Garden Railway Forum

MRail wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 10:41 am Hi Phil,
Glad I'm not the only one fouling up Bole's excellent kit!

If experienced modellers are having similar problems, has anyone fed this back to the supplier?

The addition of the words 'top, rhs' and 'top, lhs' to the drilling jig, could remove grief and heart-ache, from both modeller and supplier..


Getting instructions clear, is always difficult. After all, the author already knows what to do and how to do it. Getting that over to someone else, is always a challenge.

Aside:
Does the chassis come as a kit, or is it pre-assembled?

Phil.P

I don't think there is anything wrong with the kit or the instructions, in my case it was operator stupidity - not concentrating sufficiently on what I was doing when there were distractions happening around me (and even that is not a valid excuse for making a cock-up).

The chassis is the Roundhouse kit 6 wheel diesel one. In that case a packing error gave me two right hand sides and no left and a constructor error (mine) got me drilling one side back to front.

If all else fails read the instructions - twice!

Phil

Email from Steve at Bole to say some rivets are in the post.

Having got the bonnet to fit within the frame it became apparent that the moulding had a slight bow along its length. I cut a piece of sheet aluminium to fit and glued in place with Super Bond, that got it flat. A slight protrusion of the magnet in the front left hand corner (just visible in the photo) caused it to sit a little high on that side. I've simply removed the screw and reinserted it from underneath, maybe not quite such a strong magnetic attraction but should be enough.

Next I've worked some Perfect Plastic Putty into various seams and small gaps.

Phil

Glad some new rivets are on the way. While I'm sure we'd have been happy to have a go, I don't think PLA or ABS would have matched the nylon (resin maybe...?) Admire your patience drilling them all out... but the effort will be worthwhile; having seen the model for real it is going to shape up to be a nice model with enough weight and power to haul pretty much anything!

The receiver came back from Andy at Micron this morning and was rapidly installed. Some test running has taken place this afternoon and after a little application of oil (!) it runs very nicely.

Added the louvred panels to the bonnet sides earlier taking great care to ensure I got them the right way up.

Phil

Looking really good and solidly built, a well made kit.

A day out for some inspiration:-
Phil

As my four year old grandson James would say ‘Tadaaaa!’
Extra rivets came from Steve at Bole yesterday, grateful thanks to him for rescuing me from my error.

A variation in technique seemed to smooth their application. Bending the stem gently so that the rivet was at about 45 degrees to the sprue allowed more precise alignment with the hole, I also applied thin superglue directly from the nozzle of the tube to the rivet before pushing into the hole, snipping from the sprue and pressing into place with a metal tool. The spare sprue was cut away after every couple of rivets.
Phil

And now some don't do it like this advice.

I had been priming the loco and cab and bonnet roofs with filler primer, with some rubbing down between coats and addition of more Perfect Plastic Putty in some gaps revealed by painting and yesterday afternoon I was spraying on the next coat when I had a disaster and caused the loco to fall off the surface on which I was spraying. Aaaaaaargh!

I rescued the bits from the floor but had to go away for an hour to calm down before inspecting the damage more closely. There were two major parts with two of the radiator grilles out but undamaged and one tiny bit of framing broken away.

The photo shows the two main parts:-
this photo shows underneath of the cab section:-
There is a slot for the cab front to locate each side but this is in a narrow piece of plastic and there is very little strength there.

I decided that my best plan would be to make a new footplate piece from aluminium and glue the whole structure to a stronger sub-base. This shows the patient being glued to its new base:-
I have used araldite fairly generously aiming for it to seep from the edges and so form a sealed joint. Will see whether this has the desired effect.

Phil
hanging head in shame

I'm sure we've all had similar disasters. However, looks like you managed to fix it....

Rik

The araldite worked pretty well in sealing nearly everywhere between the original footplate and the aluminium addition, quite a bit of filing was needed to smooth it down. The loco now feels more solid:-
I also added a strip of aluminium each side of the bonnet to add more structural strength.

The second picture shows a side view in which the latest bits of filler are being allowed to set before sanding down.
Phil

Unfortunate setback, but well-saved.

Filler smoothed down and ready for some more yellow primer over-sprayed.

Thought meantime I'd have a look at Clara, the Boot Lane Works kit. Some rubbing down of the 3D printed parts, it's quite difficult to see in the white plastic whether you've done enough sanding so I did an initial assembly of the chassis as shown:-
I masked off the slide bars and gave her a coat of the yellow whilst giving the Hunslet another coat.

This revealed where on the cylinders more attention was needed so some more sanding took place. It was much easier to see where the striations still were and as they were, hopefully, sanded out.

The chassis then looked like:-
It has now had another coat of yellow, as have most of the rest of the 3D printed parts (and the wheels with inserts in place) which should make further sanding easier.

Phil

A nice example of plastic engineering there, that should look well when painted.

Well done on retreiving the situation with the Hunslet diesel, that could have been a tragedy! It's going to be a lovely loco...

gilfachphil wrote: ↑Sat Aug 20, 2022 5:15 pm The loco now feels more solid:-

Certainly looks it! Seems like the accident has resulted in a more robust loco in the end

While the Hunslet is in the paint shop work continues on Clara.

The chassis is shown below with connecting rods in place

The Hunslet progresses through the paint shed. Some faults in rubbing down show through the green but from a normal viewing distance ...
Phil

Very nice, Phil.

Nice colour! Good finish too...