Slaters 16mm scale axles

[mickoo]

Two question, does anyone know the axle dia of Slaters range of 16mm scale wheels per chance.

Whilst the 2 choices available are not perfect for the subject engine, they'll probably have to do with some modifications.

Second, Slaters G3 wheel tyre width, failing the above it may be possible to use G3 wheels unless the tyre width is drastically wrong. Both driver and idler are 4½" wide which gives a tyre width of 6mm in 16mm scale.

For reference, wheels required are disc wheels, drivers of 2'-9" and idlers of 1'-9"

The only other alternative is turn my own, which at more than (depending on exact engine choice) twenty required is not a task taken lightly.

Thanks in advance

Mick D

 

[Steve Cook]

Hi Mick

Slaters G3 wheels will be 7mm wide, on a 1/4" axle.
From memory, the 16mm stuff uses 3/16" axles but having written that, I have sowed the seed of doubt! Unfortunately, I don't have any driving wheels here to check (wagon axles are 5/32").

Cheers
Steve

 

[markjj]

All the Slaters 16mm stuff I have use the same 3/16" axles as used on normal 7mm gauge stuff.
I think the gauge 3 info may be available on the gauge 3 society website I believe I have seen something about it on their forums.

 

[mickoo]

Cheers guys, very much appreciated.

3/16" axles will be good as I have some ball race bearings to fit those.

Steve, are the G3 wheels all 7mm wide, it's coach wheels I'm looking at and I'm wondering if they might be narrower like they are in smaller scale....he sez.. thinking now that they might not be

I had a quick look on the web last night for other sources of wheels, but will explore more today, it all depends on how accurate I want them. The Slaters 16mm 2'-8" Fairlie wheels look like the best choice, except for the three great big oval holes in them and traditional flat backs. There's a counter balance on the inside and outside of the wheel as well as the fly crank, in this size the balance weights should really be there.

One other option is to machine new wheel blanks with the correct profile and then simply use the Slaters rim and axles, hardly cost effective but possible the simplest option to get what I want. It might pay me to politely ask if Slaters are prepared to sell just the rims as a one off option.

Much more water to pass under these bridges

Mick D

 

[Steve Cook]

No worries Mick, I've just measured up a set of G3 coach wheels - they are 7mm wide, have a 1/4" axle and a 4mm bore through the wheel centre for the bearing surface of the axle.

If you are thinking about turning up wheel centres then I'd suggest that the effort on turning a flange on the outside of that wheel blank would not be a huge extra commitment for a man of your calibre.

It sounds an interesting project, is it wrong that I hope its a Garrett of some description

Steve

PS - I know Roundhouse will sell pretty much anything they make, and they do / did a set of wheels for single Fairlies - unklian has used a set on his G3 Trojan. They will probably come with a 1/4 bore and a boss on the back for a fixing bolt. Worth five minutes looking through the parts section on their website.

 

[mickoo]

Steve, yes turning ones own is probably the best option to be honest. I've been speaking to Col today at Sudbury about bits and pieces like authentic profiled bar frames and fly cranks, being 3mm thick then my usual medium of etched work isn't really suitable, even if laminated. Other parts like cabs and some of the complex stays will work as etch work made up into these forms as seen on the W1 as well as other details. The rest will probably be hand cut to save costs, things like boiler frame, front and rear bunkers and buffer beams.

A lot of the bigger stuff will be too meaty to solder with the ERSA or maybe even the pencil torch so I'll revert to 1:1 scale and bolt together.

Your 7/8th model is of course to blame for all this you know But I'm not looking at working live steam but more a detailed rendition with battery power in mind.

Yes it is a Garratt and I opted for the smaller 2'-0" one to begin with. The bigger 3'-6" projects I'd hope to do later in life, but probably in G1 due to their physical size and getting hold of wheels and such like.

I'll start a new thread shortly when I've sorted a few more bit out

Mick D

 

[unklian]

Steve beat me to it on the words , but here is the picture .....

Right foreground Roundhouse Fairlie wheels 42mm diameter, 6mm wide, 1/4" bore. Right and middle Slaters coach wheel set showing step down axle 1/4" to 4mm. Rear GRS steel 3 hole discs 42mm diameter, 7mm wide, 4mm bore with insulating bush ( not currently available, but the order is with the machine shop I understand !). Left rear a corner of Trojan .

