A question about 'Finescale OO'

[polybear]

3 hours ago, cabbie37 said:

As I say, I am a returning modeller from 30 years ago and, at that time, went down the EM route. But with modern R2R locos etc being of such high standard (compared to 30 years ago) and the abilty to buy code 75 track, rather than having to make my own EM, my decision was made..

 

 

11 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

The problem is OO.

The only way to avoid wheel drop is to model in P4, which is why the gauge was introduced.

 

 

Hi cabbie37,

As you are an ex-EM Modeller may I suggest that you read up on 00-sf (later known as 4-sf - they're both exactly the same; a minority took offence to the original use of the term "00" in the original designation, hence the later term - as used on the Templot Track Template Generator program.

00-sf (I'm still old school, and not very p.c.   ) is basically EM gauge minus 2mm, so 16.2mm gauge with 1mm crossing flangeway gaps.  This means improved running thru' turnouts with no discernible (I'll insert that word, so as to hopefully avoid any comeback or arguments) wheel drop thru' turnouts when running recent unmodified RTR (with the finer wheels that Hornby, Bachmann etc. have been fitting in recent years) or alternatively kit-built locos with Gibson, Markits etc. wheels.  In addition, the appearance of the turnouts is improved by the smaller crossing flangeway gap (as per EM).  Don't plan on running locos or stock with coarse wheelsets though - forget Triang and LIMA.....

Trackwork can either be all hand-built, or a mix of RTR (Peco etc) Code 75 plain trackwork plus handbuilt Turnouts (you employ a short area of gauge transition from 16.2mm to 16.5mm between turnout and plain track).  The 0.3mm gauge difference isn't noticeable (some may disagree) - I do recall someone saying he could spot 0.3mm at ten feet...)

There is an excellent summary of 16.2mm and 00 Gauges written by Martin Wynne (the creator of Templot), however I can't find the link at the moment   (Where are you, Martin  ......)

Also, there are numerous 00-sf (4-sf) layouts on RMWeb, with Eastwood Town being one of them.  The search engine will find more...

HTH

Brian

[gordon s]

2 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

The problem is OO.

The only way to avoid wheel drop is to model in P4, which is why the gauge was introduced.

 

 

I'm certainly not disputing the purity of P4, but 00-SF will allow wheels to cross a turnout without wheel drop and is an option for those of us who want to run stock from different manufacturers in 00 without making the massive change to P4. I have nothing but admiration for P4 modellers, but I wanted an easier solution which would allow me to run all my stock without wheel changes.

 

Apologies for posting these pics again, but these are Ultrascale wheels on a two crossings I have built. The first was to DOGA Intermediate standard and the Ultrascale wheel does drop into the gap between the vee and the adjacent rails.

 

 

The second pic is of a similar turnout to 00-SF standards using the same wheel. It is possible to see the wheel tread is supported across the gap and does not drop into a hole.

 

 

This was one of the reasons I chose to build to 00-SF standards and have no regrets.

 

The choice of track gauge and wheel standards is very much a personal one and I have no problem with whatever standards you choose. I'm happy with the choice I made and only post these two pics to show it is possible to use finescale wheels in 00 without the dreaded wheel drop. 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2019 by gordon s

[RedgateModels]

I went with 4-SF for the standard gauge parts of my dual gauge pointwork on my new layout. Wheel drop was one consideration but as I was also having to cater for "N" gauge flangeways for the narrow gauge sections the 1mm flangeways were an acceptable compromise between the 1.25mm of "OO" and 0.85mm of "N"

 

 

The narrow gauge only flangeways are 0.85mm, the standard gauge and common ones are 1.0mm. Having said that, there has had to be several liberties taken tweaks to the flangeways to take account of the tight radius

[wasdavetheroad]

Changing standards is not an option, apart from my ancient hands not being up to the job I have 47 code 100 points already installed. so what is the recommended solution

[Pete the Elaner]

11 minutes ago, wasdavetheroad said:

Changing standards is not an option, apart from my ancient hands not being up to the job I have 47 code 100 points already installed. so what is the recommended solution

Changing standards is the only solution. If you cannot do that, you must accept that you can do nothing about it.

