David's Workbench

[Northroader]

Looks really good, with a real period feel about the bus body. It’s strange how the design takes the leading wheel set is right out out the front, and there’s such a big overhang at the back, adds to the character.

[leslie10646]

Wow, David, how many miles of plastic strip do you get through in a year?

Well done with the new railcar, another work of art in the making.

[Colonel]

Thanks folks! 

 The answer to your question Leslie is quite a lot - though it depends on what is being built of course: wagons and coaches can certainly get through it. However, it is such a useful and perhaps under rated material, with the best stuff at times difficult to get hold of.

 By that I mean Evergreen strip, which has such a comprehensive and accurate range of sizes and profiles. Time was, your local model shop would always stock it, but nobody near me seems to, while on line can be expensive. Indeed, a pack of ten strips is well over a fiver now, which works out at 6p for every 10cm, so think before chucking away even small off cuts!

 Alternatives like Plastruct don't have the same range and likewise Slaters. The latter is much cheaper (bigger packs), but hasn't the same quality. For example, their 20x40 can be slightly rounded on one face. Such a shame that Eileen's Emporium are no longer trading. ALWAYS a go to at shows, where you could also get A1 sheets of plasticard for the same price as an A4 one at your local shop.

 With 3D printing seemingly the go to these days, scratch building with plasticard still has merit. Yes, it needs time and care, but the skills and tools required are minimal. Patience certainly required, but it can be very therapeutic.

[Colonel]

 Getting there: the roof has been fettled a bit more and the luggage rack added. Slightly less obvious is the exhaust pipe [later position by the front window], fuel tank and brake cylinder.. The paint job was always going to be by brush and so far have added a single coat each of black, red and cream. 

 Still a few more bits to do, including the rear ladder, coupling, vacuum pipe, some luggage, passengers & so on. However, certainly starting to look the part & have decided it will have to be No8, as this had a much shorter luggage rack in its later days. Am intending it will run with a couple of 'red vans'.

 

[Mol_PMB]

Looking superb already!

[Mol_PMB]

I’m sure grey vans would be a valid option too:

https://ebay.us/m/XfX3JW

One of several nice CDR images on ebay at the moment, here’s another:

https://ebay.us/m/rZMBVp

But not railcar 8 I’m afraid. 

[Galteemore]

That’s spectacular. What an amazing vehicle it was and so convincingly recreated 

[GSR 800]

1 hour ago, Colonel said:

 Getting there: the roof has been fettled a bit more and the luggage rack added. Slightly less obvious is the exhaust pipe [later position by the front window], fuel tank and brake cylinder.. The paint job was always going to be by brush and so far have added a single coat each of black, red and cream. 

 Still a few more bits to do, including the rear ladder, coupling, vacuum pipe, some luggage, passengers & so on. However, certainly starting to look the part & have decided it will have to be No8, as this had a much shorter luggage rack in its later days. Am intending it will run with a couple of 'red vans'.

 

A wonderful model on a wonderful layout. You are a ceaseless source of inspiration!

[Tullygrainey]

10 hours ago, Colonel said:

 Getting there: the roof has been fettled a bit more and the luggage rack added. Slightly less obvious is the exhaust pipe [later position by the front window], fuel tank and brake cylinder.. The paint job was always going to be by brush and so far have added a single coat each of black, red and cream. 

 Still a few more bits to do, including the rear ladder, coupling, vacuum pipe, some luggage, passengers & so on. However, certainly starting to look the part & have decided it will have to be No8, as this had a much shorter luggage rack in its later days. Am intending it will run with a couple of 'red vans'.

 

Looks completely at home there. It looked really well in raw plastic but it's come alive now you've painted it David. Absolutely catches the essence of the thing.

Edited March 8 by Tullygrainey

[Colonel]

  A few things still left on the to do list, but the main stuff done over the weekend has been around the roof. Despite the kind words, it wasn't right, especially at the front, where the profile needed to be shallower and the rear better shaped to fit the body. The roof also needed some way of being held in place. 

 As mentioned earlier, decided that magnets might be the best option, so glued three short pieces of steel wire across the top of the windows and then set three rare earth magnets [2x 10mm, 1x 4mm] into the underside of the roof. Seems to work well.

 The first coat of paint showed that both rear corners of the body need some filler, while with the roof properly in place the top line of the windows needed a bit of judicious filing to get it to sit properly. Added the safety chains to the dummy front coupling this morning - they really do define the word fiddly to assemble, along with a DG coupling at the rear. The latter enabled me to test the model's haulage capacity & at the moment it can manage my three 'red' [ex CVR] wagons [one open, two vans] and with a bit more ballast could probably cope with the prototypes maximum of four.

