Dave at Honley Tank

Dave, I suppose one has to accept boredom if one sets out on silly projects like building five similar vehicles at one go. This week I'm trying to work out how to add the brakes. I can't fix as the kit intended because the sprung 'W' irons are in the way and any way the kit brakes are wrong for the LNER built versions and I'm only doing one of the BR version.. It looks like being a little brass bracket soldered either to the 'W'iron etch or the nickel-silver spine and then cyano, backed with araldite to the bracket, for each brake hanger/shoe unit - my own white metal casting for the LNER builds. They're clasp brakes, so two hanger/shoes to a wheel; 5 vehicles each with 4 wheels gives 40 little brackets to make and 40 tiny shoes to glue to the brackets and..... why the he** did I choose to do this? Oh yes! because it's my hobby. Trust all is well with you, and that Delph is making progress. I have a blog peep from time to time Dave

LNER Toad Ds had a lot of handrails and the BR built version had even more. On the model, each handrail requires two holes. There was not a small number of lamp brackets either, an absolute minimum of six in early days and I lost count for the BR version – (I’m only building one of those so I will count again when I get round to detailing it) Why do I know there are so many holes? – because I’ve been drilling the little blighters! And fitting the handrails. Each vehicle has at least 50 – 0.4mm diameter holes for handrails and lamp irons. Five vehicles; therefore 250 holes, plus a few more because of detail differences over the years. All five models will be slightly different one to the others. Not only are the holes to be drilled but they need marking out first, and that marking out needs to be accurate otherwise the various handrails will not match their mates just along the brake van side, the tops and bottoms of each set of h’rails need to be in alignment, not only with each other but with similar rails on that side. I made a drilling jig or template to try to ensure that alignment, and the rails have been bent using one of Bill B’s h’rail bending jigs – an absolute necessity if sanity is to be retained. So what has Honley Tank managed this week? It’s pushed my concentration levels to the limit and progress has felt to be sooooooo slow! Actually only one vehicle remains to have its h’rails fitted and they are all bent up ready to be pushed, melted, cyano’d in place. The rest are done; thankfully! I’m really quite pleased because I have managed to drill around 300 holes of 0.4mm diameter and did not break one drill. Each hole was drilled using only finger power and with only about 2.5mm of the drill extending out of the pin chuck. Truly, I’ve drilled a lot more holes than that but these were in the lathe. I decided that sprung buffers should be fitted on these Toads but the ready to run buffers are too expensive for my brain so the kit’s plastic buffers had their heads chopped off, their housings faced, centre drilled, drilled through 0.6mm and counter drilled 1.1mm for 4mm deep and Mr Gibson’s steel buffers and springs completed the job. That was a (questionably) enjoyable two to three hours of concentration. Yes the brain has certainly been bashed this week. May you too enjoy your modelling. Dave

I'm surprised at you Bill. You know as well as any one of us that the idea of using jigs is to ensure accuracy at the assembly stage without the person doing that assembly needing to be particularly skilled. Simply stated, jigs = accuracy; always assuming that the jigs are accurate! The fact that my friends went to the trouble of having some spines etched was driven by the need for the Slattocks team to build goods wagons by the hundered and the need that each wagon must be a good runner irespective of the skill level of the wagon builder. The fact is that however complicated you may see what I have tried to describe, if the (your!) W irons are temporarily doweled to a spine then they will be held firmly square, parallel and on wheelbase leaving all hands free for the soldering job; no measuring, no marking out, low skill level. "Don't you use straight solebars on your wagons?" I use the solebars that come with the kit! "If both w-iron units are square to at least one of the solebars won't the axles be parallel? " Yes but I need the skill to make them square to the solebars! I said in an earlier post that I had made jigs individually as needed; I could add "before yours or Brassmaster's were available"

Thanks David, Yes I made similar jigs to those from Brassmasters et al as and when I required them i.e. made one for ten foot then perhaps for a 9'6" etc, but they are certainly not fool-proof

