DavidLong

I'm now giving serious thought to buying a second 3F and appropriate wheels to convert in the same manner as Nigel's Ivatt as an "easy" first steam engine conversion. 

 

Tom. 

Ooo, that means you'll be building some track to a different gauge . . .

David

Ian always builds the layouts that I wish that I'd thought of

David

Mickey's right, Plastic Weld (is that the same as Butanone?)is ok and Mek works as well. The bond is remarkably strong as it does weld to the ply. Staining is ok but the sleepers shouldn't be painted before construction as the paint will inhibit the welding action. It works ok in 4mm so I had no reason to doubt that the principle wasn't equally good for 2mm.

Once track is laid on a reasonably secure base the stresses that it has to undergo are remarkably small. The axle loading of 2mm locos is, well, not very much!

David

The sleepers that I have used have been made from nominally 0.8mm ply. Although I haven't done any ballasting I fail to understand why there should be any problems associated with the 'usual' method of ballasting. The use of ply for sleepers goes back to the earliest days of P4 in the 1960s and has been used by probably thousands of modellers ever since. The worst part that I found was cutting ordinary sleepers to a consistent 1.7mm width but I hope that this will be solved by the forthcoming laser cut sleepers from CRS which Andy has mentioned above.

Note that I said that the ply is 'nominally' 0.8mm, in practice it is about 0.78mm which is around 0.05mm less than 2mm Scale Association sleeper strip. I haven't found this to be a problem and, anyway, I only use two pcb sleepers in the construction of a point in conjunction with brass cast chairs.

These can be seen in these photos:

David

I am a little concerned about rtr flanges I use hitting c&l chairs. I am yet to order it.

Shouldn't be a problem. Chris Nevard's recent layouts have used chaired track with rtr stock and he seems to manage ok!

David

Excellent work, Mike. Good to see someone doing some proper pre-concrete sleeper FB permanent way. It was more common than many people think.

David

That looks excellent, Nigel. I'll look forward to seeing it 'in the metal' at one of the Thursday meetings!  It'll be just down to me as to how much of a b******s I can make of it  I think that I'll deal with the 0-4-2T first to get some false confidence up!

David

Thank you David.

 

That is very useful. I will have to check my 2mmSA 'standard' etched coupling rods when I get home to see if there is anything near that otherwise its onto the CAd to get some etched. Just so I know the 17mm measurement is from the front of the engine?

 

M

Hi Julia,

Wheelbases are usually quoted from front to back, so leading axle to middle axle is 15mm then middle to rear is 17mm.

Great Western standardisation is a great help. The rods for the Farish 57xx on the Associations's Farish conversion etch (3-205) measure . . . 15mm + 17mm!

By the way, you may still wish to make your own. The Great Western standardisation/idiosyncrasy led them to use 'fish-belly' rods which means that the top and bottom surfaces of the rods describe a gentle arc to their profile. Sadly (!) the Association rods do not have this feature . . .

David

I suspect that Bachmann, unlike Dapol, will stick to a standard solution where they find that it works. Anyone taken a Fairburn apart yet? The Jinty and 4F should be interesting if they use the same system as they don't have the encumbrance of outside valve gear.

David

Hello

 

I have another question. What is the wheelbase of the PECO collet? I know what it should be but I would like to know what PECO made thiers.

 

Thank you.

 

Missy

Hi Julia,

The 2251 uses the standard Swindon wheelbase of 7' 3" + 8' 3" which at 1:152 is 14.5mm + 16.5mm. At 1:148 it works out at, pretty much, 15mm + 17mm. I only have the Peco body at present but measuring the centres of the leading and middle splashers seems to correspond with the 15mm measurement. The whole of the rear splasher is not visible due to the cab but my vernier seems to guesstimate it to be 17mm. Peco, as inventors of the (in)famous 'British N' seem generally to take their responsibilities seriously when it comes to 1:148.

Hope this helps. 

David

Good to see the 60's that were for sale have been snapped up. Be very interesting to see where they end up!

 

 

Andy.

According to February Modern Railways the deal for Wabtec to buy 20 Class 60s from DBS has collapsed. Apparently they were "unable to agree terms". Quoted that DBS wanted more money than Wabtec was prepared to offer.

Remains to be seen what will happen to them now.

David

Excellent pics, Mike. Going back to the Barry shots and just hazarding a guess but would the only loco not surviving today be D6122?

Shame!

David

Hi Julia,

Right, I think that I've worked it out now for the diagrams with 9' bogies.

One side looks like this:

Reading from left to right we have large battery box, voltage regulator, vacuum cylinder, large V hanger (joined by a shaft to another V hanger on the vehicle centre line) and finally dynamo. Here's a close up of the voltage regulator:

The other side is similar and I believe it to be, from left to right, large battery box, small battery box, vacuum cylinder, large V hanger (with shaft as above) but no dynamo.

