Wright writes.....

[31A]

3 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

Might I pose a question to the assembled and very experienced brains on this thread please?

 

I have had this SR Ballast Plough & Brake Van in my fleet for a while; it was built from a Marc Models kit by Mike Radford and is a pretty reasonable model of an unusual prototype but I have always been aware that it is in the wrong livery (it also has the wrong wheels):

 

 

 

I recently decided to bite the bullet and removed the body from the chassis for repainting; once completed I started to re-assemble but I hit a problem. The body is held to the chassis by two 8BA bolts which tighten against nuts soldered above the flood inside the open ends of the van, and one of these became unsoldered. The picture below shows the location of the two captive nuts - or rather one, as the right hand one is missing:

 

 

 

I have made several attempts to re-solder a nut in place but the inside of the floor is not clean and is almost impossible to access (see third pic.); I don't want to apply too much heat as I don't want the van to fall apart! I have used a nut held in place on a cocktail stick but it needs to be held down against the floor and as soon as heat is applied it just falls off the stick! In one of my attempts I managed to solder a nut to a bolt but neither was ixed to the floor, and so I had to cut through the bolt with a piercing saw!

 

 

 

I can of course rely on just one screw holding the top on, but ideally I'd like to find a solution and get both ends fixed properly!

 

Can anyone suggest a solution that might just work? Any help appreciated!

 

Tony
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you can find a steel bolt of the right size, use that to clamp the nut to the plate and then solder the nut in place.  If you've used ordinary solder and flux it won't have soldered the bolt and you'll be able to take it out, leaving the nut soldered in place.

 

[Tony Teague]

1 hour ago, 31A said:

 

If you can find a steel bolt of the right size, use that to clamp the nut to the plate and then solder the nut in place.  If you've used ordinary solder and flux it won't have soldered the bolt and you'll be able to take it out, leaving the nut soldered in place.

 

 

I'll certainly look for one!

Thanks

[Paul Cram]

1 hour ago, 31A said:

 

If you can find a steel bolt of the right size, use that to clamp the nut to the plate and then solder the nut in place.  If you've used ordinary solder and flux it won't have soldered the bolt and you'll be able to take it out, leaving the nut soldered in place.

 

 

6 minutes ago, Tony Teague said:

 

I'll certainly look for one!

Thanks

I would be wary of this as all the droppers on Hawes were done using orinary flux and solder for steel rail

[31A]

4 minutes ago, Paul Cram said:

 

I would be wary of this as all the droppers on Hawes were done using orinary flux and solder for steel rail

 

Well I've done it several times when soldering nuts to stretchers in the way Tony has described!

 

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, Willie Whizz said:

On the subject of using tools, forty years or so ago, my father-in-law (who had received a bit of basic engineering training as a new conscript in the late-War Royal Navy) taught me this:  "Allus' use the biggest tool that's little enough to do the job!".

 

Which took me a while to fully appreciate, but once I worked it out has stood me in good stead ever since ... basically, provided the tool isn't so very big that you haven't the room to properly swing, pull, push (etc.) it at all, then 'the bigger the better' - because the larger tool will be more economical of effort, and less likely to require excessive or even dangerous force by the operator to achieve the objective.

Definitely. I use a 10 inch second-cut flat file for making point blades. If I had a 12-incher I'd use that (ooer missus).

[jamie92208]

9 hours ago, 31A said:

 

If you can find a steel bolt of the right size, use that to clamp the nut to the plate and then solder the nut in place.  If you've used ordinary solder and flux it won't have soldered the bolt and you'll be able to take it out, leaving the nut soldered in place.

 

I used a trick that someone mentioned to me once. I dipped thd bolt in oil before soldering the nut in place. It worked and the bolt unscrewed fine with the nut securely in place. This was a brass 8BA nut.  In fact i positioned the nut then put the bolt through from underneath till plenty of thread showed through the nut, then used an oil syringe to put a drop of oil on the thread before winding it back into the nut.  It worked well. Another way would be to tin the nut before soldering then use 145 degree solder.  

 

Good luck.

[jrg1]

7 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Definitely. I use a 10 inch second-cut flat file for making point blades. If I had a 12-incher I'd use that (ooer missus).

Non-engineers used to laugh at "If it won't go, get a bigger 'ammer".  This brings to mind ship's engine rooms in the tropics, and unflogging cylinder head bolts-getting on for 20 per head, and around 5 kgs each.  The Indian greasers would hold the flogging spanner tight with a rope, and off we'd go with a large 30 kg flogging hammer.  Who needs Jenny Craig?

