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To The Manor Born - Part 2


D869

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A quick update on the Manor...

 

The crossheads and conn rods are now fitted... and remarkably the loco still runs well.

 

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This doesn't look like a vast amount of progress, but there was some tricky work involved... especially for someone who has never built a steam loco before.

 

I found assembling the crossheads pretty tricky, largely because their final 'I' shape means that there is no obvious place to apply the soldering iron to get a good 'flow' when you get to the last stage. I did one by trying to run solder in from the edges and the other by pre-tinning the layers. Both ways worked eventually but neither was easy and I had a layer come adrift and need refixing in both cases.

 

It's not practical to fit the conn rods without biting the bullet and actually soldering on the washers to the front crankpins. Until these are filed flat there is not enough room for the pins to clear the conn rods... regular steam loco builders please excuse me for stating the bleeding obvious.

 

I used the oily Rizla paper trick to solder up the crankpin washers. This worked OK on the first crosshead pivot but I managed to solder the second one up solid by putting too much heat in. I had to dismantle the thing again (which caused one layer to come off and need resoldering), fit a new pivot pin because the previous one was nicely tinned and have another go. At the second attempt I erred on the side of less heat and solder and things were fine.

 

This evening I fitted the front and rear crankpin washers, all of which went well. I had to fiddle with some washers behind the coupling rods because the centre driver balance weights have a raised section and so need some clearance behind the rods. For some reason one wheel was OK with a single washer but the other side needed more room. Using two washers was too much so I had to rub a washer on some wet and dry to reduce it to 5 thou.

 

The conn rods are still held on with insulation sleeving so that I can take them off again.

 

Yesterday we had the main boards of St Ruth out to figure out the plan for signal controls. While it was out I took the opportunity to give the Manor a spin (sans crossheads). It seems to go through the points pretty well. The loco had its bogie fitted for this test and I was expecting trouble. I got some trouble but not quite what I expected. It ran fine with the bogie leading but for some reason when running tender first the bogie seems to like to derail on points and pull the rest of the loco off with it. On the whole the bogie is quite unconstrained (even more so than the Ixion original) so I'm going to put my thinking cap on and try to devise a different pivot arrangement that will impart a little weight and some guidance to the bogie.

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Top work. I blame you for me ordering one of these :D

 

Thankfully it won't be going under a Manor. I have other more devious plans for it.

 

I know what you mean about the crank pin washer. I have a 2-6-2T chassis started somewhere that has the crank pin in backwards behind the slide bars to achieve the maximum possible clearance. Nowadays I put them on without anything between the rods and the washers. I'm not sure exactly how I make this work but it does and the resulting side play of the rod is much lower without the paper spacing everything out further.

 

I don't have any sure answers on the bogie but wonder if a central pivot with a small amount of sideways movement is a better solution rather than the linkage arrangement supplied?

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Could your derailing problem be due to the fact that the bogie is, looking at your photo, not attached :-)

 

Seriously, that's looking great for a dedicated diesel head like yourself. I would agree with Rich's suggestion and try a lightly sprung central pivot with a little sideplay. Look forward to seeing the Manor in action at Aylesbury in the spring.

 

Jerry 

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I made an 'M&L' 'Manor' waaaaay back when..  Relevant to Rich & 'Queensuare's comments I didn't like the long pivot bea so fitted a crosspiece with an elongated slot between the cylinders and used a lightly-sprung BA bolt to hold the pony to it.  Worked fine.  Admittedly it was twice the size and 4(?) times the mass but I would imaging the principles are the same?

 

Reg

 

Ian

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Top work. I blame you for me ordering one of these :D

Guilty m'lud. Only one though?

 

Thankfully it won't be going under a Manor. I have other more devious plans for it.

I have another one with a devious plan to match. I haven't checked the other option but I reckon that given the prototype's provenance there are probably at least two potential ways to repurpose the Manor chassis. Both options ran in Cornwall, so maybe I need to buy another one

 

Could your derailing problem be due to the fact that the bogie is, looking at your photo, not attached :-)

Oh yes, silly me!

 

I don't have any sure answers on the bogie but wonder if a central pivot with a small amount of sideways movement is a better solution rather than the linkage arrangement supplied?

Seriously, that's looking great for a dedicated diesel head like yourself. I would agree with Rich's suggestion and try a lightly sprung central pivot with a little sideplay. Look forward to seeing the Manor in action at Aylesbury in the spring.

I made an 'M&L' 'Manor' waaaaay back when..  Relevant to Rich & 'Queensuare's comments I didn't like the long pivot bea so fitted a crosspiece with an elongated slot between the cylinders and used a lightly-sprung BA bolt to hold the pony to it.  Worked fine.  Admittedly it was twice the size and 4(?) times the mass but I would imaging the principles are the same?

Yes, I was looking at the thread about the 1920s LSWR locos last night and wondering why we muck about with such long linkages for bogies. The snag with the Manor is that the pivot would need to be in pretty much exactly the spot where the boiler securing screw fits and the bogie needs to go on after this.

 

I think the problem is likely to be uneven weight distribution front to rear and possibly some fouling of the cylinder crossmember. Initially I had right angles for both pivot bends and the front wheel tended to be pointing skywards. I corrected this by bending it downwards and shaving the cylinder crossmember a bit but it's not a long term solution. There's bags of empty space above the bogie so I should have lots of room to experiment.

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A bit of lead in the bogey to aid adhesion might help too. I have done this with the pony trucks on my prairies.

 

Yes. There is already some lead in the middle section of the bogie and I might be able to add some more without it being too visible.

 

I think that if the bogie was just a wagon on its own it would already be perfectly happy so the main problem is the forces that act on it through the pivot arm... which is what I intend to improve. The fact that it flops around too much while I'm trying to put all of the wheels on the rail is also something that I want to sort out.

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Guilty m'lud. Only one though?

 

I have another one with a devious plan to match. I haven't checked the other option but I reckon that given the prototype's provenance there are probably at least two potential ways to repurpose the Manor chassis. Both options ran in Cornwall, so maybe I need to buy another one

 

Yes only one. I might get another from a subsequent batch but I wanted to evaluate it for the more extreme manor that I tend to repurpose it in. See what I did there? *ducks*

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Yes only one. I might get another from a subsequent batch but I wanted to evaluate it for the more extreme manor that I tend to repurpose it in. See what I did there? *ducks*

 

 Glad to see that the standard of humour on RMWeb remains at its usual level.

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 Glad to see that the standard of humour on RMWeb remains at its usual level.

 

On that note...get back on the hydraulics Andy... :P

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On that note...get back on the hydraulics Andy... :P

 

Hi Pete.

 

Just finished a spectacularly unsuccessful testing session in which just about everything possible failed including one of the point crossing switches and the controller.

 

Controller and loco alive again now. Layout will be mended another day.

 

Off to watch a film.. with some err... hydraulic... refreshments on hand.

 

Regards, Andy

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