Buck Jumping on Mass

[zebedeesknees]

My cataract removal experience was excellent except.... I had superb close-up vision with a resolution in excess of 14 lines per mm compared with 'normal' sight which is 8 lines. I asked Moorfields to let me retain the -3.5 that I enjoyed for both job and hobby, and I was asked to sign a form to that effect. I signed, but it didn't happen, so I now have near normal sight, -0.7 and can pass the driving vision test without specs, but have to wear magnifiers for close-up. I am not sure that Moorfields have the sort of replacement lenses that I desired!

Ted.

[Philip Hall]

My consultant asked me what I would like, having worn glasses since the age of seven. I would just take the glasses off for really close up work. So I went for general and distance vision, no glasses all the time, which was great, and reading glasses for the rest. I now have two pairs of close up glasses, reading and a special slightly closer focus pair for the workbench, on top of those I use +2.5 or + 1.5 on top like the clockmaker on the Repair Shop.

And I thought I would have fewer pairs of glasses!

Philip

[Le Corbusier]

..... and best wishes from me too

[Will L]

My cataract removal experience was excellent except.... I had superb close-up vision with a resolution in excess of 14 lines per mm compared with 'normal' sight which is 8 lines. I asked Moorfields to let me retain the -3.5 that I enjoyed for both job and hobby, and I was asked to sign a form to that effect. I signed, but it didn't happen, so I now have near normal sight, -0.7 and can pass the driving vision test without specs, but have to wear magnifiers for close-up. I am not sure that Moorfields have the sort of replacement lenses that I desired!

You would have thought Moorfields would have known what they were doing. I gather you can only get a basic lens replacement on the NHS while with private treatment they can do all sorts of cleaver things. I stuck with the NHS, and as I am also astigmatic I still use all day varifocals.

[Will L]

A quick note on service. In getting started on the Buckjumper J69 plumbing I found I had somehow mislayed the lost wax castings of the various buffer beam pipes. While I have white metal alternatives and I've even made my own now and again, but I really like the lost wax variety that originally came with the kit mumble mumble years ago. Better than I would produce and a lot less fragile than white, metal. A quick email to London Road Models asking if they could supply replacements, received near instant attention. This was Thursday evening. Today (Monday) they arrived on my door mat. This is just excellent service and well worth acknowledging.

So Thanks again John Redrup and London Road Models

[Thornbush]

I agree, the service from John at LRM is second to none.

[Chas Levin]

I agree, the service from John at LRM is second to none.

Agreed here too, and the products are top notch too, also a consideration!

[Will L]

It’s been a while since the last construction posting on this thread, which for new readers, revolves around building a pair of ex GER Buckjumpers, namely a J65 and J69, based on kits originally from Ian Rice, now London Road Models. Being me, these locos were built to showcase CSB suspension, not to mention Exactoscale wheels. Well, the wheel thing is only of historical interest now, but there was a lot more to the overall build, and my write up of it, than just the niceties of the chassis.

Despite getting near to the end of the build quite a while ago now, somehow I got sidetracked into digitising and cataloguing my wife and I’s photos. Our long-term joint hobby is travelling, which we started doing long before photos went digital, and there were a lot of negatives that needed my attention. While I was at it I was beginning to notice just how hard it had become to read 0.5mm on my best and cleanest steel rule, and my optician started going on about cataracts. Any thoughts about actually doing some real modelling faded from view too.

At least the cataracts were fixable and, that done, I can now see well enough, and my thoughts have returned to finishing off the Buckjumpers. So, hopefully, those who remember and had managed to follow the last 34 posts on building my non-identical twins, will be able to relate to the next, and hopefully final, last few steps which will appear here shortly. For anybody who wants to check on what those previous 34 parts covered, there is an index which can be found here.

On this thread itself there are in fact 183 posts over 8 pages which also cover some background information and matters arising as we went along, so using the index is much the best way to find a particular post.

[Will L]

Buck Jumping on Mass - The Build Phase
Part 35 Piping up

On returning to the modelling bench. my next step is to deal with the remaining plumbing below footplate level, all of which terminates in standpipes of various sorts on the buffer beams. Being ex GER locos there are Westinghouse air pipes on both J65 and J69. As passenger locos, both also have steam heat pipes, which I have chosen to model with the bags on, although it is at about this point when I wonder whether this urge to fit everything is a good idea. It also means that they probably shouldn’t run on any layout purporting to be in midsummer! Finally, the J69 was also vacuum brake fitted.

Body side pipework

While the pipework associated with the Westinghouse air brake disappears into the locos innards and only becomes apparent when the brake standpipe appears to the right of the coupling hook, both Vacuum and Steam heat are serviced by very visible pipework which runs the length of the loco, under the foot plate edge clipped to the valances.

