Nick Mitchell

Part 11 is a bumper episode, featuring the assembly of the bogie frames and fitting the bogie pivot to the main frames. https://youtu.be/R3mtfKhrc7c

Hot on the heels of Part 9 comes Part 10, in which I finally get round to making the Simpson springs. Incidentally, there is a wire works in Wokington called Simpson Springs. Forget Northern Wire - this would make a great lineside industry. Then there's the Simpson Spring bottling plant in Massachusetts... https://youtu.be/hthbUxasRhs

Part 9 is here at last, where I'm demonstrating how to attach the tender drawbar support bracket to the rear frame spacer without unsoldering it from the frames...

A small package arrived from Shapeways a couple of hours ago to distract me from my Jubilee chassis. I have a very long term (and very small) project that keeps bubbling around in my brain. This was an experiment in 3D printing in brass (well, printing in wax, then investment casting in brass) to see if I could produce some viable wheel centres. The alternative would be an etched overlay. The design was done in TinkerCad, and exported directly to Shapeways. I drew the circumferences over-sized so I could machine the critical surfaces - the one on the right has been so treated. I'm quite pleased with how the've turned out. I think the slight layering effect just visible will disappear under paint and weathering. I just need to order some 6mm tyres from shop 3 now. With exchange rates, postage and tyres, they probably work out at just less than double the price of an Association wheel. At least I only need 4 of them. No prizes for guessing the prototype...

It was really good to see Andy making progress with his Jubilee at our 2mm group meeting on Thursday evening. John also showed us a part-built example which "only" needs its valve-gear assembling... I didn't take any pictures, but perhaps the builders may be persuaded to upload one or two? Anyway, it has taken a little longer than I'd hoped to get back to this, but here at last is part 8, where I finish off the spacers and assemble the main frames: https://youtu.be/9hUC260cWK8

Here is Part 7 - I'm afraid it is a bit of a marathon... I'm starting to add the frame spacers. Things take a bit longer as I put the first one in the wrong position! On the plus side, it means I get to show you how to correct such a mistake. https://youtu.be/ylBEBvq4TvA The footage for the next 2 parts is in the can (8 = Erecting the frames, 9 = Simpson springs), but I probably won't have time to edit it until after the weekend.

Hi David, Here's where the magic happens... The camera is a Logitech 9000 webcam. They were very good in their day, with a decent lens, but the resolution is not that high. Being a few years out of date I managed to get a bargain on eBay. I followed this tutorial to mount it on a microphone boom - itself another low cost on-line find. But who said the camera doesn't get in the way!?! Most of the time I'm looking over the top of it, with my hands underneath it. It has made one or two operations very awkward. I'm enjoying making these films, but grossly underestimated the amount of time the editing and voice-over recording would take. I'm taking up to 2 hours to produce 10 minutes. Hopefully I'll get a bit quicker! I'm using nothing more sophisticated than the now-obsolete Windows Movie Maker. Another episode is on its way, but after that I'll need to take a break for a few days while I catch up with the rest of my life! Nick.

Part 6 is now here, where I build the worm shaft housing: https://youtu.be/nNzteLwv02k I think I'm in danger of re-defining "slow television" with this... remember YouTube allows you to play videos at a faster speed!

Hi Argos - Glad you're finding them useful. There's a way to go before I get to the valve gear... I hope you can hold out that long! Yes, I'm amenable. There are plenty of Association members who don't subscribe to RMWeb, and some of them may be insomniacs too. The videos themselves are on YouTube, so they're not going anywhere. All you need is a list of links. When I've done a few more, I might go back and embed some links within them. It may even be worth thinking about a DVD for the actual Jubilee... but let's not get carried away until the thing is built. Anyway, in the meantime, here is the next thrilling instalment. A bit shorter this time, but the next one is likely to be feature length! https://youtu.be/KY8GYLd0Wnc

Here's video number four - in which I begin to solder bearings into the main frames:

Hi Steve, It has taken me a very long time to reach this point, starting several locos and getting stuck in different places with each of them. Only in the last couple of years does my loco building feel to have come together where I can contemplate starting a project like this with confidence that I will end up with a well-running chassis in a reasonable time frame. If you've already built one chassis, you're well on the way. What's your second one going to be? Nick.

