Gibson brass centred wheels for Deeley dock tank

[Tickplan]

In responding to david.hill64's current thread on building the Brassmaster's kit of the Deeley dock tank I happened to mention my use of Alan Gibson brass-centred wheels in my own making of that kit. Mike Morley asked for more information so here goes. I hope it is not a case of regretting what you wish for!

By way of introduction I should say that I have been committed to split frame/split axle pick up for many years (my first foray into this method of pick up is now 30 years old). However, I do understand that acknowledging its superiority over scrapers or plunger pick ups is not the same or as easy as making models that use the feature. It was for that reason that I was pleased when Colin Seymour at Alan Gibsons introduced his range of brass-centred wheels a few years ago: at last no soldering wires down the backs of plastic wheels! At this stage I should add the usual disclaimer that I only know Colin as a (very) satisfied customer and I have no connection with him otherwise. These wheels are not difficult to use but you do need a lathe (no, don't stop reading -they are a wonderful investment and you know you want one). However, the range of wheels so far produced is small and despite my love of them I do understand that Colin is not going to introduce new wheels just to keep me going in a few wheels each year. If this article inspires you to buy some brass wheels then it may result in the range of wheels being developed to the benefit of us all.

And so to the Deeley. I bought it about five years ago but somehow it found its way to the bottom of the drawer as other projects took precedence. However, at about the time coincidentally when Dave began his thread on making his Deeley I also re-discovered it and vowed to make a start. I had bought in pre brass days some plastic Gibson wheels (the nearest equivalent) but just happened to notice in the same box two sets of 4 foot diameter brass-centred wheels destined for a Midland/LMS tender. These were only slightly too large in diameter but looked capable of being turned down to fit the steel tyres liberated from the plastic wheels. They also had the correct number of spokes. The down side is that they were for 2mm axles and of course they had no cranks. The first problem was easily solved on the lathe by boring out the centres to just under 1/8" and then finishing off with a reamer. The cranks had me thinking but in truth were quite easy to do. From four nickel silver blanks soldered together I drilled through on the vertical drill at the correct centres for the axle and for the tapping size for a 1mm tap. It was then a question of tapping out the crankpin hole, filing the blanks (still as one lump) into a crank shape and then separating them out. The Deeley has the crankpin between spokes (unlike the nearest plastic equivalent which has the pin in line so that was a bonus) and I found I had to use a dental burr in the minidrill to make a "hole" in the face of the wheel so that the crank, now with crankpin in place to sit flush.

Perhaps it is time for some photos. This first shows the out of the packet Gibson wheel on the left with the modified wheel on the right. The centre has been bored out to 1/8" and the hub "flattened" (face turned) to take the crank.

This second photo shows the wheel soldered to some 1/8" tubing (Eileen's). The macro lens is unfortunately very good at showing every blemish. This was before cleaning up! You will note that the tube goes right through the wheel. This allows it to be soldered back and front (simple jig to ensure the wheel is perpendicular to the axle) and for the whole assembly to be held in the lathe for turning down the rim to fit the steel tyre. There was not much meat left at the rim but I just got away with it. Doing it this way round ensures the rim is exactly concentric to the axle and allows both the rear and the front outer to be "faced" gently so as to remove any last vestige of wobble. The final thing to note is that the extended axles stay in place until after the two half axles are assembled. This is because they fit into my quartering jig (yet another story I am afraid and one perhaps for another day). I can say to those wondering how the stub axles are assembled I use the plastic centres from cotton wool buds. They are just the right fit to slide up the tube once roughed up a little with a saw blade. This helps the epoxy get a good grip. I will later put a further steel rod down the middle of the plastic tube to give it complete strength and rigidity. I have held off doing this at the present as it occurs to me that if there is a problem it is a relatively easy matter to put a drill up the tube and take out the plastic.

