Whats on your 2mm Work bench

[RobboPetes]

I tried my hand at weathering one of the new GF GUV's tonight

It's amazing how dirty these vehicles actually got whilst in service!?

[Ian Smith]

Very impressive, Ian. I know from experience that they are difficult enough to make in 4mm scale.

 

Nick

 

Thanks Nick.  I must admit that I chickened out of trying to put a 0.3mm square hole through them

[nick_bastable]

Productive evening tested a MERG relay board for the local area groups shunting plank working as expected 

 

with the soldering Iron on I got brave and fitted a DCX 74Z chip to the TGW chassis and provisionally programmed it   which left me with this shuttling backwards and forwards

 

 

 

 

still needs glazing but the home printed foil transfers worked out not too bad  

 

 

Edited December 23, 2019 by nick_bastable

[2mmMark]

Productive evening tested a MERG relay board for the local area groups shunting plank working as expected 

 

with the soldering Iron on I got brave and fitted a DCX 74Z chip to the TGW chassis and provisionally programmed it   which left me with this shuttling backwards and forwards

 

DSC_2953.jpg

 

 

still needs glazing but the home printed foil transfers worked out not too bad  

That looks rather good.  Where did the etching come from?  Are you making any tramcars to go with it?

[nick_bastable]

That looks rather good.  Where did the etching come from?  Are you making any tramcars to go with it?

Mark

 

its a Worsley Works etch Allen done as  a special order as  he will for anything in his range 

[2mm Andy]

Indeed Nick, Allen did a couple of 'shot down' NG diesel locos in 2mm for me recently (and mentioned in an email that he'd got both types of the Wantage tram locos in 2mm scale at £6 each). Hopefully he'll have some with him at Expo-Fest.

 

Andy

[nick_bastable]

Indeed Nick, Allen did a couple of 'shot down' NG diesel locos in 2mm for me recently (and mentioned in an email that he'd got both types of the Wantage tram locos in 2mm scale at £6 each). Hopefully he'll have some with him at Expo-Fest.

 

Andy

there is a feeling I should do a tram coach to go with this    

 

hope to make expo but the question is should  I take No 6 with me or will I get laughed out of the room ? 

[2mm Andy]

there is a feeling I should do a tram coach to go with this    

 

hope to make expo but the question is should  I take No 6 with me or will I get laughed out of the room ? 

 

Tram coaches would be nice. Not knowing much about the Wantage tramway, did the tram locos haul goods trains too?

 

If it'll run (or can be posed on track) bring it to Expo - it would be nice to see it.

 

Andy

[Donw]

Am currently in the Motorhome and have brought two minibaseboards wtih me for a very small BLT am and currently planning the trackwork. I may have it with me at Wallingford.

Don

[Ian Smith]

GWR 1854 Class Saddle Tank - Getting ready for ExpoFest

 

Last couple of days has seen the little engine get a splash of paint, and a pair of turned spectacle plates.  The main body colour is Railmatch Pre 1928 Loco Green, the Indian Red being Pecision Paints Indian Red (1881 - 1906).  I'm really pleased with the look of her now, and am just hoping that Jerry doesn't decide he wants his Graham Farish 57xx body back

 

A few images below show how she is looking now, I still need to fit the toolboxes, and manufacture and fit the brass pipework just in front of the cab below the saddle.  I also need to source some number plates, and if I'm feeling really brave put some orange/black/orange lining on the cab sides and around the bunker (this is unlikely to be attempted before ExpoFest though.  Finally a backplate needs to be fitted in the cab and the footplate could do with being populated too.

 

 

 

 

[-missy-]

That looks absolutely fantastic Ian. Cant wait to see it for real.

 

M

[Ian Smith]

3D Printed GWR Outside Framed Brake Van

 

With an almost complete loco, I felt that I ought to try to put a tail on the end of my wagons by attempting to complete the GWR Outside Framed Brake Van that I had printed up some months ago.  The printing was a complete body minus the roof, and some J Hanger/spring/axleboxes with both Grease and Oil axleboxes (luckily I had a good many of these included on the sprue as they are very delicate and several lost a J hanger in storage or trying to manipulate them into position on the model).

