2mm Andy

Thanks David, I suspect the drawings in your link (another website I'd not come across before) are the same as those in Missy's link. I was intending to have a look at Jim Russell's book to see if there were drawings in there - the new 'Search Engine' at the NRM has quite a good library of books that is 'self-service' with no appointment necessary and a photocopier available to make copies (within the published copyright rules), so it should be possible to call in and find the relevant information fairly quickly. For the level of detail I need at this stage, I wouldn't bother looking at the works drawings anyway - even if I could find the ones I wanted! They usually contain far too much detail and would need quite a lot of time spending on them to 'convert' for 2mm use. Anyway, I seem to have diverted Steve's thread slightly - any progress on that 57xx Steve? Andy

Thanks Missy - I don't think I have seen that website before! I have a Farish GWR 61xx body and a Standard 4 tank body that are in need of 2mm chassis. They're a fair way down the list of priorities at the moment, but Steve's little project set me thinking... I'll probably still have a look in the NRM library when I get time. I also have a list of magazine sources to investigate when I next pop over the the Vintage Carriages Trust Museum at Ingrow. Andy

Thanks Steve - the NRM library/Search Engine is likely to have that book - I'll pop in at the weekend and have a look (it's only a 15 minute walk from home!). I've managed to find a reference for the Standard 4, so again that can be investigated at the weekend! As long as you take it easy and make shallow cuts with the mill you shouldn't have any problems with the Farish body, and it is far easier to get a much neater finish than with a saw and files. The CNC mill ideas sound interesting. I reckon you could be setting yourself up for bulk orders of sideframes if you get it working! Andy

Hi Steve, That is a very thorough job! I've never seen a plastic mock-up of a chassis before, but it does look to be a useful way of approaching something (although I have heard of a 2mm modeller assembling a cardboard mock-up of a etched kit design to check fit, etc.) I'm interested in where the drawing of the pannier tank came from - I have several Farish bodies (large prairie tank, 4MT tank loco, etc.) that I'd like to put 2FS chassis under and finding drawings is sometimes a problem, especially when it's this funny GWR stuff (puts on tin hat and ducks!) The metal that the Farish bodies are made from is fairly soft, so it's quite easy to mill. I found it fairly straightforward to remove some of the metal inside the body of the Jinty. Andy

That's looking good Steve. I thought I'd gone a bit over the top with planning the chassis for my 02, but it looks as though you're going through much the same process. It's definitely an advantage to have CAD and to be able to check things work before starting building. One point - you can shorten the worm. The 2mm Assoc worms are far longer than they really need to be for most applications. I have reduced the length of mine by 3-4mm and it means I can shove the whole motor along a bit. Also, I think your drawing still shows the Faulhaber motor. The Nigel Lawton one doesn't have the narrow threaded section between the motor body and the motor shaft. All this talk of chassis designs has tempted me to try and finish the 02 and bring out the Jinty I started last year. Andy

Thanks David, It's from R.Parker, who sells a small range of N gauge vehicles, and a larger range of 4mm scale vehicles. He regularly advertises in the Railway Modeller - If you want any more information I have a price list at home with more information. AFAIK he doesn't do email/websites, so it's a case of letter and cheque. I think there may be some information on an old thread somewhere on RMWeb. Hope this helps. Andy

Hi Missy, You've been busy - that was just a packet of castings when I saw it last! It's looking very nice indeed. I'd say it's got a hint of Baguley about it - I think the original kit is based on a Deutz loco, but I could be wrong. And then Paul mentioned Saltford Models and 006 - that brings back some memories! I think I still have some kits tucked away somewhere from my 009 days. Andy

Pete, Your original question was a good thing - it got me motivated, and I was amazed at just how far I got with the bodywork. Anyway, my fingers aren't too singed, and fingernails do grow back! I have to confess about being a bit hung up on using a bare minimum of solder - and the solder cream that Carrs sell in a syringe makes it so easy to apply anyway. The photos were taken in the gloom of my workspace yesterday. I tried to take some photos outside, but everytime I opened the back door it started raining! Missy, Perhaps we should arrange an '02 meet' at some point?! When Steve and Michael have finished theirs, there will be at least 5 in existence (and probably several more!) The soldering is done with my usual 25w Antex iron. I only get to borrow the RSU occasionally unfortunately. I reckon it would have been useful for the bonnet overlays, but I would probably have needed the normal soldering iron for the other joints. How are you getting on with your RSU? Andy

