Back from the summer holidays and a small gathering on Friday evening allowed for what are pretty much the final bits of brass to be put on the D16/3. First to go on were the front guard irons and then the brakes on the tender. I had some fun because of the earlier issues with the folding of the internal tender chassis which was slightly on the dink owing to the 1/4 etching rather than 1/2 etching of the components which made folding it up damn near impossible. in the end I had to enlarge some
Last night, while out of our little group, I fitted the brakes to the locomotive chassis . The etchings were fairly basic so I added a representation of the bolt holding the brake block on by drilling each brake block and soldering a length of .45 wire through the hole. Also, while the kit included a etching for the rigging which joined the brake hangers together, it didn't include anything to represent the pull rods from under the cab. I ended up using some scrap etch from the chassis to at lea
As requested a few more pictures of Fen End Pit.
The drag line is scratch built based on plans from a Ruston Bucyrus works manual I was given by a friend.
First up a view of the entrance to the works as a Simplex 40S arrives with a train of sand from the pit.
This is a view of the entire unloading end showing the tipping dock, unloading conveyor and the storage silos.
And finally a shot of the unloading hopper with a skip just tipped.
Hope you like them.
Da
Our 'Day of Railway Modelling' yesterday gave an opportunity for my D16/3 to drive up and down Pampisford. It took a bit of fiddling with insulation tape as the loco tender pickups initially were shorting on one side and then through to the locomotive via the tender drawbar and it was rather difficult to track down. The run also showed that I needed to adjust the pivot for the springing on the front driven axle as there was not quite enough weight on the rear (something I've adjusted tonight). I
A busy weekend of soldering has resulted in the bulk of the tender being put together. At this point I've found that the etchings for the tender in the PDK kit are a little rough. The half etching in particular is only about 1/4 of the way through the metal making the parts hard to cut from the waste, even harder to bend at right-angles and pretty useless where you have half etched detail. The sides shown in the previous entry had some .45mm wire soldered on as beading and then filed to a flat r
Over the weekend I finally fitted the motor and some pick-ups to the driving wheels. After an initial problem as I hadn't fastened together the High-Level gear-box with its extension and some insulation tape to avoid any shorts between the pick-ups and the foot-plate the locomotive now moves under its own power around the layout! The wheels actually stay on the track and the quartering and wheel fitting worked well so it is nice and smooth. The speed is about right too which looks as if I chose
Having finished soldering bits on to the loco body it was out with the glue to fasten on the boiler fittings, Westinghouse pump and lubricator.
The Westinghouse pump casting broke in half as I was trying to clean it up so the middle section was replaced with lengths of brass wire. The hole in the footplate for the pipework from the pump didn't match with the drawing or photographs so it got filled and re-drilled.
I had a slight 'Oh $h1t' moment when I looked at the plans and saw two snif
Over the last few months I've been working on a cunning plan to add interlocking to my lever frame. The frame itself is from the Shropshire and Herefordshire Area Group sold through the Scalefour stores. The frame is connected to a MERG CANACE3 circuit board so that each level generates a different event on the MERG CBUS. This means that the only thing coming out of the frame to the layout is the 12v and 0v power lines and the CANH and CANL data wires of the CAN bus.
This has been fitte
Another Friday night and I finally got the right wheels fitted into my bogie and then the bogie fitted to the loco. The key thing here was that I wanted to bogie to give some guidance to the loco and not just 'go along for the ride'. I was concerned that with my tight curves on the P4 roundy-roundy I would see an unreasonable amount of overhang unless the bogie helped 'pull the front of the loco round'.
First up is a picture of the underside of the footplate, you can see the rubbing plate fo
A Bank Holiday gave the perfect excuse for some more soldering, but I'm running out of bits to solder on the body now. I put on the pipes along either side of the valancing, complete with little joints. Also got on the lamp irons and buffers.
The chassis now fits, but for the wrong wheels in the pony truck.
Still left are the guard irons on the front bufferbeam and the various bits of frame underneath the footplate but I'm waiting on getting the pony truck right before I do thi
Last night, with the help of the Chief Mechanical Engineer of our little group, I got the wheels on the chassis of my D16/3. Once again the GW wheel press proved its worth in getting everything quartered though we had a bit of fun getting the first set on the axle as the holes in the wheels were particularly tight. So points to remember with Alan Gibson wheels:-
1) always make sure the rear boss on the wheel won't foul the counter sunk end of the crank pin, you often need to cut the plastic bac
I'll deal with the crisis of conscience first.
Friday night was spent looking long and hard at the loco body trying to work out if everything was square. The trouble with a curvy footplate is you have nothing solid to gauge anything else off, I can see why some manufacturers build the curved valancing into a fold-up square etch so you can have something flat to work on. After much soul searching I've decided that while there are a couple of bits which aren't exactly perfect the chance of get
Alan Gibson handrail knobs got used for their intended purpose over the weekend, i.e. holding handrails rather than 'continuous springy beams'.Trying to bend the handrail for the front of locomotives with a continuous handrail is always a pain. The large pipe down the right hand side was held in brackets made for thin brass strip and soldered through holes in the boiler.
