De Winton Vertical Boiler Tank Locomotive - 009 Gauge (1/76)

[Beardybloke]

I've had this sat in my model railway stash box for the better part of 7 years, and in the Boxing Day sales I bought a DCC Concepts rolling road which should aid construction of loco kits. It therefore seems churlish not to give this a go for the GB.

 

De Winton & Co was a firm of engineers based in Caernarfon, supplying marine steam engines and boilers to shipbuilders in Caernarfon and Liverpool, as well as stationary engines and over 60 locomotives, mostly to quarries. They also equipped the workshops of Dinorwic Quarry in 1870 (now the National Slate Museum in Llanberis), and much other equipment to the prolific North Wales quarrying industries. The locos were small, vertical boiler tank engines, 

 

The subject of this kit is the 0-4-0, 2ft* gauge Chaloner, currently preserved on the Leighton Buzzard Light Railway - though as we narrow gauge modellers are much more notorious for producing freelance models than our standard gauge brethren, don't count on it ending up with that nameplate at the end of the build (photo from Wikipedia, shared under GNU creative commons licence).:

 

 

As can be seen, it's pretty dinky - and bear in mind this is going to be a working model!

 

On to the kit:

 

 

The kit is from RT Models, a small modeller-run online business mostly specialising in narrow gauge and industrial railway modelling - no identikit 13-coach expresses hauled behind immaculate A4-class Pacifics here!

 

On the right is the brand new rolling road, still in its packaging. Running below the instructions and cover sheet from inside the box, from left to right, top to bottom we have:

• Lost wax brass cranks   |    Cast whitemetal parts, including cylinders, boiler and chimney   |   Etched nickel main frames (alternative rigid version)
• Screws, nuts and pins, for crankpins and for fixing the body to the chassis; brass bearings; worm, gears, axles and layshaft   |   DC 12V motor   |     Etched fret of body parts
• 7mm diameter wheelsets   |   Compensated chassis etch, including coupling rods, etched cranks etc.   |   PCB, phosphor bronze strip for power pickup, fine copper wire and brass rod for detailing and electrical pickup.

 

Any detail and accuracy obsessives should look away now - the kit isn't true to life as the wheelbase has had to be stretched by 2mm (6 inches) in order to fit in the drive train. That, however, is a compromise that I'm more than willing to accept in order to have a working version of a very characterful loco. When I land on a name I'll need to source name and works plates, and a crew as well - possibly whitemetal rather than 3D printed, in order to maximise its haulage capacity. I won't be counting these as required to call it finished for GB purposes though.

 

This is where it's eventually going to live, when it's finished - clearly both are WIP!:

 

 

(Y Dafarn Gwyn - my 009 scenic test track)

 

 

Hafod Las - my working quarry diorama (Photo from Facebook from the Rainhill Model Railway exhibition).

 

Counting down to the start of the GB now!

 

* 2ft is a nominal figure - being built early (the first in the late 1790s) the quarry tramways in the top left corner of Wales were laid before any standards existed. Many were laid down at gauges of 2ft or 2ft 1in over centres of the rails (rather than inside faces as is measured now) which meant that as rail sections became bigger to deal with more and heavier traffic, the gauge between the rails changed. As a number of the quarries used double flanged wheels running loose on the axles, this didn't really matter for a long time, but led to incompatibilities when rolling stock started moving between lines in the early preservation era. It's largely academic here, as 9mm gauge track scales out to 2'3" anyway. There are some dedicated individuals who can get finescale 7.83mm gauge track working, but I'm not one of them!

Edited January 2 by Beardybloke
Forgot the footnote

[Robert Stuart]

Looks like an interesting project, both your locomotive, and Haford Las quarry.

[Beardybloke]

1 hour ago, Robert Stuart said:

Looks like an interesting project, both your locomotive, and Haford Las quarry.

 

Thanks Robert - the quarry has been in gestation since my final year of university back in 2008, and this is the 5th iteration (including one that never made it off the drawing board) - and this is the closest one has become to completion so far, but has been stalled for almost 18 months now, because of the pain of getting the ground cover done to look like a slate waste-covered yard but still have it working. It's a bit of a working diorama and shunting puzzle combination; the idea is that I can shuffle a few wagons around over a brew in my home office as a break from work, and replicate the North Wales quarries I enjoyed exploring with a few mates in uni. 

 

The plan for the big building on the right is a slab mill, with a few big diamond saw benches, lots of overhead line shafting and a removable roof... Whether it ever happens or not is another question!

[bianfuxia]

So cool! Welcome aboard and I really look forward to seeing how you go with this!

