Alan's Workbench

[Tullygrainey]

45 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

Alan - just admiring this again, but noticed one of the cab handrails is adrift? Makes it look as if rear bunker is askew….

You're right! Well spotted David. Didn't notice that. Because I made the various sections separable, I couldn't solder the bottom of the handrails into holes in the running plate. Instead they're bent at right angles near the bottom and soldered to the bunker floor. That one will need desoldered and moved in a bit at the bottom.

Edited April 11 by Tullygrainey

[Galteemore]

21 minutes ago, Tullygrainey said:

You're right! Well spotted David. Didn't notice that. Because I made the various sections separable, I couldn't solder the bottom of the handrails into holes in the running plate. Instead they're bent at right angles near the bottom and soldered to the bunker floor. That one will need desoldered and moved in a bit at the bottom.

No worries Alan. Let’s just say it resonated with something I’ve done myself

[Tullygrainey]

18 hours ago, Galteemore said:

No worries Alan. Let’s just say it resonated with something I’ve done myself

Sorted now David. Only took three quarters of an hour First, while trying to adjust the bottom soldered joint the whole rail came adrift. Then predictably,  it pinged off the tweezers straight into the maw of the carpet monster. Actually I think I also have a bench monster. So I had to make a new one. Another member of the 'little things sent to try us club'

[Galteemore]

Excellent Alan. If it’s any consolation I’m facing similar struggles right now with the cab handrails on mine!!! 

[Tullygrainey]

More on the  reclamation of the K's Midland Railways Kirtley kit about which I posted back on 11 February.

I think at last I've got a viable loco chassis. The intention is to build it with live chassis, picking up one side on the loco and the other on the tender. To that end, the original wheels were cleaned up, then 3 loco wheels and 3 tender wheels were shorted using etched spiders from ScaleLink. For the loco wheels, the central square hole was reamed out to a tight fit on the 1/8'' plain axles. The legs are soldered to the back of the wheel rims.

 

Chassis frames are in 16 thou nickel silver. No detail needed since they won't be seen on this outside framed loco. Hornblocks from High Level.

 

RoadRunner Compact+ gearbox and iron core motor, also from High Level.

 

Outside cranks with extended axles from Alan Gibson (Code 5000). Coupling rods are ex-Lanarkshire Models, now available from High Level (Fowler 4F, 8' + 8' 6").

 

Just noticed on the pic above that a couple of crankpin nuts on the far side are about to ping off into the ether!

The wheels' centre holes are worn and it's been difficult to secure them on the axles. Superglue is doing the job at the moment. We'll see how long that lasts.

 

Next job will be to arrange chassis mounts inside the K's whitemetal bodies.

Alan

 

 

Edited April 14 by Tullygrainey

[Patrick Davey]

Impressive Alan!

[Colonel]

Outside frame locos always look good with the cranks twirling.

[Horsetan]

16 hours ago, Tullygrainey said:

The wheels' centre holes are worn and it's been difficult to secure them on the axles. Superglue is doing the job at the moment.

 

If you have any Loctite 603 (or even the older 601 if it hasn't gone off), that tends to set much harder than plain superglue.

[Galteemore]

I love seeing old kits brought back to life. Looking great.

[Tullygrainey]

Back to the SSM J26.

Brakes

7mm brass rod for the top brake cross members slotted through pre-etched holes in the frames and short brass tubing spacers slipped over each to help position the brake hangers. Nothing soldered. The sheet of foam plastic packaging helps keep everything roughly in place.

 

Brake hangers then added and more brass rods passed through the bottom of the hangers and through two brake pull rods. Moving the pull rod back and forward then allows all three brake hangers to move together and be positioned as close to the wheels as short circuit avoidance will allow. Each brake hanger is then soldered into place at the top. Once the first one is done, the whole arrangement begins to firm up. Then it's just a case of working round the various joints.

 

One side soldered up and the other ready for the same procedure.

 

All soldering done now.

 

Cross rods trimmed back and filed.

 

Pickups

Deciding how to arrange pickups took a bit of thinking about. Space is tight and it was a challenge to avoid contact with the bodywork and the brake rigging. Pickups are 31 swg phosphor bronze wire soldered to small pieces of printed circuit board superglued to the chassis frames. These bear on the wheel flanges and are hooked at their ends to help keep them in place.

I always find this job a trial and it usually takes a lot of fettling to get them working well. It's always a compromise between getting sufficient tension in the wires to maintain contact but not so much as to cause too much drag. First attempts with this one just about stalled the motor. It's still not quite right in the video below but getting there.