Finally this evening I fitted the two footsteps on the curve of the valance. There are also two more tiny ones to go on th
A fair amount of fettling got the boiler to a decent fit around the splashers. I also enlarged and elongated the holes for the washout plugs, soldered a piece of scrap brass behind them and then drilled this with a hole into which a tiny length of nickel silver about .8mm square was soldered to form the bolt.
I adjusted the upper part of the frames to match the drawings and the boiler length by taking them off, re-drilling and positioning the handrails and then putting them back on agai
Friday night meant a meeting with friends and the handing over of a length of 22mm diameter brass tube freshly purchased from Eileen's Emporium. I'd decided fairly early on that I wanted to replace the rolled etch in the PDK kit with a length of tube and I think I've made the right choice. Although the etch was rolled the fact that it had a number of holes already etched in it when it was rolled had meant that the curve wasn't completely smooth, also as it was still about 5mm larger in diameter
Last night I spent an hour or so making up the cab floor and the splashers for the inside of the cab....
Then I looked at what I'd made and thought, hang on, how are a driver and a fireman meant to stand in there, let alone swing a shovel or reach a regulator. Then I realised that the splashers were of course made to clear an OO gauge back-to-back so were by necessity about 4mm closer together than they were meant to be according to the drawings I have. Unfortunately the only choice was
Having spent the best part of an hour making one splasher yesterday afternoon I finally found the best way to do it. A length of etch around 40mm long by 4mm wide with a half etched edge along one of the long sides needed to be bent around the curved plate for the side of the splasher. This was proving 'challenging' and nearly as much fun as the other job of the day, applying new mastic to the side of the bath! I finally hit on the solution which was to clamp the curved side etch onto a smooth
One of best things about modeling with a group of friends on a Friday night is help in the area of quality control. There are those times when you have worked so long on something that you convince yourself it looks ok but you still aren't sure if you are ultimately just kidding yourself and in the end it isn't quite good enough. On these occasions a second pair of eyes and a word of encouragement or even confirmation that 'no it isn't quite right yet' makes all the difference. I'm lucky that I
A productive day, first up the bogie for the D16/3. I've not made a bogie for loco before so took a look at the CLAG website for ideas. The PDK Kit has a fold up bogie etch and two 'strengthening' pieces (according the instructions) which are actually the equalizing beams (I think). I elongated the holes on the main bogie etch and then used handrail knobs and spring steel wire to spring the equalizing beams off them. The result can be seen here, fitted temporarily with some wagon wheels just to
After an all to brief week in the Lakes (traveling north via Scaleforum North in Wakefield, obviously) I returned to work and the workbench this week.
First task was to build a combined keeper plate and spring assembly for the D16/3 chassis. Having cut the cosmetic springs off the bottom of the frames as I was fitting the hornguides I've now used some strips of nickel silver and some extra frame spaces to make a keeper plate that stops the axles falling out, it will ultimately be held on to
The frames have got soldered together and then I put together the coupling rods. These went together very easily, being made of two thicknesses of etch. As someone who doesn't built enough locos to justify a really expensive jig I'm doing this the old fashioned way. Using the coupling rods to position the horn blocks I've now got these soldered in. Each of the bearings has been paired to a horn block and it is important to mark each pair so you can match them together.
At the moment thi
I've been a bit busy fiddling with dodgy electronics recently but haven't produced anything worth adding to the blog (yet). However I have also found time to build another Dave Bradwell brake van chassis so thought folks might like to see a picture. On the left is the completed one from last year, on the right the one I've just finished. I decided to do a slightly different version of van, this time with the shortened foot boards. These kits really are enjoyable to put together, a bit fiddly in
It is so much easier to design a model based on a prototype than to try and work in a vacuum. In this case I was lucky enough to have a friend take a few pictures of various suitable station buildings which I could try and base Empire Basin station on. I've spent a happy few hours counting brick course and have tried to draw up the proposal in TurboCAD. I've stuck pretty much with the original just altered the window sizes very slightly to fit the pile of Brassmasters/ Scalescenes etches I have.
Yesterday evening was spent rewheeling my Christmas present of a Bachmann Cravens DMU to P4. Santa Claus had also provided a set of wheels from Branchlines. These are stub axles are a direct replacement for the wheels for the OO wheels. The key thing is to get the new stub axles parallel and here meeting with friends in the possession of GW Models wheel press is an excellent idea.
The hardest bit is getting the motor bogie off and this is best done with small screwdriver on the inside end of
Or in other words all 16 ton mineral wagons might look the same at first but they are not all equal.
In this case we have a slope sided 16 ton mineral from Parkside , a standard 16 ton with morton brakes from Airfix and finally on the right a fitted 16 ton with the longer wheel base, tie rods between the W-irons and a somewhat rusty bauxite livery.
All I have to do is remember to couple the fitted wagon next to the locomotive to increase the brake force available.
David