My mentors taught me to build locos with split axle current collection and to spring those axles downwards. Its simple model engineering and is, in my view at least, easier than beams all over the place. So perhaps I can be said to be totally in favour of springing, certainly for locos. Building locos is where I get the most pleasure and rolling stock tends to be “one of those things you need but……†None the less, as now, I occasionally go off into a rolling stock building spree just for a change. There tends to be less model engineering with wagons and things, particularly if one is building them based on plastic kits. When I first started building to P4 standards the word was that all wagons needed compensation and there was much addo about three-legged-stools. So I used the rocking W iron system that had become available due to this then new-fangled etched brass system of parts production. This three-legged thing I saw as being brilliant, because with the old solid axle system it was difficult to ensure axles were level and parallel and that all wheels sat on the track. No vehicle will run well if those three conditions are not met. The last condition occurs naturally with rockers, and the axles also find a position that is supposed to keep the body from rocking, however it is still down to the builder to get the axles parallel. Done well the idea is good, but doing it well does demand a rigorous skill level, particularly in ensuring parallelism, and, dependent on the quality of the track, compensation is not the must that was being inferred in those far off days. I have quite a good number of kit built wagons on which I arranged for the axles to be minutely sloppy between their bearings and they all perform admirably on my far from perfect track work; - wobbly wheel system! The first springing system I used was ‘Masokits’. I used his system on one wagon and one coach. A bit complicated, a bid fiddly, but parallel axles are built-in and both vehicles run very well. Next, along came Mr Bedford, (are you there Bill?) and to compare with Masokits this design is quite simple and not quite as fiddly but leaves you to sort out the parallel axle bit and please believe me, without parallel axles, running will always be doubtful at very best. I had decided to use Bill’s system on all future builds, mainly based of its simplicity, and I had done a few before my brain began thinking in terms of that parallel problem. Now in my early engineering training one thing seemed to crop up time and time again – the art of good engineering design is to copy but improve on a proven design; so why not apply Masokits method of achieving parallel axles to Bill’s simple, sprung W iron units? I now mount Bill’s completed W iron units on a central spine of 0.018†nickel silver but the spine is jig drilled so as to allow dowel location of the W irons such that they are exactly on wheelbase centres and truly parallel to each other. When thus located the W irons are soldered to the spine. This has also been jig drilled for dowel location to the vehicle floor and for a central hole to allow screw fixing to the floor. A friend at Manchester MRS (www.palatinemodels.co.uk) had some standardised spines etched for me to save on the jig drilling and these are now available to all. Starting the project to build five Toad Ds I found that I had no etched spines in stock so I fabricated some from 0.018 nickel-silver, using my original drilling jigs. This series of photos should explain it all much better than words:- This one shows the spine with two Bill Bedford sprung W irons soldered to it. The two smaller holes on Bill’s etches were used to dowel the W irons to the spine prior to soldering, ensuring all is square and on correct wheelbase due to the matching dowel holes in the spine. The cosmetic chassis needs a flat bottom on which the kit’s under-frame will be mounted and, for the version with inside ballast weights, the top plate needs to be thinner than that provided in the kit, which represents the concrete slabs. This top is a 0.030†thick strip laminated to a 0.060†thick stiffener. Kit parts are welded to the top plate and the stiffener fits inside the solebar-headstock assembly. The steps have been shortened and while the kit MEK-welding points are used, strength is added by the 0.45†diameter rods araldited to the central vertical straps and pushed into holes drilled into the bottom of the solebars. The model’s ballast weight is also shown here. It also acts as a nut to hold all four parts together! This one shows how the full model is assembled from four parts. Here can be seen the 8BA screw which holds the spine to the running plate; to the body floor and to the ballast weight, clamping all three together after they are correctly located by dowels. Looking from above and showing the ballast weight. In running condition the model weighs about 2.5 ounces A side view of the near complete model is shown here And finally a comparison of my version with the Bachmann version.

I am about to edit this morning's input with D for E

Quite true Bill, thanks for pointing it out; just a case of me being too lazy to check, and using the logic that the one with platforms came after the one without, and D comes before E so the later one's an E. Yes Derek but I got mine from either Charlie's or Arcadia at Ashton (That's the Co-op, or was, not Arcadia at Shaw)! Sorry every body else; - a local joke. Regards both, Dave

