Ian Smith Posted April 6, 2020 Author Share Posted April 6, 2020 Nick, All of my stock is true 2mm, the only exceptions are a couple of Mathieson wagons and my 1854 class pannier which was converted from a Farish pannier - it's a little beefy, so one day I intend to scratch build a replacement body for that one! I'd discounted the N Brass kit (and the Union Mills Dean Goods) because they are nominally 1:148th and I'd prefer not to mix and match. Ian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Mikkel Posted April 6, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 6, 2020 On 02/04/2020 at 23:25, Ian Smith said: Buffalo Saddle Tank 1601 collecting cattle wagons to add to the head of an Up cattle train To quote that October 1904 issue of Railway Magazine: "dark red, also grey". Very nice to see the red and grey together like this Ian. The chassis for the DG looks superb! 1 4 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard i Posted April 7, 2020 Share Posted April 7, 2020 8 hours ago, Ian Smith said: Nick, All of my stock is true 2mm, the only exceptions are a couple of Mathieson wagons and my 1854 class pannier which was converted from a Farish pannier - it's a little beefy, so one day I intend to scratch build a replacement body for that one! I'd discounted the N Brass kit (and the Union Mills Dean Goods) because they are nominally 1:148th and I'd prefer not to mix and match. Ian If n brass has draw the etched kit up in brass would they rescale the cad and run you off a set of etchings, the 2mm society sell in the others for them? Union mills as white metal this approach would be a none starter. just an idea. richard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium CF MRC Posted April 7, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 7, 2020 I thought that the Mathieson wagons were nearer 2mm than N. Perhaps one of the reasons they didn’t get a rapturous reception in that quarter. The N Brass castings usually have a 2mm fitting hiding in there somewhere... Tim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethashenden Posted April 8, 2020 Share Posted April 8, 2020 On 07/04/2020 at 01:50, richard i said: If n brass has draw the etched kit up in brass would they rescale the cad and run you off a set of etchings, the 2mm society sell in the others for them? Union mills as white metal this approach would be a none starter. just an idea. richard It’s like a third of a kit. No chassis parts and only the basics of the body. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Smith Posted April 10, 2020 Author Share Posted April 10, 2020 A little more progress on the Dean Goods. The footplate has been fretted and filed from 0.010" nickel silver, as have the valances and buffer beam. The four elements were soldered together and then the valances had to be adjusted outwards so that they cleared the crankpin washers when the wheels rotate! A nylon plug has been turned, drilled and fitted in the hole for the body securing bolt / tender coupling. I will use a 14BA bolt for this. The next task will be to form the splashers, I normally turn these as a a vertical sided dish from which the splashers are cut, but the Dean Goods has raised beading on the splasher face so I'm considering the best approach and can feel a bit of experimentation coming on Thanks for looking Ian 8 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bécasse Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 48 minutes ago, Ian Smith said: A little more progress on the Dean Goods. The next task will be to form the splashers, I normally turn these as a a vertical sided dish from which the splashers are cut, but the Dean Goods has raised beading on the splasher face so I'm considering the best approach and can feel a bit of experimentation coming on. As you are clearly competent at doing this, isn't that the best starting point, followed by soldering a ring of appropriately sized hard brass wire round the edge of the disc using a high-MP silver-content solder. Filing the wire down should produce just the size beading you require (and it would even polish up as brass if that were required for a Dean goods, which I am sure it isn't). Finally create the splashers by cutting up the now "beaded" disc in the normal way. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
richbrummitt Posted April 10, 2020 Share Posted April 10, 2020 2 hours ago, Ian Smith said: The next task will be to form the splashers, I normally turn these as a a vertical sided dish from which the splashers are cut, but the Dean Goods has raised beading on the splasher face so I'm considering the best approach and can feel a bit of experimentation coming on Thanks for looking Ian Turn both sides seems like the foremost solution to me: profile the vertical side to have a little step then turn around and do as you would normally. If the beading were polished then you could just paint it on your usual 'vertical sided dish'. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lacathedrale Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 May I ask how you get such perfectly square pieces cut? I have a fine piercing saw, but it does tend to wander a fair bit. Is it a case of giving lots of room and then filing down, or is there something more fundamental I'm missing? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caley Jim Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 (edited) Thin brass and n/s (up to. 25mm) can be cut with a heavy craft knife. Start by scoring lightly and gradually deepen the cut, then flex back and forth and metal fatigue will do the rest, finally tidying up by filling along the edge. With thicker metal it is a case of cutting oversize and filling back. Jim Edited April 12, 2020 by Caley Jim Spelling correction 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
