handyman Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 Ray, just see it as a circle of life, (getting a bit philosophical here!). I put away all my HD stuff as a teenager and it was not until I moved my mother to a newer house that I rediscovered the train sets I had left there and the fun it had been. I'm now an eight year old trapped in a middle aged body. I've even discovered the joys of clockwork trains and am about to launch it into the garden with a big box of track that was given to me. Just wish it would stop raining. Handyman Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagaguy Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 Ray, just see it as a circle of life, (getting a bit philosophical here!). I put away all my HD stuff as a teenager and it was not until I moved my mother to a newer house that I rediscovered the train sets I had left there and the fun it had been. I'm now an eight year old trapped in a middle aged body. I've even discovered the joys of clockwork trains and am about to launch it into the garden with a big box of track that was given to me. Just wish it would stop raining. Handyman You are probably right,It was certainly less complicated but it didn`t end there.In the early 80`s,i missed my Meccano so set about buying it again from MW models in Henley on Thames & wasn`t happy till I built the block setting crane that was on the front cover of the instruction manuals,didn`t work very well until i fitted a 2nd motor for lifting & slewing. Back to dublo,my wife bought me for one xmas,a Lima Cl 86 & a 3car DMU converted for 3 rail operation by a model shop in Peterborough using Marklin skates & they worked very well. Ray. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
roythebus Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 ISTR converting HD 3-rail locos to 2 rail the cheap way by sawing through alternate spokes, filling them with araldite, waiting for that to cure, then doing the same with the rest of the spokes! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagaguy Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 Ohooo!,I wouldn`t like to do that.The trouble with Araldite(the original,not the 5min version)is that it has to be heat cured to get maximum strength & runs like water when hot & it is a strong bond especially when you`ve stuck the wheel to the bottom of the oven!!.I must confess that i had heard of this before in the 60`s when HD 3rail was no longer produced & everyone wanted a cheap way of converting to 2 rail.I never heard if it worked.The other problem was that once you`d insulated the wheels,the loco`s then ran backwards because the magnet was the wrong way round,the easiest to convert were the ringfield motors as you only had to rotate the magnet 180 deg. Ray. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
handyman Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 Yes but Ray, was the Meccano you bought in the eighties the real MacKay? You know, red, green and blue, made in the same thickness as the hull plates of HMS Deadnought, not the '57 varities' stuff, all grey and yellow. I bought a few sets of this later stuff for my nieces (dont ask) and they seemed to get on with it OK. Has now been handed down through a few hands in the family. Handyman Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagaguy Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 Hi, The set was French Meccano but all the other parts were S/H liverpool blue & yucky yellow,For a while,i ordered lots of parts from M.W models including 12 1/2 girders to be cut down & repainted into green 3 hole girders because the B/setting crane required 103 of these little blighters,However, it has spurred me into action as i have the building instructions of the walking dragline that superseded the crane on the covers.Just fiddling with the gear box & i might have to buy a few more parts. Ah,retirement is a wonderful thing coupled with an understanding wife!!!!. Cheers,Ray. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
handyman Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 French Meccano? Were these the sets that came with a strong smell of garlic, a hint of smelly cheese and bagette crumbs in the bottom of the boxes? :laugh: I'm not sure wives are necessarily understanding rather than just tolerant. Handyman Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagaguy Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 Wonder how it got onto Meccano & understanding wives!!!.However back to Dublo track,one of the things that should looked out when buying Dublo 3R points is that the diecast frog isn`t broken where the fishplates slide on!.You can buy most spares but not that which consigns a perfectly good point to the scrap bin.With modern adhesives,it shouldn`t be a hard job to replace. Ray. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
handyman Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 Ray, my apologies for getting O/T. Cannot say I've come across the problem of damaged frogs on the points. I hope there is no intentional pun there, given the previous meanderings. My biggest bugbear has been missing fishplates on SH track and their distinct lack of availablity as replacement parts. I have tried some Peco ones, but they were 'kin tight to get on. Also, I have yet to find 2R track that has gone brittle, although I do have some with the inevitable broken sleeper. H Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
roythebus Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 The araldite on the spokes certainly DID work, and without sticking them to the oven! I was daft enough to do quite a few locos until I discovered Jones Bros of Turnham Green done insulating bushes to fit the HD wheels! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagaguy Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 Ray, my apologies for getting O/T. Cannot say I've come across the problem of damaged frogs on the points. I hope there is no intentional pun there, given the previous meanderings. My biggest bugbear has been missing fishplates on SH track and their distinct lack of availablity as replacement parts. I have tried some Peco ones, but they were 'kin tight to get on. Also, I have yet to find 2R track that has gone brittle, although I do have some with the inevitable broken sleeper. H No worries,it was interesting & a bit of fun to wallow in a bit of nostalgia! Cheers,Ray. