MAP66

10 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

It’s going to be great, looking forward to watching this develop.

 

Meanwhile, my thoughts are turning to not just the next project - but the one for the end of 2024 😎

 

No pressure!

Thanks Neal,

I hope you enjoy the build, have you tried a High Level kit before?

I'm intrigued about your projects, tell more please. 

3 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Hi Mark, you’re a much braver man than I am, but I look forwards to learning from your build.  Thanks for sharing, and well done for getting started - often the hardest step!  Keith.

Thanks Keith,

yes, I've been putting this off for over 3 years now, with the house move and now having a dedicated room for railways, I finally had no more excuses to delay.

So far so good, but then again I have only got through 2 paragraphs of instructions 🤣 Long way to go yet and it will soon get very, very heavy (Hornblocks) and all sorts to get my head around HO, HO, HO soon be Christmas.

Exciting times, herewith and without further ado, I present for your entertainment the actual start of the chassis build. Strap in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride as I intend to give a blow by blow account of the build, warts an all. This documented approach should serve as a good reference for me, as I’ve never built a chassis kit before and hopefully it will also serve as some use to others as well.

There’s a lot to get through, no less than 8 A4 page sides of written instructions with about 4 pages of very detailed diagrams. Plus, and this is very useful, there is a drawing of the main parts fret with all parts numbered with an accompanying numbered parts list.

Being new to this, I have decided to follow all instructions to the letter and in the same order as written. Let’s begin…

With the main parts fret laid out perfectly flat on a hard surface, using a sturdy craft knife, I removed the main frames (parts 1 &2) from the fret and went about removing any cusps on the edges with a file. Having done this, and referring to fig1, I carefully punched out the rivets onto the main frames using the indentations on the reverse side of the frames as a guide. I accumulated a number of specialist tools a few years back in anticipation for moments like this and it was very satisfying to use the Rivet Press from GW Tools for the first time. It did what it was meant to do and I now have some nice rivet detail, see image below…

The next stage was to release the axle spring backing pieces from the fret (part 3 x 4 sets). They are each folded in half along the etch line to make them thicker and then soldered. I tinned the inside faces before folding and then once folded, I sweated them together. See image below…

You are then required to solder the 4 springs in place on the chassis. Which, as you can see from the above image, will be the next step.

So, that’s it for the first instalment. I will try and update every few days or at least one weekly update. Next post, I will be attempting to assemble the side frames together, which involves several frame spacers and more soldering, could be fun – let’s hope so? 🙂

13 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

 

Good luck with finding "stuff". That is always my issue when I tidy up!

 

The incline test, really tried my patience with the Metro tank and I am sure I will be reliving that again when I build the County tank!

 

Of course, it's two incline tests.... The first just to get the wheels moving, then you need to do it again with the connecting rods attached as well. At first it all works ok, then you need to  increase the incline and you will find the wheels lock up - more gentle fettling soon see's it right.

My word, 2 incline tests! I didn't even know about the first one and now there are 2. Would it be against the rules that even after much fettling with no success, that I then raise the incline to 90 degrees to the horizontal in order to get the chassis moving, gravity assisted (but with wheels still seized?) 🤣

Forgot to mention earlier, but thanks again Neal for providing the link to the small metro builds thread, I'm going to gradually work my way through all the content, picking up all the juicy tips along the way. Me being ever the pessimist (refer to first para above) with occasional optimism, would it be OK to share any achievements I make with this build on the Metro thread?

40 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

Happy to help if I can - I have a clock builders jig that I now use to true up my chassis builds which is very rigid and accurate. I think the poppy's jig is not much use at all for accurate work.  But I think if you are going compensated the accuracy is probably less critical as you have to allow some play to allow for the effect the conn rods have when one axle moves and the other does not. Tony Gee says the real test is will the chassis roll down an incline with all wheels turning and the rods going over when the motor drive is removed. Its a stern test but once achieved the result is a very smoothly running loco.

regards

Andy

Thanks Andy, the comment about the side play is very  timely and useful as the kit mentions two types of frame spacers for P4. So I can now use the one which provides 1mm of play (0.5mm each side). When  If I get to a rolling chassis, I will try the incline test 🙂 but if it grinds to a unceremonious halt, I will keep quiet about it.

7 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

It was a combination of both! 
 

But I was struggling to keep the second pin on the jig 100% true - which is when Andy in our Metro build thread, said he had abandoned it!