For anyone still awake, here's part 3. Things are really getting exciting now - I'm going to drill a hole! https://youtu.be/MQAoYqxIgsw

Thanks for the encouragement Jerry, and keep a careful look out for the tips I've pinched from you! No technique you'll see is my own invention. I was lucky to have been "brought up" in the Darkest Essex Area Group in the mid 2000s, where there were several very accomplished (and incredibly generous) modellers on hand to show me how to do things. Since that time I've continued to absorb and adapt other people's ideas to my own style. If I were to attempt to name those who have helped or influenced me, it would be quite a long list. Nick. P.S. When you get to Eileen's, bear in mind the price label on the Garryflex block in the video is a decade old!

Definitely. Is the tender a 3500 gal. version from Nigel's kit?

Here's Part 2. I'm actually doing something now - although it is mainly pontificating! I realise that there are many different ways of approaching building a loco chassis. In these videos I will attempt to demonstrate and explain in detail my own current way of doing things. I make no claim that this is the best way, but so far it has worked for me. https://youtu.be/NXajG5uOe30

Here's the first video. Ironically, it features not my modelling, but a detailed inspection of one of Nigel's completed Jubilee chassis. I thought it would be useful to start off knowing what the end product should be like! https://youtu.be/nh8Inq15jSw But never mind the chassis - I can't stop drooling over the weathered finish Nigel's achieved on 45601 - ingrained soot polished to a lovely dark shine... really impressive.

I eventually made a start a couple of days ago, and now have the main frames assembled: As I threatened to do, I've been filming most of the proceedings on a webcam. Once I've edited the footage into something slightly less mind-numbing and added a voice over explaining what I'm doing, I'll post the first installment...

I've just measured a 3-102a I have in stock - the long side is 1/8" for mounting an imperial worm wheel. I think I would prefer one of these to using a 3.102, since without the 14t gear mounted on the 2mm section, there is hardly any material in the muff. P.S. I wonder why the metric gear muffs don't have flanges... Nick.

A black 5 slidebar etch is now available from Shop 3, which should save having to file one from plain rail as the PECO chassis instructions suggest. One could always buy a Farish etch anyway and pinch the extra bits to use on the Peco Jubilee - the added price of one of these is probably similar to the extra cost of a Farish body over the PECO one. Thinking further along those lines (and with cash to burn) the are some tasty looking bits on the Farish Black 5 chassis etch (NEW in Shop 3) that might be much more complicated to build than Nigel's way of doing things. I'm thinking here of the radius rod and lifting arm - Nigel has done them as one piece, when in reality there were separate bits... which could be made to reverse... (No! I promised I wouldn't!) I'm trying to work out from looking at completed Jubilees whether you can actually tell they're simplified - hidden as they are in the shadows under the running plate. Still, I never like to go for the easy option when I can find a more challenging alternative A potential snag is that unless people have them in the gloat box, the 1:38 worm gear set is not currently in production. I do have one, but I have earmarked it for a different project. Theoretically they are still available from Ultrascale, but the following notice is on the front page of their website: The good news is that an alternative gear setup will work - 30:1 worm in combination with M0.3 16:25 spur gears using the hole in the frames that looks as though it was designed for such a purpose. The bad news if you were thinking of doing a Farish version is that the gear tower and extra hole are missing from the frames. The really bad news is that both the 30:1 gear sets I bought at Chelford (for this and another project) have the skew cut in the wrong direction on the brass gear, meaning it won't mesh with the worm! I'm still buried under a pile of exam scripts left to mark, but I'm hoping to make a proper start on my Jubilee at the end of next week. I might try and film my hands doing bits of it...

