Wright writes.....

[The Johnster]

        That joke amongst the crews of the obsolescent Fairy Swordfish torpedo-bombers, which, fully laden could just about stagger along at 100kts. under ideal flying conditions,  was that to hit them the Boche had to aim astern!    Just how often were flying conditions ideal?.

  Torpedo-bombers were sitting ducks when it came time to launch their torpedoes, having to fly on a constant course, at a constant speed and at a constant height, (the anti aircraft 'Balance of time.'), to allow their torpedoes to be launched under their most favourable conditions to ensure that they stood a reasonable chance of hitting their targets.

 

  Read about the 'Channel dash.' and the pathetic effort made by Cdr. Esmonde RN. and his three Swordfish to sink either the KM. Gnaisenau or the Scharnhorst in Feb. '42..

  Alas a far cry from the Swordfish's success at Taranto in Nov. '40..

 

Not to mention the stringbags' considerable success against 'Bismark'.

[Focalplane]

I must admit the first thing I do with a constructed Sidelines (7mm) bogie is test it on DCC, those d**ned brass brake blocks sure know how to short!

 

Wait a moment, it's my soldering. . . . .

[Enterprisingwestern]

A question for our electrical experts.

Is 15 volts plus of AC likely to jump a bigger gap than 12 volts worth of DC.

 

Mike.

[County of Yorkshire]

 Read about the 'Channel dash.' and the pathetic effort made by Cdr. Esmonde RN. and his three Swordfish to sink either the KM. Gnaisenau or the Scharnhorst in Feb. '42..

  Alas a far cry from the Swordfish's success at Taranto in Nov. '40..

 

Possible wrong choice of language there? Rather, it was a tragic effort? Brave but a hopelessly futile attempt to hobble the capital ships with no fighter cover? A VC-winning action? 

 

Indeed, Churchill eulogised Esmonde in his post-V.E day radio broadcast when lauding the Irish heroes of the war. 

 

CoY

Edited August 15, 2017 by County of Yorkshire

[AndyID]

 I made sure the area surrounding the chip was insulated as well, by either smearing a thin layer of Araldite inside the loco body

 

Definitely a good idea both for both DCC and DC. There are also paints/varnishes available for that. Often entire printed circuit assemblies are coated with a "conformal" coating to insulate and exclude moisture and contaminants, but the interior surfaces of metal models can be treated similarly. Available in rattle-cans or bottles for brush application.

 

I see Maplin sells a spray-on PCB Lacquer, but that's just one example.

[thegreenhowards]

Andy that is great to hear, though I'm sure you have built yours better than mine. I have concerns that the axles in some bogies are too loose. Are all yours nice and snug?

Tom,

 

I doubt I built mine particularly well! The rigid bogies have plenty of clearance and are very easy to build, so no danger of a short there. I didn't build the compensated ones, as I acquired them second hand ready built and converted them from P4. They are well built and much tighter and I mentioned to Tony that I was worried about shorts last time I visited. He suggest a shim of plasticard on top of the brass just overlapping the wheel slot so as to stop the wheel back touching the brass. I haven't needed to deploy this so far, but if I have any problems that will be my plan A.

 

Andy

[AndyID]

A question for our electrical experts.

Is 15 volts plus of AC likely to jump a bigger gap than 12 volts worth of DC.

 

Mike.

 

Yes, but not by much, and it's highly unlikely that there will be a "flash-over" at these low voltages. Any arcing is much more likely to be the result of an intermittent short-circuit or an intermittent connection/contact.

[Northroader]

But it can be helpful to know if the 12v d.c. is coming from a battery

[Theakerr]

 Hope know one objects to my posting my question here but this site seems to be a nexus of LNER/ER knowledge and the subject - sighting boards - might be of interest to other.  Basically my question is: should the two up home signals in the attached photo have sighting boards and if so where should they be (on the bridge)?

Over the years on the various forum threads people have made many references to sighting boards.  However, when I go through my books on LNER or ER practice and I look at Google images, I think I can say that I may have only ever seen a couple in the 1:1 world.  I have found several pictures of the southern showing them but thats about it.

Thanks

Jim

 

[New Haven Neil]

Most of what needed to be said about dead chassis has already been aired above. The less chance of a short, the better DCC will be.  Also, if a live chassis picks up a track pin and flings it at a motor brush or connection, goodbye decoder.  Seen it happen, fished the track pin out of a returned loco.  It is perhaps better described as good practice rather then a necessity, but in Tony's style, making things as bulletproof as possible makes for better running.  Kind of - 'why wouldn't you' rather than looking for reasons not to do so.

