Newman Miniatures Crampton

[TangoOscarMike]

1 hour ago, Chas Levin said:

Re. painting wheels, I sprayed the wheels - primer and top coats - on a 4-4-2 GNR C2 I built a little while ago and while it took quite a lot of time and work I think the results were well worth it. I note you said that masking didn't work well, but I think it's the only way to be able to spray and it can be done, it just takes some time and possibly multiple attemtps - if you have a look at my post from May 1st 2021 on page 22 from my thread, something over halfway down the page, you can see the various stages I went through to do it and it did take several goes, though I didn't post lots of pictures of the failed ones!

 

Thank you. That is indeed what I tried, and on the strength of your recommendation I will try again.

 

Your C2 is astonishing. I'm pretty sure that if I try to praise it properly I will be reduced to babbling! I don't think that I could achieve such a finish on a 1:6 scale model, or even a full-sized locomotive.

 

[Chas Levin]

19 hours ago, TangoOscarMike said:

 

Thank you. That is indeed what I tried, and on the strength of your recommendation I will try again.

 

Your C2 is astonishing. I'm pretty sure that if I try to praise it properly I will be reduced to babbling! I don't think that I could achieve such a finish on a 1:6 scale model, or even a full-sized locomotive.

 

Thank you, you're very nice to say so! Bear in mind it took a long time (about 18 months) of which a couple of months or so were spent purely practising with a ruling pen to do the lining. I think if you're reasonably dextrous and practical to start with, you'll be absolutely amazed at what practising a particular skill does to your ability. I learned the violin as a kid and still play, on and ff, so I learned early on about what practising can do and those end results are less impressive than they may look if you see them next to the very large number of practice cards and pieces of sheet brass I worked on first! I'd done a few lined coaches before that too, so I wasn't totally new to it.

 

But as to the wheels, yes, I would suggest having another go. Two key points I found were making sure that the initial piece of masking tape is evenly and firmly adhering round the rim or tyre, then really taking your time with a razor blade or scalpel to cut out the circulr shape. You also need to use a good quality low-tack modellers masking tape like that Tamiya stuff. Really good lighting and high magnification make a huge difference too. I use one of those headband magnifiers, quite cheap, only plastic lenses but it makes a huge difference. And remember, masking tape is pretty cheap too, so you can keep peeling off ones where you don't think the cut-out is accurate enough. I found a razor blade easier, because you can follow the tiny gap between the tyre and the inner moulded wheel section with it.

[TangoOscarMike]

On 08/05/2023 at 20:02, Chas Levin said:

Thank you, you're very nice to say so! Bear in mind it took a long time (about 18 months) of which a couple of months or so were spent purely practising with a ruling pen to do the lining. I think if you're reasonably dextrous and practical to start with, you'll be absolutely amazed at what practising a particular skill does to your ability. I learned the violin as a kid and still play, on and ff, so I learned early on about what practising can do and those end results are less impressive than they may look if you see them next to the very large number of practice cards and pieces of sheet brass I worked on first! I'd done a few lined coaches before that too, so I wasn't totally new to it.

 

Indeed - your models clearly don't simply fall into your lap! It always amuses me to hear people who envy the musical talents of others. To be a skilled musician requires:

• Plenty of hard work - there is no possible doubt about this.
• An innate musical talent - this is a bit hypothetical.

For my own part, I struggle with focus and concentration. I'm a musician too, but I have a large collection of cheap instruments that I don't play very well. I've had more success with writing music than with playing it.

 

As far as my toys/models are concerned, I tend to spend time pondering ways to produce tolerable results without requiring dexterity. And I stumbled across the following: My wife teaches in a kindergarten, and she was looking for a large hole punch for a craft project. I found a punch belonging to a set of eyes for tarpaulins, and I used it to make a hole in a piece of masking tape. It's a little bit under-sized for the tender wheels, but not too much.

 

 

 

Clearly it could be better. I'm trying to decide whether or not it's good enough for my purposes and tastes.

 

And I've also shown my hand - I'm not planning to paint this locomotive an authentic colour. Instead it's going to be a Splendid Red Engine.

 

[TangoOscarMike]

Meanwhile, I have glued some brass tubes into the chassis.

 

 

Then I trimmed and filed the tubes, leaving a skinny bearing on one side and a more substantial bearing on the other.

 

 

I found quite a few schoolboy errors in the chassis design, with structural pieces that interfered with the wheels and the gears. But with a bit of carving and filing I was able to put some of the moving parts where they belong.

