It occurred to me yesterday that it had been a while since I visited RMWeb, "Oh, it must be a few weeks now..." I said to myself. However, logging on to view the fascinating, entertaining and sometimes stunningly inspirational projects on show I was utterly shocked to discover that it's been many months and that my last blog entry was before Christmas last year! What the heck have I been doing?
Thankfully the answer is quite a lot really and therefore an update on the Bury 0-4-0 is a
For some time now I have been working on a 0-4-0 Bury goods locomotive in 4mm scale for my EM gauge London & Birmingham Railway project.
Today I managed to apply the black undercoat and try a loose assembly. Although these engines were green (like the wheels) I have to admit it looks quite fetching in black.
The model is built entirely from scratch, powered by a Portescap motor inside the boiler through a scratch built gearbox. The wheels are cast from 3
A little progress today, trying to keep out of the heat! Having now milled out the copper firebox to make space for the gearbox, at least nearly, (I still need to take a bit more out before it fits properly), I cut and soldered in place the boiler bands. These were cut from thin brass sheet, bent to shape and tacked in place.
The little turned brass lock-up safety valve cover was then soldered on after drilling an appropriate hole towards the front of the boiler. These little covered
A two week break has given me time to ponder a couple of tricky areas regarding the Bury goods and this weekend has seen some progress, the most obvious being the smokebox and boiler.
I toyed with the idea of producing the smokebox as one cast lump to provide a bit of tractive weight and to balance the weight of the turned copper firebox. However, since this is a one-off scratch build I felt that might be a waste of mould space and also I was too impatient to go through that process
Having tackled the frames and being happy with those, I turned my attention to the guts that are hopefully going to make this wee beestie move. A rummage through the ‘tray of delights’ resulted in a selection of gears as follows: one 38:1 worm and pinion (Ultrascale), one 10t spur and two 20t spurs (Branchlines). The first of these is just an idler, the second will be the fixed drive gear on the axle.
Today’s job was to drill and cut two gearbox sides ensuring everything was in t
This scratch build is something I have been wanting to do for years but have never quite plucked up the courage.
There are several 'sticking points' in modelling a bar framed Bury loco, the obvious one being the distinctive wheels. All Bury locos had them so unless you get those right you might as well not bother with the rest. Thankfully, a friend very kindly drew some up and 3D printed the centres to be fitted into Gibson tyres of the appropriate diameter. However, I found the prin