 

As Baz says, a SPROG is the best programmer by a mile.  Makes it all so easy.

[gr.king]

The GN section of the LNER at least had legacy arrangements of extremely tall signal posts to give sky backgrounds rather than sighting boards in many places. Most of these sky arms were originally somersault signals of course.....

[Clive Mortimore]

 Hope know one objects to my posting my question here but this site seems to be a nexus of LNER/ER knowledge and the subject - sighting boards - might be of interest to other.  Basically my question is: should the two up home signals in the attached photo have sighting boards and if so where should they be (on the bridge)?

Up Home Signal.jpg

Over the years on the various forum threads people have made many references to sighting boards.  However, when I go through my books on LNER or ER practice and I look at Google images, I think I can say that I may have only ever seen a couple in the 1:1 world.  I have found several pictures of the southern showing them but thats about it.

Thanks

Jim

Hi Jim

 

In the location they are a simple lick of white paint on the bridge would have been the cheapest and most common way of improving their sighting, but as Mr King as stated the GNR had many tall signals.

[Michael Edge]

I understand that, but a s/c can occur with a live or dead chassis. Take a Hornby loco 4472 for example - with a cast block chassis that is live. Properly constructed, it works, no s/c. That can only occur if say a track pin is picked up. I accept that the construction of one of Tony's all metal locos (no offence intended) with a live chassis and limited clearance on say brake parts offers more chance of a s/c, but, if assembled correctly there isn't any s/c. So why can't a live chassis be used? Or is it just the fear of an off chance s/c occurring?

Sorry to be pedantic, but I see no real technical reason for saying it is not possible.

 

Stewart

 

It makes no difference whether the frames are live one side or not, only the chip and the motor brush gear need to be insulated. The commonest source of stray short circuits is bogie wheels fouling cylinders/frames/brake gear, it's actually easier to make sure this doesn't happen on one side than on both sides - even if the frames are theoretically dead contact can occur on both sides simultaneously and if it can happen it will (Sod's law/Murphy's law). It doesn't fry chips or lock up systems, just opens the circuit breaker and in most cases sets the speed control of the loco concerned back to zero.

[stewartingram]

Thanks Stewart,

 

When you say Hornby loco 4472, which one do you mean, please? The old(est) Tri-ang Hornby one, the tender drive one or the latest manifestation? If it's the last-mentioned, then that has a dead chassis (or at least pick-ups both sides). 

 

I don't think it's the the problem of a stray short on a live chassis that might affect DCC, but the chance of the chip touching the inside of an all-metal loco's boiler/tender/wherever it's installed. With a dead chassis, the loco's body is dead as well, though that won't stop two separate bits on a chip touching the inside at the same time. 

 

When I did a DVD on fitting decoders to (older) Hornby locos (with plastic bodies, but with live chassis), I acted as the 'dunce' - asking really daft questions. Actually, I didn't act at all - the questions just came naturally! It was impressed on me the need to 'sleeve' the chip in some non-conductive material. A DCC expert subsequently told me that that was poor advice, because the decoder might overheat.

 

As is well known, my experience in fitting/using DCC is very limited, though my disliking of it is vast. I have fitted decoders in metal kit-built locos with both live and dead chassis for customers I've built engines for (though I'm still puzzled why they couldn't do this for themselves - I could). Because I'd fried at least five chips by their touching the inside of the body, I adopted the following 'safety regime'. I subsequently made every chassis electrically-dead. Not only that, I made sure the area surrounding the chip was insulated as well, by either smearing a thin layer of Araldite inside the loco body or by using a strip of insulation tape - the former method is preferred because it never comes off.

 

A major difference between a kit-built loco and a (more modern) RTR loco is that the latter will have a socket ready-installed, either in the loco or the tender. This allows the simplicity of 'plug & play' to take place (but even some I know can't even do this!) and the chip is securely held in place at source. The kit-built loco (usually) has the decoder solder-fitted, and it tends (in my experience) to rather flop about inside the body - hence the need for internal insulation.