[PMP]

Having come from a sports/fast background doing freelance photography, I tried panning a good few years back. Here’s one of a pannier on Albion Yard, and a similar panned pic appeared in the layout article in Railway Modeller, the choice surprising me to say the least!

If I recall it’s probably taken with a 2.8, probably around 1/40th, but may have been a lucky shot out of my G10 on manual settings. I didn’t feel they really captured ‘movement’ but they’re certainly different. I also tried them on Pete Waterman’s Leamington Spa layout, where one or two came out really well, they’re deep in the digital archives somewhere though!

[LNER4479]

10 hours ago, 31A said:

 

If you can find a steel bolt of the right size, use that to clamp the nut to the plate and then solder the nut in place.  If you've used ordinary solder and flux it won't have soldered the bolt and you'll be able to take it out, leaving the nut soldered in place.

 

I've cottoned on to this in recent years, having soldered some brass combinations up solid in the past. I use a steel nut n bolt with just enough thread showing to go through the hole for the brass nut to 'catch' on the other side. Clamp up using the steel nut, then don't dally with the iron(!) - ideally a quick dab each side so that the two flows of solder just meet up in the middle. 

 

Works for me. 

[Tony Wright]

Regarding soldering nuts to things without everything soldering up solid.....................

 

I always tin the nut first, and hold it in place with a cocktail stick over the hole. I once tried with a steel bolt, and everything soldered up solid (I didn't oil it first).

 

In Tony Teague's case, the hole is effectively covered by the 'van's roof, so I'd recommend 'breaking' the cocktail stick in one or two places, to form an 'L' an 'N' or a 'U' (dependent on a point of view), but not snap the cocktail stick into two or three separate bits. I'd then reinforce the weak joints with fast-setting expoxy, and, when cured, just hold the nut in position with that little 'tool' (it can be used several times, of course), soldering the nut in place from underneath, ensuring plenty of solder flowed around the nut's base. The cocktail stick would have to be 'wiggled' through the 'van's apertures.

 

In my experience, ideally the solder should penetrate the thread on the nut, thus ensuring a really good 'grip'. It can then be tapped afterwards (which will leave a little residual solder).

 

Steel will solder, usually where and when it's not wanted!

 

I hope this helps.

 

A really secure fixing of any nut is essential. I've lost count of the number of times where I can't get the body off on a kit-built loco or carriage (not built by me, I hasten to add!) because the screws just turn aimlessly, or bogies/ponies won't come off for the same reason. Very often, the 'free' nuts end up totally hidden (inside the underneath of a boiler, for instance) and are then impossible to get at. It's very poor practice. 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Tony Wright
to clarify a point

[31A]

In the past I've often found it difficult to solder nuts successfully, so that they don't come loose afterwards, despite tinning them first.  Apart from anything else, being thick they need a lot of heat.  Sometimes it seems to help to file the face of the nut flat as there may be some burr where the hole has been threaded, stopping the nut from sitting tight up to the metal piece.

 

So in the case of a 'stretcher' to hold the body to the underframe for example I'd sometimes prefer to replace the whole thing with a piece of thicker brass, and drill and tap a hole in it.  Or if, for example, it's a hole in a coach floor to take a bogie pivot pin I'd tap a hole in a scrap piece of thick brass and sweat that to the floor rather than soldering a nut over the hole.

 

I don't have any posh machine tools to do the above, but do have taps for 6, 8 and 10 BA sizes.

 

Re. using steel bolts, I tend to use the same one over and over and it has got rusty from the flux which stops it from soldering itself in.  But when I have, apparently, soldered a steel bolt in place I've found it's not really soldered but more 'stuck' by the solder and can be got out by   using some force with the screwdriver!

[mdh1950]

13 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

I decided this afternoon to try some more panning shots. 

 

The failure rate is enormous (some 40 exposures before one is anything like half-decent), but some do work......

 

 

Fairly successful, I think. This is a Golden Age A4.

 

 

Not quite so crisp is this DJH/Geary A1 as it races southwards. 

 

 

Another A1, this time DJH/Wright/Rathbone glides by on the Down Queen of Scots. 

 

 

And another DJH/Wright/Rathbone A1 combination heads north, this time on the Down Flying Scotsman. 

 

 

Perhaps slightly too blurred, but the best I got of 60504 (Crownline/Wright/Rathbone). Despite their poor reputation as vehicles, the Thompson Pacifics could certainly run fast. 

 

 

And a V2 (Crownline/Wright/Rathbone) speeds northwards.

 

 

Another V2 (Nu-Cast/Comet/Wright/Rathbone) takes an Up express through Bytham at high speed. 

