1869 Allerton Steam Pumper by gjdale - Model Trailways - Scale 1:12 - Finished

[mtaylor]

Keep track of the errors, Grant.  When you're done send them Model Expo.   Could be interesting to see what they say.

[gjdale]

That’s my intent Mark. Not so much to bleat, but to provide some constructive feedback to help them fix the errors. That’s one reason I’m putting them in my log as I go - will make it easier to pull together at the end.

[mtaylor]

I realize it's not about bleating.  I would hope they would take your comments in the spirit they're intended, even it's just changing the instructions.

[Egilman]

4 hours ago, gjdale said:

A simple enough task – what could possibly go wrong? 

Every kit ever made has one of those moments where we think it is a simple task, two days to a week later, we wonder how we got it done.....

 

Call it character building, the manufacturers, in their zeal make it so easy...... {chuckle} 

 

But I see you made it through.... that what we do, solve problems....

[BobG]

17 hours ago, gjdale said:

Why Model Expo couldn’t have made the supplied thread a couple of inches longer is beyond me. It is not something that I can duck out to a local store to replace either. Very annoyed by this totally unnecessary error.

 

I've heard that Model Expo is really good at quickly replacing defective parts etc. I think they would probably be glad to send you some longer pieces of thread if emailed them and explained the problem. I wouldn't think that it would take too long for a simple letter with the thread inside to reach Australia. It not like it's a package which takes a long time...just a thought...  

[Kevin]

problems aside, i think you have made a stunning job of this, well done

[mtaylor]

16 hours ago, Egilman said:

Call it character building, the manufacturers, in their zeal make it so easy...... {chuckle} 

 

 

I call it vocabulary building as I try to find new ways to turn air blue.

[gjdale]

A successful day at the “Fire Station” today, although not without it’s challenges.

The Brake System

 The next step is the installation of the Brake System. Here are all the component parts:

 

 

We start by removing the wheels, propping up the main frame and front axle, and inserting the Brake Crossover Bar (second from left in the above picture) through the holes in the bottom of the Water Box. These were test fitted when the parts were being painted, so no unwelcome surprises here.

 

 

We then take connect the Brake U-link to the Brake Link using a pair of 0-80 nuts on the threaded end of the Brake Link. These will  be used later on to adjust the length of the Brake Link.

 

 

The U-link is then connected to the Brake Crossover Bar on the right-hand side of the vehicle using a 0-80 x 1/4” bolt from the inside and securing with a 0-80 nut on the outside. Then we add the Crossover Bar Link on the left-hand side of the Crossover Bar and repeat the connection to the U-Link. Not particularly difficult, though something of a dexterity test.

 

 

We now need to install the Brake Lever Pivot Arms, Pivot Arm Braces, and the Brake Lever Arms. The Pivot Arms and Braces form a triangle that is bolted to the boiler wall using 00-90 bolts and nuts. They are positioned toward the bottom of the boiler. In this photo, you can see the length of reach required inside the boiler to be able to attach the nuts. 

 

 

Here I decided to depart from the instructions and carefully inverted the entire model so that it sat on the boiler cap ring and was supported at the front end of the water box. This allowed me to access the bolts from the underneath of the boiler. I retained this position for the remainder of the installation. Here is the triangular bracing in place, along with the Brake Lever Arm.

 

 

Once both Brake Lever Arm assemblies had been attached, we are instructed to add the Brake U-connector to join both Brake Lever Arms to the Brake Link using 0-80 x 1/4" Bolts and Nuts. One problem with that…..the 1/4" bolts are not long enough for the job, as seen in this photo.

 

 

I had a dig through my leftover bits and pieces from my Pocher car build and found some suitable alternatives. They were slighter larger in diameter at 2mm, so I had to re-drill all the holes, which in turn meant dis-assembling some of what I’d already assembled. Here is the result:

 

 

While the bolts may now be a little too long, I’m not going to worry about cutting them shorter as they can’t be seen that well anyway. At this point, the misalignment issues discovered earlier came back to play and a little judicious bending of the brake arm assemblies was required.

 

The Main Drain was also inserted while the wheels were off. The pre-drilled hole in the boiler wall was a little too low for it to sit correctly, so I elongated the hole somewhat with a small needle file until I could get it to sit correctly.

 

 

The wheels were put on, at which point we find another error in the Bill of Parts. The wheels are held on with 1-72 nuts. The parts list indicates that 8 of these are supplied and indeed that is what was in the kit. Only problem is, 9 are required to build the model. By happy coincidence, the replacement nuts I used for the U-connector were just the right size to fit on the axle stub I had previously broken and re-glued. The remaining provided nuts all went on to the cast threads without issue. 