 

All this, of course, is not even academic to non-users of DCC. I just build a live chassis, install pick-ups on just one side, taking care that the 'insulated' motor brush is far away from the inside of the loco's body (either by having it at the bottom of the can, or, if it's at the top, by insulating the body around it if necessary - not at all in big-boilered locos). I just have one insulated wire from the pick-up to the motor and a live wire (a joggled piece of .45mm brass - the joggle allows the motor/gearbox to find their sweet spot) to the other brush - which also acts as a stay to the motor. I have no need for 'delay' facilities if a short is detected (though any chances of them are eradicated at source during the build), I save myself masses of dosh, if I want to run a loco I just set the road, flick a switch and turn a knob/slider and away it goes. Any spare space in an etched brass boiler can be packed with lead, and that's that. What's best is that I can do it all myself.

 

Despite what others might say, I believe you (the generic 'you') need a fair bit of know-how to install DCC at every stage (see the post above), or pay someone else to do it for you. Then, when it goes wrong, you're stuffed! But then, I'm a Luddite.    

Thanks for bearing with me. I'm just looking at it from a technical aspect (being in electronics) and a simple model aspect (not wanting to pursue DCC at all, but with much experience in the Zero1 fitting).

For the example, I just picked a typical older (Triang?) style loco as in 4472, with an X04 in a cast loco chassis, the tender effectively being a wagon towed behind.

Also, though I see the nicety of sockets for chips/blanking plugs, think of the extra wiring and space taken up. In Zero1 days, we just plugged the wires (was it 3? I forget because it was so long!) on to existing tags. Chips were totally insulated in a heatshrink sleeve.

As for my locos, upon opening the box, I then remove the blanking plug, its socket, and all the wiring. I then fit the most basic wiring needed for DC. Often I will also fit tender pickups, connected to this basic wiring. I hate complexity! Oh, and yes, I do like the idea of plug/socket that Hornby use to connect the tender, which many people hate.

 

Stewart

[Jesse Sim]

Morning Mr Anti-DCC  

 

The B2  as i mentioned in an email i think... it doesnt like the diamond crossings. 

 

Here she is sitting on the layout -lovely.

 

 

I will need to add tender pick ups perhaps? I have never done it before, is it possible? Here are some pictures of the undersie.

 

 

 

 

Jesse 

[rowanj]

I have made a start on the Dave Alexander Q7, using for the first time the Poppywood Loco Builder box. I haven't quite worked out yet how to keep the frames fixed and secure while the first spacers are fitted, and as a result got my fingers warmed, but I'm convinced that the jig will be a valuable piece of kit. It would seem almost impossible to build the chassis out of alignment with it, but we shall see when I fit the wheels.

 

For any new builderapprehensive about being able to build a working chassis, I suggest this jig should make life much easier. 

 

Has anyone spotted a video of the jig being used?

 

The chassis etch, and the spacers, were excellent - a really good fit, Dave's kits are really excellent, but I believe are produced in very small batches, so get them while you can.

 

John

[mullie]

I have made a start on the Dave Alexander Q7, using for the first time the Poppywood Loco Builder box. I haven't quite worked out yet how to keep the frames fixed and secure while the first spacers are fitted, and as a result got my fingers warmed, but I'm convinced that the jig will be a valuable piece of kit. It would seem almost impossible to build the chassis out of alignment with it, but we shall see when I fit the wheels.

 

For any new builderapprehensive about being able to build a working chassis, I suggest this jig should make life much easier. 

 

Has anyone spotted a video of the jig being used?

 

The chassis etch, and the spacers, were excellent - a really good fit, Dave's kits are really excellent, but I believe are produced in very small batches, so get them while you can.

 

John

I'm about to start my second chassis build using the jig, actually second chassis build ever. I am planning to add the chassis spacers to one side before clamping in the jig as I think it will be easier but those with more experience might like to comment. Mine are humble 0-6-0s nothing as challenging as this

 

Martyn

[grob1234]

I have made a start on the Dave Alexander Q7, using for the first time the Poppywood Loco Builder box. I haven't quite worked out yet how to keep the frames fixed and secure while the first spacers are fitted, and as a result got my fingers warmed, but I'm convinced that the jig will be a valuable piece of kit. It would seem almost impossible to build the chassis out of alignment with it, but we shall see when I fit the wheels.

 

For any new builderapprehensive about being able to build a working chassis, I suggest this jig should make life much easier. 

 

Has anyone spotted a video of the jig being used?

