ScottW

Continuing on with some unfinished wagons: Here is one of the mineral wagons that I was building in my last post. And here are two North British Railway open wagons that were started back on page 3 of this thread.

@Lacathedrale The height of your pivot will depend on the material you are using. For a simple beam compensated system with fixed axle the compensating beam is commonly made from 1/16" rod and the pivot beam from 1/16" ID tube. To determine the centre point of your pivot you need to measure up from the wheel centre line the distance equal to half the axle diameter+the diameter of the compensating beam+half the diameter of the tube used for the pivot beam. Positioning the pivot equidistant between two axles is probably the most common and simplist way to build a compensated chassis. Although you can, depending on which two axles you are positioning the beam over, position the pivot closer to either the leading or trailing axle which then puts more weight on the axle. It is believed that this gives better running but I must admit I haven't tried it. I have built a locomotive that incorportated beam compensation, the rear axle is fixed with the pivot postioned equidistant between the leading and centre axle and it runs perfectly well.

Until you actually start on a chassis you are unlikly to ever find the simplest solution. There is no 'one size fits all'. What works for one person may not necessary work for another. Just because Simon prefers to use compensation (torsion bars) doesn't mean that it will work for you. I know a number of modellers that swear by CSB's, on the other hand I know others who don't get on with CSB's and prefer compensation. My first S Scale locomotive incorporated simple beam compensation acting on the middle and leading axles with the rear axle fixed. I have subsequently built a locomotive incoporating CSB's but I'm now swaying towards full compensation as per Simon's locomotive. If you feel a CSB chassis looks relatively simple to produce then do it. If it doesn't work out then try compensation. Only then will you find the simplist solution that suits you.

Stating the blindingly obvious but a scratchbuilt chassis doesn't come with 'a set of instructions'. The builder is required to design his own chassis which will more than likly be based on one of several design concepts eg compensation, individualy sprung, CSB's etc, etc. These variuos concepts have been written up in a number of books, articles and on-line threads as Simon previously stated. I came to S Scale from 4mm and still use the same techniques and design concepts in S Scale as I did in 4mm. Sometimes I still use the same 4mm products. Bearing that in mind, one option may be to build a chassis based on a suitable 4mm chassis kit? Wizard Models produce a chassis kit for a 4mm scale Terrier, download the instruction sheet from Wizard's website then produce the same parts using a suitable Terrier drawing and follow the instructions to produce a running chassis.

I was wondering if the 3D printed interiors could be used, possibly with some modification by the builder, for other makes and types of coaches? Scott

Three months have passed since my last post. Drawn away by the nicer weather progress on the mineral wagons has been slow going, but I have managed to finaly finish the bodies.

Superb account and a lovely build. I'll look forward to seeing the finished article. Scott

Prompted by Timber's comment here are some shots of the progress made on my batch of mineral wagons. I did intend posting regular updates but kept getting sidetracked. Anyway, as you can see they are beginning to look more wagon like.

A number of years ago, when the new S Scale rail was first produced, I made up a small panel of straight track using code 87 rail and 4mm scale chairs. I made the panel to see if the 4mm chairs could be used with the code 87 rail as my chosen prototype used four bolt chairs, which is not available in S Scale. I didn’t experience any problem threading the chairs on the rail and the final outcome was more than acceptable. I am intending on using the 4mm scale chairs when I eventually get around to track building.

Here are some pictures of the 0-6-0ST Trevor made. As pointed out, only the centre axle has both inner and outer axle boxes. The outer axle boxes were made from Tufnol and you can see from the pictures that the compensating beam acts on the outer axle boxes but secured to the outside of the inner frames.

Currently manufacturing some door hinges for my latest batch of wagons. I'm finding it to be one of those laborious tasks that drag on a bit, confounded by the fact I have ten sides to do. Five down, five to go.

@Rosedale I will be interested to see how you tackle these rocking solebars. The North British and Caledonian Railway had both tank & hopper wagons which sat on open frames. In the past I have pondered how best to compensate such wagons whilst retaining the openess of the frames. I must admit I hadn't considered a rocking solebar.

I continue to be impressed with the latest resin 3D printers, the level of detail produced is superb. Are you doing the whole wagon or just the hopper?