Hi Don, I have just added another photo to give a better idea of the scale. Andy

(or the sweet smell of success singed fingernails!) Pete asked last time about progress on the body of the shunter. At that time I had only cut a few parts from the etch and formed things like the cab steps and the funny little boxes in front of the cab. I wasn't sure how much I could assemble without needing to check the fit of the motor and gearbox, so it didn't seem sensible to progress too far too fast. After a fairly stressful week at work, I decided to celebrate on Friday by escaping work a bit earlier than usual and popping into town to purchase the small drills I forgot to get last weekend at the Watford show. The first job upon getting back home was to fit the 'Simpson' springs - these are short lengths of straightened N gauge coupling spring wire, soldered at one end with the other end set across the middle of the axle bearing hole (the axle hole having been enlarged to 1.6mm from the nominal 1.5mm normally used in 2FS chassis). Despite this going against 'conventional' chassis construction advice and rules, this works really well. I then had a go at milling some frame spacers. My first attempt was in brass, but this was an unmitigated disaster (I definitely need to brush up on my techniques for milling brass) so I started again using an offcut of 'Tufnol' - much easier to mill! After a bit of fiddling and filing to get the spacers to clear the gears and muffs of the gearbox, these were drilled for 12BA bolts to hold the frames and spacers together. Next mistake - I read the wrong line of the data charts and drilled the holes to clearance diameter, not tapping diameter! . I should have packed-up the modelling and done something easier at this point, but I decided to press-on and see what other disasters awaited! Having assembled the frames with bolts, everything looked OK, so I started enlarging the etched footplate in the kit to fit the gearbox and motor arrangement I had designed (see previous blog posting). I got carried away then, and decided to form the engine cover, adding the engine cover doors and panels before soldering the layers of the radiator together and adding them to the front of the engine covers. An piece of scrap etch was cut to fit inside the end of the engine covers and the radiator assembly soldered to this. There were a few choice words when, trying to tweak one of the doors into position, I lingered too long with the iron and the whole lot disintegrated into a heap of bits of nickel silver! Half-an-hour later, having put the whole lot back together again, I moved on to the step/bufferbeam assemblies, which is where the subtitle of this blog post is most appropriate. Several scorched/melted fingernails later, I had two sets of steps and bufferbeams in place, although the joints need tidying-up as I think there are some minor errors with the etch. After all that, the body looked like this: One last photo - just to check everything fits OK of course! There is a bit more work to do on the body - the engine cover needs fixing in place and there are a whole load of small details to add. The chassis needs painting before final assembly, and I've also got to work out a way of fixing the chassis to the body. Plenty to keep me occupied I think! And whilst conducting a bit of research to identify how some of the more awkward bits of the etch were supposed to be fitted, I found a rather good video here. The Class 02 loco is at 6 minutes 53 seconds. Catchy music as well! Andy EDIT : Photo added to give a better idea of scale;

You could use chairplates inserted between rail and pcb sleeper. The 'Versaline' ones should be suitable (I think that's what I used on the milled pcb baseboard joint pieces on my layout). You'll need to be quick with the soldering iron to avoid the chance of melting the Easitrac sleeper bases though (or clamp some sort of heat sink in place - a roller gauge might do) Andy

