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Dave at Honley Tank

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  1. Dave at Honley Tank
    In April of last year I said not to expect frequent posts here and there has only been one post since that date.
     
    My 4mm finescale modelling has not completely stopped but I've done little worth writing about with any of my EM or S4 layouts and stock. There has however been big progress on building baseboards, mounting them without soil connection and then track laying, through most of last summer and autumn. No electrical wiring required because this is all live steam with remote radial control or battery driven electric with radio control
     
    Therefore I'm happy to report that I now have a garden railway of sorts, albeit devoid of buildings or scenic features, but with a passing loop on the main line, a secondary 'roundy-roundy' and two turn-outs ready for siding connection. A few pics of the garden below.
     
    I spoke about the special train 'Diamond Jubilee', and work on that is slowly progressing. A few goods wagons are built, but no guards van! My first loco has been built but still needs the livery completing, it has however done plenty of work, mainly test hauling rolling stock, both passenger and freight, all of this giving test running all over the layout too.
     
    This loco is a small, freelance diesel, radio controlled, battery driven. The electronic part of that was yet another learning curve but I can see a future for this type of control in the smaller gauges - I understand it has already been applied to RTR N gauge with success! Think about it, - no track wiring, no track cleaning, absolutely no pick-up problems, loco control like the real thing, - like being in the real cab, - that is individual control (feed in the loco address) and then, with a wireless remote control, beautifully smooth speed control from crawl at less than walking speed to "eat your heart out Mallard"!
     
    All the builds have so far been from kits but those little grey cells are already starting to itch!
     
    As a closing giggle I will tell you that the larger baseboards out in the garden are based on the baseboard design I started this blog to talk about - extruded pvc insulation foam, light as feathers but much, much stronger. Oh!, for those considering this a doubtful idea, particularly outside, the largest of the boards has now spent two winters out there and shows not a hint of twist or decay.
     
    Random pics of the full route.






  3. Dave at Honley Tank
    I said I'd tell you about a signal cabin but I've experienced a strange fault with the Class101 when working on 'Birch Vale'. It's so strange that I think it's worth re-telling on here in the hope that the knowledge may help others with future faults.
     
    Both my S4 layouts have been DCC operated for a long time but with the ability to quickly switch at will to analogue dc. Accordingly the 101 was wired with a decoder and sent to Birch Rail, for which it was always intended, - Bowton's Yard is supposed to be freight only.
     
    It ran well except that at one particular turn-out (there's only 2), it always came to a sudden halt. The same bogie was always in the same place. Because it had suffered pick-up problems, which I thought I had solved, then I suspected I was wrong and there was still a pick-up problem.
     
    I could locate nothing!
     
    My thoughts then turned to the electrics of the turn-out. Where the train always stopped, the motorised bogie was standing on one of the turn-out's closure rails so it was likely that the closure rail wiring had a fault.
     
    To make it easier to use a voltmeter I switched the layout to analogue and tried to drive the train to this stop position, However the fault now seemed to have disappeared. On dc the unit ran OK; on DCC it always stopped at the same place - the fault had not disappeared!
     
    I was now in total confusion, and ended up 'groping around in the dark' for a total of about 8 hours over several days. In the end it was only chance that gave me the required clue.
     
    Birch Vale's analogue controller has an ammeter and a voltmeter built into it and as the 101 ran over the offending point I noticed the ammeter needle flutter. When I slowly manoeuvred the vehicle to the fault position, the needle shot over to 'dead-short'.
     
    Next was to try the DCC again. With the DMU running at normal passenger speed it stalled at the fault position but now I was watching the handset's read-out - "fault switch off" but then, immediately - "fault cleared" and every thing re-set.
     
    At last I knew that with that particular bogie, at that very precise position on the turn-out, there was a short circuit - not a pick-up problem at all.
     
    What must have been happening was that the short-circuit protection in my analogue controller was too slow to operate as the train passed this precise position and the fault time was so brief that it did not show. The NCE DCC system's short-circuit protection is very rapid and shut the system down but train momentum cleared the fault and the DCC quickly re-set itself, but only back to 'train stopped'. So the train stayed minutely beyond the short-circuit position, ready to be off again at the driver's command
     
    The cause of the fault was removed in less seconds than the hours taken to find it!!. A little too much solder on the new pick-up unit just touched the top face of the unused closure rail of the point, and that closure rail is always at opposite electrical polarity to the rail from which the pick-up is collecting. A few file strokes cleared the problem but a couple of coats of nail varnish offer further insulation. NB the nail varnish is very quick drying, needs no brush cleaning, and paint thinners easily removes it.
     
    It all pinched a lot of precious time and was very frustrating but the eventual success is very rewarding.
     
    Model well,
    Dave
  4. Dave at Honley Tank
    Happy New Year everybody, and may our modelling in 2017 be even more enjoyable and successful than last year.
     
    "Slow continuation" means that the trailing vehicle of this DMU now has correct (I think!) destination blinds. I have made negligible progress in two areas of research; namely, the actual wording on the blinds and an accurate set of vehicle numbers (cab numbers in steam terminology), for the Metro DMUs that worked on the Hayfield branch. Any input would be appreciated!
     
    I have assumed that the accepted protocol of steam locos on the branch is likely to have followed through to DMU sets, so my powered car will be at the front when leaving Manchester Piccadilly (nee-London Rd) but of course trailing when in the opposite direction. In my view, this latter choice is of little importance but I would like to have a correctly numbered DMU on my version of the Hayfield Branch.
     
    The fact that there was no need to 'run-round' at Hayfield does mean that the wording on the blinds never needs changing; - "Manchester" at London Rd end and "Hayfield" at the other. I make the research even more demanding in wanting my DMU to travel via Guidebridge and Hyde Junction and I'm pretty certain this was included on the destination blinds as "via Hyde".
     
    If Lima got the size of the blinds correct then I'm absolutely certain there was insufficient space to include "via Hyde" but at Manchester it was vital information for some passengers, so I'm equally certain it would have been included some where.
     
    My choice was to have a much smaller plaque quoting "via Hyde" and slipping into a clip such that the plaque was viewed through the driver's cab windows.
     
    Production of my model versions were by using CorelDraw. I drew a black-filled rectangle sized to match Lima's destination blind moulding, and wrote on this in white Arial narrow font with font height of 1.27mm. The two main blinds were 7.6mm long by 1.5mm high and my estimated size for the subsidiary blind was 2.5mm by 2.3mm. printed on an A4 Sheet they looked like:

     
    While still on the A4 sheet, each blind had two coats of gloss varnish and allowed 24 hour drying. Note all the spares; - I expected to loose some along the fitting stage! I did!!!!!!!!!!!
     
    Four millimeter scale eyes may be able to read them; my aged 12" to the foot eyes certainly can't unless aided by an eye loupe, and this shows the slight damage to the black areas caused by manipulation with the point of a cocktail stick. Adhesive used was gloss varnish and a further top coat of same finished the job
     
    I shall do the power coach but one has to wonder how sensible the whole operation was.
     
