locomad2

Pin point axles, over the many decades tried various methods Railway Modeler about 1963 excellent article on how to get 100 wagon trains, using pin point axles, special home made drill jig to accurately drill inside axle boxes to fit peco ? Plastic wheels. Myself tried this unfortunately peco wheels are the worse culprits for bend axles over time, HD ones also suffer but less. Result wagon wobble. You can use metal axles by making a slight V in the inner axle box to fit metal axles, you might end up with lost axles as you lift the wagon, but most of my stock stays on the layout so just carefull if removed. Those cordless dermmel type grinders are ideal tools for the job Wrenn came up with plastic inners with pin point axle holes, can be made using thick plastic strip with suitable hole drilled and metal axle, have made a few using both metal and plastic wheels. Best done with a slow setting glue and test the wagon straight away slight out of alignment and again wagon wobble. Now I've made a small plastic moulding injection machine going to try and add some graphite powder to scrap plastic and see if can make plastic similar to later trix coach bogies, these really are free running easy pass a 1:100 test, compared to Wrenn about 1:75. I've about 20 odd HD wagons fitted with pin points axles, the weight of the base make brilliant wagons less likely to derail, easy to reverse, with less drag weaker locomotives like modern Hornby and others can pull longer trains

Not quite often find long trains are easy to pull not so easy to back. Main problem is the coupling they jam and stock derails, you also get buffer lock. Tension lock are terrible hence I prefer peco or HD, try reversing 9 triang tristrol wagons almost impossible, replace with Peco and it works. Back to wheels, this I find is the best of both worlds, HD 3rail wheels converted to 2 rail I've been doing this for 30 years, wheels removed, larger hole drilled, insulated brushes pressed on, plastic outer washes added and replaced. This wagon had a starting resistance of 1:36 and rolling 1:60. Almost getting close to pin point axles Triang bogie, pin point wheels starting 1:30, rolling 1:55, so in theory better than Rolling resistance is a handy tool as often find directly related to maximum number of wagons a standard HD 2-6-4 2 rail can pull, if all nearly 1:30 then 30 wagons can be pulled etc etc So next challenge 50 HD bogie bolsters, however converting stock takes time, I've the simple tools press jigs etc just takes time 200 odd axles

The 1:30 test I think came original from Meccano, I certainly remember reading it in a Meccano Magazine when I was young. Yes your right metal axles with a bit of oil on perform the best, the 1:30 test applies to both starting and rolling resistance most of my metal axle stock passes the test. Plastic wheels are generally more of a problem, used stock tend to collect "crud" and bits of hair round the axle. New or "mint" stock often are very stiff, I used to use a little light oil, but now use silicone grease or even red rubber grease again only a dab. Long trains say over 40 wagons often won't start if all the coupling are under tension so back up the train till the guard van starts to move, this technique was once used by real trains, then try restarting This over coming starting resistance. Did once get a Triang Hornby early version 9F to pull 100 standard Hornby dublo wagons, course all the stock passed the 1:30 test, all in excellent condition plus track flat, large curves, plenty of transformer power, did record briefly 2amps. In attempt to achieve this pulled apart or broke at least 6 coupling!

Yes the HD starter set 0-4-0 came out in 1964, with 2 plastic wagons and a plastic brake van, its rare but not really valuable. About 1975 Dinky used the molding and brought out diecast push a long with 2 diecast open wagons. By using the dicast body on a 1980's Hornby 0-4-0 chassis you get quite a good looking tank which due to weight pulls along a reasonable load, here's mine made a few decades ago Somewhere there is a thread showing how it's done, the push a long chassis are usually quite common

Slowly doing that by drilling into tanks from underneath and filling with fine grit from grit blaster, more likely to repair rebuild them now but a few left

Lets see your airfix kit, well mine get used I built this aged 9, some 50 odd years ago, it's been on all the layouts since, bog standard unpainted airfix kit Think the peco coupling at the time cost more than the kit, unweighted so know it's the first, first lesson learnt, since then anything to hand thrown in the tank, old half pennies, 2p's, lead shot, old bolts. Stood well test of time even the wheels are original, and transfers lasted too.

