Ian Smith

A little more progress on the Steam Railmotor ... Most of the motion has now been completed on the RHS of the drive unit. Obviously, much of this is slightly over scale as in 2mm scale this stuff is flipping minute!! Effectively, each of the links has been drilled and cut to size based on what looks and works, rather than a scale version based on any drawings available. The main reason for this is the amount of throw provided by the generic 7.5mm wheel set available from the 2mm Association - I think that the scaled down crank throw of the prototype is somewhat smaller than that provided by the wheel sets used. This means that the for and aft movement of the crossheads in the slide bars is greater than it should be for example. However, I am perfectly willing to accept such compromises so long as it fulfils my requirements of "waggling about and looking busy". This is after all a layout model not a museum piece!! For future reference, the various linkages have had their pivot holes at the following centres : Union Link - 2.5mm Combination Lever - 3.5mm + 1.5mm Radius Bar - 4.5mm +1.5mm (These were the sizes that I eventually settled on as I had to make 2 of both the Combination Lever and Radius Bar as the originals were either slightly too long or short to provide the movement that worked smoothly). The photo below shows the motion as it is at the minute - I have still got to make the Return Crank and the Return (or Eccentric) Rod : At the bottom of the image are 3 failed attempts at making the Quadrant, the one for the LHS motion lies slightly above these 3. As can be seen the one for the RHS motion is in place and free to rock about a central pivot hole. For simplicities sake (and my own sanity), the rear end of the Radius Rod shares this pivot point. The Union Link, Combination Lever and Radius Bar were pinned together at their respective junctions with small pins made from 0.6mm nickel silver wire - a short stub of wire was left projecting from the chuck of a mini drill, and a fine file used to reduce the wire until it fitted in the holes drilled in the various linkages. The chuck was released, wire pulled out a about a mm, chuck tightened and a fine piercing saw employed to cut off the wire against the chuck jaw. The resulting pin was popped in a pin vice and the head of the pin filed down to leave a little motion pin. The pins were placed in the relevant hole, a piece of cigarette paper used as a barrier, the other rod slipped on, and a flash of solder applied before the excess pin was filed back flush (or nearly so) with the rear of the linkage. For the Quadrant and rear Radius Rod pivot, a 0.4mm hole was drilled through the bit of meat that I'd left for this pivot hole on the bent up motion bracket slide bars. For the outer bracket of this pivot point, a small piece of 0.018" nickel silver was cut and bent (having had what will be the front face thinned to about 0.010") and soldered in place suitably spaced from the slide bars by a piece of paxolin. Once in place, the previously drilled hole was used to sight the drill so that the pivot point could pass through both front bracket and rear. Then an enjoyable few minutes ensued where I tried to line up all the bits and pass another pivot pin through. Once happy, a flash of solder was applied to the rear of the pivot pin, and satisfied that I hadn't soldered it solid the same was done at the front supporting bracket (again checking that everything was still free to move!) The reversing rod and crank were bent up from a single piece of wire that passed through the middle hole in the Radius Rod, and the crank pivot point drilled in the space left for it on the bent up Motion Bracket Slidebars (any one would think that I had actually planned how all of this lot was going to hang together reading this!!) Once happy that the bit of bent wire was the right size and shape, the bit where the crank would be was popped in a vice and squashed flat. A small piece of 0.010" was soldered onto this flat, then filed to a tapered crank shape. As it happened, the wire when inserted into the Radius Rod slightly fouled the very slight movement of the latter, so I elected to snip off the projecting wire just past the bend so that to all intents and purposes (to a casual observer, who's squinting and probably not looking too closely anyway) it appears to connect to the Radius Rod. A further small turning provides the cylinder front face, and when all these little sub-components are joined up and hung on the chassis it looks like this : So far I'm pretty happy as it seems to fulfil those criteria of "waggling about and looking busy". As can be seen, I've even managed to get a working valve spindle crosshead (if that's what it's called). Thank you for looking. Ian