 

You can get the first axle in line, but then I found the second axle was wobbling around all over the place! It then became a case of using the screw in spacer which I got from Comet / Wizard. I can’t remember if the chassis also came with some - I think they did.

 

If you want to PM me during the build, I’ll be more than happy to offer guidance - although @Andy Keane has just done his second loco building course at Missenden so might be a better bet 😎

 

I have no experience of P4 or Compensated chassis…. 🙁
 

This is the thread we started during our various builds: 

 

Thanks again Neal, sorry about the delay in responding. For the past few hours I have been searching through the remainder of my railway bits and pieces as I'm sure I had another chassis jig from Comet. Finally came across it sitting in my tray on the new bench! So my theory about now being able to find stuff more efficiently has immediately failed. Let's hope the chassis build doesn't suffer the same fate 🤪

2 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:

If it’s anything like the SE Finecast Metro tank, it should be straightforward.

 

I see you’ve got the Poppys chassis jig…. I also have one, but found it didn’t make life easy!

 

Getting the chassis 100% square is obviously the key, so resorted to screw in spacers - worked much better!

 

Good luck.

Thanks for the tip on the jig. That's the part I'm most concerned about as this will be a P4 build and so getting it to run true is critical. And just to make life easier for meself, I'm going for the compensated chassis option as opposed to the more straight forward rigid chassis. Out of interest, did you still use the Poppys jig with the screw in spacers, or was this part of another jig?

56 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:

That 14xx chassis kit should be a nice build to do. Those instructions / diagram looks very comprehensive. 
 

Good luck and enjoy the build.

 

Plus the Railway room is looking very organised.

Thanks Neal, much appreciated.

I've been looking forward to the day when I could tackle this build, lets hope I don't stuff it up after all that 😄

Well, here we are again and progress is good within the railway room. A lot of sorting has happened and items of interest and extreme usefulness have been recovered, identified, re-categorised and finally stuck somewhere where there is a chance that I will find it again.

Out of the organised chaos, new carpet tiles have been put down and two separate work areas have been created and are ready for use. One will be for plastic and card construction, general modelling and painting. The other will be dedicated to doing train stuff.

So, with all that out of the way, I can finally make a start on the ‘High Level Kits’ 14XX chassis build. Here are some before and after pics of the railway room…

How it was, still with the old carpet.

Ta dah, new carpet tiles down but still more sorting out to do.

View from the other end of the room. That's Tyteford Halte sitting on the bottom of the 3 shelves.

This is where the train stuff will happen. I cut an old internal hollow door in half and turned it into a tool rack by drilling hundreds of 5mm holes at 25mm centres and then brought a pack of cheap hooks to hang the tools from.

Here's a close up of what's happening on the bench. We have the chassis kit laid out showing the main fret (side frames and axle springs already removed) and 3 bags of detailing parts with very, very comprehensive instructions. The motor and gearbox shown in the 2 bags on the right are not included but are available separately. You also need to get the wheels, more detail on that later. 

I was thinking of ways to keep this thread less auto coach and more something else as it has been going on for a bit now. So, in an attempt to shake it up a bit, I have decided to intersperse it by making a start on the 14XX. The auto coach will need to connect up to it eventually anyway and as it’s now almost complete it would be good to set it aside for a bit and fire up the soldering iron instead.

There is also an ulterior motive here, as for this to happen there first needs to be a workshop re-organisation, so that the layout build can continue and this in turn will provide a new separate work bench for loco building. Before and after pics to follow in due course.

They might have mistakenly put HO sheep in OO scale packaging. I guess this could happen?

1 hour ago, Neal Ball said:

Good luck with the new layout build - would it not be possible to incorporate Tyteford in? Then at least you can expand this thread….

 

Plus good luck with the helix, before we moved to Spain the layout was multilevel and I found some of the locos struggled to get stock up the incline, then ran away as they were going down!

 

They would never have coped with my kit built carriages 🙁

Thanks Neal, I did think about incorporating Tyteford but decided it will remain on the shelf, this thread still has legs to run as the 14XX still has to be tackled. The new layout needs a new thread started as its too big to live here. Although the new layout is 00 gauge, I do intend to run a separate single track branch line, end to end in P4, so that the auto train and railcar have a place to run.

Thanks also for the heads up on your helix experience, It might turn out the same for me (hope not) but I'm giving it every chance by using third and forth radius for the twin track helix with up trains entering on the outer fourth radius and down trains descending on the inner third radius. Time will tell if it's successful or not.

