Baguley-Drewry Project Pt.4

Continued from Part 3.

I really need to get and keep on top of writing these things. At the time of writing this post, it's January 2019, and I have little to no memory of some of the work that follows, so the quality of writing will suffer a bit. For that, I apologise.

11/09/18
The dummy radiator is pretty much invisible behind that overscale grille, but that's ok. It hides the electrickery inside, and that's the main thing. I've also found a tiny crack in the grille, but it's hardly noticeable.

Everything's finally cleaned and touched up, ready for weathering and clearcoat. Annoyingly, I'm moving house in three days, so the workshops will have to close for a while.

This is a problem, because I'm planning an event for the beginning of December 2018, to commemorate 15 years since the closure of Moreton Sugar Mill in Nambour.

For this, I'll need the Baguley and of course, my as-yet unfinished cane bins for it to pull, 60 yards of handlaid track I'm in the process of building, a full day or two of site preparation, my wholestick trucks, and both of my live steam locos. (One of them, "Victoria", still needs a lot of work and running in)
Throwing in the house move makes for a real clusterfuck..
As such, multitasking and more importantly, putting all my free time into these projects, is the only way I'm gonna get it all done in time.

01/10/18
House move over, and now that I've got some energy back, work can continue. After fixing my little compressor, a makeshift table was set up on my new verandah.

I'm used to weathering things with washes and drybrushing, mainly in HO scale. Whilst I've used the airbrush for paint jobs in HO, weathering G scale stuff with it is a bit daunting.

I've removed the body shell and reconnected the battery, so the wheels can turn as the weathering is done, for a better result.
I didn't take many photos during the process, as this being my fist time, I was mostly experimenting through trial-and-error. Various mixes of Tamiya acrylics thinned with alcohol were used. I used mostly photos of Moreton Mill locos (due to the similar livery) for reference.

After an initial light dusting around the very bottom of the frames and headstocks,  the entire chassis was sprayed with the satin clear aerosol. This, unfortunately, obscured a lot of the weathering, so more airbrush experimentation will be required..

05/10/18
After reaching a satisfactory conclusion with the airbrush, including a little very minor weathering on the bodyshell, I turned to reassembling the loco, so the running time of the batteries could be tested.
The speed control chip has been glued into place, and the knob cut down and painted.

07/10/18

When I went to reattach the body to the chassis, I noticed I'd managed to strip out the holes in the body, with the self-tapping screws. I hate these bloody things. I could've drilled out the holes, and tapped them for M3 screws, but there wouldn't have been much material left around the thread, creating an even weaker area. I elected to fill in both holes with JB Weld, and re-drill 2mm pilot holes for the self-tappers to bite into. This seems to have worked, but I'd still redo it with machine screws if I could. Maybe M2.5 screws would work, though I'd also need to buy a matching tap..

11/10/18
The loco seems to be having problems running. It's behaving similarly to my LGB Stainz, as mentioned in Part 1. The Stainz wouldn't run at all after it's battery conversion, using all the same components as the Baguley. (With the exception of battery type) The headlights of both locos work just fine, as does the charging circuit.

Further research revealed I'd made another rookie mistake - the battery pack I'd built, holds 15V at full charge - and my speed control chips only work up to 12V. So I discharged the Baguley's pack down to just under 12V. Though the loco now ran, the headlights were very dim, the loco was quite underpowered, and the batteries were exhausted after only 40 minutes of running.

This isn't remotely adequate. I'm also sick of chasing the loco to control it - so I've ordered a Deltang transmitter and receiver. They'll not arrive until after the December date though, so the current setup will have to do for now..

02/12/18
The 15-year Moreton Mill commemoration.
Despite my shitty wiring, the Baguley (and amazingly everything else) ran faultlessly. I only put six of the ten bins on, as I was concerned about the running time. I ran the loco on-and-off for about 40 minutes, in the end.

I wish I'd not left the shovel standing in the background there, but happy with the photos otherwise.

You may notice the strap around the loco's fire extinguisher is white. That's because I forgot to cut away an allowance for it, in the loco's styrofoam cradle. Because the foam was pressing so firmly on the strap for a few days, the paint transferred to the foam. I've since cut out the foam a bit, but have yet to touch up that paint..

