Ladmanlow Sidings and other C&HPR locations

[BurscoughCurves]

20 hours ago, Alister_G said:

Here's some gratuitous train porn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Al.

 

Some fantastic images there Al, they look so realistic.

 

I love little details like the impromptu doors, they add so much to the larger scene.

 

Pete

[Alister_G]

Thanks very much Pete, I've just been admiring your buildings on Halifax Powell Street, superb modelling mate.

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

That nice Mr Cuneo popped round earlier...

 

 

Al.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Very nice. Where is the mouse? 

 

My Dad was a picture framer for 38 years and Cuneo was one of his favourite artists and as a kid I used to love to hunt the mouse on his paintings.

 

Cheers, Ade.

[Alister_G]

Hi Adrian,

 

that sounds like fun, what a great job of your Dad's.

 

My Dad had a book of Cuneo railway paintings and I used to do a similar mouse-hunt.

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

After my discussion with JohnD over the page, I was on the lookout for the Hornby version of the J94 with the tall bunker and narrow rear spectacle windows, and as luck would have it one popped up in Rails' secondhand listings, so I thought it would be rude not to, really...

 

So here's 68062, looking all clean and shiny:

 

 

 

 

and here you can see the tall bunker and arrow-slit windows:

 

 

 

This is badged as Hornby, but it's exactly the same tooling as the earlier Dapol models which I have two of, as you can see when you take off the body:

 

 

 

 

 

Still the same big weight, and still the same pit in the bottom of the smokebox to hide a decoder, but no DCC socket:

 

 

 

So I'll have to find a small sound chip to fit in there, I think.

 

Anyway, whilst the body was off, I removed the tall bunker, and filled the resulting hole with neat PVA glue:

 

 

 

Swiftly followed by some real welsh coal:

 

 

I also removed the big Hornby tension-lock couplings.

 

This now needs a damn good thrashing,  erm weathering, but I won't do that until I've finished taking the body on and off to do the sound chippery. I don't know yet how it runs, so I might put a non-sound DCC chip in it first to give it a go on the rolling road.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[georgeT]

Better man than me Al, l hate fitting ANY chips especially sound chips  to any locos, l always seem to break pipe's off etc etc, and they never go back together the way they should for me whatever gauge ?

Edited May 3, 2019 by georgeT

[Alister_G]

18 minutes ago, georgeT said:

Better man than me Al, l hate fitting ANY chips especially sound chips  to any locos, l always seem to break pipe's off etc etc, and they never go back together the way they should for me whatever gauge ?

 

Cheers George, as you can see further up the thread my last attempt at one of these Dapol / Hornby locos wasn't an unqualified success, so I'm not all that hopeful.

 

However I'm trying to find a smaller sound chip that the full-size ESU Loksound I managed to stuff in the last one, so it might go back together better...

 

All the best mate,

 

Al.

[Bogie]

I'm with George, way too fiddly for me.

 

But then I remember something you did on Bakewell convinced me you had eyes the size of plates and hands the size of mice.

 

So I am pretty confident you will get a result.

[Alister_G]

59 minutes ago, Bogie said:

I'm with George, way too fiddly for me.

 

But then I remember something you did on Bakewell convinced me you had eyes the size of plates and hands the size of mice.

 

So I am pretty confident you will get a result.

 

Ah yes, If I remember you forced me to reveal my true identity, curses!

 

 

 

Al.

 

[Alister_G]

This evening, I dismantled 68062 again to fit a basic DCC chip to it, so I can check it's running OK.

 

 

The first thing I did was take the weight off, and carry it down into the Dungeon of Doom for some slight readjustment. It returned after some furious hacksaw action, with this bit missing:

 

 

which leaves a nice big gap for the future, although it's not necessary for the chip I'm fitting tonight:

 

 

It does mean that hopefully I can preserve the fixing point for the funnel, and therefore the front of the body.

 

The next thing was to dismantle and unsolder the existing wiring, and then to solder in the decoder, first to the motor:

 

 

 

 

and then to the pickups:

 

 

The decoder and wiring was then tucked away snugly in the bottom of the smokebox:

 

 

I'm hoping that the Zimo sound decoder I've just ordered will also fit in there, when it arrives.

 

Then the weight was reattached:

 

 

Lots of room there for a speaker, hopefully.

 

I then took it to the track and bunged it on my rolling road. At first it was very reluctant to run, but it's hardly surprising, this is the result of rubbing the back of one wheel with a dry cotton bud:

 

 

So after eight or so cotton buds were applied, it was happy to run.

