murrayec

Galteemore I did a search on the Guild Forum and came up with this;- '' Mr Donaldson's locomotives are covered in Slide programme number 57 'Ralph and Drew' with a commentary by Mr Bill Scott'' You could order the slide disk for the cost of copying & postage and check out if he built it- that's if its on this? You could also post the question on the Guild Forum- this is the thread;- The O gauge railways of Ronald Shephard and Drew Donaldson Eoin

'What to do with broken or worn files & hacksaw blades' I don't break many files but when it happens I throw them into the scrap box- for the future! - and the future is now...... When setting up the cnc machine I had a few messy starts working out the system, ending up with a few sheets of metal not fully cut or the machine stopped half way through, lost it's settings and could not pick-up where it left off so a new sheet had to be done. I tried to cut the parts out with a scalpel and a Stanley knife but tough going!! What's needed is some small chisels, so into the scrap box and out with a broken file (it's hardened steel so as long as its not overheated while grinding it will keep its hardness) two chisels were made from the one file- a big and a little;- The set-up for grinding, it's what I use for sharpening the lathe & drill tools, a standard grey fine wheel is mounted with the Veritas table and its sliding fitting for sharpening screwdrivers and chisels. Chisels made and honed time to test, done on a lump of lead from the fishing days- the lead gives support to the parts and allows the chisels through with minimum distortion to the parts. As you can see in the shot above the parts are not fully cut out, it worked a breeze, just had to chisel around the parts and through the tabs. Below is a photo of the Walker coupler rod after been cut out without any distortion. While you have your bench grinder out a broken hacksaw blade is ground into a 'Scrawker' a grove cutting tool for brass n styrene. A wooden handle will be fitted somewhere along the way but works great as is, I use a glove though. Very useful tools..... Eoin

@Galteemore Can I suggest you push the loose wheel on over a piece of tissue paper laid over the axle end to hold it fast until you are sure of good running before you use Loctite- just in case more adjustments are required.... Another thing I would do, though you may have done this, is to allow some more side movement in the axle with all the washers on in the photo above- the drive axle should be held with minimum side play but the other two should have a bit of play. Eoin

spudfan They built one for the Fry Layout in Malahide Castle, it was no. 130 - it could be that one! Chances are slim it will be displayed in the new museum.... Here is a link to a few photos of one that was built in later times but owes it's heritage to Leinster Models I believe? (this link might encourage wrennie to update his photos in the thread);- Eoin

http://www.wheeltappersdccsounds.co.uk/index.html I like these guys, they use ESU chips which I have the programmer for so can add or change things! Eoin

Hi John Great trains & lovely countryside. Eoin

Galteemoe Single wheel drive chassis are notorious for bad running, it's one reason why a lot of modellers stay away from single wheelers! In my view the key thing is to allow the chassis to pivot around the driver axle and have one of the other axle suspended (which seems to be the way your chassis is set up), the suspended axle can be done with this axle's bearings in vertical slots in the frames which are then allowed to move up and down, the bearings are held in place by a suspension spring fixed to the chassis and passed through a tube soldered to the top of the bearing! Kind of what David was suggesting above..... I have a sketch which is not identical to your situation but if you study it and use the principle it should lead to a reasonable running chassis Eoin

David I could send some briquette ash, I also have the fire lit! Eoin

I know a man whom will be delighted to see this, I promised to post these up when we last meet at the Stillorgan Show! After several attempts on getting the bogie side moulds to work it was eventually successfully, the patterns were to complex for gravity feed white metal so I had to fill in around some of the pattern detail with epoxy and drill several vent holes in the final mound and out these popped;- Drilled the axle holes and the lower suspension spring hanger holes on the finger plate. Test fitting the lower coil springs n hangers. and popped onto the axles to see how it looks. Deadly! Another 3 sides to go and I think its fitting time and can eventually bolt the chassis together and give it a test run - fingers n toes crossed!! Eoin

Hi Guys They might be a bit thin on Irish loading gauge, though may not be a problem for most.... especially when run on their own! Eoin

