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Whats on your 2mm Work bench


nick_bastable
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The Coal Depot for Freshwater has just been delivered from Shapeways, and I have given it a quick spray with Halfords White Primer, as it is hard to see the detail in its semi-transparent state. It will need a little rubbing down here and there, and then I will find out if my painting skills are good enough to do it justice.

 

IMG_20200526_170723

 

 

IMG_20200526_170715

 

... and what it should look like:

 

GoodsShedRoadSide.jpg.4b863df73cccb3ea5ea7dfa71c76e364.jpg

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13 hours ago, Ian Morgan said:

The Coal Depot for Freshwater has just been delivered from Shapeways, and I have given it a quick spray with Halfords White Primer, as it is hard to see the detail in its semi-transparent state. It will need a little rubbing down here and there, and then I will find out if my painting skills are good enough to do it justice.

 

 

Looks excellent Ian!

 

How did you design it? I've always found its really difficult to introduce "random" elements like imperfect tiles and roof sag to a 3D model using CAD type tools. (Have used Fusion360 and AutoCAD).

 

Did you use something more gaming focused like Blender for a more "sculpting" type approach?

 

Justin

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I use Blender, but no clever stuff. I created individual bricks and tiles. The brickwork used a lot of copy and paste having laid a few individual ones to the bond pattern. Then, complete rows of bricks were copy and pasted, then multiple rows. Individual bricks were then manipulated at edges and corners.

 

The tiles were similarly created and copied, but for this roof, most of them were then individually moved, tilted and rotated. and then that row was copied to form the basis for the next one. Finally, I went round deleted slates, resizing broken slates, slipping slates downwards, and adding the completely loose ones. Three or four evenings work for just the roof.

 

I had created corrugated iron sheets for another building, so just imported a bit as a new object and used it for the roof above the doors.

 

coal_depot_STL2.jpg.ffd904c2d669fe9ff6ceb4a9117d31ac.jpg

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Here is a pic of a point I have been working on. Its for my circular test track which I intend to use for track laying practice before trying a small layout. The loco got through the point work on the outer track although I had to move the track feeds to the other end to get the loco there. Since this was done I've finished off the basic point building and the loco seems to be able to negotiate all the points though I think there might be one tight spot it will struggle with. A useful learning exercise so far.

 

I'm wondering how best to release the track from the template. I used Pritt to glue the sleepers down. Any advice gratefully received, also any other issues anyone notices.

1419124470_Nigelspoint.JPG.028a485bc8b6fbae4d0c00805cc862b4.JPG

Nigel Hunt

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I stick my sleepers down on a template with thin strips of d/s tape and then soak with water to part them later. I don't know if it might work with Pritt but washing a bits of turps along each sleeper individually with a brush can often break the glue joint enough to pull the template off. It's tedious, one sleeper at a time though.

 

Not sure what your track radius is, but for very long wheelbase locos, or tight curves, it often helps to set the blades opposite-handed. I am sure your curves and switch types are probably more normal sizes though.

 

Izzy

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You could leave the paper just trim it back and stick the track down paper and all. Or you could place it all in water to soften the paper which should come away a fine knife blade may help. I tend to build track in situ but if I wanted to do it on a bench I would use thin card or stiff paper (1000 lining paper might be a good choice) give it a coat of shellac to seal it then build the track on there. This could then be stuck down onto the baseboard once the track was complete and tested. 

The track looks fine to me. I don't know if you have but you can put a joggle in the outer stock rail so the blade tip is tucked in if you find wheels catching the tip. The other thing is if the inner track is the main you maintain the main line curve through the blade  and closure rail putin a slight set in the outer stock railso the diverging route starts from there with a larger radius.

You can arrange that in templot by greating say a gentle left hand turnout then curving the whole thing right so it ends up with a larger radius springing off a smaller one.

 

Don

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1 hour ago, Izzy said:

I stick my sleepers down on a template with thin strips of d/s tape and then soak with water to part them later. I don't know if it might work with Pritt

 

There may be different types of "Pritt" but soaking does work, in my experience :) 

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Definitely turn the job over and peel the paper off.

 

Some paper stayed put on mine when using Pritt. I gave it a quick rub with some wet & dry to get rid of any bits that had real thickness and then carried on.

 

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Hello,

 

Thanks everyone for your suggestions for removing the track from the base. The Tempolt template was glued to the work board so I couldn't turn it upside down and peel paper from the track. I soaked the paper in water as suggested and I was soon able to slip a blade between the track and the paper (gradually) to release the track. A couple of sleepers came adrift but only because they weren't soldered to the rail!!.

