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Whats on your 2mm Work bench


nick_bastable
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Thanks for that Andy, interesting stuff, especially the allowance for servo glitches which is not something I'd heard of before. I'm leaning more towards the G F Controls unit for Ropley, although I'd still like to be able to control the signals through the NCE Power Cab which runs the rest of the layout. More investigation required I think!

 

Finally... a couple of questions for you... how do you do your painting? - what paint do you use and do you take the signal to bits for painting or leave it all in one piece?

 

Both of the signals made so far have been left in once piece before being sprayed with Halfords white primer. As soon as the paint is applied I move the working parts to make sure nothing gets stuck, although several light coats rather than 1 heavy coat helps avoid this too. Arms are masked off with very thin strips of Tamyia masking tape before being painted. I used Kleer for the spectale plates, with thinned red and a bluey-green paint used to give them colour.

 

Stunning work Tom! Looking forward to seeing it in place on the layout. I may have missed this earlier on in the thread, but will the signal be operated electrically?

Best regards,

Jeremy

 

Thanks Jeremy! As mentioned above, the curent line of thinking is operation via servo, but I haven't yet established which servo control system will work best with the Power Cab running the layout.

 

Cheers!

 

Tom.

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A slight diversion from signals tonight! All this snow around has reignited my long held desire to model a winter scene, and for sometime I have been on the lookout for a suitable material to represent a light to moderate snowfall. In the past I've tried the white emulsion method used on Hudson Lane by Jon Grant, but I felt that looked a little too flat, lacking the sparkle you see in fresh snow, and most of the proprietary snow you can buy is hugely over scale.

 

Whilst browsing around the interweb for ideas, baking soda was mentioned as a method fovoured in Armour modelling circles. The typical method seems to be a mix of PVA & soda spread over the groundwork, but I wondered if I might be able to use Kleer in the same manner I have for fixing ballast in place on Ropley. This method seems to have worked quite well when tested out on the plank of many uses:

 

post-1467-0-80466100-1358894104_thumb.jpg

 

Anyway, random diversion over, back to finials!

 

Tom,

Edited by TomE
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This is the current state of my pannier. The chassis is from the Higgs/Association kit and it runs very well - I'm still to add the brake gear.

I have filed the footplate edges back and araldited brass angle on. The new buffer beams come from the chassis etch. I'm undecided how to finish the body yet. It was to be a regular pannier but I have now acquired a new Dapol one which will be finescaled  so am tempted to convert this one to a saddle tank ala JBS and Ian. We shall see as further progress on this one is low down the list of jobs.

 

post-1074-0-68494600-1358895605_thumb.jpg

 

Jerry

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This is the current state of my pannier. The chassis is from the Higgs/Association kit and it runs very well - I'm still to add the brake gear.

I have filed the footplate edges back and araldited brass angle on. The new buffer beams come from the chassis etch. I'm undecided how to finish the body yet. It was to be a regular pannier but I have now acquired a new Dapol one which will be finescaled  so am tempted to convert this one to a saddle tank ala JBS and Ian. We shall see as further progress on this one is low down the list of jobs.

 

Jerry

 Nice work Jerry. The tip about the valances has been filed away for future reference.

 

How about finishing it as one of the ex-NCB panniers? You'd need to swap the cab for the earlier type with the squarer eaves, but I think 7754 ran well into the 70s at Mountain Ash, so you could probably justify it alongside your diesels.....

 

Andy

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 Nice work Jerry. The tip about the valances has been filed away for future reference.

 

How about finishing it as one of the ex-NCB panniers? You'd need to swap the cab for the earlier type with the squarer eaves, but I think 7754 ran well into the 70s at Mountain Ash, so you could probably justify it alongside your diesels.....

 

Andy

 

That sounds like a cunning plan Andy, I have one of the early cabs stashed away. What livery would an NCB pannier be in the early 70's - I rather fancy a red one like Alex's.

