Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[Gwiwer]

On 05/04/2024 at 09:53, TrevorP1 said:

Cornish bus drivers are pretty intrepid fellows. 😀

You might be surprised at the places I took buses. Many of the (non-local) passengers were. The locals just took it for granted. In all my years driving I never once so much as scratched the paintwork despite often having 1cm or less clear either side. 

[Mike_Walker]

On 05/04/2024 at 12:09, St Enodoc said:

The bus in the "famous photo" is an LWL (can't post it here for copyright reasons), which we've discussed before on these pages. The SUS is slightly too modern for the MCL, being supplied to WN/SN in 1960 according to that link.

 

I've got an old Little Bus Company Dennis Mace kit, that was given to me by my late friend and colleague Tony Swift. One day I'll build it in his memory.

 

http://www.little-bus.com/bus-kits/mace1.html

If it's the photo I'm thinking of at Burngullow by Peter Gray, then it's 365, GTA390, which was a 1942 Bristol L5G which was stretched to 30' in 1955 and fitted with a new ECW 39 seat body making it in effect a LL5G not a LWL which were 8' wide.

 

I too would love to have one of those SUS kits - or two actually, one WN and one in Thames Valley livery for the two ex-WN (and three ex-Bristol) ones that worked over Marlow Bridge.

[St Enodoc]

8 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

If it's the photo I'm thinking of at Burngullow by Peter Gray, then it's 365, GTA390, which was a 1942 Bristol L5G which was stretched to 30' in 1955 and fitted with a new ECW 39 seat body making it in effect a LL5G not a LWL which were 8' wide.

 

I too would love to have one of those SUS kits - or two actually, one WN and one in Thames Valley livery for the two ex-WN (and three ex-Bristol) ones that worked over Marlow Bridge.

Thanks Mike. It is indeed, reproduced in "Steam in Cornwall". I had my wires crossed there. There's a different photo somewhere of an LWL at, I think, St Austell, which must have been in my head.

 

I've got an EFE L in Eastern National livery, which I will modify to WN. I know it's not an LL5G but it is a Bristol/ECW half-cab, so that's good enough for Mid-Cornwall!

[St Enodoc]

23 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

The brake gear from eBay arrived today. The Gibson plastic hangers and blocks look nice but appear to be designed for locos with larger wheels.

 

At first sight, though, the MT175 etches look promising. I'll have a little play and report back.

As I suspected, the plastic brake gear is the wrong configuration for 2182, so I'll put that to one side (I don't mind having wasted $4.50 just to be sure). The smallest etches on the MT175 fret are better but the hangers are still slightly too long for the 16mm wheels (not helped by the location of the pre-drilled holes in the frames, which are only about 4mm above the axle centre line). Comparing these with the picture on the Wizard website, I'm not convinced that the MT177 fret etchings would actually be any better.

 

My plan, then is to indulge in a little bodgery by soldering a rod across the bottom of the frames in the right place to support the built-up brake blocks, solder another between the lower holes on the hangers and trim the tops of the hangers level with the top of the frames, with no extra support. That should give a reasonable impression of the brake gear, especially as the upper part will be hidden by the footplate valances. If it works, I could also add some dummy pull rods behind the wheels, although I don't want those to get in the way of the pickups.

[Coach bogie]

When the brake rods are between the wheels I often make up a frame of stiff wire and attach to the base of the chassis where it is hidden by the wheels. Brake blocks are soldered to this via the cross rods. This allows adjustment to ensure they miss the wheels. I find there is less adjustment hanging them from the top.  I do no have any mounting rods at the top of the brake hanger, or only cosmetic ones. This is a Saint but the idea is the same. This one the brake assembly is removeable as in this case, it screws to the chassis in the base and end. I have never had any shorting issues.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Dunsignalling]

On 05/04/2024 at 09:53, TrevorP1 said:

 

Thank you John!

