Clayton

[John Smart]

We shall need some appropriate wagons for 4097.

 

There may be a few carriages required too!

 

I shall be ready with paint brush in hand tomorrow.

 

John

[Chuffer Davies]

Hello again,

 

Just a quick update with regards the ongoing saga of the spiral.  Today I finished building the last of three boards  for the spiral that sit underneath the scenic boards of the main layout.  These boards in themselves aren't too bad but the carnage that was required to drive these under the scenic boards was significant.  Two of the three boards are of box construction and are effectively bridging pieces between the other more traditional flat topped boards. The following picture gives you a good idea of how much the spiral intrudes on the original framework of the scenic boards. I have therefore added a 2nd level framework on top of and braced too the original before cutting through the original cross members to provide clearance for the spiral board itself.  The part of the spiral you can see is about 5" lower than the ballasted track above it.  The track work you can see represents the entrance to Clayton tunnel.

 

 

As I have said previously I have definitely paid the price for failing to plan for this properly in the first place.  

 

There is only one more board in the fiddle yard still to have its part of the spiral added (about 30" or so) and then all the woodwork for the spiral will be complete.  Hopefully next Tuesday will see this achieved. We can then look forward to laying cork onto the spiral and then the fun part: laying the SMP track work.

 

Frank

 

 

[John Smart]

A similar view of the spiral. Clayton tunnel top right.

 

This is a much grander construction than it appeared on the drawings.

 

John

 

[Chuffer Davies]

Hello again,

 

Now that the main woodwork for the spiral is complete attention is being turned to progressing the laying of track in the fiddle yard.  The boards built at the end of last year were awaiting the manufacture of some pattern maker's dowels with which to align them.  Chris (Rogers) is a CNC machine setter for an engineering company in Leeds and has been able to manufacture the dowels in his lunch time (at work) thus saving us considerable cost and these are now ready to fit.  The fiddle yard was therefore temporarily dismantled this week to allow the dowels to be fitted.

 

On Tuesday night, as well as the dowels Chris brought his Q1 to the club rooms to show me how he is getting on, and to point out another minor error in my artwork for the brass etch in the cab.  I corrected the CAD drawing as soon as I got home before I could forget to do it.  His model is coming together nicely now and I don't suppose it will be too long before the locomotive is complete and we can say that the test build has been a success.  

 

As a result of dropping the base boards to fit the dowels all the clutter that inevitably collects on flat surfaces around the layout had to be cleared away and it seemed too good an opportunity to waste.  I had a bit of fun this afternoon and laid out all the fiddle yard point work to see how it looked and to get an early feel for the flow of the track work through the yard.  Despite there being 60 odd points there is plenty of daylight between them over the 24 feet that they occupy.

 

The following views show the point work viewed firstly from the Paradise Farm (Bradford) end of the fiddle yard, and secondly from the spiral (Queensbury) end of the layout.

 

 

 

The yard has 28 storage roads of varying lengths which will probably end up holding 25 complete trains with three sidings used for storing the strengthening vehicles required to add variety to the operational proceedings and to keep the fiddle yard operator on their toes.

 

The next job is to lay the cork underlay on the boards and then the points and the SMP plain track to accompany it can be installed permanently.

 

Regards,

 

Frank

[John Smart]

Goodness, things are moving on again.

 

Snow prevented me from coming in to do painting today, not good.

 

'Can we run some trains round soon please, Mr?'

 

John

Edited March 8, 2018 by John Smart

[grob1234]

Wow, stunning point work there! 

[Chuffer Davies]

Just a quick update to let you know what's happening on Clayton.  We have achieved the next milestone and have completed the carpentry associated with the fiddle yard and spiral.  The attached picture shows the fiddle yard as of yesterday resplendent in its coat of photographic grey paint.  The yard and spiral have had their cork underlay installed and any minor discrepancies in the levels at board joints have been sanded out of the cork prior to painting.  

After taking this picture we commenced the installation of the previously built point work and this work will continue over the next few weeks along with installation of the plain track (SMP) for the sidings and on the spiral.

