Alan's Workbench

[David Holman]

 All down hill now, Alan - it is only cosmetic after all!

 The chassis is a beauty - wish I could be that methodical, because it clearly pays dividends. Lovely stuff.

[Tullygrainey]

First attempt at pickups failed. Phosphor bronze wires bearing on the wheel flanges at right angles were too short and stiff. They caused a bout of stuttering and hiccups and also interfered with the action of the hornblocks. Take two, with the wires a bit longer and bearing on the wheel treads worked much better. There'll be just enough room to fit a (plastic) brake lever in there too.

 

First run under its own steam. OK...  electricity.

 

 

[Galteemore]

14 minutes ago, Tullygrainey said:

First attempt at pickups failed. Phosphor bronze wires bearing on the wheel flanges at right angles were too short and stiff. They caused a bout of stuttering and hiccups and also interfered with the action of the hornblocks. Take two, with the wires a bit longer and bearing on the wheel treads worked much better. There'll be just enough room to fit a (plastic) brake lever in there too.

 

First run under its own steam. OK...  electricity.

 

 

Well how satisfying is that ?! Well done!! Now it’s interesting what you say re the stuttering effect of the pickups. My little JT shows that on occasion (eg at Tolworth show ) and that could be the cause…..I might have a closer look at your solution  

[Tullygrainey]

3 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

Well how satisfying is that ?! Well done!! Now it’s interesting what you say re the stuttering effect of the pickups. My little JT shows that on occasion (eg at Tolworth show ) and that could be the cause…..I might have a closer look at your solution  

Quite possible David. I find it takes me a while to get a good balance with just enough pressure on the wheels to make sure of good contact but not so much as to cause drag. It's very difficult to establish if lumpy running is due to intermittent contact or too much pressure causing tight spots. Hope you can pin it down on your JT. 

[David Holman]

Very neat. Pick ups are a pain at times (along with brake gear), but loads more space in 7mm broad gauge. Have to keep reminding myself you work in 4mm...

[Northroader]

Lovely smooth runner. I’d be tempted to hook your pickup over the crest of the flange, so it rides with any wheel movement, and won’t get any crud off the tread.

[Tullygrainey]

A running plate for No.6.

More often than not, I would make a running plate from a plain rectangle of brass or nickel silver with a hole cut in the middle to clear the motor and gearbox. No. 6 is a bit trickier than that. Its running plate has profiled sections to clear the crankpins and a change of level just ahead of the front driving axle.

Photo: Coakham, D., The Belfast & County Down Railway, Colourpoint, 2010

 

Making this required a different approach and It took me a while to come up with a solution. Effectively, rather than starting with a rectangle and cutting a hole in it, I started with the hole and assembled separate bits round it. 

 

The profiled sections were made from 6mm wide brass strip shaped by hand round tubing of an appropriate diameter. These were the first things I made, a while ago now, to make sure I could do it, otherwise I wouldn't have gone any further with this one. The valances are 1mm square brass rod, annealed and shaped to fit the running plate. Other bits are cut from 15 thou brass sheet. Everything got soldered together using clamps and guidelines on the heatproof block. Against all the odds, it finished up pretty straight. 

 

Superstructure next.  No.6's appearance changed often throughout its long career and it ended up looking quite different from the photo above. Among other things the cab roof was lengthened, a tender weatherboard came and went and it was finally given a Belpaire firebox, new boiler and reshaped cab in 1943. There were changes to the tender too. I haven't decided yet which version to model - probably the easiest one 

Alan

[Horsetan]

As built, no.6's cab is very LNWR in style 

[David Holman]

Tasty! A footplate like that is not easy.

Edited November 29 by David Holman

[Galteemore]

22 hours ago, Horsetan said:

As built, no.6's cab is very LNWR in style 

It was a common feature of Beyer locos of the era. The SLNC tanks, for instance, would not have looked at all out of place beside a Coal Tank or Claughton. Gorgeous work as always Alan. You could eat your dinner off that workbench of yours btw ! I bought a set of Vallorbe files in a Black Friday sale to encourage me to keep a tidier ship - I don’t want them going rusty from spilled flux and general carelessness with corrosives….

Edited November 29 by Galteemore

[Tullygrainey]

Thanks David. You won’t regret buying the Vallorbes. I’ve been gradually collecting them for a while now and wouldn’t be without them. 

[Tullygrainey]

Splashers! Half way through making these, the word became a term of abuse but after few false starts, I got them done and attached to the running plate. Much solder to fill the gaps in the joins. There's probably an easier way to do this.  It will undoubtedly occur to me tomorrow.

Sides are 15 thou nickel silver with 10 thou n/s strips for the tops.

 

Since my last post, Tony Ragg kindly provided me with some very useful drawings and measurements for No6. These will help enormously. However, the first thing that became apparent was that my running plate was about 3mm too long. That's what you get for estimating dimensions from photographs.

Nothing for it but to saw 3mm off the front, then reattach the buffer beam. The chassis frames needed shortening too. Took a while and of course the bits making up the running plate started coming apart in the process. Ah, the joys of scratch building. Still, I got there in the end.

Forwards, backwards and forwards again. 

Alan

 

[Mol_PMB]

Super progress despite the small setback. And excellent workmanship. Looking forward to seeing this take shape. 

[Galteemore]

I had a similar length issue to solve once and it’s a pain! Beautiful work. Splashers are horrible things but yours are looking good. 

[David Holman]

Been there and got a drawer full of T-shirts! My solutions not as elegant as this one though.

[Tullygrainey]

Tried a little tenderness.

I had a go at making a tender chassis for No6 with a fixed axle at the rear and the other two mounted in a free-floating compensated bogie, the intention being to make the tender weight bear on the drawbar to help the loco’s traction and balance.

