Michael Edge's workbench

[AlfaZagato]

I've always been jealous of your Mallet, Mike.   Such an ugly thing...

[Barry O]

55 minutes ago, AlfaZagato said:

I've always been jealous of your Mallet, Mike.   Such an ugly thing...

no.. the Hammer is a thing of great beauty!

 

Baz

[Michael Edge]

I posted this earlier on Wright writes but it's worth putting here.

From Lidl this morning - £9.99

They think it's a depth gauge but not to me...

Overall height of latest finished job being measured here.

Another Stroudley D tank from the Albion kit, my customer says this is the last one, I'm getting a bit bored with these now.

Inside it's powered by an n20 driving through a crown wheel and pinion. There's another gear reduction here but the loco isn't required to go very fast and these are much easier to set up than the 1:1 bevel gears. I'm struggling to find a reliable source of the crown wheels though, searching "crown wheels" just brings up every sort of gear, not very helpful.

[Camperdown]

40 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

I posted this earlier on Wright writes but it's worth putting here.

From Lidl this morning - £9.99

They think it's a depth gauge but not to me...

Overall height of latest finished job being measured here.

Another Stroudley D tank from the Albion kit, my customer says this is the last one, I'm getting a bit bored with these now.

Inside it's powered by an n20 driving through a crown wheel and pinion. There's another gear reduction here but the loco isn't required to go very fast and these are much easier to set up than the 1:1 bevel gears. I'm struggling to find a reliable source of the crown wheels though, searching "crown wheels" just brings up every sort of gear, not very helpful.

Searching "crown pinion gear" on Aliexpress seems to bring up plenty of nylon ones.  The crown wheels seem to come with an additional pinion moulded on, but you could cut that off.

[Kylestrome]

1 hour ago, Michael Edge said:

I'm struggling to find a reliable source of the crown wheels though, searching "crown wheels" just brings up every sort of gear, not very helpful.

 

From my slot car racing days, I remember that another name for them is contrate gear. Maybe that helps?

 

David

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Can't remember seeing that design of tunnel portal on the Woodhead Mike!

 

Mike.

[Michael Edge]

13 minutes ago, Kylestrome said:

 

From my slot car racing days, I remember that another name for them is contrate gear. Maybe that helps?

 

David

That’s what I’ve always called them from Meccano days but it doesn’t help in searches.

[MJI]

29 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

That’s what I’ve always called them from Meccano days but it doesn’t help in searches.

Same here

[SR71]

When looking for gears to copy what you guys do with the n20's I added the gear module to the search and after after a few efforts the algorithm seemed to realise what I was after. Prior to that I couldn't find anything on eBay but subsequent results showed the listings were there just not coming up.

[cctransuk]

It's been mentioned before but worth repeating - there is an N20 variant with a double-sided, transverse output; ie. a 3mm. axle.

 

It is quite easy to ream the output gear and the output shaft bearings and substitute an 1/8" axle; (Markits, Gibson, etc.).

 

CJI.

[Michael Edge]

Yes, I’ve got some of them but it adds a worm drive, reducing the efficiency of the gearbox.

[stevel]

I have found them on Ultrascale's website,

https://www.ultrascale.uk/eshop/products/cat015

not sure if they have stock though.

[cctransuk]

11 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

Yes, I’ve got some of them but it adds a worm drive, reducing the efficiency of the gearbox.

 

Mike,

 

Is there a worm in those right-angle N20s? I thought that it would be bevel gears, or something similar.

 

I fitted one in a Deeley 0-4-0T that I bought S/H, which had a whiney Portescap. The result was a vast improvement; not only in noise reduction.

 

John Isherwood.

[Michael Edge]

First stage gear is a worm drive, I said I've got some but not got round to using one yet. The n20 itself with just spur gears is incredibly powerful - enoug for a small O gauge loco.

[ianLMS]

Great to meet you yesterday at Warley Mike and thank you so much for giving me some advice on soldering and kit building. Really appreciated the time you spent. You are a true master of yiur craft. Good luck with today!!!

[Jack P]

On 06/11/2022 at 07:01, Michael Edge said:

I'm getting a bit bored with these now.

 

I hate to further prompt the feeling of boredom Mike, but I've got x4 Albion kits (E5/E6's) and wondered if you possibly had any in progress/semi-finished/completed build photos of either? 

General advice around their construction would also be excellent, I'm not sure which option is best with regards the radial axle, for instance.

 

Thanks in advance

[Michael Edge]

I've not done a test track photo for a while, this was at the end of last week.