[CliffB]

What a fantastic little kit and, as you say, motorised as well 

[dnl42]

Ooh, steam! 

 

I have a complete jones for steam-powered things.

[raider of the lost part]

This looks very interesting, both in terms of the original and the kit itself. 

 

(The quarry reminds me of the former H0f narrow gauge layout my father had. Wonder if there are any pictures of it somewhere)

 

florian

[psdavidson]

A proper running loco in a group build!

I'm in 

[Bobby No Mac]

Chuffing great! I really like the topography of the little test track. This will be one to watch 

[bigbadbadge]

Oooooooooo,  not part of the GB but saw this and couldn't believe it. I have one in the stash to do, the kit looks awesome and also slightly scary.  I can watch this one before I tackle mine, thanks for doing this one.

Chris

[Robert Stuart]

Did you see this article on the BBC website?  Photographs of a slate town

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cge9rg8epl4o

 

 

[Beardybloke]

On 06/01/2025 at 07:46, Robert Stuart said:

Did you see this article on the BBC website?  Photographs of a slate town

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cge9rg8epl4o

 

 

 

Those are some cracking photos - thanks, I'd missed that article! I've got a few of similar scenes (but much lower quality photography) from exploring Dinorwic quarry in Llanberis during (and after) uni, as well as the Rhiwbach tramway and Maenofferen quarry above Blaenau.

 

Only one more day to go, but I won't be able to make a start until the evening at the earliest, as we've got a full day planned tomorrow.

 

This evening's job involves a G&T and a thorough read through of the instructions in order to give myself a fighting chance (am I allowed to say that in a peaceful GB???) of making sure I don't tear off too quickly and cock something up...

[Beardybloke]

Last night, I finally made a start! This is going to be a warts and all thread, where I'll document my cock-ups as well as (hopefully) how I corrected them, in order to try and demistify etched locomotive construction a little. I'm very much not a model engineer, and have access to a very limited range of hand tools. Cards on the table - I've not yet successfully built a working etched loco chassis, but I have managed to get etched valve gear correctly quartered and running on a chassis based around a 3D printed block with the bearings already fitted to it. I've attempted two etched loco chassis before, but cocked them both up - however, both of those come from a (now-defunct, though the range has been taken over) manufacturer who were notorious for their kits needing the skill of a watchmaker to assemble - largely, I understand, because they hadn't accounted for the different clearances required for e.g. full scale crankpins compared to ones made from 14BA screws, and for the additional width needed for a wider-than-scale track (i.e. 9mm gauge).

 

First thing's first - release the main frames from the chassis fret, and open up the bearing holes. This kit comes with options for using either a rigid chassis or a compensated one, where one axle has a limited range of vertical movement (effectively suspension) to help ensure that all four wheels stay in contact with the track at all times. This is particularly important for 4 wheel, short wheelbase locomotives as the electrical pickup comes through the wheels (positive from one rail and negative from the other) and if, say, the left front wheel is very slightly airborne at the same time as the rear left one comes to a dead point in the track (say an insulated part of a point) then the loco is going to stop dead and require assistance from the Hand of God. It's less of an issue for locos with pickups on three or more axles, as the chances of hitting a dead spot on all wheels on the same side simultaneously are quite slim. 

 

As can be seen from the first photo the holes in the frames need quite a lot of opening out (note the bearing behind one of the holes). Also note the elongated holes for the compensation:

 

 

No problem, I have a set of small cutting broaches which will do the job - much more accurate than files because there's less chance of catching, gouging and twisting the piece, and they've got a much finer taper:

 

 

Except for the fact that the set I've got is too small. Damn. I'll order a new set (as I'll want one for some of the more complex kits) but for now, I went with precisely what you shouldn't do, which is a round file. Partly I've done this because I know I have the fallback option of the rigid chassis if it all goes horribly wrong - I'll just have to make sure that my tracklaying is exemplary!

 

 

With the holes enlarged, the pitfalls of using a file can be seen - the holes for the compensated axle look a bit more ovoid than I'd have hoped. Hopefully this won't be an issue, but we'll have to see. Based on past experiences on the Backwoods kits, I've been very wary of over-thinning parts, as the coupling rods on one of my kits burst through. However, I think the root cause of that issue was the tolerances of hand-drawn (as opposed to CAD-drawn) etches, as each coupling rod was a slightly different length (in terms of tenths of a mm) and were both in turn slightly different to the axle spacing; exacerbating it further, the lost wax brass cast cranks were not tight enough to tolerance due to the casting process. To account for this, the ends of the rods needed to be slightly over-scale (to allow for a wider hole and some slop in the movement) but were drawn exactly to scale - refer to my previous points about those kits above! My long-term plan for that kit (maybe a future KUTA build?) involves laser cut brass cranks and some new etched rods, if I ever get around to drawing some up...