A couple of weeks ago Honley Tank was visited by friends from the Bodger's Brow team and I had all three layouts up and running; that's Birch Vale & Bowton's Yard, which are S4 track & wheel standards, and Wheegram Sidings which is EM. This quickly threw up the fact that I had insufficient brake vans to run all three at the same time, particularly so for the S4 layouts. So as a rest from that awkward Crab conversion, I decided on a mass production of LNER style brake vans. Now that raises what I consider some interesting facts which came up when, a few years ago, I came to convert some old Rosebud/Kitmaster BR brakes that I had built to OO gauge in the early 60's. When I built the OO versions I thought that BR had simply copied the LNER design, so I simply built the kits as per instructions, but with metal wheels rather than the kit's plastic ones, but then I painted and lettered them in LNER livery. Years later when I came to put 18.83 wheels on these, I did more thorough research which showed my 1960s thoughts to be incorrect. These were, incidentally, original Rosebud kits that had cost me the princely sum of two shillings (10p today)! The biggest visual distinctions between LNER and BR builds are the LNER's shorter steps, - they stop about halfway along the outer platforms, - and the double brake shoes of BR compared to very long, single shoes on the LNER version. Also, earlier LNER Toad Ds did not have visual weights on the outside platforms. Ballast weighting was originally by cast iron weights in the body or underframe but this was changed to concrete slabs on the platforms as the war effort claimed prior demand on iron. All LNER owned Toad Ds were vacuum braked - (not sure about BR; can any one confirm?). however the LNE built quite a large number with only hand braking, but these were purchased by the Cheshire Lines Committee. It is therefore possible to have a whole array of Toad Ds but each one being different to the others, and that is my aim in this project: 1. Short steps; no weights; no vac. brake; long brake shoes; grey livery; ex CLC. 2. Short steps; no weights; vac. brake pipes; brown body white roof; ex LNE. 3. Short steps; weights; vac. brake pipes; long brake shoes; brown body; white roof; ex LNE. 4. Short steps; weights; vac. brake pipes; long brake shoes; brown body; brown roof; BR (with ex LNE number). 5. Long steps; weights; vac. brake pipes; double brake shoes; brown body; brown roof; BR number. There are two others possible but a bit more research is needed. I'm sure that the LNER concrete weights did not have the inner corners missing as did the BR ones. These give access to bolts holding body to running gear~(? I think?), but I can't find them on pics of LNER builds. BR may have built them without vac brakes and these may have been in grey livery. The kit is still available from Dapol and is listed at £5.50. A snip if you want to get involved in this type of kit modification and, in my view easier and more fun than trying to modify Bachmann's efforts. Oh! Their LNER version has the wrong brakes! That's enough for now. Next time I'll relate how I gave the five guard's vans a sprung chassis.

Hi, My method which I developed after some bloke said to do it by siting the spokes. I could not believe that doing that could possibly be accurate enough because of parallax - two eyes seeing slightly different views. I use a very fine marker pen ~(superfine OHP)~ and make a fine line on the tyre of the wheel, over the flange and onto the coned running part. On each right hand wheel the line is in line with the spoke which has the crank pin (or the one to the right if the crank pin is between spokes). For the left hand wheels the mark is above the spoke nearest to 90 degrees anti-clockwise from the crank pin. To quarter, gently twist the wheels on their axle until the two lines are opposite each other. Job done! On one of my entries, "Another RTR conversion at Honley Tank", there are photos which show the quartering marks on a pair of wheels. Good luck with it. Dave

No Mick. I only changed one axle and not the one with the final gear. Two axles ran perfectly in their alloted space, it was the rear axle that was sloppy. Currently I have the idiotic situation of a loco with three driving wheel axles one of 1/8" dia and two at 3mm dia and all three snugly sitting in the chassis. The original axle and my first replacement were 3mm and were sloppy; the new 1/8" axle is a nice running fit. Poor work on Bachmanns part or they know something I don't! Regards, Dave

The Goons sang about walking backwards for Christmas! That's how I feel about my progress with the Crab conversion; not exactly backward but pretty well stationary over this last few days. I have it running very near as well as I find acceptable - in forward gear! - but swing it in to reverse and the thing's as lumpy as mother-in-laws gravy. Normally I would blame poor relation between wheel centres and coupling rod holes, and/or, bad quartering of the wheels. It can be none of those. It worked OK as OO with the same chassis, the same wheels and the same coupling rods, and I have checked and re-checked the quartering. The original Bachmann axles were 3mm diameter and were replaced by EM length 3mm ones but I did notice that the rearmost axle was a bit sloppy in its slot, with too much fore and aft movement. Obviously I had found the problem. "Obviously"- nothing! I checked that a 1/8" axle sat the slot comfortably and it did, so I made a new axle from 1/8" silver steel and re-assembled the chassis. Absolutely no change in the running. I have now used every swear word I know and made up another half dozen, but the thing will not run smoothly in reverse. For the time being and particularly for my sanity, the model is currently in the "Try again later Dave" box. So I will this week tell you about my method of EM-ing Bachmann driving wheels. On all such drivers that I have inspected, and certainly on the K3 and the Crab, each driving wheel has a short boss around the axle hole on the wheel's rear face. I tried chucking a wheel on this small boss and found that my three-jaw chuck would just not hold it. On the wheels I have, these bosses are about 1/8"in projection and ¼" in diameter and while the three-jaw would just not grip them, a ¼"collet would. Even then the grip was minimal but with a newly sharpened tool and very shallow cuts, I was able to skim off the required amount and get a wheel that was 0.090" thick and with the spokes, balance weight (part of the wheel casting) and the front axle bosses, skimmed by the same amount, the wheel becomes a good profile for EM. The job has to be approached with rather more gentleness than one associates with a machine like the Myford ML7 and I admit that on more than one occasion I succeeded in flicking the casting out of the collet. However I quickly realized that those occasions had all been achieved when I tried to quicken up the progress by taking deeper cuts. Keeping the cuts to no greater than 0.002" allowed the job to be completed to fruition. I decided that to re-use the Bachmann plastic, top-hat bushes that insulate the all-metal wheels from the chassis, and matching the turned down ends of the original axles, was a better proposition than making new insulated bushes on a plain axle. This was very possibly an error because I have come to think that the lumpy running problem may be due to one of the wheels on the motorised axle not being truly square to its axle and the very slight wobble is producing a virtual length change of that axle's centre line. When I have had a few hours of more successful modelling on some other project I'll come back to the Crab and solve its problems. Mean while I'm going to build a few wagon kits.

