Great Southern Railway (Fictitious) - Signalling the changes...

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, Skinnylinny said:

Indeed, and unless I standardise on one wheel standard, not much that can be done about that! 

That's 00 for you!

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

That's' down to the wider flangeway resulting in the wheel dropping off the nose of the crossing before it becomes supported by the closure rail.

 

If you study a commercial 00 point, you'll see that there's some infill in the crossing area. This supports the flange as the wheel drops - obviously with the finer wheels such as Alan Gibson you get a bigger drop than with coarser wheels but it's still not dropping as far as it will if it's only supported by the rail surface either side of the gap.

[drduncan]

10 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

But I'm building this one to Peco geometry! Trackwork is interesting, and I'd love to have the space for longer, gentler point-and-crossing work, but... I've plenty more to do on the layout too - I'm already scratchbuilding signalling and various rolling stock. Besides, if I let the desire for more accurate pointwork bother me any more, I'd start heading down the EM or P4 route... And I'm not ready to give up my tension locks and RTR-chassis-bashes yet! 

Keep on with the rtr chassis bashing but please get rid of tension locks!

Duncan

[Skinnylinny]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

If you study a commercial 00 point, you'll see that there's some infill in the crossing area. This supports the flange as the wheel drops - obviously with the finer wheels such as Alan Gibson you get a bigger drop than with coarser wheels but it's still not dropping as far as it will if it's only supported by the rail surface either side of the gap.

 

Which is precisely why my little 0-6-0t on the Electrotren chassis doesn't particularly like Peco Code 75 flatbottom points, as I discovered when I tried to use it to shunt South Park Quarry - it lifts itself up on its deep flanges, and cuts off its own power!

 

The infill seems marginally shallower on the bullhead Peco points, so it glides across nicely. 

 

6 minutes ago, drduncan said:

Keep on with the rtr chassis bashing but please get rid of tension locks!

 

When someone comes up with a NEM compatible coupling that allows hands-free uncoupling and coupling, looks better than a tension lock, and still provides some buffing (as I don't trust scale buffers with the amount of slop between 00 wheels and track!) then I'll think about it. Oh, and I don't want to have to build dozens and dozens of couplings by hand, either! 

 

I do use scale couplings within fixed rakes (eg: fixed carriage sets), although I have tension locks at the ends. Loose vehicles such as luggage vans have tension locks at either end for now. 

 

 

Each carriage rake is exhaustively tested over the station throat, even though they're unlikely to be propelled, just in case. I really must do something about those uncoupled brake pipes though! 

[Jack P]

Screw links really are a pain to deal with. I had thought that the comfortable standard for me was the Roxey etched ones - until they started breaking apart.

I now use the Masokits ones, but they are very fiddly. I've also replaced a fair few solid buffers with sprung ones. Wider curves/points mitigate the need for this, but not entirely.

 

Have you seen the solution that Harry came up with for vac pipes over on his End of Southern Steam thread? Looks good!

 

 

[Skinnylinny]

6 hours ago, Jack P said:

Have you seen the solution that Harry came up with for vac pipes over on his End of Southern Steam thread? Looks good!

I've played around with that idea before, and I liked the effect. I found it had the effect of pushing vehicles slightly apart, which kept the couplings taut. This has the advantage of the screw-coupled trains moving (mostly) as one unit, rather than picking up each vehicle in turn as with a loose-coupled train, although I'll have to see what effect it has on propelling!

I think I still have the magnets and elastic kicking about somewhere, I shall have to have a rummage...

[Skinnylinny]

The tracklaying has had to take a back seat this week. Very much a back seat, about 95 miles! I've been resting up with my partner in Oban. The weather was traditional for the Scottish highlands, so most of the time was spent indoors, but I did manage a little CAD work to pass the time. I've started on an LCDR high open (4 plank). Not masses to show yet, most of the bodyside and solebar detail is complete, but nothing on the outside-framed ends or under the solebars yet.



Yet another reason to clean off the printer and have another crack at printing. I've been having several failures lately, but I'm going to try a couple of tricks I've picked up from the internet (as well as re-levelling the print bed, I'm going to try reducing the lift speed and see if that helps) to see how things go.

In the meantime, a rather pretty sunset, on the one day we have been able to see it!

[Skinnylinny]

Work continues on the single slip (slowly and carefully - I can only focus on it in short bursts!) but not enough to be worth another photo yet. That said, at the club tonight I made short work of a David Geen kit for an LSWR D1410 covered wagon. The major part of it is now built, although I've made a rookie mistake! The LSWR had an odd habit when it came to Morton brakes - they put the Morton clutch on the same side as the brake shoes, meaning that the brakes are not on the same side as the simple lever. Whoops! I'll need to correct that (and make sure to flip them so the rods are left-over-right, and not the usual right-over-left! Still to fit are the brake safety loops, door handrails, and a floor and couplings. The roof is cut to size but won't be fitted until the rest of the wagon is complete and has had a coat of etching primer.