 

With the bearings for the rigid axle inserted (rim-side outwards) I cracked out the soldering iron. Lots of people recommend using solder with separate flux, but for small kits I've always got along just fine with normal tin/lead electrical solder with a flux core; for more specialist applications (e.g. whitemetal) I do use the correct stuff. Maybe I'm just lazy... For a kit this small, a bog standard Antex 25W soldering iron is more than adequate. Note that although the parts looked very shiny before, I've given them a good burnish with a fibreglass pencil to ensure a good flow of solder and a good, solid, structural joint.

 

 

[Beardybloke]

Both were now soldered firmly in place:

 

 

On checking the instructions it noted that they needed to be filed down flush on the inside face as otherwise they would foul the inside valve gear. Working inside valve gear in 4mm scale, on a loco with a roughly 20mm wheelbase - what madness is this?? 

 

I do recall reading comments from a couple of people who had been unable to get it working and had left it merely cosmetic. I'm willing to give it a whirl, so out came the files:

 

 

With the outside sitting proud, there's still a decent bearing surface for the axle:

 

 

With the bearings done, it was time to solder in the bits underneath the chassis, as the instructions noted that it would be very difficult to do with the chassis folded up. The first part is one of the two parts which hold the wormwheel in place - note both the highly sophisticated jig arrangement of an engineer's square and blutack, and also the solder that I managed to smear over the opening for the second part, making my life more difficult. However, with some sprung tweezers and a bit of tweaking, it went in well enough and seemed to be square. The third mystery piece was then added, I'm not yet sure what it's for, but as it'll be concealed inside the frames it's clearly structural or mechanical:

 

 

 

At this point, it was time to fold the chassis along the half etch lines; normally at this point I'd use some hefty bending bars made out of steel that my Grandad machined for me about 20 years ago, but with the parts underneath this just wasn't possible. It had to be done carefully, bit-by-bit with tweezers, which offers the risk of bending and distorting the frames slightly, as it's not supported all the way along the fold.

 

 

Which is exactly what happened - this should be sat flat on the surface, and you can see the gap under the right hand end. This was because the narrowest parts of the top of the chassis, around the aperture for the worm and motor shaft, were too narrow to bend accurately to 90° with pliers given the heavy gauge of nickel silver. Given the need for the top of the chassis to be flat to ensure the motor is correctly mounted, I gave it a good seeing to with the files:

 

 

It now sits flat nicely on the glass chopping board, but you'll have to take my word for it as it doesn't photograph well...

[Beardybloke]

Finally, onto some non-structural parts. The two vaguely H-shaped parts with holes in the centre go one under each end of the chassis - the one with the half etched holes for pressing through rivet detail represent the bottom of the water tank sticking down through the outside frames on the real loco, and the right hand one represents the brake blocks (see picture in the first post - tank on the right, brakes on the left). Also visible is my highly-sophisticated rivet embossing tool - a broken sewing needle.

 

 

Supporting the etch on a block of softwood and giving the needle a couple of sharp taps with the engineer's square did the trick:

 

 

Those two parts were then released from the fret, cleaned up and folded up, with a fillet of solder added to the joints for strength. Both they and the chassis were tinned, and then soldered together (at the correct ends - I double checked!) before cleaning up the joints with a file. They won't be visible, I don't think, but it's nice to be neat where you can. 

 

 

This was then cleaned with soapy water and an old toothbrush to clear away any flux that will cause corrosion, and the bearing alignment was checked with one of the steel axles from the kit. Once the swarf from filing down the faces had been cleared, it seemed to turn clearly - that's a bonus!

 

That took me to the end of the night, and where it rests now - believe it or not, nearly 3 hours of work (with an occasional break to boil the kettle) to get to this point. Next stage is building the gear train, which is where one of my previous builds started going wrong... let's hope this one goes better, but I'll give you the honest truth if it doesn't, rather than painting myself as the master modeller that I'm definitely not!

[AdrianMF]

Wow, that's a tiny model. And you still have a full fret behind it. I'm still unsure how you are going to cram a motor into it, but I'm looking forward to finding out!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Beardybloke]

21 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Wow, that's a tiny model. And you still have a full fret behind it. I'm still unsure how you are going to cram a motor into it, but I'm looking forward to finding out!

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

To be honest, Adrian, after my previous attempts I'm just going to be happy if the chassis rolls once it's got coupling rods on! I can build rolling stock, but have had minimal luck with locos to date. 

