Hendreladis

Not brilliant but certainly improving. Bit of work left to do under the footplate but the body is basically finished bar the backhead, cab floor and smokebox door handles. Might even paint this one.

The chimney is not actually attached - nor will it ever be. At some point I'll make a decent one . . .

Clack valves now added. Cab detail is too daunting at the moment so back in the gloat box it goes while I ponder the outside frame loco started a few months ago. Shame about that chimney . . .

Brilliant. Thanks Ian. I'll bodge something up. Andrew

Please see attached pic of a GWR metro tank plus my nascent 2mm version. Does the loco have one of the widgets circled in red on the prototype pic on both sides of the boiler or just one? My books and the web are inconclusive. Thanks in anticipation.

Thanks guys Jim's explanations seems credible. I'll bin the motor and put in a Lawton. A

Thanks Nick Motor almost certainly isn't 12V but I though the 9V gizmo would be okay. Is it likely to be as simple as reducing the voltage? I know from your posts that you know about these things . . . . if so could I just interpose a resistor of some sort? Andrew

Help please. Squeaky/squawky motor noises. I have made a few of the 2mm Association 57xx chassis kits so know my way around them pretty well. The latest two are certainly mechanically freer than previous efforts and roll along adequately. The body, however, is not a pannier so I wanted a smallish motor to minimise protrusion into the cab space. Thought about the 7mm faux Farish that has been receiving favourable comments but there isn't much shaft on the end of the ones I received (3mm ish??) so I opted for the similarly questionable coreless 8mm by 14mm with a bracket on the front. I thought that the bracket might slide off as there is quite a bit of hard glue/resin in the space under the shaft. Said bracket definitely doesn't slide off. But at least the process revealed the inner workings. The magnet is pretty strong, the five windings look to be 46swg or finer and the brushes are typical metal 'fingers' wiping the commutator. The metal used for the brushes doesn't seem to be anything exotic. Bodged one of the motors into the chassis. Took some tweaking, ran a bit hot, complained. Pop. New motor. I put that failure down to tightness in the system. Replaced motor and ensured that there was more play. Everything ran sweet as a nut. Whoopee. No unexpected noises whatsoever. Attached chassis to body. There were a few occasional shorts with the outside frames and the innards of one of the splashers but that was all dealt with. Appropriate play in the wheels, cranks and bearings in all positions and all runs smoothly when cold BUT, when the motor has run for a minute or so, the mechanism starts to whinge and whine and then squawks away even though the wheels aren't moving. The slack in the mechanism reduces to zero even though there is no rubbing or mechanical binding in the chassis or gears. The worm isn't slipping and the shaft isn't rotating at all so the noise is beyond my ken. The electronic buffs will have an explanation no doubt. But for whatever reason the train don't go. The commutator end of the motor shaft just sits in the plastic housing of the motor. The free end of the shaft looks to be in a bronze bush. The front bearing on the chassis is free. I don't imagine that the binding is caused by something as simple as heat expansion but That is all I can think of because if I let the mechanism cool down it runs sweetly again. For a minute. The problem manifests itself on both my Farish controller (from a set) and the 9V gizmo that the Association sells. I haven't tried it with the Pentroller yet. So the big question is can the problem be solved or do I need to commit to a different motor. The 16mm long examples like the Lawton (my preference) or the 7mm by 16mm Farish will demand hacking the body and may well be too obvious in the cab so I'd like to avoid that. But I'll follow whatever advice is offered. Thanks in advance.

