East Barnet Joint Stock - a workbench

[Chas Levin]

And another thing that keeps popping into my mind is that these lines are - all being well - are going to be so thin that they'll barely be visible from normal viewing distance and lines of plum and green that thin would also probably be indistinguishable, except under magnification or cruel online closeup!

51 minutes ago, micklner said:

Plum from a distant could also look Black when new . Does/could Plum fade to Light Red or even Orange ?? no idea !!

Yep, that's another point, fading...

[31A]

7 hours ago, micklner said:

Plum from a distant could also look Black when new

 

And could also look black in the black and white photos of the period, as per the difficulty in telling whether a black LNER loco has red lining or not, as the photographic emulsions of the time tend to render red as black in black and white photos.

 

[31A]

8 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

I fully realise I may be on my own here, but for this green and cream model, I'm going to stick to green (& black) lining, because I'll be comfortable with the way it looks.

 

OK well, I've said what I think and I still think the LMC model is a good contemporary reference that supports what Nick Campling wrote, and what I believe to be the case.  But at the end of the day, it's your model.

 

[Chas Levin]

13 hours ago, 31A said:

 

And could also look black in the black and white photos of the period, as per the difficulty in telling whether a black LNER loco has red lining or not, as the photographic emulsions of the time tend to render red as black in black and white photos.

 

Absolutely; I don't know whether you've seen it Steve, but there's a newish thread on here about this very question and it's got some fascinating stuff in it already: "Experiments in monochrome".

Edited September 13, 2023 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

3 hours ago, 31A said:

OK well, I've said what I think and I still think the LMC model is a good contemporary reference that supports what Nick Campling wrote, and what I believe to be the case.  But at the end of the day, it's your model.

 

It's a difficult one, and I'm still not as sure about it as you are, I think. I can totally see your points about the LMC date of manufacture and about Nick Campling, and while I don't want to rehash the whole debate, I would just like to remember that we do also have at least two other lining schemes written about, black and gilt (in Brian Haresnape's "Railway Liveries 1923-47") and double green (in "Big Four in Colour"), on the red and cream and green and cream liveries respectively, plus a lot of photographic evidence to back up double lining in black and green on green and cream 'cars.

 

(Ironically, reading back what I just wrote, I had to re-arrange that sentence, because I'd mixed up which lining colours went with which livery...🙄)

 

Anyway Steve, please excuse me if I've seemed argumentative or obstinate: this is after all just meant to be fun, and I shall have fun lining - or attempting to line - my model in green and black; and should you build one, I'm sure you'll have equal fun lining it in plum! 🙂

[Chas Levin]

Next job is the rectangular support piece for the cranked floor. The 2x4mm brass rectangular tube is going to work very well for this I think, but the first thing was to turn it from a straight piece into a rectangle, which meant filing a vee into one side using a square section needle file so that it would bend into a right-angle. Not too difficult, but after that, how do you plot exactly where the other vee grooves should be, to produce a rectangle exactly the same size as the cut-out in the floor? Measurement is of course one way, but I thought I'd try doing it by using the cut-out as a template:

 

 

By marking on the brass where the centre of the vee should be, based on aligning the edges of the previously cut groove with the edge line of the floor cut-out, I could file a groove across that centre line, followed by gradually widening the groove, trying to make sure that it stayed central between the two outer lines - these three photos should make the process clearer:

 

 

 

 

Neither the initial filed line nor the gradually widening groove in the photos above looks accurately perpendicular to the length of the brass - my haste at fault there - but there's room for correction as you go along and great accuracy isn't required here as these edges will be inside soldered joints and hidden between floor layers.

