bluestag

Well, I finally settled down and tried shorting a spare Slater's wheel. I used some phosphor bronze wire I had; it should resist wear. I drilled a diagonal hole in the filet of the rim, between the tread and flange. And I drilled a diagonal hole in the brass hub. Soldering the wire to the rim was a doddle. Soldering the the hub was not so much. It took a fair bit of heat to get what looked a good solder joint. I was convinced that I had melted the plastic. In fact, I did, there was a small raised bit of plastic in the vicinity of the join. The wire protruded into the axle hole, and there was a lot of solder to clean up. But I chucked the wheel on an axle in the lathe, and it did not seem to wobble much at all. I have Slater's wheels that wobble more on a loco. So I MAY have a procedure. I will need to be careful and quick to solder to the hub. I like the idea of drilled holes; much more secure than just tacking the wire to the back of the rim and hub.

Hey guys, I'm five locos in so far. The 0-4-0 is compensated along classic Sharman lines. The other four have Slaters sprung axleboxes. I cannot seem to keep the springs in place. Possibly I let the axleboxes drop too low in the hornguides, but I can see no way around that. I'm on the verge of retaining the springs with the smallest drop of superglue on the pin at the top of the hornguides. Any advice?

For you LNWR enthusiasts (or pregroupers) News! Phil Atkinson of Hobby Holidays is developing a Problem Class in 7mm. He could use some encouragement. I want one painfully! If you might be interested in having one, get on to Phil and register your interest.

I replaced most of the lost photos today. Mostly just running the layout, it is a hot summer.

That's a shame, and missing Guildex and all. I had it early on, mine was quite mild. Books on tape are a godsend. Get better.

I'll say they take up space! Getting them into small LNWR prototypes is a challenge. But that is nothing compared to working motion.....

Oddly, I have a set of Alan Gibson plungers. I'm not convinced they would make good contact, to be honest. The American System appeals.

Humm. You don't say. One issue is that I am not building this for myself solely. I have promised to write construction notes to help write the instructions. I need to take the simplest and most common approach, I think buying Slaters wheels applies.

Yes, I have that copy of GOGazette on hand. It makes me despair of painting the bally thing. I do intend to drive the rear axle. I've committed to writing build notes to help write the instructions, and I need to hew to the design. I also am interested in building it as it was late in its life, with a Ramsbottom boiler (parallel throughout) and a Webb chimney. Even a Webb cab. I think it looks good, and is easier to justify on my layout, putatively 1895 to 1905. But I digress. Yes, a heavy tender. Somewhere I have Sharman's guide to compensation. Can't find it just now, but I certainly remember how he handled 4-4-0s, a similar problem. I am a tyro, I doubt very much that I would build in a crank axle. Life is too short. I am very inclined to build to the American system, as that would make shorting the axles easy. It would make the gearbox live. And between the tender resting on the loco and keeping them isolated from each other, an insulated drag link might be needed. Many thoughts on that. Or the tender chassis could be completely separate from the body, with the weight being in the body. And the chassis insulated from the body. There are a dozen good solutions. It is incumbent on me to find one that does not need my lathe and is easy to arrange. Humm.

As for tender drive, I don't know if the tender is very roomy, and I imagine I'd have to do some serious work to gear the tender. I wonder how much lead I'd get in along with the decoder. The Bloomer has only been built once (the kit I am looking at from Parliamentary). The builder drove the rear carrying wheel. Which implies a weighted tender leaning on the drawbar. Which is fine. The gearbox and motor seem to be pretty well hidden. I am also considering driving the driver, but I find gearboxes and motors tend to restrict the side to side motion of a axle. The Bloomer is fairly long, and needs side play. If I did drive the driver, I would mimic the arrangement of compensation in MRJ 20, where the compensation beams from the driver to the rear axle is asymmetrical; the pivot is close to the driven axle. This compensates weight toward the driver.