 

 

 

[Chas Levin]

On 11/05/2023 at 21:57, TangoOscarMike said:

 

Indeed - your models clearly don't simply fall into your lap! It always amuses me to hear people who envy the musical talents of others. To be a skilled musician requires:

• Plenty of hard work - there is no possible doubt about this.
• An innate musical talent - this is a bit hypothetical.

For my own part, I struggle with focus and concentration. I'm a musician too, but I have a large collection of cheap instruments that I don't play very well. I've had more success with writing music than with playing it.

 

As far as my toys/models are concerned, I tend to spend time pondering ways to produce tolerable results without requiring dexterity. And I stumbled across the following: My wife teaches in a kindergarten, and she was looking for a large hole punch for a craft project. I found a punch belonging to a set of eyes for tarpaulins, and I used it to make a hole in a piece of masking tape. It's a little bit under-sized for the tender wheels, but not too much.

 

 

 

Clearly it could be better. I'm trying to decide whether or not it's good enough for my purposes and tastes.

 

And I've also shown my hand - I'm not planning to paint this locomotive an authentic colour. Instead it's going to be a Splendid Red Engine.

 

Nice work sir!

 

I hadn't thought of stamping out a suitable sized circle: that would have eliminated some of the edge errors I had with my razorblade method, though I'd have needed stampers for three sizes, the drivers, trailing truck and bogie wheels.

 

It does work though, doesn't it? I hope you're pleased with the results? You should be able to scrape off the paint where it's gone under the masking and deformed what should be a circle: if you use some sort of very high magnification and strong lighting to do it (like a headband magnifier) you can see where and how much to remove extremely clearly and when you go back to normal viewing distance it looks way getter than you think when you're looking through the lenses. That's how some of my C2 wheels looked after first spraying and removal of the masking tape so I'd say you're almost there.

 

The other thing is of course that at normal viewing distance, tiny errors become completely invisible and also, things we obsess over during a build are forgotten about once the thing's completed.

 

Which instruments do you play? I've also tried composition but I'd say I had more success with playing, the opposite of your experience it seems. i'd agree that hard work is more important than talent - wasn't it Paderewski, noted pianist and later, noted politician and first Premier of the newly formed Poland after WWI, who described so-called 'genius' - a word often applied to him in the press of the time - as being "10% inspiration, 90% perspiration"...

 

Also, I should have said: I varnished the paintwork on the wheels quite carefully (I use Ronseal water-based internal stuff, satin usually, increcibly reliable self-leveling) because having gone to that much trouble to paint them I wanted the paintwork protected, but the reason I mention it here is that assuming you do clean up and scrape back those edges where the paint has strayed a little (for which btw I used a pointed scalpel blade) you'll notice it leaves a slightly ragged edge to the paint - another thing that's easier to see under high magnification - which can be prone to lifting later, so going over that ragged edge with tiny amounts of varnish on a very fine brush (10/0), enough to seal it without going all over the bare metal tyres, helps stop any subsequent flaking...

Edited May 19, 2023 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

On 11/05/2023 at 22:10, TangoOscarMike said:

Meanwhile, I have glued some brass tubes into the chassis.

 

 

Then I trimmed and filed the tubes, leaving a skinny bearing on one side and a more substantial bearing on the other.

 

 

I found quite a few schoolboy errors in the chassis design, with structural pieces that interfered with the wheels and the gears. But with a bit of carving and filing I was able to put some of the moving parts where they belong.

 

 

 

 

Nice job there too; adapting things that way is part of the process - I've done similar things on quite a few things I've made where needed, nothing wrong with that!

[TangoOscarMike]

On 12/05/2023 at 23:18, Chas Levin said:

Which instruments do you play? I've also tried composition but I'd say I had more success with playing, the opposite of your experience it seems. i'd agree that hard work is more important than talent - wasn't it Paderewski, noted pianist and later, noted politician and first Premier of the newly formed Poland after WWI, who described so-called 'genius' - a word often applied to him in the press of the time - as being "10% inspiration, 90% perspiration"...

 

I had piano lessons as a child. I now own a mandolin, a mandola, a concertina, an (unplayable) accordion, a modular analogue synthesizer (built partly from kits), a harp, various whistles, a hurdy-gurdy, a viola da gamba (about £40, I think, from a second-hand shop) and, inevitably, a guitar. I can play all of them or none of them, depending on ones point of view! A friend once saw me play the concertina and said "well, you know where the notes are".

