Triang TT Technical advice

[Golden Fleece 30]

The time has come to sort out some wheels for better running "hopefully" that do not cost much so I thought about some old Hornby Dublo sintered iron ones. Removing one wheel I turned the tread down to 10.9. I could not go to 10.5 as the profile of the Dublo wheel would then be an issue. The flange was also turned down by the same amount but later this may be smaller depending on running. A new axle was cut from plastic tube and the wheels drilled to accept this as a tight fit. A pin supported by Teflon tube in the bogie axle box is what the axle revolves around. This is not fixed at the moment as I need to test it for running and possible shorting as the wheels are close to the bogie frame. As you can see the buffer height is very similar to an original. Time will tell.

 

Garry

[Golden Fleece 30]

Obviously my track being as old as it is was very dirty, some of it original to me from the late 50's and some bought 20 odd years ago and never used by me so this as well was dirty. Here is a photo of one piece showing how half of it has cleaned up. The points have been done in a similar way but stripped to take out the blade casting. Electric points also needed the motor removing for obvious reasons. Hopefully the base cleaning will not be required again for another 60 years so it will not concern me although I wish it did but doubt I will make 124 lol.

 

Garry

[Golden Fleece 30]

I have just obtained my favourite loco, an A4, along with another favourite, a Duchess. These are the Atlas models with plastic bodies and a diecast chassis. The loco chassis will be/are disposed of and hopefully a couple of Tri-ang ones modified to fit and will give me some different but "heavy" motive power. The Duchess will be repainted into a proper BR maroon but the A4 is so nice I may keep it for now. I am not keen on none BR preferring BR green but the finish of this is excellent. The tenders also have a diecast chassis which unfortunately are going to be a little harder to do as the internal wheel holders are also cast into the base but too wide apart for 12mm gauge.

 

Has anyone else done this?

 

Garry

[Golden Fleece 30]

A resin Deltic body came yesterday and not bad in appearance but a little on the narrow side. I put a spacer in the base which has a better, but still narrow, width. It means the sides taper from there to the front and not just around the bonnets. I don't know if this caused a split in the roof, not all the way through, or whether it was there on delivery but I have flooded it with Araldite as it did not go right through and it has not leaked out. I have modified a Tri-ang motor bogie to hopefully turn on the curves due to the narrowness and thankfully if it does not work the bogie is still okay to use. At the moment it is just resting on these Tri-ang bogies as no mounting bracket has yet been made.

 

Garry

[Golden Fleece 30]

Here is the Deltic in primer and fitted with Tri-ang bogies. Due to its moulded narrow width, 22mm as opposed to a should be 26mm, it will only go smoothly around the large radius curves, thankfully the points are the same radius so as you see it runs through them set as reverse curves. I will get a video tomorrow IF the weather is kind.  Looking forward myself to seeing this in two tone green.

 

Garry

[Golden Fleece 30]

Here is a short video of the Deltic in operation, as the clip says I ran out of paint so apologies for the unfinished look.

 

[Golden Fleece 30]

And here we have a video showing my re-wheeled wagons, and coach. The running of these vehicles has improved tremendously so plenty more to do now. Even in reverse they run nicely and what a lovely sound of metal wheels rolling along the track.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjPGkXhSyOU&feature=youtu.be

 

[Golden Fleece 30]

 It is now 1986 and Mallard has been restored to running order ready for its 50th anniversary. This is her first test run although some work is still needed as per the video description.

 

 

[Golden Fleece 30]

Today I fitted 7 coaches with the new metal wheels and here is a video showing how well they run. With approx 900 wheels I should be okay for a long time.

 

Garry

 

[Golden Fleece 30]

 Here is the Deltic coming along nicely. It will be Royal Scots Grey, the first Deltic of the 22 made. It needs the side window bars tidying up as these were done freehand, some buffers, possibly headcode info and of course nameplates. It is a long time since I painted TT size and it is more difficult than my usual Dublo ones but it will do for me, who is going to see it at 100mph?

