hartleymartin

The brake shoes, v-hanger and buffers have gone onto the underframe since the last blog post. The V-hanger and brake shoes are part of a huge collection of whitemetal odds and ends that I bought off ebay several years ago. The buffers are (I think) from a Slater's Midland Railway wagon kit. I just need to work out what I'm doing for the rest of the brake gear. I'm keen to find the rest of the collection of whitemetal bits, as I recall that I had brake levers there. If you're wondering why I cut up the brake gear from the first posting, it was because that casting was for an 8'0" wheelbase underframe, and this one is a scale 9'0". In hindsight I could have modified the design to suit, but I only realised this after I had glued the axleguards to the timbers. After dealing with the brake gear, I'll need to add nut-and-bolt details to the sole bars as they are looking a little bare. I should probably also add the plates that go with the coupling hooks. Chances are that the plates will be some plasticard and the bolt detail will be made from brass lace pins. Most timber underframes had horse-shoe shaped plates for the three central bolts for the W-irons, but I've seen plenty of photos where they've just bolted them straight to the timber frames with large washers to spread the load. Until I start home-etching all these tiny detailing parts, I'll be just making them from whatever suitable bits and pieces I can find. If I had a small lazer-cutting machine I would probably cut them myself from card, but I really couldn't be bothered getting the equipment and learning to use CAD to draw the parts. I have not installed the links for the couplings. I was unhappy with the supplied ones, so I shall be making new ones from wire, using a pair of round needle-nose pliers that I have. The first two links at the hook are always brass and the final link is made from steel, usually from a steel guitar string. This is so that I can use a fine pick or tweezers with a magnetised tip for coupling and uncoupling. Just on the underframe timbers: I found that there is in fact a large amount of scale strip wood available for 7mm O scale. The frame members are scale 12" x 6" timber, which was incorrectly marked as "HO scale 24" x 12" scale lumber."

Well, I'm sure that a company like Ixion will be happy to help you out in that department! You're also lucky that In the UK you're lucky that you've got a great second-hand market for locomotives.

Well, I found the 2.5mm drill and all the top-hat bearings! A comment on glues: I used a PVA-type glue called "weldbond" for the timber underframe, and I used araldite (a 2-part epoxy resin) to glue the whitemetal axleguards to the frames. The holes for the coupling hooks were made by drilling two 1.0 or 1.5mm holes and then using a sharp craft knife to make them into a slot. A little more work with the craft knife and the hooks fit in perfectly. The springs are somewhat superfluous, as the hooks are a tight friction fit into the buffer beams. So I now have a rolling chassis! When I've finally figured out what wagon is going onto it, I'll sort out the brake gear, but I'm likely just to use some bits from a huge pack of whitemetal castings I bought several years ago. When I've sorted out what buffers I'm going to use, I'll add the remaining underframe timbers.

The timber underframe (scale 12" x 6" basswood) was only glued together this evening.I had cut these parts out several years ago, and they've been languishing in a box of bits ever since! Amazingly, I also managed to find the whitemetal castings for the axle guards and the brake blocks that I had originally intended for it. The axleguards are a superceded casting originally from GAGO then Waratah Models, the latter company now recently bought out by ModelOKits. The casting for the brakes comes from a big bag of whitemetal bits that I bought off ebay many years ago, which contained all sorts of odds and ends, mainly brake bits, which I've been keeping aside for building my own fleet of wagons. Coupling hooks are from Slaters as will be the split-spoke wheels. If I could find my 2.5mm drill bit, I would have fitted the wheelsets and had a rolling chassis by now! I cannot even remember what this wagon chassis was going to be for... a coal hopper of some sort perhaps? Most of my models are a mixture of scratch-building, kit-bashing and a mish-mash of all sorts of bits that I have found. They are inspired by prototypes, but are "representations" rather than strict scale models.

I'm eagerly awaiting the peco set track points. I'm also hoping that they do a Wye point. These will be a real boon for people who want to do industrial layouts.

The curved points (a welcomed addition to the range) are technically "streamline" and are not of the set-track geometry that many of us are waiting for.

I did something similar to my 14" Barclay before deciding to completely disassemble it to rebuild the chassis with a new motor and gearbox and redo the paint job. I'll probably finish ot when the Sydney summer returns and I have tp worry less about Latin grammar and Metaphysics. Another rmwebber (he knows who he is) very kindly turnes a set of 16" buffer heads to go into the original housings and I'm very pkeased with the result!

I've been told that the best way to re-inforce the sides of vans is to use 1mm or 2mm styrene sheet and add bulkheads either side of the doors. Another suggestion was to make the body and chassis as two separate parts, painting the inside of the body at the same time as the outside. Apparently the paint solvent has something to do with the sides "sucking in." I've also had friends who used epoxy or super-glue to laminate the sides of vans to sheets of perspex (obtained as off-cuts) and then even put bulkheads in to brace the sides. Perhaps a belt-n-braces approach, but after 20 years the vans still have straight sides!

I muat applaud the recent efforts that manufacturers have made in RTR O scale. I have been in the hobby for aboit 15 years, moving to O gauge 10 years ago. Having an RTR Loco (or 3 or 4) has helped me along considerably. Ive been building wagons to go with the locomotives and even pulled a couple of locos apart to do a respray. At the end of the day I can put a model in front of anyone and they'll recognise it and it still brings me many happy hours enjoting the hobby.

