Cwmhir - The camera never lies

[Darwinian]

Whilst progress is slowly being made on the signals I have had another problem.

 

When I got the Aberdare out to give it a run I found it had seized up. It appeared that the small amount of acrylic paint on the edges of the bearings had been dissolved by the lubricating oil I used and turned to sticky gunge.

 

I stripped down the chassis but had to take out the wheel sets with the inside and outside bearings. Strip off one outside crank and one wheel from each axle and clean everything up. Once reassembled I evidently haven't got it back together with the bearings in the same places/quartering of the cranks correctly set and now it binds.

 

All very frustrating. I'm probably going to have to strip the chassis down and buy new wheel sets too. I think I might open up the outside bearings into inverted U shapes and make the clearance enough that they can be fixed in their top position and not move.

[Darwinian]

Various odds and ends of progress over the summer. My 3 coach non-corridor clerestory set refused to run up the hill into Cwmhir without derailing. I finally realised that although the bar couplings hook up behind the buffer beams into holes in the floors (they had to be deeper than the buffer beams) on my gradient changes they were coming out of the holes and then lifting the "hooked into" carriage by its floor, thus taking all weight off the bogie at that end.

 

My fix has been to fit (araldite) a piece of brass tube, filed flat on one side, behind the buffer beam and then use a Dremel to open up the hole in the floor to match. 

 

Crude but effective.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Darwinian
Typos

[Darwinian]

I decided it was time to get the coals moving again.

Between them these two shots (trying the camera on my budget Motorola phone) show all of my P.O. coal wagons apart from four 7 planks wagons (all in the same livery and seen previously).

 

The Colliery's Peckett B2 places full wagons into the exchange sidings.

 

ex ROD 2-8-0 (must be on a shake down from Caerphilly works) arrives with empties to exchange.

 

 

 

[Darwinian]

A different viewpoint of shunting taking place. 56xx collecting fulls, that have been brought down the hill by the colliery Peckett, having  brought up empties and some pit props. This is more or less a platform level view taken on my phone.

 

 

 

Progress on the signals continues and the semaphores are almost done. Just need to fit the lamps and linkages. Oh and then I'll have to wire them up of course.

[Darwinian]

Just in time for Christmas I've finished the signals mounted on posts (well actually I have to put a guide on the rotating disc co-mounted with a somersault as there's too much resistance in the mechanism that bends the operating rod without one).

 

Here they are mounted in testing/assembly mounts. The illumination appears to work too but I'll need to mount the servos and LEDs on their mounts to be sure they work. Some touching up of paintwork needed too.

 

 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to all.

 

[Darwinian]

Well, well how did it get to be February already?

As covered on my signals thread the signals are now all built and I've got half of them working on the bench. Just got to add the servo links to the bracket one and set up the MergSevo 4 for the home signals.

 

The repair of the Aberdare has been one of those tasks that just won't go right. I've had a couple of go's at re-quartering but to no avail. Today I've resorted to taking the hornblock bearings out, cleaning them up, replacing them and checking them with the set up jigs, marking them so they stay in the same hornblocks and then reassembling.

 

One wheel was  loose however and I realised that in disassembly I had broken the soldered joint between chassis spacer and frame at the firebox end.

 

It's still in bits while I try not to knock any more bits off. I might resort to putting another new wheel on but the one that's slipping was one of the shorted ones and I don't think I've got any more shorting wire etches.

 

Ho Humm!

[Darwinian]

As a break from fighting the Aberdare I had another go at getting the bread oven proportions looking right. 

Here at the back is the 1st attempt - oven opening too small and forgot to allow for planting into ground.

In front is the latest version which looks about right. The steps represent the eventual ground level. 

On the left is the oven interior. The cutouts are to allow fitting LEDs below hopefully producing a flame like effect. If it doesn't work I'll just put the oven doors on closed!

[Darwinian]

Having had them sitting in my cabinet for several years I decided that this week I would finish the ropes on a Coopercraft  GWR five plank bar with sheet support and while at it do the more recently built 4 plank that doesn't have a bar too.

 

Having done them here they are, the camera never lies -

 

 

 

Oh bother, I really had never noticed that the bar on the five plank is higher at one end! It is accentuated here by the tarpaulin not being level at the bottom, it's less obvious on the other side which is level. I've been using it on the layout and it's been sat in a display case but only now that I've photographed it here did I notice. 

I also realised that the 4 plank didn't get weathered before I stuck the sheet onto it. Going to be tricky weathering the wagon now, the body is more visible on the other side, and making the sheet look different and weathering around the ropes will be necessary too.