So we now have four wheels on four half axles:

And then after assembling in the quartering jig, and the extended axles cut off with a slitting disk (piercing saw blades bounce off) the wheels go into the chassis.

and there you have it. I told you Mike it was a long story. Hope you've not nodded off and are sufficiently interested to get hold of some brass wheels and start turning.

 

Bryan

 

[mike morley]

Bryan

 

The story was quite definitely worth hearing!  I also vote the ingenious use of the cotton wool buds one of the most unusual tips I've ever heard!

 

Thank you

 

Edited to add a PS. 

I look forward to the story of the quartering jig.

[farren]

I second that a most informative tale I do hope you will be expending on your methods. Two questions hopefully further story's might explain how you set the gear to the axle with out destinations of the axle. The second would be. would one of those table top lathes be good enough to turn the wheels being far cheaper than a full on floor standing job.

[Quarryscapes]

Cotton bud shanks as axles, ecxcellent! Think I'll be stealing that idea for the future! I really wish I hadn't sold my Unimat, I could really use a lathe right now as I have a whole lot of wheel work to do.

[Tickplan]

Dealing with questions arising: 

farren: Gearwheel: Here's a photo from underneath showing the gearbox end. I normally prefer Chris Gibbons' gear wheels with a grub screw (£1 extra and definitely worth it) but the one in the box was a "glue on" job. Hopefully you can see that one stub axle is longer than the other and goes all the way through and has its joint in the open gap between the side of the gearbox and the hornblock. Using hornblocks allows me to assemble this "dry" to make sure clearances etc are OK. I then mark on the position of the gearwheel, dismantle everything (including the layshaft), put the axle through the gearbox with the gearwheel in place and then put the merest drop of Loctite 603 on with a brass pin (important, do not use steel) and then quickly slide the gear into position. Leave overnight. The layshaft and everything else can then be re-assembled. This photo shows my method of stopping the hornblocks from falling out: 12 thou nickel silver wire soldered to the frames and with the ends bent at right angles. To withdraw the wheelsets simply push the wires inbound.

Lathe: This is my lathe. It is a Simat and dates I believe from the 1970's. It is based on a Flexispeed lathe from even earlier. I believe the same lathe (but considerably improved) is the basis for the current small Cowells. I bought it on ebay for about £120 three years ago. It's small and powerful and will do all I want it to do and more. I made the stand so as not to have to move it on the main bench and to give it stability. I have spent another £100 on it since I reckon on tooling and a better chuck. I am self taught in its use (perhaps not a good idea) but I read a book, watched some You Tube videos and then got stuck in. When you think that the total investment is about the same as two decent loco kits then I reckon it was worth while.

Finally, for all those fascinated by the cotton wool buds then here is one I took earlier.

There's probably enough bud on to cut off and use it for its intended purpose!. These were from Tescos (there are other supermarkets) and cost about 50p for enough locos to keep you going for a lifetime. 

Mike, I haven't forgotten your interest in the quartering jig. This photo may give you an inkling but I'll write later when I have more time.

 

Bryan

[Michael Delamar]

do you use any specific oil/grease for the axles or do you leave them dry?

[Horsetan]

....for all those fascinated by the cotton wool buds then here is one I took earlier.

cotton buds.jpg

There's probably enough bud on to cut off and use it for its intended purpose!.....

 

 

Note to self: remove bit with earwax traces first.....

[garethashenden]

Where did you get the copperclad for the spacers? My next locomoitve (a Gibson 850) is almost certainly going to be split chassis but I'm still trying to work out suppliers etc.

[mike morley]

Maplins do a small range of copperclad sheets - single sided, double sided etc.

[Tickplan]

Michael D - re oil on axles. Not sure whether you mean to prevent the epoxy gluing everything up or eventuallyon the running model as a lubricant. For the former I have some "Clock grease" nice and sticky and doesn't flow into places it shouldn't like thin oil would. For the eventual oiling I use Daywat. Somewhere I also have some Seuthe plastics compatible grease for the High Level gearbox.