richbrummitt Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 3 hours ago, Lacathedrale said: May I ask how you get such perfectly square pieces cut? I have a fine piercing saw, but it does tend to wander a fair bit. Is it a case of giving lots of room and then filing down, or is there something more fundamental I'm missing? Filing really helps. Cutting pretty straight should become easier with practice (the blades are very agile so observing what the blade is trying to do and getting it to stay on path is part of the skill to be learned) but some blades just wander about because they do. Guy Williams covers this off in 4mm Locomotive Construction saying that some blades refuse to cut properly whatever you do and suggests trying another blade. I've certainly seen some that are twisted or otherwise distorted rendering them unusable at purchase. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Donw Posted April 11, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 11, 2020 Scoring a line rather than just marking it can help if the scoring is deep enough. The real question is do you cut right up to the size you want or do you cut half a mill oversize to allow for wander and filing straight. Ian's workmanship is particularly neat. Don Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
richbrummitt Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 (edited) 11 minutes ago, Donw said: Scoring a line rather than just marking it can help if the scoring is deep enough. The real question is do you cut right up to the size you want or do you cut half a mill oversize to allow for wander and filing straight. Ian's workmanship is particularly neat. Don At school I was taught to leave something left to finish after cutting. Nowadays I cut to the line as much as possible. Sometimes I still end up filing because I don't always get the line in ther right place. I almost always leave plenty around curved areas and file: it's much easier to cut straight lines by hand (angle the blade along the cut to help) than complex geometry. He's done a few locomotives already, so has an idea how to get a good result, and I agree; Ian's work is as neat as ever. Edited April 11, 2020 by richbrummitt Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Argos Posted April 11, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 11, 2020 A link to this video was recently posted over on the Irish Railway Modeller forum. https://irishrailwaymodeller.com/ It really covers off cutting complex shapes with a piercing saw, there are other videos in the series that include cutting straight lines and the saws themselves. Well worth a watch if you've not seen them, I've certainly picked up a few tips. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Smith Posted April 11, 2020 Author Share Posted April 11, 2020 9 hours ago, Lacathedrale said: May I ask how you get such perfectly square pieces cut? I have a fine piercing saw, but it does tend to wander a fair bit. Is it a case of giving lots of room and then filing down, or is there something more fundamental I'm missing? Lacathedrale, As you suggest I do I do use a piercing saw cutting a little way outside the scribed line, then filing back to said line. A large file helps here especially on longer cuts (eg outside edge of footplate). The interior cuts in the footplate are done in much the same way but using various needle files to get into the corners. I have occasionally used the scoring and snapping off method, but again always do this oversize and finishing with the biggest file that suits the job. Ian 1 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Ian Smith Posted April 13, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 13, 2020 A little more progress on the Dean Goods... The splashers : Initially, because I needed an outside diameter of 12mm and I only had use of a 3 Jaw chuck to hold the work piece (the ER16 collets only go up to 10mm), I felt that Richard Brummitt's suggestion above would be impossible with the equipment I had. I therefore experimented a little and turned up 3 vertical sided dishes from which I intended to cut the splashers from. The intention was to solder rings of wire around the outside face of the dish which could then be filed back to provide the raised bead around the splasher face. Although I managed to do this, it was a bit of a faff, and I felt that when it came to securing the splashers to the footplate that the beading was bound to become unsoldered anyway (I had used 188 degree solder to secure the beading). The Mk II version was to do it properly!! For this I needed some way of holding short lengths of 12mm bar, so before any material could be cut in anger I first had to make myself a stepped chuck. This was relatively easy to make from a length of 20mm brass bar (although I think that the material I used was actually a similar alloy that my brother had given me years ago - he's an engineer and regularly gives me 2"-3" offcuts of brass and other materials from work). I turned one end of the bar down to 9mm in the 3 jaw chuck (so that I could mount it in a 9mm ER16 collet). Once mounted in the ER16 collet, the bar was drilled and bored 7mm for its whole length, and then the steps of the collet were bored out at 10mm, 11mm and 12mm steps each 1.25mm deep (I only needed a 12mm step for this project but decided to make the collet a little more flexible). To finish the collet it was necessary to make saw cuts in it so that it could tighten around the material it is to hold. The ready-to-use stepped collet The collet in use, a splasher "blank" in the process of being formed into a dish For the splashers themselves I now needed some 12mm bar, so with the 3 jaw chuck mounted on the headstock again I mounted some brass bar a little larger than 12mm and turned an ample length down to 12mm. The bar end was faced off and a raised bead turned into the end of the bar, and then a piece about 3.5mm cut from the end of the bar. This was repeated until I had 3 splasher blanks all 12mm diameter each with a raised bead on one face. The 3 jaw chuck was replaced with the ER16 9mm collet, and the stepped chuck and a splasher blank was mounted with the bead face in the chuck. The inside of the dish was then bored out until the rim was about 0.008" thick and the bottom of the dish was about 0.010" thick (regular removal of the embryonic dish was necessary so that I could check the thickness of the base (or splasher face) with a micrometer). The depth of the dish was turned down to 0.100" (2.5mm). A splasher "blank" and a finished dish The finished turned dishes ready for cutting chords off for the splashers It was then a simple matter of cutting chords off each dish to make the splashers (2 splashers from each dish). Obviously these were cut off over size then filed down to size on a needle file held flat on the bench. Once I was happy with one this was used to make sure the other 5 were all exactly the same size. Filing down a segment of the dish to for a splasher The 6 completed splashers Thanks for looking Ian 9 1 19 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
