Industrial Tales in P4 from an Antipodean Dining Table - NCB Edition

[Down_Under]

Thanks Mike,

 

I have a couple of gearbox options. Will have a play. Progress a little

slow of late, bought a new jig so having a play and acquired a second ‘59 landy which has chewed up some time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gordon A]

Sorry to be a pest - any further updates?

 

Gordon A

[Down_Under]

There has finally been some action down at NCB Dining Table and it looks like the strike in the workshop has finally been broken After a couple of challenging nights and the odd afternoon while it has been raining here we finally have a fully sprung Janus chassis. It has been a tad frustrating at times, through my own inexperience – It feel like I’ve actually built about 4 chassis due to the number of times it has been apart, cleaned and put back together. Is this normal?  

 

A little recap, since it has been a while. This is my first chassis kit, and for added complexity I thought I’d jump on the P4 band wagon, which to be honest I don’t think makes it extra harder – most/all my issues are pretty much down to my own inability rather than any fault of the kit or kit parts.

 

I’ve found this super challenging and very frustrating at times. Two steps forward, one back is the motto of this workshop.  This I can squarely put down to me, and the result of learning about all the variables to consider – compensation beams vs CSB wires, types of hornblocks, horn block widths, reaming out holes with a tapered broach instead of a parallel reamer. So at the end of the last episode we had got this far – a chassis that was mostly straight and built as per the instructions.

 

One thing I learnt was that it helps to have a few spares, various types of hornblock, bushes, handrail knobs etc. when you start to deviate from the instructions…..

 

After the first attempt there were a couple of issues.

1. The chassis wasn’t quite square
2. It bound up in both directions due to a couple of reasons; the non-square chassis; the top hat bearings not quite square in the compensation beams; too much slop in pin that articulated the coupling rods at the knuckle joint; I’d omitted the knife edge for the rocking axle (by mistake).
3. I have (had) no idea how I was going to permanently articulate the coupling rods and the 0.3mm wire was too sloppy.

I made a few more mistakes which compounded my problems including use a tapered broach to open up the top hat bearings in an attempt to ease the binding, which most ‘chassis bibles’ tell you not to do. At least I now know why.   It made it all very much worse. At this point I put the whole thing back in the box and into the bottom draw and had a think while I tinkered on my 1959 Land Rover Series 2.

 

A chance meeting at a local model rail exhibition, across the road from the where my Series 2 lives I met a chap called George Noble of the EM Gauge Society, who showed me how to solder valve gear rivets to complete the articulation of the coupling rods (plus a few bargains, including another Oxford Rail Janus and a bunch of NCB themed 16 tonners from Bachman). On returning with my loot, out came the nickel silver and the soldering iron.

 

So one cold and rainy evening I decided the best option would be to stop tinkering and start again. I stripped the chassis back to bare metal and cleaned it all up.

 

 

De-soldering braid is wonderful stuff! Like new in no time.

                                                                                                                                                                        

I reamed out (with a parallel reamer) the holes in the crankpins for the axle bushes, and through the technique George had talked me through (Clean up the steel rivet and back of coupling rod, flooded the joint with oil, apply a little flux and then with a super hot iron briefly dabbed the exposed end of the rivet with some solder) soldered in valve gear rivets. Remarkably (to me) it worked four times out of four (I’d made a spare set up in case I cocked up the first).

 

 

I had initially assembled the chassis as per instructions without really thinking through the implications of what I’d just followed, or not followed as it turned out. The rear end was saggy and it took me a while to realise I’d omitted the knife edge for the rear axle to rock on. In fact no knife edge is included and the swing arms are only included as an option – the instructions (and drawing) recommend a fixed rear, which is also the driven axle.

 

 

I recently found a an excellent blog on assembling this rocking knife edge on a couple of Mikes kits here are Grassland Models. And there are some excellent short videos on his twitter account

 

 

I was in a bit of the pickle, through my bodging to try and ease the binding – I’d opened up the bearing holes in the chassis to the extent that top hat bearings where a very sloppy fit (I can hear the sighs and Ugghh from here  :/ ).

 

I read up a bit on compensation and umm’d and arghh’d about using a rocking beam a la flexi-chassis, recycling some of Mikes kits parts. In the end I settled on a series of equalizing springy beams. It seemed pretty simple.

 

 

If you want a little more science you can delves into the deep and dark mind on of the CLAG here.

