An American in England

[tedp]

This morning I painted the rear of the cab black, and touched up the brown sliding window frames.

I completed the paintwork on the right hand side of the loco. The cylinder is now deep black, I corrected a bit of lining on the rear of the tank which had smudged, added the nameplate, and cleaned up the tank side where needed. Finally, I repainted the connecting and coupling rod, the slide bar assembly and the equalising bar at the rear end Humbrol Dark Sea Grey. The edges were then highlighted with Revell light grey, no. 76. I think this looks much better than it used to.

Here is the loco photographed on the desk, in daylight.



And here, a cruel close-up showing all the blemishes which luckily don't show at normal viewing distance, and the way the rods have been treated. I think this is as far as it will go. Where the lining on the cab is imperfect, the handrails will be fitted. So no one will be any wiser!



Next, the left hand side will be tackled. To be continued!

[tedp]

Here is a short sequence of photos of the work done in the past hour, as I did the first stage of the lining on the left side. This is to illustrate the amount of correcting needed in this kind of work.

First I put the white ink on to the tanks and the cab sides, using the gel pen. Looks pretty horrible, don't you think? The cab looks a disaster, but this will be corrected. The inside edges of the lines on the tank are pretty straight, although you will see a faint scratch mark on the green at the top of the front end where I took off some white ink.



Next, I took the black felt tip to add the black borders, which is very straightforward. You'll see that the lining on the cab is pretty rough, but I'll leave that till the second round. At the bottom of the tank the black went across the white - this needs to be set right first.



Here is the result after correcting the bottom line on the tank. Not quite there yet, but some improvement. I have left the cab largely alone - the vertical lines are out of true and not straight at all. After a minute or so I put flat varnish on the work to seal everything.



And an oblique view showing the varnish (and a few dust specks!).



Now I'll leave the varnish for an hour or so to dry out before continuing.

[tedp]

Rather better I think, after a little work with the pens, and a brush of matt white and Olive Green to straighten some of the wobbles in the lines.



Now the main thing to do is be patient. When I did the other side, I noticed that even after a few hours of drying, the white paint smudged when I put on the varnish. I'll now leave it till tonight, then put on the varnish.

Later tonight we'll take the family to the movies, so there won't be a lot of time to carry on. Perhaps tomorrow.  ;)

[tedp]

Well - a lot of work done this morning! I lettered the left side of the loco, which partly went very well, but modelling wouldn't be what it is without the usual glitches.

First, a photo I made late last night, comparing David to Goliath, or a fairly big 2ft gauge loco to an even bigger 2ft 6ins loco. I wanted to compare the 'fag paper' lining on the Kitson to the pen lining on the Baldwin. The width of the lining in neither case comes under about 0.5mm, so if you want finer lining, you will need transfers. Anyway it is an interesting photo.



Next, a step by step report on applying the Methfix transfers to the tank. First, I cut out the lettering 'Southern', as advised by Brian Mosby. The thin backing paper of the letters is carefully peeled away from the paper base.



Next, the letters are positioned on the tank. I used a ruler to measure the distance from the top edge, which is 1.5mm, and to straighten the letters. The letters are slightly tacky, so they stay in place when you press them home with a finger. The flat varnished surface helps in giving the letters a good grip.



A drop of water is applied to the backing foil.



This is peeled off after about a minute, leaving the letters standing out fresh from the olive green.



It was the number where I ran into trouble. I fitted the '6' in its proper place:



Then the '7' and the mutilated '3' to either side. The '3' will be turned into '2'. An eagle-eyed observer will note that the '7' is slightly at a slant and here is where I went wrong.



I removed the '7' after it was stuck to the tank side, then discovered it was my last 4.5mm '7' in the sheet. So I used a 5.5mm one and cut it down even before it was positioned on the tank side.



Note that the shape of the '7' is slightly wrong as it was cut down. Before doing anything else, I applied flat varnish to prevent the transfers being disturbed by subsequent work.



After the varnish had dried, I used yellow and olive green paint to correct the numerals. Phase 1 - extending the yellow to improve the shape. Note the base of the '2' which is grossly over-stretched. This is intentional, as a cross stroke over the yellow using olive green will give a nice square edge:



Phase 2 - correcting the yellow with olive green:



Inevitably the numerals are a bit 'hairy', but if necessary this can be corrected by scraping with a scalpel blade:



However, at a distance it doesn't look too bad.



Now I'm leaving the paint to dry. I'll apply the tiny 'E' for Eastleigh over the number at a later stage.

[tedp]

A small sidestep tonight: finding a crew for Lyn. I had a set of Victorian Langley enginemen which I modified by changing their headwear to flat Southern style caps (I hope). I cut the caps down and fitted small styrene discs which I then filed down to shape. Although the're hardly visible behind the windows, at least they're in style.



Here they are in the tiny cab (after some unfortunate feet amputations to make them fit). Note that the driver is intended to lean out of a left hand cab window, but the Baldwin, just like the Manning Wardles, seems to have been driven from the right. So he now seems to grab the whistle cord.



In the next view, note the cab windows installed, and all the frames now painted brown. It is a wooden cab with varnished or oiled window frames.