Hello Alastair, Your very kind! The biggest of the buildings, the right hand end of which is behind the J11 & the LH in front of the austerity, is a model of a real mill, but the prototype is in stone and is/was a woolen mill, while the model is supposed to be a Lancashire cotton mill in red brick with stone trimmings. The building labelled "Brock Mill" is a three building complex which was built to fit the site. The road up to the yard passes through this complex which also includes a mill yard and an enclosed over-bridge building that crosses the railway to the third building of the complex. This overbridge was designed to disguise the exit to the Stalybridge hidden sidings/Summers works. These three buildings used the Scalescenes kit for a three story factory but the parts were much modified to suit the site. The J11 was my first, all-metal scratch built loco and runs on my first scratch built split axle chassis. Its pushing toward 30 years old and the only purchased items were the Portescap motor/gear train, Gibbson all metal wheels and the handrail knobs. I should have mentioned the disused coach. That body was set down there to see how such a feature would look. As a model of a GC lavatory composite its too good to be used for that job; I'm looking for a scrap 'Thomas the Tank engine' coach body to sit there, - suitably modified of course. Thanks for your interest and kind comments, Dave PS I was married at the church that is across the road from Guidebridge station. (Too many years ago to talk about though!!!!)

Last week I did not report how I was converting the Bachy Crab, because I had done no trial running. I'm afraid that is still the case! I've just left the workshop in frustration after dropping so many clangers that todays progress has been negligible. So this week's input to the blog that started so as to report progress on a new EM layout, will be a series of photos of 'Bowtons Yard'. This is a freelance S4 layout which is based on distorting the history of John Summers & Sons, the steel makers who moved from Stalybridge in Cheshire to Hawarden near the Welsh border, close to Chester. The plant is still there today but under what name and if still producing steel, I know not. Summers almost certainly moved to Chester because of very poor rail access at the Stalybridge site which was known as Globe Iron Works. All of that is true. In my distortion of history, John Summers joined forces with the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway to build a single line goods only branch from Dukinfield station, (near Guidebridge). In order to make this branch more financially viable, and because a good flat site was available in the district known locally as 'Tame Valley', about half way along the route to Summer's plant, a small goods yard with warehouse and coal drops was built and came to be known as Bowtons Yard. Here we are looking towards Stalybridge, with our back to the Great Central warehouse. The buildings are all scratch built to fit the site and are made from down-loaded brick papers etc purchased from 'Scalescenes'.=: - an excellent range. They all follow typical Lancashire cotton mill designs and are several stories high acting as a three-dee backscene. The land contours lent themselves to allow a few coal drops which the local coal merchants are happy about. The road is the vehicular access to the warehouse; at the bottom of the slope is a road tunnel which gives access to the yard proper. These two shots show us the GC shed which shelters the exit to 'Guidebridge' hidden sidings from normal view. One of many horse drawn vehicles comes out of the darkness of the road which tunnels under the railway after passing through a valley of 'dark satanic mills'. Same horse & cart but a view showing the relationship of road and rail. This shows the road tunnel entrance to the yard. An ex GC 'Pom-pom' waits for a road. The larger mill, less than half of it in this view, is a scale model of 'Globe Worsted Co's mill at Slaithwaite but Lancashire-ised by being in red brick rather than York stone. Same again, different angle. Looking towards Guidebridge and showing most of the layout. The loco is a J72 which is totally silly, no such loco would have come so far south and west !! But they were delightful little engines, so I have to have one. This one was based at York during the period depicted. A W-D in LNER livery waits for the shunter to assemble its train. The sloping road entry to the yard out of the road tunnel is also shown here. That's it for now, I hope to get back to the Crab next time. Have a good modelling weekend, Dave

Thanks for the interest Tim. I'll be expanding shortly, but I thinned the crab drivers by mounting them on the tiny little spiggot -(or rear wheelboss) , in a 1/4" collet in my Myford ML7. There's negligable length, but with slow cutting and no greater depth of cut that 0.0025" and a sharp tool I managed them all. I can't think that this boss is definitely concentric with the tyre but that does not matter so much if only facing does it? Regards Dave