The end result is a line of vee grooves at what will be three of the four corners of the desired rectangle, the fourth being a simple butt join:

 

 

After careful bending - including gently heating the brass with the soldering iron set to a modest 110 degrees - here it is sitting on top of the floor cut-out:

 

 

As you can see, it's an example of the need to bend brass a little further than the desired angle - in this case 90 degrees - for it to sit where you want it to be. Unfortunately I can't do that to all four corners in this case, without twisting them more than I'd like. Once the rectangle's soldered in place it'll hold the squared off shape with no problem of course - it only takes very light pressure to push the butt jointn corner together - but I thought it worthwhile to try pinning that jointed corner with a piece of brass wire.

 

Even holding it in an accurate rectangle with four true right-angles took some thought and gave me an opportunity to use a couple of tools that don't get very much exercise, intended for use by typsetters and toolmakers respectively:

 

 

 

 

The inner void of this brass section is 1.36 x 3.36mm, so I filed down a piece of 1.5mm brass rod to try as a securing pin:

 

 

 

This only completely prevents movement in one plane, the one parallel to the long uncut section of brass. I'm not worried about movement perpendicular to that plane - upwards from the desk surface, in the photo above - but that simple brass pin doesn't prevent movement opening out the rectangle, widening the gap you see in the above photo, so I need to modify it slightly.

The idea is to have the rectangle solid and fixed mechanically, before trying to solder it to the floorpan, so it doesn;t move about or lose its squareness...🤔

[cctransuk]

22 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

Next job is the rectangular support piece for the cranked floor. The 2x4mm brass rectangular tube is going to work very well for this I think, but the first thing was to turn it from a straight piece into a rectangle, which meant filing a vee into one side using a square section needle file so that it would bend into a right-angle. Not too difficult, but after that, how do you plot exactly where the other vee grooves should be, to produce a rectangle exactly the same size as the cut-out in the floor? Measurement is of course one way, but I thought I'd try doing it by using the cut-out as a template:

 

 

By marking on the brass where the centre of the vee should be, based on aligning the edges of the previously cut groove with the edge line of the floor cut-out, I could file a groove across that centre line, followed by gradually widening the groove, trying to make sure that it stayed central between the two outer lines - these three photos should make the process clearer:

 

 

 

 

Neither the initial filed line nor the gradually widening groove in the photos above looks accurately perpendicular to the length of the brass - my haste at fault there - but there's room for correction as you go along and great accuracy isn't required here as these edges will be inside soldered joints and hidden between floor layers.

The end result is a line of vee grooves at what will be three of the four corners of the desired rectangle, the fourth being a simple butt join:

 

 

After careful bending - including gently heating the brass with the soldering iron set to a modest 110 degrees - here it is sitting on top of the floor cut-out:

 

 

As you can see, it's an example of the need to bend brass a little further than the desired angle - in this case 90 degrees - for it to sit where you want it to be. Unfortunately I can't do that to all four corners in this case, without twisting them more than I'd like. Once the rectangle's soldered in place it'll hold the squared off shape with no problem of course - it only takes very light pressure to push the butt jointn corner together - but I thought it worthwhile to try pinning that jointed corner with a piece of brass wire.

 

Even holding it in an accurate rectangle with four true right-angles took some thought and gave me an opportunity to use a couple of tools that don't get very much exercise, intended for use by typsetters and toolmakers respectively:

 

 

 

 

The inner void of this brass section is 1.36 x 3.36mm, so I filed down a piece of 1.5mm brass rod to try as a securing pin:

 

 

 

This only completely prevents movement in one plane, the one parallel to the long uncut section of brass. I'm not worried about movement perpendicular to that plane - upwards from the desk surface, in the photo above - but that simple brass pin doesn't prevent movement opening out the rectangle, widening the gap you see in the above photo, so I need to modify it slightly.

The idea is to have the rectangle solid and fixed mechanically, before trying to solder it to the floorpan, so it doesn;t move about or lose its squareness...🤔

 

All very intricate - well done!

 

However, as this rectangle is merely a spacer, surely four lengths of the tube, soldered to the edges of the void, would serve the purpose perfectly well?

 

When I built the Black Beetle housings for my Blue Pullman power cars, I used lengths of Evergreen rectangular plastic section for the spacers - this worked admirably well.