 

Do be careful with the buses though... As we know from the famous photo, buses got to the north side of the bridge but I'm not sure about over it! On the south side there is an impossible (for a bus) hairpin turn or a lane that becomes pretty narrow and tight even in car. There again, Cornish bus drivers are pretty intrepid fellows. 😀

 

On 08/04/2024 at 06:52, Gwiwer said:

You might be surprised at the places I took buses. Many of the (non-local) passengers were. The locals just took it for granted. In all my years driving I never once so much as scratched the paintwork despite often having 1cm or less clear either side. 

 

Never mind Cornwall. A while back, I took the Stagecoach 44 (the Devon General 4 or 47 of my youth) from Exeter to Honiton, just to see how it had been threaded through and around all the urban sprawl of the past two decades.

 

I was amazed when we crossed the old A35 at Rockbeare, went down through the village proper and around the lanes up to West Hill; a road I only use if absolutely necessary in a car! 

 

This in a good-sized (32' x 8' ?) single decker not a skinny little Bristol SU. However, it did get "interesting" in a few places where we met oncoming traffic, especially one very big tractor with trailer.

 

Fortunately the locals are well-practised in the use of passing places given adequate advance sighting and reversing when not!

 

John

 

  

Edited April 9 by Dunsignalling

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Coach bogie said:

When the brake rods are between the wheels I often make up a frame of stiff wire and attach to the base of the chassis where it is hidden by the wheels. Brake blocks are soldered to this via the cross rods. This allows adjustment to ensure they miss the wheels. I find there is less adjustment hanging them from the top.  I do no have any mounting rods at the top of the brake hanger, or only cosmetic ones. This is a Saint but the idea is the same. This one the brake assembly is removeable as in this case, it screws to the chassis in the base and end. I have never had any shorting issues.

 

Mike Wiltshire

Thanks Mike - that's quite close to the mental picture I have for 2182.

[St Enodoc]

Over the last couple of days, I've been messing around with the brake rigging on 2182. In the end, I've gone for an arrangement that is permanently fixed to the chassis, as it's all a bit congested down there and I decided it would be best to have everything fixed in position.

 

First, I removed all the sand pipes and the front guard irons, then soldered a transverse wire to the chassis in front of each axle. The front axle defines the location of the brake hangers, as the wire is hard up against the angle in the frame right next to the front spacer. This determined how near the blocks are to the treads, which is not very. In fact, the blocks are clear of the flanges, which will let me get the wheels on and off easily.

 

The other wires are set to match the wheelbase (7'4" + 7'4").

 

I also built a wire frame with three more transverse wires and two longitudinal wires to represent the pull rods.

 

As the brake gear is really only representational, I've only used a single thickness of etch, again to minimise the risk of the brakes touching bits they shouldn't. I used the "Victorian" style hangers from row 1 of the MT175 fret but upside down, so that the shorter part of the hanger is at the bottom, not the top.

 

I threaded the hangers on to the chassis-mounted wires and the wire frame and soldered them in position with the hangers roughly in line with the middle of the wheel treads. Once I was happy with this, I trimmed back the ends of all the wires and also the top of the hangers so they will clear the footplate when the body is attached (a useful by-product here is that I now have six tiny 0.7mm inside diameter washers or spacers).

 

Finally, I made new sandpipes and refitted the front guard irons. The photos I have suggest that the front guard irons are actually attached to the brake hangers. I didn't attempt this but butted them up to the hangers instead. The front sandpipes are set outside the brake gear and then curve back to be in line with the wheel treads.

 

Apart from pickups, which I'll fit after painting, I think the chassis is finished now - unless any of you bright sparks come up with more ideas...

 

Here are some photos that, I hope, show what all these words actually mean:

 

Bottom front right. You can see how the cross wire for the front brakes is hard against the spacer and the guard irons are right next to it. The curved sandpipes also show up here.

 

Bottom back left. This shows how the transverse wires and wire frame support the brake hangers.

 

Front top left. The "floating" tops of the hangers will be hidden behind the valances.

 

Top back right. I might have to cut away the transverse wire here to clear the gearbox, which won't be a problem if I do.

 

[Michael Edge]

That all looks strong enough, I wouldn't use plastic brake gear for anything now.