    Dave
  5. Dave at Honley Tank
    Hello Again,
    Previously I said:-
    "I now set off on a 'good-dose-of looking-at ........',
    and finished with:
    "That's all for now but more, with pics in a few days time."; - Well, here they are:

     
    The "good-dose-of-looking-at" led to an idea for scraper pick-up soldered to a cantilever plate, such that the phosphor-bronze wire scraper could be fixed away from the under-frame and have contact with nought but its fixing and the back of the wheel flanges - no fiddly bending and no need for very accurate measurement or fixing. To make for fairly easy maintenance, the cantilever plate could be mounted onto the removable axle retainer.
    Unfortunately the plastic of the latter was of that greasy-feel type that adhesives seem to detest! On this example, the prototype as it were, I eventually got araldite (slow-set) to hold the plate, but to add some 'braces', I added a bridge of araldite on top.
     

    This is the driving bogie and benifitted from my first attempt. Here the plate was not only araldited to the plastic, but soldered to a pin through the plastic. Care was needed here so as to keep clearance between axle-retainer+pick-up parts from rail-head; its not much more than 0.060" without the added pick-up!
     

    With thoughts of maintenance and DCC wiring, I decided that the pick-up wires would terminate at solder terminals (i.e. - a bit of PC board!) This 'washed out' photo' shows the termination of the wires from both my and Lima's pick-up from the powered bogie.
     

    The other bogie retained the Lima circlip and wiring through to the opposite end but my wiring terminates here so as to aid easy un-soldering should I need to remove this bogie. That bit of blutak is to limit movement of the circlip and possible contact with my bits of added pick-up.
    The red wire is soldered to a pin which in turn is soldered to my cantilever plate; the pin gets through the Lima floor via a slot which allows for bogie swing.
     

    Since this picture was taken, a red wire has been run from back to front connecting my rear bogie pick-up to the main solder pad at the front. This will be the main pick-up termination point.

     

    With the ballast weight added I thought we had a risk of short-circuiting the solder pad, so I cyanoed a piece of cigarette paper around the end of the weight which allowed a bit of colour coding too!
     
    All this has now been assembled and the DMS has been run all over both 'Birch Vale' and 'Bowton's Yard' a few times. Much, much less 'fingerpoken'
    now, but not quite so good as I expected. I'll accept it for now; the decoder will improve running almost certainly; we shall see.
     

    Good modelling and Merry Christmas to all, - see you in 2017!
    Dave
  6. Dave at Honley Tank
    Hello again,
     
    Some juggling of domestic duties has led to my being able to find a regular weekly time spot for the workshop. Its a three hour break but, for useful modelling time it works out at perhaps 21/2 hours - remembering where you were when you finished last week, and tidying the bench at closure pinches valuable time.
     
    However, recently both the Boley lathe and the Myford have had their bearings warmed up! I have been in wheel-turning mode in the last few sessions,
     
    The Lima wheels of the Class101/2 DMU are all brass and, after a good dose of looking at, I decided that they could be skimmed to S4 thickness and I could then re-profile the tyres to Manchester (i,e. Sid Stubbs) profile.
     
    The un-insulated wheels are a good, firm fit on the knurled Lima axles and these I was able to skim while still on their original axle. However the profile tool involves forces above those that this method of holding could withstand and I was forced to make a special holding tool for this part of the whole process.
     
    After all the experimentation I ended up using the Boley and its step chuck to hold the wheel on its tyre for the skimming to <2mm thickness, and then to the Myford with the new holding tool for re-profiling the wheel flange. By now, I had discovered that the Lima wheel diameter was about 1mm less than the Gibson wagon wheels that I had intended to use as the insulated wheel -
    ( Lima use the 'American' system of pick-up on this model).
     
    This meant that I had to modify the insulted wheels too - i.e. twice as many wheels to machine than I originally thought!
     
    I've taken a few pictures along the way but as yet I've only processed these into my computer files, so perhaps a few more next time -:

    Here is the chucked wheel-holding tool. The orange marks indicate the section which should be under number 1 jaw of my three-jaw chuck. The clamping nut is made from the same MS rod as the main body and has flats at one end to suit a 2BA spanner. The screwed section is 8BA, mainly because 2.5 mm diameter will nicely accept an 8BA die and the wheel is made a tight, slide fit on plain 2.5mm silver steel. In short the tool is only two bits of 1/2" MS rod, both drilled through 2.5mm and tapped 8BA at their outer ends, the clamping nut having its inner-end inside diameter opened to 3mm for about 5mm. The threaded rod is 2.5mm silver steel, screwed and 'Loctited' into the main body.
     

    Sorry; could not get this without flash, which has produced a poor pic. It's supposed to show the wheel fitted with a tufnol bush which has just been drilled through on centre. The length that this bush protrudes on the wheel's inner side is later to be faced down to a length (0.080" if memory serves!) which minimises side-play of the axle so as not to allow the gears to un-mesh.
     

    a completed axle ready to slot into the Lima motorised bogie.
     

    And here it sits in the bogie ready meshed with the bogie's gearing system.
     
    That's all for now; TTFN
     
    Good modelling to you,
    Dave
  7. Dave at Honley Tank
    Hello All,
     
    The under-frames of both cars were assembled ready for test running with the electrical pick-up system unchanged from Lima's original. Rubbish running resulted because pick-up was, not to be too rude to Lima, - intermittent!
     
    I gave a lot of thought as to why this could be and decided that the system included far too many sliding contacts; rail to wheel - wheel to axle springy-phosphor-bronze scraper - spring scraper to bogie pivot pin, the latter joint being pushed together by a coil spring. The tension of all those springy contact points would fluctuate at every track joint etc. Final y the connection to the bogie pivot pin is by a circlip, which will also be a moving joint each time that the pivot pin rotates. All of this was picking up only from a total of four wheels from a possible eight. Silly in my opinion.
     
    Why not pick-up from all eight available wheels?
     
    Making new bogies with full split-axle collection would do that and I would be operating in my area of knowledge. But that would be a big job! What about increasing the number of pick-up points by adding scraper pick-ups to the insulated wheels? Easier yes; but I have always been rubbish at designing and building scraper systems.
     
    My first decision was to try to remove some of Lima's poorer areas of design. First I soldered the pivot pin to the phosphor-bronze axle scrapers and I tightened up the circlip joint by judicious squeezing with pliers. This did dramatically improve running but finger-poking was still far too frequent for my liking.
     
    I now set off on a 'good-dose-of looking-at', with a view to making scrapers for the four wheels that Lima's system abandoned. I'm a great believer that all engineering design should deeply consider the problems of future maintenance and I want those bogies to be easily released from their under-frame but hopefully without the likely poor connection of that circlip!
     
    That's all for now but more, with pics in a few days time.
     
    TTFN
     
    Good modelling to you,
    Dave
  8. Dave at Honley Tank
    I got in to dcc round about early summer 2003. I did so by buying a toy train set for about £60; it was OO, continental, diesel loco plus three wagons, but with a Roco dcc system, including a transformer!
     