 

Far too Fancy Dan. Couldn’t make it work. With too many moving parts all moving in different directions, it just kept derailing. Gave it up but I’ll come back to the idea. Not immediately.

In any case, the loco chassis seems to track ok without help and probably doesn’t need the tender touch so I’ve built a much simpler one with all the axles running in fixed bearings. It will happily trundle along behind the loco minding its own business and keeping out of the way.

 

I love me tender.

Alan

[Mol_PMB]

Nice work on the tender behind. A pity that plan A didn’t work, maybe it needed a bit more weight? 

[Galteemore]

Great stuff Alan and timely for me as I’m engaged in something similar. Version 1 already built and scrapped….what put me off trying the Sharman free bogie system was the complication of brake gear and rodding. What you have sorted looks most serviceable.

[Patrick Davey]

Alan will the brake shoes be blue suede?

[Galteemore]

With too many moving parts allmoving in different directions, it just kept derailing.

so you’re basically saying it was ‘all shook up’. Sorry 

[Tullygrainey]

53 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

Nice work on the tender behind. A pity that plan A didn’t work, maybe it needed a bit more weight? 

A bit more accuracy and attention to detail might've helped too  The idea is sound but maybe the solution was a bit too complicated. Locating the front two axles in slots, allowing them to move up and down, might work just as well.

[Galteemore]

It’s a tricky one. Even filing the bearings to allow vertical but not horizontal movement might be enough.

[Tullygrainey]

Tricky is right David. It's a balancing act. Literally. When trying to get the aborted Sharman-type free bogie chassis to work, I tightened up the draw bar connections, in theory to get the most out of the weight transfer, but found that sometimes the tender was lifting the loco instead and causing wheelspin - probably down to a height mismatch between loco and tender connections. The de-railing is a separate problem which is more to do with the design and mounting of the bogie. A problem for another time! A wet weekend maybe 

[Patrick Davey]

1 hour ago, Galteemore said:

With too many moving parts allmoving in different directions, it just kept derailing.

so you’re basically saying it was ‘all shook up’. Sorry 

Brilliant!!!!!

[Killian Keane]

Its already looking very elegant indeed, seems to glide along

[Mayner]

8 hours ago, Tullygrainey said:

A bit more accuracy and attention to detail might've helped too  The idea is sound but maybe the solution was a bit too complicated. Locating the front two axles in slots, allowing them to move up and down, might work just as well.

I locate the two front axles in slots in all my 2-4-0s and 4-4-0s, added weight at the front of the tender and found that it works fine.

I copied the idea of using slots from the TMD/SSM GNR S Class tender as a practical way of assembling/building a "Sharman Free Tender" and it seems to work quite well.  2-4-0s and 4-4-0s I have built successfully hauled 15 IRM Ballast wagons of 10 of my heavier less free-running 3D printed wagons

[Tullygrainey]

Thanks for this John. Useful too to see the photos. What did you use to spring the moving axles?

[Tullygrainey]

Cab Control

The cab for No.6 is quite complicated - certainly trickier to do than the BCDR tank locos. Time for the piercing saw and the needle files.

 

The cab flatpack, this time in 15 thou nickel silver rather than brass. I find it easier to solder.

 

Roof is 10 thou brass. Grab handles are 0.45mm brass rod. Cab beading is n/s strip cut wider than needed then filed back after soldering into place. Lots of burnt fingers doing this. 

 

Splashers for the rear driving wheels are part of the cab front. These needed a few goes and half the evening to get them right. Like the cab beading, made over-wide and filed back. More charred fingertips.

What an ugly duckling!  It'll look better once it gets a boiler. I hope that motor fits inside.

Alan

 

Edited December 12 by Tullygrainey
typo

[Galteemore]

Looks fabulous Alan - and very good study in how to do such things. Belpaire fireboxes are great at swallowing motors. 

[Mayner]

On 9/12/2024 at 10:19 PM, Tullygrainey said:

Thanks for this John. Useful too to see the photos. What did you use to spring the moving axles?

0.4n/s  

 

I tend to build OO Gauge 2-4-0s with a rigid chassis (making sure the leading axle is free running) and hopefully some day will get around to completing a 21mm gauge compensated version or two for myself.

 

 

 

 

[David Holman]

Makes sense to me. My 7mm scale G2 has a sprung front axle, which works ok, but occasionally needs tweaking as these wheels sometimes stop turning because of lack of downward pressure.

[Tullygrainey]

A boiler for No.6

The Belpaire firebox needed two goes. By the time I'd finished hacking away at Version 1, it was too battle scarred to be useable. With lessons learned, the second one went together a bit better.

The top and sides were bent up from 10 thou brass. Straps are from a Mainly Trains etch (Wizard Models MT570, etched brass strips). 

 

The front is a separate piece, soldered on and filed back flush round the edges. It needed cutting away to clear the motor.

 

1.5mm square brass rod soldered inside the joins makes it possible to radius the edges using a file without breaking through into open space.

 

The boiler was rolled in 10 thou brass with boiler bands added from the same Mainly Trains etch.

 

Firebox and boiler soldered together. The firebox has a peg at the back which locates into a hole in the cab front. The modelling of the washout plugs is pretty rudimentary but...  2 foot rule and all that.

 

Splashers needed inside the cab. I might chicken out and make em from plasticard. 

Alan

 

[Galteemore]

Now that’s pretty good to put it mildly. Good tip re the round rod for allowing a bit of meat for filing. 

[David Holman]

Amazing how a relatively simple looking loco can turn out so complex. So many different (and difficult) curves. Quite dainty too and coming on really well.

[Patrick Davey]

Another masterpiece in the making Alan!  Hopefully she will make a visit to Brookhall Mill in the near future!