 

 

 

Another bit of pcb between the frames just ahead of the motor allows the pickup wiring to come together and these and the motor terminals were connected to a 6pin DCC harness.

Alan

[Mol_PMB]

There are some very neat ideas there - I like the sheet of foam as well as the pickup location and shape. Excellent work, and I shall be inspired by those ideas when I get to that stage.

[Tullygrainey]

Thanks Paul. Pickups are a pain no matter how you approach them which is why I’m exploring a live chassis approach with the old K’s Kirtley. But you can’t really do that with a tank engine. At least I’m not sure how you would. 

Edited Saturday at 17:27 by Tullygrainey

[Mol_PMB]

17 minutes ago, Tullygrainey said:

Thanks Paul. Pickups are a pain no matter how you approach them which is why I’m exploring a live chassis approach with the old K’s Kirtley. But you can’t really do that with a tank engine. At least I’m not sure how you would. 

With my broad gauge version I'm not sure I'll have room under the splashers to hook a wire over the top of the flanges. Once I've trial assembled some more parts I'll give it some more thought. My CSB springy wires also potentially block your copperclad block locations. 

Mine will be DCC and have a stay-alive fitted, but it still needs effective pickups!

I wonder if I can fit something lower down bearing on the back of the wheels.

[Tullygrainey]

 

23 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

With my broad gauge version I'm not sure I'll have room under the splashers to hook a wire over the top of the flanges. Once I've trial assembled some more parts I'll give it some more thought. My CSB springy wires also potentially block your copperclad block locations. 

Mine will be DCC and have a stay-alive fitted, but it still needs effective pickups!

I wonder if I can fit something lower down bearing on the back of the wheels.

You might get away with contacts hooked over the flanges - depends how much deflection your CSB allows - but it would be tight. It's only the front axle that's a problem. There's plenty of room above the other two. You could consider having the hooks make contact with the wheels a bit further down from the top. There's slightly more room there.

I considered going underneath with this one. You have the brake pull rods to contend with but it should be possible to work round them. As I said, a pain! 

[Colonel]

Add brake rigging to the list of pains when chassis building! The use of fine tubing to set things up is definitely one I'll be using.

[Galteemore]

23 minutes ago, Colonel said:

Add brake rigging to the list of pains when chassis building! The use of fine tubing to set things up is definitely one I'll be using.

Me too ! 

[Turin60]

As a former service engineer may I make a hopefully helpful suggestion...rather than hiding the pick-ups away somewhere in the back of beyond at least have them (of whatever pattern) where you can get at them for cleaning without removing locomotive bodies and so on. Trust me life will be so much simpler.

John Bruce.

[Tullygrainey]

1 hour ago, Turin60 said:

As a former service engineer may I make a hopefully helpful suggestion...rather than hiding the pick-ups away somewhere in the back of beyond at least have them (of whatever pattern) where you can get at them for cleaning without removing locomotive bodies and so on. Trust me life will be so much simpler.

John Bruce.

There’s always the desire to conceal them as much as possible for cosmetic reasons but from a practical point of view this makes sense. It’s also a good argument for placing them underneath the frames. 

[Mayner]

In the 4mm Engine Guy Williams (Pendon loco builder)  recommended p/b wire soldered to glass fiber board, collecting on the  4mm engine. (White Swan & Guy Williams 1988)

 

 

I seem to have hedged my bets with my pair of Midland Tanks

556 finished most recently uses longish pieces of pb wire soldered to a single piece of pcb board mounted under the central axle, the pb wire collecting on & slightly curved around the flange. Before soldering I bend the fixed end of the pb wire at 90º and drill a shallow hole in the PCB board to pin the pb to the board before soldering.  Although the finish of 556s pick-up look fairly rough when viewed from below, pick ups appear ton be reasonably effective and unobtrusive at normal viewing angles on a loco modelled with full brake gear.

553 last rebuilt about 30 years ago uses a variation of 'top wiper pick up" with pb wire bearing on the wheel tyres soldered or bolted to short pieces of copper clad fixed vertically with superglue to the loco frames. I also seem to have used copper clad sleeper (presumably with insulated gaps) fixed traversely across the top of the frames on one of my narrow gauge locos. 

Top-wiper pick up seems to be effective and unobtrusive on tank locos with the pick ups & pcb strip largely concealed behind the tanks and valences.

[Tullygrainey]

The Kirtley lives!

 

 

My first attempt at a live chassis arrangement. Loco needs some proper body mounts and the tender needs attention to level it up but now I know it works, it'll be worth some more effort to make it look and go a bit better.

Alan

 

[Galteemore]

That’s terrific - well done !

[Mol_PMB]

Excellent!