[SR71]

1 hour ago, RedgateModels said:

 

 

 

 

That picture makes my brain hurt. It's like the model rail version of a Penrose stair!

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

2 hours ago, RedgateModels said:

I went with 4-SF for the standard gauge parts of my dual gauge pointwork on my new layout.

 

 

 

@AY ModWhere's the OMG button when you need it?

[martin_wynne]

On 08/12/2019 at 15:55, cabbie37 said:

Sorry for the simple question but I have been left confused after seeing different standard wheelsets at the weekend, both purporting to be 'OO'. Can some kind person put me right?

 

Hi Hugh,

 

Detailed advice on wheel standards and settings for 00 is here:

 

 http://4-sf.uk/

 

Scroll down to "Setting wheels for 4-SF (and 00-BF)".

 

This layout owner talks about using the 00-SF (4-SF) standards:

 

 

>>> Disregard the DOGA Fine standard entirely -- unless you are going to build everything from scratch and have a layout and models which are not interchangeable with others (your models won't run on a friend's layout or a club layout, their models won't run on your layout).

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

Edited December 9, 2019 by martin_wynne
video added

[TheSignalEngineer]

10 hours ago, Ian J. said:

Almost all RTR needs back-to-back checking, as I have found most are inside the 14.4 minimum to a lesser or greater degree, and a few are are outside the 14.5mm 'maximum'. I have noticed that Hornby tends to be most erratic when it comes to setting B2B. 

Agreed, I now have a habit of checking the B2B even before I put new stock on the track. Hornby ones I have measured recently were on the Bulleid coaches which varied between 14.2mm and 14.7mm. Not a bad spread across 12 axles.

[martin_wynne]

10 hours ago, Ian J. said:

Almost all RTR needs back-to-back checking, as I have found most are inside the 14.4 minimum to a lesser or greater degree, and a few are are outside the 14.5mm 'maximum'.

 

(my red)

 

For RTR wheels 14.4mm is the maximum.

 

For 00-SF (4-SF) the minimum is 14.3mm.

 

For 00-BF the minimum is 14.1mm.

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

[cabbie37]

Thank you @martin_wynne, your earlier posting is particularly helpful....

[Ian J.]

2 hours ago, martin_wynne said:

 

(my red)

 

For RTR wheels 14.4mm is the maximum.

 

For 00-SF (4-SF) the minimum is 14.3mm.

 

For 00-BF the minimum is 14.1mm.

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

 

I'd always understood the maximum to be 14.5, shows what I know. I still ease my wheels out to 14.7 or 14.8mm though, but I run with finer check rail gaps and a larger radius.

[martin_wynne]

19 minutes ago, Ian J. said:

I'd always understood the maximum to be 14.5, shows what I know. I still ease my wheels out to 14.7 or 14.8mm though, but I run with finer check rail gaps and a larger radius.

 

Hi Ian,

 

14.5mm is the back-to-back for the traditional 1960s BRMSB "Scale 00" wheels. Those wheels correspond to current Romford/Markits wheels (and the 14.5mm Markits axles and back-to-back gauges).

 

RTR wheels don't use that standard. At one time they were much coarser. Nowadays, since being made in the Far-East factories, they correspond to the NMRA H0 RP25/110 profile. For which the back-to-back on 00 track is 14.4mm.

 

If you are using 14.7mm-14.8mm back-to-back, that is the DOGA Fine standard. Having done that to your wheels, they won't run properly on most other 00 layouts, and most other 00 models won't run properly on your layout.

 

If you wanted finer flangeways and larger radius the better option is to use 00-SF (4-SF) with 1.0mm flangeways on 16.2mm track gauge. That way you don't need to modify your wheels, and your models remain interchangeable with other 00 layouts (and therefore saleable ).

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

[Il Grifone]

The DOGA specifies 14.4mm +/- 0.5mm*, but isn't it about time the back to back dimension was laid to rest? The critical dimension is the check gauge, which is the back to back plus the flange thickness. 00 flanges used to be 0.5mm thick (BRMSB) but are often 0.7mm or thereabouts these days (NMRA). (The NMRA site explains it quite well, or at least used to.)  I set all my wheels to a check gauge of 15mm.*

 

Wheel drop at the crossing can be avoided in two ways - tyre width equal to or greater than twice the flangeway or a partially filled in flangeway, which only works if all the flanges are the same depth (good luck on this one!). (Ignoring the old 'universal' system.)

