the sides and provide a greater gluing area.

The resin sides were then Araldited back in place and unlike the earlier attempts both were fixed in place at the same time and less clamping pressure applied - I realised that this may have contributed to the warp apparent in the original attempts. 

With the sides in place I them added the upper divider parts into place, again using Araldite, having carefully marked their position directly above the seat backs. The roof was used as a guide to get the height correct. With these parts set I then added new 60 x 40 thou dividers in the side windows, directly in line with the edges of the seat backs and looking a lot neater than their predecessors. Despite saying there would be no bulkhead I then added an upright of 40 x 40 thou styrene from the centre of the seat back up to the roof support to tie the two parts together.

I do not intend to glaze the new openings, I feel that the new arrangement here is a lot better than the original and certainly gives the central compartment a more airy feel than it had previously (in fact it had looked rather claustrophobic).

Work has now moved on to the roof - adding false roof supports on the underside. More soon...

Colin