This week Honley Tank had a day’s visit of two of the ‘Bodgers Brow’ group, Arnold and Arthur, who had a good long shunting session on ‘Wheegram Sidings’ and happily for me, it performed better than I expected, even though that red button problem on the mimic (see an earlier post), did cause one or two hiccups! I think the “S4†and the DCC perhaps frightened them away from ‘Birch Vale’ and from ‘Bowton’s Yard’ because neither had a shunt on those two. After their visit I decided to leave weighting of the K3 for a while, and indeed also the fitting of brake gear, because I have a Bachmann ‘Crab’ to convert and I reasoned that the similarity of this model’s design to that of the K3 would allow me to look at adding weight via lead cosmetic frames, and I also had some ideas to try on modifying the Bachmann keeper plate which also carries the brakes and the pick-ups. As the K3 and the ‘crab’ share the same design of this unit, then if I made it work for the ‘crab, then I could do the same retrospectively for the K3. Another decision was to look at the possibility of modifying Bachmann drivers rather than purchasing new wheels for these conversions. I had been able to re-use the Bachmann pony and tender wheels on the K3 so simply thinning the Bachmann wheels to the EMGS recommended thickness of 0.090†has been proven to work on three different EM gauge layouts. I had an idea how the drivers could be easily machined, without having to make a suitable split-chuck to hold them. Ideas are all very well but attempting to put them into practice very often proves them to be unworkable. So this week’s work in ‘The Tank’ has been very experimental; but at this moment the ideas all seem to be very workable. All the ‘crab’s’ Bachmann wheels have been EM’d, and the keeper plate has also been successfully modified. Trial running stage has yet to be reached so at this stage I will not enlighten you all about those ideas. More, with photos in a few days time. May your modelling produce much pleasure, Dave

Well the K3 went over to Lincolnshire and had a few miles running in on ‘Retford’, with thanks to Mr. Jackson. I was very pleased that it performed near perfectly; at least it ran smoothly and without derailment. However this simply proves that my first attempts at scratch-building EM track were far from good enough, because the near perfect running on ‘Retford’ compares with no better than ‘just about acceptable running’ on ‘Wheegram Sidings’! The other problem shown up on the visit to Retford’ was that while the K3 started its 11 coach train on the flat, as soon as adverse gradients were tackled there was an unacceptable amount of slipping, but only on the steepest accent, which is also on a curve, did the loco slip to a standstill. Even then, more cautious driving kept the train under-way on later circuits. All quite pleasing. On my layout the K3 will never need to cope with such loads but I shall look at adding as much weight as possible over the drivers because when it does go a-visiting, the K3 will be expected to do typical K3 work! Both the J72 and the J50 also had a good shunt at ‘Retford’, and again performed better there than at home. Either a tribute to Roy’s track making skills or a condemnation of mine!?! There is no doubt that I must improve the point work at ‘Wheegram’. Some regular visitors here may be wondering about the J94 which was my first EM conversion. Well it has been over to Lincolnshire on previous visits and proved its self on Geoff Kent’s ‘ Blakeney’. So my first four EM locos have performed very acceptably on high quality layouts. All that’s now needed is for me to get my track building skills improved. I am wondering if, when building the EM points for ‘Wheegram’, I took the attitude that “ these are only EM and there’s much more latitude compared to S4â€. I will ensure much more care second time round.

Our Grand-daughter’s 18th birthday party, plus a few days bed & breakfasting in North Yorkshire means less modelling than usual has been achieved in the last couple of weeks. A few hours have been spent test-running and tweaking the K3 conversion. Two problems caused less than the quality of running I aim for. The first is the care needed in adjusting the Bachmann scraper pick-ups to reach out to the new gauge but also run on the rear of the steel tyre of the Gibson wheels. Bending them out to new gauge is no great problem but this has the effect of shortening their radial sweep such that the collection point falls on the plastic part of the wheel. Won’t pick up much electrikery there! Quite possible to achieve correct positioning but it does demand care, and in my view description needs a little more than the normal “…I adjusted the pick-ups..†The second was my own silly fault. Originally I made no effort to limit axle side-play in the pony truck. It ran without problem but when the Alex Jackson coupling was fitted to the truck, the large amount of side-play caused poor coupling performance, - the coupling wire hardly ever road along tack centre line. – Idiot! The idiocy continued because I measured the side-play, subtracted a few thous and divided by two. I then turned up a couple of spacing washers to that measurement (0.068†if memory serves). What I missed was the fact that there are moulded spring and axle box detail on the outside faces of the truck and while the rear bush on the wheels is small enough to clear these, my new spacers were not. The result was that with the wheels correctly backed and clipped back into running position, there was too little clearance for free running. Unfortunately I did not pick-up on this, because the wheels did turn by hand, however when on the loco they sat quite steady, sledging along the rail, but only occasionally rolling. Not much use for guiding through point work! Luckily I have collets at these sizes and the 0.068†was thick enough to allow gripping in a collet while facing off 0.016†to give me 0.052†spacers. The loco is now performing to a good standard on my rubbish track of ‘Wheegram Sidings’ and one day next week is off to deepest Lincolnshire for a running in session on Retford. Next is a Bachmann ‘Crab’.