Gareth - Copperclad sheets (clad both sides) Mike got it in one.:yes they are from Maplins. They sell them in sheets about 200mm by 150 mm. I cut them oversize on a bandsaw with a metal cutting blade but a Junior hacksaw would get there eventually. Then with a flat file down on the bench and the spacers held vertically I rub them until they are the correct width, using a set of digital verniers. The long parallel jaws on these come in useful for ensuring they are parallel. I tend to make a "loco's worth" of spaces in one long strip and only when satisfied as to width do I cut them into their individual lengths. Other tips are to gap them before assembling the loco (easily done with a carpenters scribe used from both sides to get it absolutely central - just looks better) and make sure you set down the spacer from say the top of the frames by a millimetre or two so that you can run a fillet of solder on both sides. They are surprisingly strong.

Hope that helps.

 

Bryan

[Tickplan]

I did promise to describe my quartering jig so here goes. First however I should explain my reasons for wanting to depart from the existing commercial offerings. Over the years I have tried most if not all the jigs that have been made available. Probably the best known, if not the best,is the George Watts jig. I have one of these and achieved reasonable success with it. However, one drawback I found with this and other jigs is that you need at least three pairs of hands, four if you are also assembling a gear wheel and have to Loctite it on the axle at the same time as holding everything together. This is not a criticism of the jig as such, and may be more to do with my ham fistedness but at the point when you have to press go and push everything together there was always a bit of panic and crossed fingers. Having analysed the problem I realised that this is because the jigs were designed around the wheels, and particularly the axle lengths. If you approached the problem from the other end of the telescope and had longer axles – to be cut off later – then everything could be assembled in stages, things like bearings or hornblocks or spacing washings remembered and without a feeling of “no turning back”.

My jig is designed around my method of mounting the wheels on half or stub axles as described above and then, as a separate process, they are put into the jig. Nothing is fixed and the components can be put in the jig as many times as you like until you are satisfied with clearances etc. When you are ready to commit the parts together there is no panic- just assemble them dry, make sure all is well and then, very calmly insert the epoxied cotton wool bud.

Ok, here is what it looks like.

It is made from two strips of brass. These are approximately 150mm long, 20mm wide and 2mm thick. The dimensions are not critical. They are tack soldered together to form a pair and then draw filed so that the long edges are straight, level and parallel. I then scribed a centre line down one side and drilled holes near each end, One to take the “pivot” (a brass spacer turned to the same diameter as the side plates and with indents to fit the holes). A simple threaded bolt goes through the lot with knurled heads each end to tighten the lot up.  The business end is drilled to take two 1/8” top hat bearings, inserted from the outside and once soldered in, filed flat on the inside. Before soldering these however I cut the slot for the crankpins. Originally I was just going to drill a hole at the correct crank throw but then realised I would need a jig for every loco with a different crank throw. The slot allows for all variations. To cut the slot I separated the plates and then with a suitable pivot in the small hole reassembled them at right angles to one another and again spot soldered them together. A piercing saw blade went through the hole and I cut, as straight as I could, away from the hole along an imaginary line that ran through the centre of the hole. I was going to leave it at that but it looked a bit rough so in the end I ran a flat and quite thin Swiss file down the slot and then soldered in some short lengths of brass angle so that the gap between was exactly that of a crankpin. (No need to measure, just solder one angle in place, put a crankpin at each end and then move up the angle to form a tight fit and then solder the second one). This operation took place after the side plates had once again been separated. Then it was just a case of cleaning up and putting it to use.

In use each wheel set is put into each half of the jig and the fulcrum end loosely assembled. The plastic tube (cotton wool bud) is then inserted. The idea is that the outer ends are held firmly in the top hat bearings and the tube ensures that the middle meets concentrically. The wheels are held in the correct quarter by the crankpins sitting in the slots. These are nominally at 90 degrees to each other but even if they are a little out it doesn’t matter since all wheels are set in the same jig to the same setting. I suppose you could make the slots at different angles to one another (120 degrees?)

