Dan Vadas

awesomely done Danny   amazing skill too!

You have the patience of a saint and a set of unparalleled skills. 
 
Stunning work, sir!

fantastic workmanship

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

The two "cow-catchers" are the last major things to fit to the loco before it's finished. Here are the pics of them :

The bars are all different angles and lengths, so I sorted them out and marked them before gluing them together :






The brake hose fittings :



All the front is now finished. Just a few rivets to re-glue and I can spray it with satin finish clear lacquer :






Now to build the tracks for the base.
 
Danny

There's only 1840 rivets in these two assemblies. There are a LOT more in the boilers, cab, coal bunker etc  . Around 4,000 in the whole loco.
 
Thanks for the insights Cap'n Mac and Ken  .
 
I've discovered a new way to roll long pipes. I usually use a long piece of tubing to do the whole pipe in one go, but the tubing I have isn't the right inside diameter (missed out by about 0.3mm  ). So I cut a short piece of the slightly undersize brass tube, cut a slot in it lengthwise to open it up and cleaned it up with a fine diamond-coated file. Then I used a long piece of tubing to support the inside and used the outer one like a clamp to squeeze the card tube together while I glued about 15mm in one go. Once it dried sufficiently I slid the tubing along and repeated the process - it took about 10 minutes to do a 100mm pipe and it turned out perfectly  :


The ends of some pipes had bends in them :


Also flanges :

The water piping down the left side of the loco - the right side doesn't have any, instead there is a "balance pipe" between the two tanks that keep the left side one full :

I'm guessing this is the water pump ? It needs a little re-aligning which I can do when all the glue has dried :


Danny

Thank you Pat and John.
 
Here are the pics of the finished project :
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
  Danny

Yes I did  . Thanks for the replies guys  .
 
Speaking of problems - I found a doozy. A long time ago, when I was building the front bogie, I made this drum-like piece which turns out to be part of the steering mechanism :

This is the only diagram of this part - nothing in further diagrams to show how it fits, so at the time I put it aside with the thought it may become more obvious later in the build. Unfortunately it should have been fitted much earlier before I'd fitted the main axles and wheels, as the front axle is supposed to go through the middle of it. How to fix the problem?
 
I approached the dilemma with the thought in mind of leaving it off altogether if I couldn't work out a solution. There was no way I could easily remove the axle as it was attached to the wheels with CA glue - impossible to remove without causing major damage to already fitted parts. In addition the crank and a few other parts would also have to come off.
 
I came up with the idea of splitting the drum in half and slipping it over the axle. If the idea didn't work then I'd have had to leave it off, but at least I wouldn't have damaged anything else. The sequence below shows how I did it. First pic is of the axle it had to fit around and the seemingly impossible place it was in :

Removing the two hexagonal ends was fairly easy, as I hadn't scraped off the clear coat. A single-edge razor blade did the trick :


After cleaning everything up the three pieces went on relatively easily :

All done  :

Danny

Yes I did  . Thanks for the replies guys  .
 
Speaking of problems - I found a doozy. A long time ago, when I was building the front bogie, I made this drum-like piece which turns out to be part of the steering mechanism :

This is the only diagram of this part - nothing in further diagrams to show how it fits, so at the time I put it aside with the thought it may become more obvious later in the build. Unfortunately it should have been fitted much earlier before I'd fitted the main axles and wheels, as the front axle is supposed to go through the middle of it. How to fix the problem?
 
I approached the dilemma with the thought in mind of leaving it off altogether if I couldn't work out a solution. There was no way I could easily remove the axle as it was attached to the wheels with CA glue - impossible to remove without causing major damage to already fitted parts. In addition the crank and a few other parts would also have to come off.
 
I came up with the idea of splitting the drum in half and slipping it over the axle. If the idea didn't work then I'd have had to leave it off, but at least I wouldn't have damaged anything else. The sequence below shows how I did it. First pic is of the axle it had to fit around and the seemingly impossible place it was in :

Removing the two hexagonal ends was fairly easy, as I hadn't scraped off the clear coat. A single-edge razor blade did the trick :


After cleaning everything up the three pieces went on relatively easily :

All done  :

Danny

Most Excellent thus Far!! Kevin

Yes I did  . Thanks for the replies guys  .
 
