Compensation/springing for Slater's 4mm Midland Wagons

[Mark Forrest]

9 hours ago, Kylestrome said:

Am I the only heretic who doesn't bother with springing or compensation in P4?

I have a few RTR rigid wagons that work perfectly well, so would agree that it isn’t entirely necessary.  However, for kit builds I still default to sprung, even for 9’ wheelbase stuff.  Main reason for doing so is that I’ve always been concerned that if build them rigid and found I had running problems, retrofitting suspension is a bit of a pain.  In addition, I like the look of thin brass axleguards and the way that a sprung wagon glides through my slightly dodgy trackwork.

[PenrithBeacon]

12 hours ago, Kylestrome said:

Am I the only heretic who doesn't bother with springing or compensation in P4?

 

...

No, at least not for RTR, but I find it easier to build a kit wagon compensated; springing is just a pain.

Having said that baseboard joints on exhibition layouts make compensation essential. 

[sharris]

1 hour ago, PenrithBeacon said:

No, at least not for RTR, but I find it easier to build a kit wagon compensated; springing is just a pain.

Having said that baseboard joints on exhibition layouts make compensation essential. 

 

One nice thing about building a kit compensated or sprung rather than fixed is that you're not relying on the solebar mouldings to be exactly registered - your wheel mountings become a separate entity that you can fit parallel whether or not the mouldings for your bearing sockets were perfectly aligned. 

 

(with MJT rocking W-irons you can still build them as fixed and thus non-compensated, but still independent of the mouldings if you need to)

[MonsalDan]

Thanks for all the comments so far, lots of really interesting suggestions which I will be giving a go in due course.

[iak]

On 27/01/2020 at 22:01, Kylestrome said:

Am I the only heretic who doesn't bother with springing or compensation in P4?

 

My longest 'rigid' wagon is a BR Tube wagon and I've yet to see it fall off the rails. I introduce a small amount off slop by lightly rounding off the axle pinpoints. True, it might not work on a big mainline layout but it does the job on my BLT.

 

The most important thing, I find, is to make sure that every wagon has the same axle weight (50g for 2-axle, 100g for bogies).

 

David

 

Having built a lot of Slaters wagons with zero springing or compensation, I to am a P4 renegade.

Anything below a 10ft wheelbase, built properly with everything parallel and straight is fine.

My mentor guided me that way over 30 years ago and it works - perfectly...

 

PS 10%+ of the stock on Mostyn is mine and that has no springs or compensation. Just building with tried and trusted methods...

Edited January 28, 2020 by iak
goofed

[Dave John]

Hmm, ok, each to their own, but I like a copperclad sub chassis and 51L rocking W irons . That way the whole wagon can be built but the W iron assemblies can be primed and painted separately. 

 

The use of a copperclad chassis allows a tab beyond the W irons for the phosphor bronze buffer spring, and two electrically separated lands give a solid pre tinned surface for ajs. That way you are keeping heat away from plastic. If you are building this way then you might as well compensate, can't hurt, might help. It also allows easy removal of the wheel/rocking iron assembly at a later date for maintenance if needed. 

 

The buffers on this were in a packet labelled decent models. I just snipped the heads off and drilled them out. You have to be fast soldering the buffer heads to the spring . 

 

Ok this is on a 6 foot wb model , but its now my standard wagon making way. 

 

 

 

The debate about whether to compensate or not goes on, but the above method means you could change from compensated to solid by just folding the tabs up on the W iron base at a later date if you wanted to.