Jump to content
 

Sulzer Bear

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    26

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Sulzer Bear

  1. Sulzer Bear

    2 foot apart

    By Sulzer Bear,

    From here I'm going to tell about my adventures in 7mm NG, but I will incorporate some NG stuff in Sn3.5 scale (1:64) as well, which is Cape or metre gauge running on 16,5mm track.
     
    Being new in this scale, it opens new oportunities for me.
    It enables me to restart in a subject I had interest for almost as long as I started in the model railway hobby.
    That has always been the Garratt locomotive, and the South African species of these in particular.
    However, the SAR "straight" locomotives catched my eyes too, with their characteristic and powerfull lines.
     
    In the 1980's I started modelling some SAR locomotives in 3,5mm scale, some out of DJH kits and some scratch built.
    The DJH kits however were in the wrong gauge of 16,5mm instead of 12mm, and so were the scratch built loco's to match with the kits (I believe DJH does the GMA in 12mm at least now)
    The fact I was not happy with this wrong gauge anymore after some time, combined with the fact that regauging all the 7 models would be a Herculean task, and that obtaining any information about the rolling stock to scratch build was very hard in these pre-internet days made me loosing interest in that project and I resumed to the Belgian prototype in 3,5mm.
     
    A couple of years ago I went to New Zealand twice, and met some people over there active in the Sn3.5 scale NZR prototype.
    During the holidays and thereafter I have bought several kits of NZR locomotives and rolling stock, and one built locomotive.
    A couple have been finished now or are under construction.
     
    Later on I will show some of these.
  2. Sulzer Bear
    A couple of days ago I received my 3 kits from MDR, of the DHR standard four wheel box van.
    The kits came in a sturdy cardboard box, 3 boxes packed together in a wrap of plastic (old carrier bag?) and tape.
    However, a note has to be made about the packing of the contents inside the box.
     
    The etches are inside a plastic bag, and small cast parts, pins, chain etc. in a separate zip lock bag.
    Everything has however a lot of space inside the cardboard box to move around.
    The etches are of very thin brass (10 thou I thougth it was) and vulnerable by its nature.
    The packet had been thrown around a bit by Royal Mail / Dutch post, and that had led to parts get bent and a couple of small parts broke of, like a couple of the brake shoes.
    Nothing serious that couldn't be fixed, but a little annoying as it means some extra work.
     
    So a little note to Hubert Carr, use some bubble wrap, or crumpled newspaper to prevent the contents in the box from moving around to much.
     
    I started building the first one immediatly, and I have one chassis finished so far:

     
    The etches are well designed and go together well, once folded up and soldered together the parts get some firmness despite the very thin brass used, there is only some care needed when handling during building to prevent small bits breaking of, like the little tabs sticking out on top of the chassis etch when folded (with the next kit I leave them folded flush with the floor untill they are needed for fitting the body on)
     
    There were some issues with the other parts suplied.
     
    First the brass pins suplied, a couple should be used to make up the DHR style couplers, however the pins are on the thin side to the eye to represent the drawbar, but more importantly the heads fall trough the 2 larger holes in the knuckles as the holes are of a much larger size, these holes are for the pivot pin making the articulated joint.
    So I used some different size brass wire from my stock, 0.7mm for the drawbar between the knuckles, and 1mm as pivot pins, I squeezed a flat head on these between a stury pair of pliers, which could be filed down a bit, leaving enough head for not falling trough the holes.
    The pins will however serve a purpose with the class B kit as EDM had a shortage of these thinner pins!
     
    Then moving a bit further on the coupler assembly, I discovered that the white metal casting is 1mm narrower than the etched part that wraps around to secure it to the chassis.
    The etched part has tabs that fit into location slots in the chassis, and offering that part up to the chassis reveals that the etched part has the correct size.
    The width of the white metal part is conclusively a bit to narrow.
    I solved this by clipping the flat part inside the curved loop at one side with Xuron clippers, holding the clippers against the inside of the loop.
    Clipping it pushes the side of the loop out a little bit, and after straightening the cut up a bit by bending the loop slightly (maintaining the distance) I filled the gap with low melt solder.
    I repeated this at the other side, and after doing so I ended up with a cast part that was 1,5mm wider, after cleaning the sides up with a file to remove the mould line the required 1mm was left.
     
    I moved a bit away from the instructions here.
    I did not solder the cast part in the etched bracket first, because of the risk of melting the white metal part when soldering the assembly to the chassis, there are however 2 spares with the 3 kits, should disaster happen, thumbs up for that!
    I soldered the brass bracket to the chassis first, important is to leave the tabs upright, and do not bend them down, as the body has to fit over them as well later on.
    I soldered the white metal parts in with low melt solder after I had done most of the brass soldering on the chassis, important is to tin the brass parts where you are going to solder with low melt later on.
     
    The finished buffers (note that I made the mistake of folding a tab down, I have to remove a bit of the floor of the body for that)

     
    When moving on to the axles I bumped into the biggest problem.
    When trying to fit the axle with top hat bearings between the axle guards it was clear that they were not going to fit, unless I pushed the axle guards out an ungainly 1mm to each side.
    Note how far one of the bearings is outside the axle guard.

     
    Going trough my pile of old railway stuff I found some very old Fleischmann wheelsets, the kind they used with the bent sheet steel bearings.
    These axles are 24mm long, 2mm shorter than the suplied ones.
    These will fit in nicely

     
    The axles have the same diameter, 2mm, and the wheels of the suplied wheelsets will be pushed onto these instead of the coarse wheels.
    There are also 2 spare wheelsets suplied with the kits, but all having the wrong lenght axles.
     
    The remainder being etched brass construction, I don't expect further problems here, as the fit of the etched parts is good.
×
×
  • Create New...