Hull Paragon

I've just bought a new 7mm Class 31 body from Skytrex. He has finally been able to cast a satisfactory product and I picked it up at Reading yesterday. He used to do them some time ago but they went out of production. Suddenly, with Heljan's announcement, the Class 31 is back in business! Mine will complement the Hull based locos I am 'building'.....eventually!! At some stage I will cut the necessary holes to fit my abc special bogies as well as other bits and pieces I have hidden away! So I wondered if anyone had built a Class 31 with the old Skytrex body and what advice they might have? Ray

I was looking at some S7 pointwork and commented to Paul Stokes on the underlay. I quite liked the look and feel of it as an alternative to cork. It looked like an exercise mat and Paull thought that it was originally marketed by Exactoscale. He thought that 3mm yoga mat could substitute...but that is relatively expensive. Does anyone have any experience of a product like this please? Ray

I have one or two bits and pieces I wanted to post but I didn't want to clog up my loco build thread, nor any other thread....so I thought I'd try a multi-purpose thread to talk about odds and ends. So, first: Has anyone experienced any problems with Proxxon drills? I bought a FBS 240/E about 4 years ago. Recently it developed a serious problem which after I stripped it down, I discovered was a bearing on the output shaft. The bearing had seized. The drill is used only for modelling purposes....usually drilling and small light milling. I asked an agent in the UK what I could do and they told me they would contact Proxxon. Like me, they thought that even though the drill is/was out of warranty, such a failure was rather unusual and shouldn't be acceptable. Proxxon thought otherwise and responded simply that it was out of warranty. However, they could do a spare shaft at around £30+ on a 5/6 week delivery. Much to my annoyance, I had to buy another one, (I already had the Proxxon drill press). Waiting 6 weeks was out of the question, and the cost was almost 50% of a new one anyway! I wasn't too happy, so I have packaged it up and sent it to Luxembourg to check the bearing failure with their supplier (Surely, the supplier offers better than a 12 month warranty on components such as these?) I don't know what will happen but I remain optimistic........... Ray

Thanks Dave.....very encouraging. I note in a book I have about James Beeson, that he never let himself do anything that wasn't absolutely right.....doing things multiple times if necessary.....I won't go that far I think, but I will get it as right as I can. Ray

Some may wonder where I have been..........maybe some haven't! The last time I tried to log in I couldn't for some reason and I decided to do it 'later'. 'Later' turned out to be 'much later'. I have built and installed the cab doors. No issues there although they are slightly awkward if you want them to work. A few hinges have to be soldered on before construction. Here are the pieces including the overlays. I have to confess that I didn't fit the 'hinges' that are about 0.00005mm long and appear to add no value whatsoever. And fitted to the cab....... they look slightly awry but it's a trick of the light. I then added the boiler bands and conduit . Again pretty straightforward. At this point I would say that the advantages of an RSU are limitless. The unit simplifies any load of soldering operations. (Hinges as above; boiler bands here; etc etc etc..........) I moved on to the footplates; more of which, later. It was at this point that a problem I knew I had became a problem that I could no longer tolerate. Those following the thread might recall that I said earlier that I had some difficulty lining the boiler up during the body construction, primarily because I had inadvertently filed off two locating tabs on the smokebox saddle. Despite taking my time and (I thought) a lot of care, I later discovered that the boiler top centre line was about 1mm off line. The funnel and dome were lined up to the actual centre line and so were also a tiny amount out. Similarly, the smokebox door which I took a lot of time getting right, wasn't! It too was slightly off as evidenced by the horizontal handrail. The error was very small but it looked like a mile to me. I showed the model to a large cross section of people, all of whom thought it looked OK.......but after several days of prevaricating, I finally decided that I couldn't put up with it any longer. So I have removed the smokebox door, funnel, collector and dome to refift after I have adjusted the centre holes as well as the mounting holes for the footplates and handrails.....pretty minor stuff really, but necessary. I am still in two minds about taking the boiler off the smokebox altogether, but this will be quite difficult as I will have to get enough heat all round the seam at the same time as preventing the smokebox joint plate falling out.......... Incidentally, I don't know if anyone else has discovered this but it is quite obvious that the design of the German Wehrmacht helmet worn during WWII is a direct copy of the Ivatt Class 4F Dome!! Well who would have thought it?......... Ray

