|
The locomotive as delivered had a 'Congdon' smokestack, this smokestack was going to be hand built as I did not have a donor stack to start from. A 'trawl' through our stock of kitchen funnels found one which was perfect - things were looking up! Not only that I had permission from 'she who must be obeyed' to re-allocate it to my purposes.
The boiler and smokebox - the first thing I made was the somewhat complicated smokebox door from many layers of plastic card, with part of a plastic hemisphere for the domed center the detail on the smokebox is mainly plastic rod applied with lots of cement to ensure a good bond - here is the result, in a very close-up photo.
On the front of the smokebox door in the centre (onto the two horizontal pieces) there is a circular number plate - make it from plasticard, with a piece of strip around the edge and inside that a piece of .020 (1/2mm) rod, to form a fancy edge. David Fletcher very kindly made both the numberplate here and a pair of maker's plates for the side of the smokebox as well from projection film(the print is black with the lettering in negative form - no print; this goes over a gold disc, then the film discs are floated onto a gold painted disc with clear epoxy resin glue (it did not cloud the rear of my 'projection film', but try adding the glue to on a spare bit as a check) first to be sure the result is gold lettering on black! Do not fit either the number plate, or the film onto the makers plates till later; meanwhile keep them safe, for fitting later. The smokebox door remains loose, it is a tight fit in the boiler, due to a couple of plasticard discs on the inner side cut to the exact internal diameter of the boiler.
The boiler, is made from 3 pieces of grey PVC drain pipe ; a couple of which are the boiler cladding. The cladding pieces are two pieces with the division between them being the front of the cab; this allowed me to hide the join. The photo shows the tubes, the outer (cladding pieces have a split at the bottom to allow them to spread and fit over the inner one. Plot, and check the positions of the smokestack the two domes and the bell, and drill small location holes for them through the top and bottom of the tube; these will be enlarged later to allow a machine screw through for the domes and the smokestack (chimney) and bell ones will be enlarged to allow the respective parts through: there are other small holes, but these can be done later. Since this photo I added (using epoxy resin as a glue) a paper wrapper to the smokebox so I can glue on the rivets, with ease, putting rivets onto the PVC would be difficult. In the centre of the smokebox sides I have added a 13mm x .020 disc - this is for the makers (Cooke Loco Works) plate. on the To keep the big Congdon stack in place there is an internal crosspiece to keep it vertical in both planes. Here is a photo of the boiler and smokebox assembly.
The boiler has some horizontal strips fitted to it: these replicate the riveted joints between the cladding plates. They are made from .010 strips that have had the 'rivets' added with a pounce wheel before cutting them off the sheet, and the boiler bands are also strips of .010 plasticard. To indicate the flattened 'U' shape of these I added thin strips fixed vertically on each side. It was difficult and they were always in the way! The final result is quite good - they look like the boiler bands on the Bachmann Spectrum 4 4 0 & 2 6 0, but I may not do it in future.
The big Congdon smokestack - this is made from layers of plasticard with the bottom tapered piece being the (ex) kitchen funnel. At the heart of the stack is a piece of tube that was I think from a fiber tipped pen - this can be seen coloured red, it extends to almost to the top of the stack and is hidden by the small pillbox shape that keeps the cinder screen in position. Note the cross piece inside the smokebox that acts both as a stiffener and a location point for the stack, this is a small 'L' girder to give it more strength and stiffness. All the other detail, is plasticard. To stiffen it (and save it crushing or distorting) I added inside four tapered pieces pointing downwards that can be seen through the translucent (it is polythene) lower part, these have a large washer shape on top of them, which keeps them in the correct locations, on top of this the metal gauze hemisphere (cut from a fine mesh kitchen mini sieve about 3" in diameter)sits on inside, this is the 'cinder screen'. Both this and the upper cone, plus all the detailing are from the MasterClass of the Mason Bogie which is on the MLS website. The smokestack is not glued into position but remains loose, it is a nice tight sliding fit and with the two locating points quite stable. This gives you access to the front boiler fixing bolt if required.
|