    As I was able to sell the loco and wagons for about £20, my first dcc system cost me well below the going rate. (It's also left me with an oval of OO track on which I can test run repaired stuff for local kiddies etc). However the Roco hand-held cab had a centre-,off knob with forward speed control clock-wise and reverse anticlock-wise and I found this confusing because since those long gone days of Hornby-Dublo, I'd got used to a switch for direction and clock-wise knob turning to increase speed'.
     
    A friend recommended the Lenz 'Compact' system, then costing about £75 but now withdrawn. This was a far better system than most reviews inferred, and in my opinion one of the best starter systems (and indeed continuation systems!) for the typical British 'shunting plank, and Lenz was well represented in Britain with Mackays of Scotland; and fairly locally for me, MG Sharp of Sheffield. As always there is an "however"; indeed, here there are two "howevers".
     
    In 2009, Margaret gave me a sound equipped Class 20 diesel for a Christmas present and the Lenz system had insufficient function buttons to match all the sound functions. At some later exhibition I 'found' Digitrains; they sold me a NCE 'Power Cab' system, (then <£100), which got round that problem. This also meant that Bowton's Yard could have its dedicated controls (Lenz) while Birch Vale got the new NCE system.,
     
    The second "however" is that Mackays seem no longer to be agents and MG Sharp also seem to have matured into different retail routes, making it difficult to get reliable info about Lenz and their current systems. They no longer have a low-priced introductory system apparently, and if they have a British agency, I have not found it!
     
    At a recent birthday Margaret had difficulty in thinking of a good present so I started thinking in terms of a replacement for the out-dated Lenz system. in view of inter-changeability like hand-helds etc, it was sensible to stay with either Lenz or NCE. The previous paragraph indicates why NCE was chosen.
     
    Over the last week or so, and continuing, I've been modifying the wiring and building control panel enclosures for the NCE power panels which are designed to fit into the baseboard sideframes I didn't want that,- they are going into the end of existing control panels. With the order on Digitrains, I include two "UTP" panels. These are similar to the power panels in appearance but are meant to accept hand-held control cabs remote from the main system. Eventually, for both of these S4 standards layouts, it will be possible to plug in a hand-held at either end (or both!) of the layout.
     
    Among all these changes is my decision to concentrate on 18.83 gauge, so making 'Wheegram Sidings', the EM layout that started this blog, surplus to requirements along with the two dcc systems (Roco and Lenz). If any one is interested then PM me.
     
    I'm off now to produce an electrical schematic drawing for the new 'Bowton's Yard' control panel which is to incorporate change over switches between analogue and digital control and for the digital side, a change over between track supply and programming track supply.
     
    What a confusing hobby we chose!?!
     
    Good modelling to you,
    Dave
  9. Dave at Honley Tank
    A few posts ago I reported starting work on modifying the hidden sidings on Bowton's Yard. This virtual rebuild of both hidden sidings is now complete.
     
    One end represents Guidebridge and now has a system of train plus locomotive cassettes, along with loco storage behind the goods shed. This is much more flexible than the original single line and later-added short siding. The result though was to show up the poor storage at the Stalybridge hidden sidings and this led to my building a cross-over for that board.
     
    Having completed that, I came to realise that this storage would lock locos out of use and that it would be useful if I could add a loco cassette system at that end too.
     
    Some careful measuring up showed that I could probably juggle another 10" - 12" length increase on that board. In fact the decision was that the easiest answer was to make a new small board, mainly because, to accept cassettes, its bed needed to be some 6mm lower than the existing track bed.
     
    Pictures tell the story more easily than words so' here goes:
     

    I don't need any help to carry this baseboard! The new extension for loco cassettes at Stalybridge
     

    Rather more locos on view than the layout needs but this is Guidebridge hidden sidings, taken from above the Bowton's Yard goods shed or warehouse, The train cassettes are about the same length as the layout's run-round loop. The loco cassettes will accept any loco so with a small loco it is possible to build up a train that can't easily be run-round! (wicked joke at exhibitions!!)
     

    This is looking in the opposite direction to the above shot but nicely shows how the tracks into the shed have been extended to the hidden sidings and give loco lay-bye features, allowing a need for fewer loco cassettes.
     

    Looking from the very end of the Guidebridge board, toward the layout's scenery section.
     

    This is taken from the opposite end and shows Stalybridge hidden sidings. The camera is resting on the end of the new mini-board and it has shown the needed step down to accept loco cassettes.
    Also in view are two shelf brackets which are part of the support system for 'Birch Vale'; i.e. one layout sits about 12" above the lower one's track bed.
     

    Almost all the new cross-over appears in this shot taken from the layout end of this hidden siding. That apparent kink in the RH rail is not so apparent to the naked eye and certainly causes no running problems; - (the camera cannot lie!?!).
    The line to our right is the head shunt for the yard, and the MDF with a hole in it is the stop-block. Originally this line terminated as one route of a 'Y' point, the other route being the 'main' line and the only train storage at this end. Shortening the head shunt has no effect on shunting moves and the space left by the shortening could, if need be, become loco lay-bye space.
     

    I had to show you this; it's Margaret's craft room which I commandeered for building the cross-over. I have no such long, flat space in my workshop!
  10. Dave at Honley Tank
    Sorry to the two people who look forward to my posting on here ; I've not done much worth writing about, even less worth posting pics for.
    With both myself and wife Margaret now well into our eighties, age deterioration is beginning to take more control of our activities than we would like.
     
    In recent times I've been looking at modifying my hobby operations in the hope of continuing modelling for longer than my aged body looks as though it will allow. Indeed this blog was started as an attempt to describe a simple, light-weight, EM gauge layout which would quickly bundle into my car's boot and exhibit as a one-man-band; EM being chosen as probably being more forgiving than P4/S4. It may be; - slightly! - but really not worth the change. Accordingly I've really done nothing toward progressing 'Wheegram Sidings' for many many months.
     
    I reported some posts back that Margaret had received an N-gauge trainset for Christmas, and that together we had started building an exhibition layout. Margaret's interest ran out fairly quickly and I would certainly not claim to have great interest in such modelling. That project has been relegated to a back-burner even further back than the EM back-burner.
     
    In early May I did some research into narrow gauge, radio controlled, live steam, but decided that starting to build a suitable garden layout would be an extremely silly idea at this time in life.
     
    At present, I'm back where I was. I've enjoyed making some track and points for Bowton's Yard (18,83 gauge S4 track and wheel standards) but I have done so in relatively short modelling sessions, - say one -two hours rather than my old approach of four to six hours nearly every day. The hidden sidings at each end of 'Bowton's' have now been re-built and increased the operational potential.
     
    Recently I re-started the up-grading of the two C13s and although I find it frustrating to pack up after such a short time, it's less frustrating than ruining several hours of work by continuing beyond my present day concentration span time.
     
    I might actually be adjusting to old age sensibly!!??!!
     
    Good modelling to you all. (Well both of you!)
     
    Dave
  11. Dave at Honley Tank
    My excursion into construction of a continuous springy beam chassis (see previous posts about my J10) was useful but has resulted in quite definitely negative feelings about them.
     