Hi Nigel Amazing level of finesse in your build as always. I suffered the same problem with the front steps on mine and just bodged a solution by hanging the front steps off some .010" NS having drilled some holes a bit nearer the edge of the footplate. Ultimately I just bent the rod out at an angle to avoid the coupling rod but, in hindsight, I should have gone for a more scientific bit of joggling. As I recall I did think about that a the time but (a) am impatient, (b) I had already soldered it all together after countless attempts - those steps just kept falling off. Perhaps the ultimate benefit I had was the use of the Association stainless steel coupling rods. Pretty sure they are less than .010" thick which offered a bit more clearance. The rear steps worked out okay as I recall. I didn't go for the radial truck approach just whacked the wheels in the frames with a bit of slop. It goes around 2' curves pretty happily but I'll probably replace it with something cleverer in due course - i.e. once you have demonstrated a better way! Do you find that the motor driving the axle directly gives you adequate control? Presumably you are on 30:1 or so?? Andrew

Tweaking the Association 57xx chassis a bit more

There is a picture from the top of the Yniscedwyn colliery tip on this page - http://ystradpast.weebly.com/collieries.html It isn't the greatest quality but it shows the 'other side' of a McLane tip mechanism. Alan Griffiths, who compiles the site, may well be able to provide a higher definition version of the picture.

Thanks Guy. What a disappointment! Andrew

Ca anyone confirm whether the holes in the rods on the shop's "Replacement nickel-silver coupling rods for GF locomotives" etch suit the Association crankpins or are they sized to fit the Farish? Essentially can I use the etch with standard finescale wheels and parts . . . Thanks in anticipation.

Vale of Penwal? http://www.zen98812.zen.co.uk/penwal.html http://www.countarthurstrong.com/

Another day forward. At one point I thought it was going to end really well but a few bodged parts have taken a lot of the shine off. The design is very sound. You're almost guaranteed a square body but there were a few stages where I'd wished I had a vice with me. Still need a scrub and a scrape. Wheels are temporary and just placed in to jack the body up for pictures. No mood for the fiddly bits now so ba k in the box with it.

Thanks Nigel. I should say that I have only ever had one delamination in a pcb joint and that during my first attempt at track building XXX years ago. But it might happen . . . the fear of not being certain. Your points re the jig are, of course, relevant. I am slowly coming to realise that the things that actually work are the ones where the rules or advice of more experienced souls have been followed. Having run a file over the sheet here and there and countered with a very unscientific few strokes on the etches of the 57xx and 14xx frets there's definitely a different response and a different residue. But equally it solders up a dream. Re your point - "8. Aberdare??? So many locos to model, so little time." Yes - but only so very few that are truly worth modelling. Like the Aberdare. A

That nice Mr Tilston came up trumps with the majority of the castings required to take the coal tank a bit further. Ultimately they all proved a bit generous in size but a bit of fettling and filing brought them up to my expectations. The toolboxes needed about 20 thou off the bottom, their tops reduced by another 10 thou then re profiled but they were only a gnat's smidgeon off for length. Safety valve needs the seat reduced and a bit of thinning of the lever on top but its okay. The dome is quite hefty and a bit 'wobbly' but some filing overcomes that. It may need a few more strokes having seen the pictures. In one picture it looks as though it leans a bit to one side. A compromise. It is okay in other planes and I can probably live with it. The smokebox door (which is very nice and a good fit for size) hasn't been attached yet. The chimney is out of stock for a while but will hopefully be available by the time other minor jobs have been addressed. I had struggled to work out the purpose of some parts on the etch. Eventually it became clearer once I had paid more attention to drawings and photos. There is potentially an awful lot of fiddly detail to include. Given that I had never taken note of it previously I may well exclude the vast majority on the model. If you are close enough to spot the twiddly bits you are close enough to see a legion of other flaws. I opted to attach a front footstep using an extended length of wire through the footplate on one side. Too tight to other handrails to get in with cutters but Jim Watt has suggested grinding it off. What could go wrong? Lots of scraping and araldite carving to do. The value of the pictures is that it pinpoints the worst bits. You'll also see that it has been dropped a few times but hopefully final prep before paint will allow the bumps and bruises to be ironed out. Runs okay now too so encouraged to finish it eventually. In the meantime it goes back to the box. Mobile phone pics attached.