 

Meanwhile at home work continues on the preparation of the CAD artwork for the J7.  My main challenge currently is determining the best motor/gearbox combinations for this model.  Given it is quite a small loco there is minimal space for ballast but without ballast the loco will not be able to pull a reasonably sized train up the gradients on Clayton.  One of the options that I am working on is whether I can install the motor in the tender  and drive the rear axle (of the loco) through a drive shaft. This will leave the firebox and boiler completely free for ballast.  I have never attempted this type of drive system before although I am aware that many modellers have successfully done this in the past.  I shall persevere a bit longer with this approach therefore to see if I can come up with a workable solution that keeps everything below the footplate and fall plate.  Whether this will ultimately translate into an option for the commercial kit when it is launched is still to be decided as I have not had this discussion with John Redrup of LRM as yet. I would imagine that most builders will want to keep things simple by installing the motor in the firebox but a few may be interested in the motor in tender option.

 

As a slight distraction  I was delighted to be invited to give a presentation on the Clayton project to West Yorkshire members of the Scalefour Society last night.  My thanks to those members who gave two colleagues and myself such a warm welcome, and my apologies for over running at the end slightly.

 

Regards,

 

Frank  

[Chuffer Davies]

Its been a couple of weeks since my last entry and so I felt it was time for a quick progress update.  As suggested in my last update we have been progressing the laying of track in the fiddle yard.  All the points have now been removed from their Templot paper templates and with the application of copious amounts of UHU they have now been installed in their final positions having first remembered to drill holes under the tie bars for the Tortoise point motor actuators.  We have now commenced installing the plain track for which we are using SMP EM gauge track from Scaleways.  

 

As can be seen from the attached photograph the space between the walls of the spiral and the edge of the base board is quite restricted but I have checked the clearances using the 70ft Dreadnought coaches from our Hungerford layout and there is more than sufficient clearance for these and so we will be fine with the shorter Howldon stock that will actually be running on the layout.

 

The three tracks in the foreground are at the base of the spiral, the central track being an extra siding on which we currently plan to stable a cattle train.  It will be interesting to see how we get on with reversing the train up the 1:60 spiral to park it.  Fingers crossed that we wont have derailment issues.  Only time will tell.

 

As well as the track that can be seen, the rail has also been laid on the three boards of the spiral that carry the line under the scenic boards at the front of the layout.  To date we have probably laid around a third of the track on the spiral and I personally will be pressing on with laying the rest of it next week, whilst others lay the track on the main fiddle yard boards.

 

 

At home I have now completed the CAD artwork for the J7 and I am now writing up the assembly instructions as a means of verifying that I have drawn up all the parts needed.  I also find that the act of describing the assembly  helps to validate that I have designed sufficient tabs and slots to ensure that the main elements of the model should fit together with the minimum risk of things going out of square.  My aim is to send the artwork off to the etching firm sometime this month so I can start the test assembly of the loco in June.  I personally intend to build two J7's one with a 4' 5" boiler and the other with a 4' 8" boiler.  Both will have the later Ivatt cab although I will need to test assemble the Stirling cabs to ensure that the cab side sheets are the correct length and that the splashers in the cab and the cab floor fit across the cabs correctly.  I will post progress on the test build of the first J7 on this blog, warts and all, so you can see how version one of the artwork turns out.  There are bound to be mistakes along the way but with any luck I will be able to get round any errors as the build progresses.

 

Regards,

 

Frank 

 

 

[John Smart]

Howlden stock Frank.

 

Russ did think the 70ft Dreadnought coaches would be fine, if labelled Pullman! Although, I did like his initial reaction, not for here.

 

Reminder to self, Howlden stock building needs to start.

 

John

[Chuffer Davies]

Howlden stock Frank.

 

Russ did think the 70ft Dreadnought coaches would be fine, if labelled Pullman! Although, I did like his initial reaction, not for here.

 

Reminder to self, Howlden stock building needs to start.

 

John

It’s lucky then that Russell didn’t see the King that I’d also taken down to club in order to check the front overhang on the outside of the curves on the spiral. I’d packed it away before he arrived.

 

Of course as you know there is a precedent for running GWR rolling stock on the Queensbury line in the form of a GW diesel rail car that was trialed (unsuccessfully one imagines) on the line to see whether diesel traction would offer a suitable and cost effective alternative to the aging GN stock on the line. Unfortunately this is outside our chosen period for modelling Clayton so we won’t be running one on the layout under normal circumstances, but as I have a suitable model we might do a one off special to recreate the event and take photographs once layout construction is adequately advanced.

