Some progress this week; it’s beginning to look a bit like a J10:
The running plate has now received the cab, and with the saddle and the spectacle plate now fixed to the running plate, it is possible to mount the boiler/smokebox/firebox unit in its final position.
For the csb system to work, the body must have a fair weight. The calculations assumed a final weight of 200 grams. Accordingly a ballast weight of 2mm lead sheet was rolled and this is fixed to two tu
What a frustrating week!
One of the good things about modelling LNER locomotives is the ready availability of reliable information. Who really needs more information than is available from the small grouping of:
RCTS Volumes –“Locomotives of the LNER”;
“Yeadon’s Register of LNER Locomotives”, and
Isinglass Drawings; ?
As far as I’m concerned, if it ain’t in one or other, or all of those, then you don’t need to know!!!!!
This week I’ve found out how very useful it is t
Not a lot has been achieved since the last posting as Margaret & I have again been off for a few nights bed and breakfast. But the awkwardly shaped running plate is complete.
I referred last time to this causing me some problem. Were this a total scratch-build rather than a scratch-build using some purchased parts, the top edge of the main frames would have been a straight line. Or, if such was not possible or sensible, then the outer ends of the frame top edge would have been at the sam
Some progress with the J10 has been made but first I’d like to show you a couple of posed shots of the EM gauge Crab. They are same pose but differing angles and the layout is ‘Bowtons Yard’ – so we have an EM loco standing on S4 track!
This shot shows the completed coupling rods of the J10, one set on ‘rod-axles’ in the chassis assembly jig, where both sets were assembled, and one on similar axle jigs in the chassis.
Here the right hand (colour coded red) rods are sho
I have to say sorry yet again for delay in posting; this time it’s down to illness, - I’ve been hammering the NHS stock of medication and doctors time! However I’m now in recovery mode and getting some time in ‘The Tank’.
The J10 is now at the frame assembly stage but getting to grips with all the gubbins associated with a CSB chassis, and a split-frame one to boot, has tested not only the little grey cells but also the deteriorating hand-eye coordination.
For years now, I have started on a ch
Sorry folks, very little has been happening at Honley Tank, with the possible exception of preparing the five brake vans, the K3 & the ‘Crab’ for entering the competition at Manchester show.
What with involvement with Expo EM North at Slaithwaite taking up a long weekend and then Manchester MRS’s ‘do’ this coming weekend, there’s been little time left for actual modelling.
Actually, as I write, I’m only hoping to be at the MMRS show. A harsh dose of sinusitis has had me laid-up for best pa
Posh words? Techno waffle?
Well yes perhaps, but they are really only technical words, each describing a very simple engineering process.
In my last post I referred to “forging” the lamp brackets from 0.45mm diameter brass wire. The straight brass wire we get from people like that friendly Eileen person is technically called “hard drawn” and that simply gives an indication of how it’s made. But it does mean that it is “hard” which word in this application means no more than it is not too easy
The five brake vans are almost ready for painting; just the Alex Jackson couplings to fit.
These will be soldered to a ‘flat-U’ brass bracket held to the vehicle by the central 8BA screw that holds the three main sections together. This will allow them to be removed easily when ever the vehicles are working away from home on layouts that use three-links rather than Alex’ coupling.
To ensure that the correct couplings go back in the correct position on the correct wagon when they get home again
Sorry I’ve not posted recently but family visits have taken priority.
Not only that but the boredom caused by my decision to block-build five brake vans has lowered my normal desire to be in the workshop; therefore, not much progress.
The “fiddly bits” of the title are the brake assemblies for these brake vans. I think I said earlier that the BR built version of the Toad Ds carried totally different brakes to those built by the LNER; very long brake shoes for the latter but double shoes for
LNER Toad Ds had a lot of handrails and the BR built version had even more. On the model, each handrail requires two holes. There was not a small number of lamp brackets either, an absolute minimum of six in early days and I lost count for the BR version – (I’m only building one of those so I will count again when I get round to detailing it)
Why do I know there are so many holes? – because I’ve been drilling the little blighters! And fitting the handrails. Each vehicle has at
My mentors taught me to build locos with split axle current collection and to spring those axles downwards. Its simple model engineering and is, in my view at least, easier than beams all over the place. So perhaps I can be said to be totally in favour of springing, certainly for locos.
Building locos is where I get the most pleasure and rolling stock tends to be “one of those things you need but……â€
None the less, as now, I occasionally go off into a rolling stock buil
A couple of weeks ago Honley Tank was visited by friends from the Bodger's Brow team and I had all three layouts up and running; that's Birch Vale & Bowton's Yard, which are S4 track & wheel standards, and Wheegram Sidings which is EM.
This quickly threw up the fact that I had insufficient brake vans to run all three at the same time, particularly so for the S4 layouts.
So as a rest from that awkward Crab conversion, I decided on a mass production of LNER style brake vans.
The Goons sang about walking backwards for Christmas!
That's how I feel about my progress with the Crab conversion; not exactly backward but pretty well stationary over this last few days.