Hi Steve, It sounds as though you have a copy of Missy's CAD drawing anyway, but I'd be happy to forward my version. I used the same gear reduction as Missy but moved the gears around so that I could bring the motor towards the middle of the loco. This, combined with the use of the Nigel Lawton motor (shorter than the Faulhaber), means that i don't have to cut so much away from the footplate etch. I guess it all comes down to laziness on my part ! There is a good article on the 2mm website here which is well worth a read (as is Anthony's blog mentioned above). Anthony, I had read your blog entry. It sounds like the narrow bonnet on the 06 makes it quite awkward to fit a drive mechanism in. I'm quite lucky that the 02 had a wider bonnet. The Hunslet DY1 (my next shunter project) has an even wider bonnet, so I will stick with the 8mm dia. Nigel Lawton motor I think. I have an 009 kit for a Ruston Hornsby loco that uses the Nigel Lawton belt drive and a layshaft fitted with ball bearings. It was my intention to write the construction up on my blog here when I built it (no promised when that will be!) Andy

Michael, That shouldn't be a problem. I would like to get the basic chassis working under power first though before I make the CAD file available - I wouldn't want to give you duff information! Andy

Another tip for limiting the amount of solder you bring to a joint is to either cut off small slices of solder and bring these to the rail/sleeper joint individually, or squash the end of the solder reel with a pair of pliers or a hammer (the latter is much more fun, but mind your fingers!) so that it is easier to pick-up a small amount of solder on the iron. Most 'traditional' NG track used flatbottom rail and dogspikes, so you don't really need chair blobs anyway. Andy

Hi Rich, Good to see you back around these parts. That is one big bit of timber on those wagons! I presume those bogies under the Macaws are from the 2mm Scale Association? Andy

Thanks for the kind comments everyone! Hi Missy I'm looking forward to trying the Nigel Lawton motor. At a fraction of the price of the Faulhaber motor (which Branchlines have now sold out of apparently), it's got to be worth a punt! Friends who have tried it have been pleased with the results, so I'm quite hopeful. I will have to order a couple of motors from Nigel soon - the one I have here has been robbed from a narrow gauge kit waiting to be built. Hi Pete Thanks. That makes me sound like a dodgy lightbulb! I have every intention of posting regular updates, but my modelling seems to go in cycles, and it can be quite a while between bouts of enthusiasm and time. I'll try harder in future! I have made a start on soldering the cab together, but I really need to get the motor in position to see where the footplate needs modifying before I can assemble everything. I will probably build up a few sub-assemblies though - cab, steps, etc. It isn't that far from your modelling - this sort of thing could be done without the milling machine; it's just that I was lazy and wanted to have a play with my toy! Marking out and cutting pcb is very similar to cutting parts for one of your buildings. Hi Tony The coupling rods are part of the etch. I measured the centres using some calipers and transferred the dimensions to my CAD drawing (and then to the milling machine), so the centres of the rods will hopefully be close to those of the frames! Andy

or "yet another part-complete loco!" At the excellent 2mm Golden Jubilee Expo in Oxford last July, I bought one of the Worsley Works etches for an 02 shunter. Of course, I then put the packet in the cupboard and forgot about it while I got on with some other modelling. The real things look like this: Anyway, after a few months, the kit came to the top of the pile again and I decided to make a start on it. The etch comes complete with a simple etched chassis which i decided to discard in favour of using milled pcb frames with brass spacers and with an integral gearbox. The chassis outline was drawn up on AutoCAD using the dimensions taken from the etch parts and with a gearbox design courtesy of Missy. I decided to use a Nigel Lawton 'midi-motor' (this seems shorter (and substantially cheaper!) than the Faulhaber 0816 which was the motor I'd originally intended to fit. By playing around on CAD, I got to a design which I felt would work and which would allow me to use the footplate from the original etch with minor modifications hacking. Two small pieces of 0.5mm pcb were then set up on my Proxxon mill, the axle/gear positions drilled and the frame outline milled out. After reaming out the holes to take the bearings (phosphor bronze soldered in from the inside of the frames), I bolted up the frames with temporary spacers and gears on turned plastic muffs supported by a selection of handy drill bits to see if it would work.... ... and it did B) ! The frame spacers in the photo are a terrible bodge - milled brass blocks (to get some weight low down in the mechanism) will be used, tapped and screwed to the side frames, and the main frames gapped around these to prevent the whole lot shorting out. I intend using the 'Simpson' springing method to improve the current pick-up, but for now progress has stalled while I order some drills and other bits (which I forget to get at the weekend when I was at the Watford show ). There is still plenty of work to do, but I think the hard bit has been done. And after this one, there are another 3 shunting locos to do! Andy

