Ruston's Industrial locomotive and wagon workshop thread.

[Ruston]

Oops!

I got side-tracked just a bit.

 

 

[Ruston]

I'm not saying what it is yet but It rolls and the rocking beam suspension seems to work. One of the bearings isn't a perfect fit in its horns, so sometimes shifts rearward and causes everything to lock up in one direction. Hopefully a bit of shim will sort it.

There's still plenty of scope for it to all go wrong yet.

[Ruston]

A bit of shim didn't sort it. Two thin layers with simple axle holes, instead of slots for all that rocking beam nonsense, soldered to the outsides of the frames sorted it. That and a pair of home-made rigid rods.

It now rolls very freely in both directions, so I may be able to get on with the rest of it. I'm glad that I didn't start faffing with complex suspension of split frames on the Hunslet. At least if things go wrong with one of my own frames I can make new parts but if I screw it up with a kit then it stays screwed up because they don't come with spare parts.

[cctransuk]

2 hours ago, Ruston said:

A bit of shim didn't sort it. Two thin layers with simple axle holes, instead of slots for all that rocking beam nonsense, soldered to the outsides of the frames sorted it. That and a pair of home-made rigid rods.

It now rolls very freely in both directions, so I may be able to get on with the rest of it. I'm glad that I didn't start faffing with complex suspension of split frames on the Hunslet. At least if things go wrong with one of my own frames I can make new parts but if I screw it up with a kit then it stays screwed up because they don't come with spare parts.

 

When it comes to chassis, the KISS principle applies, IMHO.

 

Any form of wigglyness in a chassis always causes problems in my experience - I'm with Tony Wright on this one.

 

CJI.

[Ruston]

On 03/05/2024 at 18:42, cctransuk said:

 

When it comes to chassis, the KISS principle applies, IMHO.

 

Any form of wigglyness in a chassis always causes problems in my experience - I'm with Tony Wright on this one.

 

CJI.

I'm inclined to agree. I was trying to be a bit too clever and it didn't work. I won't be trying it again.

 

With the 20 thou. overlays being all that would be supporting the weight of the loco (no bearings) I was worried that they could wear quickly so have reinforced the insides of the frames with extra layers of 1mm brass that now give more surface area for the axles to bear on. Probably not the best solution but it has added extra weight.

 

I have made the two layers of running plate in the same way as I did for the previous Manning Wardle.

You may now recognise it as being similar to the previous build. This is because it is another Manning Wardle 16-inch outside-cylindered special.

 

W/n 1814, built 1913 for Walter Scott Ltd. who had a steel works in Hunslet and operated ironstone quarries in Lincolnshire.

[Barclay]

Loving this, it's going to look superb. It's decades since I built a loco without beams or at least some form of springing - I don't have Tony Wright's 12 wheels and 80mph to keep my loco's going! To be fair, except in P4 you only need it for faultless pickup and if you're having a stay-alive that'll take care of that. But then I see no purpose to split axles, with apologies to @5050, so it just goes to show that we all like what we like I suppose !

[Ruston]

Bodywork.

 

I have probably shown similar pictures before that show how I do this bit. I don't venture out of the industrial section of this forum very often so I don't know if anyone else uses a pantograph to cut parts. If they do then I expect there are proper ways of doing it that I don't follow because I'm lazy and a bodger. I did once buy a proper draughtsman's drawing table, with guides on wires and all that, so that I could learn to do proper drawings for all this stuff but it weighed a ton and only just fit in my van. I got it home and realised that I had nowhere to set it up, so it never made it out of the van. I made a profit on it though. ☺️

 

These rough drawings are made on a cheap, plastic A3-sized board with a detachable square. They are glued to Plastikard and then cut out and marked using the tools shown.

The red paint is to highlight the holes so that I don't miss any when the patterns are on the machine. Drilling them in by hand, afterwards, would be a real PITA and some need to be precise, such as those that will be used with wire pegs to locate the tank end to the cab front.

 

The crosshatched area on the cab pattern will need to be cut out of the finished part by hand. It has been kept in so that the same pattern can be used for the cab rear. Centres only for the rear windows will be put in later as these are lower and further inboard than the front windows. The open area on the front one is to clear the gearbox.

[Ruston]

[Ruston]

Gearbox and motor in. The Loloader gearbox that I was going to use wouldn't fit after adding the extra plates to the frame, so I have used a Roadrunner plus that I had in stock.

The part in the cab will be easily hidden inside the firebox.

 

The gearbox is soldered into the frames. The motor is a whopper! There will be sufficient space for a Stay Alive in front of it and the decoder can lay on top. The speaker will fit under the cab, between the frame plates.

The cab is fixed to the running plate by 5x12BA screws. 10BA steel screws fix the running plate to the chassis. The next thing to make is the smokebox and once that is screwed in place I can take an actual measurement to establish the length of the tank.

 

[Ruston]

Just having a coffee break.

 

The rear upper panel of the cab is in and I have made up the cylinder frames. They are made from the same patterns as the previous MW but they will be fixed with screws and not glue. I had to glue the others as they were added to frame overlays on a cast chassis block but I can get inside the frames to screw these on.

