Jump to content
 

2 mm Finescale loco chassis


keidal

Recommended Posts

Certain HR locos ran with 8 wheel tenders [3'.6" diameter wheels], including the 4-4-0 Small Ben loco and presumably these were a pair of four wheel bogies, not a rigid 8 wheel frame.

 

Is it possible using the 2 mm Association 7.0 mm diameter wheels / axles and 2.3 mm diameter muffs to power one or preferably both of these bogies in any way please ?

 

For example, would it be possible to bore out a 3.2 mm muff to fit over the 2.3 mm muff and with gearing, using an integral small can motor, with the whole lot pivoting somehow - or at least one of the bogies "fixed" ?

 

Just another thought !

 

Keith

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

Certain HR locos ran with 8 wheel tenders [3'.6" diameter wheels], including the 4-4-0 Small Ben loco and presumably these were a pair of four wheel bogies, not a rigid 8 wheel frame.

 

Is it possible using the 2 mm Association 7.0 mm diameter wheels / axles and 2.3 mm diameter muffs to power one or preferably both of these bogies in any way please ?

 

For example, would it be possible to bore out a 3.2 mm muff to fit over the 2.3 mm muff and with gearing, using an integral small can motor, with the whole lot pivoting somehow - or at least one of the bogies "fixed" ?

 

Just another thought !

 

Keith

 

Have you considered taking the advice already given by numerous 2mm loco builders, motor in the tender driving a loco with as much weight bearing on the drivers as possible. I'm sure its possible to power the bogies in the tender but there is no room for adhesion weight. I suggest you crack on and give some of these ideas a go and when you realise they don't work come back to the advice given. 

 

Jerry

Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you Jerry for your comments.

Perhaps someone has already [and possibly successfully] powered an eight wheel tender, which is longer than the usual six wheel type and therefore has at least some room for lead or whatever. 

I only asked !

Keith

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

Thank you Jerry for your comments.

Perhaps someone has already [and possibly successfully] powered an eight wheel tender, which is longer than the usual six wheel type and therefore has at least some room for lead or whatever. 

I only asked !

Keith

Keith, my apologies if I came across a bit brusque but you have been given similar advice on numerous occasions now and you keep coming up with variations on the same theme and seemingly ignoring the answers to your questions. You seem determined to pursue the idea of a powered tender. That's fine and I wish you the best of luck but there comes a time when, if you are set on a particular path, you just have to give it a go. 

 

Jerry

Link to post
Share on other sites

Certain HR locos ran with 8 wheel tenders [3'.6" diameter wheels], including the 4-4-0 Small Ben loco and presumably these were a pair of four wheel bogies, not a rigid 8 wheel frame.

 

Is it possible using the 2 mm Association 7.0 mm diameter wheels / axles and 2.3 mm diameter muffs to power one or preferably both of these bogies in any way please ?

 

For example, would it be possible to bore out a 3.2 mm muff to fit over the 2.3 mm muff and with gearing, using an integral small can motor, with the whole lot pivoting somehow - or at least one of the bogies "fixed" ?

 

Just another thought !

 

Keith

 

It should be possible to make a small 4 wheeled power bogie. Using the smaller 6V motors, such as those Nigel Lawton sells, and wiring the two in series to suit a 12V supply. Not sure I would go for it as I prefer to power the loco wheels. For one thing it looks a bit odd if the loco wheels stick while the tender still pushes it along. I can't recall without looking it up if the Highland eight-wheel tenders had bogies or a fixed wheelbase. The GSWR and GNoSR ones had one bogie and the other four wheels on a fixed wheelbase.

 

On second thoughts, I'll just shut up and go away - thanks everyone; but you'll not hear from me again.

That's a shame. I like the Highland Railway. I was looking forward to seeing this progress.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

On second thoughts, I'll just shut up and go away - thanks everyone; but you'll not hear from me again.