 

Onwards we push. The next step was to use one of the long axles to check the fit of the wormwheel between the two spacers, using one of the two long axles in the box - with a minor tweak to remove sideplay, this was absolutely fine:

 

 

Next step was to solder up the eccentrics for the inside valve gear - these are each made from three pieces of nickel silver laminated together. I tinned each piece on one side then threaded them onto the axle to act as a guide - holding the soldering iron down was enough to laminate them together and, whilst the axle was held with a set of sprung tweezers, I used some pliers to ensure the three pieces were aligned at both ends. Sounds easy, but it took a few attempts! A bit of tidying up of solder with a fine file resulted in these:

 

 

Miniscule, aren't they! I'd guess they're about 4.5mm in diameter, based on the 2mm axle diameter. The wormwheel was then fixed into place in the chassis on the short axle, with a touch of araldite at each end, and the driven axle threaded through with the eccentrics, drive gear and some spacing washers to keep the eccentrics from fouling the wormwheel:

 

 

At this point, the eccentrics were araldited to the gear with one at 90° to the other. This photo was taken this morning with the excess araldite cleared from between two of the teeth...

 

Next step, start making it roll. The kit comes with a pair of standard 009 rolling stock wheels on pinpoint axles - the latter are not required, and the easiest way I've found to remove the wheels is to hold the axle vertically on a solid surface and push the wheel down over the pinpoint - this is then usually enough to overcome the friction fit.

 

 

The front axle was fitted and the wheel back-to-back dimensions set by edging the wheels in and out until I was happy they were in the correct position, as symmetrically as I could make it:

 

 

The other axle was then tested without any spacing washers - the wheels will need to be a firm fit to prevent the bearings moving in and out of the chassis frame (remember, these are the unsoldered, compensated ones). I found a couple of washers were needed to reduce the amount of sideplay; they're supplied on the chassis etch:

 

 

And this is where we've got to - with a freely rolling chassis:

 

 

However... there's an awful lot of fore-and-aft slop - on checking with the callipers, 0.5mm - probably enough to make the connecting rods lock up once it's running. On the advice of a member of the NGRM-Online forum, who tried to build one with a compensated chassis and had to revert to the rigid one, I'm going to dismantle it before it goes any further and any other bits get araldited on. 

 

What I've done this lunchtime, after reaching the decision, is order a set of larger cutting broaches and some smoothing broaches - if there's going to be a delay, I might as well use the opportunity to do it right. It does mean that @Enzo the Magnificent might get his wish and see at least one of the Metcalfe card kits from my stash appear in the GB...

[bigbadbadge]

Now that is great progress,  looking good so far, I hope you can sort the slot, looking forward to seeing it progress after that.

Chris

[Beardybloke]

Great service from Expo Drills and Tools - ordered the broaches at lunchtime on Tuesday, and the parcel was waiting for me when I got home from work on Wednesday! 

 

With the right tools for the job (this time) I pretty quickly had the rolling chassis reassembled - this time with the PCBs for the electrical pickups stuck to the outside of the chassis. These will be hidden behind the cosmetic outside frames that form part of the footplate assembly. A test of the chassis showed it to roll freely down a slightly angled glass cutting board - at least after cleaning up a thin, barely visible blob of solder on the inside of the frame that was fouling an eccentric in one direction but not the other. I love intermittent faults...

 

 

The next step is fitting the cranks and coupling rods to the axles; the kit recommends folding up the footplate assembly at this point in order to check clearances for the cranks, so that's what I did, using the bending bars and a steel rule to support the piece along the full length of the bend:

 

 

The next step was to solder the captive nuts onto the footplate so that it can be secured to the chassis - not much use checking clearances if one of the parts can move around. I cleaned up both nut and footplate, but only tinned the footplate and used a cocktail stick to hold it in place, in order to reduce the risk of getting solder into the threads. These joints don't have to be particularly neat as I think they'll be concealed under the coal bunker and water tank assemblies.

 

 

Next step is cleaning up the cranks - not the quickest of jobs. The single one was the most difficult as there wasn't enough sprue to hold that in the vice, making it more difficult to cut it away without mangling it as I was reluctant to tighten up the vice too much. The other three on the combined casting were cut off relatively quickly and cleaned up, including running a broach through to clear any casting plaster, though I did temporarily lose one to the carpet monster. Usefully, the ends have already been drilled and tapped for 14BA bolts for the crankpins.

 

 

Coupling rods were also detached and soldered up - these come as pairs of full-thickness etches which are folded and laminated together to produce a robust, double thickness coupling rod. 