 

Garry

[fallen]

That looks very nice indeed Garry.

 

Frank

[Golden Fleece 30]

Thanks Frank, it is just a pity the body is so narrow that the motor will not go around the inner curves of the track. At least it runs nicely on the large curves.

 

Garry

[Golden Fleece 30]

I have made a start on a second A4, this time a BR version that will be in my favourite colour for these locos, lined green. The cut outs where the valances were still need tidying up and I managed to get a Britannia chassis for this one. The valve gear bracket is holding the body up a little so before any drastic modifications are done to either chassis or body now, I need to think about the best option I have, which at the moment there are 3 possible ones. It may end up as Union of South Africa but most likely Silver Fox. The 00 nameplates came cheap at a toyfair.

[Golden Fleece 30]

 Here is a start on Duchess of Hamilton. I have resprayed the Atlas body and tender and done a lot of cutting of the diecast footplates. The loco one to accept a Britannia/Clan Line chassis, The wheel spacing is not correct for the splashers and one day I may re-drill the chassis to suit but for now it is okay. Hopefully the Castle style slide bars will be used with a new longer length connecting rod giving an LMS style twin slide bar look. The loco body looks to need to be higher which takes it off the driving wheels, or I may lower the tender a little. The tender chassis had its inner frames removed and a temporary plastic one made as per the A4. When all my variations are done I will get etched ones made. A new longer bogie will be required and the plastic rear frames will be fixed to the rear pony once the main chassis is to my satisfaction. The painting needs touching up on the tender axleboxes, yellow line on the boiler and the smokebox black.

 

Garry

[Golden Fleece 30]

Silver Fox is coming along nicely, not as good as I hoped but the best I can do these days I guess. The numbers and the black hopefully will be done over the weekend. The chassis has started to be modified to allow the valve gear and body to sit better.  I may have to hand paint the fox as it does look a little too big but plenty of time to think about that yet.

 

Garry

Edited October 20, 2016 by Golden Fleece 30

[Golden Fleece 30]

Here's a short video of my TT Duchess having a first test run. I am now using the Castle chassis which is fitted with the XT60 motor as opposed to the Britannia origionally planned. Description on You Tube.

 

 

 

Garry

[Golden Fleece 30]

This is the latest installment of Duchess of Hamilton. The front bogie is a Castle one that has had a new axle hole drilled a little further forward. It is slightly longer than scale but I have a feeling the body might be out too. plus, I do not have the correct wheels in the loco chassis. The rear frames have been fitted but only for testing as I might repaint the footplate edge, I should have done it when I did the body really. I did trim a little off the sloping edge of these. The rear pony is the standard M/N one with the front beveled off to swing between the frames on small radius curves. All that is needed now is to sort out the slidebars/connecting rod etc but this maybe a while now. I may get some etched when I get the tenders underframes and other bits done. The chassis as you see is a Castle one fitted with the XT60 motor.

 

Garry

[fallen]

That looks very promising Gary.

 

The wheel spacing seems to match the splashers on the body much better on this than in the photo in post 39. Is this the difference between the Brit and the Castle chassis?

 

Frank

[Golden Fleece 30]

Yes Frank. The Castle has its wheels slightly further apart, still not correct but close enough for a ready to run chassis. All these have to be a compromise as I don't have the time anymore to scratch build anything and that is if you could get the parts. As Tri-ang only made two sizes of wheel that again has to be accepted. I did try to use the Castle chassis with its own motor but that would not fit in the firebox and thankfully I found a large Prairie where I had fitted the XT60 a long time ago so with a new chassis for that (the K's one) I used this modified one on the Duchess.

 

The Britannia/M-N wheel spacing looks to be suitable for the A3 and V2 I am going to do later and thankfully they already use the XT60's.

 

The chassis under Pendennis Castle which is fitted with Romfords also has the XT60 fitted so this will go in a Kitmaster Royal Scot later.