Thanks for your kind comments Poggy

Nice to see that some progress is being made Dave. Because it's our grand-daughters 18th on the 12th I'm sorry we won't see you at Roy's - big family party. Regards, Dave

The K3 conversion is complete. At least the engineering bit is complete; the re-numbering and early BR totem, plus a bit of weathering, remains to be done. Although I've done a fair bit of lathe work on this one, I think it can be described as an easy conversion for any one willing to buy and assemble a new set of valve gear and a set of Gibson wheels. I wasn't! Years ago, just after Bachmann introduced the W-D, I converted one of those, and reported back that it was not such an easy conversion without the help of a lathe. The K3 was very similar. In both cases my reluctance to spend more cash meant that I wanted to retain the Bachmann coupling rods and valve gear, they are after all commendable bits of modelling. Unfortunately the crank pins of the Bachmann wheels are of much larger diameter than those we modellers normally use and which are readily available from various traders. I have been told that now-a-days Gibson retail a set of brass bushes with which to bush the Bachmann rods, but I have no experience of these I turned up a new set of crank pins of a diameter to match the Bachmann ones. (dimensional info. in sketch below). I went much further with the lathe work for the K3 as compared to the W-D because, apart from the drivers, I re-used the Bachmann pony and tender wheels. However these were thinned down from the Bachman 0.120" thickness to the EMGS suggested 0.090". Assuming you have a good set of step chucks, or you make a suitable pair of same, then skimming 0.030" of the wheel front is a doddle and for EM there is not the need to reduce the flange height; P4 would offer a greater challenge, - but that's not rare! The pony needed a new axle ( 2mm silver-steel ) but I re-used the tender axles. The driving wheels could also be done like the others but the crank pin boss would need re-building after skimming so I chose to use Gibsons. Unfortunately the Bachman wheels are a bit under-sized (but within normal wear limits), while the Gibson replacements are spot on size for a brand new wheel. The difference is not far short of 1mm and it results in the Gibson flanges gently rubbing on the Bachmann running plate, and as this is metal, intermittent short-circuiting does not allow good running!!! I raised the body with some 0.030" plasticard packers but this also raises the buffer centres; I think within tolerance, but events may prove me wrong. The chassis width (across frame outer faces) is of course too narrow, leading to excessive wheel side play. On the W-D I made cosmetic main frames to cope with that problem, but because there is some lovely detail on the K3 frames I decided on spacing washers this time. The driven (middle) axle had 0.078" of washer (3 washers supposed to be 0.040 +0.020 +0.020!?!), and this is giving about 0.010" play. These washers are on the gear wheel side, the position of the gear wheel helping the limitation. The front axle being between the cylinders must have its side play fairly tightly controlled too; -this has a total of 0.060" on one side and 0.070" on the other and feeler gauges suggest there is now 0.006" play. Because of the valve gear those amounts of side play are about as sloppy as we dare go without having fouling problems. I may have gone a bit too far in restricting the rear axle to 0.015" play, with 0.1" on one side and 0.090" on the other. Test running on my EM layout has been OK but on Arnold Bellfield's '˜Bodgers Brow' the K3 was not too happy on the tighter turn-outs. The sketch and pics show the new crank pins

For those who viewed my last input prior to this morning I've tidied up the picture/word relationship now so you may like a second viewing. There have been two articles about 'Birch Vale' published in the model press and those with access to a magazine archive may wish to read an article by Maurice Daniels in Railway Modeller, May 1968 and one by a certain D.Booth in British Railway Modelling, April 2000. Enjoy.