08/01/2019
I took the loco up to a mate's place for a run on his line, as he used to be a navvy on the Moreton cane tramways. He enjoys electrical work on locos, and offered to professionally rewire this loco and the Stainz, converting them to Deltang R/C, for only parts cost. Win-Win! Next time I visit, I'll drop off the two locos for him. Cheers, mate! I must also admit though, watching his sound-equipped locos running around has got me thinking..

19/07/19
After catching up on other work, and yet another house move, I could get on with finally finishing off the Baguley.
The fire extinguisher bracket keeps breaking off, despite being fitted with epoxy, and the mating surfaces having been made free of paint from the get-go. Two holes were drilled in the bracket, and cut-down sewing pins were epoxied into them, as reinforcement.

30/07/19
I needed a coil of shunting rope to hang from the cab. Baking twine, dyed with an acrylic wash, makes for a nice scale rope.

A couple of suitable mandrels were found and mounted in my 2" vice. The twine was wrapped around them, then carefully slacked off a bit to give it that characteristic "sag" of heavy rope. Superglue was then sparingly soaked into the twine, so it would hold it's shape. A flat clearcoat was later applied to hide the superglue's shine.

13/10/19
By now, I'd fitted a Deltang Rx65c receiver, and a MyLocoSound Universal Diesel Soundcard - the latter underneath the footplate at the rear end. The reason I ended up doing this myself, is partially, that I have difficulty in allowing myself to rely on others, and that I didn't want to subject my mate, to my previous horrible wiring job.
The NiMh pack was replaced with three 18650 lithium cells from an Aldi drill battery, to accommodate the 2" speaker and it's cut-down aerosol-lid baffle.

One thing I've noticed in Baguley sound installs, that really bothers me, is that most people put the speaker behind the grille, because it's convenient. This means the sound is projected from the front of the loco. Does the noise of a diesel engine emanate from the front of the bonnet, or in all directions, originating from wherever the diesel engine is fitted? This may seem like pedantry to some, but I think ensuring the sound comes from the right place, makes a noticeable difference in quality of the end model.
To this end, holes were drilled in the footplate, before fitting the speaker, to allow the sound to escape from under the center of the loco, in all directions.

Both speaker and baffle were sealed with silicone, to minimise the sound bouncing around inside the bonnet - this couldn't be entirely avoided though, due to the large hole in the footplate, through which the motor is mounted.

I'd also started to notice, the mechanism had a noticeable bind, particularly when running forward. I stripped and cleaned the mech down, entirely, and yet could find nothing amiss.

As the bind was still present after re-assembly, a small flywheel was machined from an offcut of bronze, and retained on the motor's convenient tail-shaft with an M3 grub screw. Not ideal, but the loco now runs smoothly.

24/10/19
In addition to further detailing, the loco needed further weathering. Paint was scraped from the handrails, where appropriate.

Some light grey paint was then dabbed and smeared on the scraped areas with a cotton bud, to partially blend together, the scraped back layers of paint still on the rails.

A dull acrylic wash of murky brown/grey was mixed, and applied to edges, corners and panel lines, then wiped off with a rag, leaving just enough paint behind to look convincing. I had to work in very small sections at a time, and get the wash wiped off quickly, as the alcohol I use as an acrylic solvent was turning the satin clearcoat white, if left on for too long. I'm still new to weathering and not entirely happy with the result, but it'll do.

There was still a 1mm gap between the footplate and body..

..Even after I filed down the rear headstock which was protruding above the footplate. Weirdly enough, after the filing, the gap was closed on the left side of the loco - and yet the right side still has that 1mm gap.
I can't find the cause anywhere.

So I'll just hide the worst of the gap with suitable industrial loco clutter.

A bit of suitable-diameter brass wire was bent to shape and fitted into a hole drilled in the rear cab wall. A black wash was applied to the rope as appropriate, to highlight it's texture and to provide some shading where needed.

I realised there was no means of climbing up onto the bonnet, so a couple of steps were bent from copper wire, then painted and weathered as per the handrails.
The chocks were cut from 6mm square oak, distressed, dyed and drybrushed with an oily-looking mixture. The sprags were made in the same way, but started out as coffee stirrers.

17/11/19
After 1¾ years, it's nice to have finally completed this loco - well, besides a Baguley-Drewry plate for the bonnet front. I'm still undecided as to weather or not the loco shall receive a name. Now that I think of it, that shitty plastic horn on the bonnet could do with replacing - maybe a nice machined brass one from Essel Engineering..

Fuck it, there's no such thing as "finishing" a loco.