 

* There's enough slop in 00 standards without adding to it IMHO. In days of yore, I worked in EM** (maybe I'll build that GWR 1920s branch terminus yet though!), but life (and eyesight) is getting too short to hand build all my trackwork, so I have standardised on Peco Streamline (it really needs attention to the flangeways, but...) for my H0 North American Stock and Formoway for 00  (ancient, but I have reasonable stocks and it is 4mm scale if the sleeper spacing is reset correctly). Both are really intended for Hornby Dublo wheel standards which are I think the only thing to survive the Tri-ang takeover (14.2mm and 0.8mm flanges giving the same 15mm check gauge as BRMSB standards - obsolete but there are large quantities of wheels still around. Hornby's scale wheels introduced around 2000 used to conform (still do? I've haven't bought any new for ages).

 

**For realism (my skills weren't up to P4) and to eliminate the slop in 00, which is too great to allow scale  3 link/screw couplings to operate correctly I found.

 

The toppling over of whole trains is why I consign all tangle tension locks to the bin and use Kadees, the Peco/HD ot the Continental loop type.

 

EDIT Martin beat me to it while I was waffling on, but then it's nearly eleven here on the Griffon Coast - I actually saw one the other day!     (No camera to hand of course, but it was only a fleeting glimpse from the car.)

Edited December 9, 2019 by Il Grifone

[Compound2632]

21 hours ago, Andy Reichert said:

I would recommend not trying to define "finescale".

 

It's best thought of as a state of mind.

 

I have no problems with stock using Alan Gibson wheelsets through Peco code 75 pointwork or any variety of code 100 pointwork for that matter and they look more realistic than wider wheels such as Romford. That's for pre-Grouping wagons that have very little going on down below. For more modern stock, where the wheels are hidden by bogie frames etc., it's not such a big deal.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

6 hours ago, wasdavetheroad said:

Changing standards is not an option, apart from my ancient hands not being up to the job I have 47 code 100 points already installed. so what is the recommended solution

There's a dodge to restrict the amount of wheel drop, put a shim at the bottom of the flange gaps in the crossing; so that the wheel runs on the flange as it goes through the crossing. It can only work well if the flange depth of all the wheelsets is uniform, if not the shim has to be of a thickness to just support the deepest flanges on the layout (because we don't want them bumping upwards), and accept that the 'drop' of wheels with shallower flanges will only be somewhat reduced.

[wasdavetheroad]

33 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

There's a dodge to restrict the amount of wheel drop, put a shim at the bottom of the flange gaps in the crossing; so that the wheel runs on the flange as it goes through the crossing. It can only work well if the flange depth of all the wheelsets is uniform, if not the shim has to be of a thickness to just support the deepest flanges on the layout (because we don't want them bumping upwards), and accept that the 'drop' of wheels with shallower flanges will only be somewhat reduced.

Thanks I will try that out, time to check all my wheel types

[Andy Reichert]

Reviewing Data

 

 

Edited December 9, 2019 by Andy Reichert
reviewing data

[Andy Reichert]

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

There's a dodge to restrict the amount of wheel drop, put a shim at the bottom of the flange gaps in the crossing; so that the wheel runs on the flange as it goes through the crossing. It can only work well if the flange depth of all the wheelsets is uniform, if not the shim has to be of a thickness to just support the deepest flanges on the layout (because we don't want them bumping upwards), and accept that the 'drop' of wheels with shallower flanges will only be somewhat reduced.

 

See Proto;87 Stores "88 safe" range of crossings (frogs) for 00/HO with a flange way base at exactly 0.028" depth from the rail head, but with a full flange way width of 0.050" for maximum flexibility within the NMRA HO standard.  These can be used as "instant"  drop in frog replacements in all commercial 00 and HO track, as well as all hand laid track. They can certainly obviate any need to use 00-SF track gauge changes.