Always uncomfortable being the first at the party and very conscious that subsequent guests will have far more to offer but here goes. Let me say at the outset that I have built a couple of Nigel's chassis kits. They are great. My comments on the instructions etc. are in no way intended as a criticism but offered in the spirit of the invitation we all received to contribute. I haven't finished the LYR 2-4-2Ts I bought last year yet so can't afford to aggravate him too much as I'll inevitably need help with them. Like the rest of us I perved over the etch when it arrived from Nigel. Indeed a thing of beauty. I was not going to do much more than fondle it wistfully for a while before putting it back in the gloat box but somehow it ended up in my 'to do' bag instead. I sat down yesterday to see if I could bodge a GWR 517 out of the association 14XX chassis and was rightfully excited to be 'getting there' after only about 90 minutes when I realised that I had ordered the wrong wheels. The other option, chopping up a couple of 57XX chassis kits to move the driven wheel to the back to make some Buffalos didn't appeal so I thought I'd just 'look' at the Beast. A cursory glance convinced me that I'd just have to wave it about a bit and it would all fall together . . . hmmm. There are some considerations to bear in mind. I tend to travel around a bit so sticking something as convoluted as thing is likely to be challenging. I maintain a minimal number of tools in one of those cool bags for sandwiches available from pound shops. It contains all that I need if not all that I'd like/want. Inevitably the approach compromises construction here and there. Please bear that in mind with some of the finishing. I have reached the stage where I'd rather shout 'yay, it runs' than fret over trying to match the standards of likes of Greenwood/Hunt/Watson etc. only to achieve nothing so please be gentle with me. So on to the etch. Lovely bit of nickel silver just as expected. When I started cutting parts out it seemed that the alloy was a bit softer than, say, the association etches or a Worsley. Admittedly my 99p bargain shop cutting mat doesn't help. Might as well use a piece of mature cheddar and I regret investing in it but Ammanford does have some wonderful shops. The metal is soft though. Obviously started with the loco chassis. Read the instructions as suggested. A few omissions - push out the rivets that define where the cylinder bolts to the frames, no mention of cross drilling the muffs but given the likely purchaser of something as eclectic as this I think Nigel can be forgiven. A pic is attached that shows that the etching, whilst more than adequate, is a bit inconsistent. The rectangles with rivet detail that slot into the front of the frames are not etched right through (the back shows that the artwork registered correctly) whilst other parts look as though they have been over-etched. The lack of a slot makes it more of a faff to solder in the gusset that goes within. I hope that the rivet detail on the smokebox 'pops' once the paint as applied. At the moment the rivet detail looks a bit washed out. Let me say that I am wary of the spacer system. The usual approach of using a piece of PCB across the frames allows a great big gob of solder to be left demonstrating a suitably mechanical joint. Creating the spacers from sheet and insulating pads invites two concerns from me; (a) bending the spacer into a perfect 'L' allows the risk of the joint skewing slightly affecting squareness and (b) sweating the pcb between the frames means that I have to trust that the fixing has overcome my ineptitude and that there really is a strong bond. I suppose I could add a third and say that subsequently breaking such a bond and re-doing it if you get it wrong is a pain. The two part built Raithby 4F kits I bought on ebay attest that I am not the only one to find that out. Because of the nature of assembly I had to resort to the assembly jig. Or put another way I had to actually do the job properly and follow instructions. Hate doing that. The Higgs kits have that lovely little frame that makes it so much simpler. Still, following the instructions and using the jig does work. Just takes a bit longer. I only carry a piece of Tufnol to ensure flatness and the pic shows that a rubber band stops parts rolling off into oblivion while manipulating the soldering iron. I do have some H section wheels with me of the right size so I'll stick them in anon and see how it rolls. Putting in the 'top' spacer over the gearbox was a pain. Even though I bent it over a square and it looks true it would fit between the top cheeks of pcb without a bit of butchery. I had hoped to insert all spacers 'gunged in' with fluxite before soldering to ensure squareness but that top spacer kept distorting things. In the end I soldered up the spacers between the wheels then bodged the errant spacer. I'll know for sure once the wheels are in. The top spacer also has some parts attached to it. had they been removed I would almost certainly have lost them so I chopped the spacer down as a mini sprue. That picture will reflect some localised dodgy etching on the sheet. Not a problem. You will also have noted that I have not cut some parts from the frames in the assembled chassis. Had I done so they'd have been lost by now. Because of my misgivings over the spacer method - individuals spacers may be out of square, not sure they'll bond to the mainframes flawlessly etc. - I used a bit of wood to allow a bit more time with the iron to relax the assembled spacers as they were secured. That allowed the individual assemblied to rest plumb with the side. Hopefully the pcb wasn't cooked and delaminated. After about three hours of wresting the main chassis was assembled. Next stage was to inspect all of the mini pcb pads to ensure that no solder had flashed over the filling and caused a short. I recently treated myself to some Vallorbe files (to go with my 99p cutting mat) so that wasn't too onerous. But it was tedious. The tender was a dead easy in comparison. I ordered the wrong wheels for that too but hopefully I can get it rolling and build the superstructure by this time next week. My only grumble?? I have no real interest in the real thing - I really do just want to play trains - so I lack sufficient knowledge of what all the twiddly bits are on the etch. Nigel supplies a wealth of detail on the prototype but I WILL be posting questions on here looking for explanations of these parts as the build progresses. In a perfect world someone will annotate the etch to set me straight. I had to pack everything up in anticipations of a seven hour car journey today. having removed some parts the etch was a bit flippy-floppy so I chopped it down. As expected, however, Nigel has done us all a favour. Great design and definitely buildable. If only he would do an Aberdare. That's a proper loco. Pics below. No idea how to integrate them within the text.

