Red Devil

Well, that was fairly easy, should have thought of it last night ... Modded gear sets.... Take two M2 brass nuts run a broach though stick on an oiled 2mm axle with a bit of solder paste, widened gear set! Also makes it easy to drill a 1mm hole into one of the flats too apply a touch of thread lock through. Right let's see if it works...

Dave, I'm hoping to get to both the 3mm AGM and also the East Midlands open meeting, so hopefully you'll get chance at either of those.

AliExpress gears part2! Multiple posts in an evening must be on a roll.... Anyway.....it works....sorta ... Gears not thread locked in yet but yeah, managed a decent mesh and it seems like all will be well....I think I'm going to order some M2 washers and open the gear slot out a fraction and fit one either side of gear, it'll give me a bit more scope for applying the threadlock and centralise gear in slot better, I'll be honest cutting a tight slot for the 1.2mm gear wasn't easy and is probably a fraction wide, best way will be to open it further then pack with the washers. But overall I'm pretty happy with this so far.

Cracking line up that Dave, looks superb!

Messing about with AliExpress gears pt1.....! I've ordered a fair few gears to experiment with, one batch is this 36:1 set, M0.2 and approx size of gear is 7.9mmx1.2mm wide so pretty small, seeing if I can team these up with a Tramfabriek 8/16 motor for a compact drive for the 20 and 17. Roughly £2 per set so if it all goes wrong no massive loss! Anyway first test....pic is with a penny piece and also the Ultrascale geared version with 10mm motor for comparison. By the way, the wheels look massive but they are in fact Alan Gibson P4, 10.5mm discs, hopefully that gives even more of an idea of the size of these.

I use a lot of Tramfabriek motors and adaptors, I normally use a loctite thread bond to secure any adapter etc, if you need to remove anything in the future heat will normally break the bond, obviously that's not much use if plastic bits are involved but metal bits it's no problem. To break the bond I either use a soldering iron or a small naked flame. Off the top of my head it's Loctite 638, but I may be wrong as I'm nowhere near the bottle, if using that or similar go sparingly and make sure you don't lock the motor or any other parts up with it.

You may find some of the stuff on this of use.....then again you may not!😀

PVA and liquid lead/lead shot isn't a good idea at the best of times as it can react and swell causing issues. I'm firmly in the lead sheeting camp too and always have some to hand.

I started the 29 chassis build last night, cracked on with it a fair bit, now I've got the hang of these (shouts of 'you sure?' from the background....😄) And by tonight it's not far off being done, the basic chassis box is done bar tidying and setting up ride height, the only thing I did differently on this than the 24 was to raise the bogie pivot points, I found they were a touch close on the 24 needing a bit of chopping about, so I lifted them a couple of mm that will then allow me to pack it down to the correct height easier. The only other real difference which I just found is due to the curvature of the NBL body sides, the battery box was just fouling where the upper bodysides curves in, fortunately there is enough meat in the box to file a curve into the top of it. Left to do bar ride height is to build the flat plate to take all the RC gear and fill voids prepped up with lead. This was definitely far quicker than the 24 build!

Meanwhile, back on the chassis front, the Park Royal railbus has had it's motor and gears fitted, still needing a bit of a tidy up but is currently running away quite happily on 12v flying leads. Tramfabriek 8/16 motor and Ultrascale 21:1 gears, should be ok on 3.7v.... First of a number of gears from China have arrived to mess with, these might work (or they might not) in stuff where I want to fit a narrower motor, ratios coming are between 26:1 and 40:1. I've also managed to find a 300mah lipo that will fit very happily behind the motor, it being a 601235, that's 6mm high,12mm wide and 35mm long, it took me ages to suss out the codes! Now I just search for the size and something close normally turns up! Anyway, a quick bench test video...

Stick a battery in it.....job sorted....😃

A first 3mm coach, whilst I don't see me needing lots of coaches I do want so to at the very least some parcels stock.... So whilst I've normally been preoccupied withe the RC chassis I have been acquiring some bits... So extremely rough and ready and about 2 hours in is this MK1 BG, very likely to be finished in all over blue as I have found a nice picture to work from. Shortened Kitmaster shell (2 halves of a corridor brake jointed), with windows opened out to allow glazing to be fitted internally with Worsley Works etched sides. Roof has a touch of a bow in it but should be sortable. Lots of detail to be added, running gear will be the society/MJT compensated bogies and cast sides. I'll grab a few more brake 2nds as I see them at reasonable prices for a few more along the same lines.

I've always fancied doing a football ground as part of the low relief backdrop to a layout.....in 3mm that'd be possible.... Greyme Academicals FC... Based on Albion Rovers ground in Coatbridge....

I'd agree too, plus I think 3mm will benefit too by those like me who looked at TT120 and decided it was just a bit too small for them and decided to go 3mm. Room for both....even though 12mm stuff is of zero use to me personally.

Pitlochry? No, that's far too nice and pretty for me! I've already a few plans for the layout build, tentatively christened 'Greyme' it'll be run down, semi derelict industrial Scotland, most likely with a very overgrown, rusted freight only branch......got to put that dead rail ability to some use! Alternatively read I'm rubbish at greenery but not to bad at industrial grot! for example this was my Leeds tram layout 'Grime Street', if you pronounce the proposed name in a Scottish twang you may see a theme appearing. I keep leaning towards Glasgow because I could even squeeze in a 3mm working trolleybus (Faller Car System/radio control) as they finished in '67. So that'd add in another of my modelling interests......and yeah it'd be no problem to do one, I've done a good few in 4mm and adapting stuff down in Faller Car System steering bits is easier than going up to 4mm from 3.5.......Oh yeah and a blue train in 3mm would be nice too! The overhead wiring doesn't scare me much either.....Wonder if Lenny fancies doing one of those......😄