Wizard of the Moor
Active Member
I've wanted to try some of Colin Craig's sprung wagon bogies for a while now. An upcoming wagon project gave an excuse to order a pair of ESC bogies.
This is what you get in the pack:
Everything except the wheels is included. The etch is small but perfectly formed. An hour's folding and soldering results in the major componets ready to be assembled.
Working from the outside in you can see: cast pewter cosmetic sides, etched frames with bearings soldered in, spring wires, T-shaped fulcrums, slide plates with cast brake shoes, main bolster, pins for securing fulcrums to bolster, rotation control plate, bearing, nut and bolt.
The etches folded up precisely with absolutely no fettling required.
A clever part of this design is that the two bogie frames are simply pinned to the central bolster to allow easy taking apart.Here's an assembled bogie and one broken down into the sub-assemblies.
The pins will be trimmed to length for final assembly and secured with a sleeve of PVC insulation.
A close up of one of the side frames, showing how the spring wire acts to suspend the fulcrum, which is allowed to move in the slide plate, and compensate between the bearings.
Looking down on the assembled bogie, it is possible to see the springs in place.
The ends of the frames can be gently tweaked to get ultra-smooth running. The rotation control plate sits on top of the bogie; the vertical lugs at each side engage in the plate's slots to give about 15 degrees rotation in each direction.
Finally, a rather too zoomed in shot of the bogie on the track. It's a mark of how much that I enjoyed this little project that I just grabbed a quick snapshot withthe iPad rather than looking for the real camera!
OK, you can see the spring wires through the frames, but a touch of metal black should take care of that.
These bogies are absolutely superb. The design and production quality is up there with the best on the market. Very comprehensive instrucitons are provided and leave nothing to chance.
Highly recommended!
This is what you get in the pack:
Everything except the wheels is included. The etch is small but perfectly formed. An hour's folding and soldering results in the major componets ready to be assembled.
Working from the outside in you can see: cast pewter cosmetic sides, etched frames with bearings soldered in, spring wires, T-shaped fulcrums, slide plates with cast brake shoes, main bolster, pins for securing fulcrums to bolster, rotation control plate, bearing, nut and bolt.
The etches folded up precisely with absolutely no fettling required.
A clever part of this design is that the two bogie frames are simply pinned to the central bolster to allow easy taking apart.Here's an assembled bogie and one broken down into the sub-assemblies.
The pins will be trimmed to length for final assembly and secured with a sleeve of PVC insulation.
A close up of one of the side frames, showing how the spring wire acts to suspend the fulcrum, which is allowed to move in the slide plate, and compensate between the bearings.
Looking down on the assembled bogie, it is possible to see the springs in place.
The ends of the frames can be gently tweaked to get ultra-smooth running. The rotation control plate sits on top of the bogie; the vertical lugs at each side engage in the plate's slots to give about 15 degrees rotation in each direction.
Finally, a rather too zoomed in shot of the bogie on the track. It's a mark of how much that I enjoyed this little project that I just grabbed a quick snapshot withthe iPad rather than looking for the real camera!
OK, you can see the spring wires through the frames, but a touch of metal black should take care of that.
These bogies are absolutely superb. The design and production quality is up there with the best on the market. Very comprehensive instrucitons are provided and leave nothing to chance.
Highly recommended!
