ScottW

On 17/02/2024 at 23:06, Beechnut said:

A long time since I posted progress on the J67, probably more than six months. Anyway work started again towards the end of January and is now approaching completion. It’s missing the handrail, no short knobs in stock, and it needs a general tidying up and cleaning. Hopefully it will be painted by the agm, well,  primer at least.

I do have some serious scenic work to do on Emwell along with rolling stock which is always needed.

 

Brendan

 

 

Just been catching up on this Forum.

Brendan, that looks absolutely superb. You must be very pleased with the finsihed result. It's a shame I missed the AGM.

This is a picture of my latest project, a Southern Railway P Class locomotive.

The locomotive was built in 1958/59 by Norman (Bill) Hall. Bill was one of the early S Scale pioneers and society member. Over the years he built a number of superb locomotives which I am very fortunate to have in my possession.

As you can see from these pictures, the model is very well made although the chassis does pretty much exhibit the techniques of the period: heavy duty rigid chassis, course scale wheels and a large underslung paddle for stud contact pick-up.

My intention is to revive this little loco and bring it into the 21st century. The body needs stripped of paint and a few minor repairs made to it. At some point the rear buffer beam has taken a knock and sustained a little damage, along with one of the buffers. I'm going to replace both buffer beams and install new sprung buffers. The cab roof has been soldered on, but has started to break loose from the cab. This is a bit of luck as I much prefer cab roofs to be removable so my intention is to completley unsolder the roof and possibly add a little detail inside the cab.

Moving onto the chassis, a completely new compensated (split frame) chassis is to be made with Mashima motor, High Level Gearbox, High Level Hornblocks and society wheels/tyres.

This locomotive is over sixty years old and hopefully, with a bit of work, it will be good for another sixty years.

Brendan,

Do I take it you quartered the rear driving wheels first, then lightly pressed the remaing wheels on their axles and tweaked them, back & fourth, to get them aligned with the holes in the connecting rods before pressing them fully home?

On 28/06/2023 at 18:58, Beechnut said:

Hi Scott

 

The boiler is .810” diameter with a wall thickness varying between.015” and .020”. It’s drilled to .375” and bored. The smokebox is a bit thicker with a wall thickness around.040”. Soldering won’t be a problem as I’ll probably use CA for things chimney and dome. The smokebox wrapper, and my GW rivet press arrived today, will be soldered but I’ll tin it and use a gas torch.

Boiler bands, same method as wrapper.

The last loco I built, a tender 3F, I rolled the boiler using .015”, hard to get a perfect circle using rolls. TBH brass would probably be a better material for boilers, and I find it takes paint better. It helps if you have some in stock!

Going back to the rivets, the last two locos I built, the J69 and the 3F were mostly scratch built and for the rivet detail I used Archers S scale rivets. I found it hard to make the carrier film disappear hence the purchase of the rivet press. I’ve done some test rivets today and it work’s very well. With my old method the metal always stretched causing problems, hence the decals.

 

I have done some more work on the J67 today, boiler drilled for clacks, frames painted ready for wheels. And talking of wheels, in the past I’ve made fixtures and used the lathe for pressing and quartering but his time I’m going to use the lathe and the coupling rods. It sounds like it’ll work in my head and will save having to make tooling.

 

Thanks, Brendan for the explanation. Very insightful.

I once used a piece of copper tube, used in plumbing, for a boiler. Never again!! It was an absolute nightmare to solder onto. I didn't appreciate just how quickly the heat would dissipate and heat the whole thing up. The boiler bands kept popping off as soon as I touched the tube with the soldering iron, eventually I gave on them and opted to add them later during the painting stage. I found I had to treat it like a piece of whitemetal - low melt solder and don't linger with soldering iron.

One technique I have heard, when rolling your own boiler, is to roll the tube whilst it's inside an oversized piece of tubing. Obviously you would need to roll the tube to roughly the right diameter before inserting it into the tube, but this is supposed to help eliminate the short 'flat' sections you get when using rolling bars.