Those Stay Alive installations both look really neat jobs, Izzy. I'm relieved my "encouragement" hasn't cost you a blown up loco, and pleased you're getting such good results. Funnily enough, I've recently retro-fitted my Association Class 11. I knew there was a good reason for not quite finishing it off and painting it 10 years ago!!! What is becoming my "standard" configuration of 4 x 220uF wouldn't fit: There is room in the bottom of the cab, but because of where the body attaches to the chassis, that room is unusable. Perhaps the fixing point could have been moved when building the kit, but not now. Besides, it is nicer to keep the cab empty - especially when it has a pretty light in it I managed to fit 3 tantalum caps and the other components round the gear tower - 2 vertically at the side, one on top. I had to cut some gaps in the PCB base (now hidden from view). When gluing the unit to the top of the gear tower, I put some card packing between the worm and the vertical capacitors... I didn't want to end up with them rubbing together. Soldering to the DCX75 decoder was interesting. The warning on Carsten Berger's 1001 Digital website (via Google Translate) concerning the smallness of the pads on this particular decoder is as scary as it is hilarious: Anyway, I survived. And so did the decoder. It fits nicely back under the motor, with room above the motor for a block of lead. Everything is quite a snug fit within the resin cast bonnet. This was a really sweet running chassis when I first built it. Adding the decoder took things to a whole new level, but it did still stall occasionally. Stay Alive is the icing on the cake. Because the cab light is connected to one rail (rather than the decoder blue wire - it didn't have one when I installed it at first) it doesn't stay alive. There is something oddly satisfying seeing the cab light flicker, indicating a bit of dirt on the track, but the loco smoothly carrying on. The little springs at the front of the chassis you can see in one of the photos above transfer the 2 function outputs to pads on the underside of the PCB footplate, so the chassis can be removed completely without having to unsolder any wires. The 3D printed chassis in the new style of kits will make this sort of thing more difficult (but the bits that sane people want to do much easier)... With the second function output I want to install some working marker lights. Nick.

No fear Andy - This is for the Diamond Jubilee - not the Platinum!

I was chatting to Andy Hanson on Thursday evening and he mentioned that Peter's Spares are currently listing various PECO Jubilee body parts on their website. We both confessed to having examples of these in our gloat boxes. Mine has been there for over a decade, along with a Nigel Hunt chassis etch and all the bits and pieces necessary to complete the model... with the exception of that vital spark motivation to actually build it. Well, Andy has now supplied said spark - a challenge to complete a finescale Jubilee in time for the 2mm Scale Association's Diamond Jubilee. Apparently Nigel has sold over 100 of his etches, so there must be plenty of others sitting in gloat boxes up and down the land... but if you're feeling left out, Nigel has got plenty left, which no doubt he will have for sale at Chelford next weekend. (He also has a version to fit the Farish Jubilee.) Anyway, the gauntlet has been laid down, so if you need an excuse to get cracking on a loco project, join us in the Jubilee Jubilee Challenge! (and post your progress here). It would be amazing if there were 60 converted Jubilees at the 60th anniversary, but even if there are only 2 (so long as they are mine and Andy's!) I'll be happy. I'll be starting in a couple of weeks (once I've finished exam marking), but in the meantime the bits are all ready to begin...

I've had one of Bob Jones' Fence Houses Model Foundry 9F kits on and off my workbench many times over several years. The reason it has been taking so long is that I have been figuring out how to make more of the bits of valve gear move. It has been a case of doing little bits every couple of years in-between other projects as inspiration has struck. Making a valve spindle to pivot to the top of the combination lever, and getting it to slide in and out was fairly straightforward. Setting the loco in forward gear would have been too easy, and I'd have finished it years ago... so I decided to make it reversible - well, my mother's maiden name is Watson, after all! (No relation as far as I know...) At the time I was getting into DCC, and thought it would be easy to control the reverser with a function key. Ah, the innocence of youth... Well, modifying the etched parts for the motion brackets to accept functional expansion links was ticklish, and working out how to make the thing move by itself even more so. However, I've finally cracked it, and I can now get on with finishing the loco - which should be the easy bit. (All those pipes!!!!) Bob has challenged me to have it running on Fence Houses at York Show next Easter. I think I'm in with a chance now. Here's a video of the chassis moving and shaking for the first time under its own power this evening. https://youtu.be/ReAw9BP5ofQ

Thanks Mark. It is also scary to think that Clive Road Sidings has been in my care for 10 years - as a temporary facility while I get around to building a layout for myself. (I've progressed as far as building a lever frame and a small-scale mock-up in all that time!) I wouldn't go as far as saying that what you see is a proper backscene - it is a short section I painted as a "sampler" under the tutelage of Barry Norman, propped up temporarily for the photos. A couple of the solder joints where the point blades are attached to the moving sleepers need attention, and the tree has completely disintegrated, but otherwise he layout is doing remarkably well and sees plenty of use. A testament to the skill and care which went into its original construction. Nick.

I've had problems with silvering of transfer film in the past on matt and satin surfaces. If I have to put transfers on a non-gloss surface these days, I paint a patch of gloss clear varnish first. I also always use Micro Sol now, even if I'm not trying to get the transfer to sit down over rivets, etc. It can soften the the edges of the carrier film to help disguise it. I think the Dullcote did most in this instance - stopping reflections along the line of the edge of the film, which was too thick for the Micro Sol to dissolve. Nick.