The coach is slowly filling up, we have from left to right Michael Bradshaw (railway traveller and enthusiast), George ‘Goodnight’ Shearing (ex-prize fighter turned toolmaker), Beatrice Bush (horticulturist and 1938 winner of Tyteford in Bloom, Arthur Bush (not as green fingered as his Mrs).

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Delighted you have a layout space - look forwards to seeing how it develops, Keith.

 

(Great painting on the figures too of course)

Thanks as always Keith. At some point, I will start a new thread for the new layout, but I really ought to get this auto coach finished first 🙂

Its nearly a month since my last post, so apologies for the lack of modelling activity on my part. I have been active in other areas with a spot of decorating and some gardening projects are thankfully now finally finished. Then there’s my secret project, more on that later.

I did however, manage to paint a couple of HO scale seated passengers before I got distracted elsewhere. There will be roughly 10 to 12 passengers in total, so a way to go yet, occupying both the smoking and non-smoking compartments. Here’s how the first two look, a much better fit than their OO scale equivalents.

That secret project I mentioned? Well, I am in the early stages of actually building a layout. Never thought I’d live to see the day. The house move last year has made this possible as our new place has an annexe which I have bagged for my work space and layout. I will eventually get around to starting a new thread for the layout but for now, here is a teaser…

This is the first of what will be two Helix to enable a lower level for the through fiddle yard. The start of the lower level is seen to the left. The upper scenic level will be 3.5 circuits up from the base level and exit in front of the window about 300mm higher.

And here's the business end where all the fun happens. It requires a bit of a sort out but you can see my bench on the left and the layout will run the entire length of the room along the right hand wall and the second helix will be located in front of the end window. Between the two helix there will be a scenic run of roughly 18'. So there's scope to perhaps run some prototypical length goods and passenger trains. 😁 

I am also guilty of owning a copy of said book, I think a few of us will be thumbing through the pages again in a trip down memory lane. 

Which makes me think, this is not just Model Railways, this is 'Marks & Sparks' Model Railways 😄 tasty stuff. 

The recent wet weather prompted me to inform the little people, waiting on the platform, to expect delays to services. “Don’t make us laugh”, they chortled, “the auto train is already running 6 months late and it’s not down to the weather”. Well, that’s me told then. Anyway, who are they to judge, I took a look down the other end of the platform and Fred and Arthur still haven’t finished those fence repairs! What a liberty.

I did a little bit more, not a lot, but every little helps when attempting to drag this coach over the finishing line.

The latest work involved removing the moulded plastic cab door handles, passenger door handles and luggage door handles and replacing with 0.4mm brass wire. I then fitted the brass steps to the underframe from the detailing kit, 2 at the cab end and 2 at the loco end. Not sure if I have positioned them correctly, I just went with my interpretation from the dodgy drawing. I also fitted the brass grab handles to both sides of the cab.

I also gently bent back the brake and steam hoses at the cab end and tethered them to the underframe. I think this was common practice when the hoses were disconnected and not in use to stop them flapping about in the breeze.

I’ve attempted touching up the coach body work and parts of the gold lining by hand painting, it sort of looks passable (with the lights off and at a distance of 50 feet). The coach paintwork has now taken on an overall dullish tone. This has led me to the decision of giving it all a rattle can spray of satin varnish after decals have been applied. The aim is for the varnish to bring it all together in a mid-sheen finish and hopefully disguise some of the blemishes.

If and when I get past that stage, it will be time to finally install the glazing, install the passengers and then screw the underframe to the body and pop the roof on.

Some progress pics below...

Loco end showing luggage handles and brass step which has been primed. The passenger door handle is just in view to the extreme right. The coach body is not seated correctly to underframe in the photo as it is resting on internal wiring.

Cab steps and grab rails and a view of the hoses held back. Whoops, how did I miss that wonky buffer!

Head on view of what's going on underneath.

As previously mentioned, the HO scale figures which I decided to go for arrived the other day and they are a much better fit (scale wise) within the coach interior than the OO figures. I trialled the driver in the cab first and no need to chop his legs down this time. He now looks directly through the cab windscreen at an acceptable height. As a reminder, below is a real human in the cab showing where head height should roughly be...

And here is the original OO scale driver...

And finally, a series of shots of the HO driver for comparison...

Not forgetting the passengers, here we have both versions of the seated chap. The HO version fits in much better as you can see...

Thanks for pointing that out Nick, not pedantic at all 🙂 I never know which is which, so being lazy, I refer to them both as vacuum hoses.