 I now have four items of County Donegal motive power - Railcars 10 & now 8, plus Phoenix and the 'Unit' from the CVR. Must admit that their red & cream livery really adds to the scene on Swillybegs, so am looking forward to being able to run a pure Donegal sequence when it appears at this year's Chatham show in July. Hopefully Railcar 8 can be finished soon - the luggage rack needs detailing and the rear ladder adding, plus number and crest transfers, along with some weathering, but certainly getting there now.

[Patrick Davey]

That looks fab David, such an unusual prototype and as usual you have replictated it to perfection.  Mighty!

[airfixfan]

Great model of one of the first 2 diesel railcars in the British Isles

Edited March 10 by airfixfan

[Colonel]

 

 Right, I think that is about as far as I can go at the moment with Railcar 8. Rear ladder in place, transfers applied [the Donegal crest is actually a Midland Railway one], the roof has been painted to match Railcar 10 and a bit of weathering powder applied. Still needs luggage, which I'm waiting for from Skytrex, but for now the two railcars are posed as part of a 'Hills of Donegal' special, which will be joining the rest of the cavalcade at Strabane, heading for Ballyshannon. Such trains could comprise at least 4 railcars, plus trailers and bogie coaches and must have been challenging to work as all the railcars had separate drivers. Going over Barnesmore Gap must have been difficult, to say the least.

 So the workbench has been cleared and tidied, but not for long, because a very different beast has appeared in the form of a Bulleid Rebuilt Battle of Britain 4-6-2. Vaguely Irish of course, but am adding a motor gearbox for a fellow club member. He picked it up online as a [mostly] complete Acme kit. Seems nicely done, but part of a collection that the previous owner built up but never motorised any of them.

 At least I have a small 0 gauge layout to eventually test it on and an MSC two stage motor gearbox has been ordered. Am hoping that finding room for it shouldn't be a problem, because there's a huge space inside the firebox. Just that cross member between the rear wheels to worry about - it's not exactly moveable as it forms the mounting for the rear pony truck...

 

[Colonel]

Ordered a motor/gearbox from MSC Models today. They supply robust, ready assembled products, priced for all needs and tastes. 0 gauge power can be expensive: my MGWR Wolf Dog loco needed one that cost £125, but it is a fine piece of engineering with helical gears. BoB Sir Archibald Sinclair is getting a mid range, two stage unit that will hopefully fit in the firebox, with room to spare.

 Managed to get the rear wheels off without disturbing the brake gear [result!], but looking at the valve gear, realised the top half of it is missing. Fortunately, Premier Components do a full set of profile milled valve gear for just £30, which is not only a bargain in terms of time saved not having to make it yourself, but they also run an excellent service which includes not having to pay up front - they send an invoice and you only pay once the goods are received. Very gentlemanly and very civilised.

  Can't do much until the parts arrive, but this afternoon managed to install pickups, using pieces of copper clad and 0.5mm phosphor bronze wire. Top wipers on the drivers and back scrapers on the outer tender wheels.

 

 

[Tullygrainey]

That's a very neat arrangement for the pickups David, with the copper clad out of the way on the inside of the frames.  Never occurred to me to do that, though it might be a tight squeeze in the smaller scale. My copper clad bits often end up on the outside of the frames where they need to be camouflaged with paint. 

[Colonel]

Pickups need to be different on every loco, it seems and though loads more room on a big one like this, the high footplate posed a problem in trying to keep them hidden. I think plunger pickups would probably be best, but not provision made on the kit and certainly not keen to strip the chassis right down to drill out holes for them!

 Fortunately the balances will just about hide what I've done, especially from normal viewing angles.

[Mayner]

Funnily enough I assembled 4mm EM gauge West Country "Bodmin" from a DJH kit about 25 years ago when I was going through a phase of assembling large British outline locos. I became interested in EM while a member of the Milton Keynes Model Railway Society while living in the UK during the early 90s and brought the loco over from Ireland while on holidays for a test run on the clubs Milton Quays layout where some friends joked that it was a pre-production sample of the new Hornby West Country.

I went for a large Mashima motor (with flywheel) hidden in the boiler driving the rear axle through a 50:1 Branchlines Multi box smooth and powerfull in operation but top speed too slow for an express passenger loco, I have a set of replacement gears with a 35:1 gears stashed away somewhere to increase her top speed if I ever come close to clearing my loco building backlog. I byepassed the pick up quandry by using live axle pick up on loco and tender on the American system with Markits wheels, though pick up on my 4mm Irish narrow gauge locos is arranged using top wiper pick up using short pieces of copper clad and 0.45 pb largely hidden behind the valence, but a pain to fit to a 4mm narrow gauge loco.

