justin1985

I find the brass ones too bulky for most 2mm scale uses.

 

I think I've used them for bogie pivots!

Justin

Excellent news! I've seen far more of these little twin vans in the UK than the bogie version modelled by Dapol, at least in the period I can remember.

What is the rationale behind them? They seem very similar to two normal continental Habbins vans (equivalent to VGA) permanently coupled. Surely that creates extra construction and maintenance costs compared to a single bogie wagon? Seems odd we don't really see many single LWB 4 wheel vans in the UK, when they are really common on the mainland, yet we do get these.

I'll definitely order some - I'm slightly surprised you've announced these before delivering that many of the previous models though. I've got several 321s, a 92, and some container flats all on pre-order ...

Still, these make a natural pairing with the 92 - good joined up thinking!

Justin

Thanks for all of the help and comments so far! 

I had a chance to test with some locos, and do some tweaking this evening. I started off with a Br.24 2-6-0 tender loco, simply because its unboxed and was to hand. It seemed like there was a bit of trouble on the diverging road again, so I tweaked the crossing slightly better into alignment than it was already, and fiddled with the checkrail/adjacent stock rail a bit more. THEN I noticed that the pony axle of the loco was way off its back to backs, and actually the central driven axle was a bit wide too.

Trying out a range of other locos, ranging from an 0-6-0 diesel shunter to a 4-6-0 pacific and a 4-6-4 tank, everything seemed to run pretty much perfectly! If a 0-8-0 tank runs through smoothly, I'm happy!

It does seem that there is a bit more variation on the back to backs on older Märklin locos - from 5.3mm to more than 5.6mm. Nonetheless, other than the dodgy Br.24, they all seem to work fine with the 0.8mm flangeways and 6.5mm(ish) gauge. I did notice and try to ease out several tight spots on the gauging of the curved stock rail, which had been very difficult to lay without a proper gauge.  

So, I think I'll probably leave this turnout as it is now, at least until I can connect it to a longer stretch of track for testing complete trains through it. The sleepers are much thinner than the plastic bases I'll be using for plain track, so it'll need packing up to lay other track up to it. 

For the next turnouts though, I'll definitely make a better gauge (I do have access to a lathe, but currently no tools thin enough to turn a grove thin enough for a rail slot - I'm guessing the answer is to grind down a spare parting-off blade to the correct thickness). 

If the minimum back to back is 5.3mm, I'm thinking that the optimum flangeway gap for crossing and checkrails will be about 0.7mm, on the basis 6.5mm-5.3mm=1.2mm, /2=0.6mm, plus a slight tolerance. Or shall I just stick with 0.8mm on the basis it seems to work on this one, and using sleeper strip for gauging the crossing and checkrail is easy?

Justin 

Many thanks for the replies - and for correcting the idea that checkrails should be more cosmetic than functional. Sounds like that might be a bit of a modelling urban myth!

I quickly ran the callipers over a few Märklin wagon wheelsets this morning.

Face to face: 8.5mm

Back to back: 5.35mm

Flange depth: 0.5mm

Flange thickness: 0.5mm

I noticed that the NMRA spec for Z gives gauge as minimum 6.5, maximum 6.8.

The point I built yesterday does now seem to work well, although I guess I'm still to test with a loco. Any suggestions of tweaks or better tolerances to build the others to would be very welcome though!

Justin

I've had a side-interest in German Z gauge for a while, but only built a plain track "pizza" so far because the Märklin points look so awful. However I've been cooking up a plan to build a small shelf layout representing a station on the Höllentalbahn (Black Forest) so I decided to try putting together some finer track. This layout built by Will Vale has been an inspiration - not least in realising you can thread code 40 flat bottom rail into Märklin flextrack sleeper bases.

This is a B6 curved turnout I printed (rather haphazardly) from Templot, constructed with 2mm Scale Association code 40 flatbottom rail and "2mm narrow gauge" sleepers and turnout sleeper strip. The aim was to build something that would look a lot better than Märklin turnouts (curved example in the picture) but still work with out of the box locos and stock. I settled on a flangeway gap of 0.8mm, rather than the 1mm of the Märklin points - still pretty generous - and conveniently the thickness of the PCB sleeper strip, so I could use that as a spacer. I did buy some 2mm Association roller gauges for 6.5mm gauge, but they are designed for code 30 rail, not code 40 - so didn't fit. In the end I made do with a square of scrap etch cut to 6.5mm as a gauge, along with some heinous abuse of some digital callipers. 