The assembly of the boiler and firebox is nothing short of difficult.....at least it was for me. The chassis with the saddle forms a jig to help line everything up but even so, I had several problems. The first was of my own making in that after soldering the saddle up, I filed all the tabs off but it became apparent that two of them located the boiler. That wasn't a great problem except that the tabs would have kept the boiler axis through the chimney vertical. I had to line everything up with the tab at the firebox end lined up by eye to give a vertical, and then make sure the bottom of the boiler was parallel to the chassis for the alignment along the length. I then discovered that the boiler didn't sit properly in the saddle which, after my bending it to shape (see above), had developed a slight twist. There then followed a series of short and measured bending tweaks to get it straight......after all that I finally soldered the whole lot together. The saddle was OK too.......... I also added the brass strengtheners which go at the bottom of the firebox wrapper. This was another head scratcher as the pieces had to be aligned with the wrapper and also sit properly in the chassis. (This is one of those kits where everything leads to Rome!). The bolt head is a 6BA bolt that I used to help tighten the assembly up before soldering. Washout plugs have been installed leaving the way clear for some top fittings. First the safety valves......... ......so on to the funnel and dome. The castings need a fair bit of brass filed off and are a difficult shape to file. The next problem was making sure that the funnel and dome were located centrally and upright. There are holes in the boiler to line up with but no spigots on the pieces. The funnel has a 9mm hole and the locating hole is 6mm (or so) so I decided to turn a small plug for the funnel............. This ensured that the funnel was located perfectly. The dome has no spigot and no hole so lining up is not easy. In the end I put it in the lathe and drilled a 2.5mm hole in it, then inserted a rod into the dome and through the boiler to help line it up. I'll fill and file the hole later. Here is the end result. I was going to do some of the associated pipework but one piece was not formed propery and I tried to solder a piece on to make it useable. In doing so I burned my finger and in a reactive high speed withdrawal, the piece I was holding flew into the air and landed I know not where.....I went for a G&T! (Dave at MOK is looking to see if they have a spare) Ray

I had some reservations about bending the firebox wrapper to shape and being a bit of a coward, I decided to do something else instead. So I started to put the boiler together. First the formers which are easily found on the fret: All the bits inside the rings needs to be removed and kept safe for later. The two pieces with the etched squares are joined together with a folded box and form the link between the two halves of the boiler tube. (Shown here before soldering....you can also just see the marking telling you which end is which). I put the formers into the tubes and tightened up with copper wire. Even though the boiler tubes have been rolled by MOK there were still a couple of minor problems. Firstly, the extreme edges wouldn't quite wrap around smoothly...tack soldering sort of solved that but you must be careful not to allow anything nearby to melt as the tube springs out again...it's probably less than 1mm but looks like 1 foot! I also had trouble getting the longer tube seam to close fully. There is a gap of about 0.5mm which I just couldn't reduce so in the end I decided to press on as closing such a small gap would make next to no difference with the boiler diameter. I soldered everything together. The formers look a bit like this when everything is in place. (Sorry about the over exposure of the metal surface reflecting light) Next, the smokebox wrapper which was simple enough although there is a tiny element of misalignment of the holes for handrail knobs etc.....nothing critical I hope. I then tried to put the smokebox door on after fitting the hinge rod and handrail. It didn't fit properly. It located for most of the boiler circumference but one side slipped inside the boiler casing. After some thought I decided not to strip the whole lot down again, so I packed the boiler former with a circle of plasticard and sat the door on that. The next problem was to get the door square. This was quite difficult and I still don't know if I have been successful. I did it by eye in the end by inserting 4 handrail knobs into the smokebox casing to give me balanced reference points, then sitting the boiler upright on my cutting mat which has a 1cm grid printed on it. I lined up the knobs horizontally and the hinge of the door vertically. After some considerable time I felt that it was close enough so I epoxied it in. Soldering might have disturbed the alignment.....and I thought it would be easier to melt that with a torch if it looks wrong later....... I then offered it up to the saddle to see how it sat.......it didn't!!! It was immediately apparent that the curvature of the saddle was much too shallow for the boiler. The middle section on the lower support assembly was fine but the ends didn't curl up enough by quite a long way. This was nothing short of a disaster, (it looked absolutely awful) and for a moment I didn't know what to do. I decide to try to bend the ends of the saddle upwards (towards the boiler) by being a bit brutal. I inserted the whole edge into my Bend-it tool and forced the metal round....pretty crude and I fully expected something to explode out of position....but it didn't and the gap closed up even though I had to resolder the overlay on one side. It's not perfect but it is not far off. I just wish I had known this in advance as I would have done the boiler assembly first and the saddle second. The boiler is not parallel to the saddle here so the gap looks worse than it is. I also realised that the locating tabs on the saddle which I had filed off when I soldered it all up, were probably meant to locate in the boiler underside. Aaaargh! I don't have any tabs to help me set the boiler exactly right with the funnel normal to the horizontal. I only hope that the smokebox assembly will be accurate enough for me not to worry about this. Having got to this stage, I was finally forced to face the firebox wrapper. The instructions call for light lines to be drawn on the surface of the etch to mark the top, tight, bends zone, and recommends different size rods to roll the various bends. The etch didn't have the stated guide lines for drawing the light lines so I drew my own guided by the drawing in the instructions. These are the relevant bits: The wrapper must be bent to shape to fit the outline on the cab overlay and the brass transition ring. Right! There's a lot to go wrong here and the critical measurement is the width of the box at the top. If this is out, it will never fit. So heart in mouth I rolled a few lower reverse curves before I set a 6mm rod aligned centrally to my marks and bent it up on both sides....(45 degrees) to form the bends at 90 degrees or thereabouts. Dave at MOK recommended that I start from the bottom of one side and progress around to the bottom of the other. I would (like everyone else I assume) have started from the top centre and done each side after the top was fitted, but I took his advice and some time later reached halfway. The cab end has tabs which locate the firebox wrapper into the cab which really helps. Some more time later I finally ended up with the finished product. Not precisely right but very close and slight pressure when I solder will ensure everything is hard up to the recesses. The transition ring also fitted reasonably well. So, after a period of not much happening, the body is slowly assuming some shape. Ray

