Nile's Mostly Freelance Bodging Bench - Pre-Grouping Locos

[Nile]

I have one in bits, in a box, on one of those back-burners. I seem to have a lot of those. One day it will get done.

Before then I must update this loco, soon.

[Nile]

After painting the tender there was something about it that was bugging me. To accommodate it's sprung buffers there is a cut-out in the side frames. It can be seen here in this pre-mod photo.

 

I can live without sprung buffers, so I removed them and filled the holes with some plastic card.

 

Another thing I thought I'd try is painting the handrails a dark steel colour, rather than black or green, as that's what they look like in photos. Here I'm using a bit of a post-it note to shield the boiler from my brush.

 

Loco and tender bodies now painted, lettered and varnished.

[kingfisher24]

I have just came across this thread, i must say that these conversions are just brilliant, particularly the 4-4-0t. Its amazing what can be achieved when you use a bit of imagination. Keep them coming.

 

Gary

[Nile]

Whilst re-assembling the tender I managed to break off one of the brake shoes, the supports for the rear ones are thinner than the others. To fix this I drilled holes in the parts and inserted a bit of steel rod.

With a bit of glue it was better than new.

Wheels and chassis back in place, with all brake shoes present.

 

To remove the buffers I'd cut the bit off the end. This left them as a loose fit in the hole. To fix this I found a piece of plastic rod that was a good fit inside the hole. Into this I drilled a hole for the buffer shank.

The buffers are now a nice tight fit, and still removable, without any glue.

 

With real coal added, the tender is now finished.

[kingfisher24]

Have you thought about lengthening the smoke box and fitting a sniffer valve to represent fitting of superheaters, which would also account for the lengthening of the front end and the additional axle (just like robbinson did on the GCR). You could also say the cylinders are larger to account for the bogie front end, which with the super heater would make a lot more powerful loco.

Another thought for a future loco, perhaps a longer bunker with either the single axle re-used or even another bogie to make a 4-4-4??

 

Gary

[Nile]

Moving onto the loco body, and trying to finish it, I made new lamp sockets from bits of microstrip.

 

I repainted the pipework copper before refitting it around the boiler. Some of the original paint had flaked off so they needed repainting anyway.

 

I nearly forgot this. I made the capuchon from leftover brass from an etch.

 

All the bits now fitted and painted.

Note the reverser passes behind the pipe on this loco. On others it is in front of the pipe.

[Nile]

And now for the tricky matter of the loco to tender gap. I found the default setting to be too large. The closer setting is better, but then the fall plate gets in the way, hitting the front of the tender. Ideally the fall plate needs to be both shorter and hinged. This is what I did.

The fall plate is glued into the back of the footplate, held in place by two tabs. Using a flat bladed screwdriver I carefully levered it out of the slots. I then bent the tabs down at 90 degrees. This reduces its length.

I tried gluing this to the back of the loco, which gave enough horizontal clearance but didn't allow for any vertical movement and didn't survive handling.

A better solution was to create a hinge by gluing a piece of steel wire into the slots.

The outer edges of the tabs needed filing to allow them to fit inside the wire. The fall plate now sits on the wire 'hinge' and can lift up.

However it will fall out if the loco is inverted.

With the tender connected the fall plate works, but is at an odd angle.

The front needs to be raised. To do this I added a piece of plastic on top of the wire 'hinge', level with the footplate.

That brings the front of the fall plate up, it looks much better now.

[Buhar]

That's an elegant solution to the fall-plate issue. I've been turning ideas over for weeks to find a reliable hinge method. Your's scores by keeping the plate close to footplate height.

[sleeper]

I agree with Burhar,  to look more realistic though, maybe you could open the angle of the tabs slightly and then, in a vice, put a bend across the width of the plate parallel with the front edge of the tender but nearer the engine, so leaving enough clearance for the tender to pivot, leaving the fall plate resting flat on the floor of the tender. In short the tabs would be vertical, the end part of the plate horizontal and the 'corner' cut off at an angle. Sorry this is the best I can describe it.

Edited October 11, 2015 by sleeper

[Gilwell Park]

Neil

 

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately mine did not come out so easily but it is now fixed and ok.

 

Thanks

 

Roger

[Nile]

To finish things off here is the complete loco. I've added 3-links from Ambis to the Hornby hooks.

 

Pulling a train through Wyndal, with the only LSWR wagon I've built so far (that I can find).

 

Edited October 16, 2015 by Nile

[Nile]

I've been messing about with Beattie well tanks this weekend. I would post a proper update but have been distracted by the grand prix, so it will have to wait until Monday. The new title will give a clue as to what I've done.