That seems a great shame. All I was trying to say, rather clumsily perhaps, was that the only way to really find out if you can make a powered tender work is to get on and make one. I've been a 2mm member for around 35 years and I've yet to see a really successful powered tender yet - -though I'm more than happy to be proved wrong

 

Jerry

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

I hadn't seen this thread and started to follow it. It seems very strange someone asking for advice and then refusing to accept it being wedded to their own ideas. Too much thought and theory anyway. The fact that a second gear stage will consume extra  power so the benefits may not be worth the extra trouble. Although theory suggest optimum gearing the fact is the power in this small motors is more than sufficient for our purposes, so as long as the motor gear combination can achieve the desired results.

Don 

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

Union Mills powered tenders appear to work quite well but they are pretty chunky things with plenty of weight. They also push quite simple locos with uncomplicated motion. 

 

It was not uncommon to see a Peco Jubilee proceeding merrily along with locked driving wheels due to jammed valve gear.  The tender drive was powerful enough to push a stalled loco and haul a good size train.

 

I have an finescaled early UM J39 with a very noisy white metal framed tender drive that only works well in one direction. The motor and gear train is fine so I'm hoping that rebuilding the chassis using a more robust construction and tighter tolerances will improve matters.

 

Smaller tenders, such as the LSWR 8 wheeled "watercart" might be a more difficult proposition but the 6mm & 7mm diameter motors we have nowadays do allow more room for weight. As Jerry says, there isn't a lot of room for the gears but with smaller diameter wheels, a high reduction isn't as necessary.

 

Mark

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Well, that escalated quickly!

 

Shame, but there you go...

 

 

Season's greetings to one & all,

 

Kevin :)

indeed a problem of the written word its black and white with no facility for gray unlike real life

 

It strikes me that forums clubs etc attract four sorts regardless of scale / gauge modeled

 

Craftsman   of which 2mm Association appears blessed  

Bodgers  like me   :cry:  who have  ago but never quite achieve / fail spectacularly

Watchers  the silent majority I suspect 

Armchair warriors  who comment on everything or propose schemes but never actually appear to model anything be it excellent or otherwise  RMweb is full of such threads

 

still modelling is a very broad church so each to their  own after all its only a hobby for most

 

NIck

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

Union Mills powered tenders appear to work quite well but they are pretty chunky things with plenty of weight. They also push quite simple locos with uncomplicated motion. 

 

It was not uncommon to see a Peco Jubilee proceeding merrily along with locked driving wheels due to jammed valve gear.  The tender drive was powerful enough to push a stalled loco and haul a good size train.

 

I have an finescaled early UM J39 with a very noisy white metal framed tender drive that only works well in one direction. The motor and gear train is fine so I'm hoping that rebuilding the chassis using a more robust construction and tighter tolerances will improve matters.

 

Smaller tenders, such as the LSWR 8 wheeled "watercart" might be a more difficult proposition but the 6mm & 7mm diameter motors we have nowadays do allow more room for weight. As Jerry says, there isn't a lot of room for the gears but with smaller diameter wheels, a high reduction isn't as necessary.

 

Mark

 

I would agree with this to some extent. I have a Farish tender drive BR Standard 4 2-6-0 which runs well and also a Union Mills conversion which, whilst crude, runs ok. However, what they all have in common is rubber bands traction tyres, The wheels have been skimmed to thin the flanges and the BtoB opened out to run on 2FS track  but if the wheels are to retain the tyres they have to remain well over width which can bring clearance problems.

Chris Higgs did some experiments with 2FS wheels in Farish tender drives and he found that without the traction tyres they could barely pull themselves along, let alone a train!

 

Jerry 

Link to post
Share on other sites

I wasn't going to comment further but yes Nick, I am at the present time I suppose an armchair modeller, but not for much longer. It hasn't always been that way either. 

After the war I built a garden railway with clockwork Hornby and Bassett-Lowke stock, until I acquired a new Bassett-Lowke LMS real steam Mogul.

When N gauge was all the rage, I built an N gauge model of the area around the Ais Gill summit and ran one of the first Peco Jubilee locos - and no problems with that model.

either.

I joined the 2 mm Scale Association in the 1960's but before developing that line of modelling I was asked by the L& Y Railway Society to produce etched brass etc. complete O gauge kits of L & Y locos, including an 0-6-0, 0-6-0ST, 0-8-0's and the Rail-motor. I was the designer and manufacturer of these kits [as a part-time hobby]. Then I was asked to produce similar kits for NER locos which I did, 0-6-0's and 0-6-2T's. All these kits were sold literally at cost in the hundreds, being exported world-wide.