[Colonel]

 

 Another itch I've been wanting to scratch for several years now has been the Sprite and Fairy 'Pay Trains' and a moment of serendipity the other day actually got the project started again. You might remember I'd had a go at the pay coach, but the little loco [and other projects] had got in the way until I decided I needed something to do for a few days while we were away at my Mum's for Mothering Sunday. The serendipity came when I suddenly realised that a piece of plastic water pipe was exactly the right diameter for the boiler. Ergo, why not build the whole loco body from plastic - especially as I've got my eye in doing the Donegal railcar in this material.

 However, let me say that will not be an accurate replica. For one thing I can't find the right driving wheels. Size is ok, but both locos had 16 spokes, whereas 10 or 12 is the most available from Slater's. Also, photos are in short supply, while details of the coach interior aren't clear either. The two locos had subtle differences: Sprite had 5' drivers and 3'6 trailing wheels, while on Fairy they were 5'3 and 3'... So my model will be 'in the school of' - indeed, I'm looking for a different name, assuming that there was either a third Pay Train combo, or that the Midland had one too. All in all, it is really just a bit of fun.

  So, planning for this project goes back several years, starting with doing some drawings, which have been gradually added to as shown below.

 As already mentioned, the loco body is mostly plastic. 40 thou sheet for the footplate, 80 thou for the buffer beams, with a fair bit of 20 thou for where edges need to be thinner. For example the internal structure of the cab is 40 thou, but this is overlaid with 20 thou and the same goes for the splashers. The side tanks are complicated by their curved top, so 40 thou formers have been used, which will eventually be overlaid with more 20thou sheet, as shown below.

 The boiler is the plastic water pipe to which extra layers of 20 thou have been added to make the smokebox and firebox sections. These days, I mostly use Plastic Magic to weld pieces together, but had to resort to MEK to fix the first layer to the water pipe, which is made from a different type of plastic.

 So far, everything seems to have gone together ok, with the loco work being done over last weekend. The spares box will be raided to see what can be used for some of the fittings, though it may be that I'll have to turn the chimney and dome from brass. The chassis will be brass too and am hoping it should be fairly straightforward, albeit probably needing some of the boiler to be cut away to accommodate the motor.

 Two things where suggestions will be welcome:

1. What livery would Sprite and Fairy have carried? Am assuming the locos would have been unlined black, with the coach that very dark crimson/purple lake.
2. Sprite and Fairy are obviously mythical creatures, so what might a third loco have been called? Pixie [or Pisky] maybe? Elf perhaps - though not Leprechaun - not sure the tank sides are long enough!

[Mol_PMB]

Wonderful progress and no doubt a unique model! 
I look forward to seeing this develop. 
 

[Galteemore]

Fabulous. I have built a few plasticard locos and for some reason they go together faster than metal ones seem to. The cab shape here lends itself to such methods - GNRI ones don’t! Will be a lovely little piece when finished. As for names ? Maybe Puck or Banshee. Lord O’Neill had a traction  engine named after the latter 

Edited March 18 by Galteemore

[Rob R]

"Imp" and "Elf" were the two ex-DSER Railmotor locos so some thing more obscure is called for I suspect.

[Mol_PMB]

Elf was also the MGWR 2-2-2T.

'Pixie' would seem suitable.

A search for the existing names (sprite, fairy, elf, imp) in Celtic methology led to this website, which also also mentions Selkies and the Sidhe:

https://celticanamcara.blogspot.com/2009/03/pixies-fairies-elves-and-other-wee-folk.html

'Sidhe' would be a more unusual name than 'Pixie' (which has been used elsewhere on a steam loco) and is 'Sidhe' perhaps more specifically Irish. 

https://irishpagan.school/sidhe-irish-fairy-folklore/

[Northroader]

Thinking of “Midsummer Nights Deam”, there was Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed, although two of them are a bit long for a nameplate.

All in favour of plastic locos, my first one is just held up for some stick on rivets, second one on the go, and I’m also making a replacement chassis for a brass kit which was lacking side play. The one stunt I enjoy is setting up the axlebox bushes, all unsprung. The frames are three ply .060” Plastikard, the bushes put in about where they should be, dummy axles in, coupling rods on, then trued up with a touch from a hot solderingiron, with some plastic cement sploshed round to set in any gaps.

ive had problems with using plastic water pipe as boiler material, getting a solvent to work on it, as it’s nothing like the plastikard stuff.

[Tullygrainey]

8 hours ago, Northroader said:

The one stunt I enjoy is setting up the axlebox bushes, all unsprung. The frames are three ply .060” Plastikard, the bushes put in about where they should be, dummy axles in, coupling rods on, then trued up with a touch from a hot solderingiron, with some plastic cement sploshed round to set in any gaps.