Rob If you wanted them you can have copies of my pictures of 43106....I've got about 150 of them showing all sorts of views from external and cab, to under the boiler for pipe runs etc. They are not totally complete but are a very good archive to start with! Ray

Here is the cab photo......folding seat at the back And the other side showing the 'little' pieces under the seat! One small point that might be of interest is the amount of detail that is in the kit that has to be installed with very basic instructions. For example, the chassis oilers that locate on the front assembly overlays. The instructions say 'Pipe up Chassis Oiler and solder pins to these holes (pointed arrow).....Both sides'. I have no idea what the piping for these looks like and there is no information in the instructions. Before I started to build this kit, I went to the NYMR and took dozens of pictures......even then I missed areas but luckily the engine came down to the MHR and I was able to take more pictures. The chassis oiler is fitted and is piped thus: Proof: I promise it is there.....just under the makers plate. I was lucky that I had it in a global picture. Without it, I wouldn't even have known which way up it went! Ray

Having said I want to get back to the crankpins, I realised that I have some pictures of a J71 that I built fitted with diferent wheels. In order they are Slaters, Walsall and Original. It's a personal choice as to which you prefer. One final comment on the choice of wheels, regardless of quality issues and/or personal bias, Slaters don't do a V Rim profile driver......which is quite apparent on Ivatt locos. Ray

Thanks again Michael. Regardless, I am not using Slaters again. Ray

I could do that but I am now committed to using MW wheels. It's been an interesting dialogue and all comments have validity, but in the end my original query was about insulating crankpins and having enjoyed all the comments, I would prefer to drift back to the subject. Thanks Ray

I finished off the front end without any difficulty and test fitted to the chassis. The instructions suggest that the builder stops the chassis build at this point and starts the body construction. The reason is to ensure squareness as the cab is used as a guide for the rear chassis assembly. So, on to the cab! First, the sliding windows. The very small cross section guides must be square and it took a couple of goes before I got it right. Yes....they are on there! The seats followed with pieces which are described in the instructions as 'Little'.......they are. I thought for a while that I was working in N gauge....... Some plates on the cab overlay......... ...........and the cab can be folded up. I'll post a picture of that later. Ray

Michael It is an interesting point when challenged on one's beliefs or prejudices. Despite Slaters status in the hobby, I have written them off because of past experience. The fact that they may have improved does not lessen my (irrational?) bias against them. I suppose it's a bit like a car...once you've had a problematic Ford, you never have another? I should add that I have had concentricity problems with Walsall wheels too but because they are metal, I was highly confident that skimming them on a lathe would be safe. The bending force on plastic spokes when machining at the tyre surface would probably be excessive if the tool grabbed or bit into the tyre. Again, I know that with very tiny cuts (and a perfectly sharpened tool) the exercise would probably be safe......but I can't shake the prejudicial thoughts no matter how easy it might make my life. I have commented above on the question of rim cutting. I assume that JPL have jigs to do it to prevent damage or distortion.........maybe they use a miller with a fine cutter. Whatever, it is unlikely that I will insulate at the rim. Ray