On the left-hand side of both locos runs the steam heating pipe. This is covered by lagging which makes it significantly chunky. The actual steam pipe (copper?) appears from each end of the lagging. It curls down to run below the buffer beam to the steam heat standpipe which is attached to the bottom edge of the buffer beam on the right-hand side of the coupling hook. Logically, the steam pipe must also have a connection to the boiler backhead in the cab, but this is, presumably, hidden somewhere under the lagging as it is not visible and so need not bother us further. The lagged section is made from a strait bit of tube from the side of which the steam pipe appears just before the ends.

On the right-hand side, of the J69 only, runs the vacuum pipe. Unlike the steam pipe which gets bent round corners, the vacuum pipe was made out of straight bits of (steal?) pipe with very visible connectors, elbow and T joints at (most of) the corners. This too turns down to run under the buffer beam to its standpipe. It does this in a rather more angular fashion then the steam pipe. Its standpipe is also on the righthand side of the buffer beam close to the steam pipe. It too has a connection under the cab to the backhead which, in this case, is visible.

The pipe was made with the various elbow, T and straight connectors as illustrated, and also three clips which were to attach the pipe to the footplate valance. The ends where the pipe runs under the buffer beam to the standpipes will be added once this bit has been fixed to the loco.

Buck Vaccum pipe.jpg

The joints, of which there are a number, were produced from a finer tube than was used for the lagged steam pipe, and which was a good sliding fit on the wire used to model the vacuum pipe. The elbow joints are made by filing a big V shaped notch in a piece of tube, which is then folded to a right angle. Assembled on the wire ends and flooded with solder, you get a nice solid joint, but the V has to be deep and pretty wide if you expect it to fold into a right angle.

Both steam and vacuum pipes run across the loco ends below buffer beam level and so are visible and need to be modelled. Just to complicate things, a moments thought will tell you they actually have to cross at the bunker end. The vacuum pipe passes below the steam pipe. Having got the hang of producing them, elbow joints as described above were used to form a nice solid connection between the feed pipes and the standpipes.

The Standpipes Various

All the standpipes are provided by the kits in the form of nice lost wax castings, and once cleaned up there isn‘t any fiddley modelling required to produce a good likeness. As cast, they didn’t have enough plain pipework attached for my needs so I cut them off the brass sprue with as big a bit of extra brass as I could manage, ground down the ends, using a diamond cutting disk in the Dremel, and then finished off with a file. The picture shows the results. I’m sorry I didn’t manage to keep them in the same order and it’s too late to retake the picture. Note that the vacuum pipe, for the J69 front buffer beam, also needs a kink outward, probably to ensure clearance when the smokebox door was opened(?).

Buck bufferbeam pipes 2.jpg

Now they just need soldering to something solid. Normally this is the buffer beam, and this was true of the J65 and on the bunker end of the J69. However, on the front end of the J69 there is a snag coming up.

Getting the chassis in

If you can remember back to Part 9 - The body is a foot... plate I explained how the locos and their chassis fit together. The J65 is nice and simple and the chassis just drops strait in. It is possible to arrange the steam and vacuum feed pipes under the buffer beams so the chassis will go past them, just. On the J69, however, the chassis slides length ways in towards the bunker end before dropping in behind the front buffer beam. The consequence of this first became really apparent when I started to worry about the under footplate plumbing, and got discussed in detail in Part 27– Plumbing, injecting some reality – A dilemma. Now it became clear there was a further consequence. With the vacuum and steam feedpipes fixed to the body and crossing below the front buffer beam there was no way you could slide the chassis in or out.

The answer was to mount the standpipes on the chassis, not the body, and arrange for joints in the feed pipes.

To achieve this, the standpipes were all attached to a new, small L shaped (for strength) chassis spacer which was arranged to fit hard behind the buffer beam. The tails of the steam and vacuum standpipes are attached to short sections of feed pipe which then lead to a joint with the feed pipe on the body.

The steam pipe joint is simply a short tube section into which the feed pipe from the body can be sprung. The vacuum pipe runs to the end of the buffer beam and up to the elbow bend under the footplate which it slides into. It has an (un-prototypical) support behind the buffer beam as it is quite long and would have been very vulnerable to damage. The picture shows all three standpipes attached to the chassis spacer before it was fixed to the chassis. Note that kink in the vacuum stand pipe. One further consequence, in this case an advantage, is that it will be a lot easier to letter the J69 buffer beam than it will be to do the J65.

Buck J69 front pipes.jpg

The picture shows both sides, front and back of the J69 so you can see how visible all this pipework is. The buffers will go back on once the paint jobs done.

Buck j69 4 views.jpg

And that ends the build phase.

Next up weighting the loco so as to balance the CSB suspension, which, starts with fitting the crew because they are white metal and significantly heavy.

RC 141076

[Chas Levin]

Congratulations Will - great to see this! You must be very pleased.

[Suffolk Dave]

They look beautiful - too good to paint even!