drduncan

Mike , The shed scene is wonderful and the Armstrong Goods is looking very impressive. Merry Christmas Duncan

Dear John (and all the others who have contributed to this thread), Just worked my way from page 1 to 161 and throughly enjoyed the journey! Many thanks and merry Xmas! Duncan

So more progress on the Bachmann Std 4 mogul conversion to EM... The reassembly if all the exterior knitting has started (and I’m soooo glad the GWR didn’t go in for all this). One side done.... Ive also finished the pony truck side control spring and drilled a hole in the lump of mazak behind the buffer beam to take the free ones of the spring. One day soon it might even go back to Kipford who has been extremely patient....

Mikkel, A fantastic set of wagons. I really must finish mine... Duncan

Deadpool...great film!

1. How did that go for you? 2. Why was it necessary? Duncan

Incidentally, I think Bodmin Road/Parkway in 2mm is a good idea. (But then I think broad gauge and pregrouping is a good idea...) I keep looking at no 1 son’s n gauge and thinking ‘hmmm Plymouth area... that might be possible. Yes Saltash to Mutley plain will fit somehow.’ (don’t know where he gets his modellers megalomania from...) Duncan

Rich, Just spent the last few days of rmweb time reading this thread. I must say I’m in awe, not just of your modelling, but also your energy levels with a young family. I too have toddlers and by the time peace and quiet descends for an all too brief period, the last thing I feel able to do is climb into the attic and get modelling. That said this is probably helped by my beloved wife not quite insisting that a cycle to work 4 days out of 5 on the grounds it’s good for me. I disagree as I spend most of the day in the office recovering from the cycle to work and when I feel better I have to cycle home and feel worse for longer! In my corner however is no 1 son (aged 6) who has his own model railway (n gauge to make sure there is no confusion between his and mine - doesn’t work; he has modellers megalomania too and wants a steam engine he can ride on). The cloud to this silver lining is that he has plans for his layout that I end up making real! Still less modelling time... So please keep doing what you’re doing (and tell me how...One day there will be progress on Nampara) Duncan

I think there is a drawing of one in one of my BG books. I’ll try to look tonight once the thundering herd are in bed. D

Good point, Gareth. Leave as is I think, don’t you? D

Or the BG tank is lower...

So how did you design the wheel centres? Could you say alittle more about the cad process? They look fantastic too! Duncan

Dear all, I'm dipping my toe in 2mm 3D (as a dyed in the wool 4mm chap my excuse is I want to do something special for my son's - gasp - N gauge....) So here is a GWR 46'6" E19/E20 (one was BG - and yes I've done that too just not in 2mm - the other narrow/standard gauge and I'm not sure which) standard gauge brake tricomposite of 1888/9. Hopefully I'll see later this week if scaling down from the 4mm version works or whether lots of thickening up of sides and panels is needed. Fingers crossed! My boy also wants a Great Bear for his N -gauge too! Regards, Duncan

So the latest design is a Broad Gauge West Of England China Clay CO wagon. This test print went reasonably well, but there are a couple of niggles to be address on the ends before a print off a the 4 or 5 needed for Nampara. I will also try adding the buffer heads. I was planning on using steel ones but they are rather pricey.

