Lancaster Green Ayre - The Barn Owls have returned.

[jamie92208]

I got one pair of driving wheels done on Friday then got over to the shed yesterday afternoon and quickly got the other pair sorted.   Everything ran smoothly so then i worked on fitting the bogie.   This was already made but I knew that as with all my 4-4-0's there could be clearance problems.   This is due to the fact that model radii are much smaller than real life ones so the bogie flanges have to be able to clear the frames on 6' radius curves.   I put the chassis on a piece of track and made some pencil marks then got to work with a slitting disk.     That seemed to work and I tested it on the layout .   Afterwards I couldn't resist putting the loco and tender together.

Jamie

[cctransuk]

It MAY be an illusion, but the dome appears to lean forwards.

 

CJI.

[jamie92208]

18 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

It MAY be an illusion, but the dome appears to lean forwards.

 

CJI.

I'll check that.  At the moment it's not stuck down. Thanks. 

 

Jamir

[Oldddudders]

19 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

It MAY be an illusion, but the dome appears to lean forwards.

 

CJI.

It does - but so does the chimney, and the window-frames beyond, while the tender back is in the opposite direction. I'd blame a lens before getting too worried, Jamie. 

[jamie92208]

2 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

It does - but so does the chimney, and the window-frames beyond, while the tender back is in the opposite direction. I'd blame a lens before getting too worried, Jamie. 

Thanks Ian.  The board that it's on is bowed so I'not that worried at this stage. 

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

A bit more progress has been made.   I gave up on trying to solder the  boiler battel to the firebox.  I decided to make a thick brass plug for the end of the boiler  then bolt the two pieces together.   First off I found some 2mm brass plate, cut a square piece the right size out , sawed it into a rough octagon and drilled a 5mm hole in the centre.  This was tapped M6 and a bolt put through to act as a mandrel.

This was then put into the chuck of my Unimat and very gently started to reduce it to a circle of the correct diameter.   Lathe work is at the edge of my comfort zone.

That actually worked and I was able to try it in the boiler barrel.

That will be soldered in die course.

I now need to drill a hole in the right place in the front of the firebox.

I discovered that the plate put into the firebox is actually 3.5mm thick brass.  

 

I'm quite pleased with the outcome.

 

Jamie

 

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[jamie92208]

Quite a bit of time has been spent in the shed over the past few days.   The 2P no 483 had pic k ups fitted and then I actually ran it up and down a siding in the fiddle yard.   First without then with the bogie.   A couple of minor tweaks got it running quite smoothly.   However the gearbox as very noisy, probably due to a spur gear.   I therefore decided to see if I could find a smoother motor gearbox on the spares box.   Two were tried and one was very smooth with a helical gear.   One problem,   The gearbox was just too wide to fit between the hornguides.

Some cogitating was done.  and I decided to have a go at milling the outside faces of the gearbox to remove 0.5mm of brass form each side.  Just one problem, I've never done any milling.   An hour of experimenting and bodging later I dis get one side done, having set the Unimat up and found an milling cutter.

Here is the item in the machine vice.   I was even further out of my comfort zone than before but was quite happy with the result.   'll do the other side tomorrow.

 

Then a picture popped up on facebook.  I've never seen a picture of the grain warehouse from this angle before.

It appears tat I have some signwriting to do.   I need to work out what the font is.

 

Jamie

 

 

 

[MrWolf]

That's not a picture I have seen before either and I'm very tempted to try and get a current picture from the same spot as I'm not sure if the old warehousing behind the railway is still standing even.

[jamie92208]

My problem will be that the warehouse on the layout is only two thirds the length it should be though it's height and width are correct.  This was due to space imitations a nd curvature of the branch line.  I'll probably have to cut some words out. I look forward to a current day photo. 

 

Jamie

[innocentman]

10 hours ago, MrWolf said:

That's not a picture I have seen before either and I'm very tempted to try and get a current picture from the same spot as I'm not sure if the old warehousing behind the railway is still standing even.

From google street view. Not half as nice now!

 

[jamie92208]

Looking at the lettering, it looks to be on a black background which from memory is how the one at Bingley is painted. I can make a good stab at the height of the letters by measuring the model and the photo.  It's actually almost impossible to see unless you are operating the layout but it would be nice to do it. Might shorten it Midland Railway Goods depot. 

 

Something to think about this afternoon. 