 

Frank

[Chuffer Davies]

I'm delighted to report that on Thursday at the Shipley club I was able to complete the laying of the track on the spiral.  It still has to be wired up electrically but as I had half an hour to spare the child in me decided to have a play.  The attached YouTube link is the result of my 5 minutes of weakness. 

 

 

Hopefully the next time you see anything moving on the spiral it will be under power but there is quite a lot of work to be progressed under the baseboards before that can happen.

 

Whilst others in the team continue to lay the plain track in the remainder of the fiddle yard, my attention will at long last return to cutting the track across the base board joints in the goods yard and adding the cosmetic chairs to disguise the soldered joints. 

 

We have a deadline at the end of June at which point we will have to temporarily collapse the layout to enable Leicester South GC to be erected in order for some remedial work to be carried out in preparation for the club's exhibition in September.  Clayton will not be on display at the exhibition this year because we are putting on the clubs 40th anniversary show this year and we need the space for other exhibits. 

 

Whist the layout is collapsed we will take the opportunity to start the under board wiring on Clayton because this is much easier to achieve with the boards upended giving easy access to both sides.

 

The J7 artwork has been sent to the etching company for processing.  Apparently this company takes about 6 weeks to turn round orders so it will be July before I can start the test build.  As I predicted the preparation of the assembly instructions did highlight a mistake in the artwork in that whilst packing the components to achieve the smallest possible amount of unused metal I omitted to copy through the brake hangers.  With even more joggling I eventually managed to make space for them.  

 

I have now discovered that the tender I need for one of my planned J7 models appears not to be available in kit form.  The Yeadon book describes this as an LNER Type C tender which was designed by Stirling.  I am now going to have to investigate whether there is sufficient information available for me to be able to draw up artwork for a new tender kit.  A definite case of one step forwards two steps back!   Anyone got any info they can share?

 

Regards,

 

Frank 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Chris-GNR]

Evening all...

 

A momentous event has taken place this evening in the development of Clayton. We now have all the track laid giving us continuous circuits in both directions. To mark the event the final 4 chairs laid have been painted gold in the spirit of the ‘golden spike’ tradition.

 

 

I think a little track side sign might be in order.

 

Cheers

Chris

[Worsdell forever]

Evening all...

 

A momentous event has taken place this evening in the development of Clayton. We now have all the track laid giving us continuous circuits in both directions. To mark the event we have the final 4 chairs have been painted gold in the spirit of the ‘golden spike’ tradition.

 

97990574-0BBA-42B1-9DAD-C2A56C60DEF3.jpeg

 

I think a little track side sign might be in order.

 

Cheers

Chris

 

Because this is Yorkshire and even 4mm scale golden spikes are a bit on the pricey side...

 

Well done all, just a shame it'll be packed away in September.

[Chris-GNR]

Because this is Yorkshire and even 4mm scale golden spikes are a bit on the pricey side...

 

Well done all, just a shame it'll be packed away in September.

Your right Paul, but you know how it is putting on an exhibition space & man power are at a premium. The general running of the show & the number of operators needed to man Leicester South GC plus the other club & members layouts will leave us a bit short handed for Clayton this year.

 

Cheers

Chris

[Chuffer Davies]

Its been a very busy couple of months for the track laying team in the fiddle yard and at long last I am delighted to be able to report that whilst the last panel of track was laid late Tuesday evening, there was still an amount of snagging to do which was completed at club today.  With the exception of the turntable area which will have to wait until we have constructed the turntable itself, we have now laid all the track.  I calculated that a circuit of the layout is equivalent to a 1.5 miles in prototype terms. 

 

The next mammoth task will be to wire it all electrically.  When I say 'it all' this includes the whole of the front scenic section and so I have no idea how long it is going to take us at this stage.  Once we have wired a couple of the boards and I know how many of the team are going to volunteer to help, I will then have an idea of how long it will be before we can run trains right around the layout.  The target will be to have it all wired up before our September 2019 exhibition, but I hope we will be finished long before then.

 

Fiddle yard viewed from the Bradford end:

 

Fiddle yard viewed from the Queensbury end:

 

We have laid 90 yards of SMP track in total, 30 yards of which was used on the spiral and the remaining 60 yards was required for the fiddle yard.  Whilst some of this is for the through lines probably 45 yards will be used for the actual storage of trains.  I think it is time to encourage the team to up their efforts in building rolling stock otherwise we are going to have a layout without any trains to run on it.  