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagaguy Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 The araldite on the spokes certainly DID work, and without sticking them to the oven! I was daft enough to do quite a few locos until I discovered Jones Bros of Turnham Green done insulating bushes to fit the HD wheels! My experiencies of Araldite was firstly when i was into model boats in my youth was glueing exhausts together for glo plug engines & heat curing in the oven,a blob of araldite stayed on the bottom of the oven until the day we got rid of the cooker & when I bought a Dublo Co-Co with a missing bogie side frame.After making a mould out of Plasticene & filling it with Araldite warmed in hot water,an anglepoise lamp over it cured it very well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagaguy Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 Hey H,reverting to nostalgia,do you remember when Trix had their showrooms in Gt.Portland st. near the BBC?.In the early 60`s when Trix went bust,they had a huge clearance sale of British Trix.In those days,I had just left school & i spent a long while drooling over the goodies which were very cheap but having no spare money,all i came away with was a lit home junction semaphore signal,these had a 14v les. lamp in the base & reflected up perspex signal posts & lit up the spectacles.I wish these were available today.By the way,i still have it. Ray. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Il Grifone Posted June 29, 2011 Share Posted June 29, 2011 Wonder how it got onto Meccano & understanding wives!!!.However back to Dublo track,one of the things that should looked out when buying Dublo 3R points is that the diecast frog isn`t broken where the fishplates slide on!.You can buy most spares but not that which consigns a perfectly good point to the scrap bin.With modern adhesives,it shouldn`t be a hard job to replace. Ray. You can solder fishplates in place to overcome this problem, but you might need a special fishplateless rail to join to depending which part of the casting is broken. I find it's usually the part with the fishplate that breaks however. Pre-war points suffer in particular from this (mazak disease!). I made a new frog for one from spare rail soldered to the tinplate, but replacement castings are (were?) available (They cost more than the point is worth though - even pre-war track does not seem to be very valuable, unless it's clockwork.) Fishplates can be obtained from scrap curved rails, which are cheap. I obtained a quantity from eBay*. My intention was to use the rail with PCB sleepers in a fiddle yard - one day I'll get around to it.... * Some were Korean war era rubbish, but most of the rail was usable - some of the track was even salvageable. I've never tried Araldite for insulating wheel spokes - I had doubts as to its strength and my ability to do a neat job, knowing Araldite's habit of not staying where it's put! (Genuine HD wheels were available as spares at the time I was converting locos to 2 rail in the early sixties*.) However if you insulate the left hand wheels the loco runs correctly, without reversing magnets, which always carries the risk of demagnetisation. You may need to insulate the couplings however, but this may be necessary anyway. (Only really a problem if double heading is indulged in.) Off topic, I did repair a stripped thread on my Mark II Ford Consul with it - the glass fuel filter thingie - cured in the oven when Mum and Dad weren't around - outlasted the car! B) * My tender engines saved on pickups by the loco picking up from the right hand uninsulated wheels and the tender from the other rail - 3 insulated drivers and three plastic tender wheels required - I took advantage of the opportunity to fit flanged wheels to the centre axle. I economised with my 8F by insulating the centre drivers with chrome tape! 50 years on I've acquired the insulated flangeless wheels to finally do the job properly, though she has been 3 rail again for quite some time. Is it just my opinion or do nickel plated wheels slip more easily than the plain mazak variety? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Il Grifone Posted June 29, 2011 Share Posted June 29, 2011 Somewhere in my workshop,I have a length of Formoway track & a single slip which i gaze at with a little nostalgia having bought it at The Southgate Hobbyshop in the early 60`s.Do you remember the prototype track layout on the rear cover of the Railway modeller advertising this track?.Any one know where it was? Ray. I spent many a happy hour in there in the 60s/70s! Also in their branch in Holborn and Chuffs of course (They offered me two Formo 0-6-0s once for only 15/- each*. Lack of funds meant only one came home with me. ) * About £15-20 in today's money Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagaguy Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 One of the things i noticed was that if you had a 2 rail loco,in my case a Cardiff Castle,was that it was fitted with plastic pony & tender wheels.when i had it converted to 3 rail,it stalled on diamond crossings owing to the fact that the plastic wheels wouldn`t conduct any current through the tender drawbar,this was solved by fitting my Bristol Castle tender with metal wheels!!!. Talking of Chuffs,there used to be a shop in Mackenzie rd. Islington which was a treasure house for s/h Hornby Dublo,All gone now I`m afraid. Cheers,Ray. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
roythebus Posted July 2, 2011 Share Posted July 2, 2011 Trix later moved their showroom to Knightsbridge. when they had the sale at GP St. I used to buy the tinplate wagons for a shilling just for the couplings! Peco couplings then were about 2/3d a set, so the Trix ones were a bargain. If only we'd realised and kept the stuff! There was a junk shop on the corner of Battersea high St and Falcon Road that had loads of HD 3-rail inboxes in about 1964. i didn't know then that HD had shut down, and also didn't have the money to buy the stuff anyway. What I did benefit from was working in Patricks Toys in Fulham after school and getting to know the Wrenn rep. they were doing HD coaches for about 5/ each, so I got loads of suburbans and sold them on to others at the MRC for 10/6! there was also hobby Supplies at Chiswick who had a stock of the HD EMUs at knock down prices! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
