Just a Simple Cut-and-Shut?

[Bilco]

In the past I’ve built layouts to a cycle – two years building the layout, exhibit it at Pewsey, repeat. But Berger Hall proved to be unexpectedly popular, and I've had requests to exhibit at other venues, once already, and again in November, and next year I have one in March and some others as possibles. This has meant that I’ve had to keep Berger Hall, and I have no room for another layout – or so mai laidy waif says, and she has the casting vote …

So, I need other projects to satisfy the modeller’s itch. Now that the sow’s ear has been transformed into something vaguely silk-purse-like the workbench is looking forlorn and empty – or was. The post by KDRuthless on June 13th - http://ngrm-online.com/forums/index.php ... ent-533068 - showed a 4mm scale 3d-printed Heywood Ursula, and something stirred in what’s left of my brain …

Now, I know I said in my thread In a Bit of Estate that I didn’t want to build any more Katies after finishing the third one, but it seems to me that I might just find building an Ursula acceptable. I got out the Katie drawing I found back when I started on the Heywood path, photocopied it a couple times, and set-to with scissors and Pritt to produce an Ursula drawing. I have a table showing the dimensions of the various Heywood locos, and the main dimensional difference between Katie and Ursula is that the latter is 2 feet longer, or 1” in 1:24 scale. So, all I have to do is insert an inch into Katie – stop sniggering at the back, that boy ...

Of course, the other minor difference is that Ursula is an 0-6-0, so I trawled t’Bay for a suitable chassis, and ended up with these two buys for the princely sum of £10 inc. postage …



… and after hacking various bits off, lowering the rear upper surface to match the front, filling in various levels and squaring off the ends, and filling and painting the wheels, I have this …





I thought I might use an old motor, but in the end splashed out another £6 on a new one. As the chassis originally had the open frame X-04 motor and I’m using the newer Smokey Joe type I also had to raise the motor mounting so that the motor sits flat and the worm meshes with the gear wheel properly.

Now that Smallbrook have supplied a Katie kit I’m busy sorting out the usual Bilco mods to the footplate and body before getting the saw out and performing the ‘sawing a loco in half’ trick …

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

Right, before reaching for the saw I thought it might be a good idea to consider exactly where to make the cuts and joins in the Katie body and footplate castings. After cudgelling the atrophied logic circuits of my poor old brain I decided that the joins in the body should be over a solid bit of the footplate, and the joins in the footplate should be under a solid bit of the body. The cut lines would, therefore, be just behind the front of the tanks for the body, and just in front of the firebox backhead for the footplate.

Here are the castings after I’ve done messing about with them …





The footplate has had the buffer beams deepened by a millimetre or two, and the centre opening widened to accommodate the bigger wheels of the 0-6-0 mech I bought. I’ve also narrowed the area between the uprights for the derailing guard so that the mech is held tightly between them. The instructions (see, I do read them – occasionally …) call for sanding the top of the footplate casting to get rid of the meniscus caused by the casting process, but this was a bit deeper than previous ones I worked on, and the footplate ended up rather thinner than the prototype. But I have a cunning plan for the joining stage …

On the body I spent a lot of time squaring-up the tanks – they were wider at the bottom that at the top, and wider at the rear than at the front. The left-hand tank front also needed making square. Then the cab sidesheets were removed and the tank sides sanded down by a millimetre or two – until the upstands fell off. I usually do these actions for the Katie kit, and then clad the sides in styrene – I did it the first time because I mucked-up bending the cab side-sheets straight, and liked the result. In this case it will hide the joins in the tank sides.

Then it was time to attack the inoffensive castings with sharp implements, with this result …






The pieces necessary to make the extension will be a little bit bigger than the 1 inch suggested by the table of dimensions, to take account of the saw kerf and subsequent sanding smooth. Also, the footplate extension is a tiny bit (0.15mm) longer than the tank extension to accommodate the mech without mucking about with that any more.

So, the ‘cut’ is done, now for the ‘shut’ …

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

Right – time to get the glue out.

I started the ‘shut’ process with the footplate. I cut two 3cm lengths of 2mm plasticard and started to assemble the front and rear sections of the footplate with these inserted, all glued to a piece of 0.5mm plasticard to bring the footplate up to thickness. All was weighed down with my railway souvenirs …



The whole operation is done on a sheet of thick glass, with a straight-edge to keep things aligned. As the 0.5mm plasticard isn’t going to do much to strengthen the joins, even with an additional piece of 0.75 mm plasticard on top, to form the ever-so-slightly overhanging top plating, I glued two lengths of flat-bottom rail to the underside to provide some much-needed stiffening. The weights were again called into play …



… and the result so far.