 

Fiddle yard control panel:

 

As you can see from the panel; route selection is by push button.  A single button sets the entire route through any of the three distinct sections: Up Line, Down Line, and Exchange sidings (i.e. the sidings that can be accessed from both the Up and the Down lines).  An additional button must be pushed to give access in and out of the Exchange sidings meaning that in the worse case the fiddleyard operator must press three buttons to exit and return a train from any of the Exchange sidings, but only one button to exit and return a train from either the Up or the Down storage lines.

 

Once the fiddle yard operator has set the route for a train to proceed onto the scenic section the train will not actually set off until the main line operator presses a 'Call Train' button on the main panel.  When the train is 'called' this latches a relay which connects a short length of track under the locomotive to the common return.  The main line operator can now draw out the train which then proceeds onto the scenic part of the layout.  About half way round the end of the layout is a sensor which detects the train after it has exited the fiddle yard at which point the previously latched relay is released and the track at the front of the storage siding is again disconnected from the common return.  As a result when the train arrives back into its storage siding it will continue until the locomotive arrives on the isolated track at which point it stops.  In this way the main line operator does not have to drive the train to a stop with the inherent risk of him stopping short or over running the storage siding.  Well that's the theory any way! 

 

We will cover the electrics in more detail once we have wired up a couple of the base boards so that we will have something to illustrate our narrative.  

 

Thanks for your continued support.

 

Regards,

 

Frank 

 

 

[grob1234]

Lovely work there.

 

I'd love to see the control box in operation. I presume there are lights to show which route is selected? 

 

Way in excess of my limited 'lectrical capabilities!

[Chris-GNR]

Hi Tom

 

Yes the route selected will be lit up by LEDs running along it as I understand.

 

The electronics for the layout are very impressive & is a credit to Frank & Bill who are the main people behind them. Also another member Mike has been building up the various component panels that operate each baseboard that has mechanical operation such as turnouts, signalling, the un-coupleling magnets & retarding pins. 

 

I'll try & get a pic of the main control panel & a shot of the insides showing all the work that has gone into assembling them. Very neat.

 

I by a long way nowhere near understand electronics to the extent as some in the group but I see a lot of soldering rail droppers to bus bars & plumbing in turnout motors in my near future. Once the layout gets partially packed away to make way for other club layouts to be set up getting them ready for our exhibition in September we'll be up ending Claytons boards to start the mammoth wiring task.

 

Cheers

Chris

[lmsforever]

The tracklaying is superb the fiddle yard looks great you all could set up in business track builing and laying it!

[Chuffer Davies]

Hi Tom

 

Yes the route selected will be lit up by LEDs running along it as I understand.

 

The electronics for the layout are very impressive & is a credit to Frank & Bill who are the main people behind them. Also another member Mike has build building up the various component panels that operate each baseboard that has mechanical operation such as turnouts, signalling, the un-coupleling magnets & retarding pins. 

 

I'll try & get a pic of the main control panel & a shot of the insides showing all the work that has gone into assembling them. Very neat.

 

I by a long way nowhere near understand electronics to the extent as some in the group but I see a lot of soldering rail droppers to bus bars & plumbing in turnout motors in my near future. Once the layout gets partially packed away to make way for other club layouts to be set up getting them ready for our exhibition in September we'll be up ending Claytons boards to start the mammoth wiring task.

 

Cheers

Chris

 

Hi Chris,

 

I regret (or perhaps I don't) that I don't currently have any photo's of the inside of any of the control panels.  This is because they are yet to receive their micro processor boards the prototype of which are still under development by our resident electronics engineer Bill Wyatt-Millington.  Their arrival is imminent and so I hope to be able to get a shot to share here soon.  I do have the following which may be of interest:

 

Main Panel:

 

As a bit of fun I have utilised signal levers from the DCC Concepts range.  The track diagram on the panel is based on the actual diagram from the Clayton signal box but the order of the levers has been changed so that the levers for the Up line are grouped on the left and those for the Down line on the right otherwise operators would be constantly reaching across each other.  The original lever frame sequence would also have been inappropriate because the control panel faces the opposite way to the lever frame in the signal box.  In hindsight I should have located the levers behind the diagram as they obscure it slightly. 