 

I suppose I pick up the mandola most often.

 

As with instruments, I'm a dabber when it comes to styles and genres. But I'm most often drawn to folk music (leaning towards early-music influences).

 

Last summer I wrote and directed music for an outdoor production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with cellos, recorders, singers, a violin and tuned percussion. I played a little bit, but mostly left it to the proper musicians.

 

[TangoOscarMike]

On 12/05/2023 at 23:18, Chas Levin said:

It does work though, doesn't it? I hope you're pleased with the results? You shoudl be able to scrape off the paint .....

 

Thank you so much for your advice and encouragement!

 

I set out to tidy up the edges, and quickly decided that I needed a jig or tool to hold the blade in the right position while turning the wheel. After a few false starts (I used a craft knife blade and ploughed up the paint grievously) I came up with the following. On the left, a razor-blade holder, on the right, an axle holder (bass tube sandwiched between pieces of plastic) and some plastic and paper shims. 

 

 

Assembled it looks like this:

 

 

At some point in this process the penny dropped, and I realised that this device would make a much better job of cutting circular holes in masking tape to begin with.

 

 

And this is the result (on the same wheel, including the mess I made through my experiments).

 

 

I think this masking tape hole is much neater than the punched one, and also much closer to the correct size. I'm going to try to get the paint off this wheel (I think my son has some paint stripper) and have another go. Hopefully the same tool will work for the cutting of the tape and for the tidy-up afterwards.

 

[Chas Levin]

16 hours ago, TangoOscarMike said:

 

Thank you so much for your advice and encouragement!

 

I set out to tidy up the edges, and quickly decided that I needed a jig or tool to hold the blade in the right position while turning the wheel. After a few false starts (I used a craft knife blade and ploughed up the paint grievously) I came up with the following. On the left, a razor-blade holder, on the right, an axle holder (bass tube sandwiched between pieces of plastic) and some plastic and paper shims. 

 

 

Assembled it looks like this:

 

 

At some point in this process the penny dropped, and I realised that this device would make a much better job of cutting circular holes in masking tape to begin with.

 

 

And this is the result (on the same wheel, including the mess I made through my experiments).

 

 

I think this masking tape hole is much neater than the punched one, and also much closer to the correct size. I'm going to try to get the paint off this wheel (I think my son has some paint stripper) and have another go. Hopefully the same tool will work for the cutting of the tape and for the tidy-up afterwards.

 

 

My pleasure! Always happy if the small amount of experience I've had is of help to anyone else!

 

You're right about the considerable help that jigs and holders can be. I ended up building a lining stand from the deisng for one in Ian Rathbone's 'Painting & Lining' Handbook and then added a 'captive motor' to it, in order to be able to mount wheels for lining them and also, as you've found, to be able to cut circular masking tape holes too. The motor's not mounted permanently and the brass 'clamp' (simply a piece of scrap brass strip) can accommodate a variety of motors and/gearboxes, so I've used various ones at different times, also as a way of running in new motors and gearboxes, or checking that older ones that I have in boxes for future projects are still running nicely, like the Portescap in the photos below. The motor's connected via flying leads to my test track's controller, the important thing being that it's one capable of slow, steady revolution.

 

Here's a photo of the complete stand (with the C2 mounted on it before it was painted, where I was building and testing the stand itself), followed by photos of the motor added on, the last showing how the bow pen interacts with the wheel - I didn't take any photos of using a razor blade on the masking tape though:

 

 

 

 

[TangoOscarMike]

On 19/05/2023 at 12:01, Chas Levin said:

Wow.

 

I have a couple of bow pens that belonged to my grandfather, a cartographer. I haven't had any luck with them (or rather, plenty of luck, all bad!) but perhaps grimy antiques are not the best starting point. In any case, I will not attempt lining on these wheels, by this or any other method!

 

I decided to refine my tools a little bit by trapping the wheel in a piece of plastic, in an effort to minimise relative movement of the masking tape and the wheel.

 

 

 

And I realised that my attempts to tidy up the edge of the paint were being thwarted by the grey spray primer that I'd used. There's a tendency for the paint to come away from the primer, but not the primer from the wheel. And even before tidying, the painted wheel has a visible halo of primer (the wheel on the left).