 

CJI.

[Chas Levin]

9 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

All very intricate - well done!

 

However, as this rectangle is merely a spacer, surely four lengths of the tube, soldered to the edges of the void, would serve the purpose perfectly well?

 

When I built the Black Beetle housings for my Blue Pullman power cars, I used lengths of Evergreen rectangular plastic section for the spacers - this worked admirably well.

 

CJI.

 

Thanks John and yes, I probably could have got away with four lengths of the tube... but: there's a fair amount of other work and soldering to be done with the cranked floor and to the floorpan generally, so I liked the idea of having this spacer as solid as possible, with as few soldered joints as possible; one of my chief vices in construction of any kind, from lifesize DIY to 4mm modelling, is an addiction to belt and braces measures.

Also, I like working out interesting ways to do things and then seeing if I can do them. I always find it interesting learning about the limitations of different materials and what can be done with them.

 

Chas's Workbench: Never Knowingly Under-Engineered!

[Chas Levin]

Using my newly received Olfa cutter (thanks @Bucoops!) I cut a piece of NS sheet for the raised section of the cranked floor. Actually, this sheet, at 0.6mm, is a little thick for cutting this way, but the advantage is that you can cut a dead straight edge, so with patience...

 

 

This piece will sit on top of the 4mm spacer rectangle I've just made, shown in the previous posts:

 

 

 

I left the protruding end of the 1.5mm rod that's anchoring the rectangle, plus a few mm of the long side of the rectangle from the butt joined corner, in case they are useful later as fixing points. I'm fairly certain they won't foul anything or cause any problems - worst case scenario, they'll come off.

 

I wanted some way to anchor that recangle so it couldn't move about during soldering (or when the top piece is added ) so I ran pieces of 0.7mm wire through in three places. Those short slots in the NS floorpan you can see alongside the brass rectangle are for the upward protruding tabs of the solebar strips and as you can see, the brass rectangle is almost exactly the width between them (an intentional compromise between the need to keep those slots free and the need to maximise the cut-out) so a sideways slip of even a fraction of a mm might cause problems:

 

 

 

And here's this stage of the cranked floor finished, after some cleaning up; the 0.7mm wire pieces have been cut off and filed back to be flush with the upper and lower surfaces:

 

 

 

 

 

I managed to do this without buckling the floorpan, by working on flat surfaces with pieces of wood to hold the brass rectangle  and the NS etch very flat:

 

 

Next will be the top piece, the 'lid', that forms the raised or cranked section of floor, the piece in the photos above, that I cut out with the Olfa cutter. I think the best order there is to solder it in place and only then drill the hole for the bogie pivot point, in order to be sure of centering the hold...🤔

[EHertsGER]

On 06/09/2023 at 21:20, Bucoops said:

Agreed, very neat. I really struggle with piercing saws. Go through a crazy amount of blades.

 

These were suggested by someone else on here - designed for plastic but work very well with flat brass or nickel silver - https://www.olfauk.com/product_qr/OLF_PCS

 

 

Try candle wax on the blades; just run the blade through and old candle offcut. It will make passage through the metal easier and reduce the binding that causes most breakages. Washing up liquid at a pinch if your household is all electric!

[Chas Levin]

9 minutes ago, EHertsGER said:

Try candle wax on the blades; just run the blade through and old candle offcut. It will make passage through the metal easier and reduce the binding that causes most breakages. Washing up liquid at a pinch if your household is all electric!

 

Excellent idea - thank you! That sounds like one of those traditional old tricks, like soap on wood screw threads, that's probably been done for generations: I'd never heard of it though - I bet it works very well and I'll try it on the piercing saw's next outing.

 

Candle wax is no problem for me: although our house is all electric, I like candles as decorative lighting, so there are always some in the house...

