I Stand in Awe of...

As some of you may remember, back in 2018/2019 I designed a new Narrow Planet kit so that I could have a model of one of Alan Keef Ltd.'s K12 diesel locomotives; specifically AK6 of 1981. Having finished my model and produced the kit I then wrote two articles for Narrow Gauge and Industrial Railway Modelling REVIEW; one detailng the model and one the K12 class of locomotives. For that second article I was lucky in that I managed to persuade Alan Keef to write it with me. As the K12 was the first new locomotive design Alan Keef Ltd. produced the K12 class covered works numbers 2 to 7. Not long after that article was publshed (see issue 119 f the REVIEW) Alan told me he was going to continue documenting the locomotives the company had built. Originally he was intending to cover the first 100 locomotives, but a global pandamic got in the way, and instead he was able to cover the first 50 years of the company instead which amounts to 119 locomotives.

Having waited three years to see the book appear it was great to finally get hold of a copy on Saturday. Entitled "Half A Century of Locomotives from Alan Keef Ltd 1972-2022" and published by Lightmoor Press it's a nice hardback running to 160 pages, and was well worth the wait.

Looking at the cover it's nice to see a photo of AK6 (middle left) given that was the start of the journey for me building the model and then writing the article with Alan. Alongside the main content of the book are three pages towards the end which look at models people have built of the companies locomotives, and not only does that include my model of AK6 but the following lovely caption:

I stand in awe of Mark Greenwood for this model of a "K12", specifically AK 6, with a peat wagon in tow. Even this picture may show it as bigger than the actual model, as can be seen from the shot below of the locomotive alongside a 20p piece!

As you can probably imagine reading that for the first time made my day. I model first and foremost for myself, but it's nice when someone else appreciates my modelling or when I can make some of the things available as kits for others to enjoy.

Minor Surgery

Having finished painting the 10HP I thought it really needed a driver figure adding to help give a sense of scale. After a thorough search through the Dart Castings website I settled on using model MSV71 which is described as Industrial or Narrow Gauge Locomotive Driver. Interestingly Phil Parker bought and painted the exact same figure for one of his models recently; I think he probably made a better job of the painting, but I'm happy with how mine turned out.

I made some slight adjustments to the figure to make him a better fit. The least painfull change was to tweak his left arm so that it was resting on the brake wheel. The more painful surgery involved removing the toes on his left foot otherwise he fouled the worm gear which protrudes into the cab! Close up photos such as this are very cruel and in real life I'm more than happy with how he looks, and more importantly he really does help convay just how tiny the locomotive really is.

10HP Baguley: Dunkelgrün

Whilst I've started on preparing the body of Ivor for painting I thought I should refresh my memory as regards using the airbrush: I've only ever used it properly once. The obvious victim was the tiny 10HP Baguley that last appeared on this blog back in August of 2020. At some point I'd filed back the filler and added some primer so it was just a case of applying the main body colour with the airbrush. The suggestion is that originally they were pained olive green but looking through the Vallejo Model Air paints I quite liked 71.011 Armour Green; especially as I like the German label which reads Dunkelgrün. Once the main body colour had dried I then used my normal approach for wood to do the "cab" floor, and then a little light weathering to get to this:

The weathering is a little more obvious in real life even if the model is a lot smaller (it's tiny) and I'm really happy with how it turned out; especially as I had no issues with the airbrush

Unfortunately it's never going to be the best of runners so I think what I'm going to do is build a little diorama for it to sit in. I've not done any scenery work since I built the model of Blacketty Water back in 2015 so that should be a nice change.

Tidy Wiring

So the very last task to finish off the chassis was to tidy up the wiring. Because of the way the motor slides into the body I had to be careful to keep the wires running close to the gearbox and motor side, which was achieved with a bit of masking tape, and then it was just a simple case of shortening the wires and soldering them to the motor to give this...

Of course with the wiring done and the chassis finished the obvious thing to do was to check that it still fitted into the body, and that the body didn't cause a short or rub anywhere that would cause an issue.

And to that the only thing I need to say is "sheer tea cufff, sheer tea cuff" (goodness knows how best to spell that but feel free to leave suggestions in the comments).

(Hopefully) Smoother Motion

As I mentioned in the previous post I think the poor running in one direction was down to the gearbox being able to rock on the axle when travelling one way but not the other. In an attempt to fix that I've bent the retaining clip slightly and added a small bit of masking tape as a shim to try and reduce the rocking as far as I can.

It's still not perfect but I think that's quite a bit better than before. The eagle eyes amongst you may spot that I've also painted the wheel centres and coupling rod retaining nuts red to match the drawings in my book. Just the wiring left to tidy up now.

Coupling Rods: Now with Nuts

In my previous post, having quartered the wheels I tested the chassis with the coupling rods just slipped over the pins. The next step was to add the retaining nuts that will keep the rods from falling off to then cut the pins to length.

Before fixing the rods in place I double checked both rods, removing some slight burrs from the washers that keep them from rubbing the face of the wheels, and opened out the holes in the rods slightly. With the nuts just resting in place this seemed to work nicely so I took the plunge and carefully applied some Loctite 243 to fix the nuts in place. The excess crank pin was then carefully cut away with a jewellers saw.

After a little panic where it wouldn't move at all (one of the wires had come loose from the motor; they aren't soldered on yet) I was more than relieved to see it still working nicely. You may notice it moves smoother left to right than it does right to left. After watching it closely this seems to be becuase the gearbox can rock slightly on the axle when moving right to left as the retaining bracket I fitted doesn't hold it as tight as the chassis does when going the other way. I think that should be easy enough to tweak though.

So next steps are to fix the gearbox retaining bracket, clean up and paint the coupling rod retaining nuts, and then tidy up the wiring. After all that the chassis will be finished!

Joined Up Motion

So having got the pickups working nicely I turned my attention to quartering the wheels and trying the coupling rods. Unfortunately it was at this point that I started to panic.

You may remember from the previous post that I said the live wheels where a little loose on the axles and my plan was to fix these in place using Loctite 243. The reason I started to panic was because I suddenly realised that I had no idea if the Loctite would act as an insulator. If the wheels were insulated from the axle that would be a pain and I'd need to add pickups to the other side, and there isn't much space to do that.

Having used the Loctite to fix the crank pins in place I used my multimeter to check and my worst fears were confirmed; no continuity between the crank pin and the tread of the wheel. After a little bit of head scratching I realised I had a way out.

If you remember, the axles I turned are stepped which makes it easy to set the gauge. It also means that there is contact between the wheel and axle not just within the hole in the wheel but the shoulder on the axle pushes against the back of the wheel. My hope was that if I added the Loctite to the hole from the front of the wheel and then pushed the axle in from the rear it would ensure that there was a nice contact at the back of the wheel. Of course only one way to find out.

Fortunately it all worked nicely. Quartering the wheels was nice and easy (in comparison to every other kit I've built) because I could line up the spokes with the balance weights offset by 90 degrees. In the video the coupling rod is just slotted on, along with some washers to space it from the wheels, so hopefully it works as well once I put on the retaining nuts and trim down the crank pins.