7mm Mickoo's Commercial Workbench

[mickoo]

Whilst the origins of the castings maybe AGH the finishing is probably due to someone else. As I recollect Alan would use Teflon for any bushes not nylon.

I fully accept that and it'd be wrong to blame the source for the finished product, but if the material from source is so bad then who ever attempts to finish it will never get a good result.

I had to skim the boss of the leading bogie wheel to clear the scale width etches and the metal is very grainy, it doesn't cut smoothly, more like digs it out.





Personally, other than the hub (also incorrect for a King in this case) csk screw there is little improvement over Slaters wheels, but that's my personal opinion and the csk screw you can hide/resolve with a little energy.

 

[adrian]

They look very much more like Walsall Wheel castings than AGH to me.

 

[david duxbury]

Hi
I have to agree with Adrian.
I have Alan Harris wheels on my KIng loco and the finished product is excellent, The turned finish and casting quality is excellent and the axle and crank pin bushes are Tufnol. The crank pin bushes look nothing like mine and seem oversize to the Alan Harris ones. On the other hand I bought a set of Walsall BLP Firth Brown wheels and turned them to Alan Harris standards with Tufnol bushes and telescopic axles and they also look fine. I have also just completed a set of 9F wheels from Mark Woods and turned them also to Alan Harris standards and also look great.

 

[richard carr]

I have to agree with Adrian, those are Walsall castings, someone has spent a good deal of time cleaning them up but you can still see a few areas that they missed. Getting a really good finish on the front of cast iron wheels is very difficult, Alan used a very rigid setup with hand ground on a diamond wheel tungsten carbide tools, so he could get a super sharp point. I haven't been able to replicate it but I can get a far better finish than that. Alan used Tufnol for all the insulation and was an expert at getting a perfect forced fit. All too often mine would need the help of some loctite.

Richard

 

[mickoo]

I'd have to concur my first thought was Walsall but the client assured me this morning they are/were actually Mark Wood wheels (that I find very hard to accept myself), however, that's not to say whoever supplied them (may have been second hand and not from source) knew they were Walsall.

 

[mickoo]

...... Alan used Tufnol for all the insulation and was an expert at getting a perfect forced fit. All too often mine would need the help of some loctite.

Richard

I've worked on seven models now with AGH and five have slipped on the axles. However that's not to say Alan did the machining so it's not fair to say the issue was there, just that it's quite a common thing I've found.

 

[Richard Spoors]

They look very much more like Walsall Wheel castings than AGH to me.

Do not Walsall wheels have square recesses in the hub for Slaters type axle ends?

 

[richard carr]

Do not Walsall wheels have square recesses in the hub for Slaters type axle ends?

Yes their wheels do, but not if you buy the castings and machine them yourself.

Richard

 

[Richard Spoors]

Yes their wheels do, but not if you buy the castings and machine them yourself.

Richard

Ah! Thanks for that.
Richard

 

[mickoo]

Another long term project nearing the end, reassembly usually takes a couple of weekends but this is now in week five. The kit is so complex it almost has to be part painted, built a little more then more paint, rinse - dry- repeat.

As such, to keep Warren Haywood sane I did the chassis here piece by piece as it was reassembled, so any below standard paint work below the footplate is all on me

Only a handful of pieces left to do now and handover is at the Wigan show so there might not be time for final photos I'm afraid.

For clarity, items left to finish are, buffer retention pins - fit and blend in, rear coupling, front hook and coupling, cab doors, speedometer drive and backhead.

 

[Clarence3815]

That is really exquisite.

 

[P A D]

Superb Mick, the build and the painting!

You'll never get the backhead through that hole in the roof.
Goes in from underneath via a detachable cab floor as I recall.

Cheers,
Peter

 

[SimonT]

You'll never get the backhead through that hole in the roof.

Don't give him a challenge - you've seen what he is like with solder!

 

[mickoo]

Superb Mick, the build and the painting!

You'll never get the backhead through that hole in the roof.
Goes in from underneath via a detachable cab floor as I recall.

Cheers,
Peter

Cheers, indeed the CSB floor comes out, doesn’t help much with the glazing which is a real ship in a bottle exercise

 

[mickoo]

Don't give him a challenge - you've seen what he is like with solder!

A byproduct of laziness I can assure you, the less I sploge on, the less I have to clean up

 

[LarryG]

Alan Harris and have have known each other for years, although it is also years since we last spoke (where does the time go)? I remember he obtained a load of precision machinery from his works when it shut down and used to cut umpteen identical parts for his LB&SC locos. No need to guess where I came in, but I couldn't make any money out of painting & lining 'yellow' locos and so deleted the livery from my list in 1974. Fortunately, Alan diverted his attention to producing accurately '0' gauge loco wheels and probably never looked back.