I promised some pics. of my layout ˜Birch Vale' so here is a selection. First, can I say that ˜Birch Vale' is getting rather long in the tooth! It was first exhibited way back in 1968 having been built by Maurice Daniels in OO gauge. When Maurice moved house he could no longer house his layout and he put it in my keeping in order that it should not be destroyed. With Maurice's agreement I changed the track to P4 and later to S4, slightly extended the scenic section and added more complete hidden sidings. Maurice and I had met when we were both researching the Hayfield Branch, he for Birch Vale & me for the terminus at Hayfield. My model of Hayfield was also exhibited in 1968, but while Maurice had used Peco code 100 track, I had scratch built track onto copper laminate sleepers and with code 70 rail. While my track looked more convincing than his, the quality of his buildings and scenery showed mine was in need of much improvement! None the less while still OO the two layouts were exhibited several times coupled together by a set of hidden sidings such that the joined layout was a reasonable representation of the whole branch. ˜Hayfield' was broken up in the early eighties to make room for a new P4 layout which in fact never saw light of day! (Walk before you run Booth). This picture shows Birch Vale in its every-day home setting. When exhibited the space between back-scene and proscenium arch is draped with a cloud effect material. The layout just in view below Birch Vale is another S4 creation but while BV is a true scale model of the real place, Bowton's Yard is a fictitious branch running from Guidebridge to John Summers and Sons steel works at Stalybridge. Note that only the branch is fictitious; but more about that story in future posts. Most of what you see here was created over 40 years ago by Maurice. I've added a large tree to cover a joint in the back-scene; the three ladies chatting, and a couple of coalmen having a good old 'rabbit'. . Here the camera lens has been pushed through the hole in the back-scene that leads to the hidden sidings or ˜New Mills'. The shrubbery to the right hides this hole from the view of the public. The mess at centre top is the main electrical distribution box for the railway room-workshop-garage that is Honley Tank, and the end of the stock-box which represents the hidden sidings or ˜Hayfield'. Sorry, my Photo-shopping skills don't run to a clean up. A K3 has just come through that hole from New Mills and is rolling onto the over-bridge which is at the end of the platform. The buffer stop, 7-plank wagon and the two coalmen are my work but the road vehicle was built by Maurice. Pity about the loss of the top part of the weighing scales! This loco has history too. The body is essentially a Rosebud plastic kit from the late 1950s. I built it on a OO chassis and it worked (badly!!!!) on ˜Hayfield'. Its S4 chassis is split axle and beam compensated with Portescap drive; a silky runner but noisy like most Portescap locos. It's a model of a genuine LNER J94 originally delivered to Gorton in army livery and with its M.O.S number. It was sheded at Gorton for most of its LNER/BR years. It’s rush hour! The LNWR dray was built by Ross Pochin, as too was the one coming up the slope. That going down is by John Langan and the black taxi is by me. The bridge is showing its age. One has to wonder if Birch Vale was ever so busy in real life! The length-man team are being instructed on their day’s duty by the gaffer in his bowler hat. Another that should be Photo-shopped. Looking from Hayfield end towards New Mills. The dark hole to the left is the door into Honley Tank proper. The layout has several little cameos and at exhibitions we feature a quiz to test the kiddies observation. Strangely it’s usually mum & dad who take up the challenge. Here the scouts are pushing their trek cart over the last yards to where they will camp. Obviously the patrol leader is a train spotter! The shepherd is seeing a dozen sheep down to the farm and is more than ready for his evening meal. Yet another for Photoshopping. The J39 is a total scratch build, only the motor and the gear wheels where purchased. Of course it was shedded at Gorton!

I really should put something in this blogg rather more frequently than monthly! Trouble is that I started the blogg so as to report progress with my venture into EM and the building of a super-light-weight layout, but that venture is a very small part of my hobby activities and over the last few weeks EM modelling has been low on the list of those activities. I have however started on converting a Bachmann K3 to EM. My idea was to limit EM to converting RTR locos and stock ,but to continue scratch building locos to S4 track and wheel standards for as long as my aging body can manage such engineering dexterity. However If I am to report here on a more frequent basis I will have to resort to telling you of my other hobby related activities. One such is a few days break in the Yorkshire Dales from which Margaret & I have just returned. We stayed with a friend made via Scalefour Society membership and another web forum. The B&B called "Bottom Chapel" at Askrigg is run by Ian Everett and his good lady Betsy and with three layouts on which to play trains is a very suitable destination for any railway modeller. It is down to Ian that I have decided to modify my inputs here as he had been looking for photographs of my layout 'Birch Vale'. Accordingly when I have posted this I shall be off with the camera and will later post some new picks

