Lancaster Green Ayre - The Barn Owls have returned.

[jamie92208]

Good to see the progress across the channel.

 

Are you coming back to "blighty" for Telford? 

 

Thanks for that Mark.   Sorry won't be able to get to Telford as September is a bit busy for us with someone not a million miles from me having a significant birthday.

 

Hope you get there and enjoy it.

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Progress has been made.   Before the August 15th celebrations kick off shortly I have spent nearly 2 hours in the shed strangling wires.   I actually got all the signalling system operating buttons working and they all talk to the main line panel.  The LED's aren't installed yet but that can wait.   Then half an hour of tidying up the fiddle yard and generally clearing up before, Quelle Horreur, I actually started to run some trains.   

 

I started with the inner, UP, line and managed to get a short goods train all the way round but it revealed a couple of track snags that need fixing, but everything seemed to work OK.   Then I tried the outer, DOWN, line.   For peculiar reasons the Big Boy was still on the departure track and off it set but the controller wasn't controlling it.   Fortunately it was only moving slowly when it was brought to a halt by Ingleborough, aka the scenic break, where it was a little large to go through the hole.   A bit of working out proved that it was being controlled by the UP line controller and that the DOWN one wasn't doing anything.   I suppose that that's what testing is for.   

 

It's now time to get changed and set off to the Salle de Fetes for this afternoons hoolie.   I'm not sure what the significance is of a public holiday on 15th August.   I suspect that it's because it's a month since the last excuse (Bastille Day).   No doubt we will stagger back about 5pm and then do some eyelid inspection.   Life is hard.  However all the testing is needed as three small people (2 3 year olds and a 7 yr old) are coming to play trains tomorrow afternoon.

 

Jamie.

[roundhouse]

Rather apt that the UP controller was working the Big Boy

[jamie92208]

Another day and more progress. I solved the problem with the Down Yard exit. I's managed to cross wire two controller outputs. 10 minutes to find the problem, 30 seconds to solve it thanks to the chocolate blocks. Then a few more test locos were run and a couple of other minor snags sorted. Simple things like a loose connection. Then test running started and the soldering iron was wielded on several baseboard joints that have now had 6 months and a 700 mile journey on a lorry to get out of alignment.

 

 

After that I enjoyed myself putting some trains out. two freights and a passenger in each yard. Then the young people arrived with a parent and grandparent. The 7 year old thoroughly enjoyed himself running the main line and proved to be very adept at it. I was fully occupied supplying trains from the fiddle yard. His 3 year old twin cousins just played in the centre and enjoyed themselves. It was great and makes all the hard work worthwhile. All present enjoyed themselves.

 

Now the layout is up semi permanently I can do some serious test running and gradually eliminate problems. A good day has been had.

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Well a milestone was passed yesterday. I actually got a kit off the shelf and started some modelling. The layout is running but needs more work but I have to replace all the locos that I used to borrow to run the layout at shows.

 

I decided to make a start with a Mercian 2F (Shez will understand why) and after having a quiet inspection of the box contents sent an order to England for a friend to pick up some wheels, motor and gears at Telford. I then opened out the axle holes for the bearings and the holed in the dummy hornblocks. Not a great deal of progress but a significant milestone.

 

 

It is from the 3130 class and is due to become no 3182 of shed 21 (Manchester). It could easily have bright a freight up to Heysham from Manchester.

 

Jamie

Edited August 21, 2018 by jamie92208

[jamie92208]

Another few days and a bit more progress. I actually got the chance to sit down at the bench tonight and do some more work on the 2F. As I've got a master chassis jig I altered the construction sequence slightly.

 

To set the jig up you have to have a set of coupling rods and it obviously helps to have a pair. I set out to try and find the three 2.4mm drills that I had bought before I left the Leeds area. I found them quite quickly and then used a scrap piece of blockboard to make a jig for assembling the rods. I first marked a straight line on the block then drilled a .4mm hole at one end. A drill bit was then place upside down on the hole. This was used to pace the first lamination of the rod with the middle crank pin hole in it. Then the layers were built up and the 3rd hole drilled and the last bit put in it's hole upside down.

 

 

I may be telling my grandmother how to suck eggs but solder won't stick to the blackened drill bits so the rods were soldered up. I did remember to assemble the 2nd rod as a mirror image.

 

 

The rods were then partially cleaned up and tried on the jig. This was still set up from the last chassis I built which was a Midland 1F tank with the same 8' 8'6" wheelbase. The new rods fitted perfectly and no adjustment were needed. The frames and the first spacer were cut out and are shown here placed on the jig with one of the rods.

 

Not bad progress for an hour after tea.

 

Jamie

 

Edited July 27, 2022 by jamie92208

[jamie92208]

I've managed to snatch another hour or so of soldering time today. I first gently opened out the bearing holes in the frames and ensured that the frames fitted nicely on the jig. The front and rear stretchers were then soldered on before the bearings were soldered in place.

 

 

I was quite pleased with the results.