I found that while a bogie wagon or coach went through perfectly before I added the check rail, a 4 wheeler (longish wheelbase) tended to derail on the diverging route. When I build points in 2mm I usually judge a wagon running through reliably without checkrails in place as a sign of success. When I added the checkrail for the diverging route, the wagon seemed to run much more reliably, and still smoothly. Tightening up the flangeway gap on this checkrail slightly (to 0.7mm) has resulted in what looks like flawless running. 

Is it inevitable that a turnout built for "pizza cutter" type wheelsets (which have lots of horizontal slop - they run in central "bearings", not pin points) will actually need the checkrail to function? Or is there a problem with my crossing? 

Justin

 

 I took the layout outside to check for its appearance in broad daylight, and it is not only now that I've (repeatedly) noted, that Dapol's Class 26 and 27 have a real blatant touch of petroleum colour to them. In my eyes, they should be of a dark BR blue ... am I wrong?

 

 

I agree about the Dapol BR Blue being a bit off. Perhaps they spray it over the top of the warning panel yellow, giving the green-ish tint? Its not quite right, but not sufficiently off that I'd want to re-spray them. It looks like Mercig do a full re-spray as part of their weathering of these locos though.

Perhaps a general fading and weathering might make it less noticeable? 

The layout is looking excellent though!

Justin

I know in larger scales you can get etches of wagon "strapping" is such a thing avaliable in 2mm?

 

+1 for this - etched wagon strapping would be a massive help for scratch building as well, but I've never seen it as stand-alone in 2mm\N. Thin Evergreen plastic strip\microstrip and Archers rivet transfers can do the job for simple strapping, but not really practical for complex corner plates etc. 

Well I was going to do a bit more work on the J39 chassis this evening ...

I've built up the chassis (with full Simpson springs this time) and soldered on the crankpins, so the next step is fitting the wheels (with the quartering jig). I made the mistake of dunking the wheels in blackening fluid (Birchwood Casey gun blue), and then water to rinse it off. Despite drying them off with tissue and leaving them in bright sunlight to dry off completely, they rusted up incredibly within a few hours. Took quite a while to polish it all off with a fibreglass pencil.

I'm keeping the old tender chassis, with turned down wheels. What have other people done for a drawbar with this setup? Adapt the Farish one, or just make a solid one from brass and solder some permanent wire connections for pickup?

Justin

The Dapol BWHS pantograph is too long. It needs cutting down a like I did to Jeremy's 86 for Euston.

 

That 86 looks stunning! How did you shorten the pantograph? Just cutting and shutting the upper arm using poly cement?

Thanks

Justin

Great to see the micro-layout coming together! 

Justin

The book really does define the concept ... Not so much in a sentence, but it emerges throughout the whole book. There is a short definition in the first section, but if you read the whole book (and it's very readable) you'll get the idea much better.

As others have suggested, the definition is very deliberately about the "philosophy" rather than a simple checklist. Which makes it inevitably, and deliberately, subjective. But read the book and you'll understand.

Rice's earlier book "Layout Design: Finescale in Small Spaces" gives a lot more concrete examples of plans that mainly fit this approach (but he wasn't using the phrase "cameo" back then).

I think the key points are embracing presentation as integral to your project - whether that is a proscenium arch, theatre style, as Rice has long advocated, or some other way. And aiming for maximum realism - which you might call the "finescale philosophy".

That doesn't mean using or not using any particular track standards. But it does mean making your track, along with everything else, look as realistic as possible. So at the most basic, that might mean only using really sharp radius points where they would be used in real life (on a dockside maybe), not on a model of the mainline or within a purpose built TMD. Basically work from the prototype, not from what is available off the shelf (but that doesn't mean you can't use ready made).

Justin

Thanks Chris, much appreciated. I figured the strengtheners were probably meant to fit over the bearing flanges, but at least with the etch and the batch of bearings I have, it's not a snap fit at all, so thought it worth double checking.