 

Here are a couple of pics with wiring attached to run from the outer circle track to the other end in the inner track. I'd already tested the loco along the outer and inner circuits, and I quite pleased that the loco managed all the various routes. I suppose its no big deal for all you layout building experts, but a useful exercise for me.

 

2129314981_Nigelspoint(2).JPG.378fb782a8ed66e6ca5308dd8883d9de.JPG

 

1380958371_Nigelspoint(13).JPG.e4a7453f408f2bcedb2e454924603e55.JPG

 

Soon I'll have to work out how to do the permanent wiring for crossing from the inner to outer circuit.

 

Nig H

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43 minutes ago, Nig H said:

Hello,

 

Thanks everyone for your suggestions for removing the track from the base. The Tempolt template was glued to the work board so I couldn't turn it upside down and peel paper from the track. I soaked the paper in water as suggested and I was soon able to slip a blade between the track and the paper (gradually) to release the track. A couple of sleepers came adrift but only because they weren't soldered to the rail!!.

 

Here are a couple of pics with wiring attached to run from the outer circle track to the other end in the inner track. I'd already tested the loco along the outer and inner circuits, and I quite pleased that the loco managed all the various routes. I suppose its no big deal for all you layout building experts, but a useful exercise for me.

 

2129314981_Nigelspoint(2).JPG.378fb782a8ed66e6ca5308dd8883d9de.JPG

 

 

 

Soon I'll have to work out how to do the permanent wiring for crossing from the inner to outer circuit.

 

Nig H

looking at the image your check rails appear to bridge the electrical isolation between the points 

 

Nick B

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6 hours ago, Nig H said:

Hello,

 

Thanks everyone for your suggestions for removing the track from the base. The Tempolt template was glued to the work board so I couldn't turn it upside down and peel paper from the track.

 

 

I just tape the Templot drawings to the bench with masking tape so it's easy to pick up and turn over once built.

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8 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

I just tape the Templot drawings to the bench with masking tape so it's easy to pick up and turn over once built.

I agree, and have a heat gun (or hairdryer) handy for removing the odd cockle/stretch and keep the template flat during the process.

 

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Hi all,

 

I gave the J94 some running, and the gears now mesh really well but with two issues: 1) the worm doesn’t seem to stay fully engaged with the gear while running backwards, and 2) it’s got a waddle:

 

 

The reversing issue seems to be the worm lifts and the motor just spins. It’s probably half to do with resistance at the wheels, but also with the motor turning anti-clockwise lifting the top of the gearbox up - does anyone have any suggestions?  I’ve tried altering the angle of the motor to press down on it the top gear more, and it’s done wonders for forward running, but not backwards...

 

 The waddle. It seems to be a pretty uniform waddle.  Any suggestions?  I know the real thing had a bit of a shimmy, but much less I’m guessing?

 

Many thanks

Simon

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Is one of the wheels not quite square in the muff and so is over gauge at one point of the revolution, resulting in the flange creeping up the rail?

 

Jim

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On 29/05/2020 at 18:17, Michael Edge said:

I just tape the Templot drawings to the bench with masking tape so it's easy to pick up and turn over once built.

 

A Sundeala pointwork building board and drawing pins for me.

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4 hours ago, MrSimon said:

Hi all,

 

I gave the J94 some running, and the gears now mesh really well but with two issues

 

 

Hi Simon,

 

I dont want to be discouraging but I'd want a loco to be running a lot more slowly than yours is doing in the videos... then you'd stand a better chance of observing what might be going wrong.

 

I'm not sure if your loco seems too rapid because of pickup issues or stickiness in the mechanism or perhaps your motor and controller don't like each other. Pickup issues could be temporarily overcome on your short test track by using some flexible leads from off track or a temporary pickup 'tender' with flying leads... I used a bogie from an RTR diesel myself.

 

IIRC you are using the Association 'can' motor. I tried one of these a few years back and could never get it to run well - maybe it didn't like my controller or maybe it was just a bad motor. I switched to a Nigel Lawton 8mm coreless motor and suddenly things became a lot better. I know others have had success with the 'can' though so it can be done.

 

Regards, Andy

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13 hours ago, MrSimon said:

Hi all,

 

I gave the J94 some running, and the gears now mesh really well but with two issues: 1) the worm doesn’t seem to stay fully engaged with the gear while running backwards, and 2) it’s got a waddle:

The reversing issue seems to be the worm lifts and the motor just spins. It’s probably half to do with resistance at the wheels, but also with the motor turning anti-clockwise lifting the top of the gearbox up - does anyone have any suggestions?  I’ve tried altering the angle of the motor to press down on it the top gear more, and it’s done wonders for forward running, but not backwards...

 

 The waddle. It seems to be a pretty uniform waddle.  Any suggestions?  I know the real thing had a bit of a shimmy, but much less I’m guessing?