Thanks for all the tips! Someone told me to simply solder a wire from the rim to the brass hub. Duh. Why did I not think of that? The American system would be easy enough. Good idea to isolate it from the body. I am inclined to do a split axle arrangement. I would need three extra axles. (I have a lathe) Cut one axle and drill it out, cut the other axle and turn a peg to fit in the hole on the first. Apply epoxy to glue them together and insulate them. Possibly a plasicard washer to keep them apart. Two pieces of plexi screwed together and a 3/16" hole drilled into them to make a gluing jig. The one issue I have not resolved is how to end up with axles of the correct length. A real machinist would have the answer... I like Slaters wheels because they can be removed from the axles with ease.

I'm considering building a LNWR Bloomer. In 7mm, what sort of pickups do you use? I'm on my fifth loco, and all of them have Slaters plunger pickups on the driven wheels. But the Bloomer is a 2-2-2. Only one axle is going to be driven. I suspect that if I apply plunger pickups to undriven axles, the plungers will act like brakes, and prevent the wheels from turning. I have heard that someone who built this Bloomer used the American system, which implies shorting one wheel to each of the six axles. Any thoughts on how to short the rims of Slaters wheels to their axles? I'm also considering split axle pick up on the tender, and putting the decoder in there.

Always have been drawn to SR locos, since building an Arfix Schools class 50 years ago. I like the smoke deflectors.

I think only the tender is by George Norton. The loco is by Jol Wilkerson, is my understanding. John Redrup of London Road (4mm) has commissioned a number of LNWR locos and applied George Norton tenders, 1800 and 2000 gal, as appropriate. Thanks to John, the LNWR is extremely well supported in 4mm. About twice what is available in 7mm.

I recently discovered that even smallish snots of glue oozed out under the rail into the 4' way can disturb stock running over it. The angle is only 1/16th of an inch thick, and my measurement of slaters wheels has the flange being 1/32 of an inch deep. I had a number of glue snots that touched the flanges and caused the stock to bounce around in an embarrassing way. I cleaned them up with a craft knife and a sharp chisel. To the relief of the stock.

All the components of a loco cassette. The picture is upside down. I tried many times to correct it, and failed. But it works: In the lower right hand are other cassettes. On the top are two dowels which span the T handles; two shown there. And 8x1" flat head wood screws. It is not visible, but the dowels are drilled on my lathe to accept the screws, otherwise they would surely split. The same could be accomplished in a vice with a power drill, but that would take more time. Shown next are four 8-32 flat head machine screws. The countersink in the 1/4" T handle is apparent. Next an aluminum angle that serves both as a rail and a parapet. And stiffens the 3/16ths ply that is the base and the finger blocks. Holes will be punched and drilled and tapped in the aluminum to take two of the screws up thru the base, which is counter sunk. The base is 2 3/4" wide, as 7mm gauge is 1 1/4", plus 3/4" x 2. The finger blocks are 3" wide for no reason except to make for less explanation to Bruce who worked off a 1/4" grid paper drawing. In retrospect, getting them aligned every time would have been easier if they had been the same width as the bases. And repeat with another rail/parapet and two more T handles. Hopefully that all is clear.

Two of the conducting clips, with a view of how they curve out of the right of way, after I bent them.

This cassette system provided a few suggestions. Note the finger to align them. Mine is nice because with the three fingers, and three receivers, and the aluminum angle, the alignment both horizontally and vertically is assured https://www.intentio.shop/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=280&search=cassette The site does not show the cassettes with a lifting system...and they assume one is going to lay rails. The price is good compared to the costs of my system, but shipping to the US would be back breaking.

I haven't yet addressed getting power down the cassettes. The back track has a cassette plugged in, with the coal tank aboard. Two hair clips grab the aluminum and transmit the power. I use these hair clips when soldering models together, they can be bent easily. Two clips are in the upper right corner of this photo. I needed to bend the clips dramatically so that they would not foul the right of way. The clips for the adjacent rails where the two tracks lie next to each other can touch and short if one is not aware. The clips are hair clips used to hold curler rollers in place as the hair is curled. I bought 50 for a few dollars, so I'll never run out. One needs six, I think, in a fiddle yard like this one.