Over the weekend I had a break from wagon building and did a bit of layout planning instead. The design has been bubbling away for a while now and I've got it far enough to allow me to start thinking about the best way to build and support the baseboards. Here is the picture of the Templot plan printed out at a scale of 2"/ft. The design is based on Bonnybridge Central which saw running powers by both the North British and Caledonian railway. It is designed as a 21' x 11' roundy-roundy, not being long enough to allow for a fan of sidings in the fiddle yard I've had to incorporate two sector tables instead, one to simulate the line to Kilsyth and the other, the line to Bonnywater Junction.

I’ve just come across your Blog. Superb modelling, and the Highland Railway is an added bonus.

The wagon works are in full swing with a batch of five dumb buffered mineral wagons.

Going back to the very first post in this thread I put up a picture of two wagons currently being worked on at the time. Well, after a year and a half, here they are finally finished.

Just out from the paintshop, a North Brithish Railway mineral wagon to Dia. 1.

Thanks for the comments, guys. This wagon was in fact one of four wagons going through the paintshop. I'll post pictures of the other three over the coming days, once I've finished tiddlying them up. I'll probably post the pictures over in the S Scale Workbench thread rather than here.

To bring some closure to this thread here are some final pictures of the completed wagon. Unfortunately due to the bad light today the pictures are not as clear as I would have liked. I do hope these pictures highlight the advantages of building your own stock from scratch.

Looks superb, thank you for sharing.

They're not!!! Over the years I have been getting distracted by other projects. That said, I am having thoughts on continuing again with the Caley 4-4-0T, I just wanted to get a few wagon projects out the way first. Also, I'm keeping my ear to the ground waiting to see what @flubrush does, he had made a few noises that he might produce some prototype wheels for the Caley 439 class. Scott

As far as I am aware there is no 'one size fits all' method. Using the theory behind each of the various concepts I believe people tackle the practicalites based on their own ideas and abilities. After all, what works for one person might not necessary work for another. It might be worth posting the question in the Kitbuilding & Scratchbuilding section to gather ideas on how other people have tackled compensating/springing a 4-4-0/0-4-4 chassis? Scott

I'm not in a position to say if individually sprung hornblocks are any better than a pivoting frame or even equalising beams for that matter. The only experience I have of building a 4-4-0/0-4-4 chassis is what I posted above. I expect any of the methods mentioned will do the job and the decision to adopt one particular method will come down to the indivduals prefrence. Before starting the NBR 4-4-0T I did consider the method described on the CLAG website but felt it was a bit over engineered. I opted for the Exactoscale sprung hormblocks as I felt it was fairly simple to set-up and I liked the idea of soldering the hornblocks to the outside of the frames to represent the external axleboxes. Scott

I have two unfinished chassis' on my shelf waiting to be finished, both of which I am ashamed to say were started a long time ago. One is for an NBR 4-4-0T and the other a CR 0-4-4T. With regards to the NBR 4-4-0T, it was my intention to have the loco fully sprung. The main driving wheels are sprung with CSB's whilst the bogie wheels are individually sprung using Exactoscale sprung hornblocks. The Exactoscale sprung hornblocks are soldered onto the outside of the bogie frames so that they represent the external axleboxes fitted to this type of locomotive. I wasn't intending on fitting a spring between the chassis and the bogie, instead I was planning on installing a metal spacer, made from brass rod, so that the weight at the front of the loco would act downwards on the bogie. I also wasn't going to cut any slot in the bogie pivot as the leading axle has about 0.5mm of play each side of the chassis which I'm hoping will be enough for it to traverse most reasonably sized curves. Fortunately the prototype does have quite a small wheels base. The CR 4-4-0T is being built in a similar way except I am intending on using beam compensation on the driving wheels. As with the NBR chassis, the bogie is sprung using Exactoscale hornblocks. My intention will be to power the loco using a combination of Mashima motor and High Level gearbox driving off the trailing driving wheel. I actually managed to finish the bogie before putting it away on the shelf and it has dummy springs and compensating beams fitted externally. As I said, these are work in progress so I can't comment how successful the designs are at this stage. Scott