I probably did see the brick/stone sheets - I can't honestly remember now. I did think that the pantiles were very nice, and I do have a very long-term project which might have a need for some of these, but having pretty much spent-up by that point I decided not to buy any. Andy

Hi Tony, Nice to see you on Sunday. I'm interested in those tiles - I saw them on the Gaugemaster stand at Donny and then recoiled when I saw the price. I will watch and see how well you get on with them. I note that they do sheets of pantiles as well - useful for other areas of the country. I have used the Scalescenes brickwork paper before, printed onto an A4 sticky label (like those used on big parcels) to make ready-made self-adhesive sheets. The only problem is that you only get one chance to lay the sheet in position. I don't know how permanent the bond is though. I guess I could wash the sheets with solvent as you have to strengthen things. Andy

If Mark is the third then I'm the fourth! I lifted an Easitrac crossing last night because wheels kept dropping down in front of the crossing nose. I thought I would have to lift a second one, but I think I've got away with tweaking it. Hope you manage to sort out the fiddle yard Kris. Andy

It all depends on what you enjoy doing - 2mm is not for everyone. If you like building things (and judging from the content of your blog, I think you do) then give 2mm a go. If you like running trains and have loads of N gauge stock, but aren't keen on kitbuilding/scratchbuilding then it probably isn't for you. I'd start with a length of Easitrac and a wagon kit (and don't demolish the track on your N gauge layout until you're sure which way you want to go). That will give you an idea of the size of the bits you're dealing with and the general principles. Have a look at the website and the links to the blogs on there and see what you think. The 2mm Roadshow attends many exhibitions (I spent yesterday helping on it at the Doncaster BRM show) and the starter kits and booklets are available from there, along with on-the-spot membership. It goes to various shows and the guys and gals who man it are always willing to have a chat and offer advice! As for the locos, I'd recommend the Bob Jones Jinty or the 0-6-0 chassis (which are based on NER prototypes). The 42xx and A8 have both been built in 2mm so it is possible (and I'm sure Missy can offer you plenty of hints, tips and the benefit of her experience with the 42xx), but they will involve designing a gearbox/motor mount, so are probably best tackled once you've got a bit of experience under your belt. There are also quite a few 2mm area groups dotted around the country which are well worth attending - most of the 2mm modellers on here are members of one or more. Hope this helps. Andy

Hi Simon, Welcome to the dark side! I think I took your membership fee when Mick 'persuaded' you to join the 2mm SA at the Darlo exhibition a year or two ago I like the idea of pinning the timbers in place - very useful if you're building the turnout away from the layout. Andy

Chris, The gear that will mesh with your worm needs to have skew cut teeth, ie. the teeth aren't at right angles to the edge of the gear, but at a slight angle. That will limit the choice of this gear to one of the 3 worm wheels shown in the 2mm shop listings (3-364 to 3-366). The other gears can be any of the range of spur gears. Could you post a sketch of what you've got with a few more details? Andy

Yes - Bob still sells these, and indeed has used them on his 'Fence Houses' layout for all the pointwork. IIRC, the Easiline system has been discontinued by the 2mm shop, but the rights have reverted back to the designer, Andrew Cox. It may be worth contacting him to see if he has any available (or plans to re-run the etches). The Versaline etched chairplates in the 2mm shop are also useful as general chairplates (ie. without the cosmetic chair castings). The beauty of these is that they can be pre-positioned on the sleepers using the jigs from the shop, although I have found that a bit of tweaking is needed in one or two places. Andy

10/10 for bravery Missy! I'm sure it will be worth the effort though when everything is working well. Tweaking of wheels and track seems to be pretty common in 2mm modelling. I've got the scary task of trying to lift a crossing from an Easitrac turnout tonight - could be fun! I've not heard of track 'wind' before - 'twist' is the usual term on the big railway to describe the level of one rail rising above/below the other. Andy