Sirdouglas' O gauge

[sir douglas]

motion bracket cut and filed

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

a push was made this morning to get all the motion done and rolling

 

new cylinders made and fitted, this was my idea from the beginning to move the front stretcher over and bolt through with 8BA and the nut is soldered to the top of the stretcher

 

next was cutting slots in the frames for the motion bracket

 

The slide bars were soldered to a circle of brass with 2 flat edge filed onto them for the ends of the bars to butt up against setting them at the right distance apart. the con rods were shortened down as on the revised drawing, a brass pin soldered to the crosshead and cut down provides the joint, and it was done with the old trick of putting a bit of paper inbetween to not solder the rod to the crosshead.

 

the slide bar assembly was superglued to the cylinders, a bit of filing was needed to sit the end of the slide bars correctly into the bracket

 

Which were then soldered together

 

with both sides soldered together and with the cylinder wrapping glued on

 

there were areas of excess solder that were ground off and cleaned up with the dremel, The chassis rolls okay with one slight tight spot that i havent fixed but its not urgent so can wait for now

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas

[airnimal]

Sam, can you tell me where the wheels are from ?

[sir douglas]

Slaters 7837 MW 3'1" 

 

forgot to mention that i added 2mm to the height of the frames as shown by the strips of 2mm x 2mm

[DLT]

Lovely job, a very neat looking chassis.

All the best, Dave.

[sir douglas]

since my loco is slightly larger than the source drawings i need my own drawing for the body and with it i'll know how much room the is inside for the motor and gearbox, afterwards i found that 2 of the motors are way too big and the 3rd just fits as long as the top of the saddle is made higher

 

the motor came with a mounting clip from its old chassis, i have a brass gear that meshes with the worm, here they are sat on the drawing, the motor cant be sat more level because it sits on top of the motion bracket

 

the hole in the gear is larger that 1/8th so it was drilled out to fit a bush

 

that was soldered to the usual half a chocolate block

 

i was thinking of a way to fix down the motor and came up with bolting it to a strip of brass or nickel and soldering it to the motion bracket

 

an angle bracket to join them

 

and soldered in place, something i cant firgure out yet is that it doesnt run well, the motor runs fine on its own and the gears do mesh together, the gears arent pushed together too much because the slightest nudge to the motor moves it out of mesh but it runs really slowly and strained

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

ive got it running now so next will be the pick ups, photos and a video, tomorrow

[sir douglas]

i found that one of the problems was that the motor was seesawing on the bracket with the weight of the motor pulling the worm out of mesh so i made up a zig zag spring to push it back, the other problem was just running it in to wear the gears into each other

 

pickups next, 2 blocks of styrene glued into the frames

 

and a length of pcb bolted onto them and phospher strip bent and soldered on

 

video of a test run on Deffors after already giving it a thorough running in last night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG4HV-yUWXw

 

drawing up the body, sorry thats its very blurry, for some reason my camera didnt want to flash no matter what angle or distance i tried

 

footplate cut out and sat on the chassis

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

extra info, another reason for making my own drawing and not using the source drawings is the difference in wheel dia' and stroke length, i am using the 3'1" instead of 2' 8" so the crank throw is larger and so the stroke and the length of the cylinder, i measured the source drawing for the stroke and cylinder lengths, there is a 2.5mm difference, the stroke of my chassis is 9.5mm, + 2.5 is 12mm, and that is the length of my cylinders. it feels nice to do little details like that at least every now and then

[sir douglas]

bufferbeams, The main timber of it is cut from a fruit crate plank with firework stick glued on with PVA for the buffer and backed with styrene to glue it to the footplate and to replicate the prototype with steel bufferbeam with timber bolted on, the styrene and timber are glued together with a wilko own brand glue, its like UHU but i'd say its a bit better. to make it easier on me and also to hide them,ive lowered the hooks to have the springs under the footplate

 

The bufferbeams and footplate were stuck together with 2 styrene blocks at each end, 2 strips of 2 x 4mm run down each side to strengthen the footplate with slots for the motion bracket

 

smokebox, cutting out the ends, its cut out a tiny bit smaller than it should be to account for the thickness of the wrap around

 

all parts sat together with the addition of a handle on the smokebox door

 

my delivery came today from S&D / forty-third, some whitemetal parts for Hestia and i also got some figures for my layout while i was there. what i got;

- injector

- pressure gauges

- safety valve cover

- tools

- clack valves

- water gauges

- displacement lubricator

- chimney (already fitted)

- smokebox door handles (not used)

 

i bought the handles while forgetting that i was doing the D shape door and it would be useless, i'm sure i clicked on the reversing lever and brake column but thy're not in the order item list and not in the package, so it looks like i havent, i cant be bothered ordering again so i'll scratch build them

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas

[DLT]

Great stuff.  I love the timber bufferbeams, you can't beat the real thing.

Good use of firework sticks as well, I collected quite a lot of useful modelling material in my local park after Bonfire Night.

