Pikey

Happy New Year So lets have some content, showing what I've been working on over the last couple of weeks. First is a slight deviation from the goal of a working crane lorry, courtesy of my old Scania crane lorry with the working ramps - which has pretty much been in its box ever since I built it because it never really drove very well without a load on the back. So I thought I'd recycle it, as I had several uses for the components. I used the bed with the working ramps, the flashing orange beacon and the receiver, to create a beavertail lorry on the Mercedes chassis - and the flatbed from the Mercedes plus the rear wheels from the Scania to make a drawbar trailer. Got all that? Here I am testing it with a hastily-put-together loading ramp and my Network Rail Land Rover Defender: then I had steering axles and the proper 7mm German motor/gearbox left over, so I used them to finally finish the Scania fire engine I'd had for a while: I've also made another Transit van, this time in the instantly recognisable DPD livery, excellently reproduced by Shedring Hobbies:

I've called the topic just 'J P Models' as I intend to describe all of the models in one place rather than start a new topic for each one. You might also be interested to like and follow 'J P Models' on Facebook The latest model I'll be attempting is a working Hiab crane on a flatbed lorry! The story so far is that I picked up a bunch of cheap Cararama box lorries in a garish red and blue 'Knights of Old' colourscheme, and after some chopping about they now look like this: Technically they're 1:80 rather than 1:76, so ever so slightly smaller than they should be, but close enough for that not to matter. The cranes are made by Herpa and are 1:87 but again this is close enough. The cranes are pretty amazing really for what they cost - fully articulated in every way that the real thing would be. And that's the plan - to have the lorry and the crane fully radio controlled, including the extending boom! This will need 4 separate motors to control the crane, plus another one to drive the wheels and a servo to steer. I'm also planning on having the full complement of lights, and a flashing orange beacon.

Excellent as always.

In actual fact, RC conversion of a basic modern lorry is *fairly* straightforward with mostly off-the-shelf components, believe it or not My loader hasnt got a camera in the cab, but it has got a removable bucket and an alternative forklift attachment - which I can use to move stillages around, load and unload wagons etc when I get bored of shovelling ballast. Here's a video of that

Here's my 00 gauge tipper lorry delivering a load of ballast to the depot on my layout 'A Remote Depot'

Trains are normal DCC control as I wanted to retain the ability to use the sound functions, and as I already had the NCE Powercab from a previous layout

I'll be at the Ludlow model railway exhibition this Saturday

I've now finished the roadsweeper

My facebook page https://www.facebook.com/JPModels2018/ has more info on all the different vehicles. I have 10 now: Leibherr 580 wheel loader Network Rail Transit van Network Rail Land Rover Defender AEC coal lorry (made this for my dad's steam era layout) Eddie Stobart Scania 94D curtainsider with working lights Scania beavertail lorry with working ramps and beacon Wains Transport articulated tipper lorry with working tipper J R Adams articulated flatbed lorry Plaxton 3500 Shearings coach M1A1 Abrams tank (!) I am currently working on a DAF LF roadsweeper, and a Kibri HO kit of a 100T rail crane

Here's the flatbed motorised:

I've now made a fork-lift attachment for the loader which I can swap for the bucket with a (sort of) quick release mechanism. I can now load/unload wagons. So far I've got packs of railway sleepers, underground tanks, IBCs and boxes on pallets. Here's a quick video of me loading a tank onto a flatbed lorry trailer:

I've replaced the 4mm bucket motor with a 6mm motor, as there was just too much play in the shaft of the 4mm motor, and it kept disengaging from the cog on the bucket. The new motor works very much better than the old one, but does stick out a lot more. I'm not overly worried about this. I've also made the bucket quick release, so that you can now pull out the rod and replace the bucket with a different fitting. I made a forklift attachment by pulling apart a smaller forklift truck: And a short video of the forklift working:

That looks great that does. Definitely the effect I'll be going for when I get round to adding some greenery to my hillside

Yes, 1:76 standard Oxford model with standard tyres. I used the Network Rail liveried model to convert to start with, but I've just bought one in military camo to use specifically on the diorama. Its going to be similar, although the ones I've seen tend to look a bit fantasy/artificial, I'm going to try and create a bit of proper English muddy hillside like you'd get to drive around on an off-road driving experience day. Here's a video of me testing it: And here's a picture:

Re: traction - I'm making an off-road experience type diorama to drive a Land Rover Defender around, and after using DAS clay to make a few hills I found the tyres didnt have any grip. I've had a good result creating textured paint with some ordinary cheap (brown) paint, polyfilla and sand all mixed together. Now I can even drive up the really steep bit that I put in only to be driven down Its roughly 1 part polyfilla, 2 parts paint, 3 parts sand - although I wanted a rough muddy hillside sort of finish rather than a road.

