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To stimulate discussion, post photos and exchange ideas, and (being an open public forum) help encourage others to try S scale modelling.

Maybe the ideal scale?


ianb3174
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Hi all, I've loitered around these pages a while now, looking for inspiration and direction. Basically I work in EM, the pragmatic finescale, but have been known to dabble in 7mm, 5.5mm, 00-SF, P4 and other places where the distance between the rails is somewhat as important as what runs on it. (00-SF stretching it a bit). I've seen so much excellent modelling on here running on 4ft gauge with huge rails with flangeways big enough for ships. 

I've planned a 7mm layout, but realistically I don't have room for anything more than an inglenook. 4mm is great for size but quite small. A scale in between like 5.5mm would be ideal but there's even less support than S it would seem. 

Having had some modest success (by which I mean I sold them) in scratchbuilding in 7mm I keep coming across S scale when looking for information on things. Is it a plot? Trackwork is no problem (other than skillset) for me, I'm quite happy to build my own. Wagons, coaches, yeah, I'll have a go. Loco's I'd need to learn a lot more. I am planning to get a 3D printer to assist my modelling generally and if you can make it 4mm then a bigger version wouldn't be an issue. 

I've just printed out a small plank test track on Templot with my two main areas of interest, standard gauge and Irish 3ft gauge. I might do similar with 5'3" and metre gauges later.

The more knowledgeable amongst the group may be able to answer some questions for me.

1. Track gauge. 22.45mm metric equivalent. Yet using 1435mm track gauge divided by 64 gives me 22.42mm.  Doesn't matter much in the grand scheme but is it more to do with conversion from imperial?

2. Is there a source of check chairs to 0.71mm flangeway? I'd assume there isn't and it's just a cut and shut of a regular chair

3. I've heard there is some cross compatibility with EM profile wheels. Obvs the axles would need changing but is there a chart of scaled sizes anywhere?

4. Is it ok to do things in metric as my imperial brain was shut down years ago? 

I'm planning to join the society, get a wagon and bits and see how it goes. I'm loving the detailed scratchbuild posts, learning a lot.

 

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8 hours ago, ianb3174 said:

1. Track gauge. 22.45mm metric equivalent. Yet using 1435mm track gauge divided by 64 gives me 22.42mm.  Doesn't matter much in the grand scheme but is it more to do with conversion from imperial?

2. Is there a source of check chairs to 0.71mm flangeway? I'd assume there isn't and it's just a cut and shut of a regular chair

3. I've heard there is some cross compatibility with EM profile wheels. Obvs the axles would need changing but is there a chart of scaled sizes anywhere?

4. Is it ok to do things in metric as my imperial brain was shut down years ago? 

I'm planning to join the society, get a wagon and bits and see how it goes. I'm loving the detailed scratchbuild posts, learning a lot.

 

 

In the UK,  Ian Pusey drew up our track standards way back in the early 1960s and he calculated the gauge at 0.884"  (22.45mm) to allow for tolerances - it should technically have been 0.883" (22.43mm) but we've worked quite happily to the "broader" gauge for fifty+ years.  You could try having a discussion with Ian but I don't think you will win. :-)

 

There are no special chairs for S scale apart from the slide chair available on the chair sprue.   Providing low volume specialist chairs is an expensive business for a small sociaty so we hack the standard chairs around to reproduce the "specials".

 

Any 4mm wheel with a flange width of 0.018" will run on our S scale standards - the Gibson 4mm wheels have that flange width and their flange depth is larger,  being 0.025" against the SSMRS standard of 0.018".   The tyre widths are usually at least as wide as the SSMRS ones.   The SSMRS web site has a standards page here :-

 

http://www.s-scale.org.uk/standards.htm

 

The machine tools I mostly use these days are metric so I find myself working in metric when working in S scale.  And when I use CAD I can scale to metric to work with the tools.  I don't think anyone expects us to slavishly work with imperial rules. :-)   You will find the constant 0.3969 come in handy in your calculator since that converts prototype inches to millimetres in S.

 

Jim.

Edited by flubrush
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As long as it’s built to 1:64 ratio, then it’s S scale.

Stock built to the published standards is interchangeable and can run on other layouts, so is strongly recommended but you can do what you want, bearing in mind that you may end up as a lone-wolf modellers. We only have a single set of standards for each gauge: they happen to be the real thing divided by 64, with allowances for measurement tolerances - for flangeways, you round up to the nearest whole thousandth of an inch, which is why the gauge is 1.2 thousandths of an inch over exact scale. My track laying isn’t that exact, so I won’t lose any sleep over it.