The 3F looks superb. 🙌

On 23/06/2023 at 20:07, Beechnut said:

Even less progress today, just the boiler which started life as an 11/4” diameter valve spindle!

 

 

Brendan

How did you find turning up your boiler? I have in the past thought about doing this but imagine it to be one massive heat sink if you intend soldering to it. What diameter is the the boiler and what thickness did you bore it out too? Did you drill out the centre or bore it? I assume you intend to glue/screw the chimney & dome on? And boiler bands?

So many questions. Cheers. 👍

Great stuff, Brendan. Nice to see some old school modelling. 👊

Norman Pattenden started an S Scale 2-2-2WT a number of years ago which, I believe, was completed by Trevor Nunn after Norman sadly passed away.

No pressure. 🤣🤣

5 hours ago, Graham_Muz said:

Indeed the renumbering took place  from 1931.

 

The 'E' 'A' and 'B' prefixes were always 3" high.

 

The standard number height with or without the prefix, therefore both pre and post renumbering, was 18" as per your pictured of 323.

As I stated above, in some cases a smaller number was applied to some tank locomotives that was twice the 'Southern' text height therefore 13" 

Thanks Graham, very informative. I think you have pretty much answered my question.

Scott

Thank you @bécassefor your explanation but I must admit this throws up some confusion. According to Klaus Marx in his book The Wainwright P Tanks, and Wikipedia, the Southern Railway introduced it's new numbering scheme in 1931 when they removed the 'A' and added1000 to all the ex-SECR locomotives numbers.

Going back to the pre 1931 numbering system, from photographic evidence it would appear that some of the P Class locomotives had notably larger numbers than others during this period. It also shows that the notably larger numbers were in use before the introduction of the new numbering system.

I'm looking to re-number a P Class 0-6-0T locomotive and was looking for information regarding the height of the numerals applied to the side tanks.

The model will be finished in pre-1937 Maunsell green and during this period I believe the numerals were 1' 6" in height but, looking at a few photographs it looks like some of the class had slightly shorter numerals, as per this photograph of #27. Can anyone tell me the height of these numerals?

Thank you.

Scott

Thanks for your comment, Paul. I used waterslide decals for the lettering, custom made by a chap in Cumbria.

My modelling mojo disapeared at the start of the year, coincidentally about the time the nice weather showed up. But I'm happy to report that it's slowly starting to come back to me.

Last year I started on a batch of three trader wagons but only got so far before starting another project. This is how far they got before putting them to one side.

After a bit of work over the last few weeks I've managed to get them finished ready for the paintshop.

I must appologise @Lacathedrale for not replying sooner, I've only just read your post.

Usually I give the inside of the wagon a coating of a light natural wood colour, normally Humbrol 93 despite it actually being desert yellow, then apply a number of grey washes over the top. Nothing too technical.

Would fitting some brass top-hat bushes not make for a better, free running, chassis?

More wagons I'm afraid!

I had intended to have a break from wagon building but another small side project requires a 9' 0" WB wagon as a guinea pig.

These are Caledonian Railway Dia. 3 vans. The main bodies were produced by a fellow member of the S Scale Society on his CNC milling machine.

Personaly I'm not a fan of cobling things together that doesn't resemble anything, for me thats just a waste of valuable modelling time. If you want a test mule then why not buy something simple like a set of 02 etches from Worsley Works. Regardless of how much detail you want to add to it at least it would still resemble a proper locomotive which, at a later date, you could finish off if you so wished.

It's been slow going over the last few months but I've finally managed to get my latest batch of wagons built, ready for the paintshop:

The brake gear, on all three wagons, was made-up using components from the Bill Bedford S Scale HR Single Shoe Brake Gear etch. Springs are castings from the S Scale Society whilst the whitemetel axle boxes are 4mm castings from MJT & 51L Models.