After a few months of prevarication I have once again picked up the Steam Railmotor project with a view to trying to produce the Walschaerts valve gear for it. As is my wont, I am very much playing this by ear and have no documented plan of how I'm actually going to do all of this, but at least I've made a start!! The first element were the connecting rods and crossheads. I was originally going to fabricate these from some milled nickel silver strip, but luckily I discovered that N Brass do a little kit of parts for N gauge crossheads which comprise a cast brass back for the crosshead (which is a flattened T profile) and has a relevant rebate formed in it for the end of the connecting rod, some etched crosshead fronts (of slightly different designs/sizes), and a bit of straight nickel silver wire for the piston shaft. Before starting on the little kit though, I first produced the connecting rods from a pair of generic 14.5mm coupling rods. The boss was filed away at one end and the coupling rod tapered by careful filing. Once I was happy that the little end of the rods would fit (and had room to move) within the cast part of the N Brass crosshead assembly, the crosshead assembly was constructed. This involved drilling out a little hole to accommodate the piston shaft in one end of the cast part of the crosshead, then sweating on the etched face of the crosshead - to do this I chemically blackened the shaft of a 0.45mm drill and mounted the cast and etched parts around it before introducing the hot iron (the blackening ensured that I didn't solder the drill into the assembly!!) With those parts joined, the little end of the connecting rod (after it too was chemically blackened) was introduced and a stub of wire soldered from and rear of the crosshead. The photo below shows the result : The next step was to produce the cylinders. I elected to file these from solid brass, and the plan is to eventually "araldite" them in place on the chassis, to aid location, a couple of pegs are soldered in them which engage in corresponding holes in the ends of the chassis. The photos below hopefully illustrate : As can be seen, I ended up having to widen the original cylinders with patches of nickel silver strip to give me the necessary clearance - the patches were silver-soldered on and the mounting pegs re-made. The next step was to produce the motion bracket and slide bars. Initially, I intended to make these in steel (for strength), so fretted and filed a suitable shape : Although in the end as my ideas developed, I ended up making some new ones in 0.018" nickel silver strip, partly because the steel was a little bit too thick for the crosshead slots. The revised motion bracket / slide bar assemblies can be seen below : As can be seen once formed, the motion bracket was folded back at 90 degrees, and the back edge of the bracket has a little tab sticking out which engages in a slot filed in the top of the chassis. The image below shows one of the brackets hanging in its slot in the chassis : The final element of progress so far is a pair of turnings for the cylinder blocks, these will be notched top and bottom (one already has been) to accommodate the ends of the slide bars: The idea being that the slide bars will be soldered into these turnings which in turn go inside the large holes in the cylinders. However before I go that far there are various holes that need to be drilled near the motion bracket for the quadrant and reversing lever pivot thing. Thanks for looking. Ian

As David says… however both of my most recent locos - Dean Goods and 517 both utilise wheels that I bought in the late ‘80s early 90’s that have silver metal centres (I think they’re white metal not mazak). Whether I was lucky with the wheels or whether it is the way I’ve used them is hard to say, but both locos run beautifully. I tend to give the non-geared wheels quite a bit of vertical movement (.5mm or so), and have springs applying downward pressure on those wheelsets. Both locos have solid brass chassis so are inherently heavier than an etched chassis. Ian

Jerry is quite right, I supplied the captions after the photo selection was made. I have just looked at the captions and the only one I think is "suspect" is the second in the article (one of the Buffalo ones which says "this time carrying a C head code for a cattle train"). Obviously, as there is no previous photo of the Buffalo (the first photo shows the Metro tank - indeed it is the only photo showing the Buffalo), the wording of that caption is a little erroneous. I apologise, as when I originally submitted all of the photos I had also provided a file with captions for each photo, and when asked for captions for those to be included in the article I simply did a copy and paste of those original captions. The problem therefore was entirely of my own making, sorry. Ian

Over the last day or two I have begun reinstating the photos that I have posted within this thread. I have been working backwards from the latest posts. So far I have completed back to (and including) page 24. This entry is more of a reminder to myself as to how far I have gone back. I haven't checked to see what photos are missing beyond the page above. I HAVE JUST REALISED THAT THE PHOTOS POSTED ON THIS CURRENT PAGE (SINCE THE RESTORATION OF RMWEB) ARE NOW ALSO MISSING!!!