 

The chassis etch, and the spacers, were excellent - a really good fit, Dave's kits are really excellent, but I believe are produced in very small batches, so get them while you can.

 

John

 

Nice looking kit there John.

 

Yes, there will be a video featuring the use of the jig coming in the next few weeks on a certain YouTube channel... 

[Mike 84C]

Talking of kits, did I shoot myself in the foot by not buying a DJH unbuilt  NER Z Atlantic kit for £ 110  this past week end? All the bits still in their bags and sold as complete.

[micklner]

Talking of kits, did I shoot myself in the foot by not buying a DJH unbuilt  NER Z Atlantic kit for £ 110  this past week end? All the bits still in their bags and sold as complete.

 

Depends on what you want?.

 

C7 comes with a Brass slab sided chassis, cylinders in totally wrong elevation , poor detail and castings . Tender total rubbish. How do I know I have one , Chassis I had to live with , Tender sold on and a Alexander Models version used a much much better version. Photos of mine about twenty pages back on my workbench thread.

 

Sadly all of the DJH kits I have built are about 20 years or more  behind the times in quality and detail.  I had to do similar to a  D20 of theirs and a I have built the  reasonable A2 . That was enough for me , A8 and H1 are well known for not going around corners. Sorry  I have ignored the rest of the DJH LNER range.

   Tony loves kits, as far as I am concerned when they are this ancient and quality , then no thanks and I look forward to a r.t.r example being made (hopefully) or another makers version.

[Bernard Lamb]

Sadly all of the DJH kits I have built are about 20 years or more  behind the times in quality and detail.  I had to do similar to a  D20 of theirs and a I have built the  reasonable A2 . That was enough for me , A8 and H1 are well known for not going around corners. Sorry  I have ignored the rest of the DJH LNER range.

   Tony loves kits, as far as I am concerned when they are this ancient and quality , then no thanks and I look forward to a r.t.r example being made (hopefully) or another makers version.

Don't remind me of the D20.

Just about the worst kit I have ever handled. I think some bits still survive in the odds and ends box as I never did get it any where near finished. I was not impressed by the attitude of DJH when I questioned the totally mythical tender side frames.

Bernard

[drmditch]

None of the British battlecruisers sunk at Jutland were sunk by Battleships.  They were all sunk by German Battlecruisers which survived numerous hits from duff RN shells.

Strange how people's interests coincide on this thread!

 

Obviously there is the whole question of how effective British AP shells were. There is also a question about how effective the Battle Cruiser Fleet's gunnery was. (Except of course for the 3rd BCS and last comment of Rear-Admiral Hood.)

One would wish to avoid on this thread the whole Jellicoe/Beattie issue, which did so much to poison RN higher command in the 1920s, and makes the Gresley/Thompson debate seem like a storm in a teacup.

 

I don't think anybody has mentioned it above, but the study of Jutland in the context of half-a-century of naval history in Andrew Gordon's 'The Rules of the Game', is well worth reading.

[Manxman1831]

None of the British battlecruisers sunk at Jutland were sunk by Battleships.  They were all sunk by German Battlecruisers which survived numerous hits from duff RN shells.

 

On balance, if the British battlecruisers had been as accurate with their fire as they had been as rapid, they might have been able to compensate for the duff shells.  However, the practise of keeping the LIVE bags of powder and shells in the passageways and leaving the doors open made certain that any hits were always going to be catastrophic, when they did start landing in the most inappropriate places.  Of the ships sunk at Jutland on our side, only HMS Invincible's destruction was attributed to a direct hit on the magazine of A-turret, and that flashed over into the midships magazines.  Both Indefatigable and Queen Mary losses were attributed to hits near to the passageways containing the waiting live ammunition.  Beatty's flagship was nearly lost as a result of a hit on Q-turret, where the fire burned slowly enough down to the magazine and passageways that the ordered flooding of the space was enough to save the ship.  After Jutland, and possibly as a result of his near-demise, Beatty made sure that the passageway regulations were adhered to more rigorously.

[Barry Ten]

Here's the latest thing on my workbench, a Branchlines kit for a LB&SCR six wheel van, which I've completed to this basic running stage tonight.

 

 

I wanted to build some LSWR and LBSC pre-grouping coaching stock and felt that this vehicle would be a good warm-up.

 

I assembled the underframe quite easily and  didn't run into any problems forming the tumblehome or soldering the sides together. However, things quickly got sticky when I began to build the functioning parts of the chassis, and I'm still scratching my head at the problems I ran into.