While we are on the subject of things being connected to other things, one thing that is so very obviously missing is this...

Photo from Wikipedia.

The actual coupling thingy mi jig is not in the detailing kit (only the universal joint). As my train will be coupled up permanently, it means that I have the opportunity to model one by fabricating it from a piece of square profile plas-strut. So that will be happening at some point but way off for now as this will be at the stage when the 14XX is complete and is offered up to the auto coach for final connections. For now though, I can have a go at the retaining bracket which holds it out of the way against the coach end when not in use.

To conclude the wiring for now, a couple more pics as the vacuum hoses are now both fitted and painted. I’ve also started to fiddle around on detailing the exterior of the driving cab by adding a destination board and cable for the gong. Might have a go at a windscreen wiper.

Next, I want to have a go at touching up the brown paintwork and the gold lining at the cab end and attempt the cab glazing. The half open drop light to the cab door will be glue ‘n’ glazed.

Finally did it. Both vacuum hoses now installed with 1 speaker wire in each. One hose also has a thin enamelled wire which will connect to the blue wire of the sound decoder (common positive for both loco lamps). The other hose has 2 enamelled wires which will connect to white and yellow wire of the sound decoder (negatives for forward and reverse functions of loco lamps).

An overall shot of what it all looks like underneath. It certainly tried my patience routing all the wiring.

At least we now know the destination of the auto coach.

Nice work on your figure painting Chris, they really complete the interior of your work shop scene. Looks like you got the height just right for your bench seating as well. Is it all ready to place into Warren Branch yet, looks like it could be?

Sorry if it’s a bit boring folks, this wiring is taking a little longer than anticipated. Progress, although minimal, is still heading in the right direction though. I’m now tackling the loco end of the coach and the two vacuum hoses which will carry the wiring. Having fashioned the flexible hoses from 5a fuse wire and the rigid pipe from brass tube, I eventually managed to feed a speaker wire through each hose and the thin enamelled copper wires for the two loco lamps which need to go back to the sound decoder.

One hose has been fitted through the buffer beam and the other will soon be following, once I have devised a cunning plan to attach it as this one comes from under the buffer beam (going by the diagram in the detailing kit instructions).

After this stage, not much more can be done to get the lighting to actually work. This can only happen when loco and auto coach are actually coupled together. So, I can leave the remainder of the electrics until then. My next step will be to have a good look at the paint finish on the auto coach body work and try and improve a few areas without a re-spray, then some paint re-touching in general on the coach interior. Then it’s transfers and name boards to fit and dare I say glazing.

For now, here’s a couple of shots of the wiring.

It's all going on with the wiring! We are at the loco - luggage compartment end and hopefully you can see a red and black wire coming up from under the underframe by the buffers which is the track feed for the LED decoder coach lighting. The brown wire next to the black wire is one of a pair for the speaker, the other brown wire is waiting to be installed . If you remember the speaker will be housed in the luggage compartment. The Other end of the brown wire is fed through the vacuum hose, you can see that one hose has been fitted to the buffer beam and the other is still waiting to be fitted. 

Close up of the vacuum hoses. I will need to make two more (can't wait) for the loco itself and these wires will then pass through the loco hoses and into the bottom of the bunker where the sound decoder will be housed.

Now you see me!

Now you don't!

As you can see, the lighting saga continues and the front lamp has now been fitted. It has been temporarily wired up to a 9V battery supply with a 30K resistor to test the dual lighting feature of these particular lamps. They will eventually be operated via the sound decoder and this was just a test before everything is stuck down.

If your struggling like me with electrics, it doesn't help when the installation instructions state that there are 4 wires to each lamp, there are actually only 3. Connect your resistor value of choice to the longer of the 3 wires and this will then go to the blue wire of your decoder. For the two shorter wires connect one to the white wire of your decoder and the other to the yellow wire of the decoder.

6 hours ago, MrWolf said:

That's looking really impressive now and putting to shame the glacial progress of my own efforts!

There’s no shame in it at all Rob, pretty much all us modelling folk have many, many other things going on in our lives (motor bikes, cars, axe throwing, barn finds are just a few examples which fill our day) and our trains have to sometimes wait patiently until we either find the inclination to move a project on to the next step or find the actual time itself to dedicate a few hours to some uninterrupted modelling.

This last week, was one of those rare occasions where the stars aligned allowing me hours of modelling fun.

After all, this isn’t a race and your beautiful auto coach will gain momentum again when opportunity arises. But there’s still so many derelict barns out there to search, darn it. 🙂