 

Since the red paint is pretty opaque and dense, I tried applying only paint, and running the blade around the edge before removing the tape (the wheel on the right). It still isn't perfect, but I think it might be good enough for me (both wheels look perfectly fine at normal viewing distance).

 

I will, however, varnish it.

 

 

 

[Chas Levin]

On 28/05/2023 at 21:26, TangoOscarMike said:

Wow.

 

I have a couple of bow pens that belonged to my grandfather, a cartographer. I haven't had any luck with them (or rather, plenty of luck, all bad!) but perhaps grimy antiques are not the best starting point. In any case, I will not attempt lining on these wheels, by this or any other method!

 

I decided to refine my tools a little bit by trapping the wheel in a piece of plastic, in an effort to minimise relative movement of the masking tape and the wheel.

 

 

 

And I realised that my attempts to tidy up the edge of the paint were being thwarted by the grey spray primer that I'd used. There's a tendency for the paint to come away from the primer, but not the primer from the wheel. And even before tidying, the painted wheel has a visible halo of primer (the wheel on the left).

 

Since the red paint is pretty opaque and dense, I tried applying only paint, and running the blade around the edge before removing the tape (the wheel on the right). It still isn't perfect, but I think it might be good enough for me (both wheels look perfectly fine at normal viewing distance).

 

I will, however, varnish it.

 

 

 

 

Apologies for a delayed reply - for some reason, I find that RMWeb doesn't always send notification of new posts to followed threads 100% reliably, so I hadn't seen this.

I'd certainly agree that those two wheels look perfectly fine at normal viewing distance - in fact, they look damn good zoomed in, too!

Let's face it, normal viewing distance is where we all live and it's only while we're working on a project that we get really obsessive about details; after a while they recede into the past and things look absolutely fine.

If you look at the photos of the GNR green wheels I painted for that C2 and zoom in, you'll see exactly the same sort of slightly ragged paint edge, but as you say, at normal distance it looks fine.

 

I think a certain amount of perfectionism is definitely a very good thing, as it keeps standards high; but there's a point at which it becomes excessive and at which the whole prject is being delayed for the sake of something you can barely see now and won't even remember was there a month after the model's finished. I speak from experience!

 

Anyway, back to the actual project: your idea of encasing the wheel in a piece of plastic to reduce movement between it and the masking tape is excellent and I shall to that too, at the relevant stages of future wheel painting work!

 

Regarding primer and the problems you can have between it, the surface and the upper paint coats, I do tend to use primer lamost all the time, but like you, I do also sometimes wonder whether I'm making more problems than I'm solving... 🤨

[TangoOscarMike]

On 20/06/2023 at 17:22, Chas Levin said:

I think a certain amount of perfectionism is definitely a very good thing, as it keeps standards high; but there's a point at which it becomes excessive and at which the whole prject is being delayed for the sake of something you can barely see now and won't even remember was there a month after the model's finished. I speak from experience!

 

I often find myself setting a project aside because I seem to have reached my limits but I'm not happy with the results. And then I find, a few weeks later, that I'm perfectly happy with the results, and so I can carry on.

 

This is what has happened with the wheels. Here are six painted and varnished wheels with no primer. I'm happy with them.

 

 

Work has expanded to fill my life recently, and I've been working strange hours and long shifts. But these are actually good conditions for pottering away at wheel painting, a little bit at a time.

 

In other news, I've fitted the wheel-less gears (should these be called "idlers"?) into the chassis. The first one did not turn especially freely because (I think) the last blow of the hammer on the end of the shaft caused it to splay out and impinge too much on the brass tube. It had to come out again, and for my second attempt I used a pinpoint axle as a drift for hammering the shafts in (they're a snug fit in the gear wheel, which is why hammering is needed).

 

 

One of the gear wheels needed a larger hole for the 3mm shaft of the motor. I made the schoolboy error of thinking that I could simply drill it out. Perhaps if I'd gone up in very small increments it would have worked, but I went straight to 3mm.

 

The resultant hole was at a pronounced angle. But it was about right at the end where the drill had gone in (next to the motor). So keeping this entry point intact, I expanded the hole on the other side into a cavity. The motor shaft now sits in this cavity, with the space taken with hot glue. It's a mess, but I think it might work.

 

 

Here is a dry-fit of most of the parts, with cocktail sticks for the axles. The design did not include detailed mounting arrangements for the motor, so my next step will be to glue in addition plastic supports.