[Nile]

So, what's going on here then? One of my planned layouts is a narrow gauge line in Cornwall that will have some dual gauge track. The problem is that I don't it will look right if done with 009 and 00 track, a case of two wrongs making an even bigger wrong. Using EM for the standard gauge should improve things a lot. I want to be able to use a Beattie well tank loco on this layout but doubted if it could be easily converted to EM gauge. After much thinking about this I decided to have a go, this is what happened.

The keeper plate and front wheel was removed, this gives better access to the driving wheels for adjustment and measuring.

It turns out there is just enough room for the wheels when moved out to EM gauge. This is done using a flat bladed screwdriver between the chassis and the centre of the wheel, making small adjustments until the correct gauge is reached.

 

Things are tight, but there is just enough clearance for the coupling rods.

 

The brake shoes need to be moved out to match the wheels. I did this by cutting them off, drilling and inserting some brass rod. Spacers made from white plastic rod complete things.

The spacer has a hole drilled through it.

 

The re-gauged front wheels rub against the slide bars. The solution is to move the cylinders out slightly. This is the cylinder assembly removed from the body.

 

Cylinders cut off.

 

Spacers made from 30thou (0.75mm) plastic card glued to their insides.

 

These bits were glued back in place

 

Plenty of clearance for the wheels now.

[Nile]

And it works! Here it is on a point I bought at Expo this year, which it negotiates with no problems.

 

And on some plain track with what is currently my only EM gauge vehicle.

 

I shall return to this loco later. I want to backdate it to the 1930s but need more research before I do that.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Nile

[Clock O' The North]

Fantastic Work. I have a question for you Nile. I know it's a post from a while ago but how hard was the Minitrains 0-4-0 pilot to put together?

 

[Nile]

Hi COTN, the pilot itself is a single 3D printed part, so no assembly required. The only difficult part of installing it is the cutting of the keeper plate.

Making such modifications to a new model isn't for everyone, but as you can see from my posts I am a bit mad. 

[Nile]

Back to well tanks and I've now got two converted to EM. Yesterday at Tolworth Showtrain I had the chance to give them a test run on a proper EM layout, Oldshaw. They both ran through the pointwork with no problems. I later returned to take some photos of the second loco with some appropriate wagons.

There was a bit of wheelspin with all those wagons, but it did manage to move them.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Nile

[WD0-6-0]

Looking love.y there with the China clay wagons

One of my regular cleaning jobs at Bodmin is that one, 3297 as she is at the moment. Don't tell one of the drivers but it's me who polished the brightwork recently (he's not keen on engines being too clean )

Edited November 16, 2015 by WD0-6-0

[Pete Harvey]

Nile

 

They look great on Alan's layout maybe this will tempt him into doing something steam?

[Nile]

You may be right Pete, they have a certain charm about them.

[Nile]

I recently bought an Oxford Rail Adams Radial, and within a few hours of getting it out of the box to play with I'd managed to break its motor. This is the tale of how I got it working again and improved its looks at the same time.

I'd always intended to have a good poke around inside this new model to see how it worked. This is what i found inside.

The drive train is a curious arrangement that results in the motor being so far forward as to intrude into the space under the front of the boiler. It was while trying to remove the flywheel that I damaged the commutator, rendering the motor useless. It's just as well I have motors that will fit the space, I just had to work out a way to connect one to the gears.

My first cunning plan was to connect the new motor to the gears using the existing universal joint. The hole in UJ is 2mm, to reduce this to 1.5mm for the motor shaft I used some brass tube with matching dimensions.

This was fixed onto the motor shaft with some Loctite.

 

To hold the motor in place I made a support bracket from some brass sheet. It is screwed into the hole for the original motor mount.

This setup worked, but I wasn't entirely happy with it. There was too much motor vibration (at the UJ end), and a flywheel at the other end would protrude into the front boiler space, something I wanted to avoid.

So I needed another cunning plan.

To be continued...

[BG John]

You're not planning to convert it to EM as well are you? If so, please warn me so I can stop following this thread. Otherwise I might be tempted to buy one to do the same, and backdate to early 1900s condition. This would mess up my plans for my GWR BLT, by adding extra work creating foreign trains with running powers!

[Nile]

I shall wait until I get my hands on a Hornby one before deciding on an EM coinversion. If you look at my photos I posted in the oxford rail section you will see that there is an issue with the wheels that could complicate things.

[Spitfire2865]

Im looking at your photos trying to understand why there is a u joint in the first place?

Could you explain the original design?

And this is coming from the mechanical engineer in training...

[Pete Harvey]

You have the vibration because of the UJ and what looks like only one end of the motor fixed.

 

If you can fix the terminal end as well the vibration will go.

 

Great idea how you have dealt with the problem.

 

Pete