 

The three black toggle switches control isolating sections, the red switches control the retarders and uncoupling magnets.  The retarders comprise pins that rise up from the track bed to prevent stock from running away on the 1:100 gradient when it is uncoupled from the locomotive.  The red toggle switches have three positions: they are normally in the up position which results in the retarding pin sitting level with the top of the sleeper.  In the mid position the retarding pin is raised behind the leading axle of the vehicle to be uncoupled, in the down position the pin remains raised and the uncoupling magnet is energised. 

 

As well as painting the levers in the appropriate colours I drew up some lever plates using TurboCAD and had them etched in nickel silver.  TurboCAD was also used to write up labels for the plates and these were printed on photographic paper to ensure crisp printing.  If your eye sight is good enough the levers are correctly labelled.

 

Lever Plates:

 

There is a third panel for the station yard which is similar in design to the fiddle yard panel i.e. push button route selection. 

 

To save a bit of time I commissioned the actual wooden boxes for the three panels from a company in Scotland - Bespoke Craft.  The facias were designed on TurboCAD and comprise three layers:  the top is laser cut in 1.5mm Perspex, the middle layer is paper printed on a plotter, and the bottom layer is laser cut in 1.5mm MDF.  Unfortunately the panels were all stored in the club rooms when the 2015 Boxing Day floods struck and the paper has wrinkled slightly as a result of the damp to which the club rooms were subjected when the ground floor of our building was flooded.

 

Regards,

 

Frank

[Rail-Online]

Very nice work guys - keep it up!

 

It will be interesting to see how the small locos deal with the heavier trains, I have found drag on Spiral curves considerably increase the effect of gradient.

 

Tony

[Chuffer Davies]

Hi,

herewith a status update on Clayton.  

 

Yesterday we completed the temporary racking of the layout so that it can be stored in order to make room for Leicester South (GC) which needs some work doing to it in readiness for its star appearance at the club's 40th anniversary exhibition in September. 

 

The racks we have built in order to store Clayton will become the means by which the layout will be transported to exhibitions once it is completed.  There are 5 racks in total, these being 7 feet long and 2' 6" across.  The racks comprise of 4 x 3" x 1½" rails, 2 on the floor and 2 on top of the rack. ½" diam dowels are let into the rails onto which the base boards are located.   The boards are stacked on their ends requiring careful protection of the rail ends by means of spacer disks set over the dowels.  Eventually each rack will include 2 diagonals to stop the boards from swaying side to side in the lorry when being transported but these aren't needed for storage in the club rooms.

 

 

 

The above picture illustrates one of the racks which holds all the base boards for the fiddle yard.  The board laid on top is one of the three non standard base boards (this being one of the spiral bridging boards) which we will not attempt to stack but instead they will be transported sat on top of the racking in the lorry.

 

The layout is due to be reinstated back in the club rooms in mid September once the exhibition is over but meantime we can get on with starting the under board wiring so we will still be pushing ahead on progress.

 

Other news: Due to a mix up with invoicing I am still awaiting delivery of the test etches for the J7.  In the mean time and to pass the time at home, I have been working on some etches for a replacement chassis for the Bachmann C1 (GN Atlantic).  These will only be suitable for P4 and EM modellers and will include a replacement set of inside frames  for the tender.  It is not my intention to sell these commercially but if any P4 or EM modellers are interested in a set of etches once I have built the prototype then you can contact me through RM Web.

 

I am well aware that the Atlantic's were never used on the Clayton line but it is such a nice model that I would still like to have one to run for my own pleasure, and it will be nice to run a loco that is in a livery other than black!  

 

Well I think that's about it for now.  Thanks for reading.

 

Frank 

 

 

[Chuffer Davies]

Hello,

 

It has been a couple of months since our last update, not surprising because as you will be aware if you follow this blog, the layout is currently packed away whilst we prepare the Leicester South (GC) layout for the club's 40th Anniversay Exhibition at Baildon Recreation Centre on the 15/16 September (next weekend as I write this).  

 

The weekend just gone Chris was demonstrating loco construction at the Expo EM Autumn exhibition and had his nearly completed Q1 and J4 loco's on display along with his completed N5.  I know that he received some very complimentary comments about his models and rightly so.