I've only ever worked with loco chassis from etches by Bob Jones or yourself Chris, so I've only ever encountered the 7mm one. I'll put an order in for some of the 6.4mm strip, as I don't have any suitable PCB kicking around to cut down (all of the double sided I've been able to get hold of is fibreglass, which seems to be very hard to cut neatly). 

It really would be worth updating the instructions on the 2mm website, which don't mention anything about the strengthened frames, or the different spacer strip. A first timer using the instructions might end up quite stumped!

Justin

I've just made a start preparing the bits for my J39 chassis, and just want to check a few things:

The frame strengtheners go on the inside of the main frames? And therefore the holes should be reamed out to fit the larger diameter of the frame bearings?

Because of the double thickness frames, it seems the spacers need to be narrower than the normal strip from the Association. With the strips in the jig, I measure it as 6.6mm - is that right?

Thanks

Justin

I need to smooth off some too coarse ballast on a 2mm industrial layout and my plan, not yet tried out I should caution, is to use coloured tile grout. Somewhere like Topps Tiles will have grout in many useful shades, greys, browns etc.

 

Interesting idea Mark. I've got a small amount of BAL micromax "smoke" colour grout left over from when we had the downstairs loo refurbished. Were you thinking of applying it dry "like ballast" and wetting it to fix, or using glue to fix, or applying wet as a slurry "like grout" ? 

Justin

What an amazing project! I've looked at the photos in the Wild Swan "E.J. Bedford of Lewes" photo book and thought lustfully what a great layout it would make.

On the ballasting, take a look at TomE's Ropley - in the yard area outside the modern shed he's used Treemendus earth powders to ballast code 40 in a way that covers most of the sleepers.

I'll do my best to make it to the show - I'm only over in Croydon

Justin

Covering the switches with scenery should not be a problem, as long as they are still accessible from underneath.  Looking at your photo I would make a new mounting for them away from the edge, so that were clear of the baseboard framing, and therefore accessible.

 

I have used slide-switches in many configurations, the latest being this:

 

On our club demo/test track, mounting them on their side gives them a much lower profile and they are better protected when in storage.

 

Hope this helps,

All the best, Dave.

Thanks Dave, I don't know why I didn't do it that way to begin with? (because I was lazy and just reused the blocks that happened to be there already)

I added some extra blocks to screw the switches on so that they project out into the gap. It look a bit more adjustment but all is working again now. I'll make a start on filling in the foundations for the scenic sections next.

Justin

Finally, after a few months when the day job utterly took over, I've managed to get back to a bit of modelling. Helping out with operating Copenhagen Fields at Ally Pally certainly gave me a bit of a spark again.

I spent a good few more hours at the weekend trying to get the Scalefour lever frame working with the various under-baseboard TOUs, but trying to squeeze in wire-in-tube runs in and around everything else thats already stuck down, on what is a very small and especially narrow layout, proved to be like a very frustrating 3D game of whack-a-mole. Adjust the tension at one spot, something starts moving in another direction. More than once tensioning the linkage to the tie-bar slightly too much resulted in the sliding "shoe" of the lever frame buckling, resulting in no movement at all.

So, I've given up on the lever frame. It is a beautiful and very neat piece of kit, and I'm sure I'll use it on a future layout - but only where I can either design in nice clear wire runs from the start, or just use the microswitches inside it to fire point motors.

For Snape, I've gone back to the original slide-switch and piano wire way of operating the turnouts. But hopefully slightly better executed this time around. To keep it simple I've mounted the switches directly onto the glue blocks within the framing of the front of the layout (although I realise this means they will become buried under scenery when the gap at the front is covered over - slide switches are pretty reliable though - right?) 

I replaced one of the Easitrac TOUs which had been a little problematic with one of the sliding 3D printed ones - I was careful to sand down the rough texture of the print before building it this time - and it is much more successful with wire droppers (as it was designed for) than the one I adapted for filed-down bolts. As the point with the bolts as droppers needs so little movement, I've used a simple lever to reduce the throw from the slide switch by connecting the TOU to the innermost hole and the slide-switch to one of the outermost. This gives a good positive action, both on the switch and the blades, and doesn't leave them under too much tension the whole time. In future I'll stick to moving sleepers though!