 

The print included recesses to facilitate the fitting of the Association W Irons and V hangers, and these items were simply super glued in the relevant positions.  The footboards were folded up from 0.006" nickel sheet strips and soldered to 0.3mm brass rod that had been bent to shape and retained in holes that I had incorporated into the print (although they did need opening out as the super glue used to secure the W Irons had flooded into the holes.

 

Manufacture of the footboards :

 

The brake gear was fretted out of a couple of laminations of 0.010" nickel silver using an old 11'0" brake assembly etch as a master that I had kicking about in my box of bits.

 

These brake assemblies were soldered onto some 0.3mm wire with a pair of V hangers from the old Association etch of 9'0" and 10'0" brake gear.

 

The completed assembly was then manipulated between W Iron tie rods and footboards and soldered into position.  Association turned wagon buffers were super glued into the holes povided in my print.

 

Once all of the underframe was complete, I turned to the body, in particular the handrails.  The knobs for these were produced in my usual method of spinning a thin wire loop held in the pin chuck around handrail wire, to produce a pile of little knobs.  These were poked into the holes in the framing (which I had to open out to 0.3mm) as the waxy stuff seemed to have clogged most of them.

 

The handrail was threaded through them and secured to each with a little solder.  I decided to cheat a bit and use a single length for the whole side rather than separate bits across the door etc.

 

Hopefully, I will be able to complete this by ExpoFest.

 

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

GWR Outside Framed Brake Van

 

Over last couple of days, work on the brake van has progressed.  A roof of 0.006" nickel sheet has been gently run over by some brass bar on a mouse mat to impart a suitable curve.  A stove pipe chimney was quickly turned up on the lathe (which included the little "skirt" around it where it exists the roof), and finally a new brake standard was also quickly turned up to replace the 3D printed one which unfortuantely fell foul to my cleaning process - The handle on the top is simply a bit of bent 0.2mm nickel silver wire soldered on then the tail cut off.

 

Completed model ready for painting :

 

Completed model :

 

The body has been painted with humbrol dark grey enamel, and lettered with a combination of Fox transfers for the G.W.R and number (having separated the "G.W.R" into component pieces as the spacing was too great to fit the space), the home branding is from a very old sheet of Woodhead transfers, which unfortunately have lost their tackiness so had to be retained in place after dabbing dry with some varnish (all I had was satin so I will have to re-visit them when I get some more matt).  I tried to dull down the whiteness of the transfers with some dilute matt black as I was dirtying the coal wagons at the time but should have used my usual method of dry brushing body colour over them as under the flash it looks horrible!!

 

The 2 dumb buffered coal wagons are scratch built in plasticard on some old Colin Waite W Irons, and hand lettered in white ink using a Rotring pen - I ran out of ink in the pen on the red wagon so that clearly needs to be completed at some point

 

That's it I'm just about ready to take St Ruth back to the Edwardian period with a little goods train now

 

Ian

[Valentin]

I tried a different approach on fixing the motor to the chassis:

 

 

The 1 mm motor's shaft goes into the 1 mm bore worm which has no other shaft at the other end.

 

Now it runs better and is less noisy than when I used a 1.5 mm bore worm on a 1.5 mm steel shaft with an inner diameter of (more) than 1 mm - joined to the motor's shaft via some aluminium foil and cyanoacrylate.

[StuartM]

I tried a different approach on fixing the motor to the chassis:

 

 

The 1 mm motor's shaft goes into the 1 mm bore worm which has no other shaft at the other end.

 

Now it runs better and is less noisy than when I used a 1.5 mm bore worm on a 1.5 mm steel shaft with an inner diameter of (more) than 1 mm - joined to the motor's shaft via some aluminium foil and cyanoacrylate.

Which loco chassis is that you're making ?

Is there a reason why are the counter weights are in different positions to each other.

I only ask because I'm about to have ago at making my first loco

[2mmMark]

I picked up an interesting project at Expo. Allen Doherty had some examples of his Irish narrow gauge kits on display and we got chatting about them.  Apparently, there's one example doing the rounds which has been badly (i.e. wrongly!) assembled using superglue. Allen & I both bemoaned the lost opportunity so he gave me the part assembled Letterkenny & Burtonport 4-6-0 body to continue on with and mount on a suitable chassis.

http://www.worsleyworks.co.uk/Image-Pages/Image_NG_Irish-Locos-N.htm

The photos below show where things had got to.