 

Here it is whizzing away at speed step 80:

 

 

I gave it a good blast forwards and backwards, and after that it was happy to crawl round the layout at speed step 2. It's a bit noisy, but I couldn't find my oil, so it will have to wait for that to be dealt with.

 

The new sound chip won't be here until Wednesday next week, sadly, so for now I'll leave this mechanism alone.

 

However, I did think that I could put 68062's body on one of the others which are already chipped, so I might do that tomorrow, and do some detailing and weathering of the body.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

Edited May 3, 2019 by Alister_G
spillong

[Andrew P]

Excellent work Al, the small Locos can be a headache, but sometimes the NONE PLUG ones will afford an easier fit with more room inside to play with for speakers etc.

[Alister_G]

11 hours ago, Andrew P said:

Excellent work Al, the small Locos can be a headache, but sometimes the NONE PLUG ones will afford an easier fit with more room inside to play with for speakers etc.

 

Yep, the addition of the DCC plug just makes one more thing to find room for, and sometimes it's just easier to solder the wires directly.

 

Al.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

That looks a cheap and nasty motor, I presume the addition of DCC improves it somewhat.

Not that I know anything about the subject, but, does the motor give problems in the long term?

 

Mike.

[Alister_G]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

That looks a cheap and nasty motor, I presume the addition of DCC improves it somewhat.

Not that I know anything about the subject, but, does the motor give problems in the long term?

 

Mike.

 

It is one of the older Hornby motors, and is a bit growly, but with DCC it will actually creep along quite smoothly. They aren't actually that bad for reliability, but a replacement is available for less than a fiver, so it's not a big problem if it does die.

 

The biggest issue is the way the motor is held in the frame, it's not an exact mounting, just two plastic clamp plates, so getting the worm gear in the right place for quiet running can involve packing with pieces of paper as shims...

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

Well my new sound chip has arrived. It's a Zimo MX648R, which looks like this:

 

 

You can't tell it's size, in isolation, but here's the existing non-sound ESU decoder in 68062:

 

 

Which is just about an interference fit inside the smokebox well.

 

Here's the Zimo next to it:

 

 

 

You can see that the Zimo is slightly shorter, and considerably thinner, so should fit comfortably in the same place.

 

Sadly the speaker and keepalive which I ordered to go with the chip won't be arriving until Friday, so I can't do a lot yet, but I'm hopeful that I might be able to fit all three and still preserve the weight, and therefore the fixing for the body.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

Well, all the bits I need have now turned up, so this evening I've been fitting them all to the Hornby J94.

 

Here I've removed the ESU decoder, leaving just the wires from the pickups.

 

 

The Zimo sound chip had it's wires cut to length, and then the ESU speaker and LaisDCC Stay-Alive cap were all soldered to the respective wires.

 

The the connections to the chassis pickups were made:

 

 

 

Then the motor connections were attached, and the motor keeper-plate replaced:

 

 

 

You can see how much smaller the Zimo sound chip is, compared to the ESU one we fitted in the Dapol chassis last week:

 

 

That, and the smaller stay-alive capacitor, means that the whole lot fits snugly under the modified weight:

 

 

 

So the next thing to do, was to take it off to the layout, and try it.

 

 

 

 

I'm really very pleased with the sound, both the quality of the speaker and the actual sound file, which is from DCC Coastal.

 

I have another one of these speakers, and also another keep-alive kit, so I will return to the Dapol 68068 and fit these in place of the ones currently in it.

 

All that remains then for 68062, is to put the body back on, and then I can add a crew, lamps, and plenty of dirty weathering.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[calvin Streeting]

nice  whats the "Uf" of the cap ?

[Alister_G]

2 hours ago, calvin Streeting said:

nice  whats the "Uf" of the cap ?

 

Hi Calvin,

 

I'm afraid I don't know, I bought it off ebay and it came covered in heat-shrink sleeving. I would guess not much, due to it's size, but it seems to do the job.

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

Today, I put 68062 back together, and added a crew.

 

It all looks very clean and shiny at the moment:

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, this isn't how the locos ever looked on the C&HPR, so here's what it looks like after an attack of weatherage:

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the weathering powders look a bit raw though, so to finish it off and protect it, I gave it a coat of matt varnish:

 

 

 

There's more to do, it still needs lamps, and I might do a set of doors for this loco as well.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

 

[Alister_G]

A few period pics:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Al

[Alister_G]

Evening sunshine:

 

 

Al

[Alister_G]

Please close the gate!

 

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

 

 

 

Al

[Alister_G]

Last one for the weekend.

 

 

Al.