A comparison with the Cambrian kit shows some of the variations in this long-lived diagram of wagon



Strictly, the Cambrian kit isn't correct for my time period, as the 6 ½" planking wasn't introduced until the Great War. It's had to make do for a while now, and will continue to fill in until I gain enough correct LSWR vans - maybe an Adams one for variety? And plenty more opens!

[Tim Dubya]

How did you stick your Geeners together?  I have several of these and other diagrams to build but I'm too scared to get the soldering iron on them.  tia

[Edwardian]

5 minutes ago, Tim Dubya said:

How did you stick your Geeners together?  I have several of these and other diagrams to build but I'm too scared to get the soldering iron on them.  tia

 

Use this

[Compound2632]

7 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

Strictly, the Cambrian kit isn't correct for my time period, as the 6 ½" planking wasn't introduced until the Great War. It's had to make do for a while now, and will continue to fill in until I gain enough correct LSWR vans - maybe an Adams one for variety? And plenty more opens!

 

I hit that one too. For those with bottomless pockets, there's also the Martin Finney kit from Brassmasters - also the wide planked variety. (One says planks but I think it's actually tongue-and-groove boarding.)

 

3 minutes ago, Tim Dubya said:

How did you stick your Geeners together?  I have several of these and other diagrams to build but I'm too scared to get the soldering iron on them.  tia

 

Do not fear the soldering iron. Have an iron with a high power - at least 50 W - but bit temperature set below the melting point of whitemetal. And make sure all joints are scrupulously clean and polished.

[Skinnylinny]

47 minutes ago, Tim Dubya said:

How did you stick your Geeners together?  I have several of these and other diagrams to build but I'm too scared to get the soldering iron on them.  tia

I used low-melt solder (I think I actually used 70 degree, because it was what I had to hand). As Compound says, clean up all the joint areas (I use a needle file for straight, flat joint areas and a fibreglass brush for the more awkward bits) and make sure they're a good fit (this kit fitted together pretty much perfectly straight off the bat, with only a little unbending of one side required), as you would if gluing.

Then a healthy dollop of flux, a soldering iron at about 140 degrees for the smaller parts, tin them both on the mating edge, a little more flux if needed, and put the two parts together, then apply the iron. For bigger parts (sides to ends, for example) I crank the heat up a bit - I think I actually built this one at 200 degrees on the iron, and the parts were a big enough heat sink that they didn't even warm up noticeably where I was holding them, much less melt, despite taking several attempts to get things properly aligned. 

And that, of course is one of the big advantages of soldering over gluing - if something isn't quite right, you can pop a tiny bit more flux on the joint, re-heat to melt the solder, and adjust the position. 

[Tim Dubya]

Cheers, don't have a temp controlled iron but will practice on some scrap wm.

[Skinnylinny]

Honestly, a temperature-controlled iron makes a *huge* difference. I would be worried about melting whitemetal with a normal high-temperature iron. Remember that the melting point of tin/lead solder is much higher than that of whitemetal. 

With a temperature-controlled iron, it's much safer to linger with the iron, to coax the solder where you want it without risking damaging the kit parts.

I'm now happy enough building whitemetal kits, but I wouldn't with a non-temperature-controlled iron, especially as a beginner!

[Andy Hayter]

I can recommend the soldering units sold by Circuit Specialists.  Not expensive.  Very quick delivery - 47 hours from Manchester to France.  Totally changed my ability to solder.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Skinnylinny said:

I wouldn't with a non-temperature-controlled iron, especially as a beginner!

 

... especially as an early disaster can lead to discouragement. 

[Regularity]

9 hours ago, Tim Dubya said:

Cheers, don't have a temp controlled iron but will practice on some scrap wm.

I recommend getting one, but a friend who is a very good modeller assembles white metal bits using normal solder and phosphoric acid flux. What he does is, he fluxes the joint, then carries a blob of molten solder to it on the tip of the iron, and touches the solder but not the iron onto the flux at the joint, and it wicks into it. 
It is scary to watch, and to be frank, I haven’t the courage to try it as I have a TC iron, but he learned to do this when young and impecunious and a TC iron was way beyond his means.

[Andy Hayter]

But today a good TC soldering station is about the same price as a couple of good WM kits.

 

And of course it will all of the other soldering jobs to up to but probably not including solver soldering live steam boilers.