Mikkel, A nice start. The Slater's Clerestory coaches are lovely. I have 3 part built examples from my 4mm days (one of each of the models produced) - I really ought to either finish them or put them on the bay of E as I have no use for them! But then I still have a lot of 4mm stuff that I ought to get rid of 🤣 I look forward to seeing how your build proceeds. Ian

With the latest edition of MRJ (No. 288), Modbury has finally made it into print. Only a subset of the photos sent in were used in the article, so below are some of the ones that have been left on the cutting room floor : The layout plan 'Buffalo' class No.1601 departing Modbury with a local passenger train of 6 wheeled coaches. A view of the goods yard at a quiet moment. 'Buffalo' class No. 1601 carrying ordinary (pick-up) goods K headcode continues its journey towards Newton Abbot. Dean Goods No. 2569 deposits a couple of loaded wagons from the mornings ordinary (pick-up) goods into the Goods Shed siding at Modbury. There were a few other photos that didn't make the cut too, as I submitted a selection of about 20 for possible inclusion in the article. All of the photos were taken by me, and most of them had a degree of "photo stacking" to try to improve the depth of field. The photo stacking was done manually, taking 3 or 4 images at different focal lengths, then using GIMP to clone the in-focus areas of each image to form the final photo. Although I was happy with the outcome, there were places in the final images that had to be "manipulated" slightly as the different focal length images didn't always (very rarely) line up correctly. Thanks for looking, Ian

Martin, regarding supergluing the white metal axleboxes and their failing to stick - have you thoroughly washed off all traces of flux beforehand (and allowed the bogies to dry out too)? In my experience superglue and flux don’t mix! Looking at the bogie photo, are you applying enough solder (and flux), and applying enough heat, as it looks like the solder is powdery certainly on the stack of washers. I assume that you are using solder paste? I have experienced a similar powdery solder paste situation myself in the past. These days I generally use solder in wire format with plenty of phosphoric acid flux, and tin both surfaces prior to bringing them together with more heat and flux. Ian

Not really for Modbury this time... Tomorrow, myself and 3 other members of the Midland Area Group are going up to the North Mercia Area Group meeting (one of our number is giving a little talk on Tank Wagons) and hopefully we'll get to see the progress Laurie is making with Yeovil. With this visit in mind, a couple of weeks ago I decided that it would be rude not to provide a little something for Laurie to add to his magnum opus. I therefore began trying to make a few trees to hopefully add a little colour to his bare baseboards. It was my intention to make about half a dozen or so but in the end only 3 have been completed. The basis this time has been 0.4mm florists wire (in the past I have always used copper wire so this is new to me, although back in the dim and distant I used to use Bowden cable for 4mm trees). I picked up a small spool of about 50 meters (I think) for £3-£4 from a local garden centre, and set to cutting lengths off and twisting them together to form a basic tree-shaped armature. Once the bundle looked vaguely tree-like, I dribbled runny superglue into it to secure the twists as good as possible. Once dry, I mixed PVA, Polyfilla with a little black acrylic paint and an even smaller amount of sap green acrylic to make a sticky mess that I could paint over the armature to cover the twists of wire. 2 or 3 coats were necessary to cover the twists in the wire. As an aside, I always mix this in a small jam jar, the type you get when you order a cream tea, as the screw on lid will prevent the mix drying out for a surprisingly long period! Once thoroughly dry, I discovered that the bark colouring wasn't quite what I had in mind, so ended up mixing up a grey-brown colour which was sloshed over everything to give me a bark colour that I was happy with! The benefit of my colouring failure is that should the covering chip or crack at any point in the future that at least it won't be a stark white! For this deciduous tree (it was meant to be an Elm), the foliage was built up from small clumps of Woodland Scenics Polyfibre, small pieces about the size of a thumb nail were cut from the mat and teased out to something twice or more in size. These pieces were then sprayed with matt lacquer (from Halfords), then dragged through a pile of flock scenic material of an Olive green colour. The loose material was shaken off and the pieces put to one side to harden. It was then a simple matter of selecting suitable pieces and securing them to the ends of the branches of the armature. The finished "Elm" can be seen below. The other trees forming this "gift" are a pair of Scot's Pine. The basic armature was formed in the same way as the elm, but obviously formed to resemble the outline of a Scot's Pine. The bark covering received the same treatment as the previous tree, but once dry the upper reaches of the tree's trunk and branches were dry-brushed with an orangey-red to better emulate the colouring that a Scot's Pine displays. The foliage of these trees was this time formed from Woodland Scenics foliage mat, their "Dark Green", although my bag of this is probably the best part of 30 odd years old so may not be the same hue as their current product as green is notoriously prone to fading! Pieces of the mat were cut/torn away, then teased out slightly before being sprayed with the acrylic lacquer - I did this mainly in the hope that it would seal the material and so prevent bits of greenery dropping off the underlying mat. I'm not really sure that it was a good idea as the process has "flattened" the material, perhaps I overdid the lacquer application. However, I'm reasonably happy with the "form" of these two and to my mind at least they look like what they are meant to represent : I hope that Laurie will be happy with them and will find a space on Yeovil for them. Thanks for looking. Ian Edit : I forgot to mention that these trees are 2mm scale, the shortest of the Scot's Pine is 150mm tall (75'), the other Scot's Pine and the Elm are just a little taller at about a scale 80'.