 

After a bit of thought, I took the slightly rash decision to cut out the all the hornblocks, after all I’d invested in a proper jig (I got fed up with faffing with jig axles and the wooden poppys jig). The most valuable part of the jig is that I was able to leave it set up – I could de solder hornblocks, adjust them etc without fear of messing it all up.

 

 

To fit the equalized springy beams a template was made via a photocopy of the works drawing with the location of the pivot points. In what we’ll call a learning experience I messed up drilling one of the holes – to rectify I filled with solder and then carefully realigned the template and re-drilled the hole.

 

 

Using what turned out to be the longest handrail knobs I had – these were soldered to the inside and then filled flush on the outside. It took a couple of attempts to establish the correct length to match the High Level carrier tags. I’ve settled on 10 thou spring wire for the time being, but they are adjustable depending on final loco weight.

 

 

 

 

So there we have it, 6 months later, back more or less where we started, but with a fully functioning chassis, compensated chassis that runs remarkably smoothly over some of the roughest track that was found stashed in the bottom of a draw, complete with kinks, humps and distortions. The equalised spring beams, once all the components had been worked out works really well, surprised it is not used more often on equal wheelbase chassis.

 

 

 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Down_Under
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[Down_Under]

In summary, it's mostly been fun along with some immense frustration while working out which hornblock combo’s to use, losing count of how many times I’d soldered/unsoldered carrier tags and hornblocks and taking apart quartered wheels. Plus side – got better at quartering wheels.  I have another one to do, so we'll see if the chassis can be refined a little.

 

Seems to work OK with a gentle push from the big finger in the sky

 

 

The next post will be on the gearbox in a couple of weeks time when I get back from work; a few teasers here for you. A High Level LoadHauler Compact with Drive Stretcher + Mashima 1220D. Spot the first problem

 

 

And a bonus couple of Harton NCB videos from YouTube, complete with funky late 80s synth music to keep you entertained until the next installment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Down_Under
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[Captain Kernow]

Best of luck with the build, D_U, I've no doubt that this will be of considerable help to me, when I eventually get round to doing my own Janus with a Mike Edge chassis and Mashima/High Level drive.

 

[Down_Under]

G'day All,

 

Its been a while, and like everyone else, making the most of the Covid-19 lockdown and change in jobs to make some progress. My apologies for the slow progress/updates 

 

I think way back to August last year, we had a rolling chassis...now we have a fucntioning loco. Wins all round. 

 

JE/Oxford Rail Janus

 

Springing - I used the 'compensated spring' method, using standard high level hornblocks + space saver tabs. It works  great, but even with S4 spacers, it was a little tight when it came to the gearbox. I've used a High level Load hauler Compact+  80:1 + 1220D  + 10mm x 6mm flywheel. I am not sure the flywheel actually does anything, but its not doing any harm I guess. It is tight. In future I think I'd just use the Load Hauler part. I had to file the drive extender to allow some movement and the main gearbox itself to clear the hornblocks (not sure if this is normal?). In the end I had little space:

 

 

Marking where to file back the carrier, so it didn't foul the hornblock

 

I think in part this was to do with how I sprung the chassis - I am sure know what I know now, I would do things a little different - using shorter handrail knobs and slimliner hornblocks for example. 

 

Gearbox in, wired up and run in on (in?!) the vice a'la Iain Rice. 

 

 

Rudimentary pick ups - blue tacked in for some test runs. Inspired by a flick through Iain Rices' Loco Chassis Construction.  I will use a 14BA nut and bolt to hold these in, plus a trim and a tweak. Will add a third pick up to the remaining axle, but I was pleasantly surprised how it ran with just the 4 pick ups. I cant ever imagine it would ever struggle over the largest (I tried a 3mm rail gap) gap. 

 

I weighted the loco to 300g and it was a bit of a Brut - fully compensated and low gearing, it had heaps of traction, crawling over some pretty knarly trackwork, and then hauling some weighted and very un-free running hastily re-gauged hoppers without a problem. 

 

 

Wired up on the test track, Torque link in (used 0.6mm wire and 0.8mm tube soldered to the frame. The torque link is slightly z shaped, to allow the natural springyness to hold it into position. 

 

 

 

You'll notice I haven't used any bushes - yet  - These are Gibson wheels with Gibson crankpins - I will bore out the outside to take the bush with the thread, and then that will leave enough space for the roller bearing cover....that will be the next chapter.   

 

Quick question on DCC - Should I recycle the old PCB board? Or hard wire in a board +decoder? Suggestions on a post card please? 