Speaking of problems - I found a doozy. A long time ago, when I was building the front bogie, I made this drum-like piece which turns out to be part of the steering mechanism :

This is the only diagram of this part - nothing in further diagrams to show how it fits, so at the time I put it aside with the thought it may become more obvious later in the build. Unfortunately it should have been fitted much earlier before I'd fitted the main axles and wheels, as the front axle is supposed to go through the middle of it. How to fix the problem?
 
I approached the dilemma with the thought in mind of leaving it off altogether if I couldn't work out a solution. There was no way I could easily remove the axle as it was attached to the wheels with CA glue - impossible to remove without causing major damage to already fitted parts. In addition the crank and a few other parts would also have to come off.
 
I came up with the idea of splitting the drum in half and slipping it over the axle. If the idea didn't work then I'd have had to leave it off, but at least I wouldn't have damaged anything else. The sequence below shows how I did it. First pic is of the axle it had to fit around and the seemingly impossible place it was in :

Removing the two hexagonal ends was fairly easy, as I hadn't scraped off the clear coat. A single-edge razor blade did the trick :


After cleaning everything up the three pieces went on relatively easily :

All done  :

Danny

I've glued up the complete main frames. Very little trimming or adjusting was necessary, and I'm more than happy with the results. Especially considering all the dramas I had to get to this point  .
 
Now to make 16 more wheels, see you all again in a week or so  :





Danny

There's only 1840 rivets in these two assemblies. There are a LOT more in the boilers, cab, coal bunker etc  . Around 4,000 in the whole loco.
 
Thanks for the insights Cap'n Mac and Ken  .
 
I've discovered a new way to roll long pipes. I usually use a long piece of tubing to do the whole pipe in one go, but the tubing I have isn't the right inside diameter (missed out by about 0.3mm  ). So I cut a short piece of the slightly undersize brass tube, cut a slot in it lengthwise to open it up and cleaned it up with a fine diamond-coated file. Then I used a long piece of tubing to support the inside and used the outer one like a clamp to squeeze the card tube together while I glued about 15mm in one go. Once it dried sufficiently I slid the tubing along and repeated the process - it took about 10 minutes to do a 100mm pipe and it turned out perfectly  :


The ends of some pipes had bends in them :


Also flanges :

The water piping down the left side of the loco - the right side doesn't have any, instead there is a "balance pipe" between the two tanks that keep the left side one full :

I'm guessing this is the water pump ? It needs a little re-aligning which I can do when all the glue has dried :


Danny

Yes I did  . Thanks for the replies guys  .
 
Speaking of problems - I found a doozy. A long time ago, when I was building the front bogie, I made this drum-like piece which turns out to be part of the steering mechanism :

This is the only diagram of this part - nothing in further diagrams to show how it fits, so at the time I put it aside with the thought it may become more obvious later in the build. Unfortunately it should have been fitted much earlier before I'd fitted the main axles and wheels, as the front axle is supposed to go through the middle of it. How to fix the problem?
 
I approached the dilemma with the thought in mind of leaving it off altogether if I couldn't work out a solution. There was no way I could easily remove the axle as it was attached to the wheels with CA glue - impossible to remove without causing major damage to already fitted parts. In addition the crank and a few other parts would also have to come off.
 
I came up with the idea of splitting the drum in half and slipping it over the axle. If the idea didn't work then I'd have had to leave it off, but at least I wouldn't have damaged anything else. The sequence below shows how I did it. First pic is of the axle it had to fit around and the seemingly impossible place it was in :

Removing the two hexagonal ends was fairly easy, as I hadn't scraped off the clear coat. A single-edge razor blade did the trick :


After cleaning everything up the three pieces went on relatively easily :

All done  :

Danny