Havenhouse - the reboot

[freebs]

Merry Christmas, Jason and to one and all. Happy modelling!

[Buhar]

I've been a bit of a Humbug about Christmas this year, but catching up on this thread and the cutter one this Christmas morning has given me a nice warm feeling.  Happy Christmas to all.

[JCL]

Happy new year everyone.

 

I've got a couple of hours, so I'm back on the underframe. I've been reading Mike Trice's posts on the cutter thread, so I've been using aluminium angle and a ruler attached to it with a bulldog clip to line things up. So far, I've got the six sets of three layers laminated, and glued to one side of the axle bases. I'll leave it for a while to dry before I do the other side. The middle base, with one hole, only has two layers to help it go over uneven track - I may have to do a washer as well, we'll see how I get on!

 

I'll use some square section to keep everything stiff.

 

On this go I also had a look to see if I could include the brakes in the cut outs.

 

 

I've put in two sets of holes on the end axle bases so I can try pivoting in the middle or edge to see which is better.

[JCL]

Moving on, I've cut a prototype floor from .020" styrene and added buffer bars and ] [ styrene for solebars so that I can check clearances. Before doing this I'd marked out a centre line and test pivot points, and also lines that would show where the middle axle would slide.

 

Hopefully I'll be able to put them together properly tomorrow, and remove the brakes from the middle axle as there were none on the prototype.

 

Edited December 31, 2013 by JCL

[uax6]

Jason,

 

I though about this 6-wheeler last night! What you might want to do to the chassis so that the pivots work nicely is to put 'rubbing plates' on the floor above the axleguides. To do this just bend a length of round wire to a staple shape (but don't use a staple as it is too rough) and put one above the two outer axles. Put one orientated across the chassis and the other along the chassis centre line. This will induce a small amount of compensation at the centre line end, which will help. The centre axle can then float a bit more too!

 

Andy G

 

(see got it right eventually!)

Edited December 31, 2013 by uax6

[JCL]

I know not of this James you speak of. Thanks for the idea though. I think I get what you are telling me, and better than that, I actually have some brass wire. Who knew?

[uax6]

Doh! I've been dealing with so many James in the last few days I've got snow blindness! I'll edit it out!

 

Andy g

[MikeTrice]

For my W-Irons I have created the brakeshoes separately so they can be aligned to the wheelsets. If I get a chance today I will see if I can redesign the units to be easier to assemble than at present using the bearing hole as an alignment point with a brass bearing. Out of interest measuring the hole diameter I current have a 2mm circle seems to have cut at 1.9mm diameter, so I will need to enlarge my bearing holes to rectify. Tempted to try and actually use the styrene W-Irons to support the wheels as you have done so I will be following any latest updates with interest. Happy New Year by BTW.

[JCL]

Hi Mike, thank you very much, and a happy new year to you.

 

The w irons seem pretty stiff, and I didn't do badly on registration, though they do bow inwards a bit from the corner at the bottom, but that'll be my gluing as the irons themselves are flat.

 

I think the bearing will be the best idea to keep everything square. At the moment on the prototype I've just used a round miniature file to take off any small misalignment. The wheels are spinning ok, and Theakerr has kindly put some bearings in the post for me to try out, so I'll insert them when they arrive.

 

Cheers

 

Jason

[JCL]

I decided to go the simple route.

 

I drilled No.71 sized holes into .060x.060" strip and glued them across the outer axle bases, then drilled a No.76 sized holes in the same strip and glued it between the wheel slots in the middle axle base. I threaded .45mm brass wire through these and glued it to the middle strip. Finally I cut two guides out of .060x.020" strip for the middle axle to slide between.

 

 

It all seems to be working ok. I'll add the solebars and buffer beams next.

 

This arrangement has been interesting to think through, and there are a number of things I'd do differently. Scoring guides in the floor before assembly is the main one.

Having buffer beams as a part of the end and cutting the holes for the buffers, hook, etc as Mike's done is another.

Waiting for someone else to go first is a third

 

I'll finish this up and then it's roof and undercoat.

[JCL]

Well, as a proof of concept, I've got a working Cleminson chassis that can roll around 2" curves, the Ratio single slip, and #4 points. It's not amazingly freewheeling (about a foot), but given my skill level, and the fact that I did so many things in the wrong order, I'm pleased with it.

