Pugsley

I'll be watching this with interest - I'm planning on building one of the 7mm scale 0-6-0 Sentinels at some point in the not too distant future. I think that some sort of mystery has sprung up around building brass kits that puts a lot of people off. As long as you are reasonably competent with a file and a soldering iron and the kit that's being built has reasonable instructions, most people should be OK. I didn't find assembling my tamper that difficult and that was my first brass kit. That's nice neat work so far B)

Missy - Thanks for the vote of confidence, it's a bit of a departure for me as it's going to require precision, normally I'm a bit of a bodger! Andrew - Thanks for that link, I'd seen the axle hung motors before, but didn't really want to go down the belt and pulley route for this. I've found some useful stuff about torque reaction arms though, which a little more sophisticated than what I had in mind! B)

That's coming on really nicely B)

Links for the next parts of the saga: 14 - Done it! (well sort of) 14A - Done it 2! (well sort of) 15 - Stepping up a notch 16 - Oh bu**er! 17 - Paying the (sand)piper 18 - BOGIES! 19 - Lining up ducks 20 - (Traction) motoring on 21 - Getting closer but a long way to go 22 - Monkey in the well 23 - You stud! 24 - Tanked Up (and Boxing) The focus for the next stage of this project is going to move from the blog section, to the normal forum bit as the additional interaction is going to prove useful, I think. I'll still put the occasional post in here for construction that isn't related to the bogies and certain progress milestones, probably. This is the drawing I've used to prove that the concept is sound, using the dimensions of the parts that I've found so far. It all fits in the space I've got available, which is a good start! The original copy is to exact scale size, the diagram above is enlarged for clarity. The dark blue bits at the top of the image are the chassis rails, on the floor moulding, that project downwards. The red box around the bogie is the maximum height allowable to ensure that the buffer centres are a scale 3' 5.5" above rail level (24.21mm), although I could allow myself an extra mm or two if required, there's variation in the real thing, after all The hornblocks are from Slaters, and the inner frames will be etched from either 0.70mm brass or nickel silver, I haven't decided yet. One thing to note, the wheels haven't come out very well in that picture, the larger floating green things you can see are the axle mounted gears, with the grey rectangle underneath being the rail. I'll upload a better diagram at some point. Now that I'm satsfied that the concept works, and I've found the right parts for the job, next job will be to finalise the motor and gear positioning before deciding on the design for the frames and motor mounts. What I learned when designing my class 455 etchy bits is going to come in handy here! The best part is, now that it's public, I'll have to get on with it and make it work! The adventure of the springy bogies will continue Here Edit - I've just noticed that this is chapter 13, I do hope that's not some kind of omen...

Incredible! I am seriously, seriously impressed, to the point where I'm going to award that signal 6 cools B) B) B) B) B) B) I've never done that before (5 is normally the limit) Truly bar-raising stuff.

Thanks for the comments guys - sorry for the delay in replying, I ddn't think there'd been any replies from the front page. You are, of course, quite right, that you can make your own sanding sticks rather cheaply. This is probably what I'll do in future, now that I'm OK with the concept and they've proved themselves extremely useful. Griff - I'll check out the flexifile products, they sound useful.

I'd say NCE on pure useability, it can't be beaten IMO. I've used the Lenz gear whilst assisting on Auchinraith and I just don't find it so easy to use.