I've also now fitted the little wagon turntable that Mark F very kindly turned for me. The electrical feeds are set up and its nicely levelled so stock travels across it smoothly, but I haven't added the extra track going off up the road yet, or indeed the rod with a worm to turn it. Fingers crossed that shouldn't be too much problem though! 

There is a mockup of the goods shed posed on the layout there, and I've printed a "kit" for the station master's house which I'll also mock up soon. I did make a start on a set of drawings for the maltings building, but I'll have to look onto getting window frames laser cut before finalising that. 

Justin

I've just been reading through this whole thread - excellent layout!

I first found it when looking for layouts made with Finetrax. It's a shame you didn't think it was for you, but glad you gave it a shot, and it looks like you've made a great job of laying the code 55 neatly. Adding the extra sleepers at rail joins with copper clad looks like it's worked really well. With careful ballasting and weathering it can look very good. One tip I've picked up from TomE's Ropley thread is a great product called "Treemendous Earth Powder" which he's used as an even finer ballast - might be worth experimenting with an extra layer of something like that to bed in the track, especially in the station where ballast doesn't tend to be as fresh as on a mainline?

Just for interest, to go back to a bit of a question that was raised earlier on in the thread on the advantage of Finetrax when it's relatively close to scratch building, the two massive advantages are alignment, and even more importantly appearance. Finetrax is essentially the same as the latest version of the 2mm Scale Association "Easitrac" system, which now also uses pegged chairs. The key feature is the chair and the "daylight" under the rail. To replicate that with copper clad means using an elaborate (and complex, expensive) system of etched chair plates and cast dummy chairs.

I'm really impressed with your stock collection. The weathering looks superb! Looking forward to seeing the "red stripe" Scotrail 47 weathered - this is a repaint I've been planning to do too. Love that livery!

Justin

On the stock boxes topic, I had been building some small trays inside wooden art boxes, using self-adhesive neoprene closed cell rubber foam (like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261355714768?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&var=560258211115&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT ). Is this a good material? 

This thread has reminded me I'm out of space and should probably make up some more.

Justin

I've been getting very frustrated indeed trying to get the points working mechanically with the lever frame. The closest one is still fine with the piano wire rods and spare tufnol crank from an Easitrac TOU kit (to throw the Easitrac TOU). But with wire in tube there just isn't anywhere even near the throw to operate the Easitrac TOU - I guess I would need to  double the length of the arm on the TOU or build in extra long armed cranks just to amplify the movement - either of which would get tricky in the space available.

I'm wondering whether to ditch the cam-based Easitrac TOUs in favour of a brass section affair in order to use the lever frame, or again think about moving over to point motors.

The Association 3D printed TOU also seems to have a lot of friction, so I'm a bit dubious about driving it by wire in tube. Has anyone tried it?

Justin

My first impression of this book is that I didn't learn anything new and there was a fair amount of recycled material.

My copy arrived yesterday (after ordering from Titfield direct - having put my name on the waiting list at Warley seemingly made no difference).

I don't think the above opinion is entirely fair, to be honest. Yes there are some pictures and plans in the book that have appeared in some of Iain's previous books, but this is a completely different beast and they are used quite differently.

This book is much more of an overview of a philosophy of modelling, so it's not really a case of recycling material. The plans and layouts we've seen before are used here as examples of particular approaches rather than really being featured in their own right. I really enjoyed seeing pictures of Butley Mills and Wolverstone under construction - these layouts were before my time and while I know of them from "Finescale in Small Spaces" - it's great to see them from a different perspective and better understand the scenic dodges used as view breaks etc.

So, maybe I've not learned much entirely new, but I have a much better understanding of things I was already aware of. Lighting is a very good example of this.

On the lack of 7mm, the book does explicitly mention that. Given one of the criteria Rice defines for a "cameo" layout is that it should be movable as one self contained unit, that makes it difficult to do much in 7mm that encompasses the other scenic aspects that are part of the philosophy. He does cite Arun Quay as a good example of making it work, but it is rare. There is also a lack of modern image layouts in any scale, but then this book is about Iain's approach - if he chooses to focus on Steam, that's fair enough!

This book feels like a very mature piece of writing, and a natural development from his earlier book. It's got the feeling of seamlessly providing an overview in a way that can skip effortlessly between examples.

I'd never actually read Iain's Light Railway plans book, but managed to track down a second hand copy at a not too extortionate price, that arrived the same time as Cameos. I enjoyed it just as much, but different horses for different courses!

