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Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1


Nearholmer
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Unfortunately the ends also have framing with diagonals, so cutting the tops off the ends wouldn't help! Plus, one side is built the correct way up, the other isn't.

You're the second person in a week to have built one of my kits with the sides upside-down. I think I need to re-think my end-designs, with an even number of tab-and-slots, so that this can't be done. Sorry!

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I think I must be missing something obvious here.

 

The built up one painted grey looks right to me whereas the plain wooden one looks wrong.  Doors and gates are generally framed with the diagonal running up from the bottom of the hinged side to the top of the opening side as the smaller models of longer syphons show.

 

Edit ah, now I see.  Could you grind down the wooden supports on the unpainted one with a Dremel and replace them with some wood cut to shape?

Edited by Hesperus
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I’d guessed they must have had wheel-operated brakes, which i’m assuming the D-C was, because operating a lever between the steps would be really difficult.

 

Where was the wheel?

 

Given that this is meant to be ‘a plausible sketch’, I don’t want to get buried in detail, but details that save work are always worth having!

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http://www.gwr.org.uk/nowagonbrakes.html

It’s how deep you want to go with detailing, presume youll do a vac brake with cylinder under and end hoses, them perhaps the small hand lever near the end?

The sides are in two layers? Surely you can nick into the corners of the diagonal braces, then try and slide the craft blade between the brace and each of the slats in turn??

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Me back, I dug out Russell’s book, and here’s a drawing and a photo of a model. You’ll see the drawing shows a Morton type handbrake, which is faintly visible in the model, though not too clear. There’s also the Dean handbrake linkage with the pullrods in front of the middle of the wheels. That’s one detail drives me doally.

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Looking at the drawing (and text) in the GW Siphons book, it's clear they had clasp vacuum brakes. What isn't at all clear is how they could be applied by hand. There is no sign of any lever. And they have a wheelbase that leaves the ends of the springs pretty close to the headstocks, leaving little or no room for the normal D-C levers.

In Jim Russell's book on the early GW coaches, there is a photo of a model that also has no sign of any hand lever...

None of (perhaps I should say "neither of", since there only seem to be two!) the prototype photos allow you to see the underframe in any detail, so they are no help.

My plan, when I get mine, is to ignore these details. I'll take off the traditional late-steam-age long brake lever (in the interest of making attaching the foot rails easier), and if I feel really adventurous, maybe attach a short piece of dowel or tube to represent the vacuum brake cylinder.

 

Gordon

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Hooraay!

 

I tried Plan B first, and using a short piece of razor-saw blade, and a knife, I managed to cut the braces off.

 

I’ve now re-fitted them, the right way round, and the glue is setting.

 

Will need to tidy-up the ends a bit, but overall a success.

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I’ve been fiddling about checking clearances on the ‘even smaller than Paltry Circus’ terminus, the baseboards for which I made a couple of months ago.

 

Sometimes when I go back to an idea after not thinking about it for ages I find that it no longer seems right, but this still all seems satisfactory.

 

It is very small, though!

 

The road where the coaches are standing will be a siding, the back edge of the platform having a fence, probably with a gate that can be opened to allow a van to be unloaded, which is a quirky arrangement that I quite like. The idea is to allow the passenger train to be tucked away while a (very short) goods train does its stuff.

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An appeal for drawings ......

 

Does any reader here present have drawings, or know where they can be found, for the following GWR classes?

 

1) First batch of GWR Birdcage Tanks, with parallel boiler and Belpaire firebox, as per photos in this collection https://spellerweb.net/rhindex/UKRH/GreatWestern/Narrowgauge/Dean36xxClass.html I think that 3611 was the prototype, and slightly shorter than the first production batch; and,

 

2) What I think is called a Large Metro Tank, in the form used on the actual Metropolitan Railway, with condensing gear, volute springs for the carrying axle, and weatherboard cab.

 

An idea is brewing, based around one of two ETS chassis that I have obtained "on approval" to fit to my Hornby No.2 4-4-4T ...... I've decided to fit the one with 40mm diameter wheels to that loco, but it occurred to me that the other one, which has 36mm diameter wheels on a 60mm wheelbase, might do for one of the above, the Birdcage being favoured, because Bing made them in tinplate pre-WW1, and because it is a simple 'tubes and boxes' shape.

 

Kevin

 

 

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Edited by Nearholmer
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Excellent find.

 

Its a good start, and confirms my gut feel that the wheel diameter and wheelbase are pretty much spot-on. Using that, one could probably develop a drawing of the original version that would be close enough, certainly closer than Bing got under the guidance of Mr Greenly, who I suspect was behind the fat boiler on their model.

 

Thank you.

 

PS: Good reference photo of 3611 from the IMechE https://vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=216527&sos=0

 

PPS: Brilliant action photo https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/great-western-railway-36xx-class-2-4-2t-locomotive-no-3611-news-photo/90746791 Why are the cylinder drain-cocks open, though?

Edited by Nearholmer
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Another excellent contribution. Many thanks Mr Northroader. I will post your wheels soon, honest.

 

I"m rapidly becoming a Birdcage Spotter, and can tell you that the parallel boiler one is the prototype loco, because the rear overhang was increased to 4ft on the first production batch.

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