[St Enodoc]

On 11/04/2024 at 18:44, Michael Edge said:

That all looks strong enough, I wouldn't use plastic brake gear for anything now.

Grand spraying weather today, so the chassis is now all black. More when I've unmasked the axle bearings and the pickup pads.

 

Quick question for the panel: soldering whitemetal - Carr's Red Label or phosphoric acid?

[Barry O]

Clean joint.. apply a little fluxite..  weld..

 

Baz

[treggyman]

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Grand spraying weather today, so the chassis is now all black. More when I've unmasked the axle bearings and the pickup pads.

 

Quick question for the panel: soldering whitemetal - Carr's Red Label or phosphoric acid?

Hi

Personally I use Phosphoric acid for all my soldering......

I've got Carrs Red Label but can't remember why I don't use it...

 

It is more important to clean after soldering as with the lower temp there is more likely in my experience to be acid residue left after soldering.....

 

Cheers Bill

[Clive Mortimore]

 

 

You wouldn't catch me with the extra "C"

Edited April 13 by Clive Mortimore

[Michael Edge]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Grand spraying weather today, so the chassis is now all black. More when I've unmasked the axle bearings and the pickup pads.

 

Quick question for the panel: soldering whitemetal - Carr's Red Label or phosphoric acid?

Phosphoric acid for everything, throw the Carrs stuff out (they never tell you what it is)

[St Enodoc]

Here's the chassis, after spraying with rattle-can etch primer and matt black:

 

The bare bits left of centre are where the motor scraped off some paint when I checked the fit - which, as you can see, is nice and tight. The various little highlights are from the natural light, not bare brass or solder.

 

Some paint has flaked off the middle spacer, probably because I was a bit lazy when cleaning up before painting. It won't show, so I'll leave it.

 

The middle PCB pad is uninsulated and the black wire will be soldered to it, while the two outer pads are insulated and will carry the red wire and the phosphor-bronze pickups.

 

Next, I'll paint the wheels then I can reassemble everything as a functional chassis before starting the body.

 

[St Enodoc]

Today I re-wheeled the chassis. In doing so, I managed my usual trick of shearing off the slot on the gearwheel grub screw - fortunately, after it was well tightened up. If it comes loose in future, there's just enough room to coax the screw out with a pair of pliers and I should be able to find a different screw to replace it. It looks like about 12BA or 14BA - anyone know for sure?

 

 

Next, I fitted the pickups to the right-hand side wheels, using 0.5mm phosphor-bronze wire, and the connections to the motor. I used the very thin wire that comes with NCE non-hard-wired decoders. There's always some left over after fitting these and it always comes in useful one day. I'll tidy the wires up when I install the decoder itself in due course.

 

After a bit of tweaking on the middle wheel pickup, to make sure it was always in contact taking into account the additional sideplay, I lubricated all the moving parts and let the chassis run on dc for a while.

 

I've prepared the coupling rods, using a pin head to represent the knuckle joint, and fitting these will be the next job. I'll leave the axle nut covers until the loco is complete, just in case...

[Michael Edge]

The way to deal with the stupidly long grubscrews is to tighten them, cut them off flush and saw a new slot in with a piercing saw. If the griubscrew was entirely in the hole as it should be it wouldn't shear off (as I'm sure you know).

[St Enodoc]

44 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

The way to deal with the stupidly long grubscrews is to tighten them, cut them off flush and saw a new slot in with a piercing saw. If the griubscrew was entirely in the hole as it should be it wouldn't shear off (as I'm sure you know).

Thanks Mike. Yes - when is a grub screw not a grub screw? When it's in a Romford gear wheel.

 

I think I'll be able to do what you suggest by extracting and shortening the existing screw - except that I haven't got a piercing saw. I think I know someone near here who has, though.

[Michael Edge]

A razor saw will do it but maybe you haven't got one of those either. It saws a slot in the gearwheel as well but that doesn't matter.

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

A razor saw will do it but maybe you haven't got one of those either. It saws a slot in the gearwheel as well but that doesn't matter.

Yes, I have a razor saw. Thanks.