The V hangers that you have sitting opposite the large battery box aren't required as they are for the DC brake arrangement. The small V hanger on the other side should also be removed.

Hope this helps. I need to keep these notes for when I do my own!

David

Thanks for the photos David, most appreciated

 

There are a few little brackets and things on the etch and I am trying to figure out where they go. I am assuming they are part of the brakes as I cant see anywhere else they can go.

 

M

Julia,

Andy has now said that the bogies are the 9' version which makes things a lot simpler. I'll post an answer later this evening.

David

By the way, Phil (Copleston) and I were accompanied on our gricing around the Llynclys site by this little chap:

You can't see Phil on any of the photos 'cos he's round the back somewhere fussing over something called, I think, a Toplight but as it had seats in it and wasn't a DMU I wasn't especially interested . . .

David

Hello

 

Can anyone help me with a CH etched chassis for the Lima siphon please...

 

lima-siphon-chassis.jpg

 

I have got this far with it but I am a little confused on how the brake stuff goes together, can anyone give me some hints / tips on how to assemble it all?

 

Fankoo.

 

Missy

 

EDIT: Forgot to add, it looks like there is a battery box in the way?

Hi Julia,

Phil and I took some snaps of B.R. built Siphon Gs at Llynclys earlier this year. Don't know if these shots will help for the version that you are building but you can also look on Paul Bartlett's site for some pics of other diagrams. As you will see from the photos there is only one outer V hanger on each side and each has a friend near the centre line of the vehicle. The shaft between them is connected to the vac cylinder and also to the brake rigging to the bogie. It gets a bit cosy where the dynamo is also in the vicinity. The small V shaped object next to the V hanger is supposed to represent one of the small brackets to which the vac cylinder is attached. 

If all else fails, I seem to remember that there is one nearby at Didcot.

Good luck! I haven't started any of my three yet . . .

David

Cheers David - do you know the diameter of the mounting spigot on these? I had previously thought that these and Bernard's were one and the same.

 

I've got a little bit of etch space at the moment that's probably just about the right size for the deck on the FLAT ED. Is there any chance you could give me the length over headstocks and overbody width of your model? Sorry if that's a bit cheeky - sadly, I've not got one of Chris' chassis to measure. It'll go nicely with the 'body' for a BR diag 1/098 on the same sheet!

 

Cheers,

 

Steve

Hi Steve,

The spigots on the buffers should be no more than 0.7mm in diameter. The length is more variable. When I was mounting them for casting the spigot length had quite a variation and in some cases may come out at no more than 0.5-1mm but it should be enough to give some location in relation to a hole in the buffer beam.

For the Flat ED, the length of the body is 53.5mm and the width is 16.65mm. Compared to the prototype they should be 54mm and 17mm. The length goes with Chris' underframe etch which is 2-377 LNER fitted 15' w/b for Peco plate/Twin Bolster so I'm not sure where I lost the half millimetre as the body is flush with the headstocks. The width must be down to my rubbish measuring! The drawing for 2/072 is on here: http://www.barrowmoremrg.co.uk/BRBDocuments/SpecialVehiclesIssue.pdf

Won't you need to do an underframe for 1/098 or are you going to shorten a standard 10' underframe down to 31mm? Weird combination on this diagram - unfitted, screw couplings and hydraulic buffers. I can't believe that B.R. built 350 of these wagons over diagrams 1/099 and 1/098!

David

Sorry David, I missed your question! Chassis is indeed one of Stephen's via the Association - very nice kit, although a Hold'n'Fold is more or less essential for forming the sole bars in my opinion. I've got a whole load of these to build but I'm stumbling at the buffers -Bernard's ones are very nice but the mounting spigot (is that the right word?) is fairly big and mounting them can be tricky. Are there any plans for them to be part cast Association range?

 

Pix

Hi Steve,

Look forward to seeing more of the air-brake vehicles. The buffers that you need are in Shop 2 now. 2-080  Oleo 1'8½ - 18" head is the one for the 20' 9" chassis vehicles. The rest of the range should be arriving from the casters soon apart from RCH 4 rib 1'8½ and Dowty 1'8½ with which we have had some problems.

David

I agree David, I share the interst in all things railways, and don't forget the Colas class 70's coming in too! its going to be a very good year for traction.... Yes, there will be more pics soon...

 

Oh Sean, you went and spoilt it by mentioning Class 70s. Blot on the landscape . . .

David

Nice pics, Sean. I especially like the last two 'going away' shots. I like pictures of Voyagers, I just don't like travelling on them . . . unless I can get a nice cheap first class ticket and don't have to enjoy endure travelling in cattle class. Same goes for Class 185s, lovely units but, thanks to DfT intransigence, one car short of a full set

Anyway, as it says on my profile "Steam, diesel, electric, heavy rail, light rail. If it has run on rails between 1825 and 2013 I'm interested".

