ModelWorks Foden 
Builder's Diary

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Kit 9 - Smokebox

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The contents of kit 9

Thursday 1st February: Kit 9, the "January" kit, was delivered today.  It seems a long time since the last entry which is because the December kit was delivered early.  Included with this kit were replacement wheel trims for the rear wheel to solve the problem of the inflator hitting the trim.  Apparently the inflator position varies between the batches of wheels and so MW have supplied the plate whole leaving the constructor to file a notch in the correct place.

Steve has strayed from the original published kit numbering and contents and while this is no problem I can't plan far ahead.  Next month we should be getting the missing chimney cap, cab floors, brake cylinder and parking brake.  There is no news of the differential and its absence means the Foden can't be permanently put on its wheels.  Perversely I plan to keep the Foden chassis wheel less as long as possible as once assembled it will cause a traffic jam in my garage.   

When complete the smokebox bolts onto the front of the boiler but as this is supplied latter all that I can do is assemble the smokebox and chimney as a subassembly.  This worked out well on the Burrell as the smokebox is best painted prior to fitting.  A slight hiccup is that the chimney spinning is delayed until the next kit which will prevent painting for at least a month. In any case, my garage is a bit cold at the moment for painting, but I foresee a mammoth painting session once the warmer spring weather arrives. 

Peening over the dummy rivets

Saturday: I started by cleaning up the smokebox door.  I believe Foden's made the door from pressings but Modelworks have turned the door from solid.  Even though the turning is to a high standard I know that unless all trace of the turning marks are removed they will show though the paint.  I started by using a flap wheel and worked my way up to 600 grit wet and dry.  The brass items I finished off with 1200 grit.

 I enjoyed the chance to fit the real rivets to the smokebox door even though they were only dummies. My labours were simplified as I had the right size rivet snap and did not have to resort to a hardwood support as suggest by ModelWorks.

The front ring is held in place by 24 rivet bolts.  The instructions mention that there may be hole alignment issues but I found none.  I needed to clear a few burrs form the holes but a one problem I encountered was that some of the bolts were too big.  Unlike the Burrell  were I went for the "PHD" solution I simply drilled some of the holes 7/32" to take the larger bolts.  Rather than pulling the heads down by tightening the nuts I used the rivet snap supplied to knock the heads down.  When it came to fully tighten the the nuts I was careful not to over tighten them as the rivet bolts are made from ordinary steel and are easily broken. Even with high tensile bolts care is needed as I illustrate in this article.

Sympathetically clean up the chimney base casting with as wire brush  A thin paper gasket was inserted between base  and smokebox to prevent the Folac oozing

Monday: I have been distracted from the Foden but expect to have the smokebox as ready as I can for painting in the next few days.

Today I managed to clean up and fit the saddle and chimney base to the smokebox.  As expected the casting was to a good standard and I was careful not to loose the cast appearance. There was some "flash" where the moulds joined and I carefully removed this with a file. I accomplished the rests of the cleanup with a wire brush and did not use the flap wheel or wet and dry paper.  

The base is sealed to the smokebox using Folac in order to prevent water escaping and dribbling down the outside of the smokebox.  Steve suggests using the Folac around the inside edge only to help prevent the Folac oozing out.   As an additional precaution I fitted a thin paper gasket as I found on the Burrell that the Folac oozed for months afterwards.

While the alignment of the mounting holes was spot on I found I had to enlarge them with a 5mm reamer as they were undersize.  

The chimney after fitting most of the rivets

Tuesday: Today I tackled the chimney.   The chimney is made up from pre rolled sheet metal that is held together with 5BA rivet bolts.  Even though ModelWorks supplied the chimney with some bolts fitted I removed them so that I could attack the edges of the sheet metal with a file.  Whilst I was at it I took the opportunity to improve the roundness using my bending rolls.

Fitting the rivet bolts was not easy as there was not much room for my hand.  I found it beneficial to reduce the length of the rivet bolts so that there was less sticking out to interfere with my hand.  As with the Burrell I used a ratchet socket on a stick.  Since the chimney cap will have to be fitted later I omitted fitting the top 3 rivet bolts.  In the picture the cardboard tube used to simulate the chimney cap can be seen.  I used this to check  the clearance above the rivet heads.
 

I shall delay painting until the chimney cap arrives. Before painting I shall remove the saddle from the bottom of the smokebox as it will be difficult to get the paint into the narrow recesses.
 

Painting a "heavy lump" is made much easier using an engine stand

Painted Smokebox

Friday 15 June: Lately my main focus has been the Burrell but I did get round to painting the Foden's Smoke box this week.

I used matt high heat  synthetic black paint (not cellulose based) that I obtained from my local supplier.  Matt high heat paint is prone to dry spraying and it is important to use enough thinners.  It is also important to spray quickly to maintain a wet edge.  I mounted the smokebox on my engine stand which enabled me to quickly spin it round to get a good angle to spray into the awkward places.  Still no sign of the next kit and I am beginning to suspect that we are going to slip a month.