Yankee Tank, Basic Structure.

Yankee Tank  HR54

The basic structure of HR54 is progressing slowly. I've struggled recently with the riveted side tanks though I think I've made an acceptable pair at last after a good many failures. I used a G W Models riveting tool to make the rivets but found that due to the amount of play on the carrier that it was far from straight forward consequently it took me some time to tame the machine and get it to do what it was supposed to do, namely to press equally spaced rivets in a straight line! I scored guide lines on the back of the tanks and steadied the carrier with my finger to ensure that each rivet was plumb centre of the line, spacing was less of a problem as the machine handles spacing accurately. Once the rivets were pressed the side was then cut to shape. It is possible to side step the rivet problem by building HR102 which was built with plain tanks without rivets and displayed significant differences of detail from the other members of the class. In fact all five of the HR's Yankee Tanks display appreciable differences, no two are quite the same.

I realised at a rather late stage that the front spectacle plate does not form a corner with the cab side sheet, the latter overlaps the former slightly, a revelation that resulted in another cab side sheet ending in the bin.

The Yankee Tank cab is ideally suited to double-skinning. I made an inner skin for both the rear and front spectacle plate so that the glazing will eventually slip between the two. The front plate will have the back-head attached and the unit will I hope be removable to facilitate detailing the cab interior. I note that Nick Baines http://www.nickbaines.me.uk describing the construction of his latest LNWR Problem class engine uses double-skinning to facilitate not only the glazing but also to make the backhead assembly removable... I'll take a leaf out of his notebook.

The cab entrance is a mere 1ft 3in wide, which suggests that the Highland did not encourage fat engine drivers. One of the few components that I used from the original kit is the footplate and I found that to achieve this small gap I had to add 3in to the rear of the footplate which was under size. I soldered a strip of metal under the rear footplate up against the buffer beam to form a protruding ledge which supported the 3in wide footplate extension.

The edging that surrounds the cab and runs along the tank tops is quite a substantial half-round section that I'm using 1mm half-round brass material from Eileen's Emporium to simulate. Half -round is not easy to persuade into shape! As you can see I've made a start on the cab rear where the edging will both strengthen and help conceal the join between the cab front and rear.

HR 54 Yankee Tank

The side tank fronts will be made as a separate component, overlapping the inner side and making a flush joint with the outer skin. This is part of the basic platework of the superstructure along with the roof, steps and tanks inside the cab which I'll tackle next. The cab and tank edging will be added in the flat and the boiler bands will have to be soldered in place before the separate assemblies...cab rear, side tanks and the boiler are soldered together to complete the basic structure.

HR Yankee Tank details of side tanks and cab interior

 

Yankee Tank side tanks and cab interior detail

As details of the interior of the cabs and back-heads of these engines are practically non-existent I'll probably build a typical Jones back-head with appropriate period fittings. The side tanks run through into the cab. However the rear drivers run inside them and to allow clearance for them the inner tanks have to be made wider than those outside which makes for a cramped situation in the cab which will have to be considered when I design the crew for this engine.
The narrow entrance and the double-skin of the cab are well seen in this view, the splasher/inner tank tops and sides are not yet in place.