Thanks for the info on the boiler guys. Managed to unearth a drawing in the Roche collection which helped. There are still bits on the etch I don't understand and I seem to have lost the footsteps. Looks like I'll be going through the bin . . . Checked the gearing. The plastic gears are a 20 and a 26 so not great coupled to the association 30:1 but it runs. The trailing truck is a bit of a bodge caused by having to make adjustments to the drive train as the build commenced. I have two more etches so we'll see if the planning is any better second time around. Chances are I'll wait for Chris Higgs to solve the problems. This will go back on the gloat box for now. I a bit disappointed with aspects of the build. It is acceptably square and pretty much the right length but the proportions aren't quite right. Maybe a chimney etc. from Mr Tilson will help. The chassis has developed a twist somewhere along the build. Everything goes around and it is possible to twist it back into alignment and get all wheels lying flat but overnight it relaxes back into a corkscrew. Irritating. Wasn't happy with the motor so far back but it has allowed plenty of space for weight over the wheels and within the chassis between the drivers. BTW the coupling rods are from the old association stainless steel generic fret. Pretty sure the stainless will grind throu h the brass crankpins at some point even with plenty of broaching and easing during assembly. Overall verdict? Someone out there will certainly be able to make a decent job of this kit. It ain't gonna be me. On the plus side skills are increasing and so is the understanding of how much slop to include in the mechanisms. That was the most daunting knowledge gap. Time will tell if the lessons have been learned properly.

Finally started fiddling with the coal tank. Found some old (Mike Bryant era old) gears pre moulded on to muffs in the gloat box and opted to use them in the drive train. That meant the motor ended up in the cab after a bit of hacking. The boiler in the pictures is over size. In the absence of a drawing I guesstimated from a photo. Not great and if anyone can give dimensions for said boiler I would appreciate it. Definitely won't get around two foot radius curves without a pony truck. Time for more filing . . .

ABS Beaver Flatiron mated to a 2mm Association 4F chassis kit. Opted for 10.5mm wheels rather than the 11mm so it looks a tad out of proportion. The ultrasonic cleaner produced a lot of pitting on the castings which will need more filling and rubbing to sort out. It also needs to be lowered by about 10 thou. No brakes again. . . and because it can never stop moving hopefully nobody will notice.

As finished as it will get. Chassis kit is a delight and I recommend it to everyone. Model has as much lead packed in as space allows but is still fairly light yet the Higgs design just purrs along. Should be much better after running in.