No recent progress with my Barry 0-8-2T, next 7mm job is the N2 behind it - this is from a Warren Shephard kit. Then what I hope will be the last LBSC D1 and Tony's C14 - fitted on temporary Romford wheels while I set the frames up, it has its own Gibsons on  now.

More photos of the D1, this one will be SR 2286 when Ian Rathbone has painted it.

This is the Albion kit as usual with a few small alterations, the frames and wheels painted black as in the discussion on Wright writes. The cab roof needs fitting down securely once it is painted.

[Michael Edge]

12 hours ago, Jack P said:

 

I hate to further prompt the feeling of boredom Mike, but I've got x4 Albion kits (E5/E6's) and wondered if you possibly had any in progress/semi-finished/completed build photos of either? 

General advice around their construction would also be excellent, I'm not sure which option is best with regards the radial axle, for instance.

 

Thanks in advance

It's only the D tanks I'm bored with (see above), the 0-6-2Ts are more interesting. I do have an Albion E6 to build for this customer next but the only other I can find is this E5x.

My notes say this is Albion/modified but I can't remember exactly what now. The brass bits are from the Albion kit, the cab sides look like steel sheet and the boiler is a casting, I think the frames are Albion although the coupling rods aren't. There will be photos of this loco after painting in Ian Rathbone's gallery.

I'll put photos of the E6 on here when I get round to it

 

[drmditch]

Re: Ring Around the Dome

Is this a handrail, or does it have some other function? 

If a handrail, I wonder why other designs with largish domes never used one?

[Michael Edge]

It's a handrail - and an absolute b****r to fit! Presumably something to grab on to when standing on the tank top, I'm very glad it wasn't used more widely.

[Tony Teague]

5 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

I've not done a test track photo for a while, this was at the end of last week.

 

.....and Tony's C14 - fitted on temporary Romford wheels while I set the frames up, it has its own Gibsons on  now.

 

 

It's beginning to feel a lot like Xmas!

Tony

[Michael Edge]

The C14 is nearly finished now, frame building sequence below.

This loco is not the easiest to build, not least because the wheels are partially hidden in splashers atached to the frames. The tops of them locate in the half etched grooves seen here over the leading wheel, trailing one already fitted. Cab floor is fitted to the frames as usual in my locos with an enclosed cab, acces to the inside is from below with the roof soldered on. The reversing lever is also fitted to this but the backhead will be in the loco body this time.

View from underneath a bit further on, balance weights, brake and sandpipes now added. The gearbox is a High Level Roadrunner+ with an excellent small Chinese motor - I got 5 or 6 of these some time ago but have been unable to locate any more since. The leading axle runs in the swinging arms seen here, the pin head behind the leading brake is the pivot, it rocks under a central knife edge. The trailing axle is fixed in the frames.

All my frames have a small hole in line with the link pivot, a length of wire threaded through this and the motion bracket ensures that it always comes in the correct position relative to the driving wheels and cylinders.

PCB soldered in the bottom of the ashpan to fit the pickup wires on after painting.

Frames ready for painting now, just the motion to assemble after cleaning the paint off wheel treads, crankpins and slidebar faces. The body ready for grit blasting before painting, the buffer heads are left out at this stage to avoid the buffers being clogged with grit - not to leave them bright. Steam loco buffers were never bright unless specially cleaned and polished, usually for royal train use or something of the sort and there are no machined surfaces on them so the whole lot gets painted black before the housings are painted red.

This one (3744) at least had steam heat, I can't imagine it was for passenger work so presumably it was fitted for banana van duty in the same way that some Mersey Docks locos were.

 

[Nick C]

4 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

This one (3744) at least had steam heat, I can't imagine it was for passenger work so presumably it was fitted for banana van duty in the same way that some Mersey Docks locos were.

Quite likely given that it was working in Southampton Docks at the time (mostly Town Quay as far as I know). Possibly also for pre-heating boat train stock?

 

It did work at least one passenger train though, there's photos of it on a special at Bishop's Waltham.

 

Unusually the three survivors were all painted in lined black in BR days.

[Jack P]

On 29/11/2022 at 23:27, Michael Edge said:

There will be photos of this loco after painting in Ian Rathbone's gallery

 

A thing of beauty it is too!

I had wondered about the possibility of an E5x conversion.. hmmm.

Thanks for the photos, If you have any tips that come to mind when you do the E5 i'd be a willing audience.

 

[Michael Edge]

LSW C14 finished and ready for painting.

This has some of the fiddliest motion work I've ever done!