Hope that helps, cheers Ian

PS GRS also do solid steel disc wheels for 32mm and 45mm gauges. Diameters are 24.5mm, 28mm and 30.5mm. If you need to know any other dimensions, you will have to call them, or wait until I see them on Wednesday .

 

[mickoo]

Ian,

Yes that helps immensely thank you. I'd prefer solid steel wheels for machining as they will be more robust if I opt to machine the rear with a recess and thin to 6mm if required.

I need two wheel sizes in 16mm scale, idlers at 28mm and drivers at 44mm dia, both solid and both 6mm tyre width.

Starting with the idlers, so far I've found two options.

Slaters 1'-8" (26.7mm) disc driver for Hunslets, basically a solid wheel with fly cranks and fitted to 3/16" axle.
GRS 28mm steel wheel, web page quotes 3mm axle and I'm going to guess that's the stub extension dia as the main shaft between tyres looks larger.

Drivers, only one real choice here so far.
Roundhouse 42mm dia fitted on a 1/4" axle, they also do a extended axle with fly cranks to suit, the overall length of that would be important to match the loco, failing that a new axle required. Not overly keen on the rear stub for grub screw, I'd either remove it or turn it down to half it's dia, sleeve with thin wall tube between the wheels to give a uniform appearance and pin all to the axles. I know it's a faff but visuals are quite important for me. I see it looks like you have also removed the rear boss and moved the grub screw to the front in an angled hole on the boss. The other niggle here is that they are plated, any turning is going to remove that and expose the raw material underneath.

It's a shame GRS do not do a 42mm solid wheel as that'd make them a one stop shop to be honest. I'm guessing the insulating bush reduces from the wheel bore of 4mm to the stub bore of 3mm? Failing that I could use the three hole and plug the holes with suitable bar and machine flush with the web, once painted you'd probably never know and one, possible almost two of them would be covered by the wheel weight anyway. I can't find the 3 hole 32mm gauge wheels on their site, only what looks like 63.5mm axles (PG700).

I've checked my usual bearing source site (RCBearings) and they do race bearings for all of these axle sizes and I'm keen to add them to the model specification if I'm honest so that's one aspect ticked off.

Regarding the drivers at 2'-9" (44mm) I did a check on the 1:1 wheel drawing and found the data for the witness mark, these wheels take a lot of machining, an overall reduction in dia of 3¼", in 16mm scale that's a reduction from 44mm to 39.8mm dia. So, wheels of 42mm dia are basically part worn wheels, I can live with that and will just have to remember to machine the witness mark in the right place

Mick D

 

[unklian]

Mick,

You are right I think about the GRS 28mm wheel axle, I can find out the main axle diameter and the actual bore of the wheel without the insulating bush.

The Roundhouse Fairlie/Taliesin wheels don't have a boss on the back and mine are not plated either. Not sure were you got the other specs from, but they are not like their standard loco wheels at all. The angled grub screw is also as they come. The outside crank axles are 65mm long over the round bit ( excluding the squared ends ) so the cranks have a back to back of 65mm. The cranks are 3.4mm thick, giving a total width of 71.8mm approx. The cranks with counter weights I have are in plain brass, normal cranks seem to come plated like their smaller wheels.

The GRS 42mm wheels are only made for G3 63.5mm gauge. The axle stub is 4mm in diameter , the wheel bore is approx 5mm to accommodate the insulating bush.

You may be interested to know that I have easily turned 0.5mm off the backs of my G3 wheels and reduced the depth of the flanges for a more scale appearance.

Hope that helps some more
Ian

 

[mickoo]

Ian,

All the Roundhouse specs I got off their site, the only wheels I could find were on their parts page, the image shows a boss on the rear, mind it is a render and not a real photo.

I also cannot find the Fairlie/Taliesin on their site Roundhouse Online, let alone wheels for them, but if they have oval holes in then they would need to be filled. I suspect it might not be available anymore.

GRS 28mm, the main axle dia is not an issue so don;t fret it, these are for the idlers/pony wheels and have outside bearings so it's the stub shaft dia that's important. For the GRS 42mm wheel I could turn the axle to suit 32mm gauge with no trouble. Thanks for the info on the extended axle, Colin will hopefully machine up some new correctly shaped fly cranks with counter balance weight, I'll check with the drawings tomorrow but those dimensions look pretty close to what i require.