 

Jamie

 

Edited October 27, 2023 by jamie92208

[jamie92208]

I've just been to the shed and taken a couple of photos.   As I mentioned the goods shed has been compressed and the grain warehouse curved to fit the layout.   In particular the curve of the castle branch.   Here it is.  A bit worse for wear after 6 hot summers in the shed.  The grain warehouse was a sort of lean to, added onto the goods shed using the castle branch viaduct as it's north wall.   In fact one of the catenary poles came through the roof of the shed to be attached to the viaduct side.  On the model that part of the shed and most of the viaduct are on a separate piece of layout that gets bolted on after the main layout is put up and the goods shed put into place. This saved two rather awkward cross baseboard joints at oblique angles.  The sect6ion even had it's own transport case.

The goods shed, was shortened from 3 to two bays.   I got a lot of help with this from Paul Jones of the Warley Club, who went to Uni at Lancaster and got a grant for a photo essay about the abandoned building.

As you can see it needs a bit of tlc and some strengthening of the mounting board roof.    

 

I measured the space and the black band as seen on the photo would be approx 30mm high and 660mm long.  On a print of the photo the band is 7mm high with the letters 3mm.   I've measured the lettering and scaling them up can just fit 'Midland Railway Goods Depot into the 66cm length.   I now need to source the font and a means of producing the lettering.   Some sort of vinyl lettering on a shiny black background would work. I'll have to find a local sign maker.

 

It is awkward to see but having got the photo it would niggle me if I don't do it.

 

The Bingley goods shed that I mentioned is alongside the A650 Bingley bypass and shows up on Google Streetview.

That one appears to have been black letters on a white background.

 

Jamie

[AdeMoore]

Jamie RE vinyl lettering https://www.railtec-models.com/faq.ph could be worth a shout?

No association or experience of them but the website sounds positive.

places like Fox transfers custom lettering start at £50.00 a fair bit for one off sign.

Scale Model Scenery do do some but not sure they do custom though.

[jamie92208]

56 minutes ago, AdeMoore said:

Jamie RE vinyl lettering https://www.railtec-models.com/faq.ph could be worth a shout?

No association or experience of them but the website sounds positive.

places like Fox transfers custom lettering start at £50.00 a fair bit for one off sign.

Scale Model Scenery do do some but not sure they do custom though.

Thanks very much for that.   I will have a go. I think that there is a Midland Aphabet in Midland Style so I can have a play around with that.  

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Another hour in the shed this evening and I used the milling attachment again.   The final result was this.

Certainly not the neatest bit of machining but it fits in the loco between the hornblocks.   I'm very pleased with it.  My machining work can only get better.

 

Jamie

[lezz01]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Another hour in the shed this evening and I used the milling attachment again.   The final result was this.

Certainly not the neatest bit of machining but it fits in the loco between the hornblocks.   I'm very pleased with it.  My machining work can only get better.

 

Jamie

Well I've seen worse for sure. You just need to practice Jamie it's like everything else the more you do it the better you will get. Don't worry about whether it looks pretty or not for now as long as it works. If it was to be visible I would say give it another skim just to tidy it up a bit but that's just my inner toolmaker coming out.

Regards Lez.   

[Dave Hunt]

Having also learned Unimat usage the hard way, it looks to me that you may have been taking a bit too much off in each cut Jamie.

 

Dave

[lezz01]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

Having also learned Unimat usage the hard way, it looks to me that you may have been taking a bit too much off in each cut Jamie.

 

Dave

That's clearly the case here. As a beginner I wouldn't take more than 10 thou per cut. Not without suds running anyway. Even with suds more than 10 thou is asking for trouble if you don't have experience. Even if I were to be doing it myself it's been so long since I milled anything that I would be taking very shallow cuts and running with lots of lube and my milling experience runs into the hundreds of hours milling some very hard metal. You also have the issue that brass doesn't cut very well to start with and wants to grab the tool.    

Regards Lez.  

[Dave Hunt]

Agreed. With a Unimat I'd hesitate to take anything over 10 thou per cut in brass; in fact I usually go for about 7-8 thou.

 

Dave

[MrWolf]

Even on a big machine you can deflect the tool by applying too much cut or to fast a traverse and it's easily done, regardless of your level of experience. 

One company I worked for replaced its ageing Bridgeport Series One milling machines with new CNC Unitek (Cheng Ki) machines.

Unfortunately, putting on the same depth of cut, speed and traverse for the job the Bridgeports had done, immediately knocked the heads out of alignment. 

A check over revealed that the new machines, although of identical capacity and potentially far greater accuracy were of much lighter construction and couldn't manage a 3mm cut at 300rpm on cast aluminium. Double the number of passes were required for a lighter machine, which created it's own problems and a reconditioned Bridgeport found its way onto the shop floor for certain jobs.