I have it running very near as well as I find acceptable - in forward gear! - but swing it in to reverse and the thing's as lumpy as mother-in-laws gravy.
Normally I would blame poor relation between wheel centres and coupling rod holes, and/or, bad quartering of the wheels.
It can be none of t
Last week I did not report how I was converting the Bachy Crab, because I had done no trial running. I'm afraid that is still the case! I've just left the workshop in frustration after dropping so many clangers that todays progress has been negligible.
So this week's input to the blog that started so as to report progress on a new EM layout, will be a series of photos of 'Bowtons Yard'. This is a freelance S4 layout which is based on distorting the history of John Summers & Sons, t
This week Honley Tank had a day’s visit of two of the ‘Bodgers Brow’ group, Arnold and Arthur, who had a good long shunting session on ‘Wheegram Sidings’ and happily for me, it performed better than I expected, even though that red button problem on the mimic (see an earlier post), did cause one or two hiccups!
I think the “S4†and the DCC perhaps frightened them away from ‘Birch Vale’ and from ‘Bowton’s Yard’ because neither had a shunt on those two.
After
Well the K3 went over to Lincolnshire and had a few miles running in on ‘Retford’, with thanks to Mr. Jackson. I was very pleased that it performed near perfectly; at least it ran smoothly and without derailment. However this simply proves that my first attempts at scratch-building EM track were far from good enough, because the near perfect running on ‘Retford’ compares with no better than ‘just about acceptable running’ on ‘Wheegram Sidings’!
The other problem shown up on
Our Grand-daughter’s 18th birthday party, plus a few days bed & breakfasting in North Yorkshire means less modelling than usual has been achieved in the last couple of weeks.
A few hours have been spent test-running and tweaking the K3 conversion. Two problems caused less than the quality of running I aim for.
The first is the care needed in adjusting the Bachmann scraper pick-ups to reach out to the new gauge but also run on the rear of the steel tyre of the Gibson wheels.
B
The K3 conversion is complete. At least the engineering bit is complete; the re-numbering and early BR totem, plus a bit of weathering, remains to be done.
Although I've done a fair bit of lathe work on this one, I think it can be described as an easy conversion for any one willing to buy and assemble a new set of valve gear and a set of Gibson wheels. I wasn't!
Years ago, just after Bachmann introduced the W-D, I converted one of those, and reported back that it was not such an easy con
For those who viewed my last input prior to this morning I've tidied up the picture/word relationship now so you may like a second viewing.
There have been two articles about 'Birch Vale' published in the model press and those with access to a magazine archive may wish to read an article by Maurice Daniels in Railway Modeller, May 1968 and one by a certain D.Booth in British Railway Modelling, April 2000.
Enjoy.
I promised some pics. of my layout ˜Birch Vale' so here is a selection. First, can I say that ˜Birch Vale' is getting rather long in the tooth! It was first exhibited way back in 1968 having been built by Maurice Daniels in OO gauge. When Maurice moved house he could no longer house his layout and he put it in my keeping in order that it should not be destroyed. With Maurice's agreement I changed the track to P4 and later to S4, slightly extended the scenic section and added more complete hidden
I really should put something in this blogg rather more frequently than monthly!
Trouble is that I started the blogg so as to report progress with my venture into EM and the building of a super-light-weight layout, but that venture is a very small part of my hobby activities and over the last few weeks EM modelling has been low on the list of those activities. I have however started on converting a Bachmann K3 to EM.
My idea was to limit EM to converting RTR locos and stock ,but to continue sc
It's over a month since I last posted on here so I should perhaps give an update.
The new layout, first referred to in "EM at Honley Tank", has been in store since I thought I had solved my servo problems.
Partly this is because spring time re-awakens the garden so that the greenhouse needs cleaning and tidying, seeds need sowing to propagators, lawns need mowing etc.etc.; - all jobs I enjoy almost as much as modelling, (but I may be telling lies!).
Partly too, this has been because
As comment on my 8 March input under “Servo Motors as Point Operatorsâ€, ‘Penlan’, referred to problems of setting his system.
While ‘Penlan’ described his problem as related to changes in his mechanical linkage system due to the changeable conditions we meet under exhibition conditions, I considered that the problems I met were caused more by the servo being pulled from its true set position by the drag of the point tie bar.
Certainly I had more trouble with the double slip w
Some notes about the servos.
Lack of experience in whatever area of expertise seems always to introduce problems of gigantic proportions until new experience proves such problems to be non-existent really. This was certainly true of my introduction to these servo thingies!
The electronic kits and instructions produced by MERG are so well designed that the part that I had originally been concerned about tackling, - soldering the tiny electronic components, - offered absolutely no prob
Way back in November I referred to my inability to correctly set the double slip without the aid of an illuminated mimic diagram and that I had accordingly decided that the point control must be electrical because my hand operated point units would not readily adapt to driving another limit switch to feed the mimic lamps.
My S4 layout, 'Bowton's Yard' uses Tortoise point operators and these offer a simple circuit to light up LEDs to show the point setting. However 'Wheegram Sidings' is a