siltec Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 When I first acquired some HD rail I thought it was delgihtful stuff, and still do. Fortunately the collectors go after the rolling stock which pushes up the prices. Track however is relatively cheap. In fact I decided to look at three rail track in more detail and have since acquired some Trix, bakelite and fibre. Not as good as HD but has the advantage of running rails being insulated from each other, hence Trix Twin running. I believe Wrenn was the Rolls Royce of three rail but have yet to acquire any. Biggest problem is converting two rail stock to run on three rail. Not the wiring, that is easy, but the pick up. In the days of three rail loco models were cast and heavy. This along with a commercial pressed out collector system made collection rarely a proble. DIY systems using bent brass strip or paper tags can be a bit hit and miss. It is all still work in progress. Some of my efforts so far can be found at: http://threerail.tripod.com/ I have a load of Trix fibre. Cheap to get hold off but needs works to get up and running. Hopefully once the loft is sorted I can get my test track layouts up and running. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagaguy Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Hi,nice to see this thread resurrected HD 2rail chassis castings were the same as the original 3rail versions.Google Hornby Dublo spares & a few suppliers pop up including Ebay.3 rail pick up units are pretty easy to get,not so certain about the plunger pick ups,locos like Cardiff Castle need the tender chassis drilling out to fit them,I made my own having a lathe in my garage.The other thing is that the locos run in the opposite direction so the magnets need reversing.Possibly the best way is to replace them with Super Neo magnets which don`t need remagging.Ring field are easy,rotate 180 deg.Fit metal wheels to tenders or bogies,this will stop locos stalling on diamond crossings.If you can get hold of some silver loaded paint,Ecolit used to one,i don`t know if that`s still available,Maplins might be your best bet,paint it over the ends of the axles on the insulated side to break the insulation on the wheel. Hope this helps, Ray. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Il Grifone Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 There are plenty of 3 rail pickups about, including plungers but they are invariably pricey. I have had mixed results making them. Another possible source is Trix lighted brake vans, which can be obtained cheaply as they usually suffer from corrosion, but watch out for wear of the shoes. My Dublo Deltic runs on these, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagaguy Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 There are plenty of 3 rail pickups about, including plungers but they are invariably pricey. I have had mixed results making them. Another possible source is Trix lighted brake vans, which can be obtained cheaply as they usually suffer from corrosion, but watch out for wear of the shoes. My Dublo Deltic runs on these, Hi David,i made my plunger pick ups from brass tube & turned the plungers from brass rod.The tender chassis were drilled for a tight fit for the tube plus i had some blue insulating board which nicely fitted the holes.Conversly,you can get them here item E21. http://mainlytrains.webs.com/PriceList.htm Cheers,Ray. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Il Grifone Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 Hi David,i made my plunger pick ups from brass tube & turned the plungers from brass rod.The tender chassis were drilled for a tight fit for the tube plus i had some blue insulating board which nicely fitted the holes.Conversly,you can get them here item E21. http://mainlytrains.webs.com/PriceList.htm Cheers,Ray. Hi Ray, Regrettably I don't own a lathe to make the plunger contact heads. I have used the heads from paper clips (the type which go through punched holes and then are splayed out) and upholstery brads. Neither is 100% satisfactory, but do work. The paper clips tend to make a 'flange squeal' noise. My 3 rail 'R1' uses these. Item E21 is beautifully made, but does illustrate my point about 'pricey'. Luckily I don't need any at the moment. Incidentally Märklin skates are available as a spare (around £5) and work very well. (One of my A4s ran on one for ages and it still serves under a Tri-ang DMU.) This is the short one (intended for carriage lighting I believe) and is just long enough, though maybe not for diamond crossings at slow speed. Cheers, David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagaguy Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 Hi Ray, Regrettably I don't own a lathe to make the plunger contact heads. I have used the heads from paper clips (the type which go through punched holes and then are splayed out) and upholstery brads. Neither is 100% satisfactory, but do work. The paper clips tend to make a 'flange squeal' noise. My 3 rail 'R1' uses these. Item E21 is beautifully made, but does illustrate my point about 'pricey'. Luckily I don't need any at the moment. Incidentally Märklin skates are available as a spare (around £5) and work very well. (One of my A4s ran on one for ages and it still serves under a Tri-ang DMU.) This is the short one (intended for carriage lighting I believe) and is just long enough, though maybe not for diamond crossings at slow speed. Cheers, David I still have a Lima 3 car DMU which was converted to HD 3 rail using a Marklin skate by a model shop in Peterborough quite a few years ago.This must have been a long skate as it travelled through diamond crossings without stopping.I also have a Lima 86? which was aso converted by the same shop.It ran well,even under JV catenary,do you remember that product?.All packed away at the moment. Just started to dabble in 0 gauage having bought a DJH Fairburn tank kit. Ho Humm!!!!!! Cheers,Ray. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Il Grifone Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 I can't remember the lengths of the skates off hand and a quick search was unsuccessful. It did come up with these interesting projects however. http://www.modelrailforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=21932 I would have thought it easier to convert the Märklin locos to run on DC! (which also resolves the 'which direction will she run?' lottery.) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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