Rake of Kitmaster Maroon coaches with peco paper interiors, couple of early airfix 0-4-0, boxed mineral, tanker cattle wagons, airfix footbridge, station canopy etc Built a scale craft railroad trailer a few years back Most over 50 years old if not 60

Either very expensive unbuilt Kitmaster kitchen or hard to find, however did buy a fruit box of really tatty coaches, bodies, bits, sides, glass etc and found a very tatty Pullman kitchen broken kit. It really was a mess dreadful paint job, missing glass bogies etc did have a go at getting up to a certain standard needs more work It's on Lima bogies, I noticed after running parts of the side on corners just fell off, roof has edged missing, looks and runs ok between triang stock

Back to the airfix tanker and coupling Most of my modelling now is repair and rebuilds / repaint, I have posted before tips on replacing the airfix coupling pin which I have found to be a weak spot with use of all airfix kit wagons. I've found a common source for a metal brush to replace the pin and broken insert, it's a 5mm "eyelet" used in clothing, tents covers etc, just enlarge the peco coupling to 5mm and it's a easy fit in the outer coupling slot

Wonder if this stuff is very much like "Copper grease" used in car repairs for brake pin parts and battery terminals. Very cheap and available (sold in tubes in Hellfords), also used on bikes for inner cables I've used it in model railways on points on the inside rail contacts esp. Peco and lube the tie bars, also for lube in wire in tube for points. It does conduct electy and prevents corrosion between different metals

Mine was very loose, took a "bastard" file to the jaw underneath not good German engineering

I know I discovered that 15 minutes trying to work out, instructions useless, plenty of "don't put cat in microwave to dry" in 40 different languages but not how to open the drill box seems you just pull apart Comes apart

I assume you mean the standard peco point motor pl10? Metal body, bar and pin. I've a few old plastic types must be 60 years old they break up. I've about 60 metal ones on layout most are 10 to 30 years old, a few have started to stick and the odd one stuck, disconted from point the bar doesn't run free. The stuck one I cut up, it was rust inside the black type before it goes red oxide. The others I added some "airline 10" oil used in compressed air tools, seem to work, that was about 7 years ago. No problems since

Maybe it was but often broken, I watch a lot of recently released "pathe" newsclips from 1940's , most are silent and never released or shown in public as speech or sound added later. Somewhere in England at a dock Sherman tanks unloaded from a train with 1/2inch browning machine guns in place on the turret although covered with canvas, you can tell they are 1/2inch as they are roughly twice the size as the smaller 0.3 inch browning. Short clip no sound can't ID location not even the region

Interesting I've also read somewhere that peco offered the coupling to Meccano as the "trade" ie manufacturer, but kept the rights to offer it "retail" apparently then the two were quite separate entities. Also somewhere among "Model Engineer" bi weekly magazine in late 1940's there is a trade article about Hornby using a new coupling, patents etc must dig it out

Well it seems to work, we are talking about a dab probably no more a tenth of a ml blob about 1mm in diameter. It's been discussed in previous posts, most likely works as it stops peco nickel silver rails from oxidation, brand new its clean but after a few years goes green, very old stuff say 50 years old very green, bit like 2p's which I believe have nickel in too. As for spending money just because it costs a lot doesn't mean its has any quality, my late father spent a lot of money buying so called "acid free paper" wrapping his collection of O gauge stock only for us to find it all went rusty while in contact with "acid free paper". Tests on the paper showed it was more acid than ordinary newspaper