[Chas Levin]

Adding the top 'roof' to the railcar cranked floor section was fairly straightforward, using three locating pins of 0.7mm brass wire as I'd done for the sides of the construction:

 

 

And with it soldered in place, the sides - inside and out - cleaned up and the bogie pivot hole located, drilled and enlarged (another job for my battery drill-mounted reamers) a test assembly was successful! In the first picture you see the Black Beetle with a 0.6mm thickness teflon (PTFE) washer on top, the one on the right being a 0.2mm one, to go on top of the mounting plate:

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure at this point whether teflon's the way to go, but my thinking is based on the fact that we're already dealing with an ABS plastic bogie pivot shoulder area rubbing underneath nickel silver, so introducing teflon between them seems to me a better idea than more metal, whether brass, NS or steel. I came across teflon washers in the course of restoring reel to reel tape machines - Studer and Revox in particular are very fond of them - and in the right circumstances they're extrordinarily effective. Running tests will show whether they're right for this case or not.

The upper teflon washer is to take up the very slight space between the underside of the securing brass screw and the NS top surface when the screw's fully tightened. Otherwise, there's slight side to side wobble. Now that might actually prove useful as means of crude compensation, especially as I'm now almost certainly going to use the rigidly built Michael Edge ES1 bogie at the other end of the 'car, but I can always experiment with removing the upper teflon in due course. The cab and luggage compartment interiors are going to have to incorporate access to that bogie securing screw, but that shouldn't be too awkward.

 

The inportant point is that the cranked floor now sits 15mm above the rail top, including with the 0.6mm teflon washer in place (and in case anyone wonders what's propping up the other end of the floorpan in the last picture, it took a while to find something exactly 15mm high and a small pile of coins happened to fit!):

 

 

 

 

The next thing is that Edge Kits 6'6" bogie; I'm hoping that with a little modification, it can fit straight under the floorpan at the right height, without the need for another cut-out... 🤔

[Chas Levin]

Having achieved the coveted 15mm floor-to-railtop height at the powered bogie end of the railcar, the next thing is the unpowered bogie at the other end. I have several possible solutions to choose from, but the front runner so far is the bogie Mike Edge very kindly sent parts for, from his NER ES1 Bo-Bo loco, which has the advantage of the correct 6'6" wheelbase for this end of the Sentinel 'car:

 

 

I was initially unsure of how the inner and outer frames were to be used, but I remembered I have the Judith Edge EF1 kit in my stash and correctly guessed that its bogies would probably go together in a similar way, so between the EF1 instructions and a couple of online photos of others' builds I figured it out.

 

Before assembly however, some material needs to be removed from at least two areas. The main issue is one of height - here's a photo of one of the inner frame pieces laid on the Isinglass drawing, where you can see that the central 'decapitated pyramid' shape is too high for the floor - it projects up inside the ES1 body without problem of course. I've shaded the excess area in yellow:

 

 

I toyed with the idea of bending over the excess areas on each piece to meet - or nearly meet - in the middle and form a centre stretcher, but the risk of innaccuracy and error is high and a stretcher's provided so I'll just cut them down and use the stretcher that's part of the etch.

Another issue is length - the ES1 bogie is a little longer than the Sentinel one, as you can see in the red-circled areas here:

 

 

I'm not sure at this point whether I'll shorten them or not; doing so might cause other issues and I don't think it'll be obvious at all, so I might leave them as they are.

 

The Judith Edge outer bogie sides present another question, as they don't have the same cut-out areas as the Sentinel ones. Here are photos of the two different bogie sides, first one above the other for comparison, then with the NuCast white-metal one on top of the Edge brass one, where you can clearly see the areas through which you can't clearly see, so to speak:

 

 

 

Length-wise they're also a little long of course - they match the inner bogie sides so if I shorten those, I'll shorten these too.

 

I might not use these Judith Edge brass outer sides at all, but I liked the idea of using them for their structural strength in the final assembly, plus I'd prefer soldering the NuCast white-metal cosmetic sides to them than gluing: something to ponder.

