A4 Pacific Sir Nigel Gresley, O-scale - Page 13

**Erik Zwaan** · #**121** 04-24-2017, 03:51 AM

Thank you Tim - I wonder which model you are working on nowadays?

In the mean time, some progress to show, not so much but steady. I have installed the two brake cylinders and am working the details now of the rolling chassis and wondered how I could cut out the spokes of the driving wheels without getting crazy. More about that later.

The brake cylinders are classified as optional in the instructions, however without further reference. As the driver's cab is fitted with the levers to operate the system, there's not much to opt for. The brake rigging will be installed later on and although I have not studied these parts in more detail yet, similar modifications as for the tender may be required.

Here are a few of the added details to the rolling chassis, edge coloring and other corrections are still in progress. Next will be the installation of the steam cylinders, parts 61 and 62, at the location of the white rectangular outline.

I have not installed the front bogey yet, and will only do so after installation of at least two of the driving wheels. This will allow for better alignment of the bogey by adjusting the height of the swivel (part 42). However, this may not be necessary at all.

The pictures were taken late last night and the bright light makes every little blip, correction and unevenness clearly visible. A bit shocking...

Cheers,
Erik

**Tim Crowe** · #**122** 04-24-2017, 09:26 AM

It's good to regular progress on this impressive build

Tim

**Erik Zwaan** · #**123** 04-29-2017, 01:50 PM

Thanks again Tim, glad you like the result up so far.

The driving wheels have to wait a little while, let's first do the main steam cylinders. The engine has three cylinders, one at each side and one on the bottom side, already installed and because it's not really visible, not so detailed.

Our National Day, King's Day or in Dutch "Koningsdag", was celebrated last Thursday, and many people, like myself. took the Friday off as well to enjoy a long weekend. In my case the office was closed so there wasn't much of a choice. That left me with extra time to work on the Gresley

.

The cylinders are pretty straight forward and after studying actual Gresley pictures I decided to add a few details to increase realism. The instruction drawings are not very clear on the position of the small lugs (at least that's what they look like) on either side of the piston rods. The drawings indicate the lugs have to be pointing upwards but that's physically not possible (not enough room) and actual pictures show theyre pointing downwards. Also some of the red reference numbers that indicate where the parts have to be placed are not correct. No big deal though, but I strongly advise any potential builder to check for pictures on the internet which also provide a wealth of inspiration for adding details. Just a few are already enough to enhance the model.

The front bogie in the second last picture is still a dry-fit. More and more the locomotive takes shape but the end is certainly not in sight yet. In any case time for intermediate clean-up of my desk!

Ok, that's it for now, more to come shortly.

Erik

**abhovi** · #**124** 04-30-2017, 01:31 AM

Beautiful project Erik. I liked your article in 'de Modelbouwer'.
I also envy you for your clean desk. A clean-up for that? My own desk is not even visible underneath all the debris and rubbish... I could use some of your discipline.:-)

**romanmodels** · #**125** 04-30-2017, 03:19 PM

Good work Erik

**Erik Zwaan** · #**126** 05-01-2017, 07:22 AM

Thank you Ab and David. Ab, your article in the same magazine was very informative as well. Although I'm not so much into ships, the old Dutch sailing ships are very fascinating and were truly the sea castles of their time. Building a model is one thing, but designing from scratch is certainly another thing. Very well done. Hopefully you consider Michiel de Ruyter's "Zeven Provincien" as a future build

.

Back to the Gresley. By now I have quite well finished everything on the rolling chassis except basically for the driving wheels and gear. Herewith the remaining hinges, guides and attachments for the driving gear and mudguards for the front bogie wheels. Also done are the paint touch-ups. I started touching up by using a light grey marker but it dried up too dark so in the end I used lighter paint (Tamiya sky grey XF-19) to tone down the color. Some parts I doubled and detailed a bit further, based on actual pictures. Hopefully the driving gear parts will fit well, as the location of the attachments is based on this trust.

Next job at hand are the driving wheels. This is going to take time. Every spoke needs to be cut out separately and in relation to this, when working on the first wheel, I found it easier to separate the wheel flange from the inner "circle" of hub and spokes and to remove the black segments in between the spokes.
As you can see in the last three pictures, it's still in the making and I will provide more details later on. May take a while though as there's a lot of work involved and this thread is real time.

Cheers,
Erik

**ricleite** · #**127** 05-02-2017, 08:03 AM

Hello Erik,
If I got it well, the big wheels main part is laser cut but you have to cover it with parts provided in the kit. Is that so? The spokes look so thin! They must be very tricky to cut…

**Erik Zwaan** · #**128** 05-08-2017, 06:23 AM

@ Ricardo: Yes, you are right. The laser cut provides the core of each wheel and needs to be covered with the individual parts. Indeed, tricky and labor intensive...

In the past week I finalized two out of six driving wheels. Not difficult to prepare, but time consuming. The core of each wheel consists of the laser cut, which has to be covered on either side by the original prints. The prints have to be doubled. At the flange side this is intended, but the front face needs to be doubled as well otherwise it will not flush with the width of the slightly tapered tread. The laser cut is 2mm thick whereas the tread is slightly wider, so that's why.

The labor-intensive part is cutting out the spokes from either side of the wheel, in total 2x 20 = 40 black sections to be cut away very carefully. As there are six wheels, that makes 240 pieces to be removed.

I found it easer to first cut out the entire "inner circle", then cutting away the black sections and finally gluing the separated parts onto the laser cut. In between, paint touch-ups at the sides of spokes are required.

The tread is glued exactly on the black outline, bit by bit to ensure proper alignment. I have done two wheels by now and the length of the tread fits exactly.

The laser cut is slightly too big and needs trimming. As this core will not be visible once covered with the front face, not too much accuracy is required here.

Finally the doubled front face, done in the same way. Note that four out of six laser cuts do not provide the crank connection. Álthough this shouldn't have been forgotten, it's not a big deal to fill this up with left-over board.

The other four wheels will be done in the same way.

As expected the already installed brake shoes are in the way and need to be removed, otherwise the wheels can not be properly installed. So, don't follow the building instructions here and install the wheels first.

Cheers,
Erik

**ricleite** · #**129** 05-08-2017, 06:48 AM

Adjusting the paper hub/spoke part to the laser cut card part looks very risky! Do you put glue on all the spokes at the same time? I wouldn’t dare. The fact is that the parts are perfectly aligned

**Erik Zwaan** · #**130** 05-08-2017, 07:25 AM

Hi Ricardo: I glue the hub first and ensure proper alignment of the spokes. Then one by one I lift the spokes a bit, put (white) glue underneath with a small brush and gently press the spokes into the proper position. Takes time but the end result counts. Indeed too risky trying to put everything in place at once. This type of work makes me daydream of building aircraft again...