Don't even need to do that, just open the top of the power steering bottle in the car, dab a bit on some tinfoil or old bottle top and dab a bit on the track, then run a loco over it couple of times spreading it along the track. Other oil tips try "airline 10" used for lubrication of air tools, very fine idea for general lubrication about £5 for 5 litres, general motor oil synthetic idea for gears, "pin & axle" used for 5th wheel tractors, excellent grease for metal gears dirt cheap. All above used in last 10 years, transfer to those little jars you get jam in at morning breakfast in hotels or buy jars at crapland range etc 20 for a £1, I don't use Peco lube it just causes electrolite rot between different metals

Well I've heard all the advantages and disadvantages of ATF, almost daily my layout is in use and it seems to work but it's just a dab on a piece of track, then an engine runs it in (approx 15' x 10' oval). As for attacking rubber plent of "O" rings in my steering rake. However I still occasionally use My favourite it's a copy of the infamous Hornby dublo track cleaner, it tatty but it works, use to use "meths" but now its IPA. The original fag filters are hard to find so just use real ones and ignore the health warning. You don't have to replace the filters just cut off dirty ends with a sharp knife and push rest of filter though For a bit more tougher jobs this Simple 600 wet and dry stuck under some foam under a HD weltrol, bit of weight dragged around with the track clean wagon For even tougher jobs try this Kneelled wheels of standard triang bogie chassis, just run at at high speed and let it slip, acts like a file and grinds the the dirt off course you have to keep the wheels clean but lot easier

Spare Doors for the horse box have always been in demand since the mid 60's, on my childhood layout we lost or broke a few well before 1970, think then we had just two one green one red. Sometime in the mid 70's I moulded some using spare white metal and a plasticine mould, not very good but filled with car filler and filled down did the job. Differcult bit was getting the right shade of paint. In early 90's I saw some white metal doors at Chester Chester toyfairs at about a £1 each, also saw some plastic (white) ones in bags but even then silly prices

Triang tristrol, plenty about so decided this make quick conversion to a larger "warwell" what I got was quite a striking wagon Not finished painting but on test to see if fits loading gauge using the tank which tends to be the most difficult due to height From above it's quite impressive kind of got an "American" feel about it

Exactly the same happened to us, currently on 7th layout (75 yards of OO track) having had a layouts for over 50 years. So gone though all the track cleaning "solutions", track cleaning wagons, rubbers, HF cleaners, wet & dry etc etc. Each layout got bigger more time spent cleaning track. Track magic worked, providing track was clean at first, plus other stuff flat, live frogs, good connections etc etc. Then somehow misslay the bottle, then told that "ATF" "Automatic Transmission Fluid was just as good, stuff found in car power steering so tried that. And it works, its available, cheap, you only need a dab, trackcleaning almost a thing of the past and everything seems to work better

Interesting worth £76k retail, £45k stock simple to work out mark up or "gross profit" then on most model railway products. Also another retailer tipped off Hattons something was amiss.

I've been researching similar systems that use recycled plastic that make build large bricks which can make all kinds of things, unfortunately in the UK no one has far as I aware does so although there are several free advice systems on utube, prehaps when I retire soon will have a go, moulding blocks etc The idea is simple with a few hundred blocks you can build all kinds of outdoor structures up to a certain height without any particular skills, if it doesn't look right or gets unused just as easy to take it down just like simply lego

Still the Conflat is an excellent wagon with good detail on the containers, these one fitted with HD insulated iron wheels, lowers the height a little Note the coupling still lower than the buffer bar on the trackmaster, I've one trackmaster fitted with mk 3 triang tension lock still correct buffer height

Standard Trackmaster wagon with original early HD coupling Although this been fitted with peco wheels the original wheels were the same size, yes your correct its 38mm wheelbase (9ft 6ins). The height is almost the same as HD 8F, on left is a Graham Farish with missing buffers clearly a few mm higher. Underneath is the split chassis which makes replacement wheels easier, surprisingly this example has lasted quite well, must be at least 70 years old by now Never been able to work out why the 2mm height came in ? , I know the Triang volume 1 mentions this, so assume it was to fit tension lock, but the original trackmaster wagons where the correct height