 

 

This photo shows the middle assembly with the plastic guides and the 60 thou block in the middle with the wire.

 

The coach itself is too high though, by about 2.5mm, 3mm when I get the roof done. This is in the chassis and the body, so I'm not sure it'll get a lot of use as it is! After this, I might use the carriage to have a go at the MJT brass w-irons and cast axle boxes as I'll be putting an order in this week. This will be a learning thing and will reduce the height, maybe enough to make the difference acceptable.

 

Edited to say, maybe I can file the axle hole upwards into slots to lower the carriage a bit, then use the axle boxes to "hold them in the right place" - remember, I'm bodging.

Edited January 1, 2014 by JCL

[Alister_G]

Well done mate, really well done.

 

Just so inspiring.

 

Look forward to seeing what you do this year, all the best,

 

Al.

[uax6]

One of the main reasons it isn't free running is that until you put brass bearings in the w-irons there is just too much drag from the styrene! I think I would have left a bit more up and down slop in the centre axle too!

 

As for the height issue, sadly you won't get much out of moving the axle holes up wards, as the flanges will hit the floor! If you are careful you will be able to get a knife in the joints to the floor, and split the body up again..... But it would be quicker to cut a new one the correct size! BTW, what measurement have you got to the centre of the buffers from the railtop? This should be about 14mm.

 

Or how about cutting the floor out inside the solebars and adding a new one inside the coach (held in place by some partitions across the body)  so that you get the buffers at 14mm? This should be fairly easy to do (and if your careful the existing floor can be re-used!)

 

BTW I don't like the idea of buffer beams on the ends of coaches, quite a lot of them have a body overhang on the ends, which you will loose. When a drew my beams I put 0.5mm circles in the correct places for the buffing and drawgear. This makes it easy to open out either before or after fixing in place.

 

It's a cracking piece of work, and you did start out with one of the more difficult types of coach! Just look what you have started....

 

Thanks again

 

Andy g

[JCL]

Thanks Al!

 

Of course, you're absolutely right Andy, the bearings will help the running.

 

I've checked the carriage against the plans and a Hornby LNER composite and the height is almost exclusively in the sides - the soleboards are within a gnats tadger, so I'm happy with the chassis. I measured the sides incorrectly right at the beginning, and they are 4mm too high. If you remember this was a carriage for testing ideas, and I was originally going to use the Hornby chassis, so it was shortened to the length of that chassis. With this in mind I've decided not to change the carriage itself, and to use it as the test bed for making a roof.

 

Then I'll put it on a shelf where I can see it the next time I measure out a drawing.

 

I will make another 6 wheeler after the ski season has finished, but I don't have the mindset to go back to it just yet, so in the meantime I'm going to use the lessons that I've learnt in the last few months and attempt to build a Barnum open 3rd. I've matchbox sides to do, so it will be interesting to see how Andy gets on with his engraver. The other interesting thing will be to see if using the engraver makes the sides any longer due to distortion. I will also be using Mike Trice's method for the sides (exclusively .010" sheet for example instead of a backing sheet of .020").

 

GCR "Barnum" Open Third "TO" No.664 by hugh llewelyn, on Flickr

 

As I can now put up SVG files and DFX files I'll add them to posts as I get to milestones, and obviously I'll put up photos as I go along. I'm going to take longer in the design stage this time so that I try to  nail as much as possibly up front.

[JCL]

Here's the first part of the drawing. I'm moving over to working in the free Inkscape package (see the first page of the cutter thread) as I can lock elements of the drawing. Hopefully I'm ok including a portion of the original plan to show how I'm tracing.

 

As you can see there are a load of blue and red lines. The blue lines are guides that I can set up and the red ones will be cut lines that I'm drawing. I use a lot of blue guides because I want the output to be as accurate as possible (see my previous post!). I've set up the program so that if I'm drawing a red rectangle, and I draw within 10 pixels of a blue line, the red rectangle will "snap", or move so that it follows the guide line. This means that, as long as the guide is in the right place, the red rectangle will be exactly the right size.

 

The windows are three round cornered rectangles that should be symmetrical both horizontally and vertically. To make sure that they are, I select all of the rectangles in one go, and then align them using the appropriate buttons in the menu on the right. Then to make sure that they stay aligned, I group them together. Finally I'll be copying that window to the other window positions. The small window is created separately because stretching a rectangle will change the profile of the corner.