So after the Expo, I set about the loco body to see what could be done.  As it was assembled as a demo, it had been tacked together with solder.  The basic shapes had been formed well, so I dismantled the body by unsoldering all the joints using a blowlamp.  Unfortunately, this distorted and corroded the footplate but the remaining parts were fine.  No matter, making a footplate would be simple and after all, these are "scratch aid" kits.

 

I reassembled the body with fully soldered joints, making solid seams. This went pretty well and gave a nice accurate result.

 

Two pieces of nickel-silver were cut out, one of 10 thou to form the footplate and another of 20thou slightly smaller to form the valance. These were then solder together.  The I dug out some K&S brass tube to form the boiler & smokebox.  The larger brass tube was opened out to a u shape and soldered over the smaller tube. Then a large part of the tube was sawn and filed away to leave a section of boiler which would sit on top of the tank/cab/bunker assembly. About 3 evenings work, quite satisfying, going back to manually shaping bits of metal to fit each other.  No CAD, no 3d printing, just simple rough pencil sketches of dimensions followed by marking out and filing.

 

So this is where things currently stand.

 

 

Next step is to saw out the footplate to accomodate the Marklin chassis and then assemble the parts together.  I'm going to see what boiler fittings might be suitable in the N-Brass range.

 

The chassis will gain a 4 wheel pony truck and possibly some cylinder wrappers. It really should be an outside framed chassis but I'm not going to go quite that far.

 

Mark

Edited June 30, 2013 by 2mmMark

[garethashenden]

Which loco chassis is that you're making ?

Is there a reason why are the counter weights are in different positions to each other.

I only ask because I'm about to have ago at making my first loco

It looks like a J94, they have the middle counter weight in that positron.

[bill-lobb]

It looks like a J94, they have the middle counter weight in that positron.

The balance weights would balance the pair of wheels they were attached to. It is not unusual for the ones on the driven wheels to be different to the others because of the weight of the cranks on the axle inside the frames. (Inside cylinder locomotives, obviously)

 

Bill

[Valentin]

Thank you, Bill. Yes, this is a replacement chassis for J94 / Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST.

[Alex Duckworth]

  A photo of my YE Janus, mentioned earlier in the thread. The chassis is still a pile of bits, I wanted to get the body this far so that I could fit the chassis to it, rather than the more usual other way around. Nice kit, goes together really well.

 

 

 

  Alex.

[2mmMark]

Looks very nice Alex.  I agree very much about working on chassis & body together.  You need to know the size within which you've got to work.

 

Are you going to get some nameplates for it, such as "Hugh"...?

Edited July 5, 2013 by 2mmMark

[-missy-]

Hi.

 

Like Mark, I have been enjoying a bit of 'grass roots' modelling. Cutting up bits of Brass tube and PCB...

 

 

Also glued together is a laser cut narrow gauge open wagon body which fits my etched chassis (or the peco ones)...

 

 

M

[2mmMark]

Very nice wagon & chassis but I hate to say this, the angled strapping is unusual.  Not to say that it's necessarily wrong (I'm sure there's a prototype somewhere) but the purpose of the angled strapping is normally to stop the ends bowing outwards, so the load is transferred from the top of the ends to the middle of the floor.

 

I have a rectangular tank wagon with reversed brake gear.  I assembled a 2mm "Uniframe" chassis incorrectly but I like to claim it's a one off oddball wagon...

 

Mark

[-missy-]

Thanks for the advice Mark. I think the NG body needs to go 'back to the drawing board' for a rethink. Not remembering which way up the side and end overlays went probably hasnt helped! Im thinking of reworking the chassis and bodies a little to suit something a little more prototypical...

 

Anyway, a little more progress on the cordon, drilling 9 0.35mm holes through the side of some 0.8mm diameter Brass tube wasnt much fun!

 

 

M

[Southernboy]

I must confess I'd never even seen or heard of a cordon before - so have just spent an interesting half-hour on the internet to discover what on earth this weird, wonderful but somewhat disconcertingly alien-looking of wagons could be!

 

When it comes to finding railway modelling challenges (and then executing them well) I think you certainly keep everyone else on their toes!

Edited July 9, 2013 by Southernboy