Unfortunately not. I was contacted a good few weeks ago (I should have been there with Modbury) to say that this year’s event had been cancelled. Ian

When I’ve fitted sleeves to motor shafts I have always used thread locker, I also apply power to the motor while it’s drying to hopefully prevent the sleeve from setting onto the shaft off-centre. I don’t know if it works but to my small brain it seems like it should. Ian

I’ve used the embossing method and Archers rivet decals on my Buffalo saddle tank and 517 side tank respectively. In all honesty I would tend toward the decals in future. My first engine (an 1854 class saddle tank) has no rivet detail on the tank at all and looks naked by comparison. If I remember I will come back to this post and add photos of the engines to illustrate, alternatively photos of all can be found in my Modbury thread (but you’d have to trawl through to find them!) Ian

Mikkel, Personally I would think that the louvres and the small open windows were painted chocolate too - I think it is their angle to the light source that makes them look lighter. Also of interest is the notice board frames that are also clearly painted chocolate (they are significantly darker than what we believe is the dark stone on the screen framing). Also of interest is the full name company branding across the tops of the notice boards. Ian

Gareth, the footprint you have described is pretty much what Modbury is (20” traintables either end of a 6’ish scenic section - 10’6” overall). That suits my purposes of a branch line, but for a double track main line longer fiddleyards would obviously be preferable. Like you, it is my first 2FS layout so I wanted something that was achievable in a few years, especially as I expected to have to scratch/kit build everything. look forward to see how your ideas progress. Ian

Jay, The top middle parts look like side-to-end strengthening pieces. Those type of parts are common across all of the WW coaches that I’ve come across. The hole is for a chassis to body mounting bolt (certainly on the coaches). No idea what the other bits are for. Ian

Oh No!!! I think the display has gone on my phone, that looks yellow to me Seriously though Andy, it looks great and I wouldn’t be embarrassed by the inner workings. The object of the exercise is to have something that runs and looks the part. I don’t know about the former but it certainly looks the part. Although I probably should add that to me it looks like just another box on wheels and they all look the same to me anyway Ian