 

Here is an overall shot of where we are at today:

 

 

 

[wefalck]

Things are coming together nicely !  It shows how fragile and spidery the engineering designs were at that time. I gather today one would make this much more compact.

 

The suspension system (the 'shock absorbers') is actually quite interesting and I wonder how it really worked. Somehow it looks as if it were just a stack of leather discs. Most steam-fire engines I have seen in preservation have the boiler suspended from a ring, which in turn is supended on leaf-springs above the axles. However, looking at my pictures of the one preserved in the Stockholm technical museum, it seems to have a similar arrangement of 'shock absorbers', but in wood:

 

[gjdale]

That’s interesting Wefalck. Given that the instructions for painting these parts called for them to “leather brown”, I’m guessing that they were indeed a stack of leather discs as you noted.

 

When Ken Foran (Xken here at MSW) designed this model, he had full access to the preserved original. I’m pretty sure his design is faithful to that original.

[thibaultron]

The museum may have used wood, to prevent them from having to disassemble the engine in the future to replace deteriorating leather. If, they ever have to move the display, the leather that still looked good may fall apart.

 

I visited the Aberdene Proving Grounds Museum in Maryland many years ago., and they had dragged most of the outdoor equipment around. All the equipment that had any rubber tires pneumatic, or solid (generally  WWI had solid), had the old rubber ripped off or almost completely destroyed. It was quite upsetting to me to see the displays thus damaged. Later they placed them on cement pads with axle supports holding the tires off the ground, but the damage was done.

[gjdale]

Another successful day at the “Fire Station” today, with no major issues encountered - for a change! 😊

 

First up today was to add the Steam Regulator. There was some fettling to do to fit this as the shaft that goes to the Boiler is deliberately left long and needs to be filed back to make a snug fit against the Boiler wall. The Adjustment Arm (on the right in the picture below) is attached to the Adjustment Arm Link (which was installed way back when the Flywheel assembly was added to the Main Frame) with a 00-90 Bolt and Nut. Some dexterity challenges again, but no major drama.

 

 

Now we start to fill in all those holes in the Boiler Wall, starting with the Rear Boiler Wall. First up, the Boiler Grab Bar:

 

 

Next is the engraved Boiler Shield and the Brackets for the upper end of the Hose Nozzles.

 

 

The Nozzles are now fitted.

 

 

And that completes the Rear Boiler Wall.

 

Now we continue with the Frame Parts, starting with the Water Return Pipes. There is one of these on each side. They are indexed into the lower hole in the side of the manifold, while the other end is simply glued to the face of the Boiler wall.

 

 

Now the Flywheel Arm and Links are added. Again, there are two of these, and each is comprised of two parts that index together before being glued using the locating pins – one end to the Flywheel shaft, the other to the upper hole in the side of the manifold.

 

 

I departed a little from the sequence in the instruction manual, only because I thought that access might be easier for some of the parts. So next up, I fitted the Pressure Release Valve – it goes very close to the Steam Regulator.

 

 

Then it was the Rear Hose Brackets and the Hand Lamp Holders:

 

 

A series of four Valves are now added, taking care to align the angle of the drain spouts (pointing down and to the left).

 

 

And then the Boiler Pressure Gauge is added:

 

 

The Steam Whistle is next:

 

 

And then the Frame to Boiler Braces. It’s a little hard to see in this photo but the Brace is the diagonal Red bar going from top right of the picture where it attaches to the Frame, to the bottom left where it attaches to the Boiler wall.

 

 

We now move our attention forward and install the Small Expansion Tank:

 

 

And then we add the Large Expansion Tank Support and the Seat. These are a little tricky as the Support is indexed into a hole in the Seat and the Seat Legs index into holes in the front of the Water Box. Because these parts will carry the weight of the Large Expansion Tank, they are glued with 5-min epoxy.

 

 

And finally, here is an overall shot of where we are at as of close of play today.

 

 

Still a way to go yet, but we are closing in on the finish line.

[BobG]

Stunningly beautiful work, Grant!!

[wefalck]

Are there no water gauges at the stoking platform ?

[gjdale]

1 hour ago, wefalck said:

Are there no water gauges at the stoking platform ?

 

Apparently not Wefalck. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I believe that the kit designer (Ken Foran) was very faithful to the original, to which he had access.

[wefalck]

Can one see the original somewhere on the Internet ? A Google-search only turned up model pictures of other builds from this kit.

 

I am curious as to what kind of boiler was used. There must have been some way of checking, whether enough water was in it. Once could also use test-taps at different levels - perhaps the vertical row of the four taps? These fire engines had boilers, where most of the water was in water-tubes, which ensured quick heating up, but still there is a minimum level of water that has to be kept to prevent the tubes from burning through.