If there is a disappointment for me it's just the fact that a few of the pictures are quite pixelated. I think this must be one of Wild Swan's first digitally produced books under the new management, so probably still a bit of a learning curve in production.

Just as I was about to start work detailing and repainting a BachFar class 31 into original Railfreight!

Loads of the reliveries also appeal to me, primarily the 37s and 47s. It seems kind of notable that so many of the re-liveries are modern (and locos). Very few steam, or transition era diesel new issues in comparison.

The SECR C class doesn't fit any of my layout plans, but I'll undoubtedly buy one! I suspect the N class in SECR WW1 era grey didn't sell well because it is so boring a livery, but just look at how many times the Dapol terrier has been re-released in Stroudley engine green with different names. I think the CR livery Fairburn from the collectors club sold pretty well too? Surely shows there is a good collectors/"I like that" market for "pretty" pre-grouping stock

Christmas Progress (and some setbacks ...)

Snape finally got some attention over the Christmas break, beginning with fettling the track work when I was testing the Jinty chassis (see post in Etched Chassis thread). Basically the track feeds had given way where I'd tried to make some direct joints to the bottom of the rail (I'd used brass cast sleepers in more prominent locations), and there were some high points where the Easitrack wasn't supporting joints in the rail very well. I suspect the latter was because I'd still been using a stock of coiled bullhead rail, rather than getting in some new straight stock. Because the track is already stuck down I couldn't use the cast Easitrack sleepers, so after slicing out the old ones, I slid in some traditional PCB sleepers with Versaline chairplates on and soldered them in place to support rail joints and where I needed extra track feeds. Once fixed I drilled through the outside of the sleepers and fitted 0.8mm brass wire as a dropper and soldered the electrical wires on underneath - which seems a nice neat way of doing it!

I'd spent most of the few moments of modelling time I had in the autumn building a ScaleFour society lever frame. I found this surprisingly challenging, mainly because of the awful instructions. It was only really when I got the chance to poke and prod a completed but unmounted one at Warley that I really "got" how all of the lifting rods, drop boxes etc actually fitted together - remarkably the instructions don't include any drawing or photo of the rear of a completed frame. Picture paints a thousand words etc! There were a few setbacks along the way, like ignoring the "do not tin the layers of the levers" and ending up with one very fat lever, and painting the levers nicely in correct colours as I've seen some painted before, then finding that the tolerances were so tight it no longer fitted together. Finally I managed to finish it just after Christmas. 

I set about trying out connecting it yesterday, thinking I'd connect the closest turnout with a direct wire (1mm piano wire) and crank linkage, and use wire in tube for the further ones (and the one signal that will eventually feature). However while I got the Easitrac TOU connected nicely to begin with, adjusting the throw brought up a host of problems. I'd been suspicious of the wire droppers from the blades - remarkably these held throughout the whole ordeal, but the little washer that holds together the Easitrac TOU pinged off not once, but twice, meaning I had to remove re-solder and re-thread the droppers each time.

Worst of all, I'd foolishly misinterpreted the lever frame instructions and the fact that the holes for the actuating wire were 0.7mm together with 0.7mm brass wire being used for the actuating levers etc., and merrily used this for the actuating wires through the operating shoes. Inevitably, while adjusting the throw and tension etc, these buckled within the frame. Cue much swearing. This morning I tried replacing the brass wire with more of the 1mm piano wire (needed dressing with a file and plenty of flux to solder) on the lever I've been experimenting with - and now it works!

I've ended up with the crank oriented so that the wires actually cross - not ideal, but I wanted them projecting off the side to make it easier to adjust. Don't know whether to leave it be, on the basis it works, or flip it around when I put things together for real?

I've ordered a set of GEM Mercontrol tubes and wire to operate the other bits, rather than try and thread through another solid rod. I suspect that the thinner wire will be less problematic to connect, and more forgiving when it comes to tensioning (I don't think the Z fold in the 1mm piano wire does much good, its so stiff). 

I am, however, slightly anxious about being able to operate the Association 3D printed TOU I've got fitted to the furthest point using the wire in tube. It seems to both have lots of friction, and have lots of flex. Has anyone done this?