I’m leaving it to harden off overnight before I try to prise the assembly off the glass sheet.

Hours of fun ...

[Steve Holland]

Are we allowed to use standard gauge rail as weights? I am guessing that it is 110 pound or 113 pound flat bottom, there is some lurking on my workbench as well. It also makes a useful mini anvil for bashing bits of metal on.
It's not as heavy as another one of my railway souvenirs - a cast steel wagon wheel found in an old quarry some years ago. It is about 12 inches or so in diameter and nearly escaped from the boot of our old Ford Cortina on the way home when I went round a corner a bit too quickly. As for its weight I have not got a clue although it caused a lot of bad language when I dropped it on my thumb!!

[Bilco]

Hi Steve - the smaller piece of rail is from the 2' gauge railway on Masirah, and the larger is from a metre gauge railway between a gravel pit and the Rhine in Nordrhein-Westphalia ....

[Bilco]

I wasn't able to do any modelling over the last two days - up to Lunnon for a Prom on Wednesday, and up to Brum for a visit to the Coffin Museum and the Barber Institute yesterday. So, today I buckled down to it, despite the steamy tempertures, to make a start on the second part of the 'shut' - the main body ...





The bits ready to get stuck in - the sides are pieces of 3mm plasticard with 8mm L-section to beef up what would otherwise be rather weak butt-joints, and the top is a piece of 2mm plasticard. Still to come is the curved boiler top - but I have a cunning plan for that ...

Once the glue on the L-section bits is dry I can get down to some serious glueing ...

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

OK, last bit of glueing tonight - the side pieces to the rear part of the main body casting ...





The heavy lumps of rail come in handy again to keep everything in tightly.

Tomorrow I'll check on the squareness, and then glue on the front and, finally, the top ...

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

Right - on with the show ...

With the side extensions securely glued in place I added yet more bits of the L-section to form a bigger surface on which to glue the top ...



... and then glued the front on ...





Finally, I glued the top in place, which should make the extension pretty strong and rigid ...





When everything has hardened the next job is fitting and fixing the boiler top section ...

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

And the next step - the boiler top. I found in mai laidy waif's sewing basket a cotton reel with the centre diameter an almost exact match to the boiler, so it was purloined while she wasn't looking - " Reel of white thread? No, haven't seen it anywhere dear ..."

A section was cut out oversize, and it was then trimmed and fettled until it was a good fit ...



... and then glued into place ...



Just for fun, here is a shot of the horrors under the extension, seen from below ...



... they won't be visible on the finished article, thank goodness ...

[Bilco]

Now that the 'shut' part of the exercise is done, I thought it would be fun to see how it all looks on the newly-extended footplate ...



... with the chassis and motor in place. Because the wheels are bigger than the Smokey Joe's the flanges protrude above the footplate, so need cut-outs to suit. The extended footplate is nicely rigid - at least, as far as I dare stress it ...



The various bits propped together. The joins in the tank sides will be covered by the side overlays - the dome covers most of the boiler top join. It's beginning to look like a loco now ...



... and from the front. It's amazing what a difference the 1 inch extension makes to the look of the thing - here is my first Katie at a similar stage ...

kaffie cabbed 03-crop_zpsm7hoovgn by Bill Corser, on Flickr

On with the overlaying!

[Bilco]

Right - overlaying complete ...

Time has been a bit limited this week, but I managed to get the overlays cut out and ready for a rapid, glue-wielding 30-minute session to fix them in place ...



The tank side overlays hide all the ropey joins that the insertion of the 3 cm extension produced ...



..., while the equally ropey joins in the tank tops were treated to a filling of Liquid Green Stuff. The outer overlay is 0.75mm plasticard, with pieces of 0.5mm plasticard to thicken up the cab side-sheets and the side upstands.



More 0.5mm plasticard was used for the footplate top plating ...



... and then the two parts propped together ...

The last part of the extension process will be to replace the beading along the top of the sides - coming soon to a workbench near me ...

Hours of fun ...

[Thorness]

Superb!
Looking forward to the finished loco.