CSP Avonside Class SS (Trojan)

[B15nac]

Hello

 

Up intel yesterday I didn't relise you could buy a Avonside Class SS like Trojan at didcot! Ive been after a little 0.4.0 for ages so Im extremely tempted to buy one of these little locos. I'm after any advice as to what they are like to build an what motor they take as there so small! Any advice or pictures would be much appreciated.

 

Regards Neil

[rope runner]

Hi Neil

 

I can't comment on the kit directly, but I assume it would take a Mashima 1220 as per most of the other CSP kits

 

Centre models also did an SS class, with the construction in white metal - though this kit is a lot more basic.  

 

Paul A.

[Adam]

But Neil, you've posted on Wookey's thread with a built example of just such a loco! The Agenoria kits sold by CSP are generally reckoned to be pretty good; the fact that you see them running on layouts at shows suggests they build up relatively easily. Without a drawing and knowing how the kit is designed, it's difficult to say with any certainty but High Level will certainly do a gearbox that will fit.

 

Adam

[wookey]

hehe,

 

hello!

 

Bearing in mind that i chose this as my first etched kit, which was in hindsight a little foolish, i found the loco pleasant to build, the parts fitted together pretty well without too much fettling, the instructions were a pretty clear set of pictorial steps, and there wern't actually an excessively large number of parts to the kit, i did have a few tricky moments with jobs such as forming the saddle tank, but i think that was more to do with my lack of ability than the design of the kit, If you have built locos before then it should be a breeze, the only tricky part of the whole thing being the diminutive size of the loco.   Roger's after sales support was very good, he supplied me with replacement sandboxes free of charge after i melted them! and a spare etch for a very reasonable price after i had messed up the coupling rods.

 

The motor is indeed a 1220, i bought the kit complete with motor and one of his own gearbox etches, this was perfectly adequate, but if i were doing the build again i would probably use a high level box if possible, having used them extensively since then, i would also recommend giving the front axle some kind of springing or compensation (i may retrofit this) as being a very short wheelbase 0-4-0 it does stall on point frogs etc occasionally.

 

i will post a couple of pictures of the inside of mine shortly just to give you an idea of what is in there, then i shall probably rip my pick ups out and try and think of some better arrangement lol.

 

Dan

[Horsetan]

Centre models also did an SS class, with the construction in white metal .....

 

 

Long since binned by ABS after taking over the Centre Models range.

[wookey]

pics as promised, hope they help!

 

 

[B15nac]

Thanks everyone for the replys! I've decided I'm getting one! Think it looks great. Wookey did the saddle have to be rolled or shaped? Also showing my ignorance what's the difference between a normal gearbox an a high level one?

 

Cheers Neil

[Gordon A]

High Level gearboxes are part of Chris Gibbons High Level Kits range.

He also does some nice 4mm industrials.

 

Gordon A

Bristol

[wookey]

Hi Neil

 

I tend to use HL boxes now because the gears seem to be of good and hard wearing quality and he offers a nice selection of gear ratios for different locomotive types.

 

I hadnt really done any rolling before this loco so I formed the saddle around an aluminium bar with a slightly smaller radius than the finished tank,  which worked well enough if a little fiddly, the sharp radius where the bottom edge of the tank folds under was a little harder but with a little patience and some small radius rod to fold it round i got there in the end. As the instructions warn, it did leave a stepped effect from the relieving lines on the back of the tank etch, but these were easily removed with emery paper. the bottom of the boiler shell was pre-rolled so i didnt have to worry about that.

 

Dan

[B15nac]

Thanks for your help an advice wookey! What high level gearbox would you recommend for this little loco? I've never rolled a saddle or boiler before so that will worry me a bit but first time for everything they say!!

 

Cheers Neil

[wookey]

Hey no problem, i'm by no means a pro mind, be sure to do a search on here for rolling and forming, there's bound to be some good information to be had.

 

I'm afraid as mine is still fitted with the csp gearbox i dont know for sure which high level box would be best, if you go onto the HL website though, there is a very handy gearbox planner sheet that you can print off that gives you the side plan of all the gearboxes at actual size,  i would get the kit made up and then try some of these against it for size so you can make an informed decision. I would imagine off hand it will be something fairly compact like a roadrunner, but i'm sure you'll get the idea when you get to that stage.