A few more details on the Judith Edge Hunslet. Brake gear is very much temporary - what a waste of effort that was. It is cobbled together from the parts in the Judith Edge kit. It'll be replaced by that from the 03 once I can find it. The lack of nickel silver bar prevents finishing off the tool and sand boxes. Hopefully I'll track down a source before interest wanes and this project gets consigned to all of the other half finished tat in the gloat box. It dawned on me that there were 0-6-0 Peckets. The N Brass once is good attempt to represent a Swansea Harbour Trust 0-4-0 but if you stick the chassis from the 03 under it . . . There is space to juggle in an outside cylinder if wanted. Before doing that it'll need to be stripped back and painted with more finesse.

Finally made a decision on mounting the motor in the Hunslet. Filed away part of the gear tower and trimmed the worm so that it just nestled in the available space. A stub of axle steel with a slightly rounded end, coupled to the slight flexibility introduced by removing part of the etch, allows the motor to virtually 'snap' in. Once boiler bands and a representation of the tank balance pipe are added the motor will be glued to the cradle nearest the front wheels. That will result in the motor being supported at one end by the motor body and the bearing soldered into the chassis at the other end. Constraining the worm between the cheeks of the gearbox eliminates end float and, hopefully, unwanted thrust on the commutator mechanism. Time will tell. Much effort was made to minimise the stress and strain of fixing the worm to the shaft but, to be honest, it still took a bit of hammering. For the moment everything works. Still a bit of detailing and cleaning up to do. It isn't great but I'll spend a bit more time on the subsequent, sister engine. The last photo shows the model next to an N Brass Peckett body that is next on the list to be finished. I previously thought that that was pretty small. It is actually massive - so no excuses about motors not fitting.

Bit more faffing with the Judith Edge Hunslet. It looks like no real problems are going to arise but I'd value some input from those with more experience of mounting the smaller motors. This will use a Nigel Lawton 8mm coreless. The chassis is a much hacked 03 from the inestimable Mr Higgs. The wheelbase is not quite correct but I just wanted a quickie as proof of concept. It sits under the body happily enough though the pictures reflect a bit of over zealous filing here and there. The relationship between the motor and the gearbox means that the the motor forming the 'boiler' is actually a tad undersized and pitched too low. That doesn't matter. The pictures also suggest that the saddle is not square to the cab etc. but that is more parallax than botched assembly - the kit really is very good and I defy anyone to get it badly askew though a few bends are a badly done as I was rushing it through. I have a few more etches to get the next ones right! So the motor mount. The front of the motor contains a small bearing. By some fluke the diameter of that bearing is a near as dammit fit in the hole on the chassis kit that would normally have accepted the bronze bearing bush. Consequently it is possible to stick the motor shaft directly into the chassis gearbox and then support the other end of the worm in a conventional bearing and steel stub. Doing so means, of course, hat the motor is locked in solidly and so maintenance or replacement becomes a pain in the butt. This is what I intended to do initially but then it dawned on me that it is actually possible to hack away a large proportion on the gearbox around the worm shaft and drop the motor down into the chassis. That would make pressing the worm onto the motor shaft less troublesome as it could be done 'off site.' Question is . . . what would the pros out there recommend? Is it worth the hassle of chopping up the etch to allow the motor to be more easily removable or does experience suggest that the motor might as well just be totally secured? That is, after all, what we do to the wheels in their muffs etc. Minor points to note. The motor sits on a pcb saddle soldered between the frames; didn't use a full tube as a boiler as that would limit the amount of space available for extra weight in the tanks directly above the drivers; not sure that the resistor recommended for use with the motor will be included as it would limit the space for extra weight; didn't do the maths properly at the outset and in my haste to fit the motor snug to the gearbox overlooked the fact that the motor would foul the main worm gear hence the front of the motor has been ground away for clearance; still needs a clean up and final fittings. Final pic with an ABS Beaver derived 56xx as a measure of scale. The loco is pretty small but it is certainly possible to much smaller still. Maybe.