I can change that to 2014 on Wednesday! Class 68s and 88s on the way

Any more to come, Sean?

David

The best thing would be to search on here- Adrian Swain listed the formations of quite a few he saw in Poole/Hamworthy.

Thanks, Brian. Just had a read through the thread. Two Flat EDs mentioned in Adrian's table B906820 and B906826. The former is at Whitemoor in Paul's photo, I wonder if the one behind it is the latter?

David

A number were used as spacer wagons on Concrete Beam sets; they cropped up in some postings elsewhere on here recently. Others were used by the CM&EE, though what they carried, I couldn't say. Two links to Mr Bartlett's site:-

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/p666802151/h8ccec8e#h8ccec8e is one of the Concrete Beam spacers

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/p666802151/h8ccec8e#h6f7c1c99 has been used to carry something to or from Swindon, but what?

Thanks for the links, Brian. I hadn't thought of looking on Paul's site! It looks like the last lot had hydraulic buffers.

Can you tell me any more about the Concrete Beam sets?

David

There were a few A.B. prototype wagons built in the 1964-6 period, including a batch of container flats. The brakes are basically the same as the early A. B. production wagons (OAA, SAA, VAA, etc.) but all with small wheels. One of the prototype vans was in Scotland with the ex-NSE snowblower.

Hi Bernard,

I assume that the container flats referred to are the (in)famous diagram 1/075 that Don Rowland illustrated in British Railway Wagons. Described as being for the Condor service they do indeed look like the later standard air-braked 20' 9" underframe but without a body.

On checking the official diagrams 1/075 comes up with a bogie vehicle but 1/079 is an absolute ringer for the vehicle in Don's book! A few years ago I was contemplating modelling the 1970-72 period which would have enabled me to run the likes of Cov ABs and Open ABs but the lure of 1967 was just too great and I don't have room for the Condor!

David

Hi Steve,

I haven't seen any pictures of the Flat ED in service but there are a few scattered around the net on preserved railways. There is a drawing of 2/072 on the Barrowmore site:

http://www.barrowmoremrg.co.uk/BRBDocuments/SpecialVehiclesIssue.pdf

Is the OBA on the Association (SRH) underframe? First one I've seen assembled if it is! I like the early air-braked wagons but I'm stuck in this time-warp of 1967 and can't seem to get out

Merry Christmas

David

Hello.

 

I was just going to click the like button but I thought that wasnt enough. They are brilliant David!

 

I totally agree with you in regards to etched chassis having a finesse about them which you just dont get with the regular moulded types. It would be great if you could let me know the shop codes for them too, then I could give some a go as well. I dont think I could get anywhere near the quality of your work though but I would be happy giving it my best shot...

 

Missy

David,

 

Superb work as usual. I hadn't realised that you replace the etched safety loops on the brake rodding with wire ones - something looked different, but I couldn't pin down what it was!

 

I came across one of the Flat EDs recently with a somewhat unusual load.

 

 IMAG1320.jpg

 

Andy

Thanks to you both for your kind comments. I think that you are being unnecessarily modest, Julia. Anyone who has produced working and illuminated signals should find a few etched wagon underframes a pleasant relaxation

The underframe for the bolsters is 2-360, 17' 6" for 3 Chivers kits. The other is the tube wagon which haven't done as I'm not sure that they survived to 1967.

The others all use a variety of 10' underframes. The Conflat uses 2-357 which is for B.R. 8-shoe brake gear. The D1927 Medfit has the 2-332 RCH underframe but this needs a tie bar adding between the axleguards as it doesn't have one on the etch. Finally the B.R. 1/017 Medfit has 2-354 which is the standard B.R. 4-shoe underframe.

Andy has spotted that I replace the safety loops on the brake gear. I started doing this with flattened 5 amp fuse wire but Stephen Harris, who thinks I have an unhealthy obsession with safety loops, kindly etched me some and he occasionally adds a few more on a corner of his test etches. Frankly they are a bit of a b****r to fit but the RSU does make it a bit easier.

The safety loops on the 8-shoe underframe are also from Stephen. If you build his 16T mineral wagons as unfitted you will have spare safety loops for the 8-shoe fitted version which haven't been used. He supplements my supply by providing me with his spares!

Finally I'll add another photo:

This is a test etch that I assembled for Stephen's Catfish kit which was done more than several years ago. It has been sitting around waiting for a suitable set of buffers and, finally, thanks to Julia, it is now the proud possessor of a lovely set of 3D printed Great Western pattern self-contained buffers. No, I don't know why they had them either and they weren't even built at Swindon! It might get painted now but don't hold your breath . . .

David