David Andrews Princess Royal - 6206 Princess Marie Louise

Hi Andy,

Just to be clear, the roll of lead isn't that thickness all the way and the smoke box is separate. Due to the taper of the boiler there is a centre section at a much narrower diameter with a thicker collar at the wider end of the boiler.

 

Following on from my An Evening With session last night (which I thoroughly enjoyed and I hope all those that joined me, did too) I can now share with you how I managed to hold the chimney centrally in place when soldering it.

Whilst machining the base of the chimney I had deliberated from the outset how I might best hold the chimney in place after machining and I had considered boring the base out and adding a short length of tube to locate it when it occurred to me that solder doesn't stick to aluminum so why not use the arbour to centre the chimney.
I parted the end off the arbour and machined the sides so that the chimney sat down properly the other way up.







Then using a makeshift arrangement of blocks and strips of wood I fed the modified abour up through the chimney hole in the smokebox.











There was enough solder remaining on the smokebox from where the chimney hadn't sat down flush initially, so some flux and a waft with my microflame had in place in no time with no cleaning up.

 

Thanks Steve, almost there now.

The loco body is finished and I am just sorting the drawbar. Which just leaves working out how to fit the sand pipes so that they can be removed. Otherwise because the wheels are mounted permanently on the split axles you can't get the wheels out. Then final testing to ensure that it goes around corners.

 

These are the drawbar options as supplied. I have a confession to make at this stage. I couldn't find them and had asked a couple of fellow modellers who have the same kit for dimensions. As it happens one was able to supply part numbers and the other the key dimensions.

Then as is often the way, I opened a box where I keep useful bits (actually looking for a piece of plug pin to see if it would be suitable to make a draw bar from) and there on top of all the bits and pieces was the square of etch containing the two missing drawbars.



While I completely understand why they would be supplied as etches I wanted to see if I could make something more 3 dimensional.

I made a complete hash of my first attempt due to getting the machining operations in the wrong order. I had started by milling and drilling which left the part too weak when I attempted to turn the dog bone section.



This was at the end of the turning operation on the second attempt.







This is the end result greatly enlarged of course. The insulated bushes were made from knitting needles. sadly the only one I had of the right thickness was green. I did think that I had a suitable grey one but having turned one and subsequently dropped it, it landed with a decidedly metallic click. Further investigation revealed that it was in fact aluminium not plastic so not much cop for insulated bushes...

 

The Princess is keeping me entertained to the end.

Almost the last thing to fit are the sand pipes but in order to do that I needed to refit the brakes so that I can work out how the sand pipes will fit around them.

Previously after fitting the 3D printed shoes I had fixed the hangers to the frames via soldered pins with the top of the hanger slipping over a square rod (the holes were etched square) for mounting. Having come back to it I wasn't happy with that arrangement so I removed the pins and substituted some lengths of 12BA stud instead (cut down screws) next I soldered the square end into the hanger brackets. Then I enlarged the holes in the frames so now I can insert the studs through and put nut on the back to hold them.

A bonus to this approach is that not only will it be easier if a little fiddly to get them on and off the studs will rotate in the frames before being fully tightened so that positioning of the shoes against the wheels will be more adjustable.