 

Jerry

 

Edit; just googled it and it looks to be green, albeit a much lighter shade than BR or GWR. There was a pannier at Merthyr colliery until at least 1972 with a later cab http://www.flickr.com/photos/12a_kingmoor_klickr/5759344255/in/set-72157626724121567

 

Jerry

Edited by queensquare
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That sounds like a cunning plan Andy, I have one of the early cabs stashed away. What livery would an NCB pannier be in the early 70's - I rather fancy a red one like Alex's.

 

Jerry

 

Edit; just googled it and it looks to be green, albeit a much lighter shade than BR or GWR. There was a pannier at Merthyr colliery until at least 1972 with a later cab http://www.flickr.com/photos/12a_kingmoor_klickr/5759344255/in/set-72157626724121567

 

Jerry

 

You're right, Jerry. More Apple than Brunswick! 7754 was based at the shed at Big Arch on the Talywain system, a location griced by Phil Copleston and myself although sadly more than several years too late for 7754 and friends.  :sad_mini:

 

David

Edited by DavidLong
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That sounds like a cunning plan Andy, I have one of the early cabs stashed away. What livery would an NCB pannier be in the early 70's - I rather fancy a red one like Alex's.

 

Jerry

 

Edit; just googled it and it looks to be green, albeit a much lighter shade than BR or GWR. There was a pannier at Merthyr colliery until at least 1972 with a later cab http://www.flickr.com/photos/12a_kingmoor_klickr/5759344255/in/set-72157626724121567

 

Jerry

 

Hello Jerry, sorry to say (although I'm no expert) I think that the only NCB panniers in red were the 1500's at Coventry. Have a look at these  http://www.flickr.com/groups/1337593@N25/pool/ for inspiration - nice 08 on page 3...........

 

Alex.

 

Just noticed that the 08 is an 11. Sorry.

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Progress (?) on GWR 1854 class saddle tank - more like 1 step forward 2 back!  Or "What to do?  What to do?"

 

The original intention with this conversion was to give me an engine relatively quickly which would provide an incentive to actually build myself a layout and prove that I could model in 2mm - I have dabbled in 2mmFS on and off before (throughout the 1980's, early 90's), and always failed when it came to getting an engine running.

 

Last night was spent fretting out the cab front and sides from 0.0010 sheet.  Unfortunately a couple of compromises were made - firstly because the GF Pannier is over wide I had to widen the cab to accomodate the extra width (the shaped saddle tank (and footplate) is actually about 2mm too wide for 2mmFS), the second compromise is that I have made a later version of the cab than I would realy like because I intended originally to retain the cast steps (now that I think about it I cannot imagine why!!)  Pondering my dilemma over night and today I am thinking that the further I progress with this project the less happy I am becoming with the compromises I'm making.

 

Currently I am debating what compromises I can actually live with - originally I was happy to accept that my model will be about a scale foot too wide and that the cab would be a shorter one with a slightly larger bunker, however I know that ultimately I may not be completely satisfied with the finished article however I also accept that if I manage to get over the hurdle of a running 2mm loco then I will be encouraged to continue in this scale.  As I am writing this I am coming more and more round to the view that I should pursue this project to some sort of fruition, and perhaps re-visit the model sometime in the future to rectify those compromises (prbably with a scratch built body).

 

Anyway, below are a few images showing the progress (?) made.  The cab front still needs the splasher area removing, but when sited on the rest of the model I actually think it looks OK for now.

 

9

10

11

12

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I have a metro tank part built that has a chassis that was running but has since been scavenged for parts. I worked from three different drawings by accident over the period of building and have the wrong size of tank and a hybrid cab (all of which is too late compared to what I intended. I don't know what to do with that and so I can sympathise.

 

To be honest there doesn't look like there is much of the original body in there. Maybe there is and it is covered up? I think that I'd finish that if I were you. The compromises are just that, not real errors, and it has the right look. One option would be to make the cab and bunker again how you wanted them, or cut down the ones you have. Sometimes it helps to have a short break to refocus on a project. How is the chassis coming along?