All the best, Dave.

[sir douglas]

A wilko wood stain on the buffers

 

making the saddle tank, 4 pieces were cut for the ends and internal bracing, i cut and filed one to shape and then used it as a master for the other 3 to match to, there is extra bracing between these 4 to keep them straight and for strength as a lot of the inside will be cut away for the motor 

 

the same has been started for the boiler which will be stuck to the underside of the saddle

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

i was going to make the under half of the boiler but realised that the width of motor cut is only little bit narrower than the boiler dia' so there would be so little left that it isnt worth it. smokebox and tank glued together and the inside cut out to fit the motor

 

building up the firebox

 

with the wrap around

 

building up the brass backhead surround, building up a U bend on the backhead and 2 strips around the sides and top, the filing and sanding the edges round, also a notch was cut out of the bottom front edge to not rub agaisnt the worm gear, the firebox has been glued to the tank, this smokebox-tank-firebox assembly wont be glued to he footplate until lead has been filled in

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

i made a mistake while making the firebox, i forgot to put in a styrene block before putting on the wrap around, this block was going to be for a screw to come up through the footplate from underneath and screw into the block, so to fix it I had to cut in from either side to clip the ends when its glued down. holes have been cut into the bottom of the firebox and smokebox to fill the lead in through and for filling up the saddle tank, instead of using the lead shot, i'm first using up a collection of offcuts

 

on the rear bufferbeam, the rear brass frame stretcher fouls the hook drawbar so im making a new one just like on the Planet which has a slot in it for the hook and spring

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas

[81A Oldoak]

You ought to join the "O Gauge/Scale modellers" group on Facebook. Your innovative work would be of great interest to its 2,393 members. Here is a link:    https://www.facebook.com/groups/552195994929038/

[sir douglas]

im already in it

[81A Oldoak]

im already in it

Good. Time you started posting there. Your work is inspiring.

[sir douglas]

i have posted in the past but it was many months ago

[sir douglas]

After leading the body, i was testing the chassis but when i put the body on, it wouldnt run, after thinking that maybe the lead was shorting the motor terminals, but putting a piece of tape over it didnt work,i realised that the body wasnt quite sitting on the footplate with a gap betweent the motor inside, it was weighing on it and pushing it over, pulling the worm gear out of mesh, so firstly the zigzag spring was replaced with a strip of nickel and adjusted to mesh the gears right

 

then i found that the motion bracket was sliding up its slots and the worm was coming out of mesh, so that was secured with screws through L brackets on the outside of the frames through into styrene blocks on the inside

 

then after all that while getting the motor back in and putting the plug back together, one of the wires was frayed and snapped and then while trying to fix it, the other wire frayed and snapped, im sure its doing this to spite me, they snapped right at the base leaving nothing stricking out of the plug to solder to

 

 

having done all of that problem solving more problems appearing, not making any clear progress on the running quality and the motor doesnt want to run when the body is on so i thought screw you for today and made a little progress on marking and cutting the ends of the NB brake

Edited December 31, 2018 by sir douglas

[Ohmisterporter]

Sam, I never cease to be impressed.

[AJon30]

Sam, I've had the problem of motor contacts and soldering wires (especially Mashima which are very small). What I am tending to do now is araldite a small piece of pcb (an old sleeper offcut - with a slot across) to the top of the motor then attach wires to the motor connections and the PCB. Once they are in place then you do not have to touch them again, you solder wires from pick-ups to the PCB board. Useful if you want to go DCC in the future, you can add extra slots in PCB board to separate motor and pick-ups.

 

Rgds Andrew

[sir douglas]

no its not on the motor or pick ups, those joints are solid and fine, its the plug

[sir douglas]

i managed to fix the plug and get the loco running better with some fettling

 

The gear is a bit old and not quite the right profile for a smooth mesh so i filed them back a tiny bit to taper the teeth as they should be

 

the gear was like this

https://i.stack.imgur.com/xY6ML.png

 

i ran over each corner once to be more like this

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/56/cb/9856cb6a10e0a6cac9d8d484461e9439.jpg

The same was done on the worm gear and it runs alot better

 

the smokebox and firebox have been glued down to the footplate and the safety valve cover is superglued onto the firebox, and after cutting out some lead from inside the tank, the loco will now run with the body on

 

The buffer bolt heads are made from cut down track pins and hook plate cut from brass

Edited December 31, 2018 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

still having problems running with the body on, now i know the problem but not the cause. when i put the body on loosely it still runs but as i slide the body into place gradually the motor slows down under strain and stops as the frames sit against the footplate, i took out some lead from the tank and tried again which worked a little bit so i'll keep trying

[sir douglas]

found cause of the problem, it was that the motor was sat a little too high when i soldered it the bracket so the tank was pushing down on it, it was lowered to fit but then the bottom corner if the mounting was fouling the gear so that was filed back and itruns okay now and with the body on, now that the motor sits a bit lower there might be a bit of space to put a liitle bit of lead back into the tank