Back to the Coffee (Pot)

It's been a busy few weeks, resulting in a lack of modelling.

However inspired by the sight of Will Litchfield's almost completed GER Coffee Pot at Scaleforum last weekend, I was provoked to start work on mine again and move it to completion.  Picking up the trail through the instructions, I was pleased to find how little there was to do.

The first task was to repair the damaged crossheads that arose during a very frustrating slidebar/wooly jumper sleeve interface.  I still won't go into detail of this, as the thought brings me out in a cold sweat.

The other impressive thing about Will's locomotive is the weight, for something of such a small size.  Will explained that this was because he had packed the saddle tanks with lead, as well as the bunkers.

I'm intending to leave the bunkers as they are until the final assembly is complete.  My worry is because they are distinctly to the rear of the rear driving wheels, adding weight may unbalance the front end, and make it less good at roadholding in curves.  However there was something that I could do about the tanks...

I started by cutting a length of 70 degree Carrs low melt solder into small ingots.  These were introduced into the spaces in the saddle tanks from inside, and flooded with flux.  The introduction of a hot iron with a large bit resulted in the solder flooding the space.  I was able to build up successive layers until the tank was full.  I then turned the loco onto the other side and repeated the exercise.


 

Having done both sides, the weight of the loco body is now a much increased 71 grams.  The next steps are sand pipes and cylinder lubricators - more fiddly work. 

Before that was a trial fit of the chassis.  This shows that there is actually much more space in there for the mechanism and DCC chip than I expected.


 
I hope to make further progress (and give the whole model a good clean) tomorrow evening...

Cheers
Flymo