Gibbo675

Except that, rather unfortunately, the pyramids are not tombs.

Modern apprenticeship ??? I would have been sacked on the spot for that sort of quality of work, especially the bottom one !!!

Hi Ruston, I had thought of that one as a cheeky reply but the side effects might be a tad more serious than the low adhesion that seems to be the current problem. Might I suggest a safer alternative in Tungsten which has a density of 19600 kg/ m3 with the added bonus of an extra 800 kg/m3 more that Uranium. The only metals that are more dense are Platinum 21400 kg/m3 , Osmium 22610 kg/m3 and Iridium 22650 kg/m3 . Gold at 19320 kg/m3 is actually the nearest and slightly less dense by 280 kg/m3 , Lead by comparison is 11340 kg/m3 which is some 8260 kg/m3 or only 52.5% as dense as Tungsten. Another bonus would be that I doubt that PVA will have any effect upon tungsten in the next couple of thousand years ! Find a welding shop that does TIG welding and cadge the burned out electrode tips from the torches the diameters are most commonly 10 SWG (3.2mm) but also 8 (4mm), 12 (2.4mm), 16 (1.6mm) and 19 SWG (1mm). If that is a non starter you could just buy some from eBay; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10Pcs-box-WL20-TIG-Welding-Lanthanum-Tungsten-Electrode-2-150mm-175mm-1-0-3-2mm/142911147486?hash=item21462b0dde:m:mNJwoB9Xnj-l-QCNCXXeY7g:rk:1:pf:0 Other than the price the next problem is cutting it for it is quite tough stuff, cutting disc in a grinder is about the only way. Mind you fingers ! Gibbo.

Same artist, or so it would seem !

Here is the latest for the Prestwin wagons. Over the last couple of evenings the brake gear and W iron tie bars have been built up from .030" black plasticard, and the original ladder mounting slots have been filled and painted. The photograph shews both sides for the comparisons of the brake gear arrangements. Today the buffers arrived and so I fitted them along with the three link couplings, I don't bother with instanter links as they don't link properly anyway. The ladders yet need to be fitted but I shall have to first make and fit some upstands to stand them off the sole bars. The challenge will be finding the best glue to fit them to the tank top walkway as the walkway plastic is quite a waxy grade that seems to be glue resistant. I think that the lower ends will be stuck with styrene cement to the upstands and the tops with epoxy resin to a keyed surface on the edge of the walk ways. Gibbo.

Hi Kipford, The photos of the Barton Wright are indeed correct for an A class as I remember from my days at the ELR. Careful of ones feet when stood near the cab door way on sharp curves. Gibbo.

Hi Chaps, I worked with 34067 Tangmere for quite some years while at Riley & Son's, very often driving it, and I have to say that it was not a particularly slippery locomotive. The oils bath leaks didn't cause oil to get onto the wheels, any oil on the wheels came from either the axles or the crank pins in much the same amount than any other locomotive, but mostly dropped within the four-foot and not onto the rails. The main points to heed with the original Bullieds, and not the de-tuned ones that BR made a mess of, are: Occasionally some drivers incorrectly used the reversing gear causing slips. The steam circuit is very large and so when a slip starts even if the regulator is shut it will keep going until all of the steam is used up. The locomotives are designed for fast running with short stroke engines and therefore require a much higher steam chest pressure to get any particular load moving due to mechanical advantage factors. The locomotives are three cylinder so only one cylinder will have full mechanical advantage at once, just like an LNER pacific and unlike the GWR and LMS four cylinder locomotives. There was forty gallons of oil in the oil bath which equates to a massive four inches deep in the bottom when stationary, this reduces when in motion, also the greatest source of leakage from the bath is from oil mist passing through the vents and into atmosphere (otherwise known as the lagging !). As for the lag in the valve events, when in worn condition this is comparable to the Gresley conjugate gear when also in worn condition, when new considerably better than the above mentioned. Do ask if there is anything you more you wish to know. Gibbo.

Hi Phil, It would seem that the Wrenn ones are only a midges short for the SE&CR ones that ended their days on the Golden Arrow, again with incorrect window spacing. Do you also have a full set of the Pullman Profile series books ? Gibbo.

Hi 34 ... B&D, I like the sound of your idea but I have to say loose bricks in tunnel linings could be fun for all of the wrong reasons ! Gibbo.