[Ruston]

This is pushing the limits of what can be done on such an old clunky and massive machine that the pantograph is.

Rims for the cab rear spectacles. They're made from 10 thou. hard brass and the rim thickness is only 9 thou. The other bit is the slide and cover for the coal hole in the bunker. The photo doesn't show it too well but it's my equivalent of half etching. I milled the slide bit thinner between the rails.

[Ruston]

I made the firebox/backhead, today.

All those stays and rivet heads are a bit of a waste of time with a loco that has a cab but I'll know they're there.

[Ruston]

It's all just sat together with nothing screwed or soldered to the running plate. The wheels aren't even on properly. I just wanted to have a look at how the entire thing is progressing and try to convince myself that there's not much left to do.

Already it's weighing in at over 200g and it's not finished and doesn't have any lead ballast in it yet.

[Ruston]

What a difference adding a skin to the tank makes. It's beginning to look like a locomotive now.

There are two more formers inside the tank to strengthen it and to give the skin something else to be soldered to. The skin is 0.05mm nickel silver sheet.

 

I'm getting ahead of myself here but I was considering buying lost wax brass leaf springs, from Branchlines, but now I think I'll fabricate them instead. The idea is to mill the things that hold the spring eyes and the top leaf as a single part and then add lengths of brass sheet as individual leaves. It'll be a faff but I can make the springs to the proper size and shape and not have to put up with something that looks wrong.

[Barclay]

That is quite a beast.

[F-UnitMad]

4 hours ago, Barclay said:

That is quite a beast.

I was thinking the same, along with the word "hefty", as I read Dave's last-but-one post above.

Then I scrolled below the picture & read this bit...

On 14/05/2024 at 15:35, Ruston said:

Already it's weighing in at over 200g and it's not finished and doesn't have any lead ballast in it yet

So I was right!!! 😂 👍

[Ruston]

I wasn't happy with the smokebox. The profile was rubbish. I modified the pattern and made a new one.

 

Old one on the left. It isn't symmetrical and the transition from circular to straight isn't as clearly defined as it ought to be.

 

The new one also has a riveted wrapper.

I didn't do those on a rivet press as I don't have one. I marked the holes on a simple rectangular pattern and the plan was to use a pointed cutter simply to mark them and then dimple them using a hammer and a screw but I experimented with the cutter and these rivet heads are done on the pantograph itself. It works in the same way as a dome will form in sheet brass just before a drill bit will break through when drilling it. The pantograph, with some practice and experience, it can be set up to get a consistent depth and pressure to give the same effect every time.

 

The tank needs rivets but they are far smaller than I can do in any way available to me, so rivet transfers are the only option. I hate using them but will buy some and have a go. If it fails I'll just say it had a replacement welded tank.

Edited Wednesday at 18:21 by Ruston

[Ruston]

Today's jobs were to make the front part of the firebox (two simple squares), the smokebox door plate, the smokebox door and the tank mounting bracket.

Mounting bracket and the raw disc of brass that will become the smokebox door. The disc was soldered on to a copper rod and spun in a drill with a file held against it until it took the shape I wanted.

 

Only the firebox parts are fixed (soldered). The smokebox door is just pushed into the smokebox on its rod and the bracket is just sat there looking pretty. I need to start getting some of this stuff fixed in place. I also need to stop flitting from one thing to another and make a plan. Perhaps concentrate on getting the chassis into working order first. I would make a 'To do' list but it's too long and no one ever said scratchbuilding was easy.

 

If it was easy everyone would be doing it and then it wouldn't be cool. 😎

 

[Ruston]

I have made the lower part of the boiler and have soldered it to the frames. The motor has constantly been working loose, which I thought was down to the lugs on the gearbox being stood away from the motor body, so I made up a plate to fit between the motor and gearbox but it has turned out to be that the threads in one side of the motor are a bit dodgy. The motor can't be taken apart and I don't want to risk opening out the hole to cut new threads at a larger size as I have no idea what how far I can go before hitting and damaging something in there, so it will have to be held by one screw plus glue.

 

I have also put all the handrail and injector holes in the tank, which I had done on the thick framing but forgot to mark out on the wrapper. The tank has also been filled with lead shot and sheet. Fortunately I don't have any short handrail pillars otherwise I may have fitted handrails to the tank but these may be best left off until after painting in case I decide to do something silly such as lining.

[AlfaZagato]

Would it be possible to fit a bracket in the lower boiler to hold the other end of the motor up?

[Ruston]

3 hours ago, AlfaZagato said:

Would it be possible to fit a bracket in the lower boiler to hold the other end of the motor up?

Some support at the free end was required but I thought that a bracket was going too far. I pushed a length of plasticard in, held on both motor and boiler shell sides with a blob of superglue. It ought to be a strong enough joint in use but should also be easily broken if the motor needs to come out for any reason.

 

A milestone in the build now passed.

The tubes for the brake gear were installed prior to painting the frames and the wheel flanges were turned down before the final fitting of the wheels, too. Quartering done by eye.

Edited 18 hours ago by Ruston