 

 

This left me with this kit of parts for the outside gubbins that start make it looking like a scale model rather than a Thomas the Tank Engine toy:

 

 

The cranks were test-fitted one by one, keeping them consistently to the same axle, and filed down and fettled to ensure adequate clearance from the footplate. Cleaning these up one by one ensured that if it wasn't running freely I knew exactly where the issue was, rather than chasing it around. It needs to be as close as possible as it's supposed to be representing a structural outside frame where the wheels sit inside, rather than this model version of a structural inside frame where the axles aren't supported by the footplate at all. Whirling rods and some black paint should conceal the gap in normal use - this isn't an uncommon ruse in 009 and is a good compromise to simplify construction. On the below photo, you can see on the left face of the crank the remains of the casting sprue which is slightly fouling the cosmetic outside horn block as it swings further round anticlockwise:

 

 

You can also see the marks where I've removed the cosmetic chemical blackening from the wheel treads and flanges - looks good on a wagon, but not great for electrical pickup on a loco! The front faces will be painted and weathered when I do the rest of the loco. 

 

Next comes one of the trickiest but most vital parts - quartering the loco. Quartering is setting the crankpins on each axle at 90° to each other, although it doesn't need to be exactly on, it just needs to be the same angle for each axle. Cranks were fitted to one side with a touch of superglue. Once this had set, one of the crankpins was held in place with blu-tack whilst a crank was fitted on the opposite end at 90° (by eye). Once this had set, one coupling rod was screwed into the two fixed cranks to hold them fixed relative to each other. The other rod was screwed into the one fixed crank on the opposite side, and into the loose crank on the other side - which was then aligned by eye. However, by fixing one side with the rod, and using the other (identical) rod to set the angle of the fourth crank, it should be correctly aligned.

 

Time will tell as, until I've cut down the screws and fitted washers and rods properly, the rods move out of alignment by shuffling along the screws, so I can't tell if it's running smoothly yet:

 

 

 

Not this weekend though, as I'm off to look vaguely soldier-like for a couple of days...

[Beardybloke]

Actually, I found some time to do some cutting and filing. The rods are on, and there's a tight spot, obviously!

 

It looks like one of the cranks may be slightly off 90° compared to the other - I'll see if I can get that one off and reattach it with loctite rather than superglue, so I've got more adjustment time. Failing that, I'll try the etched ones...

 

 

[bigbadbadge]

Looking good with the frames/footplate and cranks and rods on , hope the crank angle can be sorted okay.

 

Great work,  enjoy your weekend.

Chris

[Beardybloke]

I managed to sort out the quartering on Monday; it was a combination of one crank being slightly out, and another one needing a full-thickness washer to ensure that the coupling rod doesn't catch the slightly-protruding axle. The tweaking seems to have worked, giving me a rolling chassis - bear in mind how light the chassis is, and that there's no weight on it at all here:

 

 

With that tested, I removed the footplate and mangled some phosphor bronze into an appropriate shape for the pickups, trying to get the right balance of springiness to ensure it stays in contact with the wheels whilst not adding too much in the way of resistance - and ensuring that they don't touch the chassis. When I was happy, they were soldered to the PCBs, also ensuring clearance for the eccentrics:

 

 

Finally, I fitted the worm to the motor and fitted the motor to the chassis, testing the meshing before aralditing it in place - and cracking out the rolling road to test it with direct power to the motor.

 

 

It's alive!

 

Honestly, I love this rolling road - so much easier to test things. Now I know that the whole assembly works with power applied directly to the motor, I know that if it doesn't then the issue is with the pickups. Bearing in mind that the maximum power applied here is 20%, I may need to consider fitting a resistor at some point, just to save it becoming airborne on the sharp corners of the test track. I'll have to see when it has some weight on it...

 

Next steps are to work out how to fit the wiring to the pickups - the whitemetal boiler barrel is a very snug fit around the motor, I may need to file out a channel down the inside face on each side. However, this is the easy bit from here, all of the cosmetic stuff. The important bit is that it works, and it's the first time that I've ever achieved that with an etched chassis!

[SnøMotion]

Great to see it moving under its own power! 

 

Martin

[Beardybloke]

1 hour ago, SnøMotion said:

Great to see it moving under its own power! 

 

Martin

 

Thanks Martin! I've soldered the wires to the pickups, and it works on the rolling road. I'm now trying to (very) carefully carve and file away enough of the inside of the cast whitemetal boiler to allow the wires to run down the back of it...

[CliffB]

How satisfying is all this!  Congratulations Steve