I use the excellent George Watts back to back gauge. Not only can this be altered for varying back to back distances (useful if you are making say for OO, EM and P4 or want to “refine” your back to back distances away from the given standard) but by wrapping around the axle it gives far greater support to the back of the wheel and ensures the wheels are assembled parallel to each other.(see photo in earlier posting).  Another advantage of this quartering jig is that because all the holding/fixing is being done on the outside then there is more room between the wheelsets to get in and ensure all is well.  Once the epoxied tube is is place I place the lot onto a flat surface and pinch up the fulcrum end (it does not have to be very tight). You can see from the photos that to stop the wheels drifting out of gauge I played safe and used a G clamp (Exactoscale) to hold the lot together

There you go. Sorry it is a long tale. In truth the making did not take long (two short evenings) but the concept took several long dog walks to get me thinking along these lines.

There is no patent. Feel free to copy it as you wish or ignore it. Having built two locos now with it I can vouch for the fact that it works . No more bodged oversized crankpin holes !

[mike morley]

One question;

 

Why do the "sides" (for want of a better word) need to be so long?  Would something shorter not be less flexi and thus less likely to need the inclusion of back-to-back gauges with the consequent danger of oozed epoxy gluing everything together?  To me, nearly six inches twixt spacer and axle seems even more than Mike Sharman would need to clear the Mississippi stern-wheeler-sized driving wheels that appeared on some of his Victorian exotica.

 

Please do not for one moment regard this as criticism.  My so-far only attempt at DIY split-axles was a dismal failure that has induced both a sense of paranoia and a determination to eventually succeed, so I want to cross every bridge before I tackle my second attempt.

[Tickplan]

Good question Mike. My thinking was based on the premise that the longer the better in terms of alignment. Yes, something shorter would not flex as much and that did sort of bother me but in practice it has not proved to be a problem. The thinking was not determined by making sure I could get the biggest drivers in. I suppose the original inspiration was from the "Optical Jig" that appeared some time back in MRJ. That too relied upon long side pieces to aid alignment. If you think about the theory then something that is very long back to the fulcrum/pivot whatever you want to call it will inherently be more accurate than something a few mill longer than the largest diameter wheel. Having a long jig also helps getting the fingers in.

 

Can I ask if your failed attempt was using plastic wheels and thin wires or "spider" arrangements down the back? I ask because that is where I came unstuck most often. I simply could not get a wire that would be thin enough to get trapped between the plastic hub and the axle and yet not shear off when pushing the wheel on. Even when I did manage it all too often I got a right wobble on. Taking the wheel off to correct it was not an option of course as you only get the one chance. The etched arrangements done by the EMGS and Brassmasters (I think) are better but still not easy and the resulting strip down the back is not pretty. Some people like TimV manage fine with them but I just can't get on with them. As long as there is a brass-centred wheel available then their is no competition for me. They are strong (no pinning of axles), wobble free, electrically sound, concentric etc. I would be the first to admit that they are not as pretty as say the best Ultrascales but I will always place function ahead of beauty. I think it was Peter Denny no less who said that if you can't see it from the baseboard edge then what was the point? Who am I to disagree?

 

Bryan

[mike morley]

My failure was not because of the wheels involved - plastic-centred Gibsons with EMGS etches - but the axles.

I found that a smear of epoxy so meagre I doubted its ability to do the job instead pumped out when the male and female halves of the axle were introduced to one another and despite my efforts to clean it up ended up gluing everything to everything else.

The final straw came when I found I had not only got excess epoxy everywhere but also insufficient epoxy between the two halves to insulate them from each other!

I was building an 0-4-0. Six axles assembled, only one of which was any good . . .