David Many thanks for all of this....of which I was not aware! Ray

I haven't dismissed anything. I am loathe to rim insulate though because a slight error could result in too small a surface for the pick-ups.....and I am unsure of the strength of epoxy if/when I turned a groove on the second side. You have to remove all the metal to reach the epoxy and without jigs to take the stress there could be problems. On top of that, I don't have an adequte tool. Turning a bush takes 5 minutes. Ray

David Thanks again. I hadn't considered the short at that point! Ray

HH I don't like them! I had several problems with the plastic centres moving, and with concentricity.......and I think metal wheels look better. Ray

David Thanks for your comments. Your experience with the pick up springs is interesting. I'm not sure how or why your springs have burned out as the path of a short circuit would, I assume, travel through the wheels, motion and frames as that would be the path of least resistance. Any short through the pick up springs would have to travel through the motor/DCC decoder too wouldn't it? In your case, the springs seem to have acted in the same way as fuse wire does....which is rather worrying as you would hope that the safety devices on controllers would be designed clear a short circuit fault much quicker than such a 'fuse'. (Although MCBs in domestic installations are generally much slower than fuses when subject to short circuit currents). My current thought is to use Slaters pick ups. They too have small springs which I shall stretch, then cut in half. This provides enough pressure on the plunger to ensure good contact, but doesn't add too much friction. Hopefully, I get things insulated properly and I avoid the pitfalls you have experienced. Ray

Michael Thanks very much. This is what I thought it would have to be..... and I had realised that a fibre washer would be needed if the bushes are to be simple parallel inserts. I want to keep the coupling rods as close to the wheel as is practically possible as even in this 7mm kit, clearances are tight. I will need to experiment to determine how thin the base of the top hat can be cut without tearing or breaking it off, or what sort of minimum thickness of washers are available. Tufnol seems to be the preferred material for this but do you (or anyone else out there) have any experience of using Delrin for such purposes? Ray

Hello I have decided to turn my own locomotive wheels for my current construction project. I have never done this before and I have taken advice from several people including Mark Wood and Raymond Walley who have both been extremely helpful. In order to insulate the driving wheels from the chassis it is necessary to insert tufnol into the axle holes, drill out to leave 1/2mm of tufnol into which the axle is pressed. With both sides insulated like this, I anticipated no further problems. However, all the driving wheels will be live on both sides which means that the crankpins will be live. It follows that once the motion is fitted, there will be a short circuit from the crankpins on one side, through the coupling and connecting rods to the cylinder, through the frame and out through the opposite side wheels. I'm building a 7mm Class 4MT which is not a 'conventional' locomotive in that it doesn't have a chassis with running plate on which the boiler and cab sits. It is no easy matter to separate parts of the build so that the loco is electrically sound. Maybe I could insulate the cylinders from the frames, but there is also the motion brackets.....maybe I need to insulate those too somehow. It would appear therefore, that the only solution is to insulate the crankpins. This is relatively simple to do....Mark Wood suggests a top hat bush.......perhaps an epoxy glue would do it. Despite this, it just sort of complicates matters somewhat as I want to be sure that even if I do this, I maintain electrical integrity, especially as I will have an expensive decoder installed too! I can't find any information on insulation crankpins so it would be very useful to hear from anyone with experience of this (potential!) problem. Thanks Ray

This has been a 'Read the instructions properly before you do anything' sort of experience. After doing the main part of the sub assembly three times, I turned my attention to the webs. The components are shown here: I have said previously that marking the part numbers on the small etches helps a lot when getting the parts together........ it does! The webs are located in the angle between the side and the rear of the buffer beam shown on the right here: After some slightly fiddly alignment I realised that the buffer beam had to come off or the triangular shapes would not engage in the location holes......off it came and the installation was successfully completed......or was it? Spot the mistake time! Anyone who has done one of these before will see that the overlays are missing. I thought they would slide on after I had filed off some of the soldered tabs.........they didn't! The webs had to locate through them so I had to take it all apart, fit the overlays and then re-assemble. Eventually, with the addition of the brass lifting lugs, it was finished! Tomorrow, I will be reading the instructions! Ray