Edited October 10, 2021 by wefalck

[gjdale]

Wefalck,

 

If you follow this link,

 

http://www.scalemotorcars.com/forum/horse-drawn-vehicles/57939-article-1-12-scale-1869-allerton-steam-pumper.html

 

it will take you to Ken’s build of the prototype in brass. Within that log are many pictures of the original, which is in a museum very near to Ken’s home. Towards the end of that log, he shows a test build of the production parts that were cast from his original. In reviewing that log, I saw at the end that a couple of people had found some of the same issues I have had with the kit. Prime among them was forming the boiler walls. Apparently the design was changed and the wall thickness halved - I think I must have an early production kit though with the thicker walls (I did buy this kit as soon as it was released back in 2014).

[wefalck]

Thanks for the link. I am slowly scrolling through that log, very interesting to see the master being built.

[gjdale]

A number of small tasks remain to bring the model to completion.

Finishing Touches…..almost

First up was the installation of the brake pedal and spring mechanism. The spring joins the brake pedal to the seat. The other end of the brake pedal slips over the crossover bar that passes through the bottom of the water box. Once this is in place, the End Caps are added to either side of the crossover bar.

 

 

Then the forward Hose Brackets are added, with the lower ends (complete with faux bolts) attached to the forward end of the water box and aligned with its front edge.

 

 

The next task is to prepare the Head Lamp and Hand Lamp Lenses. These are provided as laser cut clear plastic pieces – four large round ones for the Head Lamp and one smaller round one and two rectangular ones for each of the two Hand Lamps. These all need to be shaped by adding a bevel to the outer edge of all the round lenses and shaping the rectangular lenses to match the contour of the sides of the Hand Lamps. My weapon of choice for this task was a series of sanding sticks. I recently discovered this product from Ultimate Modelling Products called “Thinny Sticks” and they are really good. The have a hard centre core with a softer foam on either side and then the sanding grit on top of that. They also have a shape that provides for a wider end for general work and a thinner end for smaller spaces. I find the shape to particularly good ergonomically too. Each stick has the same grit on both sides and the centre core is colour coded so it’s pretty hard to get mixed up as to which grit you are using. Having used them throughout this build, I can highly recommend them. The grits below are 240 / 400 / 800/ 1200 and then the larger one is a double-sided buffing stick, again colour coded for 3,000 and 12,000. The buffing sticks also come in the same size as the Thinny Sticks. Working through these grits on both the Britannia Metal and the clear plastic, I was able to achieve a mirror finish.

 

 

Here are the round lenses showing on the right after initial shaping with 240 grit and on the left after final buffing. I didn’t feel the need to go as far as polishing compound. The camera doesn’t do the final product justice!

 

 

And here are the rectangular lenses Two untouched lenses on the left, a shaped lens and then a finished lens on the right.

 

 

The Head Lamp lenses were then inserted into the Head Lamp (I used aircraft canopy glue for this to avoid fogging caused by CA), and the Head Lamp epoxied in place on top of the Large Expansion Tank.

 

 

The Large Expansion Tank was then epoxied in place on its supporting bracket. (The whip holder and whip were also added around this time).

 

 

And here are the Hand Lamps temporarily installed. They won’t be fixed in place until the model is finally completed.

 

 

The Spark Arrestor was then added to the Smoke Stack Section and the Smoke Stack Top added to that.

 

 

The Boiler Top was then added to the Boiler Cap Ring:

 

 

And the Smoke Stack assembly placed atop that:

 

 

An almost final task was to add the tires. These are provided as laser cut gasket strips. After cutting the free from the carrier sheet, they only need a light swipe with a 240 grit Thinny Stick to remove the remains of the connecting nubs and then gluing in place around the rims of each wheel. The wheels were removed one at a time for this and the task proved much easier than I first imagined it would be. Once the wheels were replaced, the hub caps were added.

 

 

At this point, I discovered yet another disappointing quality control issue with the provided kit material – the Fire Hoses. These are supposed to be provided in the form of tubular shoelaces. The idea is that the end of the shoelace is opened up to insert the Hose Nozzles before shaping the hoses and attaching them to the model. A neat idea, except that the kit provided shoelaces are not tubular – they are flat, with nothing to open up for the nozzles. This is another of those extremely frustrating and totally unnecessary errors on the part of Model Expo. I now can’t finish the model until I source some sort of suitable replacement, either from Model Expo or elsewhere. I’m also still waiting on the delivery of the part I need to complete the Boiler Water Level Gauge – held up in the postal system at the moment.

 

Other than these two items, the model is complete. I can do nothing now except wait for replacement parts to finish this off. In the meantime, here are some overview pics. I’ll save the final “glam” shots until the model is finally complete.

 

 

 

 

I'll be back when I have some more finishing touches.....