 

If you halve your cut and traverse, but keep the revs up, you'll find the job a lot easier.

 

[lezz01]

15 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Even on a big machine you can deflect the tool by applying too much cut or to fast a traverse and it's easily done, regardless of your level of experience. 

One company I worked for replaced its ageing Bridgeport Series One milling machines with new CNC Unitek (Cheng Ki) machines.

Unfortunately, putting on the same depth of cut, speed and traverse for the job the Bridgeports had done, immediately knocked the heads out of alignment. 

A check over revealed that the new machines, although of identical capacity and potentially far greater accuracy were of much lighter construction and couldn't manage a 3mm cut at 300rpm on cast aluminium. Double the number of passes were required for a lighter machine, which created it's own problems and a reconditioned Bridgeport found its way onto the shop floor for certain jobs.

 

If you halve your cut and traverse, but keep the revs up, you'll find the job a lot easier.

 

A Bridgeport Series One was a great machine we had 3 of them in our toolroom. Plus a bigger mill for really big jobs I must have around 150 hours on them. Although I did a lot more turning than milling and even more grinding both surface and cylindrical. Don't forget the lube though. If I were you I would find a suitable tray to permanently mount under the Unimat and fit a small pump and run a pipe up to the head so you can run some suds for both milling and turning as it will improve the cutting tool life no end. You know what I mean by suds right? It's an emulsion of cutting oil and water. It runs a sort of dirty cream colour and helps no end with any sort of machining. The pump doesn't need to be anything fancy a 12V washer bottle pump will do the job just fine. If you don't want to go to that much trouble then keep the work lubricated with cutting oil applied with a 1/4" paintbrush. Use plenty of it and don't worry about the smell, it's a bit stinky but you get used to it. Any oil will do but proper cutting oil is best.  

Regards Lez.   

[jamie92208]

Thanks very much for althe advice, which is most welcome.  My main problem was controlling the depth of cut as there doesn'tlseem to be any fine depth adjustment on the vertical stand, just the  normal pull handle like on a pillar drill.  If I could find a way of actually measuring the depth of cut I would use it. 

 

The suds sounds a good idea and I have used that on bigger lathes in the past when I was working on the tram restoration.  Sadly my only instruction on such things was 30 p, us years ago at night school and I never got past basic turning.  However I got the gear box fitted today and it runs very smooth

Y.  I found a label on the motor saying it's an MSC  product. 

 

Jamie 

[lezz01]

Yeh that's the main problem with these multifunction machine tools. They don't really work properly. The way the Unimat works is like a drill press. There is a way around it of course. If you get a vertical slide to mount on the lathe cross slide you then have a horizontal mill and that works just like a full size vertical mill. You can pick them up for around £50, you might find you need a Z plate as well but there are options on ebay that include a Z plate for another £20-30. That will give you full control as opposed to the multifunction machines. The added bonus is that you just set the thing up as a lathe and leave it like that, then you just remove the tool post and replace it with the vertical slide. Then you can sell your milling attachment to pay for the vertical slide. In the mean time this is how you get around the problem. With the power off bring the cutter down until it just touches and set the vertical stop to that. Then you back the vertical stop a quarter of a turn and lock it and run the cut. Then you back the stop off another quarter turn and run another cut, rinse and repeat as needed. 

Regards Lez.   

Edited October 28, 2023 by lezz01

[jamie92208]

Thanks Lezz.  I was trying to do what you suggested but will have to search for the vertical stop.   I think it might be the spring mechanism. 

 

Jamie

[cctransuk]

11 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Thanks very much for althe advice, which is most welcome.  My main problem was controlling the depth of cut as there doesn'tlseem to be any fine depth adjustment on the vertical stand, just the  normal pull handle like on a pillar drill.  If I could find a way of actually measuring the depth of cut I would use it. 

 

The suds sounds a good idea and I have used that on bigger lathes in the past when I was working on the tram restoration.  Sadly my only instruction on such things was 30 p, us years ago at night school and I never got past basic turning.  However I got the gear box fitted today and it runs very smooth

Y.  I found a label on the motor saying it's an MSC  product. 

 

Jamie 

 

https://www.nielsmachines.com/en/emco-sold-emco-unimat-3-vertical-fine-feed-attachm.html

 

There is available a worm / pinion fine feed attachment for the vertical drill / mill of the Unimat 3.

 

It feeds 1.0mm. per revolution and, in my experience, works extremely well; absolutely essential if you wish to do any milling or controlled depth drilling.

 

John Isherwood.

Edited October 29, 2023 by cctransuk