On 03/11/2021 at 22:33, MarshLane said:

Just drawing out a set of frames for a locomotive - initially its just going to be a basic set of frames to go with High Level Kits hornblocks/bearings and something like a Roadrunner gearbox and motor, to get something moving.  Never built or designed a chassis before, so this is basic 0-6-0 design and intended to be thrown away afterwards (minus what can be reused on the first proper loco of course!)

 

My thought and idea was to go for a split-frame principal, using PCB (insulated down the middle) for frame spacers.  Having looked around it looks like Gibson wheels on 1/8" diameter axles, which can be cut in half and with a small 1-2mm middle section removed, paired with some 2mm Association muffs which are for 1/8" diameter axles, with either a 2mm or 3mm outside diameter for mounting the gear from a High Level Kits Roadrunner gearbox.  I appreciate there is going to have to be some very fine wire soldered/tension fit into a small hole on the wheel tyre and on the axle itself in order to make the axle live - I dont have (and wouldn't know how to work) a lathe, so the brass Gibson wheels while ideal are not an option.

 

My query being can anyone see any problems with the above, and is there a better or simpler way - I know I have a habit of over complicating things!

 

Richie

Just to throw in a few thoughts of my own:

> Why build a chassis with the view to throwing it away? For me, and I would imagine quite a lot of people, time at the workbench is a precious commodity. I get annoyed with myself if I have spent a good number of hours on something only for it to end up in the bin. I don't know what railway company your are interested in but would it not be better to build a BASIC chassis for a particular prototype locomotive you are interested in? Produce the frames and spacers then install the the wheels and motor and you have a basic chassis. At a later date when your skill, knowledge and confidence has grown you simply add more detail to it.

> I also prefer split frames but with the few locomotives I have built the wheels were made using the brass society castings. Personnaly, if I were using the Gibson plastic wheels then I would probably just fit pick-ups rather than going to the bother of installing bits of wire to the back of wheels - I would also make the frame spacers out of metal. But as I said, that would be my personnal preference. @Timber uses sprung pick-ups and appears to produce a suitable running quality.

> Branchlines do indeed sell both 1/8" and 2mm split axles - unless that has changed in the last few years. Despite being designed mainly with the 4mm market in mind the axles are actually over length, even for S Scale, and you will need to cut them down to the correct length. They also come with a small insulated washer. Branchlines also used to sell a jig to ensure both parts of the axle remained concetric whilst the epoxy cures.

@MarshLane If you turn the brakegear round the right way is it a better fit? I've not built the kit but from your pictures it appears that the right hand end of the brakegear is closer to it's respective wheel than the left hand end.

I also believe that the brakegear was designed around the Gibson WW1 wagon wheel which is smaller in diameter, and actually undersize, than that of the Slater wheels you are using.

This problem has been raised previously:

Hope this is of some help.

Scott

Looking really good. All your hard work is beginning to pay off. 

I have very little experience with acrylic paint but I have heard people mention Vallejo in the past. 

Continuing on with some unfinished wagons:

Here is one of the mineral wagons that I was building in my last post.

And here are two North British Railway open wagons that were started back on page 3 of this thread.

@Lacathedrale The height of your pivot will depend on the material you are using. For a simple beam compensated system with fixed axle the compensating beam is commonly made from 1/16" rod and the pivot beam from 1/16" ID tube. To determine the centre point of your pivot you need to measure up from the wheel centre line the distance equal to half the axle diameter+the diameter of the compensating beam+half the diameter of the tube used for the pivot beam.

Positioning the pivot equidistant between two axles is probably the most common and simplist way to build a compensated chassis. Although you can, depending on which two axles you are positioning the beam over, position the pivot closer to either the leading or trailing axle which then puts more weight on the axle. It is believed that this gives better running but I must admit I haven't tried it. I have built a locomotive that incorportated beam compensation, the rear axle is fixed with the pivot postioned equidistant between the leading and centre axle and it runs perfectly well.