 

Dan

[mike morley]

Built my Trojan a few years ago and my summary would be "nice body, shame about the chassis"

 

From the dates on the instructions and the etch it is obvious that the chassis was re-designed when the kit was scaled down from the original 7mm to 4mm.  It was a fairly major re-design and the biggest problem is that the original instructions were only altered, rather than being given the complete re-vamp that was merited. The revised chassis bears so little resemblance to the one featured in the instructions that my initial assumption was that the chassis from a different kit had been provided by mistake.  Even after I'd finally convinced myself that I had got the right chassis I had to go to Didcot and take a look at the real thing before I could work out what went where.

It doesn't help that the alterations to the instructions have resulted in several duplications and at least one triplication of part numbers.

 

And, just to add insult to injury, I've since had a look at a 7mm version with the original design of chassis and it is immeasurably better that the re-designed 4mm version.

[B15nac]

Have you got any pictures of your Trojan mike?

 

 

Cheers Neil

[mike morley]

 

 

 

 

The crossheads are from Comet because the ones provided with the kit were undersize.  The safety valves are Markits because the ones in the kit are supposed to built up from etched laminations.  The brake gear is partly scratch-built because only some of it is provided in the kit. 

The pick-ups are entirely scratch-built.  I didn't see how the ones in the kit could be made to work without fouling the motion bracket so didn't even try.  Wookey is to be congratulated for succeeding!

 

This is the second set of gears and are Romford 40:1's in a Perseverance bracket (I think!  It's three or four years since I built it and I'm not entirely certain)

One thing I did find was that I had to get the balance spot-on.  As originally built it was ever so slightly nose heavy - only by two or three millimetres - which resulted in it being able to produce prodigious feats of haulage in one direction but wheelspin when running light in the other direction!  The gear in it now is slightly bigger than the original and shifted the motor just far enough to move the centre of balance to where it ought to be.

It can now haul nine white-metal wagons up a 1 in 33 gradient with ease, no matter what way its facing.  I suspect it could do more, but that's as much as I could fit in the headshunt.

 

This one is built to EM Gauge.  The way CSP recommended doing that was to build an 00 chassis and space everything out.  I tried it that way but it just didn't look right and ended much wider than the loading gauge.  The first time I ran it alongside a platform the ramp slid under the cylinder and tipped the loco over onto its side!

I then re-built the chassis with Comet EM spacers, using the riveted front spacer from the kit as a cosmetic overlay.

One problem I had that might also affect an 00 version is that there isn't enough clearance for the wheels behind the crossheads and slidebars.  I rebuilt the cylinders, moving the holes for the piston rods and slidebars out slightly.  It isn't obvious, but it gained me the couple of millimetres needed.

 

Don't be put off by all this. 

Trojan was the first etched loco kit I ever built and I may have had to rebuild the chassis a few times but I ended up with the sweetest-running loco imaginable, so the effort was undoubtedly worth it.

 

 

Incidentally - is the old Centre Models kit definitely an SS?  I've put mine down beside one and its like putting a 4mm model alongside an HO version, which makes me wonder if the Centre Models kit was of a similar but smaller prototype.

 

[wookey]

haha, the congratulations are appriciated Mike, the pick ups however, were never completely satisfactory, and i too am starting to think of alterations i would like to make to the chassis.

 

I had the same problems with the crossheads, my way of dealing with them was to open the slots out with a very thin cutting disc, and to grind the front crankpins and washers down quite thin, just about got away with it, but not much meat left to take away! funny we should both choose this loco as our first etched kit build!

[mike morley]

Here are a couple more photo's that are hopefully clear enough to give a better idea of how I did my pickups.

 

The brass wire busbars are soldered to gapped copper-clad cross-members and cross the frames via tiny notches filed in their top edges with short bits of insulation from layout wire slid onto them to prevent shorting.  The pick-ups themselves are phosphor bronze strip to the front wheels and phosphor-bronze wire to the rear wheels.  There was a reason why they were different but I cannot now remember what it was.