Hi Corbs, The good thing about Pullman cars is that cutting and shutting is easy because the sides are flat. You could use the later Hornby versions as main line stock with the Wrenn ones for secondary services and perhaps use the Triang ones as suburban versions by working extra doors into the sides. Spare brake ends could be shortened and put onto long wheel base goods wagon chassis, even four wheeled passenger stock. There are loads of Wrenn, Triang and Hornby Pullman cars on eBay better still some may be had for quite cheap such as this little selection; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Triang-Pullman-Coaches/183597559783?hash=item2abf446fe7:g:eW0AAOSwK5tcCnD6:rk:192:pf:0 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hornby-00-Pullman-Coaches-X-4-With-Missing-Weel-Bogies-Vgc/223287892243?hash=item33fcfed913:g:G08AAOSw87lcF00g:rk:194:pf:0 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WRENN-W2234-NCB-DIESEL-SHUNTER-SPARE-BODY-3-x-BLUE-GREY-PULLMAN-COACH-BODY-SHELL/273612347493?hash=item3fb4911865:g:iEgAAOSwKfFblEmA:rk:195:pf:0 Avoid the Graham Farish Pullmans for they are acetate and are very often warped as a result. Have fun with that lot, Gibbo.

Hi 34 ... B&D, You are almost certainly correct and from what I now only the Boat Trains on the Southern between London and Southampton, and London and Dover regularly had full brakes as baggage cars as part of the train. Gibbo.

Hi Phil, Would the baggage cars mentioned have worked with the ten cars built between the Midland Carriage, and Birmingham Carriage Company's works in 1925 ? Gibbo.

Hi Folks, My first locomotive for Christmas, 1974, was a Hornby Triang type 3 D6830 in blue. Rather unfortunately the motor burnt out only a couple of years later, as did the second and third replacement armatures, now long since binned ! Gibbo.

Hi Folks, After cutting and shutting lots of Pullman cars together I had some left over bits and so I made a 49' and 63' Pullman style full brake cars. I think the short one looks better somehow. I might even get around to painting them both properly once I finished my Pullmans proper. Gibbo.

Hi Mr Compound, The trouble with compounding is that it only really becomes effective within a steady static state, that is when the power demand is constant. This is generally the case in power stations and ships but not very good with locomotive engines where such states are unpredictable and the balancing between the expansion stages becomes uncertain therefore leading to no real efficiency advantage. Waste heat devices such as exhaust steam injectors are far more useful in respect of efficiency in such cases. GWR = Gresley Was Right ( Trained by the L&Y at Horwich ! ) Gibbo.

Those that do not make mistakes do not not do anything. You are no fool, I'm sure you will fix it. Gibbo.

Nah, they are just anti Marxist-Communist !!! By all means see through the Overton window sometime. ( I think think the above is a cheekily funny comment )

Hi Ohmisterporter, There are various factors that affect hammer blow these include; Percentage of reciprocal balance. Percentage of rotational balance. Wheel diameter. Length and weight of connecting and coupling rods. Position of connecting rod within wheel base. Piston thrust.. The angle of the cylinders to the horizontal. The number of cylinders. The angles between the set of the cranks. The mean average speed that the locomotive is designed to run. The main difference between the King and the 47XX class locomotives is that the Kings have four cylinders and the 47XX have only two cylinders, therefore the left and right side of the King's drive is paired as left and right by 90* but the individual pairs are opposed by 180* and as such the reciprocal forces cancel each other out. The cancellation of the reciprocal forces leaves only the rotational forces to balance out and as such the wheels balance weights are reduced in mass compared to two cylinder locomotives. Hence the greater hammer blow effect of the 47XX over the Kings. Three cylinder locomotives balance differently again due to the cranks being set at 120*, this allows a situation where the balancing of reciprocal forces are divided and shared between the three cranks in an alternating fashion, this again leaves, in the main, only the rotational forces to be dealt with. One advantage with a three cylinder locomotive is that there is a more even application of torque to the rail and also the power pulses of the locomotive are effectively divided by six and not four as with two and most four cylinder locomotives. The hammer blow effect is not much affected by inside or outside motion as hammer blow is a vertical force, the main difference is caused by the rocking couple of the mass of the outside motion, this affects the radius of gyration of the system which induces lateral forces causing locomotives to yaw. One feature of almost all GWR locomotives was the setting of the cylinders to the horizontal. this negated any vertical component of the piston thrust and assisted the balancing process. A lot of the larger British built for export and American locomotives also share this feature. Should you look at the balance weights on the Kings, Castles and the LMS pacifics you will see that the balance weights on the leading driving wheels are not opposite the immediate crank pin but set between that crank position and the crank pin of the opposite wheel and is therefore only a rotational balance. Confused ? I am !!! Gibbo.