 

Getting the numbers crisp is very difficult with these type of shots, and it's really a case of setting the camera on burst mode, with a shutter speed of around a 40th of a second, with a wide open iris, trying to follow the loco as it runs by (at high speed). 

 

A mixed bunch, I think, though since the essence of the ECML is high speed, then worth pursuing? 

 

Has anyone else tried panning? 

 

When the panning does work to good effect it can be quite striking.

 

Striking enough to be the subject of DJH's advert in the current Modeller......... 

 

DJH liked the smoke effects, but I remain ambivalent. 

 

 

Good morning Tony,

 

Great shots. I think that a little blurring can add atmosphere.

 

Very many years ago my photography concentrated on motor racing where panning is most important. It takes practice, one of the challenges being not to forget to press the shutter! In those days cameras, well mine at least, a Practika, did not have continuous shooting capability so it was a one shot process.

 

I have now retired so now I should have time to get on with my layout (Cockfield, Suffolk) and to makeup some kits. 

 

Take care, Michael

Edited May 7, 2020 by mdh1950

[Tony Wright]

53 minutes ago, mdh1950 said:

Good morning Tony,

 

Great shots. I think that a little blurring can add atmosphere.

 

Very many years ago my photography concentrated on motor racing where panning is most important. It takes practice, one of the challenges being not to forget to press the shutter! In those days cameras, well mine at least, a Practika, did not have continuous shooting capability so it was a one shot process.

 

I have now retired so now I should have time to get on with my layout (Cockfield, Suffolk) and to makeup some kits. 

 

Take care, Michael

Thanks Michael,

 

Enjoy your retirement - it's well-deserved, though such is the 'rarity' of your profession, I doubt if you'll be totally retired.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, mdh1950 said:

Very many years ago my photography concentrated on motor racing where panning is most important. It takes practice, one of the challenges being not to forget to press the shutter! In those days cameras, well mine at least, a Practika, did not have continuous shooting capability so it was a one shot process.

 

When I was photographing motor racing (strictly as an amateur snapper) obviously I did a lot of panning, but the reject rate was about 90%.  At the 1995 Motorcycle GP I got three pretty much right and coincidentally, they were all the #1 bikes.  

 

One of the biggest advantages of digital photography, you can waste all the shots you like and don't have to change film halfway through a race!

[Ollie K]

The panning shots are fantastic Tony. For me, they best capture the poetry in motion that is an express steam locomotive: the whirling valve gear, blurred wheels and streaked background juxtaposed against the regal superstructure of the loco itself. And on photos of the real thing, the smoke too. The sense of speed frozen in time is wonderful; ideal for Little Bytham and its place in railway history.

 

In my line of work getting road cars photographed, I can confirm that panning shots are always the most labour-intensive. And just as the snapper gets it sharp, central in frame and with the sun behind him, we'll inevitably get 'bowled' by someone coming the opposite way...

[PJT]

14 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Perhaps slightly too blurred, but the best I got of 60504 (Crownline/Wright/Rathbone). Despite their poor reputation as vehicles, the Thompson Pacifics could certainly run fast. 

 

That's a beautiful photo, Tony, even with the slight blurring. 

 

I find it so surprising that a loco design that looks so awkward and gangling when stationary can come so much into its own at speed.  With its over-long proportions, when moving fast it looks so dynamic and purposeful - actually I think, in your panning photos from yesterday, only the A4s come near it in terms of powerful images.  For me, anyway. 

 

And I never thought I'd say that about a Thompson pacific, real or model!

 

Pete T.

 

[thegreenhowards]

My main lockdown project is nearing completion, so I thought I’d share it here. It’s a 52F models A5/1 which will become 69814, the one which was allocated to KX in 1959/60 for trials hauling sleeper ECS (amongst other things). 

 

 

 

I have a few questions for the experts on here:

1. I’m not sure what to do about wheels. The kit is designed for Gibsons but I didn’t fancy quartering them having never used them but heard it’s difficult. So at the moment it’s sitting on a motley selection from my spares box. The Romford drivers are the correct size, but have strange round ends of the spokes (near the rim) so don’t look right while the bogie and rear axle wheels are slightly too small. I looked at the markets catalogue and their A5 kit lists the wrong size of driver (5’2” instead of 5’7”) and is very expensive. I’m tempted by Scalelink  wheels which SE Finecast list - has anyone tried them? I’d be grateful for any suggestions.

2. The coupling rods are designed to have a rivet in the middle joint. I don’t have a way of riveting apart from pressing it in a vice, but I think I can make that work. However, I’m not sure whether I should aim to make them solid or leave them very or slightly floppy (the chassis is compensated).