The smokebox on the Hudswell Clarke might have been glued to the footplate, but I got it unglued to re-spray it weathered black.

I just hope that they come apart easily enough for the tinkerers to get into some projects producing more of the variations! I'm still keen to get a couple of them, one being done up as the NSWGR N67 Class (the "Australian Terriers")

36" radius is about a scale 2 chains. This is pretty darned tight, and only very short-wheelbase 0-6-0 locomotives would have managed to go around these. I hope that the new Dapol Terrier will manage the same.

Indeed they're probably going to be more ubiquitous than a 14XX and auto coach. But they're a fantastic model for customisation and I'd expect most modellers to do a little work on them. Mine was a black one but has gotten a respray to green. My Manning Wardle is going to be customized too.

I've built several of my own points before using different methods. I'll be honest and say that I'm not a fan of soldering to PCB sleepers. I much prefer to hand-spike to wood sleepers, although one needs to be aware of potential shifts in gauge from using paint and wet ballasting techniques. I had several instances of gauge-tightening on another layout (Stringybark Creek) from this, and just about the entire layout was hand-laid track on timber sleepers. On our next layout we decided to use Code 125 flatbottom RTR track and handbuild just the points as there was little to no visual difference between then RTR stuff and the laboriously-made hand-laid stuff. I made most of the plain track for Stringybark Creek, 4 spikes in every sleeper and the layout was over a scale mile around the mainline circuit.

I really wish that Peco would do their "Small Radius" points in O gauge. I have several medium radius points handy, but I would really like to use something of smaller radius. At this stage, knowing what the manufacturing world is like, I'll go and hand-build the points then there will be an announcement that the new Peco ones are available.

Is there a drawing which shows how to make this circuit on a piece of copper strip-board (veroboard)? I'm interested in making one of these.

There are non-air hopper kits available from O-Aust. However, I am wondering about the possibility of doing ones along the lines of either Catherine Hill Bay, which were unique asymmetrical design or something from one of the South Coast Col Railways such as South Bulli or Corrimal. If you look closely, you'll see what I mean about the Catherine Hill Bay Railway having asymmetrical hoppers: One side of the hoppers was almost vertical, but the other side sloped and is best seen in this picture. In fact, this is the only picture I've ever seen which clearly shows this side of the hoppers: https://www.flickr.com/photos/intervene/9566246083 When it comes to industrial railways... ah the tyranny of choice!

Hudswell Clarke - bought 1926 for Bunnerong Power Station, ended it's days at Wallarah Colliery, new Newcastle, NSW in 1957 Manning Wardle - bought 1916 for NSW Public Works Department, became NSWGR shunter, did a brief stint at Catherine Hill Bay Colliery Railway, worked until 1970, preserved. 14" Andrew Barclay - became Public Works Department no. 78 (cut up in 1950s) Planet Diesel - Used to shunt coal hoppers at a Pumping Station in Sydney So, the models I've acquired all have an Australian Connection, and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine a colliery/industrial railway where they were bought/hired. The interesting thing would be to decide what style of coal hoppers were to be used.

At this stage the Fowler is probably going to be a Christmas purchase. I'm pretty chuffed with my small steam fleet (pun intended) and I'm looking forward to a couple of small diesel locomotives. A Ruston 48DS is potentially on the cards for a scratch-build project. Not sure I want to fork over the 415 British Pounds for an R-T-R one, and I'm not too sure about my abilities with etched brass to build the 200 pound kit.

And I hope to have the model done up like this before too long. I've had this as my computer desktop background image for about 3 years, hoping to one day acquire an O scale model! *EDIT* At Broadmeadow Locomotive Depot, January 1969.

I've been working on acquiring a small fleet of locomotives for a future industrial style layout. I've been particularly looking for locomotives which would have run in NSW, Australia as this is my home territory. I managed one new acquisition recently: L-R: Hudswell Clarke, undergoing a repaint; Planet Diesel, ex-Coney Hill; and my latest acquisition, the Manning Wardle H Class in absentia: 14" Tower Models Barclay, currently stripped down, awaiting a complete rebuild. I spotted the Manning Wardle in a second-hand display case at my local hobby shop. It had been on display for about 20 minutes before I put down a deposit on it. 6 months of small layby payments later, I brought it home. When the original production run of 100 went on sale, I was hard up for money and by the time I had any money they were all sold out. You can imagine my excitement at the possibility of purchasing one, and 20% off the original Retail price! (WHOO HOOO!) Now to pester Ixion about getting the 1021 decals for it! (Maybe a Fowler Diesel in the future... ?) I have not done much model-building in the past couple of years, but I've taken the opportunity to make acquisitions. After moving house in November last year, I'm settling in and looking to start work on a layout again when the appropriate time arises. My career as a church organist has been slowly taking off doing Sunday services, weddings and funerals. Church music is the hobby which pays for my train habit... I mean hobby.

My plan is to be tricksy with the paint job. Black ends and each side of the coach will be a different coloir to give the illusion that I have more stock. Probably some sort of chocolate brown on one side and tamiya mica red on the other.

The GWR brake 3rd is the one I'll go for first. It's a pretty close match for the coach used in the later years of the Easingwold Railway. It'll go nicely with my Hudswell Clarke.

I'm thinking of building a couple of the GWR 4-wheel coaches for a light railway type layout. Anyone else built one before? Any tips/hints?

I'm imagining an explosion of industrial layoits once these mythical small radius points appear. Would it by too much to hope for a small radius Wye point?