    It seems to me to be an excessively complicated system that demands a skill level that the majority of modellers are unlikely to have developed. At least that is so if the published technology is to be believed.
     
    I have to admit that my predilection for split-axle current collection and models that can be handled by the ham-fisted and which are capable of day in and day out working on layouts without too much maintenance, quite definitely effects my opinion.
     
    My J10 was completed and carried out many hours of work on both ‘Bowton’s Yard’ and ‘Birch Vale’, where it proved to be a worthwhile addition to the stud.
     
    It is however performing no better than locos I built with beam compensation way back in the early 1970s, nor is it better than those I have built since, - guided by Sid Stubbs, Norman Whitnall and John Langan, (in future such chassis I shall call “SWL chassis”).
     
    These last are split axle with tufnol block frame spacers and simple downward acting cantilever springs acting on the axleboxes.
    The axleboxes can be simple ‘top-hat’ affairs turned up at home. The tufnol blocks make for a very strong chassis and because of screw-&-dowel-fixing, the mainframe assembly can easily be fully stripped in the future should this be necessary
     
    The two outer axles normally ride at the top of their axle slots and fix the correct ride height, any inner axles have the top of their axle slots about 0.020” higher than the outer axle slots, and that value is not too critical!
     
    It is possible to drop any axle independently simply by removing the axle retainer, normally screw fixed.
     
    There is no need of any complicated calculation for the springing; - about 20mm cantilever of 27swg phosphor-bronze wire, again not critical! Adjust the pressure on the axlebox by bending the wire – just as we do with Alex Jackson couplings (edited 1/4/16 - or the scraper wires used with scraper electrical pick-up) – so that there is gentle pressure of the wheel on the track. It’s all so simple, just basic mechanical engineering principles and none of it over-critical.
     
    Such a chassis can be built and tested before its body is completed (or even started!). Initial test running can be done with a temporary weight equivalent to approximate body weight and fixed round about chassis middle. No need to worry too much about correct weight distribution.
     
    In comparison a CSB chassis needs a good bit of forward thinking and technical calculations. Granted that resort to a well-known web page can do those calculations for you but it seems that the ‘sums’, distances, and weights are all important.
     
    You need to ensure a clear space for the spring, along the length of each mainframe, making frame spacer design quite critical. Designing frame spacers that also insulate the mainframes from each other (split-frame for split-axle), leave space for the springy beams and produce a rugged chassis is no sinecure either!
     
    Removing an axle means removing both springs. Easy to say, not to difficult to do, but replacement means threading that wire through quite a lot of tiny holes, all this to be achieved in a very limited, difficult to illuminate space. I found this bit extremely frustrating.
     
    Were my J10 a brilliant performer way beyond anything I had already managed then I would have to agree that CSB is worth all this extra effort – it isn’t!
     
    I would now like to show how – “ it isn’t!” was proven!
     
    What then about performance? First, perhaps “performance” needs a definition. For me, any loco should de-rail very rarely, and any derailment that is not down to poor driving, or inordinately poor track, should not occur. Just like the real thing!
     
    A model loco should be capable of pulling a model load equivalent to the maximum load that the prototype class of loco was allowed, in this case 2F. The model should also be capable of smooth creep speed, preferably less than normal walking speed, but to achieve this feature, typical top speed should not be compromised.
     
    I’m more than happy that locos I have built in the last twenty years have achieved those features and have also been of sufficiently robust construction as to not need ‘kid-glove’ handling. Perhaps my B1 and my K3 need careful driving techniques when asked to pull 10 coach trains on curving gradients, but that cannot occur on my own layouts and they rarely go visiting.
     
    For the J10 pulling power test I set up a 33 wagon train on a gentle curve (about 12 foot radius) on ‘Bowton’s Yard’. This incidentally covered all of one fiddle yard and all but about three foot of the scenic section, so it was a train length well beyond any I could ever sensibly run! Is there really any point in having locos that could pull more?
     
    The J10 started the train without problem, even with all couplings taught. So well done!
     
    But my only other 2F classified loco, a J72, performed the task equally well, and that one was built over twenty years ago and has a SWL (Stubbs-Whitnall-Langan) chassis. There seemed little point in subjecting other models to this particular test. I know that my J11 (3F); J6 (3F); J94 (4F); J39 (5F) have all hauled similar loads in the past.
     
    “Had my J10 proved to be a brilliant performer way beyond anything I had already managed, then I would agree that CSB is perhaps worth the effort” – it didn’t, so it isn’t!
     
    I’m sorry you CSB proponents, at least those of you who have actually tried the system and achieved success. But was that success using comparison against previous attempts where “toy train” chassis design was applied? Or are you a modeller whose locos normally haul trains of un-prototypical length, on layouts with un-prototypical curves and/or gradients?
     
    Because my layouts, (two with S4 track and DCC, and one with EM track and analogue control) are shunting planks, then I don’t have need of locos that can do better than their prototype, But who does?
     
    For that reason, the B1 & the K3 referred to earlier have not had weight added over their driving wheels. None the less, their haulage limitation is comparable to the real thing.
     
    Perhaps I’m lucky to have been introduced to a simple chassis design long ago. And perhaps the modesty of my heroes led to them not writing sufficient articles about their designs and because of that, others could not copy their ideas
     
    Whatever the reasons, my experience is that their remarkably simple design of chassis is more than good enough to achieve what I need, and I believe that similar needs apply to the majority of you too.
     
    Oh! - at the first call for heavy maintenance my J10 was fitted with a SWL chassis. It's performance is not changed but future maintenance will be quicker and easier.
     
    Keep It Simple, Stupid !
     
    Good modelling wished to all of you,
    Dave
  12. Dave at Honley Tank
    We P4 modellers are frequently seen as being humourless, and many are also seen as elitist and less than friendly. Possibly true for some in the fraternity but I do my best to be neither.
     
    As part of my efforts to cause a smile, about twenty years ago I built a
    scalefour-standards 'Thomas'. When I say "built" I mean that I built a chassis to fit under a totally unadulterated, genuine Triang-Hornby body in bright shiny blue/red/yellow.
     
    The chassis was a test bed for me to try out one or two new ideas for future scratch-built chassis: silicon tube as a flexible drive between axle-hung gearbox and fixed motor; totally enclosed gearbox; spring-steel wire pickups scraping on flange edge; three-point suspension but with the suspension beam being not a pivoted beam but a strong spring, centrally cantilevered to the two 'sloppy' axles; (springy beam????) a home-made plug and socket system that allows electrical items to be removed easily and without need of a soldering iron. All a bit experimental and 'way-out'!
     
     
    I had set up supply and tooling to copy Mike Sharman's enclosed gearbox but in brass rather than plastic, but "Porter's Cap" now HighLevel gearboxes came along to make life easier. The sprung beam idea works every bit as well as a pivoted beam system in fact Thomas runs excellently but the scraper pick-ups demand more maintenance than I'm used to with split-axle collection
    At exhibitions 'Thomas' came out whenever kiddies were viewing and caused much excitement for them and a bit of humour for the adults. Prior to the opening hour of a well known finescale exhibition, (which I shall not name in order not to cause too much embarrassment), with other exhibitors and officials watching our proving runs, we deliberately brought out 'Thomas' hauling a rake of Gresley suburbans.
     