 

 

Hopefully tomorrow, after some cleaning up I'll be able to get the dummy valve gear and the centre stretcher soldered in.

 

The driving wheels aren't here yet. All being well they are being purchased at Telford before being despatched over here. However I will probably make a start on the tender chassis as I've got 2 pairs of the correct tender wheels that I found knocking around in my spares boxes.

 

Jamie

Edited July 27, 2022 by jamie92208

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a sunny Charente. At least it is now as had a huge thunderstorm last night and had to unplug everything as the lightning was a bit close. As a result last night's update has been a bit delayed.

 

 

I got chance to do some more work at various points during the day. The instructions for the chassis are poor and the parts aren't numbered. One line says, "Assemble the dummy valve gear as per the drawing using 0.7mm wire" I laminated all the various parts together and also installed the dummy slide bars and motion bracket. Then whilst the ladies were watching Bake Off I had the perfect excuse to slip over to the shed and managed to get the dummy valve gear installed along with one set of dummy hornblocks.

 

 

This view is from the side.

 

And a close up of the valve gear which at least fills the big visible gap under the boiler.

 

A good clean up is needed. And this morning whilst out on a shopping trip I managed to find some real Ajax powder. With an old toothbrush available a clean up is my next job. Hopefully today I'll get as far as I can with the loco frames before the wheels and motor arrive so my plan is to then start on the tender chassis before doing some bodywork.

 

Jamie

Edited July 27, 2022 by jamie92208

[Mike Storey]

Yep, that storm was a belter! The lightning was coming in from all directions. Have not seen one quite like that for a while, almost unpredicted, especially the wind strength. My new trench for more of the garden railway is still soaking wet!

[jamie92208]

Yep, that storm was a belter! The lightning was coming in from all directions. Have not seen one quite like that for a while, almost unpredicted, especially the wind strength. My new trench for more of the garden railway is still soaking wet!

I've just refitted two fly screes that blew out, fortunately without damage. Yes it was rather unexpected. At least we didn't have any property damage though there were a lot of tree branches on the road to Ruffec this morning.

 

Anyway the loco frames have come up a treat with Ajax and are now drying ready for the next bit of work.

 

Jamie

[lezz01]

Very nice Jamie....and you didn't make it working valve gear because...........??? I mean you've gone to all the trouble of a very convincing dummy set up but you DO have the skills to make it work....Shedmaster do all the castings........just saying.  Not to menton how much room you have between the frames in 7mm.  I keep looking at the brassmasters 4mm valve gear on line and then at my half built Kirtley 156 and mussing to myself wouldn't that look nice pulling four or five 6 wheelers into Nailsworth platform.... mmm maybe if I build something to run and then something to pull she might let me build somewhere to run it....mmm.

Regards Lez.Z.

[jamie92208]

Very nice Jamie....and you didn't make it working valve gear because...........??? I mean you've gone to all the trouble of a very convincing dummy set up but you DO have the skills to make it work....Shedmaster do all the castings........just saying.  Not to menton how much room you have between the frames in 7mm.  I keep looking at the brassmasters 4mm valve gear on line and then at my half built Kirtley 156 and mussing to myself wouldn't that look nice pulling four or five 6 wheelers into Nailsworth platform.... mmm maybe if I build something to run and then something to pull she might let me build somewhere to run it....mmm.

Regards Lez.Z.

I've got one loco with working valve gear, the single that the late Tony Bond built for me and it looks superb. I've also got a part built 2-4-0 which I've got and the valve gear does work. There's even a YouTube video of it on test. However this kit came with the etches for the dummy so I thought I'd see what they looked like and I'm quite pleased with it, however it's not easy and to be fair at a show no one sees it working. I'll certainly do the working gear on my Duchess when I build it.

Here's the 2-4-0

 

(Link removed as I'd posted the wrong one.)

 

Jamie

Edited August 30, 2018 by jamie92208

[Bloodnok]

That link doesn't seem to work.

 

Did you mean this?

 

[jamie92208]

That link doesn't seem to work.

 

Did you mean this?

 

Yes that's the one thanks.

 

Jamie

[lezz01]

What's that in Jamie? A 1600 class?

Regards Lez.Z.

[jamie92208]

What's that in Jamie? A 1600 class?

Regards Lez.Z.

It's a Shedmaster kit for a 1400 class it's going to be no 216.

 

Jamie

[lezz01]

That's what I meant  Jamie. 1400 not 1600. Dunno where I got that from. Anyway it's very nice! I built 2 in EM from the ratio kits (see avatar). Couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding until I thought of putting the motor in the tender. The next was the 4-4-0 and I was going to do that one with working inside motion but I was trying to adapt a GW one with a different slide bar arrangement and was going to scratch build the midland 4 bar one and run it with the GW rods and eccentrics but I was trying to be too clever what with lapped front frames to get more bogie swing and the motor driving the rear axle and beam compensation I was trying to get too much into not enough space and it was a BIG fail. It put me off fine scale modeling for a long time. Oh well one day maybe. I've figured some stuff out since then engineering wise so maybe it'll work this time.  