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Currently I am debating what compromises I can actually live with - originally I was happy to accept that my model will be about a scale foot too wide and that the cab would be a shorter one with a slightly larger bunker, however I know that ultimately I may not be completely satisfied with the finished article however I also accept that if I manage to get over the hurdle of a running 2mm loco then I will be encouraged to continue in this scale.  As I am writing this I am coming more and more round to the view that I should pursue this project to some sort of fruition, and perhaps re-visit the model sometime in the future to rectify those compromises (prbably with a scratch built body).

There was a chap used to write articles on building 7mm S&DJR carriages back in Model Railways magazine and he wrote a comment on the first of of his construction efforts to the effect that it was more important to get the model finished than to get it perfect. That you should accept the first effort isn't going to be perfect and instead of worrying about that and trying to rectify every mistake finish the model and resolve to do it better next time. Good advice I think and it was notable how his own efforts improved over time.

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To be honest there doesn't look like there is much of the original body in there. Maybe there is and it is covered up? I think that I'd finish that if I were you. The compromises are just that, not real errors, and it has the right look. One option would be to make the cab and bunker again how you wanted them, or cut down the ones you have. Sometimes it helps to have a short break to refocus on a project. How is the chassis coming along?

Hi Richard,

 

Effectively the panniers and footplate/spashers are all that remain of the original :sungum: .  The more I've thought about it as the day has worn on I've decided that I will carry on with what I've got to hopefully get something running by Railex (then I can upset the rest of the Midland group by pushing St Ruth kicking and screaming into the early 20th Century :sungum: ).  In the long run I need to prove to myself that I can successfully model in 2mm and this project if nothing else is a successful learning exercise.

 

The chassis was doing all right until I found out that I couldn't get the wheels closed to the correct back-to-back!  I've used the 7mm (actually slightly less than that when measured) frame spacing PCB, in desperation I have filed back the protruding bushes outside the frames to be flush with the outside of the frames in the hope that that will rectify the problem.  I will do a temporary assembly of the wheels in the chassis later tonight / tomorrow to see if I can now get the BtB.

 

Ian

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Which way around did you put the frame bushes in? The flanges have to be on the inside. I'm guessing you got this right if you've filed them back easily. The frames should be a nominal 7.50mm over their outside faces now so plenty (?) of space for the wheels to get to the BB measurement of 8.50 according to the diagrams in the yearbook - even with the boss on the back of the wheel.

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There was a chap used to write articles on building 7mm S&DJR carriages back in Model Railways magazine and he wrote a comment on the first of of his construction efforts to the effect that it was more important to get the model finished than to get it perfect. T

i thoroughly endorse  that thought  :sungum:

 

the rail cars at failure stage working at testing bugg3r3d  at painting  ho hum :protest:

 

still not enough nerve to solder the dcc chip to the Mighty Mo

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Richard,

 

Effectively the panniers and footplate/spashers are all that remain of the original  :sungum: .  The more I've thought about it as the day has worn on I've decided that I will carry on with what I've got to hopefully get something running by Railex (then I can upset the rest of the Midland group by pushing St Ruth kicking and screaming into the early 20th Century  :sungum: ).  In the long run I need to prove to myself that I can successfully model in 2mm and this project if nothing else is a successful learning exercise.

 

The chassis was doing all right until I found out that I couldn't get the wheels closed to the correct back-to-back!  I've used the 7mm (actually slightly less than that when measured) frame spacing PCB, in desperation I have filed back the protruding bushes outside the frames to be flush with the outside of the frames in the hope that that will rectify the problem.  I will do a temporary assembly of the wheels in the chassis later tonight / tomorrow to see if I can now get the BtB.

 

Ia

 

 

Ian keep going it can be  painful modelling 2mm but when it works its oh wow time    :dancing:

 

 

 

 

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The chassis was doing all right until I found out that I couldn't get the wheels closed to the correct back-to-back!  I've used the 7mm (actually slightly less than that when measured) frame spacing PCB, in desperation I have filed back the protruding bushes outside the frames to be flush with the outside of the frames in the hope that that will rectify the problem.  I will do a temporary assembly of the wheels in the chassis later tonight / tomorrow to see if I can now get the BtB.