 

 

[mtaylor]

Looks great, Grant.   A wonder piece of equipment.  As for the hose... I don't know if anyone makes the "hollow knit" type any more.  They do make round laces that are solid centers (string) but then there's find some in the right diameter. Possibly one's for boots would be larger?   

 

Worst case.. email Model Expo about the hoses.  Once you have the hoses, then hit them with the log copy and the errors.  

[Egilman]

2 hours ago, gjdale said:

At this point, I discovered yet another disappointing quality control issue with the provided kit material – the Fire Hoses. These are supposed to be provided in the form of tubular shoelaces. The idea is that the end of the shoelace is opened up to insert the Hose Nozzles before shaping the hoses and attaching them to the model. A neat idea, except that the kit provided shoelaces are not tubular – they are flat, with nothing to open up for the nozzles. This is another of those extremely frustrating and totally unnecessary errors on the part of Model Expo. I now can’t finish the model until I source some sort of suitable replacement, either from Model Expo or elsewhere.

We went thru this same situation with Craig's ALF pumper hoses.... I don't know what he did to resolve that one, but here is the link to the suggestion I made....

 

Scale hose problem....

 

There were several suggestions made from several brothers....

 

Edited October 13, 2021 by Egilman

[gjdale]

Thanks Mark. I've just finished writing up a document with all of my observations on errors with parts and/or instructions and have forwarded that off to Model Expo. I've asked for a replacement for the hose material, so I'll see what they come back with.

 

And thanks Egilman for the link - some interesting discussion there and some food for thought about alternative material. Will wait and see what Model Expo have to say before deciding on the way forward.

[wefalck]

It is really coming together nicely.

 

There would be two types of hoses: suction hoses and pressure hoses.

 

Suction hoses were made from rubberised canvas and were kept open (round) internally by a spiral of bronze (I guess so, as stainless steel was not available yet at that time). The suction hose is used to take water from surface water courses - at that time in most places there was no water-mains to supply hydrants. In 1:72 scale I imitated the look by winding thin copper wire around a soldering wire of suitable diameter and painting the whole thing. In your scale you might try to find a suitable spring or make one and slip it into a heat-shrink tube. The tube than can be shrunk cautiously onto the spiral, coiled and then painted.

 

Pressure hoses also would be made from rubberised canvas, but would be flat, when not in use. In this way more length can be store on a reel. Fire-station usually have a tower in which these hoses are hanged freely to dry. They are then powdered inside with talcum to prevent the rubber from sticking together. The woven shoelace might be indeed a good representation of such pressure hose, when not in use,

 

 

[gjdale]

Thanks Wefalck for that insight. I think it must be the latter (pressure hose) that is meant to be simulated in this kit. If you look at the box art picture in the very first post, it shows the hoses flattened (two per side).

[wefalck]

The steam-pumpers would normally short sections of suction-hose, which are quite stiff, on racks alongside the chassis or another convenient place. There would be also one length of pressure hose per nozzle.

 

Most of the pressure-hoses would be carried on a reel on a two-wheeled trailer towed behind the pumper and/or on separate carriage that would also carry some short lean-/hook-on ladders. In addition, there would be a coal- and perhaps a water-cart to provide clean boiler feed-water. The whole train may be completed by a big extendable ladder on a turn-table on a separate carriage. 

[BobG]

13 hours ago, gjdale said:

I’ll save the final “glam” shots until the model is finally complete.

 

I can't imagine how much more "glam" it could get, Grant, since it's already so beautiful!

[kurtvd19]

On 10/10/2021 at 7:01 AM, gjdale said:

I saw at the end that a couple of people had found some of the same issues I have had with the kit. Prime among them was forming the boiler walls. Apparently the design was changed and the wall thickness halved - I think I must have an early production kit though with the thicker walls (I did buy this kit as soon as it was released back in 2014).

I can attest to Model Expo changing to making the boiler from thinner material.  I was building the kit from early parts and providing feedback that was used to make some minor corrections in the text and to thin down the thickness of the SS used for the boiler.  Ken Foran is a big guy with big hands and had no problems with the prototype boiler material but even though I have big hands I only got the boiler material formed into a cylinder because I have a small metal roller that was just big enough to do the job on the boiler. 

[gjdale]

Thanks Bob and Kurt,

 

I copied Ken Foran on the email I sent to Model Expo yesterday and have had a reply already from him, confirming that some of the early kits did ship with the thicker walls - so I guess that confirms my suspicion (I can’t actually do a check measurement now that everything is built). Wish I’d done some extra research to discover this before I started building - I might have been able to get a replacement for the boiler walls.

 

Thanks also Kurt for you reply to my PM query and your advice, which aligns very much with Wefalck’s observations above.

[popeye the sailor]

wow!  for all the problems you've encountered,  you sure came out on top!   it's a very stunning model    

[gjdale]

Thank you Popeye.