Now for the final lining and detailing phase!

[Jeff Schumaker]

It's coming together nicely, Ted.

Jeff S.

[tedp]

Thanks - however, today was a little frustrating. It went all right most of the time - I lined out the tank fronts and the bunker. Rather tricky, but I managed to get it straight and neat.

The detailing tonight was a perfect pain however. I tried drilling 0.7mm holes in the cab sides, to fit handrails, and found out I should have done so before painting. The drill bits were blunt despite being new, and they slipped and damaged some of the paint. The windows on one side were just pushed loose by the drilling.

I managed to restore most of the finish and repaired the windows, but the right side of the bunker probably needs more work. Luckily flat varnish hides most of the damage. I put on the handrails - wire ones as the ones in the kit were etched and FLAT - and I bent the whitemetal vacuum and steam heating pipes to shape and fitted them to the bunker and the footplate.

The pipes along the bottom of the tanks will be made up with wire. And the footplate stays must be fashioned.

To wind it up, I made a lot of progress but it was frustrating. Luckily, having been a sailor, I have a plentyful supply of bad language to sustain me.

Here are the photos - the main improvements are the vacuum and steam pipes, the vacuum (or steam?) pipe running under the left hand tank - there is a thinner one on the right which still has to be fitted. And the footplate stays. An American locomotive has the front footplate suspended between the cylinder block and two heavy stays bolted to the smokebox. I drilled through the smokebox and inserted a piece of brass wire, which was then bent down to match the fitting patches on the footplate. It has only been glued to the smokebox as this has to come off when the chassis is removed.



The rear end and the cab handrails - least said about them the better. The drilling went out of hand, the glue has blotched the black lining and it looks altogether horrible. I'll have quite a job fettling down the glue patches and repairing the lining. The other side is slightly better but not good either. We'll see how to fix that tomorrow.



More later.

[Brian Mosby]

Looking Good Ted

[tedp]

Thanks Brian, but I'm not yet happy. The problem is the cab around the handrails. I should have drilled the holes before painting. However, I just touched up the worst blotches and it came out slightly better. Tomorrow I'll have a better look in daylight. The overhead lighting probably makes it look worse than it really is.

[tedp]

Well, in daylight it looks better although I'm not doing too many close-ups!

This morning I fitted the vacuum pipe on the right hand side - which in Southern days was led inside the valve gear and the valve chest - and I painted all the detail work Dark Sea Grey.

So now the loco is as good as completed. I'll give you a few photos made on the layout this morning. First a close-up on the desk. Here the steam heating pipe hasn't yet been painted.



The right hand side, with the vacuum pipe led inside the valve gear.



Lyn on its way with the L&B train.



And finally a few state portraits on the bridge in the Gorge.







This concludes the Lyn project!   ;)

[rod335]

Not sure your point about the stays between the boiler and the front footplate being to support the footplate is quite correct Ted. My understanding has always been that these stays are to strengthen the lateral forces on the front bufferbeam and prevent the loco from pulling itself apart. Certainly this was their purpose when they were fitted to Great Western locos.

[tedp]

That's an interesting point of view, Rod. I wonder how the main frames of the GWR locomotives were laid out if they needed such stays. They had substantial plate frames, didn't they?

Regarding lateral forces, I feel that in "Lyn" these would have been taken up by the footplate framing which in the drawing from ''The Engineer" in the book by Catchpole seems to be a box shape. It is the vertical forces on the buffer beam and the cowcatcher that are counteracted by the stays.

My reasoning is that in American locomotives of that age, the boiler was the strongest item, with the cylinder block integral with the smokebox. The bar frames were fitted between the cylinder block and the firebox, and everything in front or in rear of that was comparatively light. This is quite a different approach from the British built locomotive which usually had full length plate frames and the boiler fitted on top.

The principle is clearly illustrated in drawings in the book 'A History of the American Locomotive' (its development, 1830-1880). If you look at the well-known 4-4-0s from 1855 onwards, or even the primitive 1850 4-4-0 "Copiapo", the front framing is very flimsy, but the stays play an important role to stiffen things up. The front footplate seems to be a frame hung from the smokebox using those substantial stays, creating two diagonals supporting the front buffer beam and the cowcatcher. The same design is carried on to the 2-6-0s and 2-8-0s built in the mid-1860s. Even the Baldwin ten-wheeler of 1870 has almost the same type of front end as Lyn, similar even to the banjo-shaped footplate.

If you like, I can send you a few scans so you can see what I mean.

[Jeff Schumaker]

An excellent job, Ted. What's the next project?

Jeff S.

[MickT]

An excellent conclusion to another super project Ted. Thank you very much for sharing your work with the members.

I look forward to seeing Lyn in the flesh in due course and maybe an opportunity to compare the loco to my 2-4-4T bash Matilda, which I have now made a note to add to the joblist for a major refurbishment!

Mick

[tedp]

Thanks, Jeff and Mick.

Mick - I will be taking the loco with me to Sparsholt, where I hope it will be one of the performers on Dunalistair. Before that it will be subjected to heavy duty over the C&DR, which will be the final test proving it is all right.

Jeff - no idea yet for a new project. Probably as fancy takes me!