 

 

 

 

[wookey]

Thanks for posting those Mike, very helpful to see someone elses take on things,

 

  I notice you have arranged your front axle as a swing axle, which is what i was thinking of doing, did this help running considorably?

also might this be why your front wheels have strip pick ups? (more flexible)

[mike morley]

 did this help running considorably?

also might this be why your front wheels have strip pick ups? (more flexible)

 

 

Yes and yes!

Trojan did more than anything to convince me of the benefits of compensation.

 

Large locos can usually span any irregularities in the track and can carry enough weight to crush any irregularities they can't span into submission.  That isn't possible with small locos and when your track-building skills are as poor as mine it becomes a major factor - yet Trojan runs like a dream and continues to do so even when its pick-ups are caked with fluff and the track is so filthy nothing else will even turn a wheel without needing a poke.

[B15nac]

Thanks for all your replys an help. It's really useful! So is that a option in the kit to have the chassis sprung?

 

Cheers Neil

[mike morley]

I now compensate everything and reckon that if you've got the skill and confidence to tackle a rigid chassis you've all you need to build a compensated one.

 

Springing, on the other hand, is at least one level further up. 

I suspect that a sprung chassis is superior to a compensated one but I also reckon that the skills required are far greater and it remains to be seen whether the improved running justifies the increased difficulty - is, say, a 20% improvement in running worth a 50% increase in difficulty of construction?

I've been on the lookout for a suitable candidate for my first attempt at springing for a while and reckon that most kits are fairly easy to compensate but that it depends very much on both the loco and the kit as to how easy or otherwise it is to spring them.  Trojan was certainly fairly easy to compensate - my main problem was that being such a tiny loco it was difficult to get at the beam on which the leading axle rocks in order to adjust it - but I wouldn't be at all keen on trying to spring it.

 

Regard Iain Rice's books "Etched Loco Construction" and, especially, "Locomotive Kit Chassis Construction" as essential reading.

[B15nac]

So what does compensate actually mean? Sorry to sound thick! This is all a bit new to me still

 

Regards Neil

[N15class]

It is a method to give a loco, wagon etc 3 point suspension. I works like a 3 legged stool, the legs are always on the ground no matter how uneven,

 

On a 4 wheel loco or wagon it is easy to do. The more wheels the complicated it becomes, but once you know the principle it is not to difficult to impliment.

 

A 4 wheel chassis has one pair ov wheels fixed, in normal frame bearings. The other one, is made to rock using moving bearings in hornguides and a central pivot point. This is what gives you the 3 legged stool, it is the triangle formed from the fixed axle to the central point of the other, The loco etc needs to have its centre of gravity within the imaginary triangle, otherwise it is very unstable.

 

When running the chassis will always have all the wheels on the rails, very much better for picking up electricity and for pulling power.

[B15nac]

Are I see thanks n15class! It makes sence now. So is the hornguides included in this kit or was that something you added mike?

 

Regards Neil

[mike morley]

Can't remember, to be honest, but I think I used Perseverance ones.

 

If you are going to use a High Level gearbox, get your hornguides and blocks from the same source - everything High Level makes is better than everybody elses.

[wookey]

Thanks mike,

I built in compensation on the larger avonside as in the pictures below and that seemed to work out pretty well, now i know from someone first hand that it works well on trojan too, i shall modify that chassis also.

 

Funnily enough the deans and the collett goods chassis from comet models are/can be sprung, i didnt find those too bad, they are coil springs though and as such, simpler to install.  The springs do seem a little hard mind, so although they work well enough you don't get the same degree of deflection as you do on a compensated chassis.

 

I havn't yet tackled a loco with single wire type springing, but the tender chassis for the brassmasters 4F works in a similar way but without hornblocks as such, and the spring rate does seem a bit softer and more effective, at this early stage anyway.

 

Also Neil, just in case you do go buying a high level gearbox, i have noticed that because of Trojan's small size and position of the rear axle in relation to the gearbox, it may be a bit of a struggle to fit one in, them being 2 stage gearboxes and a bit longer.  So i have ordered the smallest in the roadrunner series and intend to see if i can fit it in when it arrives, i will let you know how well that goes.