It's over a month since I last posted on here so I should perhaps give an update. The new layout, first referred to in "EM at Honley Tank", has been in store since I thought I had solved my servo problems. Partly this is because spring time re-awakens the garden so that the greenhouse needs cleaning and tidying, seeds need sowing to propagators, lawns need mowing etc.etc.; - all jobs I enjoy almost as much as modelling, (but I may be telling lies!). Partly too, this has been because my two S4 layouts, locos and stock were in much need of some TLC. Another time-taker was Scalefour North at Wakefield, at which, while I'm no longer in the Scalefour Society, the present day organising team are still willing to have Margaret & I on the stewards roster. Time-taker certainly, but very enjoyable time and both of us were happy to again meet old friends and make some new ones. With all of that, 'Wheegram Sidings' has seen negligible activity for some few weeks and there has been little on which to report. Easter Monday saw the layout unfolded and set up for running. Pleasingly this was achieved in less than ten minutes and I was able to partake of some train playing. However this shunting session showed up several areas that need tweaking. The double slip is less than perfect with more than one tight spot and at least an equal number of loose spots; - most irritating to an operator. It was also irritating to find that two of the three locos converted to EM wheel standards performed at a level below my expectation and will have to be re-shopped. The J50, which has scraper pick-up on the outer wheels needs an improved current collection system because it loses its connection to the track much too frequently for smooth slow running, and I appear to have managed to get one wheel of the J72 less than perfectly square to its axle; a fault which high-lighted the tight/loose points on the double slip! Even more irritating was the realisation that my solution to the servo problem was not quite as clever as I had originally thought. The push-button that I had added to the electrical supply to the 'Servo4' board did the intended job perfectly, but what I had not foreseen was that double-pole change-over switches that switch the individual servos, also switch the lights on the mimic panel. These latter show the selected route on the mimic track plan and make setting the double slip roads some-what easier than without this indication. Indeed this was the very reason that I moved from simple hand-operation of the points to a point-motor system, I needed an illuminated mimic diagram to help me correctly set the double slip! Because the lights on the mimic panel have a different electrical supply to that for the servos, the push-button switch has absolutely no effect on the lights; - only the servos. Accordingly it is now possible to operate the point switches (levers) and the relevant LEDs light up to show the chosen route, but the route is not set until the push-button is pressed. I found it very easy to forget that all-important pressing! Those little grey cells will need to be re-applied to this little problem, - or they will need a good talking to and instructed to stop forgetting things. (Some hope there then!)

As comment on my 8 March input under “Servo Motors as Point Operatorsâ€, ‘Penlan’, referred to problems of setting his system. While ‘Penlan’ described his problem as related to changes in his mechanical linkage system due to the changeable conditions we meet under exhibition conditions, I considered that the problems I met were caused more by the servo being pulled from its true set position by the drag of the point tie bar. Certainly I had more trouble with the double slip where the point motor is required to pull on a tie bar that actually carries four blades rather than the normal two. That said, the servos on the normal points did not seem to maintain their set positions on anything approaching a consistent basis. However my assumptions that there was indeed a problem came about because the offending servos, when supposedly at their set position, emitted mechanical noise. To me that suggested that the servo’s motor was still running and struggling to hold set position. I am reliably informed (by the MERG member responsible I think, for the Servo4 design) that the noise is caused by some electronic interference generally called “noise†by electronic techies, and that this is in some way caused by other cables adjacent to the ‘Servo4’ wiring. I was also told that it could be controlled by adding capacitors, but frankly, to me, that is introducing further bits and pieces to something I am already struggling to understand. What I am looking for, and I’m sure, so too are many other railway modellers, is a point operator or motor to which I add some wiring and it works, I don’t wish to change my hobby to being an electronic expert! The MERG ‘Servo4’ system is, I believe, as close to that requirement as has yet been achieved. It’s a bit unfortunate that this “noise†thing seems to be causing us non-techies some problems. I suppose I should admit to being a ‘techie’, but my engineering background is in heavy current electrical engineering as applied to heavy mechanical engineering and to electrical distribution. In fact the semi-conductor industry we know today did not develop until after I qualified, so as far as modern day electronics is concerned I don’t rate “techieâ€. None the less, my electrical knowledge allows me to make some decisions and to have at least a vague understanding of what is happening on my layout. I have to say that I’m doubtful about the reason for my mechanical noise being caused by some form of electronic ‘noise’. This is because if I ignore these sounds, then eventually the whole system stops working and I am unable to change any point. I’m now fairly confident that this failure is due to the chip in the Servo4 board having some type of thermal sensing circuit which closes the chip down if the chip suffers a temperature rise which would eventually cause its destruction. That suggested to me that those servos emitting noise are taking a current which is beyond the chip’s continuous rating. What ever is the cause, having the point control system switch off without warning is a situation which is totally unsatisfactory, whether at an exhibition or simply at home ‘playing trains’. To over-come this problem I added a normally open push-button switch to the 9V ac input to the ‘Servo4’ board, such that the whole system is only energised when the push-button is held down. This is working very well, but it is still a bit early to claim that I have found an answer. Hold the button down, operate the point switch and wait until the blades have moved slowly into position before releasing the button. With that simple addition it is impossible for any part of the point changing system to be taking electric current unless the push-button is held down, yet, at least in my experience, the servos hold the position you asked for and the point stays changed! Now you know what that push-button to the top right-hand of the mimic diagram is for.