Hi David The micro strip looks the best- a lot of cutting n sticking though. What about Gauge N ash ballast with a small scattering of Gauge O ballast in and around the track like the Leiston photo and then weathered? Eoin

@Dave Dawes Hi @WRENNEIRE is the man for Murphys 141s, 071s, 201s and are convertible to 21mm with a bit of jiggery-poke!, he's good for rolling stock also, IRM's new wagons are also convertible and I believe it's inbuilt in the forthcoming Class A loco- don't know about Murphy's forthcoming Class 121 loco yet As you will see in Galteemore's link you will have to make your own 21mm track or pay someone to do it Eoin

Thanks popeye I believe the crew will be doing that, among other things, I was not asked Eoin

Recently on the bench was this GNRi Class 43 requiring driver wheel and bogie pick-ups, also a bit of a clean up. It's a 'Northstar Design' kit and quite well built, but the thin NS etched chassis frames and the lack of frame spacers down low allow quite a bit of flex. The 4 driving wheels do not sit level on the track! After taking a good look over it, a plan of action was worked out- a new bogie truck mounting system was added to the list. First I tackled the driver wheel pick-ups by removing the old system, these were squidged between the frames and the back of the wheels on a pcb board way thicker than needed and the wire stiff as a builders plank, one can see the mark on the frame between the wheels where these were mounted. The poor motor must have been using up all it's torque to counteract the pressure! A brass frame spacer was made up with captive nut soldered on and then soldered between the frames just in front of the motor. I used this spacer to try and get the four driver wheels level while soldering it in- it still titters a bit! A pcb board was cut out to fit to this spacer and travel down the sides of the gearbox to take the .45mm NS wire pick-ups. A few little repairs were done to the missing sander pipe and the back break rods were soldered to their corresponding brackets with little brass dress pins cut to size- Hickeys you know are a great source of modelling components! Then the wire pick-ups were bent up and soldered onto the pcb board, the wires had to rise up to get over the frames and under the break rodding without shorting, the electrical wires were also soldered on to the board. Next was to do the same with the bogie truck, but first I sized up a spigot to mount the bogie bolster to, turned on the lathe with a shoulder to pass through the bolster with a screw n washer to hold the bogie on. A bit of trial n error was needed until I got the shoulder depth right so the bogie wheels were just about level with the drivers with some play for the spring around the spigot to give a bit of suspension to the bogie truck! Then the chassis frame cut-outs for the wheels needed some filing to stop the wheels fouling the chassis and causing a short. Bogie mounted with its pcb board epoxied on and the NS wire pick-ups installed. Next was to give the bogie a bit of side play, so I milled a flat on both sides of the spigot and filed the truck bolster hole sides into a rectangle - slightly out of focus in the photo but it is rectangular. This arrangement gives ample side play for 1030mm radius curves. Bogie done, motor wired, and time to test run. I took six photos of the running chassis and afterwards when selecting from them for this post I noticed that the coupling rods always came out in approximately the same position. I gave the loco and tender bodies a bit of a clean up- the person that put on the decals was quite liberal with whatever solution they used and I felt it really interfered with the finish of the model- elbow-grease, buds, decal softener and loads of water did the trick. Done The crew will have to attend to a few small matters...... Eoin

@Galteemore I believe this is the very same model, the client is a member of the IGOG and I first saw the model at the meet mentioned in your attachement Eoin