I did look at the flanges and though they could do with a wee trim

All the best

Mick D

 

[unklian]

Mick,
The GRS wheels come with different stub axle diameters and lengths, not sure how much this is described on the website, I think I will do a proper list at some point.

The Taliesin wheels are not listed on the main part of the Roundhouse site. You have to open or download the price list and they are right at the bottom of the list code WDT. Talk about well kept secret There are a lot of other bits on the price list that are not in the main site listings. You may well be better off with the WD42 wheels and modifying them, although I am not sure what you would do about the plating. It being nickel it would turn off fairly easily. Or it could be worth your while phoning Roundhouse and asking if they could supply wheels unplated. If you asked for a quantity and they were in the process of making a batch they might be able to pull some out of the process. You would more than likely have to wait a while though.
Also I am not sure if you are aware, that it is worth looking at Slaters price list/download from their site too, as there are things on there not listed in the main site lists !
Glad to be a help,
Cheers Ian

 

[Steve Cook]

Your 7/8th model is of course to blame for all this you know But I'm not looking at working live steam but more a detailed rendition with battery power in mind.

Sorry 'bout that

Yes it is a Garratt and I opted for the smaller 2'-0" one to begin with. The bigger 3'-6" projects I'd hope to do later in life, but probably in G1 due to their physical size and getting hold of wheels and such like.

I'll start a new thread shortly when I've sorted a few more bit out

An excellent choice of loco Sir I've kept half an eye out for one of the 16mm NGG16 Garratts by Accucraft ever since I rode behind a couple on the Welsh Highland with Simon, Neil and Tim - fortunately for my wallet, I've not yet found one. I've no idea what I'd pull behind it even if one turned up, but a little day dreaming doesn't hurt anyone I suppose

I look forward to seeing what you get up to.
Steve

 

[unklian]

An excellent choice of loco Sir I've kept half an eye out for one of the 16mm NGG16 Garratts by Accucraft ever since I rode behind a couple on the Welsh Highland with Simon, Neil and Tim - fortunately for my wallet, I've not yet found one. I've no idea what I'd pull behind it even if one turned up, but a little day dreaming doesn't hurt anyone I suppose

I look forward to seeing what you get up to.
Steve

Budget for about £4K that was what the last one GRS sold went for I believe ....

I will keep my eye open for one anyway,
Cheers Ian

 

[mickoo]

Sorry 'bout that

An excellent choice of loco Sir I've kept half an eye out for one of the 16mm NGG16 Garratts by Accucraft ever since I rode behind a couple on the Welsh Highland with Simon, Neil and Tim - fortunately for my wallet, I've not yet found one. I've no idea what I'd pull behind it even if one turned up, but a little day dreaming doesn't hurt anyone I suppose

I look forward to seeing what you get up to.
Steve

Steve, yes they do look rather nice, and way out of my price range, hence my probably futile attempt at making my own. But so long as I have fun along the way and learn something new, then I'm not overly worried about the end result, I have other irons in fires that satisfy that mistress.

I've not yet visited WHR, they have six now I understand, two running, two stripped down for long term over haul and two laying around as spares or eventual rebuilding, what I need to do is get up there and ask very very nicely if I can photo one of the engines that's lying around, going by what I've seen on the web there's a couple of engines in what looks like reasonable public access at Dinas car park, possibly another two stored by their workshops and another two out the back of Boston Lodge.

The Puffing Billy web site has a whole load of nice photos and details of their rebuild to 2'-6" gauge, you just have to remember that some parts are not original but new for the gauge widening, they're also doing a whole set of 3D CAD artworks as well and the ones shown on their site are helpful and quite detailed and accurate.

Ian, cheers, checked out the price list and there they are. Unplated would be preferred but at least I have several avenues to explore right now, I won't need to make a final decision until I get to the axle boxes really, other than that, I can blunder along with the rest for the time being The NGG16 over cranks scales out at 68.8mm, so Roundhouse extended axles at 71.8mm will be fine. At least I can trim if anything starts to get a little tight.

Mick D