They were marketed as O7 Kits.

I was encouraged to produce most of these in 4 mm scale, which I did.The 3mm Society used my artwork to produce several of my locos in that scale and I believe that they are still available.

Around this time I experimented with 13.5 mm gauge 3 mm scale and the LMS 0-4-4T loco was described in the Railway Modeller magazine decades ago.

Marrying for the second time and with a young family plus moving house plus looking after parents and in-laws meant that serious railway modelling took less priority, even though George Norton took over the etched kits and I believe that these have now been dispersed and simplified [no turned boilers, hand-made sprung buffers etc]. 

They are probably still around in some guise or other.

In between restoring a hundred or so UK and USA railway lamps, I started and half built a 5" gauge LMS Jubilee "Doris" but a friend finished it as I became interested in 7 1/4" gauge live steam. I designed and again partly built a 7 1/4" gauge NSR 2-4-0 tank loco, given to another friend to finish.

To keep me out of the dreaded armchair, for the past sixty-five years I've also restored well over one hundred bicycles from the UK, USA,France and Italy and currently have two more on the go.

But, I must now get on with 2 mm FS and that's no.1 priority at this time - the HR Small Ben, a HR Barney etc. and a model of Achanalt station and it's approaches.

The HR eight wheel tender did have two bogies and yes Jerry, my model of it will have two can motors, one for each bogie and a fair amount of lead. Construction will start in early 2017.

I am not an armchair modeller; honest, nor do I take kindly to unjustified criticism ! This is a Forum after all, isn't it ?

Keith 

Link to post
Share on other sites

I would agree with this to some extent. I have a Farish tender drive BR Standard 4 2-6-0 which runs well and also a Union Mills conversion which, whilst crude, runs ok. However, what they all have in common is rubber bands traction tyres, The wheels have been skimmed to thin the flanges and the BtoB opened out to run on 2FS track  but if the wheels are to retain the tyres they have to remain well over width which can bring clearance problems.

Chris Higgs did some experiments with 2FS wheels in Farish tender drives and he found that without the traction tyres they could barely pull themselves along, let alone a train!

 

Jerry 

 

The 2mm Association shop sells loco driving wheels as small as 7mm diameter. If I build a small industrial 0-6-0T loco with 7mm drivers how does it know it is a loco and not a six wheel powered tender? Or will such a loco not pull anything either?

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

 

But, I must now get on with 2 mm FS and that's no.1 priority at this time - the HR Small Ben, a HR Barney etc. and a model of Achanalt station and it's approaches.

The HR eight wheel tender did have two bogies and yes Jerry, my model of it will have two can motors, one for each bogie and a fair amount of lead. Construction will start in early 2017.

I am not an armchair modeller; honest, nor do I take kindly to unjustified criticism ! This is a Forum after all, isn't it ?

Keith 

 

 

Keith, I neither criticised you or suggested you were an armchair modeller I merely suggested that if you wished to ignore the advice given and go your own way then the best way is to crack on and do it. I look forward to your twin motored, eight wheel tender.

 

The 2mm Association shop sells loco driving wheels as small as 7mm diameter. If I build a small industrial 0-6-0T loco with 7mm drivers how does it know it is a loco and not a six wheel powered tender? Or will such a loco not pull anything either?

 

There are a host of reasons. Tank locos tend to be  bigger and have more room, they have coupled wheels - you can of course gear tender wheels together but it results in more friction and the motor sitting even higher and taking up more valuable space for weight. Probably most significantly tank locos don't have to push/pull the dead weight of a loco around which, with its motion and valve gear, offers far more friction than wagons or coaches.

As I said if you really want to build a powered tender and prove us all wrong I would love to see it. I look forward to being proved wrong.

 

Jerry 

Link to post
Share on other sites

 

There are a host of reasons. Tank locos tend to be  bigger and have more room, they have coupled wheels - you can of course gear tender wheels together but it results in more friction and the motor sitting even higher and taking up more valuable space for weight. Probably most significantly tank locos don't have to push/pull the dead weight of a loco around which, with its motion and valve gear, offers far more friction than wagons or coaches.