Regards Lez.Z. 

[jamie92208]

Another day or so and a bit more progress. Yesterday in the morning I went to our local station, about 20 miles away, and thi s happened to be parked there, it would have been rude not to take a photos.

As far as I know it belongs to a contractor and is being used on a rail replacement job.

 

 

However yesterday I got the brake hangar rods onto the loco along with the remaining three dummy hornblocks. I then reset the chassis jig to the spacings for the tender and made a start on the tender chassis. There are no instructions at all for the tender chassis so I'm flying by the seat of my pants. The drawing in the instructions show a completely different etch.

 

 

I got a bit more done today and soldered the bearing in. I did toy with the idea of making the centre axle float but as there is a U shaped spacer that hides the bearings I decided against it. I plan to have pick ups on all 12 wheels on the loco and tender so shouldn't have any problems.

 

 

The it was time to take it off the jig and scrub everything with ajax. This is the result.

 

 

All in all I'm very pleased with progress.

 

Jamie

Edited July 27, 2022 by jamie92208

[Mike Storey]

Was that pic at Saintes Jamie? You lucky so-and-so! Every time I persuade the Navigator, when in Saintes, that we should head off in that direction (very good cafe right by the lines on the town side), there is usually sweet FA, except the usual suspects of non-entity DMU's.

[jamie92208]

Was that pic at Saintes Jamie? You lucky so-and-so! Every time I persuade the Navigator, when in Saintes, that we should head off in that direction (very good cafe right by the lines on the town side), there is usually sweet FA, except the usual suspects of non-entity DMU's.

No it's at Ruffec Mike which seems to be a base for the re railing contractors. That day I was the driver/navigator.

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

A fairly quiet day after the departure of our visitors so a day of doing nothing was decreed by the ayatollah. I obviously repaired to the shed to do some soldering. Last night I had made a great discovery of a box of motors and gearboxes, so the puchases to be made at Guildex will no longer include a Mashima 1833 or equivalent.

 

I had found a couple of pairs of tender wheels so I set to work this afternoon to fit them and also pick ups. I haven't ye found my stock of N gauge sleeper strip that I normally use as busbars but did find some protoytyping board and cut a couple of lengths from that using a cutting disk that had also turned up by chance. Then the strips were fitted and araldited in place. Afterwards I fitted some pick ups from phosphor bronze strip and then the brake gear. This is the end result.

You can even see the PCB strips.

 

I then actually pushed the wheeled frames along the tracks, real progress. On of the wheels was a bit sticky and I discovered that one of the bearings wasn't fully seated and were set at 29.4mm on their outside faces, rather more than the 29mm back to back. That was fairly easily sorted with the soldering iron and a pair of pliers and it now runs freely. The brake gear obviously can't be fitted until the other wheels arrive and the frames are painted.

 

 

Tomorrow I will have to make the momentous decision of whether to tackle the tender body or the loco body. Answers on a postcard please.

 

 

Now it's time for a little Scottish Medicine.

 

 

Jamie

Edited July 27, 2022 by jamie92208

[jamie92208]

Another day and a bit more progress. I decided that the tender should come first as I want to be absolutely sure that it is electrically dead. So the first job was to fit some jumper wires between the pieces of PCB then do some testing with the meter. So far so good no shorts and the two pick ups work. Then I started on the tender body and assembled the outer dummy frames, footplate, drag beam and buffer beam, finishing off with the two nuts for securing the chassis to the tender body. Not a bad bit of progress.

You will notice that the buffer beam is coming away from the frames. It turns out that the NS chassis, which is obviously a new etch, is slightly longer than the old brass body frames. I'll have to attack the chassis with a file tomorrow.

 

It does look nice to have the start of a wheeled vehicle.

 

Jamie

Edited July 27, 2022 by jamie92208

[lmsforever]

Did you enjoy the 15th August celebrations ?  Like the kit glad you have got trains running.

[jamie92208]

Did you enjoy the 15th August celebrations ?  Like the kit glad you have got trains running.

Thanks for that. Yes the 15th August was a good do. We staggered home about 5 having started at 12. Apparently it's a religious festival that sets the date. I'm enjoying getting stuck into the kit.

 

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Another day and some progress. Here's a picture of the wires under the tender chassis.

Then I did some filing and fitting and realised that I'd put the tender frames on the wrong way round. This was soon modified. The next job was to form the flares in the sides and rear. This took some time but I got there in the end. After that the inner sides were fitted to the dies and the tender tank top was bent to shape using the inner sides as a former. This wasn't easy as it's 18 thou brass. These were then fettled up and fitted and the tender top trial fitted.

 

It looks fine but the tender top was too wide by about a millimetre. I filed the rear to fit but this was the view from the front.

Also the nut for securing the chassis is rather visible and the tender front is over a mm too wide. All niggles that can be sorted with a file but not good.

 

 

Anyway it's nice to have a vehicle that's looking like a tender.

 

 

Jamie

Edited July 27, 2022 by jamie92208