 

Garry

Edited October 30, 2016 by Golden Fleece 30

[Golden Fleece 30]

After painting a couple of other locos recently I thought about my M/N Clan Line which seemed to have a "washed out" appearance on the orange so I decided to put a new brighter set over the top.  I did have to brush paint the gloss on due to the weather as I can only spray outside.  The satin varnish, although new yesterday, did not look right so I went for the near ex works look of gloss green with my original satin finish to the black by brushing only the green.  Hopefully you will not notice the finish too much when its pulling the ACE at 100mph.

 

Garry

[Golden Fleece 30]

Not liking the Britannia chassis as used on the BEC 2-6-4 standard tank in an earlier post having the wrong type of slidebars and due to the Tri-ang arrangement leaving the cylinders too far forward I have done a little modification. I have reshaped and cut some Castle slidebars and lengthened the connecting rod. This gives a better impression to me of the double LMS style slidebars and moved the cylinders forward in line with the steam pipes. I have also put a new axle hole on the rear bogie to move the rear wheel in slightly getting it away from the under the buffer beam. Just need to sort out the buffers and work out how to fit some valve gear later.

 

Garry

Edited October 30, 2016 by Golden Fleece 30

[Golden Fleece 30]

After about 40 years I finally got around to assembling my ESANL (Bec?) E2 loco kit last week. There are not many pieces to it but I had lost two steps so made a couple out of brass. With a nice warm day today I was able to spray varnish it, (along with my Deltic and A4). It is not a bad looking engine but does need a smokebox number when I get around to getting a good print from the PC. All I need now are a couple of SR suburbans to go with it.

 

Garry

[Golden Fleece 30]

4 x Silver Fox

Here we have 4 different scales of Silver Fox starting at the bottom with my N gauge version. This was a Mallard with the last two digits and names altered but with hand painted Silver Foxes. Next is my recent TT version, this is a plastic LNER Mallard that has been repainted in BR green, lined with Kemco 00 waterslide transfers, 00 nameplates and numbers and again hand painted Silver Foxes (these look better than my N ones from 20 years ago) and wire handrails replacing the moulded ones. The third one is my Dublo version with Dublo style varnish fix transfers for lining, name, numbers and foxes, I wish I had used etched plates for this. The top one is a scratchbuilt 0 gauge model from about 25 years ago. This shows the Gresley "hump" far better than the N and TT models, the Dublo one does not have it which is its only let down. This is one of over 250 0 gauge A4 bodies I made of which a handful made Australia, South Africa, Canada and USA. I also did 4 gauge 1 versions of the A4 but they were all sold and I did not have space for one myself which is a pity now.

 

My TT version needs the rear Cartazzi frames looking at as they look out of position on the M/N pony truck, the Britannia one was too far back. At the moment it is a nice little runner and looks reasonable.

 

[Il Grifone]

I had written those Atlas models off as decorative dust collectors.... I will have to look again!

[Golden Fleece 30]

Hi David,

 

I only came across these models about 6 weeks ago, I presume they are quite old?.  Some look very good for their detail and close to TT (1:100) scale.  As you have seen I have a couple of A4's and a nice Duchess.  In the wings are the A3 and V2 started but still to do.  The Schools does not look too bad but a lot of thought is needed for that chassis wise but I do have an unusual idea which may work.  The King might be okay but it will not fit the Castle chassis due to the firebox shape as we have mentioned before with Tri-ang's Castle.  The Britannia and 9F do not look right anyway so not bothered buying those, plus Tri-ang has a nice Britannia model to start with.  The Scot I want to see in my hand as there seems to be something not quite right about it.  The Remembrance class tank loco looks good and I know it never made BR days but it would have on my layout if one comes up cheap. I am not to bothered about City of Truro and want to see the Winston Churchill in my hand also to see if it is any different to the Tri-ang model to make it worth a purchase.  It is a pity they never did any other BR locos as they can be a cheap but good looking alternative.  They do need a fair bit of work cutting up the diecast footplates though.

 

Garry