 

 

Janus Brake Gear 

Next chapter - the tedious task of the brake gear. The brake gear on a Janus is fully compensated - meaning technically it is not 'hung ' from above, and it has dual shoes on each wheel (check out some photos here) - but to make it easier to remove to maintenance, I have. It has 2 shoes per wheel equalling 12 shoes in total. With the JE etch you get a shoes with the hanger plus a half etch lamination. You also get representation of some of the pull rod gear/brake rigging. The OR Janus comes complete with all 12 shoes, linkage and air cylinders, if a touch undernourished. You could simply recycle these if you chose, but I have decided to combine both. The brake gear to me is a pretty defining part of the bulk of a Janus, so I've decided to have a go at best recreating it as I can.

 

Yours truly in action

 

 

JE rigging top, OR below...

 

 

I opted to add some more meat to the JE brake hangers by soldering some spare etch to the top and bottom, drilling and filing to shape. Top modified, bottom original. Well worth it I think. Check out the prototype and you'll notice that extra "meat" 

 

 

 

 

The JE laminated etches and OR brake cylinder. I have decided to use a mixture of 0.5mm tube and 0.4mm wire to represent the pull rod and turn buckle adjuster to give a little more depth to the brake rigging.

 

 

One quarter down three to go....

 

 

Impetus 165 DE

Dug this out the 'stash'. It was a eBay pick up - home brewed attempt at CSB springing and it came busted Mashima 1220 motor ( the commutators had been blown of the back and it ran like a 3 legged dog). As i slowly stripped it - it turned out that the CSB spring points where in the correct position, but the chassis was out of square by a good 1mm and the horn cheeks not square. I discard the home made spacers and used at set of spare P4 society 15.5mm gauge ones.Coupled with the the 0.8mm thick frame gave a respectable back to back of 17mm for P4.

 

It came with a 54:1 roadrunner, that i've coupled to a low revving Mitusmi. I may change my mind and stick a 80:1or 108:1  humpshunter in there. Watch this space.  

 

What we start with - everything bar the motor

 

Only later, while browsing an old MJR I found its of 1987 vintage! No price, but I would have paid about double its original price, but that included gearbox and wheels (+broken motor). Judith Edge make the earlier version, which I will be getting my hands on shortly. I have decided which it to be, maybe Barrington Cement? Or maybe a suitable NCB prototype - suggestions anyone? 

 

 

Started with a half built chassis....homemade hornblock and all

 

 

I had hoped that just replacing the hornblocks with some High Level ones would suffice, but daylight is a bad (especially for vampires...)

 

 

So apart it came - soldered the hornblocks to the chassis which is mostly the reverse of what the books say, but it had already been cut out

 

 

Some careful alignment and we have a square chassis. Maybe slightly unorthodox, but it worked

 

 

New spacers, new motor and off we go!

 

 

 

Started on the buffer beams following Mike Edges' advice - pinned the lamination together with toothpicks and then ran solder around the edges

 

 

Some filing tidied this up nicely 

 

 

 

 

Next step is the brake gear and then body work....watch this space.

 

 

Hornby 4wd Sentinel

Drop in Utrascale conversion + extreme etching laser glazing. Relatively straight forward conversion. I ended up rewiring this loco, cutting out the DCC socket and FM AM?) resistor thing. It runs much better now. No idea why. I also found it was poorly assemble and the worm was not engaging with the main gear. After a good hour of back and forth on a 2m test track to bed the motor in it runs OK. Despite its short wheelbase and no compensation whatsoever, it does very well on my ropey and uneven test track, even managing a wheel in the air without problems!  

 

Nothing to exciting here

 

 

Awaiting some glazing 

 

 

At some point I'll need to learn weathering and build a layout

 

Hornby OC Sentinel P4 and OIC Conversion 

 

So following Porcy Manes conversion, I've had a crack at my own. Except I've used a spare set of Ultrascale wheels, instead to black beetle solid N/S discs. In future , id use the solid N/S discs, purely on the ease of tweaking the original pick ups.

 

To add (also see West Halton Sidings) - RT Models Sides and Buckeye coupling pocket, plus laser glaze to add.  Undecided to make this a 'girl' (unvac braked) or a boy' (Vac Braked) at this point

 

 

More to follow on this one

 

 

That is all for now. Hoepfully between all the action thats going on this forum I'll be able to get some more modelling done

 

J

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by Down_Under