Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1

[Compound2632]

14 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

H A Blunt & Sons was , of course, my local model shop when I was growing up in Mill Hill. Peter and Alan (the "Sons") were running it by then and two nicer gentlemen you could not have wished to meet.

 

None of the grandchildren wanted to take the business on. (I was at university with one of them who went into accountancy.)

[Northroader]

Please, sir, can I show a deliberately old fashioned tool, ere you revert to trains. This featured in the song “dashing away with the smoothing iron” before they invented electrickery. Either grandad or maybe dad removed the handle, since when it’s been used as a small anvil. I find it’s good for holding behind a sheet of unsupported ply when banging in nails. As you can see, it’s having fair wear and tear.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Northroader

[rockershovel]

On 02/12/2020 at 23:21, Nearholmer said:

 

The flippant answer to that has to be: electric.

 

Both steam, of the sort you are pursuing, and clockwork, are IMO for people who have fallen in love with them for what they are, and they build-up skills in fettling and fixing over time. I'm not aware of anyone these days operating a proper railway service, in the way that they did in olden tymes, with either - both seem to run round simple circuits for the sheer fun of it nowadays (I hope to be corrected on this).

 

Which of the two moves you most?

 

The live steam 16mm layout at Peterborough last year certainly had stations, with trains stopping at them. 

[Nearholmer]

Had a half-day off from domestic tasks and paying work this morning, and managed both a short spell of shunting (as below) and the first decent bike ride for a fortnight (which was muddy).

 

And (small, very distant fanfare please), the paint for the old clockers finally arrived, so there is hope that I can return to them later in the week.

 

Also, a PS on the hand drill saga: having secured the NOS drill, I unearthed the original one after a bit of a hunt, and decided to make one last attempt to get the chuck working again before binning it. Well, miracles do happen. I succeeded! So now I have a perfectly working 45yo drill, the rubbish one I bought to replace it, and the BNIB 45yo drill I bought to replace that. I still can't work out what was actually wrong with the chuck, which was utterly stuck solid until I dismantled and reassembled it.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Nearholmer

[rockershovel]

A drill Chuck comprises an assembly of sliding inclined planes, regulated by a rotating collar on a usually, quite fine thread and constructed so that the whole assembly can only be subjected to quite small amounts of force. It is a special case of the principle of fitting sprockets onto tapered shafts, by which the whole surface acts as a friction clamp, but by dislodging the sprocket slightly the grip is completely lost. I should think that there was some minor corrosion and/or misalignment causing a jam, which was cleared by dismantling leaving no visible sign. 

 

 

I assume you aren't talking about the spring-loaded ball type Chuck, given the type of tool? 

Edited December 16, 2020 by rockershovel

[Nearholmer]

Keyed, rather than keyless, but otherwise much as shown. It didn’t start as corrosion to the best of my knowledge, because it originally actually jammed solid while I was using it. My best diagnosis is that I somehow wound it too far open. Of course, over c5 years on the naughty step in the unheated shed since then it has acquired some minor surface corrosion.

[rockershovel]

57 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Keyed, rather than keyless, but otherwise much as shown. It didn’t start as corrosion to the best of my knowledge, because it originally actually jammed solid while I was using it. My best diagnosis is that I somehow wound it too far open. Of course, over c5 years on the naughty step in the unheated shed since then it has acquired some minor surface corrosion.

 

Could be over-winding, that would have the same effect as using a second nut as a locknut on a threaded bar. 

[goldfish]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Keyed, rather than keyless, but otherwise much as shown. It didn’t start as corrosion to the best of my knowledge, because it originally actually jammed solid while I was using it. My best diagnosis is that I somehow wound it too far open. Of course, over c5 years on the naughty step in the unheated shed since then it has acquired some minor surface corrosion.

Tightened the chick closed in hot weather, and then leaving it to cold soak in the shed would cause the chuck to contract and tighten further. Bringing it into the warmth of the house would cause the chuck to expand and loosen? A variation on putting a coil-bound clockwork motor in the oven or a pan of hot water?

[Nearholmer]

9 minutes ago, goldfish said:

Tightened the chick closed in hot weather,

 

Except that it jammed-solid in the wide-open, not the closed, position.

[goldfish]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Except that it jammed-solid in the wide-open, not the closed, position.

The usual solution to that was a sharp blow on the open end of the chuck with a soft faced hammer. Or, if fitted to a pillar drill, bringing the chuck down firmly against the vice of work-piece. Taking the chuck off the threaded spindle and banging the closed end on the bench also works. These chucks survive a surprising amount of misuse.

[Nearholmer]

Yep, I tried all that!

 

None of it worked, except dismantling.

[Simond]

Ah, but did you sacrifice the goldfish at the crossroads, at a quarter past ten?