I'm Kevin. No, I have not put any heavy weights on the cassettes. I'm quite confident that they will hold. The joint between the T shape and the 1/2 dowel is glued with good yellow wood glue, and has 1" long #8 wood screws binding it together. There is no way that that joint will fail. The section of the T against the aluminum parapet is 4" long, and is well glued with solvent based contact cement (not the water based stuff) and also features a #8 machine screw. That is the only dicey component, and not bad at that. The aluminum is 1/16th inch thick, meaning that the 8-32 screw only has two threads in the aluminum to grab. Which is enough. The problem really is that the screws are way too long, and must be cut with an angle grinder. And the angle grinder cannot fit in with the Ts properly upright. So the screws get cut with the Ts pointing down, then the screw is backed out and glue applied, and the screw reinserted. But if the screw has not been cut cleanly, a jagged end can destroy the thread in the parapet. It has happened once. I forged ahead, and generously glued the T to the parapet, and got a lot of glue on the stubby screw and jammed it back in the hole. With the stiffness of the 1/4" T, the 1/2" dowel handle, and at least one screw well lodged into the parapet, I cannot imagine it coming loose. No, I worry more about an operator withdrawing a cassette and catching the one above it and dragging it off its perch. How he could possibly miss it and allow it to plunge to the deck, I don't know, but people are funny sometimes.

It's not original to me, but very little is!

I've started a new thread under layout topics describing my 7mm cassette system currently under construction.

Two of the components were cut by laser. Just another example of me using tools not necessarily available. Seriously, you could petition any of the several manufactures of laser cut buildings to produce the same items for a reasonable cost, I'm sure. Bruce of my club owns the laser, and we spent about three hours cutting the lift handles (T shaped in the pictures), and the finger alignment bits. Two are shown. They are 3"x2" the fingers and slots are 1/2" square. The extend from the cassette by 1/4". I had planned to use 1/8" ply for the lifting handles, but it was not flat enough for the laser, which requires the stock lay pretty flat on the cutting surface. Bruce had some 1/4", which worked, but it made my cassettes that little bit wider. Hence the strip of white ply on the deck of the box. The A class again, on the cassette that has yet to have its lift handles installed. It is nearly the longest loco that I expect to build. Possibly I'll build a Greater Britain (there is a kit) which is just a bit longer. It will take up all of the cassette. This photo illustrates the safety blocks to keep the stock from rolling out of the cassette as it is lifted. This is made up of the 1/8" ply not used for the handles! Two pieces, one 3" wide and the other just wide enough to fit between the angles. More later.

An early photo of the cassette box, before angle irons are screwed to the back to stack the cassettes. The deck folds up and covers the cassettes and trains, reducing dust and securing against earthquake. Not an issue for many of you, I recon. Four of the train cassettes in storage position along the right side of the box. The black angles started life as 6"x6" corner braces, but with the back bit cut down to 5 1/4". The cassettes themselves are 5" tall. If I had it to do over I'd allow half an inch between them; it can be ticklish withdrawing a cassette that is below another cassette. Note the 3/4" wide strip of white ply, added to allow for slightly wider cassettes than planned for. Details of that change later. The aluminum angle is 3/4"x3/4". The approach to the fiddle yard features a slight reverse curve which should be avoided if possible. At yesterday's operating session Len brought his Western CoCo hydraulic diesel. It only JUST cleared the angle as it reversed into the cassette. The 3/4" angle is adequate for pregrouping, but for BR steam and especially long diesels, the clearance is tight to non existent. 1"x1" might be more suitable for 7mm. But I've plunked down for all the aluminum I need, so 3/4" it is.

I thought I'd give you some photos of my cassettes and a bit of a description. The layout is L shaped in the garage, with the fiddle yard on the right end of the short wall (`17'4") and the town down the long axis (19'2" plus a flap that folds up when the door is open that is 3'4" long.) The cassette system will eventually hold 8 4'6" train cassettes, and 8 16" loco cassettes (only about 15 1/4" is useful). The cassettes are aluminum angle screwed and glued to plywood. Two loco cassettes, the coal tank is on the back one that has its lifting handles installed, and the A Class uses up most of another waiting for handles. The slots in the aluminum take bits of 1/8th inch ply to stop stock rolling off. Also visible on the left are the entry/exit tracks to the layout, with aluminum angle transition bits. Also with slots to stop stock from plunging to the floor when the deck is folded up against the cassettes for storage. More photos to come.