 

We have not been idle at the club and work has been continuing on the electrical side with all but one of the micro-processor panels now wired up and ready to install under the layout.  We will document the electrical system in detail once we can take pictures of what we are doing.  Chris has started installing the Tortoise point motors in the fiddle yard with 12 installed under a single board at the spiral end of the yard.  It is much easier to do this with the boards stood on their side rather than trying to do this under the layout as I did with the scenic boards.

 

The big news from me is that at long last I have received the J7 test etches and can commence the test build. At first glance at least they look good, all the bits appear to be there which means nothing has been left behind in the bottom of the acid tank which is a real risk with a first test etch.  This afternoon I folded up and assembled the bespoke gearbox which I have designed especially for this model.  I had tried to find a suitable HIgh Level Gears solution to achieve the optimal positioning of the motor but none of the available configurations would work for me.   I intend to build one of my models with the motor installed vertically in the firebox in order to maximise the space for ballast in the boiler.  The gear box frames will be available as an optional extra as and when the model is added to the LRM range.  

 

 

I'm pleased to say that the gearbox assembled at the first attempt and the mesh appears to be spot on.  The gears are from Ultrascale and after a few minutes of running in the box runs smoothly and near silently.  The tags protruding from the top of the frame in the picture are designed to slide into slots in a frame spacer in order to stop the front of the gearbox from flopping up and down.    

 

Over its life time the J7's had three different boilers, and three different cabs and so I have designed the etches to allow for all possible combinations.  To add to the complexity the model has had to be designed to cater for OO, EM and S4 modellers and so I have also included different cab floor and cab splasher combinations optimised for the different track gauges.  This has resulted in a significant amount of brass work:

 

 

 

 

 

The frames by contrast were much simpler to design.  I have included cosmetic valve gear to install between the frames for those who like to include such things in their models.  The frames can either be built rigid or can be compensated using Continuous Springy Beams (CSB's), although CSB isn't suitable for OO modellers.  As usual I am making it as simple as possible for those modellers wishing to use the American pickup system.  

 

 

Over the next few weeks (or at least I hope that's how quickly I can do this)  I will periodically post pictures of my progress in assembling the J7.  No doubt I will uncover some glitches along the way.  If I am lucky I will be able to work round these and continue with the build even if it means scratch building a part from time to time.  I will of course correct the CAD artwork if and when this happens so that the errors don't find their way into the production models.  

 

Finally, the delay in getting the etches back gave me time to complete a couple of other design projects.  The art work for the replacement frames for the Bachmann GN Atlantic is complete and as I had some spare room on the etch I have also designed replacement frames for the LRM type 'D' tender kit with an option for mounting a motor in the tender.  A set of High Level spur gears then connect the motor to a drive shaft running along the centre line of the frames to the locomotive.  At least one of my J7's will be built this way to increase still further the space available for ballast in the loco.  I have also taken some material off the top of the frames (compared to the LRM frames) to allow for a plasticard gasket between the frames and the tender's body in order to electrically insulate them from each other.  This is a requirement when adopting the American pick up system.  I emailed the artwork off on Sunday night and hopefully I will have the test etches back much sooner this time around.

 

So all in all there is still a lot going on despite the layout being stored.  Happily within the next couple of weeks we will be able to get Clayton out of storage and re-erect it.  Fingers crossed it all goes back together again successfully.

 

Regards,

 

Frank

         

[Chuffer Davies]

A quick update on progress with the J7 test build.  On the whole the build is going reasonably smoothly but there have been a couple of glitches on the way that I have had to overcome in order to continue with the test build.   Importantly I have installed the horn guides and checked that there is no binding with the wheels and coupling rods installed, so all being well we are off to a good start.  

 

The main error discovered thus far with the test etches has been  the positioning of the horn guides in the frames which are about 0.6mm too high and therefore the top of the guides interfere with the CSB wire.  This has been easily remedied in the test build by taking a dentist's burr to the tops of the guides and reducing their height by the offending amount.  At the same time a correction has been applied to the CAD artwork to reposition the cut outs for the horn guides.  I have also spotted that the frame overlays have an unnecessary rebate at the rear top corner.  There is no need to correct this on the test build because the rebate will be hidden behind the rear steps when the body is in place but a correction has been made to the CAD artwork to remove the rebate.

 

The following picture shows the frames made up with the CSB wires installed and optional slide bars already installed.  Various components are set out next to the frames illustrating the level of detail that the kit provides with regards cosmetic valve gear.

