Coupling rod advice

[hayfield]

I am building A Southeastern Finecast LNER Hush Hush chassis for a friend. Its coming along well and I have decided to have a one piece coupling rod, there are also separate coupling rods supplied on the etch, but unlike other etched chassis I have built there is no mention of either doubling up the coupling rods for strength, and nothing about how to built a jointed set of coupling rods.

 

The one piece coupling rods are quite flimsy, as I have said no blanks are supplied to beef them up, but I thought I could reverse the jointed rods and adapt them appropriately to fit, any thoughts please

 

The chassis is being built to 00 gauge so there is plenty of space behind the valve gear, strangely enough the connecting rod is a double thickness.

[davefrk]

Hi John, Lanarkshire Models do LNER coupling rods for A3 and A4s if that is any good, can't find my Gresley book to check the Hush hush wheelbase at the moment.   http://lanarkshiremodels.com/lanarkshiremodelsandsupplieswebsite_052.htm

 

Cheers,

Dave.

 

[hayfield]

Dave

 

Thanks, but the chassis has been built on a Hobby Holidays jig to match these rods, I guess I could leave it as it is, but I am leaning to beef them up using the jointed rods duly adapted to be soldered behind, I guess I could have used Gibsons and I have a spare set of universal rods. but not a 100% direct match

[John Tomlinson]

Your idea seems quite sound to me, and one of the criticisms often levelled at RTR is the flimsiness of the coupling rods, which as we know on the real thing are very substantial.

 

If I've understood you correctly, you will simply be using the other rods on the etch to thicken the full length one that you have already used to assemble your chassis. So you will need to cut one of them short at one end so they can butt against each other to make a double thickness, as long as you cut carefully this shouldn't be a problem. If you cut oversize it should be possible to use a curved file to get a nice fit against the other rod.

 

Some while ago I built a Little Engines 04/8, so four driving axles. This came with two etched coupling rods for each side, plus an instruction not to use one of them! I had to think it out quite carefully, but it was possible to cut and file these to make sets of jointed rods with overlaps at the crankpins. Despite my misgivings this worked fine and helps on a loco with this arrangement to flex a bit on corners. You could do the same with your Hush- Hush, but probably less necessary.

 

John.

[hayfield]

John

 

Yes I am thinking of joining both sets together, thanks for the tip with the second set. I may actually file the first (whole coupling rod flat where it joins the second to make it easier to get a snug fit, plus it goes slightly on to the second boss for strength

[hayfield]

Here are two photos of the coupling rods

 

 

During and after along with the connecting rods, nice and strong now

 

 

I was sold this masking fluid as ideal for masking an item which you do not have to peal off the masking agent quickly, used on an old mazac Romford wheel. Great test I will put a thicker coat on the Markit wheels

 

 

Also used it on the brake hangers

[30368]

Nice to see a mucky and burnt workbench! Still cleaner than mine though. Good luck with the 4-6-2-2 (just in case!).

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B