As I said if you really want to build a powered tender and prove us all wrong I would love to see it. I look forward to being proved wrong.

 

Jerry 

 

I am not sure I agree that a small industrial or light railway tank loco is necessarily larger, or has more space for weight, than a six- or eight-wheel tender. A tender is essentially a big square box whereas it can be very difficult even fitting the motor and gears in some small tank locos. There's not much space for weight over the driving wheels of a round-topped firebox 4-4-0 either, especially if you've got the worm gear in there.

 

I don't want to build a tender drive. I don't particularly like them, but it you really want to see one have a look at Geoff Jones' Compound on page 53 of the 2mm Scale Association Handbook. Tender drives are hardly revolutionary. 

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

Having built several dozen tank locos in 2mm and probably approaching three figures now in terms of 2mm locos overall I would strongly argue from experience that tender drives are a bad idea in 2mm, certainly without traction tyres. They may not be revolutionary but there is a good reason why the overwhelming majority of successful locos in 2mm follow a more conventional route - it's much simpler and it works. You may be able to find the odd exception, Geoff's Compound may be one, (I'll ask him next time I see him how well it runs, how noisy it is and what sort of load it will pull) but generally speaking none of the ones I've seen work very well.

As I said, I'm not saying anybody shouldn't do it but I do feel strongly that any newcomer searching RMWeb for advise on how to build their first 2mm chassis should avoid tender drives.

 

As for small 4-4-0s, my SDJR 2P will take over thirty wagons up Bath bank, about 1in70 with a ruling 2' radius curve. My Christmas loco project is a SDJR small 4-4-0 which probably won't manage quite as much but will still be expected to take a realistic load - more details on my Bath Queensquare thread. Both use conventional drives of motor in the tender driving a gear box in the loco. In the case of 4-4-0s I weight the front of the tender onto the rear of the loco as advocated by Guy Williams. If you go back a few pages on my Bath thread there are details and pictures of how I arrange the weighted tender on a 4-4-0 on a Midland oil burning 3P I built.

 

Jerry

Link to post
Share on other sites

It's been suggested that the two motors should be wired in series. From my basic knowledge of electricity, that would mean that each motor receives 6 volts max. from a 12 volt supply. Is this the best arrangement, or would they be better supplied wired in parallel, when presumably each motor would receive almost 12 volts ?

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

 

I am not an armchair modeller; honest, nor do I take kindly to unjustified criticism ! This is a Forum after all, isn't it ?

Keith 

 on my part I was observing the various types of modelers knowing  myself to be of the failed / bodge type.  I'm   pleased  that your own 2mm work will be progressing   and look forward to seeing  your progress which ever or what  ever way you choose to go

 

NIck

Link to post
Share on other sites

on my part I was observing the various types of modelers knowing  myself to be of the failed / bodge type.  I'm   pleased  that your own 2mm work will be progressing   and look forward to seeing  your progress which ever or what  ever way you choose to go

 

NIck

I'm sorry Nick, but you do yourself a grave injustice. There are many of us (myself included) who cannot for various reasons work at the highest levels of quality in 2FS. Yet we learn by observation and practice. We make mistakes, but more importantly we try and we actually do something.

 

I certainly wouldn't say that you are a bodger/failure! :D

Link to post
Share on other sites

Bodgers  like me   :cry:  who have  ago but never quite achieve / fail spectacularly

You do yourself a dis-service Nick!  We've all done our share of 'bodging'/fudging in our time! :)

 

As I mention elsewhere, Bodgers made the spars for chair backs, usually working on a treadle driven lathe out in the beech woods, where they sourced their raw material,.  To me that sounds like a pretty skilled craft!!

 

Jim

Link to post
Share on other sites

Can someone please tell me if the two can motors are back to back, rather than nose to tail as it were - can they still be wired in series to give each motor 6 volts and for the output shafts to be rotating in the same direction at the same time ? Or is there some jiggery-pokey with the positive and negative tails supplied with the motors please ?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...