    The majority of viewers had a good laugh but I have to admit that there was a minority who walked away in disgust. I have often wondered if those few 'elitists' would have shown a different attitude had they inspected the chassis!
     
     
    This last week, 'Thomas' has been 'in works' for attention to poor pick-up performance, and a general clean and lubrication. Of my little experimental features, only the scraper pick-ups were a real failure and were replaced by phosphor-bronze, tyre-back scrapers early on. The totally enclosed gearbox (Sharman) became no longer available about the time I built the chassis and is probably too highly geared;- No1 has a top speed of only around twenty mph . The silicon tube idea I have used several times now, as also has the sprung, rather than pivoted, beam been re-used.
     
    A satisfactory project with a lot of humour.
     
    Below are a few shots of 'Thomas with his "posh" train. Incidentally that train is a pretty accurate model of a trainset based at Ardwick Carriage Sidings, circa 1948, and which visited the real Birch Vale at least once per weekday. The difference is that Ardwick's brake-thirds had more compartments and less guard/ parcel space than my models, which are modified Comet kits. Usually pulled by a C13 rather than a 'Thomas' of course. I have a record of the "Trainset" number and its daily schedule as well as its consist but I'm too lazy today to find it!
     
     
    Dave
     

  13. Dave at Honley Tank
    Hello dear reader; sorry I've been so quiet recently but a couple of worn out brains and bodies have been much less active than is the norm. The result has been plenty of armchair modelling and video watching. However we did manage to make the recent running day of Roy Jackson's 'Retford'; - a lovely day out among good friends.
     
    Some modelling has taken place and below are two pictures of the last building for 'Bowton's Yard'. the first pic was posted a few posts back.
     
    It was only by that posting that I spotted that the two nameboards: "Dukinfield" & "Cotton Co. Ltd." had been printed in differing font types. In the following post I made up a story to cover this error because it looked as though correcting it would not be easy.
     
    However, the building is entered in the Manchester MRS members competition to be held at our exhibition - (5th & 6th December at the Barnes Wallace building of Manchester University, close to Piccadilly Station in the city centre) - accordingly I gave some serious thought to correcting the error.
     
    The answer I came up with was to correct the original CorelDraw file and re-print but on copy paper rather than card. Weathering by charcoal and other powders was done on the sheet before cutting to an exact size to cover the first, card name boards. I'm satisfied with the result. Have to wait for the judges opinions! What do you think?

     
    Dave
  14. Dave at Honley Tank
    Edited version at 1753 hours:
    The extended hidden sidings are now in use, but not before some re-thinking.
    This blog started as a report on my building a super-lightweight layout - Wheegram sidings but has drifted from that purpose. However in an early edition of the blog, I described the cassette system developed for 'Wheegram'.
     
    For Bowton's new hidden siding I decided to copy that idea but raise the adaptability level by having two types of cassette, - loco and train. That's what I have used on ' Birch Vale for many, many years, but those cassettes are based on aluminium angle and are of quite complex construction. So I thought I was choosing the best of both systems!
     
    The basic idea uses copper laminate track with a wide sleeper termination. For the permanent, fixed track, a phosphor-bronze spring strip per rail is soldered to this and its adjacent normal sleeper. These strips are adjusted to push down but have an upward turned nose; they are also positioned to fit against the rail web. - see first picture
     

     
    The cassettes also have a terminating wide sleeper and because they sit on thin, felt sliders, when clipped in place they push up against the phosphor-bronze strip. Mechanical fixing and electrical connection by the same device. - see second picture and third picture.
     

     
    'Wheegram' had proved the idea but here, only train cassettes are used i.e. only one cassette at a time and always clipped by fixed springs. What I had omitted to think through was that the clipping of a train cassette to a loco cassette did not produce the firm downward pressure of the springs fixed to the baseboard! Who's a silly boy then?
     
    I had decided that one end only of each train cassette needed springs and that a loco cassette could get by with no springs but relying only on the weight of train and cassette for the joint of 'train' to 'loco' gave too unreliable electrical contact. Back to the drawing board!
     
    This was when I remembered that the complexity of the clip system on the aluminium cassettes was caused by this need for a pair of loose cassettes to produce opposing spring pressures.
     
    Pictures four and five show my answer; - a strip of 0.018" brass araldited to the cassette base, below its spring clips. I've had a couple of running sessions and all is now working well. You can just see the edge of one of the felt sliders on one of these pics.
     
    ..
     
    This "warmer weather" season had been scheduled for scenic work on 'Wheegram Sidings' but as I write this, that "warmer weather" seems to have gone!
     
    Dave
  15. Dave at Honley Tank
    I recently reported that I was carrying out general maintenance on my three layouts while the ambient temperature allowed working in the layout room (garage!), but suddenly total madness came over me and I decided that the hidden siding at the Guidebridge end of Bowton's Yard needed modification.
     
    It started life as a single siding, which led to a lot of "fiddling". Some time ago a turn-out was added so as to give two roads, but in order to get a reasonable train capacity in this new road the point was an A5. Much too tight for my larger engines, and indeed for two smaller tender engines with correctly spaced loco-to-tender drag bars.
     
    This caused so many problems that some form of modification was much needed. After a measuring session I decided that it was possible to have this baseboard twice as wide as the original. Also I decided that a cassette system would allow a more acceptable train length and if I had loco cassettes and train cassettes there would be a big reduction in stock handling.
     
    I'm afraid that my past experience with various makes of flexi-track has not been good; - they always seem eventually to go under-gauge and with my insistence on a near S4 back-to-back, I get unacceptably frequent problems. This is a hidden siding, so copper laminate track was decided on.
     
    Hence "Madness"! With Manchester's exhibition fast approaching (first W/E in December at UMIST) and my C13s and row of terraced houses still needing an awful lot of work for the competition, I decide on a virtual new layout. A brand new baseboard; five train cassettes; five loco cassettes and about eight meters of track to solder up. There will also be the electrics and some modification to the feeder baseboard and its tracks. The following pics show the current chaos.
     

    Dave
  16. Dave at Honley Tank
    It seems no one has changed their destination blinds on their Bachy DMUs! -(see last posting)
     
    There are of course two problems:-
    (A) - removal of Bachy's destination,
    (B) - production of the replacements
     
    My unit will run between Manchester London Road and Hayfield. There were at least two routes used and I wanted that which stopped at Guidebridge. My research suggested that these read "Manchester via Hyde" and "Hayfield via Hyde" and in both cases the "via" sat above the "Hyde".
     
    Measuring with a digital calliper gave me Bachy's dimensions so off to the computer and CorelDraw. Arial proved a reasonable likeness to the font used by Bachy and white lettering on a black background with a brown border was drawn at about 100 magnification. All dead easy and looking good.
     