This lovely B2 model was on the bench recently, it's very nicely built but had a mishap and needs repairing, some upgrades to. Not sure of the kit make and the builder but I will follow up on that;- Motor & Gearbox replacement Valve gear rebuild Break gear repair Pick-up upgrade Tender draw bar assembly upgrade This is how the model came to the workshop. So first up was to start on the new pick-up system, a pcb board and brass angle mountings were prepared. The brackets were soldered in between the frames and M2 nuts soldered in to hold the pcb board. With the board setup I next repaired the break gear so I could install this assembly and make sure the wire pick-ups do not interfere when soldering them onto the pcb board. The break gear is the 'Sprung' on type, it fits onto the hanger shafts off the frames and is held in position by it's own springy force. The shafts are .9mm brass wire with sleeve over to hold the hangers out from the chassis- one of these was missing so a replacement was made and the break rodding was repaired. Break gear on and now the .45mm NS wire pick-ups are bent to shape Then soldered to the pcb board Wires to the motor were then soldered on. The pick-up wires will be bent and trimmed to the wheels when the motor is installed and running. The motor and gearbox now installed, a flat was milled on the axle to take the axle gear wheel grub screw and a couple of brass washers were installed between the gearbox and frames to limit side play and centre the wheels. Just before that I made the tender draw bar assembly- a ex 6mm brass spigot was turned up on the lathe for the loco end which was soldered into the chassis and a large cable tie was chopped n holes drilled for the draw-bar. Next was to install the valve gear, but first I added a bit of detail to the coupling rod knuckle join by drilling and inserting a 1mm steel rivet. Then the gear was cleaned up and installed. All on and waiting for the Loctite to set. Later a test run to see if all runs OK, and it's OK! Main work done I then installed the bogie truck and fitted the body Done. The loco needs a small bit of work to be done by it's crew, but it looks cool as it is. I really like this class loco, it's very sleek and looks the part for speed! but I believe they weren't very successfully, later they removed two cylinders and made a mess of the footplate lines when changing the valve gear and still they couldn't get it running right. This may be a sin but I think! I like this one more than the 800..... Eoin

You got to do it Eoin

Don't forget Nelson it's in Blackrock Collage this year On the main road to Dun Laoghaire at Booterstown, you can access up through Willow Park School or from Cross Avenue which is off Booterstown Avenue... Eoin

The October Date for the Train & Model Fair

Thanks all for the great comments above. I intend to paint the chassis, wheels and body at the same time, so next up was to decide on the works to the body, after a good inspection I decided that some soldering and soldering clean-up was required and decided to add a little detail here and there so out to the sand blaster. All cleaned up. The cab will be getting a backhead but there is a gaping hole in here, the footplate is a bit wonky to, and a lot of residue solder everywhere- so another blast in this area is required, and I came up with an idea to fill the hole and fix the footplate- more on that later! After doing that I started on detailing the front end by drilling out the footplate and the smokebox door to take brass wire handrails, footplate lamps and some rivet detailing. Smokebox door rails and footplate steps handrails installed with .7mm brass wire. Smokebox door rivets going on with the help of the Nutter. And as one can see in the above photo the Smokebox door hinge is non existent! so came up with an idea for that using .5mm brass wire, two Gauge 00 handrail knobs and tiny brass tube strap end details to line up with the door straps. The NS frame was drilled for the knobs, these will have to be glued on as the door is resin cast and wont take soldering heat. Vac pipe parts for soldering up, done with brass wire, brass tubes and guitar strings. A bit of soldering and gluing to do...... Eoin

@MikeO We'll have to see how the printing goes! I get two or three A3 test prints done at a time, the printers are doing print runs in the thousands so my stuff only gets done when they have time. It's a bit like myself- I have so much on it's hard to get at this project. Eoin

Unbelievably the printer guy just rang! and has asked me to send my loco body cutting files and to prepare a drawing for the fold lines! They are trying out a new machine that can cut and score for folding the Xerox sheet- all fingers are now crossed! Eoin

Hi Peter It's now the 'Scratched Record' thing'! The printer guy sorted the colour and printed the body sheets about 1 month ago, I was also getting HO scale body prints done at the same time on heavy paper and unfortunately he printed the Gauge N stuff on this heavy paper- impossible to fold at the N scale, and where I have outside cuts for folding the seam- its huge, white and to deep! I met with the printer last week and he is going to do the N again when he has the light paper in stock!! On the other side- I'm up to my eyes on other projects for people and finding it very hard to dedicate time to this project, it will be completed but when I'm not sure. Eoin

@DART8118 oops!