Here's a little video I made yesterday

I have a thread in the 'Remote Control' section of the forum on building a transit van and various other vehicles including the loader. Its in the 'Specialist Interests' section, so no-one ever really goes in there It uses a Deltang receiver, a normal (but really small) servo mounted inside the cab to steer, a motor/gearbox from Polish company KKPMO to drive the rear wheels, and two motors with planetary gearboxes to operate the arm and bucket. Its fairly tatty now, to be honest, as I made a load of mistakes building it - so I've got another one awaiting a proper conversion. I'm selling the Transit van kits on my facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JPModels2018), not sure whether to offer a kit for the loader or not, as its really difficult to build. But it was my original inspiration to look into the whole RC thing, after I saw a video on Youtube and basically couldn't believe it was possible

Here's a video of the ballast loader operating (filmed a while ago when I was really bad at driving it and half of the layout wasnt finished)

This is my little layout I am building to demonstrate my 1:76 RC vehicles, as there wasnt really the room on my other layout Made Upton. Its pretty simple, just a line in which leads to a headshunt, and three sidings. Ballast is brought in by road, tipped, and loaded into the wagons before being taken away. On the right will be an HGV / PSV servicing facility so I've got an excuse to bring other trucks, buses and vans on and off scene. Its 1600 x 600mm, plus a small fiddleyard (for both wagons and road vehicles) on the left. I'm exhibiting it at the Severn Valley Railway on April the 7th/8th, and maybe a few more places in the future too This is the track plan: Pictures:

World class

The only place I can find that sells the complete range of G series motors is Sol Expert in Germany, although you can get G5 (5:1) and G700 (700:1) from Conrad Electronic in this country, along with a limited selection of gearwheels and cogs.

Long time coming but better late than never: Arm motor is a G135 (6mm motor with a 135:1 planetary reduction gearbox on the end) mounted inside the arm with 0.7mm brass guides/stabilisers, running a screw onto a fixed 30t gearwheel: Bucket motor is a G125 (4mm motor with a 125:1 planetary gearbox) mounted inside the arm and on top of the arm motor, running a screw onto a 19t gearwheel that pivots the bucket: Both motors are superglued in place with various restraints to the shafts, and wired to the receiver which is under the bonnet at the back of the vehicle.

A video showing some better driving. It takes a little getting used to, but I can now load two wagons in about half an hour before the tiny battery runs out of juice I'll have to get my fiance to take a close-up with her proper camera, an iPhone doesnt do close ups very well. There's basically two motors mounted in the arm, a 4mm motor with a 1:125 planetary gearbox on the end, operating the bucket via a 19:1 screw/cog, and a 6mm motor with a 1:136 planetary gearbox which pivots itself and the whole arm around a fixed 30t cog which is mounted to the chassis. I'm also going to rebadge it as a 566, as that's basically a slightly smaller version of a 580 which is ideal to compensate for this being a 1:87 model used to load 1:76 trains

Fully working and loading wagons, you say? Apologies for incredibly poor standard of driving, and many 'ooeeerrrrr' noises - this was the first time I tried it. Obviously its not quite finished yet, doesnt have the cab or the rear cover on, and looks fairly tatty - I think ultimately I will do another one and it'll look much tidier than this one, as it wont have been chopped about in all the wrong places. I've made all the mistakes on this one. Pretty good though - a working ballast loader

That was a high point - low points include cutting the entire front end in half, and superglueing not one but two planetary gearboxes solid (~£20 each)! I have my receiver for it now, and as the 4mm motor didnt work for the arm I've ordered a 136:1 6mm motor / planetary gearbox, which should be able to raise the arm fully in about 5 seconds which is about right compared to the real thing. Should hopefully have it working in about a week's time