Dava, As someone mentioned I have built a 2-4-0T in 2FS (a GWR Metro Tank), a major problem is getting enough weight into the model (over the drivers), my solution was a solid milled brass chassis with the motor mounted in the smokebox pointing backwards to leave a little space above the drivers for some lead. Mind you I wanted a model with an open cab so had that as an extra restriction! As to whether anyone has ever produced a kit for that particular loco, I would doubt it. The N Brass chassis is for a 2-4-2T, so although a potential starting point clearly wasn’t designed with the loco you’re after in mind. One thing that potential 2FS modellers perhaps don’t realise is that the 2mm Association has less than 1000 members many (possibly most) of whom do not actively model 2FS. Of those that do, many will have very focussed modelling needs (myself GWR c1906, Jim Watt Caledonian Railway early 1900’s, etc). Therefore the pool of potential kits will have limited interest and consequently sales, hence small runs for almost personal use. In my own case, if I want a particular loco I will scratch build it because although I could design a kit of parts to be etched I find it quicker and far more cost effective to do it that way. One further thing I must add though is that although small in number the 2mm modelling fraternity are a very friendly and helpful bunch and will offer help and advice freely, so I wish you every success if you do decide to pursue a CH&P model including that particular loco in 2FS. Ian PS. I hope that my statements above do not come across negatively or put you off, they are meant to be and do neither!

Charlie, I have PM'd you with a scan of the Baulk Road Side-Stepping Crossover from MRJ No.1. (Sorry about the delay) Ian PS. I've just read your latest post, I did my loose heel switches hinged in a similar way in 2FS, one thing I did do though was keep my pivot long (it extends below the baseboard), so that I could solder a fine wire onto it which is also soldered to the adjoining rail to maintain electrical continuity for the switch blade. I would also check the amount of planing you have on the switch rails - mine taper pretty much along their whole length to allow them to fit snuggly against the stock rails.

If I get a chance tomorrow I’ll see if I can scan the relevant pages for you, the plan was reproduced in 2mm scale though so you will have to resize it. Ian

In MRJ no. 1 there was a plan for a mixed gauge crossover that incorporated side-stepping so that the common rail (of the two gauges) was the outside rail of both lines. Hope that may be of some use (assuming that you have MRJ no.1 of course). Ian

That can work, but the mouldings should be black not chocolate. In 7mm it shouldn’t be too difficult to do the mouldings, I manage it in 2FS Ian