[Tickplan]

Which axles? EMGS do ready-made split axles and very reasonably priced they are too (i.e not worth the time and mess of making your own). You can buy them at EMGS exhibitions even if you are not a member. I also had reasonable success with the Branchlines ones and their natty perspex jig. However, I always thought that there was too much clearance with Branchlines, thereby necessitating a lot of araldite. On that subject I never liked the five minute stuff. It's not as strong as the original, is a bit stiffer (which might explain your problem) and of course started to go off as assembly got under way.

 

Bryan

[mike morley]

I have used EMGS ready-made axles ever since that fiasco!

I only attempted it in the first place because I was going to build a kit designed around 2mm driving axles - which the EMGS don't do - and thought I would practice with a set of eighth-inch axles first.   It involved the Branchlines jig, their bits and five-minute epoxy.

Another shortcoming of five-minute epoxy I've heard about recently is that it never quite hardens fully.

[Mike Waldron]

Another method I have used is to drill through a full length 1/8" silver steel rod, and use a 2mm rod of the same material to go right through the centre, with a plastic cube each end, into which two concentric holes were drilled - 1/8" and 2mm - which hold the two metal parts away from each other. The usual Araldite fills the cylindrical gap between the two.

Finally, you use a very narrow parting tool to cut through the outer tube to electrically separate the two sides, or two cut gaps to allow a gear-land in between.

 

Admittedly you need a lathe!

 

Mike

[garethashenden]

Another method I have used is to drill through a full length 1/8" silver steel rod, and use a 2mm rod of the same material to go right through the centre, with a plastic cube each end, into which two concentric holes were drilled - 1/8" and 2mm - which hold the two metal parts away from each other. The usual Araldite fills the cylindrical gap between the two.

Finally, you use a very narrow parting tool to cut through the outer tube to electrically separate the two sides, or two cut gaps to allow a gear-land in between.

 

Admittedly you need a lathe!

 

Mike

I've done this although I used tube from Eileen's instead of drilling the rod. I used a piecing saw to cut the gaps. No lathe here!

[Mike Waldron]

Yesterday I bought my third lot of cotton buds - Johnson's, Boots' and Tescos - none of them fit the tube!

They must have changed them. 

 

Mike

[Mike Waldron]

My failure was not because of the wheels involved - plastic-centred Gibsons with EMGS etches - but the axles.

I found that a smear of epoxy so meagre I doubted its ability to do the job instead pumped out when the male and female halves of the axle were introduced to one another and despite my efforts to clean it up ended up gluing everything to everything else.

The final straw came when I found I had not only got excess epoxy everywhere but also insufficient epoxy between the two halves to insulate them from each other!

I was building an 0-4-0. Six axles assembled, only one of which was any good . . .

You might find that air gets trapped inside the tube underneath the Araldite - in which case you have to wipe the glue around the sides with a cocktail stick or similar, so as to keep the 'airway' open and let it out as you put the Epoxy in.

 

Mike

[Horsetan]

Having read all of the above, I did wonder if there was any advantage - particularly with the Branchlines axles - to coating the mating surfaces with epoxy first, letting it all harden, and only then attempting to insert one into the other. My thinking was that doing it that way would reduce the risk of unset epoxy being pumped out, and you would be able to see whether all surfaces were properly coated.

 

Would there be a risk of one part going off-centre compared to the other?

[Tickplan]

 

Yesterday I bought my third lot of cotton buds - Johnson's, Boots' and Tescos - none of them fit the tube!

Mike: I doubt that they have changed them. My guess is that your tube is of the thick-walled variety. I have both (thick and thin) and can report that the cotton buds (minus of course the actual cotton buds!) only fit the thin walled. Can't remember where I got mine from - probably Eileen's. You could of course go along with your decapitated bud and ask them on the stand if they didn't mind you shoving it up em as Corporal Jones used to say!

 

Tickplan.

[Mike Waldron]

I got my tube from Eileen's Emporium - and I think they only stock one in stainless steel.

I could cut it into pieces and drill them out, but that rather defeats the object of speedy use of ready hollow tube.