So the ex MSWJR 2-4-0... a nucast kit built by Great Shefford of this parish, but in exchange for him cading the hull for a St Ives Mackerel Driver (don’t ask) I said I’d do the chassis. The chassis was to be nice simple and rigid. The issue was the leading pony axle. It needed to have a degree of compensation but also needed to take a lot of weight, the 2-4-0 being quite nose heavy. The solution was a central pivot from the main chassis that would take the weight and be easily tweaked until the ride height was right. I then decided to make the tender on Mike Sharman’s free floating axle basis so that it would transfer the considerable weight of the cast tender to the loco and hopefully improve adhesion. I also added pickups to the rear fixed tender axle, using a 2pin JST plug to link tender to loco. At about this point I was chatting to GS abs he said something along the lines of ‘it needs to be dcc...’ which of course meant the 2pin was 2 wires too few for a chip in the tender. So I added to small brass tubes on pcb to insulate them from the tender - you can see them peeking out in the photo above. These take split pins soldered to wire to give the extra connections needed. So with that, my work was done abs having it run smoothly on the bench it too can go to its owner for painting and fitting the dcc chip. Still on the bench to finish us a P4 chassis for a nucast L & Y 0-6-2t for the Gosport Guru (who now resides somewhere other than Gosport); and a Bachmann Standard 4 mogul to EM conversion for Kipford which has proved to be a sod due to all sorts of problems with getting coupling rods that match the wheelbase. More on this when it’s finished - it now rolls under finger power without binding so I’ve just got to put all the gubbings back together and sort out the walschaerts knitting on each side....

So it has been an indecent amount of time since my last post. I have been busy.... As some might have been following, I’ve now got a layout thread (which also had not had a post for a while) and a 3D workbench thread which because I can do it in my lunch break at work gets rather more progress, although when the prints get printed they fall into the workbench black hole! Still when family, work and home maintenance permit I have actually managed to do some real modelling - just none of it mine! First was a Brassmasters easi-chassis for the Hornby 42xx for Davies the bridges. This was, despite its name, a difficult build. But the dam things finished, worked on the bench and as soon as lock down is over will be dropped back to its owner. Then there were these strange things: Yes, they really are diesels and no they are not 4mm scale. They belong to my 6 year old son who had been given them by a friend on mine who wanted to dispose of his N gauge stuff. The end result was that Teddy gained two more locos, some more coaches and a lot more track that just had to be incorporated into his layout! The class 47 also needed some tlc as it made an audible clicking and ran roughly. After much investigation (double drive is great for haulage and electrical pick up but my word them are lots of bits) it was found that one bogie was binding. Yet more investigation found that it was one axle causing the problem, and the problem was a split gear. Replacing the axle and gear solved the problem. The DMU needed to be de-chipped but getting the body off was nowhere near as gentle as the service sheet implied! Eventually it came off without damage. Teddy now enjoys drive the diesel in the dark so he can see the working head and tail lights, which impedes work on my workbench! Another update to follow to discuss the GWR ex MSWJR 2-4-0 as the photos exceed the 10mb limit...

The coach is going well. I’ve modified the roof to include the gas lamps and I’ve done the narrow gauge under frame. So that’s ready to print and to scale down to 2mm. I’m not happy with the broad gauge under frame and I’m going to revisit it. D

James, I’d add Iain Rice’s book An approach to finescale track to your reading list. It may not be the approach for you but it will help you understand the issues and problems making your own solutions easier to come to. (I’m building mixed gauge track in EM in case you are wondering how tight my grip on sanity is) Duncan

It might be a bit harder for wagons with steel under frames....

On the subject of clever solutions to problems. I remember some years ago at the MRC club rooms Leslie Bevis Smith showing me how the S gauge fraternity did compensation. The solebar on one side was fixed, but the other was pivoted at the centre point, using the crib rail to disguise the 0.5mm to 1mm of movement. It strikes me this would be easily done via cad and allow compensation for those who like to print integral w-irons and axle box/springs etc.

What about a form of cleminson? Make the centre two axles a bogie that slides sideways. Pivot the outer axles and link them with a ridged arm to the bogie so as the outer axle twists in the turn the arm pushes the bogie to one side to help the wagon round the turn. DrDuncan

I’ll swap you a Broad Gauge 3 plank convertible wagon body and a 4 plank convertible one for it! DrDuncan

Very nice work Dave, Duncan

Alan, Many thanks for the advice. That’s a lovely single bolster by the way... Duncan

Some questions if I may... Ive been given a farish 101 dcc fitted apparently in regional railways livery. First, what are the two little switches in the underside of the power car for? Second, how do you get the body off???? Thanks for any advice! Duncan