 

I will have to live with these as I cannot easily take of the tarpaulins as they are glued in place and I'd have to do all that fiddly rope work again!

[Neal Ball]

10 hours ago, Darwinian said:

Having had them sitting in my cabinet for several years I decided that this week I would finish the ropes on a Coopercraft  GWR five plank bar with sheet support and while at it do the more recently built 4 plank that doesn't have a bar too.

 

Having done them here they are, the camera never lies -

 

 

 

Oh bother, I really had never noticed that the bar on the five plank is higher at one end! It is accentuated here by the tarpaulin not being level at the bottom, it's less obvious on the other side which is level. I've been using it on the layout and it's been sat in a display case but only now that I've photographed it here did I notice. 

I also realised that the 4 plank didn't get weathered before I stuck the sheet onto it. Going to be tricky weathering the wagon now, the body is more visible on the other side, and making the sheet look different and weathering around the ropes will be necessary too.

 

I will have to live with these as I cannot easily take of the tarpaulins as they are glued in place and I'd have to do all that fiddly rope work again!

They both look good. If one side is better, simply place the wagons that way round and no one will know.

 

I have a viewing side and an “other side” to a lot of stock and it works really well. (Don’t tell anyone 🤣)

[Darwinian]

13 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

They both look good. If one side is better, simply place the wagons that way round and no one will know.

 

I have a viewing side and an “other side” to a lot of stock and it works really well. (Don’t tell anyone 🤣

Luckily this one has three links not the one way around Dingham's I use, so I can do just that 👍

[Darwinian]

I've finally got the Aberdare chassis turning over smoothly again. I re-checked all the horn-block alignments and ditched the etched cranks as I figured I must have damaged them taking them off. One in particular had partly de-laminated and didn't seem to be fitting  true onto the axle. I substituted Gibson cranks which are a little chunkier but went on fine this time as I had remembered to dress the ends of the axles.

 

Well when I say "fine", one that I was reusing on the driven axle split. I've run some good quality runny superglue into the split and it's holding well enough to roll the chassis along with the side rods on, however I'm not convinced it will be up to the job of taking the loads under power. 

 

I'm thinking that pinning it to the axle by drilling through crank and axle and inserting a wire pin might be the way forward. Alternatively I'll have to get a new set of cranks for that axle. 

 

Any thoughts?

[Captain Kernow]

I would have thought that pinning should work. How about pinning right through the axle and into the opposite side of the crank for a 'belt and braces' job?

[Darwinian]

26 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

I would have thought that pinning should work. How about pinning right through the axle and into the opposite side of the crank for a 'belt and braces' job?

That's what I was thinking too. I don't, however, know if my drill bits (HSS) will be good enough. Only one way to find out I suppose. 

The main reason I'm hesitant is that the crank would be not be removable then. On the other hand it's not likely to need to come off unless the motor fails. I don't have a railway the size of Little Bytham after all.

[Captain Kernow]

12 minutes ago, Darwinian said:

That's what I was thinking too. I don't, however, know if my drill bits (HSS) will be good enough. Only one way to find out I suppose. 

The main reason I'm hesitant is that the crank would be not be removable then. On the other hand it's not likely to need to come off unless the motor fails. I don't have a railway the size of Little Bytham after all.

I think that's the only option (pinning), other than replacement of the crank with a new one.

 

Provided only one side of the loco is pinned, any future adjustments to the quartering that might be necessary due to whatever causes, can still be made.

 

When I've done pinning (Gibson wheels to steel axles), I've chosen a new HSS drill, put it in a pin vice and rotated slowly but steadily, until I've drilled to the required depth.

 

[Darwinian]

On 13/03/2024 at 19:25, Captain Kernow said:

I think that's the only option (pinning), other than replacement of the crank with a new one.

 

Provided only one side of the loco is pinned, any future adjustments to the quartering that might be necessary due to whatever causes, can still be made.

 

When I've done pinning (Gibson wheels to steel axles), I've chosen a new HSS drill, put it in a pin vice and rotated slowly but steadily, until I've drilled to the required depth.

 

 

I successfully drilled through crank and axle 0.45mm and inserted a brass wire pin that I cut off as flush on either side of the crank as possible and then added a tiny drop of superglue, a bit belt and braces as the wire was tight enough that I had to use pliers to push it through.  Left for 24 hours to fully cure and then then tidied up the ends of the wire with a fine needle file. A rolling test showed it to still be free rolling but testing under power it is nice and smooth in reverse but sticks in one position going forward, although when derailed it didn't so there must only be a small bind.