GER_Jon

Bit more Tram this week - buffers fitted (the now extinct GER holden ones) plus the roof is shaped and ready to solder.

The Dapol wheel sizes by my measurement are 3-333 7.5mm 3-336 7mm 3-339 6mm

THis weeks session consisted of working on weight and glazeing. The Tram is rather small! I'm making side weights as shown by chewing up bits of old lead flashing to fit the side panels whie leaving the window clear I'll be gluing the glass (microscope slide against the side then an inner layer of lead. Now is where I hit a problem - the glass scribing tool I bought from squires at Ally Pally stopped scoring the glass after only two or three goes - any advice on this subject welcome as you can see below I have the beginings of a mosaic. You can see three bits of suitable size despite not being neatly edged, however I need some smaller pieces for the front and rear plus I also have a lot of coaches which i intend to use the microscope glass in. I intend to have these ready before I solder on the roof, cow catchers and buffers as they need to be manouvered into a small space for glueing and in this stage of build the body is easy to balance being a simple box.

Quite a delay in updating for which I apologise. Many other non loco things going on including shed temperature being too low for work. It took some time to get a ride height I was happy with for the 2-4-2 but now i'm happy: you can see the new smaller wheels in this photo (and how good the brakes are!). The Van is a GER prize cattle wagon - I've designed transfers for this and some other GER NPCS but they are in the queue at Railtec so I have an excuse for not finishing it. I need to reassemble the chassis in its final form and fix the motor so that it can be run in and DCC'd which will allow me to identify where more weight can be fitted. I'm also preparing to drill handrail holes and fabricate the springs for the leading wheels. Then its clacks and westinghouse pumps plus fit the boiler furniture. During a non railway zoom meeting in Feb I created a boiler for the Y14 (J15) which occasionally appears in these pages. I had a little proxxon chop saw for my birthday which finally allowed me to get accurate straight cuts in the brass tubes. Nicer weather this week and back to soldering ( had a respiratory sick note for a while) so naturally I got the tram engine out and with a lot of anglo saxon completed the soldering of the window frames - I'm too afraid to take a close up photo before painting! I'm working on some microscope slide glazing and lead lumps to slot in after painting so I'm doing these before fixing the roof permanently in position. At present the body weighs 5g and the chassis 8g. Thats me up to date.

Blimey Chris I've got one on my bench now in bits to figure out a chassis! Part of my chemistry set.🙂

I've just been pointed to the fact LNWR had 4'6" and 5'6" class 2-4-2 locos with wheel sizes of 4'81/2" and 5' 81/2 inch so my previous post may or may not be correct!! Although 5'6" class chassis would be spot on for my model surely? Either way the n brass chassis is a very nice etch with lots of detail included.

Another lesson learned this week. Noticed at the weekend that the loco body was sitting too high compared to wagons/ coaches guestimate of 1mm error, had never thought to check this. The body was designed to fit on a Dapol 14xx chassis (see post at top of this page for size) which should have 10.5mm wheels (per prototype) and the M15 loco had 5'4" driving wheels = 10.5mm near enough! My thought was some packing would be needed. Checking the details - the chassis is N Brass LNWR 2-4-2 and it turns out these had 4'8" wheels or 9/ 9.5mm (coincidentally the last GER 2-4-2 design by S. Holden had 4'10" wheels but 4' shorter wheelbase) this pretty much accounts for the height difference probably 0.8mm based on scale dimensions. So I excavated the underside of the body print as far as I could (scalpel) leaving a fairly thin footplate remaining at each end - not enough difference but some progress. Next I decided to dismantle the chassis ( removed wheels and gearbox) and file away some of the top surface at each end and purchased some 10mm drivers (+ 7mm carrying wheels) from shop 3 which arrived 10 mins after placing the order 🙂 thus gaining an extra 0.25 mm in clearance. I still need to alter the chassis frames some more but I think I can achieve the correct height. If necessary I still have an unbuilt chassis etch in stock so I could create a more accurate set of frames later possibly using the original 10.5mm/ 7.5mm wheelset. Alternatively I could attempt a set of accurate frames using my MF70 when I finish the CNC upgrade that is ongoing (CAD skills permitting). When the chassis is complete I now have a DCC chip so I can hopefully move to a fully working setup quite quickly. 🫰 Cheers JOn

Hi Kevin August 2015 railway modeller has a good article with drawings.

Quick update -all cab handrails installed plus the code 40 strengtheners just visible through door. Started fettling the dome so it's just loose on the photo.