    Print it with inkjet; ooh! horrible. The text was totally illegible.
    Back to the drawing board; (well CAD program!). Increase font size, juggle with font line thickness; try dropping "via Hyde" & use even larger font: swear; I tried all sorts.
     
    Eventually, with a selection of attempts, all looking good in the drawing program, I decide that the normal inkjet paper was having ink spread. Try printing on gloss, photo-paper at best print quality you fool.
     
    At last, very tolerable results, but the version I really wanted - "via Hyde"- was not readable to the normal, unassisted eye, so I settled on the plain "Manchester" and "Hayfield".
     
    Only now did I try to remove Bachy's lovely work. I found that about 10-20 minutes with a pool of meths on the paint was good enough to allow slow and careful scraping away by the end of a cocktail stick. I aimed at removing only the black background and then, after a second soak, the white lettering. As much as I was able I left the brown border untouched.
     
    I intended using Kleer to stick my effort in place but first tried some on a part of window moulding which did not show - no problem. Brushed my inkjet part with Kleer and it very successfully caused the ink to flow again,- that blind ruined.
     
    Not serious; I had duplicated each attempt several times prior to printing, but how to stop that ink flow? Spray with gloss varnish, and while the varnish tin's open, stick it with gloss varnish too. Actually I was too lazy to set up one of the air brushes and didn't fancy the clean up after so little work, so I sable brushed it.
     
    Job's a good-un!
    Dave
  18. Dave at Honley Tank
    Well! At long last the two new chassis are running acceptably.
    At least they are running far better then ever in their long history. On 'Birch Vale' they operate as well as my expectations. They are not so good on 'Bowton's Yard', but that is more due to my track making skills than my chassis making skills.
     
    When I was building 'Bowton's Yard' I deliberately used several track making methods in an effort to decide on what I thought to be the best method to suit my needs. Remember that this is a layout designed to use S4 track and wheel standards. I used ply-&-rivet with cosmetic white-metal chairs: working w-m chairs and cyano to ply; working plastic chairs and MEK on ply and PC board sleepers/timbers off-scene. I also tried steel rail as well as N-S rail. In fact it's a right hotch-potch. However the experience set me up nicely when I renewed all the track on 'Birch Vale' using steel rail on ply sleepers with plastic chairs, and MEK. The end result is that 'Birch Vale track is all that could be desired, but that hotch-potch that is 'Bowton's Yard should really have all the track-work renewed.
     
    'Bowton's is a freight only branch and the Gorton C13s were lovingly looked after and used almost exclusively on weekday, suburban passenger trains in the Manchester London Rd area, being rested or maintained over the weekend, when J10s, J11s, J39s or anything that was available, looked after the local traffic duty. Accordingly, my models work acceptably on the layout they were intended for. and had the Bowton's Yard branch really existed, C13s would have been very rare visitors (it's freight only!)
     
    Here's eight pictures that are various views of the new units with their cloths on and then some of the naked chassis (naughty or what?)
     
     
    No captions; If something is not obvious, then please ask on here.
     
     
    The C13's will now have a few weeks rest before detailing starts, because Honley Tank has agreed to start converting a Bachmann Lightweight DMU to
    S4 wheels ready to do occasional passenger service on 'Birch Vale'.
     
    Having already done a survey of this split-axle RTR unit, I can see why none of our wheel traders are offering a conversion kit! Looks to be an interesting challenge.
     
    More next time perhaps. Enjoy your modelling,
     
    Dave
  19. Dave at Honley Tank

    Pennine Snow

    By Dave at Honley Tank,

    Yes, we've had a fair bit of snow up here!
    I set off for Dean Hall (MMRS clubrooms) this a.m. and had to turn back as local roads increasingly were white covered as I climbed. OK at home, we're about 600'ASL, but within less than a mile from home I reach about 800' and by the time I reach the Pennine Way crossing of the Greenfield Road, perhaps three miles, we're at about 1500'. I gave up at about the 850' level, on new, wet, white snow, - with still well over thirty miles to go it seemed most prudent.
    I was supposed to be one of the tutors for a soldering course but there were to be two others so i'm sure i'll not be missed (except for Margaret's cakes!).
     
    'Honley Tank' - (the workshop) is still not seeing much of me, as the card cutting machine and the related CAD prog is commanding total attention.Margaret's craft room used to be the visitor bedroom and is nicely heated, and as the card cutter is for her use too, its installed in there, with a couple of laptops. Heating 'Honley Tank' is good but being electric it's rather expensive to run at a comfy working temperature. So I'm saving a bit of dosh in this cooler weather.
     
    These card cutters will, I'm quite sure, be an increasing part of our hobby in the modern digital world, Computer draws an item very accurately and the cutter cuts laminae material equally accurately, so many of the hand-eye coordinated skills become less important in producing your scratch built whatever.It's a fairly steep learning curve, particularly for the computer illiterate but I'm sure that, for me at least, it will lengthen my modelling life.
     
    In the 1970's I started on a project to scratch build a GCR 6-wheel brake van; more or less completed the body in plasticard but then got bogged-down trying to make a Cleminson-type underframe. I decided to restart this model and use it as the subject of my first attempt at a true modelling project based on the card cutting machine. I now have two new bodies, both better than that 1970's version but perhaps not yet quite what I wish to achieve.
     
    There's much more info about these machines elsewhere on rmweb - try a search on "Silhouette", - or feed in "topic 79025". i 've put some pics up there if you wish to see my progress.
     
    BFN,
    Dave
  20. Dave at Honley Tank
    I've hardly been in the workshop in the last week or two; I've been scrabling about on the computer and spending a lot of time on the web.
     
    Not quite as wasteful of time as one might think because I've been reading about CAM - computer aided modelling!
    Mr Christmas (Margaret) arrived early with a computer driven cutter and it has produced bits of immaculately scribed and cut styrene sheet which MEK allowed me to weld together; the result is:-

    Not too bad for a first attempt and using previously un-met programs.
    These cutters are going to introduce another approach to scratch building. Try searching 'Forums' with - "Silhouette" to see what is possible, but be prepared to use a lot of time!
     
    Dave
  21. Dave at Honley Tank
    Nearly a month since my last post, but this Christmas thing does interrupt modelling projects! Also the well being of the aged bodies of both my wife and I leaves something to be desired.
    However I certainly should take time to acknowledge Nick's input about cadstd; sorry for the delay Nick.
    I have used cadstd in the far distant past but was given a copy of CorelDraw X5 two or three years ago and I was directed to its use for producing drawings for an etching company who accepted .cdr drgs sent by e-mail (.cdr is the accepted CorelDraw std format).
    As I have a good few etching drawings saved and backed-up, all in .cdr format and as my version of CorelDraw has become corrupted, I decided to buy the least expensive version of CorelDrawX7 - 'Home & Student', only to later find that it did not save to the .dxf format needed by my card cutter. It was returned as unsuitable and I got my money back.
    However as all my etching drawings would be lost if I could not find a drawing program that opens .cdr files, (and that represents a lot of time and effort) I had some research to do. Eventually I found some one selling a genuine, and un-opened copy of CorelDraw X6 at a little bit more than I had paid for the returned disk.
    So my drawing problems are solved; at least as far as having a program I know quite well; a program that can open .cdr drawings (phew, still got my etching stuff!); and a program that can save drawings in a format that my card cutter can read.
    All I need now is to learn much more about the card cutter's abilities and to totally master how its program accepts .dxf files with no corruption.
    I posted a picture of the huts but the drawing files had been produced by following tutorials on here, using Inkscape ( not bad) or Studio3 which comes with the cutter(not so good). As neither of these would open my etching files I think that getting a working copy of what I know, was the correct approach.
    The first project with my new set-up is to be a styrene card body for a 6-wheel GCR brake van. Current position is:
    .cdr complete; saved in .dxf ; imported into Studio3; all scribed and cut, - but not as well as I expect!!
     