Well, more like slap on filler and sand off. It's coming on, with a little help from my new friends: The sanding sticks have proved to be a worthwhile investment for this project (I got mine from Netmerchants) not exactly cheap, but not ludicrously expensive either, in the grand scheme of things. More of this later though. Riveting - Part 1 Through filling the second set of footsteps in the tumblehome of the loco, losing some of the moulded rivet detail around the area was inevitable. However, all is not lost: These really are good, I bought them ages ago for another project (actually exactly the same problem as here, but in 4mm scale!) but they've sat in a drawer for ages. They arrived from the US in roughly 4 days after ordering - sterling service. They are effectively blobs of resin on waterslide decal paper and apply exactly like a transfer. The instructions recommend fixing in place with Klear, which I would endorse, they may come off a little too easily if you don't (found that out the hard way). The results are worthwhile - this job would be a real bu**er to do if they didn't exist! Drilling down I've also taken the opportunity to finish off the two cab ends whilst the potential for distraction was reduced. At this stage I've drilled out the tail and marker lights in preparation for fitting the lighting at a later stage in the build. These were easy, selecting the right size of drill to fit the aperture, using the existing shallow holes as a guide, meant that the holes were automatically centred. The headlights weren't going to be so easy. In order to show the marking out a bit better, the headlight was coloured in with a pencil. The overall width of the light was measured in terms of both height and width. By calculating half of both dimensions, setting the calipers and using the outside of the light housing as a guide, I was able to accurately mark the centre of the aperture. Once marked, I carefully used a 0.5mm drill to find the centre marking and drill a pilot hole. Once the pilot holes were drilled (above) I opened them out with a 1.0mm drill, right through. this was then the guide for a 3.5mm drill that I only drilled part way down, so that the angle of the drilled hole forms the shape of the reflector. More on this in a later chapter. Riveting - Part 2 I needed to make a blanking plate for the boiler exhaust aperture, so made one from 5 thou brass sheet that was to had. The blanking plate was measured, and the piece marked out before cutting with sharp scissors. They're not quite so sharp now Whilst at the Reading show back in December, I purchased one of the GW Models rivet presses, which I thought would be ideal for forming the rivets on the plate. It turns out that it was! I used the calipers to mark 2mm in from each corner and used the punch to create the rivet in this location. the plate was rolled with a bit of brass tube on a pad of kitchen towel to make it conform to the roof profile. After gluing it in place, I realised that it was sticking up far too far. I've since removed the boiler port so that the plate is now flush to the roof. The port was removed with a combination of scraping and filing and the plate re-secured with CA adhesive. Back to the start And now 'tis back to the start and the reasons for massive filler consumption and dust generation. Firstly, the cab mouldings required a lot of fettling in order to get them to fit and even then required a far bit of filler to get the profile to match the rest of the body, more than I expected TBH. Got there in the end, although I expect to have to do a little more fettling after the body is primed. This was the biggest use of filler - as the kit is supplied, there is one more bar in the cantrail grilles than there should be, 11 bars instead of 10. I'm not sure if this is a design error, or a design compromise - the joint between body and sides would be less straightforward if it had been stepped. I've filled this with the green stuff, but would use a suitably sized piece of plasticard in each aperture to be filled if I was to do it again. It's still a little rough round the edges in the cantrail grille area, this is one of the tasks to complete this week, along with assembling the bogies to a certain extent, although not quite for the reason you may think. More elaboration on that mystery in the next (thrilling?) episode.... Thanks for reading - especially if you got all the way down here..

Wouldn't it have to be a nice hissy tape for authenticity PS, do I also get a prize for spotting that the tankers in your sketch are Esso TTA's?

Very inspiring indeed, and the sketches convey nicely the kind of atmosphere that you're looking to achieve. That's one thing I wish I could do, so I can communicate what I want to achieve before I do it, but can't. I have to wait until it's finished, or find appropriate photos to give an impression. It's also why track gets roughly plonked on the board before being fastened so it can be tweaked, the design is more of a guideline to me! I've had a few industrial urges coming on of late (inspired by an earlier feature on the same Istil rolling mill mentioned above) so will be watching this with great interest B)

That's a novel approach! It seems to have worked nicely, the finished result certainly looks the part.