 

Overall, the kit has taken about 4 weeks - probably around 30-40 hours in total. I found the diagrammatic instructions superb and it was a joy to put together, if an order of magnitude more fiddly than anything I’ve tried before. The fit of parts was superb. NB There are a couple of bits missing  which ‘pinged’ across the room when fitting and I’m hoping will turn up (the Smokebox door handles and a hose). 

 

Any comments welcome.

 

Andy

Edited May 7, 2020 by thegreenhowards
Typos

[jwealleans]

Aaahhhh.... Compensation.    One of Tony's favourite subjects.

 

That does look really nice, Andy.  You should be very pleased with it.

[Tony Wright]

58 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

My main lockdown project is nearing completion, so I thought I’d share it here. It’s a 52F models A5/1 which will become 69814, the one which was allocated to KX in 1959/60 for trials hauling sleeper ECS (amongst other things). 

 

 

 

I have a few questions for the experts on here:

1. I’m not sure what to do about wheels. The kit is designed for Gibsons but I didn’t fancy quartering them having never used them but heard it’s difficult. So at the moment it’s sitting on a motley selection from my spares box. The Romford drivers are the correct size, but have strange round ends of the spokes (near the rim) so don’t look right while the bogie and rear axle wheels are slightly too small. I looked at the markets catalogue and their A5 kit lists the wrong size of driver (5’2” instead of 5’7”) and is very expensive. I’m tempted by Scalelink  wheels which SE Finecast list - has anyone tried them? I’d be grateful for any suggestions.

2. The coupling rods are designed to have a rivet in the middle joint. I don’t have a way of riveting apart from pressing it in a vice, but I think I can make that work. However, I’m not sure whether I should aim to make them solid or leave them very or slightly floppy (the chassis is compensated).

 

Overall, the kit has taken about 4 weeks - probably around 30-40 hours in total. I found the diagrammatic instructions superb and it was a joy to put together, if an order of magnitude more fiddly than anything I’ve tried before. The fit of parts was superb. NB There are a couple of bits missing  which ‘pinged’ across the room when fitting and I’m hoping will turn up (the Smokebox door handles and a hose). 

 

Any comments welcome.

 

Andy

Looking good Andy - even better, were the rear drivers on the track in the first two shots!

 

Also, check the alignment of the cab roof - it appears to rise up to the rear. 

 

'I looked at the markets catalogue and their A5 kit lists the wrong size of driver (5’2” instead of 5’7”) and is very expensive.'

 

As always, it's a case of you get what you pay for. Markits' wheels are the most user-friendly, are true-round, a doddle to quarter and will last in service for your grandchildren's (when you have any) lifetimes. 22mm are the ones to go for.

 

I've used Scalelink wheels with some success (as demonstration pieces for SEF), but they have a tendency to 'wobble. in comparison with Markits' ones. I've not used them on locos for LB, preferring the 'best'. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

[thegreenhowards]

1 minute ago, jwealleans said:

Aaahhhh.... Compensation.    One of Tony's favourite subjects.

 

That does look really nice, Andy.  You should be very pleased with it.

Yes, I know Tony will tell me to solder it all up solidly. But I have noticed that compensated locos fare better on some of my less than perfect track work from a pick up point of view, so I want to see if I can get it to work. 

[Michael Edge]

If it's compensated you will have to joint the rods.

[polybear]

3 hours ago, Northmoor said:

One of the biggest advantages of digital photography, you can waste all the shots you like and don't have to change film halfway through a race!

 

Probably the biggest advantage in my book is that wasted shots don't cost anything

[James Fitzjames]

On 06/05/2020 at 13:11, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi PJT

 

Part of the job we were doing in Northern Ireland involved removing the fiber glass armour off the Land Rovers

Did you have permission to do that, or were you just having fun winding up infantry types?

[Clive Mortimore]

11 minutes ago, James Fitzjames said:

Did you have permission to do that, or were you just having fun winding up infantry types?

The team I was with were fitting roll bars to the Land Rovers so when PIRA exploded a mine the Rover didn't roll over and squash the guys inside. 

 

One of the best days was when a crew came back with another Rover to be modified and they personally thanked us for when they were blown up the roll bars worked. 

[James Fitzjames]

16 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

The team I was with were fitting roll bars to the Land Rovers so when PIRA exploded a mine the Rover didn't roll over and squash the guys inside. 

 

One of the best days was when a crew came back with another Rover to be modified and they personally thanked us for when they were blown up the roll bars worked. 

In that case, you have my personal thanks and the promise of several libations should we ever coincide