It is not possible to scale absolutely everything: working tolerances would seize up, and anyway whilst some things might be 1/64 of the real thing, others are 1/4,906 (e.g. cross sectional area) or even 1/262,144 (volume, mass, etc) and the immutable laws of physics apply to what is there. Accepting that caveat, we generally try to use the prototype as a guide to the model, and frankly anyone taking the time to make a decent model for themselves will have no difficulty working to our track and wheel standards, which are more or less “EM fine” (Pendon, Manchester, etc) as they are roughly 20% over scale for 4mm.

 

Anyone who can work in the finer end of EM, using plastic centred wheels and compensation/springing, will find S scale a liberating escape from being outdone by the latest RTR+etched chassis combination.

 

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I have always been impressed by 1:64 as a scale for railway modelling. That slightly greater volume than 00 is somehow visually "right".

 

These days, with all the advantages of techniques such as 3D printing, there is not much about 1:64 that is going to be more difficult than any other finescale modelling.

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8 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

I have seen some American Flyer layouts at shows here in the US and they are horribly course scale.

Probably 5/6 of S scale in the USA is based on American Flyer, but that market effectively supports the development of many scale items.

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4 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

That slightly greater volume than 00 is somehow visually "right".

The volume is more than slightly greater: for a 19% linear increase, you get 68% more volume (and mass, potentially).

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Well, I joined the society, designed a cameo/shunting plank in Templot using a foamboard baseboard I built a while back, and browsed a few journals online. I'm spending some of the day working out what sizes of plasticard I have at my disposal and The practicalities of 14.28mm gauge for Irish 3ft gauge. 

 

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24 minutes ago, ianb3174 said:

The practicalities of 14.28mm gauge for Irish 3ft gauge.

If the issue of a missing 0.08mm doesn’t worry you, don’t overlook the potential for using 3mm scale items, at least for plain track.

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That was my first thought when the conversion popped up on my calculator. At this stage it will only be experimentation. A lot of 3ft was FB spiked to 6ft sleepers on baseplates but some was BH in chairs, in the rare locations where there was mixed gauge such as Larne. A lot of stock used small standard gauge wheels on shorter axles. I have a quantity of Code 83 Peco FB rail which might look ok. Society chairs and 82 BH would work for the chaired stuff. I'll doubtless be posting some images on here shortly. 

32994618164_b5990c4d1c_b.jpg

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45 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

Of course one of the advantages of 5.5mm/ft scale is the use of 16.5mm track for 3' gauge....

Which then isn’t S scale...

 

“Cape” gauge, 42”, is 16.66mm in S. As quite a lot of H0 track tends to be closer to 16.7mm gauge than 16.5mm...

Metre gauge is 15.65mm in S, so if you use standard “universal” wheel sets, but close up the track gauge to near scale clearances, you can get really nice running.

 

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On 12/06/2020 at 11:51, ianb3174 said:

Well, I joined the society, designed a cameo/shunting plank in Templot using a foamboard baseboard I built a while back, and browsed a few journals online. I'm spending some of the day working out what sizes of plasticard I have at my disposal and The practicalities of 14.28mm gauge for Irish 3ft gauge. 

 

More information please!

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I joined the S Scale Society some three years ago.  It is a wonderful society.  Some of the societies that cater for the more popular scales have simply become membership groups, whereas the S Scale Society is a Society where regardless of your level of skill you are made to feel welcome and there is never a shortage of help.

 

WRT wheels.  Many members machine their own drivers.  Using split axles.  I do not have the skills or the patience to be able to do this so I use a variety of trade wheels.  

 

Markis make an S Scale axle for their range of 4mm driving wheels.  It is not in their catalogue but if you phone up and ask then they will supply the wheels with these axles.  They are also available through the society stores.  These are their standard wheel profiles.  

 

Alen Gibson used to supply S Scale wheels.  I understand that they were made using their EM tyres and work just fine,  You can still get the wheels but will have to machine your own axles.

 

Ultrascale will fit their wheels both drivers and others to S Scale axles.  I use EM profile.  I guess that the S4 profile would also work.  They do not advertise this as a service but when I have requested S Scale they have been supplied with no fuss.

 

As with all trade suppliers you are unlikely to find exactly what you were looking for but there is enough choice across the three above suppliers to get pretty close match.

