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Snitzl's Scratchbuilt Fun Town.


snitzl
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First of all, thanks all for the kind words, much appreciated.


A loco is required for "Fun Town", something small and unusual to shunt the market stall wagons, browsing the web I came across a vertical boilered De Winton from the 1870's which had the right appearance, but I wanted if possible to include the transverse cylinder of the Albion, a locomotive built in 1848 for the South Yorkshire Railway. Another feature that I hope will be possible to include, is the curved footplate of the L.S.W.R Class 460 : 4-4-0 by William Adams.

 

I've not actually attempted this type of modelling before on a locomotive, all loco's I've built in the past have been based on prototypes, I usually find a locomotive that appeals to me and search out the drawings, but with Fun Town, a different approach will be taken. This just might be a total disaster, we'll have to wait and see. Just to make things a little more interesting, the loco will also run on standard gauge P4 track, Protofour profile wheels, run on DCC with DCC uncoupling, Sharman's flexichas system built into the chassis and for character, the loco will be heavily distressed.

 

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De Winton from the 1870's.

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Transverse cylinder of the Albion.

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Curved Footplate of the L.S.W.R Class 460 : 4-4-0 by William Adams.

 

Time to make a start.

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Hi Oldddudders, I was a big fan of Allan Downes and found his work very inspirational back in the early 1980's, I'd like to think that perhaps just a little of his unique skills rubbed off. In one of his earlier article's , he used computer chats for the bricks ( because scale wise, they were the same size ) and stuck them on one by one, inbelievable.

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Hi all, thanks for the comments.

Because this loco requires a transverse cylinder, I've decided that it's probably simpler and less troublesome to have both wheel axles driven. The chassis, machined from solid brass includes provision for a compensated flexichas design with one fixed axle and the second axle, allowed to rotate about the gearbox worm axle.

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A pair of Tenshodo worm and wheels are used for each of the axles and a bevel gear extracted from a scrap sigma camera lens is used for the main drive. The Mashima motor maybe a little to big, we'll have to wait and see.

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Worm and gear locations are determined and then soldered to 2.0mm diameter silver steel, the gearbox is machined from solid brass.

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Assembled axle, drops into a 2.0mm square slot.

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Motor is mounted vertically on two spacers and secured by two countersunk screws.

 

Thats all for now, Thanks for looking.

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Just a quick progress report : Managed to do a little more on the chassis  assembly, added the side frames and reshaped the solid brass chassis block to match the profile of the side frames, the traverse cylinder drive components have also been added.

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The Snitzlton : Still need to source or make some some driving wheels, the 3ft - 8 spoke wagon wheels are obviously temporary.  I will make a start on the body next.

 

Thanks for looking. Pete.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi all,

It became apparent when building the footplate for 'De Snitzlton', that the Mashima motor was not only to large in diameter, but also to long. I checked out the 'Motors and Drive Systems' thread, here on RMweb and was a little shocked to discover that all of the bespoke model railway motor manufactures I was familiar with, have gone, including Mashima. One thread, in particular mentioned the used of an 'N20 motor', so I've placed my order and await delivery from china, a second potential candidate is 'N-Drive 1015', which I'm also waiting for. Both these motor's have the same dimensions, so there's a chance that they are the same motor, we will have to wait and see.

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Chassis has been modified to take one of these smaller motor's, the footplate and chassis now have a small location ring which will also align the motor and locate the boiler.

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Dental burs are used to add texture to the boiler and chimney extension tube, this loco needs to look heavily distressed and ready for the breakers yard when complete.

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Could do with a clean up, brass filings all over the place.

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Next, I'll leave the body for a while, and take a look at the coupling mechanism.

 

Thats all for now, Thanks for looking.

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Hi All, I've been working on a steam assisted uncoupler for ' De Snitzlton ' which is basically a simple motor and gearbox that will hopefully animate the uncoupler along with its operator. The progress has been more like slowgress, so I felt the need to insert a few images to log my present position. Most of the gears for this project have been taken from an N20 motor / gearbox assembly, a product that is plentiful on xbay. All of the gears required minor modification's and some gears, I've either had to make or have still to make. I must warn anyone thinking of attempting a project with these gears, the teeth are 0.15 module, total height of these teeth is 13 thou, which is only a fraction over 0.3mm. I've spent quite some time on my knee's, searching for dropped components.

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Here's the rear end of the gearbox, part of which will be covered by the coal bunker. Height of the brass gearbox will be trimmed down further when certain criteria has been established.

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Front end of the gearbox.

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Rotating Buffer's ? - All part Fun Town.

 

Stay Safe Everyone : Snitzl 

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Hi All, Here's an update on the steam assisted uncoupler for ' De Snitzlton '.

The gearbox has proved very problematic with regards to gear fits, concentricty of the gears and getting the correct tooth form on the home made cutter's. After modifications, the gearbox was complete, but because of inefficiencies in the gearbox design, that little 4mm dia motor proved inadequate. I've not given up on the steam assisted uncoupler gearbox, but I do feel the need to make some progress, so I will switch to working on the body and wheels and spend some time rethinking a gearbox solution.

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Motor is now mounted above the bunker on a small bracket.

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............

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On test, the motor would not acheive it's ideal speed and would stall often.

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Motion from the gearbox is transferred to the front cams to operate an uncoupler mechanism and the operator.

 

Thanks for looking : Pete

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Love it. I absolutely love it.   In some respects it reminds me of a Tim Burton set.  

Would it be possible to take a few overall shots of fun town and take us on a walk through the metropolis?    I can't be the only one who's drooling in anticipation of seeing more

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19 hours ago, hendie said:

Love it. I absolutely love it.   In some respects it reminds me of a Tim Burton set.  

Would it be possible to take a few overall shots of fun town and take us on a walk through the metropolis?    I can't be the only one who's drooling in anticipation of seeing more

 

Hi Hendie, it's so gratifying that you want to see more of Fun Town  but most of what exists on this small micro layout appears in the intro of this thread.  Your reference to Tim Burton and his unique work just might spark off a whole new approach to railway modelling.

 

Thanks Snitzl

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Hi All, Managed to do a liitle more on De Snitzlton by adding some of the uncoupler mechanism at the front of the loco and also adding a non animatde driver / stoker.

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The uncoupler cams and lifing beam are hidden inside the front buffer.

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Here;s the uncoupler in its uncoupled state.

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The robot driver / stoker  is a 4mm scale model loosely baised on Rodney Copperbottom, but unlike Rodney, the legs and arms on this model are symmetrical. The indiviual components are turned from mild steel on a small watchmakers lathe and soldered together.

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Copperbottom fooling around on the foot plate.

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Here's an animated gif of the uncoupler, operated by turning one of the rear buffer's by hand.

 

Thanks for Looking : Snitzl

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Hi All, Here's another update on 'De Snitzlton' - I've been doing a little work on the animated steam assisted uncoupler operator and also a non animated driver / fireman to replace the retired robot ( yes, I had second thoughts about the robot ). Both these figures have been made from brass bar using dental burs and a Minicraft handheld drill for the sculpting. Making figures has always been a bit of a challange for me as I don't make them that often and this is also a first attempt at making figures in brass.

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The steam assisted uncoupler operator has joints at both shoulders and elbows, the two cams that provide the movement can be timed to provide out of sync movement.

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Another view on the uncoupler guy.

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Here's the fireman / driver. Both figures are soldered to the footplate.

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Our retired robot man heading for the Horse and Groom.

 

Thanks for Looking : Snitzl.

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