Thanks to the rain plenty of time in the workshop doing various things and even some on a loco. The M15 now has some lead in its belly (weighing in at a massive 11g) but the bunker is open to allow me to tackle the issue of door handrails. Due to the tiny footplate on the print I was going to leave them off but finally decided to put some in. In the photo the 0.35mm holes created by my trusty archimedies drill can jut be seen not easy as the print is probably less than 1mm wide with big risk of splitting next loco I will try strengthening by glueing some code 40 flat strip inside. The handrails are 0.3mm Ni/Ag wire pre soldered to etched handrail knobs (3-528) like so The top was filed flush then inserted in the body and gorilla glued in place. I prepared 2 handrails but only had time to fit 1 put into the worst positioned hole - I think my crew will have to be anorexic. When all 4 are in place I'm adding a bunker floor (20thou plastikard) drilling a securing hole then lead block. Weight is going to be an issue - I want to do DCC so not sure how much space in top of boiler is available for lead - I might put some in the cab roof and will aslo get some tungsten putty in to the space under the boiler at the front.

Good point Jim well worth emphasizing. As it happens that's pretty much what I did just the occasional gentle clockwise and why I moved from the drills after making 7.5 mm as they only work clockwise and felt it a bit resistant. Should have started with file would have been easier. Don't know if I'll need to do this again as the other M15 has a smokebox door as part of the design and I have no other 3d prints in the gloat box.

Been busy on this lately but a warning - todays post is not for the squeamish. Remember there are probably many more sensible ways to solve the modelling issue presented here. Working on the body to fit a N Brass smokebox door as the original etched pixels body had a flat end (the later ones had a smokebox door as part of the print) I had started to fiddle with this but not made much progress with getting a neat look so had a bright idea: The drills are 7.5mm and 8mm wood with nice sharp edges and can be used to cut and the shanks are a good test of size ( the door is 8mm). However something more rounded needed.Does the trick but maybe slightly OTT! Need to twist slowly and carefully - at 8mm the print creaks a bit and I thought it might split but it didn't. Then check fit with drill shank. And there you are: Not yet glued in but hopefully gorilla will work.

Time for an update I think after 6 months ! Workshop modelling has been minimal due to a bunch of critical DIY projects, organising two railway shows a garden open day and an archiving project for the M&GN circle - retirement is not related to having spare time. I have done odd railway modelling bits but more significantly I've been trying to design a set of transfers for GER coaches and NPCS using inkscape (learning from scratch on that programme). These are for pre 1902 and cover two styles approx pre 1882 and 1882 to 1902 plus some Wisbech ones which have an extra quirk. I'm using home printed test sheets using crafty paper and doing my version of the historical photographic grey images : These are spare sides from GER sundry van kits (corrected etches are supplied for the kit) sporting some test transfers looking at size and colour so are crudely applied. Some of the panels are very tight especially on the earlier Sinclair vehicles considering the wording used eg Luggage and passenger on doors. But its taking a lot of time to produce something that looks ok and consistent considering my struggles with the software. Hopefully I will be able to get them print ready for Railtec. I think the final version will only be good enough for 2mm and wont scale up due to the compromises I've used- for that I think I would have to draw up individual letters using full graphics mode. Much of the text is at font size 1 or slightly smaller. The other major railway activity : I'm learning is DCC / electronics and I am now persuaded that I need DCC in my loco fleet which has caused some head scratching given the size of the tram etc. Of course being a curious scientist I've gone and built a DCC++ EX controller using Arduino boards which worked and can be run via an old phone handset Hopefully I'm getting more time soon to crack on with the M15 jellyfish job. TTFN

Hi Alex - I did wonder having read your article if you would! Do you have a drawing? We're trying to work from photos to get the relationship between the bogie and driver axleboxes. Please contact me via the shop to join the club. Cheers JOn

This interesting loco has been available and is presumably on workbenches / in gloatboxes around the 2mm community. We recently had a query in 2mm Shop 3 as to whether a limited run of driving wheel axleboxes could be made available based on scaling up the LNER tender axleboxes currently available. So this post is your prompt to let me know if you are interested in these if we do them. Cheeers Jon

Shop 2 or railtec do them.