 

My preferenace is Markits.  I like the way that they can quickly be removed for painting chassis etc and they are very robust.   The only challenge I have found is that they can occasionally be a bit tight on the track gauge. 

 

I think that this is due to the fact that they are assembled as a pair and not machined as a pair.  So a little bit of drift can cause tightness.  To get around this I have laid may track at a gauge of 22.6mm.  The society has four gauges depending on the radius.  I used one of the wider gauges even for straight track (hence the 22.6mm).  This works fine for all my wheel types.  

 

I 3D print all my loco boilers bodies and etch the chassis and other parts .  I prefer to work in prototype size ft and Inches straight into the CAD programme and then scale down as I upload to Shapeways.  This way i can move from the works drawing to the 3D programme without having to resize with the inevitable errors.  

 

That said the quality of the scratch building by other members is stunning and demonstrates that in many instances a computer cannot replicate the quality traditional engineering tools can bring.

 

The attached photo, drivers are Markits, Tender chassis has Alan Gibson fitted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

wheels.jpg

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Does anyone know if it would be possible to widen the grooves in a crossing filing jig? I have one for Code 75 rail that would be useful for tracking building in S. Not being of an engineering background I have no idea how the grooves are cut into the block and even if it's possible to widen them. Making a batch for the society is probably not remotely cost effective but adapting an existing one? 

I have a freehand way of making them at present but a jig would be nice.

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Ian,

 

The normal way of making the slots for a crossing jig would be to use a cutter in a milling machine.  This would be done using a cutter of the correct width for the rail  - or using a cutter which is uindersize and making more than one cut.  The second method would tend to be the "amateur" method if you couldn't source or afford an exact size cutter.

 

I'm not sure what to suggest to adjust your existing Code 75 gauge.  You could try filing the slot to widen it if you could find a file thin enough to get into the Code 75 width slot.  I've had a quick dig on the 'Net and found sone thin hand files which might do.  I can't find the Code 75 profile so I'm guessing that the rail head is somewhere around 1mm wide.

 

The Vallorbe range have some thin flat files and you might like to see if you can find one that suits from this web site :-

 

https://www.cooksongold.com/Jewellery-Tools/-Range=Files/-Size=0/-Type=0/-Brand=Vallorbe/-Font=0/&prdsearch=y&show=N

 

The finest ones are escapement files and they have a very fine Cut 6 which would take forever if filling steel

 

I also found the Tsubosan range of files and they do some 0.9mm thick hand files but it looks as though you need to buy a set of ten to get one hand file. :-(   About half way down this page :-

 

https://www.tsubosan.co.jp/english/info/product03.html

 

They also do diamond files down to 1mm thick :-

 

https://www.tsubosan.co.jp/pdf/info/diamond_files/diamond_s_type.pdf

 

I can't find a retail outlet for the Tsubosan files yet but I found a US listing for the S-12 files on Ebay :-

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TSUBOSAN-Diamond-Files-411-170mm-200-S-12-Type-made-in-japan-Hand-400-600/253654611780?hash=item3b0efe3744:g:8FEAAOSwuHJbDJqV

 

... a bit pricey. :-)

 

I think I would suggest what I do and build the crossing on a Templot plan using toolmakers clamps to hold the bits of rail in place. :-)

 

Jim.

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4 hours ago, flubrush said:

I think I would suggest what I do and build the crossing on a Templot plan using toolmakers clamps to hold the bits of rail in place. :-)

 

 

 

Or make your own toolmaker's clamp (cheap, disposable):

 

2_181049_190000000.png

 

Adjust the fulcrum screw until it's a couple of thou above the rail top.

 

"penny washers" are large washers with a small hole, very handy around the layout, also called "mudguard washers", "repair washers", "reinforcing washers", "backing washers":

 

 https://uk.rs-online.com/web/c/fasteners-fixings/nuts-washers/mudguard-washers/

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

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On 15/09/2020 at 21:09, ianb3174 said:

Does anyone know if it would be possible to widen the grooves in a crossing filing jig? I have one for Code 75 rail that would be useful for tracking building in S. Not being of an engineering background I have no idea how the grooves are cut into the block and even if it's possible to widen them. Making a batch for the society is probably not remotely cost effective but adapting an existing one? 

I use code 75 rail anyway, because it suits my prototype, but if the crossing filing jig has been hardened (and it probably has) then making any alterations to it might be difficult.

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