Verne's Tower - Flying Machine.
As part of Fun Town, I was thinking of modelling a hot air balloon that revolved around the large tower, but in the previous blog on Mike Sharmans vertical boiler steam traverser, Mikkel commented that the traverser was very much in the stye of Jules Verne in appearance. This got me thinking about maybe modelling the hot balloon baised on something Jules Verne might have designed, a web search was done and after browsing through many images a compl
Fun Town - Ice Cream Wagon MKII : Continuing with the crazy idea of building a few animated wagon's that would run on DCC for Fun Town's market.
Determined to have an animated figure in this build, so I went for a tea drinking ice cream seller that also rotated his head as he eyed up potential customers. Things didn't turn out quite as expected, but the final result aint to bad.
Thanks for Looking............
I've been working on a small 0:4:0 shunting locomotive for Fun Town's market stall's. I decided early on to design a new locomotive drawing inspiration from the transverse cylinder engine "Albion" and a small shunting loco De Winton. To make things even more interesting, the loco would be operated with DCC and include a DCC uncoupler with an animated operator and also, other as yet undetermined animations to be added as the project progressed. The project starts with a compensating chassis machi
Decided to cover this topic in a little more depth and detail after visiting one of my earlier blogs for some information, only to find it totally lacking in regards to the electric's and programming details for Arduino. Arduino is not something I work with everyday, the last time I tinkered was some 6 years ago in blog 'Funtown Micro Layout - Part 1', so this blog serves as a reminder to myself, for the next time I tinker. So began a re-investigation, what files did I use for programming previ
Fun Town - Ice Cream Wagon.
Had this crazy idea about building a few animated wagon's that would run on DCC for Fun Town's market. The original thought's were to add movement to the 4mm scale humanoids that would occupy these stationary wagons, maybe a rotating head, guy serving ice cream, someone waving, rotating cog's / gears, steam cylinder's, and roof fan's. The animated wagon's would be similar in size to the market stall wagon's and form part of the same train. With very little pre p
Here's a few images following the construction of a 'Replenish Wagon' for 'Fun Town', this wagon will supply good's to the market stall wagon's parked outside both 'The Mart' and by the 'Cattle Dock' area. The wagon carries it's goods in tray's that match those used on the market stall wagon's. Construction of the model is very similar to the market stall wagon's which have a split frame live chassis for DCC led lighting. Unlike the 'Market Stall Wagon's', care was taken to make sure that short
I've been doing a little more work on 'De Snitzlton', a small 0:4:0 shunting locomotive for Fun Town's market stall's. This blog covers the scratch building of the wheels, connecting rods, gearbox modifications, axles, mechanical parts for the steam assisted uncoupler and the animated and non animated 4mm scale figures. I probably got to carried away a little with one figure that seemed like a good idea at the time, but after a period of calm / settling down, this figure was destined for the lay
Part 2 continues modelling of the market stall wagons for Fun Town.
If you've already read part 1 of Market Stall Wagons, then please skip past this intro text to the images below.
Searching the web for market stalls that actually ran on tracks and existed in our historic past proved fruitless, I've no doubt that when this blog get's published on rmweb, dozens of examples will turn up, if so, they might inspire further models. The type of market stall required for Fu
Modelling the Market Stall wagons for Fun Town.
Searching the web for market stalls that actually ran on tracks and existed in our historic past proved fruitless, I've no doubt that when this blog get's published on rmweb, dozens of examples will turn up, if so, they might inspire further models. The type of market stall required for Fun Town did exist as a road type vehicle and was available in model form as a plastic kit by Wills, therefore the Will's model was used as a dimensi
Fun Town - Sharmans Traverser.
Mike Sharmans vertical boiler steam traverser appears briefly on a Railscene 2 video that features one of Mike's earliest multigauge layouts with some of the most unusual locomotives, rail stock and features history has ever produced. I remember reading in one of the monthly magazines that lack of information would not prevent Mike from a loco build if one took his fancy, building a scale model from a single photograph was quite acceptable to him so
Fun Town - Monorail Part 2.
In this, part 2 of the monorail tram design and development, a lot of effort has been put into reliable running and how it was or was not acheived. A decision was made in part 1 of the design, to keep areas of development that didn't work out in the blog, this was so that we can see how the final design was arrived at. Normally, when ideas don't work out, I'll delete all the unwanted material, go back a few pages and hide all evidence to give the impressi
Follow the development of a monorail for Fun Town in this part 1,
Is it a bird, is it a plane, or is it just Snitzl Town's overhead tram.
To be honest, didn't know whether to call this project an overhead train, engine or tram, technically its not yet a train, so I opted for tram. It's actually been eight months since my last blog, the main reason being that development of this overhead tram system has had a few major setbacks that caused me to take a three month break to sort o
Fun Town Micro Layout - Part II.