 

One of the outermost axles is formed by folding down the W irons from the etched underframe, providing a rigid wheelset at that end and defining the running height

of the vehicle. The axle at the other end is supposed to be mounted in a rocking compensation unit. So far so good, and the design looked straightforward. But when I assembled the rocking unit, which is supposed to sit against the base of the underframe, that end of the vehicle ended up far too high - not just by a small amount but around 1.5 to 2mm. Unable to understand how this could have happened, the only solution I could devise was to cut a rebate in the underside of the vehicle so as to accept the rocking unit in a recessed form. Once I'd cut this rebate, though, it was obvious that there wouldn't be any useful clearance to allow the unit to rock, so there was no option but to solder it rigid, just as if I'd started with a rigid chassis in the first place.

 

The next problem was that the floating axle support for the middle wheel couldn't be made to work, as the wheel rims were touching the underside of the chassis. I also had to cut a rebate for this part as well, while soldering in support pieces from scrap etch. It's a bodge, in the end, but it does hold the track, at least using these Bachmann coach wheels. Whether it would do the same with finer wheel profiles is an experiment I may leave for another day!

 

I didn't run into similar problems when I built a compensated chassis for a GWR coach last year, so I'm still a bit puzzled at this one. I wonder if it could be a case of small, cumulative differences caused by not folding half-etched pieces in the desired direction of the kit designer, but as the instructions don't give any real guidance you're on your own anyway.

 

The only saving grace, I find, is that once I've painted and lived with a model for a year or two, I tend to forget the bodges that went into the construction.

 

Alastair

 

 

 

[cctransuk]

Here's the latest thing on my workbench, a Branchlines kit for a LB&SCR six wheel van, which I've completed to this basic running stage tonight.

 

lbsc.jpg

 

I wanted to build some LSWR and LBSC pre-grouping coaching stock and felt that this vehicle would be a good warm-up.

 

I assembled the underframe quite easily and  didn't run into any problems forming the tumblehome or soldering the sides together. However, things quickly got sticky when I began to build the functioning parts of the chassis, and I'm still scratching my head at the problems I ran into.

 

One of the outermost axles is formed by folding down the W irons from the etched underframe, providing a rigid wheelset at that end and defining the running height

of the vehicle. The axle at the other end is supposed to be mounted in a rocking compensation unit. So far so good, and the design looked straightforward. But when I assembled the rocking unit, which is supposed to sit against the base of the underframe, that end of the vehicle ended up far too high - not just by a small amount but around 1.5 to 2mm. Unable to understand how this could have happened, the only solution I could devise was to cut a rebate in the underside of the vehicle so as to accept the rocking unit in a recessed form. Once I'd cut this rebate, though, it was obvious that there wouldn't be any useful clearance to allow the unit to rock, so there was no option but to solder it rigid, just as if I'd started with a rigid chassis in the first place.

 

The next problem was that the floating axle support for the middle wheel couldn't be made to work, as the wheel rims were touching the underside of the chassis. I also had to cut a rebate for this part as well, while soldering in support pieces from scrap etch. It's a bodge, in the end, but it does hold the track, at least using these Bachmann coach wheels. Whether it would do the same with finer wheel profiles is an experiment I may leave for another day!

 

I didn't run into similar problems when I built a compensated chassis for a GWR coach last year, so I'm still a bit puzzled at this one. I wonder if it could be a case of small, cumulative differences caused by not folding half-etched pieces in the desired direction of the kit designer, but as the instructions don't give any real guidance you're on your own anyway.

 

The only saving grace, I find, is that once I've painted and lived with a model for a year or two, I tend to forget the bodges that went into the construction.

 

Alastair

 

This is how I did it from scratch with a 6-wheeled LMS PALETHORPES van :-

 

The six-wheeled chassis are equalised on the 'bogie-and-a-half principle; ie. one end axle runs in pin-point bearings - the other two axles comprise an equalised bogie which is free to swivel and take up track undulations in all planes; (see drawing below).

 

 

 

It seems to be important that six-wheeled vehicles with chassis built on this 'three-legged stool' principle have a significant weight, so I glued a sizeable piece of roofing lead onto the floor. Even so, quite a bit of fiddling was involved before the bogie was sufficiently free to flex without  being so loose that it slopped all over the place!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.