 

 

 

didn’t think so, 

 

well, now you know...

Edited December 16, 2020 by Simond

[Nearholmer]

I’ve been messing about with paint, attempting to touch-up the worst of the damage on the GWR 4-4-4T and King George The Fifth. 
 

Mark is right that the Precision Black is a good match for Bing, but quite a bit of experiment was needed with the green for the GWR one, which is nothing like any colour the GWR painted engines with.

 

I’m trying not to cover any existing paint, so it’s fiddly, and the result is still what it is, a tatty old loco, but I’ve dealt with the great patches of soldering damage committed by a previous owner, and the usual key-hole problems.  I will probably leave it at that, and try to find some transfers to fill-in the worst of the missing bits.

 

 

 

BTW, does anyone else find that precision paint dries too quickly? For oil enamel it behaves more like acrylic.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Keith Addenbrooke]

56 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I’ve been messing about with paint, attempting to touch-up the worst of the damage on the GWR 4-4-4T and King George The Fifth. 
 

Mark is right that the Precision Black is a good match for Bing, but quite a bit of experiment was needed with the green for the GWR one, which is nothing like any colour the GWR painted engines with.

 

I’m trying not to cover any existing paint, so it’s fiddly, and the result is still what it is, a tatty old loco, but I’ve dealt with the great patches of soldering damage committed by a previous owner, and the usual key-hole problems.  I will probably leave it at that, and try to find some transfers to fill-in the worst of the missing bits.

 

 

 

BTW, does anyone else find that precision paint dries too quickly? For oil enamel it behaves more like acrylic.

Forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but I only just noticed that GWR 2243 on the big railway would have been a 4-4-2 tank engine (the class which was effectively a variant of the original County Class 4-4-0 Tender engines).  In other words, not far out at all.

 

(I’m slightly colour blind, so not qualified to comment on paint comparison questions - it all looks OK to me).

[Northroader]

I think Precision Paints and oil base parted company some time ago. If you’re enjoying using the black, mix a bit of yellow into it, and you may find the green you’re after that way.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, the horrible No.2 Special Tank had a County Tank number as well I think. It had the right number of wheels in the right order for a County Tank too, but there the resemblance ended. I suppose a very rich, brave and skilled person could make a good Hornby County Tank using the County 4-4-0 as a basis.

 

The green I got to actually matches very closely. It’s GWR (28-45) loco green, with a dob of carriage brown, plus a dash of a deep buff that I happened to have. Getting the amount of brown and buff right was the arty bit - it needed a surprising amount of each.

 

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Donw]

The country tank had a taper boiler, belpaire firebox, ponhy truck at the rear, outside cyclinders so pretty good match then 

 

Don

[Nearholmer]

To the boy of 1928 for whom that loco was first bought, it was almost certainly a glorious thing, and as green. gleaming and dashing, and as much a County Tank, as he wanted it to be.

 

This is a toy, from the age when toy trains were for boys with imaginations, not for detail-obsessed "sad old blokes" (to quote James may describing himself).

 

 

[Annie]

It has more the look of a Barry Railway 'Sharpie' tank engine than anything else, but I do agree that with a little imagination it could be anything a child wanted it to be.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Keith Addenbrooke]

 

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

To the boy of 1928 for whom that loco was first bought, it was almost certainly a glorious thing, and as green. gleaming and dashing, and as much a County Tank, as he wanted it to be.

 

This is a toy, from the age when toy trains were for boys with imaginations, not for detail-obsessed "sad old blokes" (to quote James may describing himself).

 

 

It was also contemporary - if said child had happened to see ‘the real’ 2243 then, “Wow! That’s my train...”

[brianusa]

Always had a soft spot for these engines as it was my first real Hornby after an MO set.  Looking back, it was probably from a Christmas present  with the usual goods train set.  Didn't last that long as it was traded in on a Dublo SNG set which was presented on another Christmas morning before the war.  This too was sold on, this time for a Hercules bike after the war ended.

    Brian.

[Nearholmer]

One of the few advantages of being a grown-up: I now have a train-set and a bike!

[Nearholmer]

I should have shown you this before: the rather excellent homemade wooden box that the GWR loco came in. Way back in the 1930s, someone took a lot of care of this loco.

 

And, here’s its brother from the LMS. I like this one because it’s totally untouched, no repairs, no paint touch-ups, nothing, and it goes like an engine possessed!

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

And, here’s its brother from the LMS.

 

From this angle it definitely has something of the Precursor Tank about it - especially the shape of the cab spectacles - see here.

 

 

[Simond]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

One of the few advantages of being a grown-up: I now have a train-set and a bike!

I suspect at 249 kg, 1250cc and 136 bhp, we’re not talking about the same kind of bike...