 

 

 

[Chas Levin]

Excellent looking work all round! And yes, you should be proud of those wheels - they look superb!

 

I too find that something disappoints for a while, then later seems fine. I think it's a mild - and benign - form of something a little obsessive: we become obsessed by something we're working on and it stands out from everything else, but a little while later, it's receded back into its proper - and proportionate - place and we can move on...

[TangoOscarMike]

There is a boss on side of the motor where the shaft emerges. And this impinges on the gear wheel, forcing the motor slightly to the side. So here is some plastic, glued on to support the motor in this shifted location.

 

 

 

 

Rather than carefully analyse the possible short-circuits, I've chosen to insulate metal parts as much as I can. So here is some more (thinner) plastic to keep the wheels from coming into contact with the motor.

 

 

And plastic coverings over the gear shaft ends, just in case.

 

 

Widening the chassis like this raises the possibility that I won't be able to have a correct back-to-back wheel separation. I think it's going to be OK, but when I assemble the chassis with cocktail sticks for axles, there is too much wobble to be certain.

 

Next: pickups.

 

 

 

 

[TangoOscarMike]

The 3D print includes small pegs to which I hope to attach pickups. The first attempt consisted of a strip of phosphor bronze with a hole for the peg and a wire soldered on.

 

 

 

I decided to attach this with hot glue, in the hopes that this would anchor it nicely, but also make it possible to remove.

 

 

For a change, the picture makes it look much nicer than it really is. There are two huge, horrible blobs of hot glue that interfere with the wheels, and the wire interferes with the springiness of the bronze. So it's on to the second attempt, in which a more complex pickup shape will remove the need for a separate wire soldered so close to the wheels.

 

I've printed four of the new shape and glued the paper to the bronze. I'm now cutting them out with a knife (and frequently snapping off sections of the blade).

 

 

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by TangoOscarMike
Clarification

[TangoOscarMike]

The second attempt as pickups looks a little more promising. These two are held on with epoxy, so if there are problems then that will be.... problematic.

 

 

 

[TangoOscarMike]

The other side.

 

[TangoOscarMike]

I've been overwhelmed by work, and I'm a natural procrastinator, so when I hit a snag I stopped modelling altogether. And now I would be grateful for advice before I try to move forward again.

 

 

This blurry picture shows the middle pair of wheels in place. They turn smoothly, and the gear wheels mesh together as intended. But the back-to-back measurement is 15 mm, not the 14.5 mm that I understand to be correct. And if I push the wheels closer together then they no longer turn freely.

 

Maybe if I take the wheels off and drift the axle out then I will be able to get it down to 14.5 mm by filing back the ends of the bearings. 0.25mm each side doesn't seem like much.

 

But I'm wondering if this is necessary. There is still considerable side-play when I put it on OO track, so I wonder in what way the 15 mm back-to-back would go wrong. Could it cause derailment or worse disasters?

 

[Chas Levin]

On 19/11/2023 at 20:23, TangoOscarMike said:

I've been overwhelmed by work, and I'm a natural procrastinator, so when I hit a snag I stopped modelling altogether. And now I would be grateful for advice before I try to move forward again.

 

 

This blurry picture shows the middle pair of wheels in place. They turn smoothly, and the gear wheels mesh together as intended. But the back-to-back measurement is 15 mm, not the 14.5 mm that I understand to be correct. And if I push the wheels closer together then they no longer turn freely.

 

Maybe if I take the wheels off and drift the axle out then I will be able to get it down to 14.5 mm by filing back the ends of the bearings. 0.25mm each side doesn't seem like much.

 

But I'm wondering if this is necessary. There is still considerable side-play when I put it on OO track, so I wonder in what way the 15 mm back-to-back would go wrong. Could it cause derailment or worse disasters?

 

 

Others more expert than I will offer more detailed advice but I'd suggest it is quite important. Variation in either direction can cause problems with points especially so if you do have a way to achieve conformity it's almost certainly worthwhile.

 

That being said, it's also very much affected by the track you use - there's a world of different between modern finescale and vintage Tri-ang, for instance...

[TangoOscarMike]

5 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

That being said, it's also very much affected by the track you use - there's a world of different between modern finescale and vintage Tri-ang, for instance...

 

Ah. Apart from some ancient and decayed Hornby stuff, my track is Fleischmann HO. The OO rolling stock of my childhood is happy on it, but I don't know how similar it is to track that is actually sold as OO.