Hi Chard, Ha ! Ha ! F****** / Flaming fire! It would seem that you have been judged by way of someone else's standards. Technically a fire is a heat incident and not a thermal incident but then those that abuse the language to such an extent almost certainly would not know what such words actually mean ! Gibbo.

Magnets ????? How Triang is that !!! If you do go full on Triang will you follow it up with milled wheels ! Gibbo.

Hi Johnster, I doubt that the restriction would have anything to do with either the axle loading or the physical size of the 47XX's compared to the Kings as they are height and width the same, also the swing of the buffer beam overthrow on curves is less than the Kings with 47XX' at 12' 3" buffer beam to leading axle and the Kings being 15' 9 3/4" therefore reducing its lateral kinetic envelope. I would suspect that the reciprocal balance of the driving wheels and subsequent hammer blow effect would have more to do with the restriction than anything else. A few years back BR Std 4 76079 was given dispensation to traverse the Barmouth Bridge at reduced speed, 15 or 20 mph, this was due to perceived hammer blow at the reduced speed and not axle loading. As an aside regarding the swing of buffer beam overthrow on curves, I was riding on Nunney Castle when it knocked quite a few platform copings from the edge of Earlstown station platforms on its mainline test run. That little episode left quite a gouge out of the end of the buffer beam which had to be weld repaired. Gibbo.

Prestwin Conversions Hi Folks, As a fill in from waiting for paint to dry, which is a comment upon actuality and not the Saturnalian tradition of Christmas holidays, I have resurrected a pair of Prestwin wagons that I had previously neglected some time ago. I knew I had a pair of Wrenn Prestwin wagon bodies and after a marathon Dapol Presflo building session a month or two ago I bought the Dapol kit of the Prestwin for they are a 'same but different' sort of a wagon both being for powders of certain types and then had a think about the two bodies that were in the bits box. The Airfix, now Dapol, kit is an accurate representation of the original, the Wrenn, formerly Hornby Dublo, and the Hornby [Rovex] models have their inaccuracies by comparison. The Hornby [Rovex] is too short and too tall and I wouldn't bother with it as a detailing project and the Wrenn/Hornby Dublo is on the wrong chassis, however the body moulding is good enough to be used on a finer chassis. The wagons run on clasp braked chassis with twin vacuum cylinders placed about the centre line of the chassis and from what I can make out an arrangement of brake levers all of their own. I decided to use a Parkside LNER clasp brake chassis kit PA35 suitably adapted. The chassis was built up as per the kits instructions except that I repositioned the vacuum cylinders about the centre line instead of being off set and also removed the brake gear. I made sure that the ribs of the underside were securely glued into place with only spots of glue on the tops of the sole bars for a later stage of construction. When the glue had cured I temporarily glued the body to the chassis and then removed it, this left an outline of here the body was to fit as seen in the photograph. I then used this imprint as a guide to the removal of the deck thickness of the the chassis in that area so that the body would fit over the spigot formed, it then providing a location onto the chassis and also allowed the body fit directly to the top of the sole bar. As the kit comes supplied it is without buffer beams and buffers so I have fabricated buffer beams from two layers of .030" plasticard, one that fits onto the ends of the chassis ribs fitting in between the sole bars and one that overlays it extending over the ends of the sole bars. Once cured they will be filled up to remove any rough edges. I shall in time make and fit the brake gear from plasticard and also fit the buffers which are on order. I have chosen Genesis G3 buffers which are the Oleo small head wagon type. To see the difference between the two types of Prestwin there are my models photographed below and the second shot in Paul Bartlett's website here linked; https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brprestwin Gibbo.

Pre-bent buffers for sale here ! For those that model wagons that have already been rough shunted. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wagon-Buffers-RCH-End-Door-white-metal-x4-O-gauge-Parkside-PS57-free-post-L1/282762008801?epid=1562813673&hash=item41d5edd8e1:g:KqYAAOSwCcZaJ7Z5

Hi TS, I've sent a PM with all sorts of other possibles and though fodder for the Electrotren chassis. Gibbo.

Hi Cactustrain, There are all sorts of images upon "The Transport Library" but finding the right ones is quite a trick. Gibbo.