Roedean

Hi, I am restarting model engineering after a long gap of some thirty years. My chosen route back is the completion of a half finished Roedean. I bought a copy of the "construction manual" offered by A J Reeves it contains only words and no music ! I cannot afford the near £80 that they want for a set of plans so my question is, were I to purchase a digital subscription to ME would I be able to download and and print the articles from their archive ? Any help would be much appreciated.

Nigel

Nigel, unfortunately the ME digital archive only goes back to about 2002 so won't include the mags that you are after.

Your best bet would be to look at the traders that sell old copies of ME, you will pay about £5 for a full volume and I should think Roedean would be 2 or 3 volumes long. Alternatively if you join your local ME club they may well have copies of themag you can look at in their Library. The only downside is that the drawings may be to a smaller size than the published plans so a visit to specsavers may also be required.

Roedean was reprinted in vol 207 in 2011, so I think it should be available in the digital editions. I don't have digital subscription so perhaps someone would be kind enough to check.

HTH,

Rod

Well spotted Rod, I've just checked and it is in the digital Archive.

Thanks all , looks like that is the best option, I hadn't had much joy with 2nd hand volumes, a lot of bulk as well.

Nigel

Be very wary of the boiler design, more than a little out of date. Discuss with your boiler inspector before committing too much cash to copper.

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Edited By Anthony Kendall on 23/01/2018 14:48:49

It's in English Mechanics- or as I have called it trying to find it on eBay, "Elusive Magazine".

Thanks Jason I'll keep looking

Hi Nigel,

Roedean was originally described in English Mechanics with the rather less detailed description of construction that equally applies to Speedy also described in English Mechanics. ME subsequently acquired English Mechanics so then owned the copyright to Roedean and Speedy.

As stated above, ME reprinted the English Mechanics Roedean articles in recent years in 2011. Sadly the drawings especially the boiler were NOT updated though this was an ideal opportunity to do this.

In 35 years at this lark I have never seen a Roedean in steam on a track, and there are numerous complications with the middle cylinder valvegear and weighshafts and I would not consider Roedean by any stretch of the imagination to be a beginner's loco.

So I wish you all the best with a design that many have struggled with and many more simply avoided.

Cheers,

Julian

Hi Julian,

I'm not sure whether to be encouraged or not ! I shall do my dambdest as in my view it is such a nice looking loco that it is worth a stab. Thankfully I do have some plans for an improved boiler courtesy of one of the professional boiler outfits which is good. I haven't seen a Roedean model in the flesh but there are a couple of short clips on Youtube although they could have been Clarkson versions.

I have got some Virginia bits as well so perhaps I shall run this concurrently to hone my skills a bit.

Shame that the plans are a bit dated ( I have yet to see ) but nothing ventured.......!

Many thanks

All the best

Nigel

Hi Nigel,

I agree the fullsize examples of the SR 'Schools' were and are still very impressive locos!

Unfortunately, LBSC's 'Roedean' is not well drawn, and IMO requires considerable input and detailed knowledge of the fullsize locos to put right plus the middle cylinder valve gear problems.

I may be coloured in my own opinion when the only example I saw close up on boiler test when first built had the firebox crown collapse. This was the LBSC version, not Clarksons.

Cheers,

Julian