Here's part 2 of a small fun type layout which will also be my first venture into DCC. The main feature of part 2 of Fun Town Micro Layout has been the construction of wrought iron railings from 10 thou brass sheet and 0.5mm dia brass wire. Never tried this before, so there was a little learning curve in the initial satges as the process developed. Before starting the job, I purchased 20 x 0.5mm dia twist drills from the bay, expecting to break qu
Fun Town Micro Layout - Part 1.
Here's the humble beginnings of a small fun type layout which will also be my first venture into DCC. The layout will eventually include led lighting, traverser, animated room interiors, animated figures, overhead transportation and a market train that will consist of an engine and market stalls ( running on rails of course ).
Snitzl
Brief Prototype History for the T14.
The LSWR Class T14 was a class of ten 4-6-0 locomotives designed by Dugald Drummond for express passenger service for London & South Western Railway, built at Eastleigh between 1911 and 1912. The T14 was not one of Drummonds better loco designs, they suffered from heavy coal and water consumption and the axle boxes ran extremely hot. Later modifications included removal of the paddlebox type splashers, raising the footplate and forced lubri
Modifications and detailing on Neilson & Co 0:4:0 Coffee Pot.
After reading other modellers blogs, its seems that quite a few of us are plaqued with infinished projects syndrome, with incomplete models littering our shelfs. In my case, I had scratchbuilt 16 locos and 5 remained unfinished, so a decision was made to try and get some of them transferred to the done section. This scratchbuilt model of the coffeepot was started some 30 years ago, but because of its racehorse like
Adding details to the chassis including springes, valves and lots more.
History.
Joseph Beattie was one of the old school locomotive designers who believed in a low centre of gravity for his locos. Boiler centre line was kept naturally low, while well tanks between the frames were employed rather than the higher side or saddle tanks. An whole series of boilers and smokebox's were designed for burning coal instead of coke. The last six and the Nine Elms locomotives had square
Here's a little design and development work on Flexichas Motor Bogies.
Been thinking for quite some time about modelling a couple of motor bogies with Sharman type suspension and although the idea I have in mind is new to me, I wouldn't be overly surprised if the idea had already been done. Some years ago, scale flange wheels were fitted to all snitzl rolling stock, which in turn made all of the fixed chassis locos unreliable due to derailing. Presently, with the exception of tw
This project is to try and do as much as possible to finish off an L.S.W.R. class F9 4:2:4T.
Brief Prototype History for the Bug.
The bug was Dugald Drummonds inspection loco built by L.S.W.R. works at Nine Elms and completed in april of 1899, numbered 733. Original livery for the loco was apple green edged with chocolate with a black line edged either side by white. The saloon was painted dark green / brown with the upper recessed panels in salmon pink, lining for the saloon
Scratchbuilt Em to P4 conversion with wheel rim turning for this L.S.W.R. class B4 Dock Tank.
This second installment of Snitzl Works section covers the conversion of a scratchbuilt Adams B4 in EM gauge to P4. The original model was built way back in the early 1980's to standard gauge and a few years later converted to EM, so its taken a while to build up enough enthusiasm to do this final conversion.
I needed a Tenshodo type 14:1 worm and wheel for the current project I'm working on. The Tenshodo's were about the right size and would probably do the job, but a preference for metal gears prompted this sub project. The one thing that this blog demonstrates besides novice gear making, is how much time can be spent making side tracked components before work can begin on the job in hand. Now that the gears are complete, changes have been made in the main project that may render these gears as unr
Here's a couple of methods you can use for making replacement coupling rods.
Its not unusual when scratchbuilding a new loco chassis to make the rods first and use them as a jig to drill axle bearings holes or holes for axle bushes, but there are times when there's a need to make replacement rods. Here are a couple of methods that may be of use. The first method is the simplest, but requires the use of either a milling machine or compound slide mounted on a bench drill. For those t
Geabox Madness illustrates the construction of different gearbox types.
How many modellers do you know that make a closed gearbox for an Adams B4 only to find that the motor intended for use with the gearbox has packed in, a modification is made to the gearbox to later find that the unit will not fit in the intended B4 without surgery to the boiler, a start is then made on a cradle type gearbox only to find the same, the end solution on the B4 can be viewed in another blog.
Ever wanted to make your own worm and gear wheel ?.
Here's how to make a simple 30:1 worm and gear along with a home made gear cutter, both lathe and milling machine were used in the process.
Snitzl.
Brief introduction and Wheel Quartering Jigs .
Snitzl Works blog will illustrate and describe my efforts into modifications and scratchbuilding of rolling stock / locomotives along with all the sub assemblies / components such as gearbox's, gears, worms, wheels, motor bogies, wheel quartering jigs and will also include all the trials and tribulations that can sometimes occur along the way, so perhaps this blog should be a guide on how not to modify and scratchbuild locomotives. I