 

Andy

[martin_wynne]

22 minutes ago, Andy Reichert said:

See Proto;87 Stores "88 safe" range of crossings (frogs) for 00/HO with a flange way base at exactly 0.028" depth from the rail head, but with a full flange way width of 0.050" for maximum flexibility within the NMRA HO standard.  These can be used as "instant"  drop in frog replacements in all commercial 00 and HO track, as well as all hand laid track. They can certainly obviate any need to use 00-SF track gauge changes.

 

Hi Andy,

 

00-BF 50 thou / 1.3mm flangeways are fine for RTR wheels, but they don't support the "kit" wheels which are popular in the UK. Those wheels are 2.3mm wide, mostly to the EMGS profile. See Gordon's picture earlier in this topic of one such wheel dropping into a 50 thou flangeway gap. 00-SF solves that -- and also looks much better than 50 thou flangeway gaps. It is proving very popular in the UK and some fine model railways are being built using it.

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

[The Johnster]

I have a 14.5mm back to back gauge and set all my wheels to it.  All locos and stock are checked and if necessary adjusted upon acquisition, along with replacement of the silicon grease by proper lubricant and a thorough cleaning even if they purport to be brand new, checking the pickups and ensuring all screws are tight but not overtight.  Incorrect b2b on RTR is quite common. 

 

My running is pretty reliable and derailments are rare, almost always caused by driver error.  I took care to lay my track smooth and level on flat baseboards, and regularly clean flangeways with a stiff nylon child's paintbrush (pack of 8 from £1 shop).  Frequent use is not available to everyone, but is highly beneficial IMHO in terms of maintaining clean track and reliable pickup.

 

If you buy one tool for your model railway, make it a back to back gauge.

[martin_wynne]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

If you buy one tool for your model railway, make it a back to back gauge.

 

Of the correct size for the wheels you are using. For modern RTR wheels it should be 14.4mm. Available from DOGA (Intermediate version): http://www.doubleogauge.com/shop.htm

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

[Il Grifone]

I have to admit to using a vernier caliper, though I am tempted by the NMRA gauge. Ideally use the old feeler gauge technique. size above won't fit. size below OK means it must be correct. (I don't usually bother, relying on 00/H0 slop....  https://www.nmra.org/sites/default/files/standards/sandrp/pdf/rp-2_2019.07.07_track_gages.pdf

 

I had an Athearn box car the other day that insisted on derailing. One of the wheesets was out by about 0.3mm under. Very unusual for them. It was fine once reset of course. Plastic on metal axles - not the best combination*. One day....

 

* Better than plastic on plastic however!

Edited December 10, 2019 by Il Grifone

[Phil Bullock]

Its funny how we all develop our own tolerances. Railway vehicles with plastic wheels are not allowed near Abbotswood - for avoidance of crud on rails -  and if I tried using 3 link couplings on scale length trains I would pretty soon find myself without an operating crew, the Hornby close couplers on Bachmann Mk1s create enough comment as it is! We did try Kaydees but suffered too may parted trains and yes the trackwork did get uneven.

 

I guess with all of these choices we have to ask - who are we trying to convince? if its a private layout that doesnt leave our own home then its ourselves and our visitors. If its an exhibition layout subject to public scrutiny then its a different kettle of fish - poor operation and ease of rolling stock handling can become much more significant and the viewers cannot get as close to scrutinise fine detail as we might....

 

 

[Ian J.]

10 hours ago, martin_wynne said:

 

...

If you are using 14.7mm-14.8mm back-to-back, that is the DOGA Fine standard. Having done that to your wheels, they won't run properly on most other 00 layouts, and most other 00 models won't run properly on your layout.

 

If you wanted finer flangeways and larger radius the better option is to use 00-SF (4-SF) with 1.0mm flangeways on 16.2mm track gauge. That way you don't need to modify your wheels, and your models remain interchangeable with other 00 layouts (and therefore saleable ).

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

 

I agree that using the 'finescale' standard precludes my stock running on normal OO, and other stock running on my layout, but I have no interest in either so it's a non-issue.

 

OO-SF has a huge drawback - all track pointwork has to be handbuilt. With conventional OO I can use RTR track for my fiddleyard as long as I adjust the check rails (which I can do), and can chose to use RTR track on a scenic section if I so choose. I'm more likely to hand build the scenic section track though.

Edited December 10, 2019 by Ian J.