 

The white-metal cosmetic bogie sides are going to end up being amongst the very few parts from the original NuCast kit that I'll actually use in this model, having started out intending to build the NuCast kit in its entirety!

[Asterix2012]

It would be interesting to see a list of which components you used and from what sources when you are finished 

[micklner]

The only problem maybe the Bogie hitting the Side Steps , not a lot of room for any sharp curves.

[Chas Levin]

10 hours ago, Asterix2012 said:

It would be interesting to see a list of which components you used and from what sources when you are finished 

 

Yes, good idea, will do!

[Chas Levin]

10 hours ago, micklner said:

The only problem maybe the Bogie hitting the Side Steps , not a lot of room for any sharp curves.

 

Yes, I thought of that but in fact, if you look at the close-ups of the Isinglass drawing in my previous post, you'll see that the prototypes' bogies would have fouled the steps too, on any decent curves. 

However, @Jon4470 posted a while ago on the 'LNER Sentinel & Clayton Railcars - livery & other questions' thread, showing a crop from a drawing credited to Nick Campling and seen in "British Railcars" by David Jenkinson and Barry Lane, where the steps are unmistakably angled outwards and I found some prototype photos comfirming that which I also posted, so I plan to angle the steps outwards in the same way, which will (hopefully) take care of that problem. 

[micklner]

4 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

 

Yes, I thought of that but in fact, if you look at the close-ups of the Isinglass drawing in my previous post, you'll see that the prototypes' bogies would have fouled the steps too, on any decent curves. 

However, @Jon4470 posted a while ago on the 'LNER Sentinel & Clayton Railcars - livery & other questions' thread, showing a crop from a drawing credited to Nick Campling and seen in "British Railcars" by David Jenkinson and Barry Lane, where the steps are unmistakably angled outwards and I found some prototype photos comfirming that which I also posted, so I plan to angle the steps outwards in the same way, which will (hopefully) take care of that problem. 

As said "it all depends as size of your curves".

[Chas Levin]

59 minutes ago, micklner said:

As said "it all depends as size of your curves".

[micklner]

I bag the one on the right !!🙃

[Chas Levin]

On 24/09/2023 at 23:09, micklner said:

The only problem maybe the Bogie hitting the Side Steps , not a lot of room for any sharp curves.

 

It took a few days Mick, but eventually it occurred to me that my answering this by saying that the prototype bogies also fouled the steps missed an important point, which is that every mm counts and if the bogies are left longer, they'll foul the steps sooner, i.e. on shallower curves. And that's aside from them not looking as accurate as they could...

So thank you again for pointing it out!

First thing was marking the Edge etches, though I had difficuly taking a photo that shows all the marked areas:

 

 

Cocktail sticks through the axle holes and some tack soldering:

 

 

 

And after some work with the razor saw, the profile is a much closer match and those crucial few mm have come off the ends:

 

 

 

 

I've deliberately left the inner bogie frames a mm short of the underside level of the floor, to allow for a washer or two and also on the principle that I can adjust the ride height upwards by adding washers, but it's less easy to adjust it downwards.

My plan is still to use the brass outer bogie frames behind the cosmetic white-metal ones, so the brass will need some more material removing for light to show in the right places, as you can see in the last photo above. The bogie frame ends will also need some modification to fit the newly angled ends of the side pieces, but it's definitely getting there...

[Chas Levin]

Continuing from the previous post, the first job was to remove the small rectangular locating projections from the rear of the NuCast white-metal cosmetic bogie sides. They're designed to fit into corresponding slots in the central stretcher of the Nu-Cast white-metal bogie frame, so they won't be needed here and they also prevent the white-metal pieces sitting flat on the Judith Edge brass outer bogie sides - here's a before and after of the removal process:

 

 

Using one of the white-metal sides as a template I then marked the areas of brass that need to go:

 

 

I then soldered the two brass bogie sides together and by a combination of drilling holes and then filing away the land between them, arrived at a this result:

 

 

