Slow progress continues with the bogie project, although the end of the first one is in sight, and as can be seen from the background of the pics below, the second is coming on quite nicely. It's taken me a little while to work out what I was going to do with current collection, but have settled on a fairly simple setup that picks up from 4 wheels on each bogie. I may add pick-ups to the centre axles at a later stage, but figured I'd try without to begin with, as it's easier!

This is the final design of pick-up:

It consists of an 11mm long piece of phosphor bronze strip, with a contact pad of brass soldered to one end. I've done this as I've read about phosphor bronze causing pitting on steel wheels if used in direct contact, the brass should alleviate this problem. For the first two I did, the strip is then folded in two, about 2/3rds of the way along. The second axle set was folded in half, which seems to work a little better.

The collector arm is now a bit springy, helping to keep it in contact with the wheel, and is soldered to a piece of 0.7mm nickel silver wire, for strength. This, in turn, is soldered onto an L shaped bit of brass, soldered to the front face of a bit of copperclad paxolin. The whole assembly is glued on to the cross member of the bogie frame, as below.

They're proving to be quite effective, although they haven't been tested on a track yet, I've tested the continuity using a multimeter and all is working as it should. They appear quite unobtrusive now and should be even harder to spot once painted. I was a bit worried with putting them on the outer edges of the bogies, but I think I've got away with it....

There's not much more to do to this one now, although I need to cast some new brake gear for it. The kit includes lost wax cast brake shoes, which do sit very close to the wheels once assembled. With the kit, as designed, this isn't a problem as the metal parts fit into the resin bogie moulding. Unfortunately this is not going to work with my etched chassis as there will be a serious risk of short circuits through the bogie frames, so I'm going to make a copy of the kit parts in resin. I have used the kit parts on the outer mounts though, as these mount to the resin frames.

It's all looking rather crowded now, and that's before the rest of the brake gear has gone in!