Ja 1268

Ja1268 was built in 1950 at the NZR Hillside Railway Workshops sited in Dunedin, she was written off in August 1968, 1268 is seen here Above; in charge of the express on the 01-04-1966 in Oamaru .

            Building Ja1268                           

  Ja1268 is the biggest project I have taken on, due to the fact that everything has to be made as in the chassis, valve gear, bogies (both loco & tender). The plan is to start off like I always do 'Back to Front' it worked with the Ab so I'm sticking to tried & tested way. I am going to use bachmann Big Hauler driving wheels, they are a bit small but the Ab wears them well & the Ja's are the same diameter so the decision has already been made for me. I hope all the problems & decisions with this loco are going to be as easy!!!

Tender!

Above Left; The tender is under way, of all the plastic pipe we make at RX Plastics there was not one any where near what I wanted!! So I used a cardboard cylinder lined with 0.5mm styrene to achieve the correct diameter, the curved end is just 2mm styrene layered, machined in a lathe (courtesy of work), bogged to fill in any gaps & sanded in the lathe to finish.  Above Right; Sides on the bunker have been added, all is 2mm styrene to give it a bit of strength.

Above Left; The detail is starting to be added, the back tender braces have to be added as you can see in behind the tool-box when it is in place. The 12 bolts on the head stock & the 24 nuts on the side tender mounts are all hex styrene rod spun off in a drill press. Head stock rivets are flat head so out with a file to flatten off the dress-making pins!  Above Right; Tool-box in place, next job coupler & bogies!!

The tender bogies were next on the to do list, Above Left; I have used the bachmann metal wheel sets, they had to have the flange depth reduced so they would fit in the frame. The entire bogie is built from styrene with a brass bush added in each axle box to take the axle, the 2 bogies from start to finish took 2 weekends work with help from my 2 daughters! Above Right; Top view of the tender with the water hatches in place, plus another tool-box been made. Below Left; I now turn to the front of the tender now with the coal doors been made, once again there are differences in the prototype so had some pictures of Ja1240's tender being restored by Mainline Steam Heritage Trust & went by these. Below Right; The tender is ready for undercoating, this won't happen until I get a picture of the entire loco in its unpainted form!! Most of the detail has been added, side chains near the coupling, ladder, hand-rails, steps etc as can be seen in this rear view of 1268's tender. 

    Above Left & Right; Front view shows more detail, tool cabnets, tap, brake pedestal, steps & jacking points. I haven't worked out the tender coupling as yet as the over swing of the loco itself will have to be considered!

Locomotive!

Above Left; Work has started on the loco, as you can see the smoke-box detail is done, the 4 missing rivets up top are making way for the light bracket. The chassis is on the way, it is made from aluminium door channel (scrap piece), Above Right; 4 of the 8 main bearings are showen these are a press fit into the chassis. For all the cut out sections I have used the drill & file method, time consuming but very rewarding! The screw you can see is holding in a spacer, the head will be filed flat in the near future.

Above; 2 pictures showing the motor & gear box in place, there was alot of drilling & filing to get this correct as the motor is sitting secure on the chassis & will have a band over the top to hold it in place. There will be no forward movement either as the motors front is against the chassis where it fits onto the gearbox. (as seen in the 1st pic) Below Left; The front & back drivers are in place with the centre 2 just resting there for the pic, the weights on the 6 of the wheels have been altered to the correct size, from the motor 1,2,4 are altered with number 3 standard Bachmann. Below Right; On the 21-08-2011 the tender of Ja1268 had a test run, it was hauled by A62 twice around the Railway. All went well with no derailments, I thought the fine wheel flanges could be a problem but was proven wrong (Don't mind being wrong in cases like that!)

Below Left; Steam dome is in place, this was a stroke of luck as there was no shaping involved apart from around the boiler! The dome is a float out of a tank lid, it was the right diameter with the proper radius around the top. I used a whole saw to drill into the boiler glued & pinned the dome at the right correct height, I then troweled in some auto bog at the base then sanded the right radius in. Remember the front & back radius will be smaller then the sides!!  Below Right; The sand dome is a different kettle of fish, being square-ish, curved top & angles. This was all fabricated with 2mm styrene & sanded by eye to look right, it was built in place to get the angels on the side correct. The grab rail is welding wire with the filler lid being a piece of knitting needle spun down.

 Below Left; A shot of the 2 domes! 3mm X 0.5mm styrene boiler bands have also been added, this was a tricky job to keep them all straight! Below Right; Funnel ic now in place, this was made from auto-bog & spun in the lathe with final finishing done in place.

Below; 2 pictures of the front head-stock & cow-catcher! The main costruction is styrene with dress making pins for the rivets, Alloy Tig wire with the ends flattened are the main bars for the cow-catcher, the U-bolts holding the backing plate on are staples out of a office stapler. You can use anything!!! 

Below; 2 pictures of the construction process of the main side rods, I frabricated these out of 2mm styrene so are 4mm thick where the crank-pin goes through. The fluting was achieved by placing 1mm styrene 2mm wide on its edge between main bushes, not showen in the pics is a brass bush which was machined to a slight press fit. I must also note that all the rods where filed free-hand!

Below; A temporary fitting of the side rods, it has been run but up on blocks & seems to run ok only, time will tell!!