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MM1 Models	Laurie Lynch
41G	01292501408
Green St
Ayr	Email: info@mm1models.co.uk
Ayrshire	Web: http://mm1models.co.uk
KA88BQ

Reviewed by Ian Middleditch This is a former Just Like the Real Thing, but has not yet been re-introduced by MM1 Models

My principal railway interest is the Glasgow & South Western in its heyday but alongside the colourful pre-group models I have been building a few of the locos which remind me of the railway of my youth. Some of these later prototypes are available as kits so in the expectation of saving some time, not always realised, I have built an LMS Hughes/Fowler Mogul from the JLTRT kit.

This particular locomotive was one of the engines I was familiar with when she was allocated to Ayr shed. In the last days of steam they were principally goods engines and worked coal trains from the Ayrshire coalfields. I fondly remember them slogging up to Killoch colliery on the A&C line with 50+ empty minerals. The Moguls, they were never called Crabs on the Sou’ West, were very popular engines with footplate men right from their introduction in early LMS days.

The kit is a JLTRT upgrade based on the old Chowbent etchings with a resin cast boiler and loads of lost wax brass and nickel silver castings. The kit comes in a big white box with everything in plastic bags and swathed in tissue and bubble wrap. I choose to model in exact scale and have adopted S7 standards so I was always going to have to make some modifications to the kit as supplied. I am pleased to say that most of the kit parts were used but with modifications for 33mm gauge.

The most obvious alteration was that I had to provide suitable spacers to enable the frames to be set out to the proper scale distance. This entailed a little bit of additional work in making new frame spacers but as they are mostly unseen on the finished model they were basic plate utilising scrap etch. The kit is designed around top hat bearing bushes but as I always spring my locomotives I replaced these with a set of Four Track Models (Meteor) cast horn guides and axle boxes. The frames have halfetched cutting lines for the horn guides. Before the frames were erected with the aid of a Hobby Holidays chassis jig, I built up the coupling rods so that the axle spacing could be set from the coupling rods. I used the etched rods but cut them and made a knuckle joint with piece of 2mm rod as the pivot. There are dummy knuckle pins turned from nickel silver supplied but these were too short to make them working, they are still fine if you build the rods rigid. All the crank pin holes were bushed with a slice of brass tube, to give a better bearing surface, which can be easily renewed when wear occurs.

The front crankpin hole was counter bored to take a flush pin, as per prototype, which I turned up from mild steel but one can replace the 12BA screws supplied with 10BA and tap the brass bush which can be fitted flange outwards. I also chose to replace the Slaters brass bushes with similar ones turned in steel. Driving wheels are from Slaters which I thinned down on my lathe to nearer scale thickness and re-profiled to S7 standards with the aid of an S7 group form tool. The axles are Slaters S7 ones which give a BB gauge of 31.25 mm. A trial erection of frames, wheels and Ron Chaplin gearbox with a Canon motor was successful and ran well on my rolling road with flying leads providing the current. Pleased with progress I removed the wheels and fitted plunger pickups on all three wheel sets. On re-erection and a bit of tweaking the chassis performed satisfactorily on my test track and is quite happy on 6ft reverse curves. A start was made on the body by building the footplate and cab to test clearances before embarking on the outside cylinders and motion.

The footplate and cab are brass etchings which form up easily. One reservation I have is the half-etched easing lines on the curved footplate parts. They certainly make bending the plates easy but the resulting visible lines are very difficult to disguise without spoiling the nice etched rivet detail. The cab forms simply and the doors at the rear can be made to hinge as per prototype. The roof needs care in bending up as it is a series of curves of differing radii. Time, a selection of round rods, and a bit of patience are the essential tools.

With the footplate screwed onto the frames I could make a start on the cylinders and motion. These are etchings, white metal and lost wax castings. Some of the lost wax castings duplicate the etchings. As the frames are now at prototypical spacing the cylinder and motion bracket stretchers had to be cut to fit over them, easily done with a piercing saw. I arranged the cylinder and motion brackets to be removable and the assembly is held in with a couple of invisible screws tapped into the frame stretcher.