 

 

[Steve Smith]

With a chunky 75W Weller at the sharp end I have used this for nearly thirty years.   It's used for both 70° and 100° low melt - there's a mark for each temperature, and there's scope to adjust it up or down a bit if necessary.  It's just an old-fashioned dimmer switch and 13A socket on a board with a lead to a plug.  Should be inexpensive to build. 

 

[Skinnylinny]

Amazing what a lick of paint'll do, isn't it, Gromit?

 

The D1410 van has had its brake gear corrected, handrails fitted and now has its coat of LSWR purple brown and is ready for lettering. It is posed with the Cambrian D1410 and a D&S whitemetal D1506 cattle wagon which just needs the bars fitting over the openings, and can then also be lettered. 



To save myself from needing to buy several sets of HMRS Southern wagon lettering sheets (I have a fair few now with all the LSWR lettering missing, and I don't need all that modern SR lettering!), I commissioned a set of LSWR wagon transfers from @Corbs which are available here: https://www.railwaymania.net/shop/pre-grouping-wagon-decals - you can even specify which made-up running numbers you want, which is a real boon compared to working with the HMRS pressfix ones!

Now, I really must get some more LSWR open wagons sorted... My LSWR goods stock list currently looks like this:

Opens:

• D1309 5-plank round-end (with tarpaulin bar)*
• Cambrian D1316 8-plank (with tarpaulin bar)
• Repainted Hornby 4-plank

Covered:

• Cambrian D1410
• David Geen D1410

Cattle:

• D&S D1516 Large cattle wagon
• D1508 Medium cattle wagon*

Brake vans:

• Kernow Panter Road Van
• Adams "birdcage" brake*

Miscellaneous:

• Wooden-bodied gunpowder van*
• Open carriage truck* and 16' horsebox* (Technically carriage stock!)

Where vehicles marked * are my own 3D printed models.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Skinnylinny said:

To save myself from needing to buy several sets of HMRS Southern wagon lettering sheets (I have a fair few now with all the LSWR lettering missing, and I don't need all that modern SR lettering!), I commissioned a set of LSWR wagon transfers from @Corbs which are available here: https://www.railwaymania.net/shop/pre-grouping-wagon-decals - you can even specify which made-up running numbers you want, which is a real boon compared to working with the HMRS pressfix ones!

 

When I lettered my one built from the Cambrian kit, I used POWSides dry transfers; there are also some waterslide transfers from Fox. I chose the POWSides ones over the Fox ones simply because it was the cheapest solution with least waste, since I was only planning on lettering the one vehicle. Having looked at the price of Corbs' sheet, I can see that is the most effective solution if you've got a large fleet of LSWR wagons to letter!

[Skinnylinny]

I do have some of the POWSides LSWR lettering dry-rub transfers, but I repeatedly made a right mess of them, trying to get the backing sheet to stay still while rubbing down, and I couldn't get them into place in one piece. I also found that the required pressure to get them off the sheet was damaging my 3D printed wagons, so they have gone back into the drawer!

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

I do have some of the POWSides LSWR lettering dry-rub transfers, but I repeatedly made a right mess of them, trying to get the backing sheet to stay still while rubbing down, and I couldn't get them into place in one piece. 

 

The trick I use is to carefully cut around the letter or number (or block thereof) and then use a piece of clear low-tack adhesive tape to carry the transfer plus packing to the right position and hold it in place. One has to plan the job so that the low tack tape doesn't go over a transfer already applied...

 

Unfortunately my roll of low-tack tape has run out - I'd bought it from WH Smith many years ago and haven't yet found an equivalent, though I admit I haven't looked very hard.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Compound2632

[Skinnylinny]

A little something... 



A few Hornby "generic, not-Stroudleys-honest-guv'" 4- and 6-wheel carriages. They are slowly being "de-Stroudley-ified" by the addition of footboards at a reasonable height, new end step handrails, vacuum brake equipment and pipes, laser-cut beading on the duckets, having some of the guard's windows filled in, and roof ventilators added on the smoking compartments. The brake third will also gain some more oil lamps! The biggest bugbear for me now is the lack of bolection mouldings, but short of painstakingly adding half-round Plastruct around every quarterlight (my ability to do which neatly I sincerely doubt!) there's not much I can do about that!

I feel less conflicted about "genericising" the 6-wheelers, as as far as I can tell they're not a perfect match for any LB&SCR Stroudley designs (being closer to Billinton ones, apart from the lower roofline), but that brake third still feels very very Stroudley to me. I may need to see about adding waist and eave beading on those full-height panels. The Hattons Genesis carriages, when they come out, will also be added to the GSR fleet but will be modified as well, to try to avoid looking like everyone else's!

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

the addition of footboards at a reasonable height

 

That step (ho ho) is not a deStroudlification, rather, a correction.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Compound2632