    Still a lot to learn.
     
    May all your modelling in this New Year be good.
     
    Dave
  22. Dave at Honley Tank

    Wo is me!

    By Dave at Honley Tank,

    Hello all,
    Sorry its been so long but various things have kept me away from this blog.
    The Silhouette cutter and all the problems of computer programs that refuse to talk to each other is slowly driving me up the wall.
    The drawing program that comes with the cutter is really of no use for the type of engineering drawings we use to draw for our scale models.
    Some people are managing to drive the cutter like a printer, direct from their chosen drawing program; I just can't get my set-up to do that.
    The Silhouette program is therefore needed to drive my cutter but it will read only a small number of drawing files and it will not read .cdr files produced by CorelDraw x7 family & student which I purchased for the purpose. The full version will, but 60ishGBPfor one and 600ishGBP for the full version puts the mockers on things some-what!
     
    Excuse me; I'm off to bash my brains some more
     
    Dave
  23. Dave at Honley Tank
    It’s over six weeks since I last posted and while the garden and domestic commitments have pinched a lot of time I’ve still achieved a fair bit of modelling.
    Mainly this has been layout and stock maintenance and repair. The work I carried out on the double slip on Bowton’s Yard got me in a track making frame of mind and caused me to add another road in Guidbridge hidden sidings which will make operation a little easier and stock/loco handling a little bit less.
    A small shuffle of the layout position allowed extending this hidden siding baseboard by eight inches and this made room for a B6 turn-out without loss of length on the main siding. The turn-out was built on the bench over a photo-copy of a Scalefour Society print but I used copper laminate to cut all the timbers and the toe has a sliding tie-bar also of PC board. It is hand operated because it’s so close to the main DCC panel so very little wiring was involved.
    The J10 and the O6 are now back in service and running smoothly thank you! But the O8 shunter threw up a short-circuit on its decoder and a new one has been fitted.
    Over the years since I went with DCC I have only had two decoders fail, one a Hornby and one a Bachmann and both in this loco! Strange that. The other strange thing is that this particular loco has several times reverted to the original address – 3 – that all decoders are delivered with. I can’t work out how this happens and I certainly have no idea what caused the reversal. Only this loco and only RTR company decoders! All very strange.
     
    This weekend was Expo EM North at Manchester. I stewarded both days but this involved no more than walking around the hall looking very important. (“Very important” translates to – “chatting to anybody and everybody who would listen”!). Margaret came too on Sunday and did at least one stint on the door, so one of us at least gave useful help. It’s always nice at these functions to meet old friends and perhaps make new ones. But perhaps it’s all just a ruse to be totally lazy on Monday with the excuse that you need to rest after such an exhausting weekend.
     
    I purchased a rolling road from a trader I had been unaware of; - Direct Train Spares of Burnley (see www.directtrainspares-burnley.co.uk). I’ve been intending to make a loco testbed for a few years but never got round to sourcing the bearings. This little unit is not only less expensive than other rolling roads I’ve seen but is exactly like the design that was in my head. A nice bit of engineering; well done Mr Direct Train Repairs! On the cost issue the rolling road sets are at a reduced price at exhibitions and you save postal charges too. They are at several exhibitions over the next few weeks so if you are in the market for such a useful device have a look at the web site and pick the show to go and sample.
     
    Father Christmas is going to bring me a book about LNER locomotives; those strange boxlike ones that were variously called EM1; EM2; tops75 (?) and tops 76(?). This means Bill Hudson went home richer and Margaret went home poorer!
     
    Last week I re-started on the two C13s and one is now running pretty nicely and later today will be the first loco to go on the new testbed. May take some pics. for next time.
     
     
     
    Enjoy your hobby,
    Dave
  24. Dave at Honley Tank
    Back again after a pause
     
    The weather warming up each spring tends always to a change in hobby activity at the Booth household. First, the garden starts to call for attention, and as the outside temperature rises it also becomes more comfortable to work on the layouts.
     
    These; ‘Birch Vale’, ‘Bowton’s Yard’ and ‘Wheegram Sidings’, all live in what is actually our garage which, while certainly being some-what up-market and much larger than the run of the mill garage, has only back-ground central heating and needs a few kWhs of electricity if it is to be heated to a comfy working/operating temperature in the colder months. The workshop section, (Honley Tank) is temperature controlled & never falls below 55F but rises to 70F if I’m in there. However none of my layouts will fit in there; - its barely big enough to accept me! (See pictures a few episodes ago).
     
    This year a halt was called on all current modelling projects so that when I needed a rest from garden work, I could carry out some much needed maintenance work on locos, stock and layouts. Particularly the layouts - they get a bit neglected in the colder part of the year!
     
    ‘Wheegram Sidings’ is the newest. Its also in EM but while the other two can be left fully in their running state, Wheegram needs the car out of the garage, its support brackets assembled, the baseboards unfolded, the electrics out of storage and plugged in, and, if it is to be viewed fully, a couple of items of removable ‘scenery’ need to come out of storage and be located correctly. Doesn’t take long but it’s a bit of a faff.
     
    ‘Birch Vale is the oldest of the three; it was first exhibited in the early/mid 80’s but it rarely needs any work beyond track cleaning and full dusting/vacking.
    ‘Bowton’s Yard’ is much newer and much more complex and when I was building it I was very experimental. Most rail is steel but with an odd piece of nickel-silver here and there (nobody has ever commented on the differing colour!).
     
    Some plain track is plastic sleepered flexitrack, the type where you thread on short sections of sleepering, but in between each sleeper section I interposed two or three ply sleeper/rivets because past experience of plastic track gauge-narrowing over time, does not allow me to trust it. In other sections I used ply-wood sleepers with C&L plastic chairs, using MEK to fix plastic to wood. Also, I used up a stock of white-metal working chairs stuck to ply sleepers with cyano.
     
    All pointwork was ‘ply & rivet’ bar one, which is an all-plastic Exactoscale. That one has given me more trouble than any other point but I can’t say why that is so. Certainly, I don’t like the permanence of plastic chairs welded to plastic sleepers; tweaking once the solvent has cured is virtually impossible!
     