:icon_redface: :icon_redface: You're both too kind :icon_redface: :icon_redface: I'm glad you like it. CK - It did say just the like the real thing on the box

I wasn't going to, but here, by popular request , are some pictures of the internally complete No 2 end cab. Everything is pretty much the same as the other end, but with different rear bulkhead detail. The lights highlight the detail nicely, even in daylight! I decided to stick with the 1K2 ohm resistors in the end. The next pic highlights the need to clean the windows! Showing the position of the cab lights, and the sunshades in position. I'm hoping to have the rest of the body assembled by the end of the week, then it'll be on to the bogies

Thanks chaps B) Mikkel - I wasn't going to post any illuminated photos of this end, what with it being much the same as the other end. I might now though Dan - Wondered if anyone would notice that (although I only did this morning). The photo was taken upside down to illuminate the cab better. Instead of rotating the picture, I've flipped it by mistake - the text on the notices are back to front! I'll amend the picture accordingly, shortly.

That's very different, and very well executed. Me like! B)

That looks very similar to the kind of thing that was used during the construction of the Channel Tunnel as well. Very cool B) B)

I've finally finished the other cab (with the exception of touching in the LED wires in rail grey) - here's a quick shot showing the sunshades in position and the position of the cab lights. Other bits visible on the cab roof are the brake position indicator, and the switches/circuit breakers above the cab door. Next stage is to finish off the filling and filing of the main body sections, before assembly and further filling, but more of that anon... Edit - To include photo of the cab the right way round

Thanks Jo. If I'd sprayed them black, I think I probably would pose one down, as it is they'll be visible through the cab windows when the cab lights are on and through the windscreen from some angles, so they're not totally pointless! I would say most details, rather than every detail because there's some parts I've conciously missed out because I value my sanity and I expect I'll find something I've missed once I'm no longer in a position to be able to fit it...

Yes, seriously impressive indeed B) B) I need to investigate the potential of this technology a little more, I think.

Yes, it is a bit too big, I think. What size was it? You may be able to obtain a smaller example, it might not have a built in flash unit though. IIRC flash units are available in chip form these days, so needn't take up a lot of room.

Mike, I can send you a copy of the template file as a pdf if you like - pm me your email address.

Whilst not exactly a thrilling example, I thought I'd post a little about how I've made the cab sunshades, as it has useful applications beyond this simple example. In fact, I used the same technique when I made the operator cab for the 07-275 tamper that I've yet to finish. I found a suitable picture of the sunshades on line, that would do for what I wanted with the minimum of manipulation. It is possible to correct perspective and rotate images within photoshop, or GIMP is a useful, free, alternative. I cropped the part of the image I wanted out of the picture and pasted it into CorelDraw. Here, I can resize it and lock it as the background. There is a trace program included with the version of CorelDraw that I have, but it isn't much use TBH. Instead, I used the standard drawing tools to trace around the edge myself. This is the result: The curved part had come out a little flat, so I adjusted that, by eye, to match the curvature of the roof. Measuring the width of the window gave me the width of the shade, so the drawing was adjusted to that dimension. A test piece was printed, cut out, and placed against the window aperture to check the dimensions. This highlighted that the item was too deep, so this was adjusted whilst keeping the width constant. Once happy, the part was duplicated 4 times, and the final template printed. Here are the tools required for this job (excluding the scissors ): The pritt-stick secures the template to the glazing curing the cutting process, but peels off quite readily. Even if some should stick, all traces can be removed with water. Once cut out, this is the result: I had originally planned on using Tamiya Smoke to tint these and have them slightly see-through, like the real thing. However, it just isn't dark enough, so ended up painting them with black acrylic. They will be secured into the cab roof, anyhow, so the fact that they're not see through shouldn't detract from the final effect. I'm going to secure them with the canopy glue shown in the picture - it seems to be a kind of PVA adhesive, originally designed for securing aircraft canopies - it dries perfectly clear. It's a lot more controllable that superglue, and isn't very visible if a little too much is used. I've also used it to secure the glazing into the cab assemblies - it's proved to be a very useful product so far. It's not exactly cheap, but the bottle should last for a very long time!

Brilliant!

Thanks everyone B) Alcazar - 2 LEDs per cab, in the same position as the actual cab lights.

There is just something very interesting about abandoned lines, especially inset track, and overgrown little used sidings. It just makes me want to go and walk along it. Where'd that drool smiley go?