Now that is innovative! Calls for a delicate touch with the iron I'd say.

[Tullygrainey]

This is looking great already David. If you nail the general look of the thing, which I think you have, a few missing spokes will be neither here nor there, nor will anyone notice!

Names... picking up the Midsummer Night's Dream theme, Oberon? Titania?

[Colonel]

Thanks folks! Am currently leaning towards Sidhe as the name, which I now know is pronounced Shee and where Banshee also comes from. Delving beyond Paul's weblinks proved to be a fascinating insight into Irish folklore and clearly, it is a good idea to respect all the little people.

[Galteemore]

22 hours ago, Colonel said:

clearly, it is a good idea to respect all the little people.

You’ve certainly always been most considerate to me at shows 

Edited March 20 by Galteemore

[Colonel]

A lot of work, for not much apparent progress, together with quite a few rude words, sums up recent days. However, credit to both Slater's and Roxey Mouldings for their usual exemplary service - wheels from the former and motor/gearbox the latter.

 Thought I'd ordered three extended [34mm b2b] axles, but only one arrived and my fault. As it happens, I had a spare for the other driver and found I could use 6 spoke wagon wheels for the trailing axle. The prototype had 12 spokes, so hopefully not too much trouble to fit six more spokes in the spaces. So what I needed now was a chassis...

 Did the conventional thing and made up a pair of coupling rod blanks first: brass strip, soldered together and then drilled for the scale 5'7" wheel spacing. So far, so good. Then did the same with two wider pieces of strip for the frames and then positioned the rods on top of these, ready to be drilled out and reamed for the rod and axle bearings. 

 Frames and rods were filed to profile, separated and then the former assembled with spacers to form the chassis. Unfortunately, at this point it started to be obvious that something had gone pear shaped with the coupling rods. Somehow, the drill bit must have moved when I was making the holes progressively bigger and when I tried fitting the rods to the wheels, they kept binding and successively reaming them out just led to the holes being too big - so there was no alternative but to make a new pair, because the originals were probably about a millimetre out!

 The Mark 2 versions are likewise giving me grief, because the chassis seems to roll ok without the motor, but with it, still keeps jamming.

  

 On the plus side, the chassis fits nicely into the bodywork and the Roxey 1227 motor gear box [40:1] slots into the underside of the boiler/firebox without too much of the latter needing to be cut away and will be neatly hidden when the model is finished. Am hoping I haven't made a mess of the gearbox - it runs ok without the rods on, but will have explore more in the next day or so. Just hoping I don't have to make a whole new chassis - and 3rd set of rods!

 The wheels certainly start to bring out the character of this little loco, so fingers crossed...

 

[jhb171achill]

The "rude words" are an essential part of all tracklaying, scratchbuilding, and many other aspects of modelling!

[Galteemore]

That’s coming on really nicely. Getting a chassis smooth can be so maddening. 

[Patrick Davey]

Possibly the most unusual prototype ever to feature on this forum!  Great stuff as always David!

[Paul 34F]

Hello David,

All I can suggest is try running the loco without the rods.  If it runs free, it’s either the rods or a crankpin that’s out of true.

If it still has a binding spot, it may be in the gearbox.

 

Paul

[Tullygrainey]

That's very frustrating David. Getting a match between rods and wheelbase is the key to good running but errors can creep in so easily and it's very easy to end up going round in circles trying to sort them. You'll get there eventually I know. Keep at it. It's going to be a great model. 

[Colonel]

Thanks Paul and Alan. A case of third time lucky - or actually third time marking. I'd done my usual thing of scribing a long centre line, then scribing two verticals for where the crank pin holes go. The first two attempts I'd used a punch to make a starter for the drill, but in both cases it must have moved slightly, so the holes weren't where they were supposed to be...

 This time, scribed the marks more heavily and started with a 1 mm drill and gradually worked up to the 2.5 required for the crank pin bearings. Then tested the rods on the loco as just blank rectangles and blow me down, they work - first (or third) time. So now all shaped up and on the loco, ready to fit the pick ups.

 When I take a layout to a show, there is a checklist to ensure I have everything I need. Am thinking I need to make one for chassis building, then laminate it and stick it on the wall above my workbench. While it is nice to have built up a whole range of skills to build everything from locos, rolling stock, signals, buildings and so on, when you don't visit them regularly (as you are flitting between projects), it is all too easy to forget some of the finer points in the enthusiasm of ploughing on with something new.

 Note to self: working chassis are never something to be rushed!

[Galteemore]

This is one of my favourite tools to facilitate accurate punching. Most satisfying to use. https://chronos.ltd.uk/product/optical-centrepunch-2/ 

Had to remake a tender chassis several times when I got the levels wrong - it’s so annoying!