I consulted the drawings in the Wild Swan publication on the Moguls for dimensions and details of the motion and took quite a while making up the individual links with proper forked joints where appropriate. I used a mixture of the etchings and castings provided depending on position. The detail on the castings is very good but care is needed to keep slop to a minimum as clearances, as on the prototype, are quite tight.

I also took the opportunity of setting the motion in forward gear rather than mid gear as designed to impart a bit of movement to the valve spindle. I did toy with making it reversible, which would not have been too difficult with the parts supplied, but decided to fix the gear a bit notched up as the engine would spend most of its time running forward. Before final assembly the gear and connecting rods were chemically blackened with Birchwood Casey gun blue. The front crankpin misses the crosshead by a whisper in S7 but if you work to the narrower fine standard gauge there should be plenty of room. The front pony truck folds up easily and incorporates dummy springs. I added a little lead weight as well a spring plunger to keep it in contact with the rails. I arranged the screw holding the spring to also stop the pony flopping downwards when the model is lifted from the track.

The remainder of the chassis detailing is relatively easy as most of the brake gear and sanding equipment is supplied as castings. I had to do a bit of modification to adapt the brake hangers to the scale thickness wheels and frames and the footplate support brackets were too long and had to be remade for exact scale S7. However I’m sure they are okay as supplied for fine standard. The front sandbox is tucked behind the valve spindle and running the sand pipe to the wheels avoiding the brakes requires patience, determination and a fine malt whisky reward.

With the chassis finished I could return to the body detailing. A big time saver is the cast resin boiler assembly. This is heavy and has to be screwed to the relatively flimsy footplate but the completed body is nice and solid with plenty of adhesive weight. I chose to go for belt and braces and used a little epoxy as well as self taping screws. The downside of the resin is the way it blunts small drills! I used a couple of drills just drilling for the handrail knobs. I attached these and the boiler mountings with epoxy. The chimney and dome are very fine white metal castings but the safety valves are brass. The quality was such that I only had to remove the feed sprues and mould part lines with a fine file and fibreglass brush.

The cab is well detailed with a heavy cast white metal boiler back and lots of individual lost wax fittings. I found drilling out the fittings for the copper pipe work a bit trying as the brass is very hard. Plenty of lubrication and time is required but the effect is impressive.

With the locomotive completed I turned my attention to the tender. This is a new design based round a cast resin ‘body brick’ with etched brass sides and detailing. When I ordered the kit I was given a number of body options but chose the most common beaded version which ran with my subject. The chassis has an etched inner frame which takes the wheels. It is designed to be built rigidly but I opted to fit horn guides and sprung axle boxes, as it is all but invisible I did not bother to alter the inner frame spacing. Other than the springing modification, the tender assembled easily and was built in little more than an afternoon. It certainly captures the appearance of the original.

After a period of running trials I stripped the loco and tender down for painting. Everything was scrubbed with an old toothbrush and scouring powder and given a good soak in Viakal. I find that the lost wax castings do not blacken easily until soaked for a while in Viakal; it also seems to let the nickel silver body parts take on denser black finish. After a rinse it went into a weak solution of gun blue and overnight all the etchings took on a black patina. After a good scrub in warm water and careful drying in my heated painting box, I gave it a wash over with cellulose thinners and then a breath of primer. Following a couple of days drying in the box, I then gave everything an overall spray of satin black from a Halfords rattle can. Buffer beams were brush painted and HMRS lettering applied. The lining was applied with a bow pen and small brush. The correct screw couplings are supplied and these, along with the steel buffer heads, were fitted before a final weathering which obliterated much of the lining to replicate the finish I remember.

Overall the kit certainly saved me a lot of time and builds into an accurate model of a distinctive prototype. The wealth of detail supplied is commendable and one can build virtually all of the class, with the exception of the rotary valve gear versions, if the correct tender type is selected. A nice touch is the correct LMS type screw couplings which work like the real thing.

The one downside to the kit for novice builders is the instructions. Pages of photocopied notes and sketches, but for the Chowbent kit with no reference made to the resin boiler. As an experienced builder it was of no consequence to me- but if this is your first kit!

A copy of this review was sent to Just Like The Real Thing who had nothing to add.