I'm kind of in a quandary as to where to post this particular update - here, in the "3D Printing" thread or the "On My Workbench", - but in the end it's for Modbury so here it is ... Some time ago, I shared the STL files for the Outside Framed Van and 3 GWR Cattle Wagons (W1/5, W2, and W3 diagrams) that I'd drawn up and had printed by Shapeways with Richard Brummitt. In exchange for this, Richard very kindly printed 2 of each on his home printer for me (which I regret to say I've not as yet done anything with!). However, Richard also very kindly included a "surprise" among the 3D prints - a pair of Iron Mink (diagram V6) bodies. This post relates to the first of these. Among the wagons I have running on Modbury are 3 Iron Mink built from Association kits, in fact 2 of them date back to my first (aborted) venture in 2mm Finescale modelling in the 1980's. They were both originally fitted with compensated Colin Waite W Irons (which I eventually glued up solid with packers as I feel that better running can be had in 2FS with fixed underframe on short 4 wheel underframes - there just isn't enough mass to allow the compensation to work properly). All 3 of my existing Iron Mink have been modified / back-dated by replacing the kit wooden doors with the steel doors of the early vans, but all 3 also suffer from the major faults in the 2mm Association kit (primarily that they are too long, and that the vertical stanchions are too wide, meaning that the panels are slightly narrow which is a bit of a pain when trying to fit the 25" G W in but the fact that the vans are nearly 2mm too long actually helps in this regard!) At the time I drew up the artwork for the Cattle Wagons and Outside Framed Van I also started on a true to scale Iron Mink of my own but shelved it because of the layered effect noticeable on the Shapeways prints - you can almost get away with it on wooden planked bodies as it is possible to convince oneself that the layering looks like wood grain but on an all metal slab sided body like an Iron Mink I felt that it wasn't worth the effort. Anyway, back to the "surprise" that Richard had provided me with ... The two bodies were printed in a creamy coloured resin, and the only noticeable layering that I could detect is on the vents on the ends of each wagon - I decided that I would deal with that at the painting stage. One of the bodies that Richard provided me with. The layering/stepping is just about visible on the vent on the body, as is the lip that Richard has designed inside the body to allow the body to seat down level on an underframe. Richard had kindly cleaned all of the support material from the 3D print, but there were just one or two places that needed the merest dressing with a very fine file where the roof would fit. I had no idea whether Richard had designed the model with any specific 2mm Association underframe in mind, but I elected to use a 2-324 SNCF 9'0" wheelbase Mineral wagon one as I have a couple in my gloat box. I only wanted the floor with the fold down inner sole bar and W Irons anyway, once fitted with bearings, the V hanger was removed from one side and the W Iron stays were removed from between the W Irons and cleaned up. Because the Iron Mink is only 16'6" over headstocks, it is necessary to remove about 1mm from each end of the floor (after the etched bend-down headstocks have been removed from the etch by bending back and forth along the half etched line). Once the underframe was a snug fit within the body, a couple of pairs of wheels were dropped in so that I could check the running height - it transpired that some packing would be required between the underframe and the lip within the body to raise the body a little - I used a piece of 0.010" plastic sheet but could probably have used 0.015" really (clearly my Iron Mink has a heavy load inside making it sit down on its suspension). I decided to fit this first Iron Mink with Grease Axleboxes, so made up a set of 2-318 MR Grease Axlebox/Spring, and then employed a file to try to get a slope to the top and generally square the axle boxes up a bit to look more like a GWR version. The springs needed tweaking a bit to minimise the gap between them and the bottom edge of the solebar, but I'm pretty happy with the result. Brake gear is just one side of the 2-324 set, the brake handle being fitted after underframe and body were united permanently as this needs to be fixed into a hole drilled into the resin solebar. Prior to permanently uniting the body and underframe, I did a couple of things. The first was to drill the horse hook holes in the solebars (which I also transferred to the etched underframe where I drilled slightly larger holes so that the inner etched sole bar couldn't be seen through the holes in the solebar proper). The other thing was to fit a roof, fitted before uniting body and underframe so that I could get to the underside of the roof to apply drops of superglue. The roof itself was formed from a piece of 0.008" tinned steel - in a moment of madness I had thought about soldering on thin strips of shim to represent the re-inforcing strips across the roof - in the end sanity prevailed and I simply glued on narrow strips of 0.005" plastic sheet after the roof was fitted!!! Once the body and underframe were finally glued together, the brake handle was soldered at the V hanger end and glued in place in a hole in the solebar at the other. A set of 2-072 buffers completed the build. The completed Iron Mink ready for the paint shops. And posed alongside a contemporary Outside Framed Van which was a similar size and one of my 2mm Association Iron Mink (with back-dated doors) still with unfinished lettering/numbering. I think posing Richard's rendition alongside the Association offering illustrates the slight size difference, in fact the Association model might do well as a Taff Vale Railway Iron Mink as they were 17'4" over the headstocks!! It is now my intention to build up the other Iron Mink that Richard provided, but this will be fitted with OK Oil Axleboxes as it is my intention to paint the first Red and the second Grey (probably with identification plates rather than 25" G W) - somewhat contentious I know as there is still (and always will be) debate as to what colour the wagons were when fitted with plates! However, I placed my stick in the sand several years ago when I scratch built my first 4 plank open (that's grey with plates), my view is that there are photos of grey wagons with 25" lettering but still carrying their numbers on plates, and that brake vans with plates were also grey (yeah, I know they were always grey even when everything else was red! ) However, it's my train set and I want my plate carrying wagons to be grey, so there!! Thanks for looking Ian

Is that because the font they use these days is harder to read than in the good old days when our eyes used to work?

On Modbury I used 0.8mm bass wood, glued to baseboard top with PVA, weighted of course while it dried. Once dry the whole was rubbed over with a fine glass paper (or it may have been emery paper - can’t remember) just to take any minor humps off and to ensure joints between pieces were level. Ian

I always have to have a wry smile when people modelling 4mm and above “complain” about trying to find room in their locos for motors and/or gearboxes - modelling 2mm finescale as I do with open cabbed tank engines I can only dream of the cavernous space you guys have Ian