Inspired by a trip to Ally Pally where I saw some excellent large scale pre grouping models LBSCR, LCDR, KESR GER and M&GN and in 2mm Mortonhampstead (well worth seeing if you can) I actually got this going again - job one modify the gearbox because the horns showed under the chassis - I think for tank locos it will be worth reshaping the box to be symetrical at the bottom whereas I just hacksawed off the prongs without dismantling. Putting in the wheels ( I shortened the muffs for the carrying wheels to allow some sideplay ) and adding the motor so the chassis looks like this - the wheels need to be a darker blue. The motor is not fixed as i need threadlocker to do that but you may notice the shaft adapter sticks out as i'm a bit afraid of gumming the whole thing up with the threadlocker! The other end of the worm has a piece of axle steel as a support. So posed specially we now have a Jellyfish loco which is useful as you can see where the motor may end up although I may try to sink it slightly lower between the frames. I suspect it woud be a good idea to fit the worm after assembling the wheels/gearbox/chassis so you can test the free running of the assembled chassis although with only a direct drive I dont suppose there is much chance of binding unless the muffs are too long. The motor shaft is currently too loose to be able to test the drive but hopefully will be doing soon.

I have just received a query in Shop3 as to the possibility of converting the Bachmann plymouth shunter to 2FS - I found online that the most recent version is a split frame chassis - has anyone tried this? JOn

I forgot to mention in the previous post that I filed the inside of the driving axle bearings flush with the frames to better accommodate the gearbox. The outside chassis width is 7.3mm. Next I need to fit Simpson springs then I can assemble with wheels.

Back into serious bodging despite the low temperatures in the workshop. Now I have the basic gearbox together I can reveal that the test loco is the M15R 2-4-2 using 3d printed bodies from Etched Pixels - these are still available thanks to Alan's offer of free access to home priters for some 3D print files - see his website for link. The upper loco is an origial test print for LNER refit loco and the bottom is the final GER version (missing a spring which I knocked off when cleaning. The blue paint was put on to help with body clean up (smoothing) although most of the apparent roughness is inside showing through. I'm starting with the top body removing the dome and safety valves (n-brass relacements) these bits are solid but the visible boiler is hollow allowing stuffing later. Underneath the loco was designed to sit on a Dapol 14xx chassis with a support at the front for extra carrying wheels ( I removed these as soon as I got the bodies) as you can see below the association 14xx chassis could be used for a simple loco. The 14xx chassis is left over from my early days of practising soldered construction and might one day become Fair Rosamund (if I run out of other jobs). My option is to use the n-brass 2-4-2 chassis which fits perfectly and is close to correct just like the body and given the varied nature of GER 2-4-2's will do fine. I do need a bit more work on the front of the print to get it sat properly. The chassis was also built more than 5 years ago, I had to lower the position of the central spacer to accomodate the 6mm dia motor as I found the brass gearbox sits low in the frames and is I suspect perfect for tender engines but requires a bit more fetling in Tank locos. so this is where we are: I now notice the photo has the chassis the wrong way round :( damn the symmetry! But does show the relationship of the motor and gearbox. I may also remove the printed coal rails and use an etch for them. Early locos didnt have the rails either so a choice is available.

I'm enjoying following both these rescale canal wharfs but I think you have to remember the original OO kit is effectively narrow gauge, if the kit had been EM it should have been directly rescaleable. I'm slowly doing a 3mm scale version and decided on a tuning fork design due to the 14.2mm gauge track I use whereas a 12mm gauge 3mm would probably work for inglenook. Jon

One thing I've been meaning to do is try out the association brass gearbox as I have a couple of chassis that don't come with any built in system. It was easy to ream out the "worm " holes but the axle hole caused me an issue due to the size needed being slightly over 3.2mm (I thought this would give clearance for 1/8inch muff). I ended up buying a 3 to 4mm broach from hobby holidays as my biggest one was 3mm. Care is required not to end up too sloppy so I made a tester to check for free muff movement which will come in handy next time. I might invest in a 3.3mm drill to see if this helps also. It looks like this may work for the K9 loco provided I trim some off the front projection.

New year so thought update might be appropriate. Had problems trying to solder the window frames on the tram as it's another step better done in the flat! Got a bit annoyed with my ability re soldering so put the locos to one side and built some wagon chassis to practice fine tip work. I had become unable to get anymore wagon body kits into the correct storage drawer so made a batch of assorted wagon bodies (18) so something is progressing. Back on loco work as the temperature improves - my workshop is in a cold spot behind the house currently mainly around 0 degrees. I am keeping busy with DIY as well which is fun when the property has no vertical walls or right angles- bl@@y Tudor builders, :)

The answer is that the tool is not gauge specific. Gauge is set using a separate button gauge or calipers or as per personal choice. Jon (shop 3)

The Locomotive magazine is another source of fascinating info on pre grouping topics and available from the GER society as a cd. I don't know if other line societies do this as well? Cheers Jon