 

 

Ian

 

Not sure what is going on here. As mentioned, with the bearings flange inside and filed flush on the outside, 7.5mm should be sufficient to get the wheels to the BtoB. Perhaps you should check the size of the boss on the wheel rear just to eliminate anything wrong there.

 

Although the standard BtoB  is 8.51mm, a number of people use 8.61mm instead (and claim better running) so don't panic if you can only get it down to that.

 

Chris

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There was a chap used to write articles on building 7mm S&DJR carriages back in Model Railways magazine and he wrote a comment on the first of of his construction efforts to the effect that it was more important to get the model finished than to get it perfect. That you should accept the first effort isn't going to be perfect and instead of worrying about that and trying to rectify every mistake finish the model and resolve to do it better next time. Good advice I think and it was notable how his own efforts improved over time.

 

I don't suppose he had any advice regarding whether to confess about your model's faults on RMWeb?

 

then I can upset the rest of the Midland group by pushing St Ruth kicking and screaming into the early 20th Century :sungum:

 

Upset? I don't think so. It will look great alongside the Virgin Voyager and the class 66 that have also been known to appear from time to time.

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Upset? I don't think so. It will look great alongside the Virgin Voyager and the class 66 that have also been known to appear from time to time.

 

They look even better with out of period rolling stock. Jim Allwood went for dinner at an exhibition and saw that a certain operator (not me) had found the coupling hook on a class 92 and used it great effect swapping the engine on my train of pre-grouping wagons. :rofl:

Edited by richbrummitt
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I would agree with what the others have said Ian, get it built and don't worry about the compromises. You knew when starting with a Farish pannier that would be the case. Once you have this one under your belt you can always go on and scratchbuild one that's spot on.

 

As for Aylesbury, as well as St Ruth you are more than welcome to come and give it a spin on Tucking Mill. John Greenwood will be helping out for the weekend and he knows a thing or two about building 2mm locos.

 

Finally, a few out of period adventures are fun. Kim and I went off to lunch at the Basingstoke show, when we came back Highbury was being run with 60's, 66's and MGR hoppers!

 

Jerry

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Not sure what is going on here. As mentioned, with the bearings flange inside and filed flush on the outside, 7.5mm should be sufficient to get the wheels to the BtoB. Perhaps you should check the size of the boss on the wheel rear just to eliminate anything wrong there.

 

Although the standard BtoB  is 8.51mm, a number of people use 8.61mm instead (and claim better running) so don't panic if you can only get it down to that.

 

Chris

I have now stripped the chassis down ready for a re-build.  I will also check my BtB gauge as it's a very old one dating from the late '70's early '80's just to make sure that it isn't under sized.  I may have been sloppy when I soldered the spacers in allowing a small gap at the outside edge - I will put a bit of wood in to make sure frames are tight against the slots in the assembly jig.  It's all a gentle learning curve and I'm sure I'll get there in the end :-)

 

Thanks for the reassurance on the BtB.

 

Ian

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I would agree with what the others have said Ian, get it built and don't worry about the compromises. You knew when starting with a Farish pannier that would be the case. Once you have this one under your belt you can always go on and scratchbuild one that's spot on.

 

As for Aylesbury, as well as St Ruth you are more than welcome to come and give it a spin on Tucking Mill. John Greenwood will be helping out for the weekend and he knows a thing or two about building 2mm locos.

 

Finally, a few out of period adventures are fun. Kim and I went off to lunch at the Basingstoke show, when we came back Highbury was being run with 60's, 66's and MGR hoppers!

 

Jerry

Jerry,

 

I think that life's frustrations of a couple of days were coming out in my modelling !!  I was at the outset perfectly happy to accept the compromises that I was making with the model and the more I've looked at it the happier I am becoming with it - in my eyes it is already starting to look like a GWR Saddle Tank.  The over-width compromise I can certainly live with, the cab is within my remit to correct if I see fit (although the more I look at it the more I feel that I am actually am very pleased with the cab so far so will probably leave well alone for now and possibly correct it if/when I ever build a replacement body from scratch).