The cold weather is still irritating me....I'm very much a SAD person.....but I have still made a little progress. I have added some methfix transfers to a van I painted last year, and I have built the baseboards for my layout and fixed a temporary track with passing loop so that I have something to run my stuff on as I park the plans for the final layout and get on with the loco. The latest sub assembly is the chassis front. A number of etches to join together and as I discovered, the order of build is quite important. As is the location and fitting of small plates with rivet detail which I realised have to be located and fixed in position by pegs on the front plate piece. I had to undo everything twice before I got it right. Top and lower views of the assembly before all the ribs on the buffer beam are fitted. (Sorry for the quality of photo which must be due to the flash going off before the focus was right) Ray

The weather continues to be cold enough to freeze antifreeze which affects my impetus......and my circulation, but eventually I got round to doing some kit work. I finally fitted the missing ribs for the coal space area of the tender, and after soldering the overlays to the side frames I added the brake hanger brackets. I have had a lot of trouble with the spring hangers. I used my RSU to solder them on but more than one broke or fell off. I am not sure what the problem has been but putting them back is a real pain. One left a wet surface behind and it appeared that the flux I was using hadn't fully evaporated or burned off.....so the solder didn't take. Clearly, the brass wasn't getting hot enough which is strange as the RSU was on full power and I left it in contact for quite a while. At present, all seems to be well but I'm not sure what I will do if the problem persists. The next step is to make up the coupling rods but as I have no wheels I will start either the front end sub assembly, or I might skip forward to the body section and make the cab up. The instructions suggest that doing the cab at this stage (chassis part finished and before the front and rear sub assemblies are attached) is advisable to ensure squareness when the sub assemblies are fitted....so I will follow their advice I think. I have ordered my wheels from Mark Wood and look forward to receiving them in the near future. In the meantime, my lathe learning curve continues as I struggle through parting tool issues....most of which are now resolved. However, it all takes time........and the woodwork for my layout is being delivered on Tuesday! Ray

Wheels: The Continuing Saga of: I'm feeling a little bit guilty. I am a great supporter of model suppliers especially 7mm providers even though some of them can really get it wrong. I explained to the team at Walsall that I was very unhappy and that I would no longer be using their product, and Roger Crowe refunded my money. Although I was a bit harsh with my comments he took the time to write a short note to me suggesting that Mark Wood's wheels could be a possible substitute. I thought that under the circumstances, that was an excellent gesture and I intend to email him to say so. Roger did say something in his note that I hadn't realised. Walsall wheels are shell mouldings....Mark's wheels are lost wax castings. That must explain why Walsall wheels have so much claggy material on the spokes and at the boss. Mark's wheels are certainly look to be better quality....but if you can't turn them yourself, you have to find someone who can, which obviously adds to the cost. (Oddly enough, Mark Wood suggests Walsall as a possible turner!) In the meantime, I have now finished my very first wheel. The blanks that Mark gave me look like this (although the one I have done is a tender wheel and has no crank boss). There is quite a lot of excess metal on them which is gradually removed. There are two useful guides which I studied in detail. Raymond Whalley of the Gauge O Guild has a method which is quite interesting and well presented on his website, and Mark himself shows his method on his product pages. They are pretty similar but Mark takes more care to ensure that the spokes don't get distorted in the final stages. I followed Mark's method almost to the letter. Eventually I reached this stage: The only real mistake I made was to turn them slightly under the recommended 3.5mm width. However, in my defence I had a little bit of trouble measuring the tool cuts....(everything has to be divided by 0.025 to work out how many gradations to count when turning the cross slide screw....all part of the learning curve!) After a series of other adventures on the same learning curve, I eventually reached this stage: Bingo....one 4'3" Stanier tender wheel. It's a long way from being perfect, the tyre especially isn't very good, but even though I say it myself, I am very happy with my first ever attempt. I have two more blanks to practice with but this time I need to find a foolproof method of setting up and repeat drilling 6 crankpin holes in the exact location. With regard to the Class 4 wheels I will put them on hold for the moment. (And return to the main build for a while...it's been a while since I did any work on it). They are on order with Mark Wood (I ordered 7 just in case!). I have also ordered a DRO system from Warco and that won't be delivered for some time. The issues with measurements go out of the window with these systems (no backlash to worry about for instance), and I am not turning the real wheels until I have it all fitted and up and running. I have not used a lathe for many years so it took some time to get back into it....... however, the processes if followed properly should be within the capabilty of many model engineers. I'm pleased I took the plunge.....perhaps these few posts might persuade you to have a go too? Ray