 

 

This next picture is of the assembled frames with all the cosmetic valve gear installed.  I must admit to the assembly being quite fiddly in the EM spaced frames because of the lack of space between the slide bars but assembly should be easier in S4.

 

 

The unnecessary rebate on the frame overlays is apparent in this final picture. This shot attempts to illustrate (not particularly well) the prominent valve gear counter balance weights when the model is viewed at eye level which led to me including the valve gear in the kit in the first place. 

 

 

There are still the guard irons, draw bar and the brake gear to be installed but the frames are well on their way now and I'm reasonably confident that there are no major mistakes to prevent me achieving a successful set of frames from the test build.

 

Regards,

 

Frank

[Chuffer Davies]

Hi,

 

Sound the trumpets: Clayton has come out of storage and is now reassembled in the club rooms.  Only the front scenic boards have been erected, the fiddle yard and spiral have been left down so that we can install the rest of the point motors and the under board wiring, a task that is likely to take us to into the new year.   

 

Other news:  I have tonight completed the initial test build of the J7's underframe and thought that those of you who are following the Clayton blog might be interested to see how it has come together.  The lesson to be learnt by me is not to think I already know how to assemble it and therefore ignore my own assembly instructions and warnings.  Definitely a case of more haste less speed as I initially assembled one of the brake hangers upside down and one of the outside brake pull rods facing the wrong way so that the detail of the hinge was missing.   These errors have now been corrected and other than needing a good clean up the frames are pretty much ready for painting.  The sharp eyed amongst you will have noticed that there are no balance weights, this was a feature of the prototype.  Presumably the locos travelled at such low speeds that the lack of balance weights didn't effect the ride of the locomotive. 

 

In making this model I decided to take a leaf out of Chris Roger's book and have built the brake rigging such that the hangers are clipped over the top supports but not permanently attached.  This means that the brake hanger assembly can be unclipped and rotated out of the way to allow the wheels to be removed in order to make the painting of the frames easier.

 

I have now fitted the alternate gearbox which will allow me to drive the wheels using a shaft driven by a motor mounted in the tender.   I am building it this way so that the space that would otherwise be filled by a motor can now be filled with lead to improve the locomotives haulage capacity.  This gearbox comprises a set of gears from the High Level MMR+ unit but I have drawn up my own gearbox frames to replace those supplied in the High Level kit.  This has enabled me to configure the orientation of the MMR+ gears to precisely fit the J7.    I have also drawn up a set of etches for a replacement set of inside frames for the (LRM) type 'D' tender as fitted to most of the J7's.  These have now been etched and I shall test assemble them next so that I can prove the end to end drive train's design before starting out on the test assembly of the J7's superstructure.

 

Here are the pictures of the finished locomotive frames.  I should point out that the frames are currently sitting 0.5mm too high because there is no weight to compress the CSB suspension as yet.  Once the ballasted superstructure is sat on these frames they will sit lower in relation to the wheels. 

 

 

 

The image below of the underside of the frames I find particular interesting because it illustrates how the brake pull rods were organised.  The vacuum cylinder (not modelled because the gearbox occupies the space where the cylinders would be) is attached by two adjustable inside pull rods to a traditional yoke as found on many GN locomotive classes.  The yoke is attached directly to the rear brake hangers.  The remainder of the brake hangers are then operated by the outside pull rods hinged just in front of the rear brake hangers.  I see no obvious explanation as to why outside pull rods were utilised on this class of locomotive.     

 

 

This final low level 3/4 view of the frames is intended to illustrate that the valve gear counter balance weights are visible below the frames.  In reality the side elevation indicates that these are fairly well hidden behind the centre brake hangers and so the effort of building the dummy motion is probably only worthwhile if you are a pedant like me who enjoys building in the detail even if its not going to be seen by anyone but me. 

 

 

 

As anticipated a small number of errors have been identified and rectified in CAD so that future etches wont have the same problems, but fortunately none were so drastic as to prevent the test build of the frames to proceed to completion.  Lets hope I'm as lucky with the superstructure.

 

Regards,

 

Frank

 

 

 

[Regularity]

Hi,

 

Sound the trumpets:

 

Just as long as they aren’t being sounded by some bloke called Joshua...

Here are the pictures of the finished locomotive frames.

Thank you for sharing those: fascinating to see, and the accompanying remarks are very informative.