They're not quite as tidy as I'd have liked, but they'll be almost entirely hidden behind the white-metal sides, so there didn't seem any need to worry - here's a photo of one of the sides on top of the Isinglass drawing, followed by one with the white-metal casting on top, to show what I mean:

 

 

 

The last part of the Edge bogies that now need attention are the end pieces. They're intended to be folded into right-angles, to sit over the ends of the inner and outer sides, but I've modified the upper corners of all four sides to resemble the Sentinel bogie ends, so the Edge pieces will need to have some material removed and they'll be folded to a lesser angle than 90 degrees. Here's a photo of the bogie pieces in their current state, with the two end pieces - the still very shiny ones, on the right - positioned to show the end sections of the side pieces they need to match:

 

[Chas Levin]

Another pair of pieces tack-soldered together to allow some careful razor-saw trimming, this time the end pieces, or covers, for the modified Judith Edge bogies:

 

 

At this point I popped the four side pieces - two inner, two outer - onto a pair of axles to see how they matched up with the wheels; I'd noticed on the Isinglass drawing that those angled ends go very close to the wheel rims, at about 1 o'clock when viewed from the side, much closer than I've seen before:

 

 

I think it'll still be an acceptable clearance though and a bit of filing can always ease things if necessary. Finally, then, the basic bogie frame could be erected and although I know it's a bit unnecessary, I used my Avonside jig, partly because it hasn't seen a great deal of use and it's fun to use and very satisfying, as it allows for some pretty solid and accurate alignment:

 

 

And here's the result - please ignore the non-matching wheels, they're a spare set to use during setting up:

 

 

Speaking of axles, I needed a pair of flat-ended 00 gauge bogie axles for this assembly and I'd assumed you could buy them, as you can driving axles, quite easily and from more than one supplier: I was wrong! I couldn't find them anywhere and as I was at the Scalefour show in High Wycombe the other weekend, I asked around there too, but with no luck (though one supplier offered to send me some spares with another order). No-one seemed to think it was a very usual thing to be looking for and more than one person suggested cutting my own from steel rod. I've no objection to that - quite the contrary, as I always like learning to do new things - but I'm very surprised these apparently aren't commonly available.

I realise we usually buy pairs of bogie and similar wheels already on their axles, but surely people must sometimes be in the position I'm in here, with wheels, building a bogie and needing axles?

If so, where do people source them from please?

 

While I look round further for axle supplies for future projects, I did indeed order a piece of 2mm silver steel rod and cut my own:

 

 

I find it very pleasing to try to achieve precise standards and see my own skills improving, so making these, both to exactly 20.18mm, was very satisfying! I'd still rather have bought them though, as it was time I could have spent doing something else a bit more interesting, but they certainly do the job:

 

 

I can now look at the pivot arrangements for this unpowered bogie. Here's the floorpan - still within the outer etch frame - perched on top of the Black Beetle at one and and the newly made Judith Edge bogie frame at the other. The height at the Edge end is slightly low at 14.1mm, because there's that extra 0.9mm allowed for a washer or two, plus the non-matching wheels stand out, but nevertheless, it's nice to see things advancing a little:

 

 

 

 

Once I have the bogie pivot sorted out, I'm going to build one of the Palatine Models torsion bar bogies too, just to see whether it offers better running than the Judith Edge one. I doubt it will, but I'm also just curious to see how a torsion bar bogie goes together and how it runs.

There's also the option of creating some form of compensation for the Edge bogie, perhaps a rocking pivot arrangement, or lengthening the axle holes at one end and inserting a compensating beam.

I plan to test both bogie options by running the floorpan with weighting, to simulate the presence of the body on top, though I realise the centre of gravity won't be the same...🤔

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

Re, the flat ended axles, couldn't you use pin point axles, but grind the ends off the axles. That's what I do.

 

manna

[micklner]

Alan Gibson Bogie Wheels always come with Pinpoint, and OO and EM  Flat end Axles. No idea if the axles are the same diameter/size as the ones in the pictures.