Kelvinbank, a Caledonian Railway project.

@jwealleans recently posted a link to his method of making tender flares:

Not something I've actually tried, I'm afraid.

My understanding is soldering gold is not recommended as it rots it?

Edited May 19, 2020 by Northroader

Thats pretty much how I do it compound, bit of old rubber sheet from something rubbery.  Old wellies or something. The straight bits are ok, the corners are the fiddly bit.

 

The gold contacts are I think gold plated onto something and then bonded to a brass Northroader. I solder the wire to the other side of the brass.  Its something I have tried on the last few builds, but if it does cause problems longer term I'll have to go back to pb strip. Worth a try, never know til you try it. 

It's allways nice to see some chassis compensation done in the Sharman tradition. I've not thought of using the gold contacts of relays for pickup contacts before, so I'll definitely give that a try. Think I must have a fettish for brass and nickel silver, looks really nice.

That is a work of art.

Great handbrake! It is somehow exactly what I would expect of the CR 

Fabulous. So much more like engineering than mine!

Just a thought - having gone to the trouble of putting a piece of double sided pcb material in there, did you not consider making it "structural" and "splitting" the frames, then you wouldn't have needed to bother with the pickups?

It's possible Richard, but that would mean using a conductive wheel ( special order ! ) and a split axle with an insulating muff. Then you have the muff bearing on the compensation beam, so the muff would need to be accurately sleeved in something hard like tufnol. I have in the past made conducting wheels by making a ----O shaped brass bit and soldering it to the rim of the wheel with the O bit lightly against the face of the bearing, but that means you have to be careful about sideplay, especially in a small tender like that. Works ok on a 4 wheeled loco bogie, but needs careful setup so that you can pick up from the sides of the bogie, have a pivot and get the compensation beam  to work nicely. 

 

I am watching the way the 2mm fs folk make split frame chassis, with side rather than central compensating beams. Might have a go one of these days. 

26 minutes ago, Dave John said:

I am watching the way the 2mm fs folk make split frame chassis, with side rather than central compensating beams. Might have a go one of these days.

A technique commonly used in Split-frame Scale:

 

Crossbeam from PCB:

2 hours ago, Regularity said:

A technique commonly used in Split-frame Scale:

 

Hi Regularity, I notice from your images that the axles have insulation close to each end, do you know what material is used for this ?. I have tried styrene in the past, but the fit becomes loose very quickly,  thought about trying acetal or nylon but not got round to that yet.

 

Regards Pete

3 hours ago, snitzl said:

 

Hi Regularity, I notice from your images that the axles have insulation close to each end, do you know what material is used for this ?. I have tried styrene in the past, but the fit becomes loose very quickly,  thought about trying acetal or nylon but not got round to that yet.

 

Regards Pete

That’s fabric, not paper, grade Tufnol, force-fitted in a Myford.