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Parkside Dundas Kits


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Hi all,

 

Soon I am going to be building quite a few Parkside wagons kits, what is the best way to achieve a good build up ensuring everything is square, is there some sort of jig or tool that can help with this?

 

I have built a couple in the past not very successfully, with one wagon the wheels would hardly turn, with the other wagon it never sat square on the track.

 

Any advice would be most welcome.

 

Michael

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Take the floor of the wagon and using a small set square mark some pencil lines at right angles to the long side in pencil - this should at least help you get the axles parallel and at right angles to the track.

 

There are some excellent books out there, especially;

 

Geoff Kent / Wild Swan - 4mm wagons - Volume 1 has an introduction very much aimed at the issues you raised. All 3 volumes would be on my "Desert Island" list!

 

Iain Rice / Irwell - Plastic wagon kits - again a lot of excellent gen to help you get it right, written in Mr Rice's inimitable style

 

Good luck!!

 

John, with snaps on http://www.flickr.com/photos/51265696@N03

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For axle alignment, either the Bill Bedford or Brassmasters jigs.

 

For assembling sides and ends at right angles, take a short piece of aluminium angle (mine is 20x15mm angle, about 25mm long) and cut a slot in the apex, Use with a couple of hair clips as in photos below. The slot allows a small brush with MEK/Butanone to be inserted.

 

Nick

 

post-6746-0-15175700-1346591312.jpg

 

post-6746-0-21808000-1346591321_thumb.jpg

 

edit: ps, if I was going to make another one, and I must do some time, I would make the slot longer than the depth of the wagon or van sides to minimise the chance of the solvent wicking under the metal and damaging the plastic.

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The simplest check that the chassis is square is to look down it , and sight between the axles . If the axles are out of parallel , you're in trouble. I would normally hold it against the light and tip the wagon slowly until the gap between the axles disappears - it should do so along the whole length , without there still being a gap at one end.

 

I normally assemble the chassis so there is abit of slop in the bearings and the wheelsets can float slightly. I glue one solebar in place, wait for it to set, then do a dry run holding the second solebar in place, with the wheels in place , and sight along the length of the wagon to check the axles are parallel . If they aren't you need either to pack the solebar until they are , or else adjust the hole that takes the brass bearing slightly to shift it . Put the wagon on a dead flat surface (a mirror or an old CD or DVD ) on its wheels, and allow the second solebar to set. If, once it's set, there is any rock becausenot all 4 wheels are touching the mirror/CD at the same time , you're in trouble

 

Make sure you remove any moulding flash or ribs on the top of the solebars with a file before gluing in place

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Guest 40-something

Built a good few of these over the past couple of years, as has been said, remove any flash and moulding ribs from the top of the solebars and make sure the solebars are flat and square to the chassis.

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In the past, I've had problems with Parkside kits becoming unusable because the axleguards have moved inwards to such an extent that the axles can't rotate at all. This has happened even though they were very free running on assembly. I assume the plastic has shrunk as the solvent has dried out.

 

To solve this, these days I always move the solebars out by 10thou each side. This is achieved by simply inserting small pieces of styrene between the solebars and the cross bearers. I've had no problems since.

 

Otherwise, they are great kits and go together far better than Cambrian or Coopercraft!

 

David C

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