 

I think I will have to make some sort of pulling tool in order to get the wheels off, but I reckon it's all good education. And next time round I will measure the back-to-back with toothpicks for axles first.

 

[Chas Levin]

Yes, definitely all good education; I'm not sure how Fleischmann track reacts to +/- 14.5mm - I'm not sure what B2B Fleischmann stock uses, though I can check that tomorrow.

Wheel pullers can be had very cheaply - I have one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/355201282457?hash=item52b3a57199:g:Ar8AAOSwMmZlVn6n&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA8MpWHAlbQFJYFeTcoSm2JGJydyvqoi3A4faZuZHSyyzBs76qfyGPDQXEWUc016GovDPSfmajMtXdMxi25g8zttag1EGIEM3TwAnfZGbqzdA5XfsLJkB5HQ3dIMdC0HCBgbifwYnEi%2BxTjTpmclp6QJszSurQCEU9iNdgB%2FtEcy4C5tH3csHlw1igxtvZHwDiwrafCvg55upM9XuKRE%2BuiznSiwhhwXd5TY2yOc3aTx%2BTuKghYRa5w2XeaFCA6WB2oNdsWrlmYuUKjDdiNrj1Be7XK1tviV0Hjm%2BpNYN8ghqTPe5TedBgUaCWvBImwtg2IA%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR7ix1ev9Yg

 

Not sure why the seller's calling it 'vintage' though, as I'm sure I bought mine new, though I can't currently remember where from. It doesn't look like much, but it does work.

[TangoOscarMike]

After some reflection, instead of buying a wheel puller (this time), I made a wooden support so that I could rest the whole chassis on the gear wheel in question, and then I used a nail to drift out the axle.

 

I then did something I should have done before. Checking with a multimeter showed that neither electrical contact is connected to the metal motor body. This means, I think, that it's safe for the wheels on one side to come into contact with the motor, which means that some of my extra insulation was unnecessary. Removing some of this plastic allowed me to assemble the whole thing with a back-to-back not of 14.5mm, but below 15mm.

 

The movement (before I put the motor in) was a little stiff, which I attributed to friction between the wheels and the pickups. Fully assembled, and with power applied directly to the motor, the wheels turned at a satisfactory speed.

 

On a piece of test track it moved a little bit, and jerkily. Pushing it down with a finger (to experimentally improve the electrical contact) broke it in an unsurprising way - the hot glue collar between the motor shaft and the first gear wheel failed - the motor rotates freely now without driving anything.

 

From an optimistic point of view (not really my forte) it is good that the worst bodge is the thing that failed. So before I take the lessons I've learned and make an improved design, I will try this design again with the first gear properly attached to the motor shaft.

 

[TangoOscarMike]

Earlier in this project I made a botch of enlarging the 2mm hole in a gear wheel to 3mm.

 

This time I took a bit more care. Lacking a lathe or a pillar drill, I made a jig to make a jig to properly align the drill bit with the bore. I am satisfied with the resulting enlarged hole.

 

I took the gear wheel from the back axle for this - fortunately I have some extra gears, with bosses that are too fat to fit under the motor. The back axle isn't under the motor.

 

 

The motor shaft has a flat, and I want to make a corresponding flat inside the bore of the gear wheel. Plan A was to file a flat channel, and solder a brass strip into it. Plan B was to attack from the outside of the boss.

 

I think that Plan C is better. I'm going to solder a sliver of brass tube inside the bore. And I'm going to contrive this sliver such that when I solder it in place it is still supported by the original tube, and by a steel rod up the middle.

 

Upon reading, that all looks like gibberish, so I'd probably better take some pictures.

 

 

[Chas Levin]

Morning - excuse me if I'm wrong / missing a detail, but I thought if you have a flat on the shaft, it's only necessary to align the gear so that its grub screw aims at the flat. Is it the case that you're not using a grub screw in this gear? Or are you going for belt and braces by having flats on both gear anbd shaft, and a grub screw? If so, that's exactly the sort of thing I'd try and do...

 

And your last post didn't look like gibberish at all!

[TangoOscarMike]

3 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

Morning - excuse me if I'm wrong / missing a detail, but I thought if you have a flat on the shaft, it's only necessary to align the gear so that its grub screw aims at the flat. Is it the case that you're not using a grub screw in this gear?

 

The gear has no grub screw. I did toy with the idea of drilling & tapping, but I think that might be a bit too fiddly for me.