    Tweaking is much easier with ‘wood and rivet’, but I have found that after several years it seems very easy to cause a rivet to become a sloppy fit in the
    timber due to the heat of the soldering iron when used for a minor tweak, causing slight burn of the plywood. Tweaking of plastic chairs on ply sleepers is fairly easy using a scalpel with a fairly blunt blade, this used more as a lever than a cutter!
     
    At the time of building, my plan was to use diverse methods of track making in an attempt to find that which I considered to be “ the best”. But what does “best” mean? Are we talking only about appearance? In that case surely it must be grey stained wooden sleepers with working chairs of correct bolting and chocking appearance. All with steel rail because it then looks like steel rail. But is it dimensionally stable? Will the steel corrode? What about soldering to steel? What about point-work? (At that time only plain track chairs & slide-chairs were available). And, how many viewers are astute enough to take on board this truth to reality, assuming that’s what it is!?
     
    Before I started building ‘Bowton’s Yard, I had virtually re-built ‘Birch Vale’; at least, the original track bed had been cut away and replaced with birch ply with a sleep mat foam underlay for the track. The track was as described in the last paragraph but with brass shim chairs and solder at strategic parts of the crossings, all the rail being steel. As stated at paragraph four it needs very little maintenance. However there are only two turn-outs!
     
    At the heart of ‘Bowton’s Yard’ is a 1:6 double slip and this was built with ply and rivet. From the beginning it was little better than “just about acceptable”, but I reckon that it worked as well as most home made point-work. Certain it is that probably 70 to 80 % of derailments on Bowton’s have occurred there. Having said that, derailment due to poor track has never been extraordinarily high. Considering that my track-building experience falls well behind my loco building experience, I’m fairly pleased with running on this layout.
     
    In the 1960/70s I was very much into copper laminate track and for me this is by far the easiest system and above all others it is very reliable and very tweakable! However it’s not perhaps as realistic in appearance as the more modern systems; but how many viewers actually notice?
     
    Can I ask that question again please? “How many viewers actually notice?”. Few of we finescale modellers have a depth of knowledge that can spot that missing rivet on a loco, and that wagon that has got brakes on one side only when the real one had double brakes, and that point has no slide chairs, and the rail chocks in that section of track are on the wrong side, and any way that particular rail company only used four bolt chairs. I’m sure that you can add to this list of silliness! None of us have that sort of total knowledge.
     
    One of my scratch-built locos has the correct number of impressed rivets on one of its lamp brackets. I made about twenty model brackets before I got one I accepted as correct and fitted it. The model needed another seven lamp brackets but my ability to impress rivets on these tiny items led me to decide that the rest would be rivet less! This model has won cups in competitions but not one judge has remarked on the lack of rivets! Nor has any other: -
    loco-man, keen modeller, casual viewer or close friend ever remarked on this failure of the model to be correct.- so much for the ability of viewers to see all.
     
    Where has all this babble been leading?
     
    Well, my best track system is still undecided. Without doubt the easiest for tweaking is copper-laminate, but plastic chairs stuck to ply sleepers with MEK are probably better to look at and still fairly easy to tweak, however I’m not sure that I could trust plastic-MEK-ply to give the needed robustness and easy tweakability at point crossings; for me those areas need to be soldered because my experience has shown that even though all has been held with reputedly accurate gauges an odd tweak of a couple of thou’s or so is nearly always needed for smooth running, as too is the close matching of back-to-back of all wheel sets.
     
    So, my faithful followers, that’s why I have not visited this blog for a few weeks; I’ve been busy philosophising and tweaking and feeling that I’d not much to say.
     
    Bowton’s Yard double slip seems now to be causing less de-railing, at least of that stock, which has had all its wheelsets, backed with my go/no go pair of gauges. However there are now sections of copper ‘timbers’ at the crossings, so the keen eyed and knowledgeable can point out to me that my blobs of solder are a poor imitation of real chairs! And I can say “***!!!****<>!!!<>***” or words to that effect.
     
    Have I set you thinking?
     
    Enjoy your hobby,
    Dave
  25. Dave at Honley Tank
    I’m back to virtually re-making this chassis. The wheels have been on-and-off their axles far too frequently for their good grip; nearly all the crank pins have been unseated; the wheel shifting has affected the electrical continuity between wheel rims and the stub axles; …..in fact throwing all in the bin and starting from scratch again would be easier.
     
    Of course, three total lock-ups of a working chassis should really be expected to produce a good amount of peripheral damage, and it certainly has. Inspection of the wheels aided by a 5X eye loupe showed a split on the circumference of the crank pin hole of one wheel and it was then obvious why that crank pin wanted to jump out at any opportunity! Worse still was that one of the close-by spokes was also somewhat wonky. I needed a replacement wheel.
     
    First thought was to make one, until I remembered why I had purchased plastic centred wheels when I first started to build this model. I was working on an LMS design & I have no knowledge or library of their locos so I had ‘phoned Alan Gibson and ordered a “set of 8F wheels please Alan; no axles, no crank pins, just a set of wheels”. Alan understands my individual approach to scratch building, or in this case, messing kits about to suit my needs.
     
    So too does Colin, (the present proprietor). So I phoned him and asked for one wheel for an 8F. Actually I had to leave a message because he was away on his stand at Expo EM. That meant a delay and my silly streak of determination therefore led to me working on a suitable repair to the broken wheel. Araldite, fuse wire and plastic padding, plus some unusual language, (I think it’s Russian that I start speaking when faced by trial and tribulation, or hammered thumb!), resulted in an acceptable repair that can be disguised by an excess of gunge on a hard working loco.
     
    The need to allow time for various mixtures of chemicals to cure and the need for a short rest from this apparently endless frustration had me looking in my “For Repair” box. I came across a couple of 2/- Airfix cattle wagons which had been built to OO before some of you were born, and decided to look at putting the bodies on modern, sprung underframes using my recently drawn & and etched wagon underframe “kit”. (See earlier posts.).
     
    This has resulted in a toing-&-frowing between the O6 and the cattle vans.
     
    My new Taig milling machine came into use with the latter because my wagon underframe gubbins needs a flat floor and the Airfix wagons have much of the underframe woodwork represented. My first intention was simply to mill away such protroudances but it proved to need much less skill to use the cutter to remove the centre of the floor, leaving a lip all way round the edges. Even then I was over-enthusiastic and almost milled away all the floor on one of them.
     
    I need a central screw fixing for my underframe unit & for these two wagons this is provided by a central 8BA hole tapped into a 24mm length of 1/2” x 1/32” BMS araldited inside the body:-
     

    The brass bit is packing to temporarily replace some more excesses of milling – went too far in thinning the solebar! The steel bit is clamping the central screw-fixing steel strap.
     

    And that steel strap is faced with 0.040” plasticard to give a fixing seat flush with the floor.
     
    At present they look like this:

     
    Oh! Colin (nee Gibson) did return my call and is sending me a new wheel free of charge. Nice man. Still I did order wheels to convert two Hornby, LNER L1s and a Bachmann J11, plus 20 axles of split-spoke wagon wheels which left little change from a century.
     
    What a frustrating and costly hobby; - think I’ll take up telly watching!!!!!!!!!
     
    Good luck,
    Dave
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