 

Many thanks

Simon

 

As the main issues you appear to have seem to centre around the worm gear meshing, and I don't believe the one-sided gearbox is really meant to be capable of supporting the weight of a motor on it's own, I'd be inclined to cut the gearbox off - leaving the section that contains the wormwheel bearings of course -  mount the worm directly onto the motor shaft, and bed the motor down onto the chassis so that the worm meshes nice and easily with the wormwheel. I make up motor mounts out of strips of plasticard until the mesh is right, others use bluetack etc as a bed. However you do it you really don't want the motor moving around when it's attached directly to the worm. Or the weight of it being absorbed by the gearbox bearings. This just adds extra friction the motor then has to try and overcome.

 

The waddling can be sorted once the running is okay. It could be a wobbly wheel or a slight error with quartering or might not be obvious once the motor/gearing has been dealt with. That could be having an impact.

 

Izzy

 

 

 

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On 29/05/2020 at 13:51, Laurie2mil said:

It does, Nick - but you can get round that by making the isolating cuts on the turnout stock rails further back towards the toe and extending the cuts in the sleepers back to them. 
 

Laurie A

 

10 hours ago, D869 said:

 

A Sundeala pointwork building board and drawing pins for me.

 

Hello,

 

Thanks all for the further comments and tips, all noted and appreciated. I don't think I'll glue templates to my work board in future. Concerning the electrical isolation, I wondered about the checkrails too, but when I tested the crossover track it worked. I had gaps all over the place so I must have had some in the right place - probably beginners luck.

 

Nig H

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Here are a couple of pics of two ex-LMS suburban coaches just leaving the workbench. They look OK to me from a distance but not so good closeup. On the left is a period 1 composite, and the other is a period 2 second.

 

770499458_LMSsuburbancoaches(6).JPG.04e7ea072159c240234d2eb4faff88f9.JPG

 

782311707_LMSsuburbancoaches(8).JPG.10f59735101a2e9670ae42daa9cfb471.JPG

Nig H

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2 hours ago, Nig H said:

 

 

Hello,

 

Thanks all for the further comments and tips, all noted and appreciated. I don't think I'll glue templates to my work board in future. Concerning the electrical isolation, I wondered about the checkrails too, but when I tested the crossover track it worked. I had gaps all over the place so I must have had some in the right place - probably beginners luck.

 

Nig H

It will work fine with only one controller however add a second and there is a problem

 

Nick B

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6 hours ago, Izzy said:

 

As the main issues you appear to have seem to centre around the worm gear meshing, and I don't believe the one-sided gearbox is really meant to be capable of supporting the weight of a motor on it's own, I'd be inclined to cut the gearbox off - leaving the section that contains the wormwheel bearings of course -  mount the worm directly onto the motor shaft, and bed the motor down onto the chassis so that the worm meshes nice and easily with the wormwheel. I make up motor mounts out of strips of plasticard until the mesh is right, others use bluetack etc as a bed. However you do it you really don't want the motor moving around when it's attached directly to the worm. Or the weight of it being absorbed by the gearbox bearings. This just adds extra friction the motor then has to try and overcome.

 

The waddling can be sorted once the running is okay. It could be a wobbly wheel or a slight error with quartering or might not be obvious once the motor/gearing has been dealt with. That could be having an impact.

 

Izzy

 

 

 

 

Bedding the motor on the chassis by whatever means chosen is not ideal on a J94 as you really do need to be able to see under the boiler. There is nothing there at all to hide whatever motor mount you might choose to employ.  You might get away with a short mount at the firebox end. Hornby seem to have deemed that to be OK!

 

You could of course attach the motor at the top to the body, which would be good and firm, but that is going to prove quite a feat to mesh the worm correctly.

 

If the gearbox really is twisting it should be possible to add some extra metal angle pieces at the appropriate place to stiffen it up.

 

Chris

 

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34 minutes ago, Chris Higgs said:

 

Bedding the motor on the chassis by whatever means chosen is not ideal on a J94 as you really do need to be able to see under the boiler. There is nothing there at all to hide whatever motor mount you might choose to employ.  You might get away with a short mount at the firebox end. Hornby seem to have deemed that to be OK!

 

You could of course attach the motor at the top to the body, which would be good and firm, but that is going to prove quite a feat to mesh the worm correctly.

 

If the gearbox really is twisting it should be possible to add some extra metal angle pieces at the appropriate place to stiffen it up.

 

Chris

 

 

Ah yes of course, silly me. Could do with a false half underside boiler as part of the chassis as the motor mount, I think both Caley Jim and Nick Mitchell have done it that way recently with the Pug and 16" Hunslet.

 

Izzy

 

 

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