Lessons learned (to date):

• Don't use wire droppers for point blades
• Do use wire droppers for power feeds
• Bolt-head point blade droppers work OK, but moving sleeper tie bars are probably the best option (probably new Easitrac\Finetrax version in future)
• Jerry's brass and PCB TOUs seem a much better idea than the plastic options or the cam based Easitrac one

But, in fact, I'm very tempted to simply use good quality electric point motors in future. I'm much more comfortable with electronics than mechanical linkages etc, so its very tempting to just use Cobalts or similar (but probably still with a lever frame - just activated by the microswitches). I'm actually tempted to do this when i get around to refurbishing Vobster\"Monks Eleigh" as the broads are probably deep enough for a Cobalt (the boards on Snape are not).

When using Cobalts, Tortoises etc. with 2mm, is it advisable to drive a tie bar directly, or still run it via an under-board TOU? 

Cheers

Justin

Amongst other bits of modelling over Christmas, I finally got around to digging my Jinty conversion chassis back out. I had got it running quite nicely at one stage, but somehow (not sure what point of painting or adding brakegear etc) the worm and motor started running out of true. I had originally tried to use some 1.5mm OD 1mm ID brass tube to bush inside one of the phosphor bronze bearings on the worm mounting to run it from the 1mm shaft on the association can motor, with a stub of 1.5mm axle steel on the other end, that wasn't satisfactory so I ended up removing the bearing on the motor side, so it was only running in the 1.5mm bearing on the stub at the other end - giving only two fixing points rather than three. This was much better, but turned out to be vulnerable. When it got out of alignment, it got shoved in a drawer ...

I came back to it at Christmas and tried a new approach. I reinstated the 1.5mm ID phosphor bearing on the other end of the "gearbox" and fitted a new section of worm on a longer section of axle steel. I then fitted the cup end of a UJ mounting (acetal type plastic fitting from N Brass Locos, which i happened to have in stock) and put the corresponding cross-piece on the motor shaft. This has added a few mm to the length of the motor assembly but it still fits within the original Farish body (I could always cut off the other end of the motor shaft - but if it ain't broke ... ) I was then able to mount the can motor using some blue-tac and adjust until I got good running, then fixed with plenty of cyano. I'm sure this isn't an optimal engineering solution, but I like the fact it allows adjustment, or replacement of the motor, while also being a convenient way of joining the worm and its bearings of 1.5mm OD to the motor with 1mm OD shaft. Looking at the photo now, it seems clear the motor is pointing slightly downhill, which I hadn't noticed in the flesh. It still seems to work pretty well though! 

Once the mechanism was running nicely on my rolling road (OK, not a rolling road, the top of a Minitrix wire brush wheel cleaner) it still was't running so well on real world track. I noticed 1) the wheel cleaner hadn't done that great a job at all, despite having been running in on top of it for ages, so cleaned the wheels with a fibreglass brush. 2) The Simpson springs I'd fitted to the leading axle had bent out of alignment and were no longer serving any purpose. 

I had been a little sceptical of the springs made from the recommended N gauge coupling springs, and I think they'd already become a little mangled when fitting the wheels using the quartering jig in the first place. Out with the soldering iron and I whipped out the originals, and soldered some much thicker (well, 0.31mm) phosphor bronze wire from Eileens directly to the frames in a similar position. This actually seems springy, rather than lettuce like, even if it is heavier than recommended. I also took the opportunity to fit even more weight in the smokebox and bunker of the body (and got some superglue onto the paintwork, which will now need to be rubbed down and redone). The loco now runs pretty reliably! Finally! It is very loud, and has a slightly rhythmic whine that suggests something isn't running quite true, but good enough for a test loco that doesn't actually fit my layout plans

Justin

The model is a bit crude in comparison, especially when magnified, but I don't think the components could be much thinner and still all work.

"Crude"? That is utterly incredible Tim - I can't even begin to imagine being able to work to this level of accuracy and precision so consistently! I can't wait to see the finished loco!

There was me feeling pleased at finally managing to rig up a satisfactory drive from a 1mm shaft Association motor to the worm on the etched Association Jinty chassis I'd shoved in a drawer months ago when the worm kept fouling (Using a UJ to make the motor removable/adjustable and allowing the worm to run with both 1.5mm bearings as designed)

Justin