richbrummitt Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 Are you using 10mm wheels? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Smith Posted April 13, 2020 Author Share Posted April 13, 2020 Yes Richard I'm using 10mm wheels, I do wonder whether I should have gone for 9.5 but the wheels are what I bought in the late '80s / early 90's for a Dean Goods I intended to build back then. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
richbrummitt Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 When you advertise timescales like that I feel so much better about my progress over recent years. I think 9.5 would be too small given the prototype size is a little over 10mm when scaled down iirc. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Argos Posted April 13, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 13, 2020 Thanks for showing us that Ian, I've always struggled with splashers, your approach looks like a neat solution. I'll definitely be giving that a go. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Ian Smith Posted April 17, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 17, 2020 A little more work on the Dean Goods. The Cab : The sides and front of the cab were drawn up in CAD, and printed off. The resultant print was glued to a piece of 0.008" nickel silver sheet and the 3 parts fretted out then tidied up with needle files. The beading around the cab side openings and the extension back to support the upright handrail were added from strips of 0.004" nickel silver. The inside edge was filed/sanded flush with the inside of the cab side sheet, and the outside edge of the 0.004" was filed and sanded back to provide the beading around the cut-out edge and a short projection backwards where the vertical handrail will sit. It was then a somewhat fiddlier process than I imagined it would be so solder the 3 parts onto the footplate. First the left-hand side sheet was soldered into position such that it was just inboard of the splasher beading, then the cab front was fettled a little so that it fitted between the splashers, then it too was soldered in place against the left-hand side sheet (the bit over the right hand splasher was left unsoldered until I was sure that the right hand side sheet married up to it correctly - in actual fact it fitted perfectly so I needn't have worried!) Looking at the photo showing the right hand cab side sheet it looks like I need to add a little more solder where it meets the splasher top. The next job will be to add the roof and vertical handrails - I had previously drilled 0.3mm holes in the footplate behind the cab side sheets for these but both are filled with solder so nee re-drilling! I'd better give it all a bit of a clean too before I go off to work! Thanks for looking. Ian 5 17 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgman Posted April 17, 2020 Share Posted April 17, 2020 Excellent work Ian as always. G 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Ian Smith Posted April 21, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 21, 2020 A little more progress has been made with my Dean Goods... The cab handrails have been fitted - as is my won't, these are pieces of 0.010" guitar string, as after painting they will be scraped back to shiny steel. The cab roof has also been cut to size and shape and fitted, complete with the rain strip along the rear edge of the roof, which is a length of 0.2mm copper wire wrapped around the cab and the ends twisted together below the footplate to hold it in place while soldering. Once secure the excess was cut off and the ends tidied up with a fine file. The boiler is a length of suitably sized brass tube cut to length (the ends were made good by turning in the lathe). Because I wanted a round-topped firebox, a fine saw cut was made across the bottom of the boiler, and a similar cut made from the end of the tube to the first saw cut. The area of the tube that will provide the sides of the firebox was heated to anneal the brass, and when cool carefully bent out and shaped to replicate the sides of the firebox. The smokebox is another short length of the same tube, with a slit filed along its length (to allow the tube to be opened out so that it will slide over the boiler tube). The smokebox saddle was fly-cut and milled from solid brass, and has been left over long so that the bit that protrudes beyond the front of the smokebox could be shaped to represent the valve chest cover. I intend to add a piece of shim over this once the smokebox/saddle/boiler sub-assemblies have been soldered together. Now some photos of the progress : The 3 elements of the boiler/smokebox. It may be noticed that there is a piece of brass occupying the back of the firebox. This is a 1mm thick turning soldered in place to provide a pin-and-socket fixing into the cab front. There will be a bolt fixing at the smokebox end to unite the smokebox with the footplate (the firebox/boiler/smokebox will be a separate sub-assembly fixed in place after painting) A photo showing how the boiler/smokebox/saddle look when plonked onto the footplate. Same again from the other side. As can be seen, I made a bit of a mistake when filing the firebox side down on this side so had to build it back up again with a couple of bits of fret waste, then make good with more filing. In the last couple of photos, it is just about possible to see the gap at the bottom of the smokebox where the tube has been opened out to fit around the same sized tube used for the boiler. Also the over exuberant fly-cutting has left a dip in the valve chest that needs a shim overlay to cover it. Thanks for looking. Ian 10 18 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Argos Posted April 21, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 21, 2020 Very neat work Ian. 5 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard i Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 I built my first loco with a detachable boiler and just found it an extra complication to paint. However, it was a black loco with no lining, so I stopped making locos that way. Since then I have cursed how difficult it is to line / paint splashed tops when the boiler is fitted on lined green locos. So thinking the extra hassle might be worth the extra effort. I presume that is part of your thinking. richard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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