 

I have however decided to lay the body to one side for a day or two while I sort out the chassis - for some unexplicable reason I was unable to close the wheels down to the correct back-to-back.  I've since checked the BtB gauge I have and it measures variously 8.47 / 8.48mm (it it an extremely old one that I purchased when I first joined the association way back in the early 80's) - Having seen Chris' post above I suspect that it is too narrow by a smidge.  I also suspect that when I put the chassis together I should have ensured that it sat tight against the inner edges of the construction jig.  I have decided to strip it back down and rebuild it taking somewhat more care than I did the first time!

 

Ian

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Progress (?) on GWR 1854 class saddle tank - more like 1 step forward 2 back!  Or "What to do?  What to do?"

 

The original intention with this conversion was to give me an engine relatively quickly which would provide an incentive to actually build myself a layout and prove that I could model in 2mm - I have dabbled in 2mmFS on and off before (throughout the 1980's, early 90's), and always failed when it came to getting an engine running.

 

Last night was spent fretting out the cab front and sides from 0.0010 sheet.  Unfortunately a couple of compromises were made - firstly because the GF Pannier is over wide I had to widen the cab to accomodate the extra width (the shaped saddle tank (and footplate) is actually about 2mm too wide for 2mmFS), the second compromise is that I have made a later version of the cab than I would realy like because I intended originally to retain the cast steps (now that I think about it I cannot imagine why!!)  Pondering my dilemma over night and today I am thinking that the further I progress with this project the less happy I am becoming with the compromises I'm making.

 

Currently I am debating what compromises I can actually live with - originally I was happy to accept that my model will be about a scale foot too wide and that the cab would be a shorter one with a slightly larger bunker, however I know that ultimately I may not be completely satisfied with the finished article however I also accept that if I manage to get over the hurdle of a running 2mm loco then I will be encouraged to continue in this scale.  As I am writing this I am coming more and more round to the view that I should pursue this project to some sort of fruition, and perhaps re-visit the model sometime in the future to rectify those compromises (prbably with a scratch built body).

 

Anyway, below are a few images showing the progress (?) made.  The cab front still needs the splasher area removing, but when sited on the rest of the model I actually think it looks OK for now.

 

 
 
 
 

Here's one I prepared earlier - still running on the N-gauge chassis.

post-18048-0-85489700-1359124638_thumb.j

No 1506 0-6-0T ‘Saddle Tank’ c.1922 An antique tank engine – many were later converted to panniers.

Built 1878 Withdrawn 1937

Buried under this model is a Farish ‘pannier’. The mechanism has a replacement worm and worm wheel set, giving an improved reduction ratio of 21:1 instead of the original 16:1. A new keeper plate is made from copper clad PCB, with phosphor bronze wire pickups. Brake gear, sand boxes and guard irons are fitted. After separating the superstructure, all the boiler fittings are filed off to leave a flat top. To this is araldited a nice fat sheet of nickel silver, Then the whole lump is ground and filed down to the correct profile, checked with a simple metal gauge running on the footplate. The footplate itself is shortened slightly and new smokebox and boiler fittings are added. A new old-style cab and bunker is formed of sheet metal.

post-18048-0-85489700-1359124638_thumb.jpg

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Although the standard BtoB  is 8.51mm, a number of people use 8.61mm instead (and claim better running) so don't panic if you can only get it down to that.

 

Indeed I am one of those people. I was converted to 8.6mm back-to-back by Stephen Harris and have used it ever since. He even kindly turned me up a back-to-back gauge for the very purpose. I figured that if it was good enough for the master that is Mr.Harris then it was good enough for me. Shame we can't sell one from the Association shops as there are those in the Association who claim that it is inconsistent with the standards. In pure engineering terms it may be but in practical modellers terms it works a treat. :sungum:

As my layouts are checked with stock that has 8.6mm back -to-backs I have occasionally encountered problems with the diesel conversion wheelsets but the odd tweak usually cures them. If you haven't got an 8.6mm gauge, a vernier will do the job pretty much as well.

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 If you haven't got an 8.6mm gauge, a vernier will do the job pretty much as well.

 

If you've got the vernier it is simple enough to use it to make the back to back gauge. 

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