 

As with the Silhouette Studio, my colour coding will be red for cutting and turqoise for scoring. Lines that aren't cut or scored will be green.

 

[MikeTrice]

Like you I looked at these vehicles and was sorely tempted. If any design was suited to the Silhouette it is these. Look forward to seeing the results.

 

A couple (the only ones unfortunately) of my photos of one of the vehicles at Loughborough many (many) years ago which might be helpful:

 

Edited January 2, 2014 by MikeTrice

[JCL]

Hi Mike

 

Thanks so much for those photos. I have a few small ones and photos of carriages with tarps on them, but they are the best ones I've seen of the bogies and door areas.

 

Here's an attachment to show where I'm at after a couple of hours. Loads to do, but it's a start. It's a DXF file so that people can have a go at importing it into Silhouette Studio (I haven't tried yet).

 

Graphtec are back at work tomorrow. Fingers crossed on the CutWizard utility license.

 

barnum.dxf

 

Here's a print of the file if you can't open the DXF. Red are cut lines, cyan are scores, but this is a basic view, I need to do a lot of work checking photos and creating layers after this is finished, so your photos will be great for that Mike.

 

 

If anyone's interested, I'm using the plans from the Nick Campling Historic Carriage Drawings Pt1 book as the basis of my drawing. I'm not going to include the actual plans when I upload as these'll be in copyright.

 

Here's the plan with all the guides present - I use a lot!

 

 

I plan to make the file as professional as possible so that other people can use it. That said, what would the copyright situation be of "derivative works"?

 

cheers

 

Jason

Edited January 3, 2014 by JCL

[JCL]

Sorry, I meant to add that these vehicles have a relevance. I found an ebay photo of a Barnum coach in Skegness, possibly in the 1950s, so they must have travelled through Wainfleet.

[MikeTrice]

I reckon that by using my rivetting technique in conjunction with the axlebox/spring concept, it should be possible to produce a good bogie sideframe.

[JCL]

I saw that on the cutter thread Mike, it looks perfect. Do you have a rolling chassis now? If you do, what do you think about the styrene w-irons and bearings?

 

I think I'll be able to do the sides, I will need to think about how I'll join them together so that the wheels are square and all contact the rails.

[t-b-g]

Looking very nice, that 6 wheeler. Are the wheels the final ones are are they a test set for trial purposes? The reason I ask is that they look a little undersized and as far as I know, all such carriages had the wooden segmented centred wheels, rather than a 4 hole pattern.

 

I have spotted that you are using the 6 wheeler as a test model but if the wheels you have used are 12mm dia, you may need to adjust one or two dimensions when you move on to the next one.

 

As for the Barnum, I have built several from D & S and Jidenco kits and they are truly magnificent carriages. One or two even lasted long enough to get painted in BR Red/Cream livery! Without looking it up to check, I recall that the last ones were withdrawn around 1956/7 although one or two survived in engineers/departmental use and ended up being preserved as a result..

 

Good luck and I look forward to seeing what your rapidly developing skills can do with one of those!

 

Regards

 

Tony

Edited January 3, 2014 by t-b-g

[MikeTrice]

Do you have a rolling chassis now? If you do, what do you think about the styrene w-irons and bearings?

Not yet. I need to be in the mood and being back at work does not help as it rather limits my time. The Mansell wheel inserts were part of the process. Should really adjust the diameters to better fit the wheels.

[JCL]

Hi Tony, thanks very much. The wheels were just a pack of Hornby coach wheels. Interestingly, going back to the plans, the narrative says they should be disc wheels, but I have no experience in this area.

 

I'm really looking forward to the Barnum, though there are one or twos areas I haven't quite worked out. I may be putting a call out for info before I finish the plans.

 

Cheers

 

Jason

[Alister_G]

Hey Jason, the Barnum looks like it will be a nice coach, and now you've got the hang of it then it shouldn't take you more than a couple of days!

 

I'm seriously impressed though, mate, really, honestly impressed, you've come so far in such a short space of time, and what you've created has been awesome.

 

Well done mate,

 

Al.

[JCL]

Thanks Al. I've been to the opticians today, so in a week or so I'll be able to stop squinting at the screen and hopefully get on with it. B&B guests notwithstanding