Jennifer Who?

john lewsey

john lewsey

Western Thunderer
NickB said:
Jon,

That construction of carrying wheels supported on the outer frame and driving wheels supported by inside and outside frames was quite common at the time. Sharp Brothers made hundreds of very similar locos that were found on many early British and European railways. Some years ago I was asked to build a 7mm model of the replica of Odin, the first loco to run in Denmark (a model of a full-size model, if you like!). If you can find a copy of The Odin Project by Michael Bailey and John Glithero, it contains a complete set of drawings of the replica.

I didn't take many photos of the model, but here is a rather poor one of the bits and pieces. I probably made it more complicated than necessary by reproducing the prototype construction. The advantage is that the driving wheelset and inside works can all be made separately from the rest of the loco and then dropped into place. I should add that it was tender driven, there being no space available on the driving axle. If I were to do it again and reproduce all the rods and valve gear (and the trouble is, they can be seen under the boiler), I think I would retain that form of construction. But if the insides were non-working, simplified, or omitted altogether, I woiuld make the inside frames dummies and support all three axles on the outside frames.

Good luck with the project.

Nick

View attachment 197583
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Wow ,that's a wonderful piece of work
 
Herb Garden

Herb Garden

Western Thunderer
NickB said:
Jon,

That construction of carrying wheels supported on the outer frame and driving wheels supported by inside and outside frames was quite common at the time. Sharp Brothers made hundreds of very similar locos that were found on many early British and European railways. Some years ago I was asked to build a 7mm model of the replica of Odin, the first loco to run in Denmark (a model of a full-size model, if you like!). If you can find a copy of The Odin Project by Michael Bailey and John Glithero, it contains a complete set of drawings of the replica.

I didn't take many photos of the model, but here is a rather poor one of the bits and pieces. I probably made it more complicated than necessary by reproducing the prototype construction. The advantage is that the driving wheelset and inside works can all be made separately from the rest of the loco and then dropped into place. I should add that it was tender driven, there being no space available on the driving axle. If I were to do it again and reproduce all the rods and valve gear (and the trouble is, they can be seen under the boiler), I think I would retain that form of construction. But if the insides were non-working, simplified, or omitted altogether, I woiuld make the inside frames dummies and support all three axles on the outside frames.

Good luck with the project.

Nick

View attachment 197583
Click to expand...
I was looking at these parts and thought I recognised them... Then I realised Odin is another of the sharp brothers singles of the mid 1840s.... in fact the very thing I am currently painting a 4mm scale model of. (Or at least a GER reboilered one).... I think there is a law in the universe that decrees that once you finish a project you discover all the info you really needed at the start!:headbang:
 
NickB

NickB

Western Thunderer
A few more random thoughts. My Odin had a fixed driving axle and the carrying axle boxes were individually sprung. The driving axle assembly of rods and valve gear was sufficiently free running that the wheels turn as they should without any assistance. Odin had quite a large (for the time) 6-wheel tender so it was easy to conceal a drive unit and add enough weight for traction. The four wheel tender in Jon's drawing is much smaller and the underneath parts are much more exposed so that a pinion gear on one axle would be rather obvious. All of which supports Jon's choices.

The LSWR was among Sharp's customers, and the company also bought a number of similar locos from other manufacturers at the time, so I think Jon's loco can be quite representative. There isn't much information about loco design from that time, and locos were made in small batches with variations between them, so when dealing with early loco prototypes, how freelance is freelance?

I can't wait to see the finished train!

Nick
 
geoff_nicholls

geoff_nicholls

Western Thunderer
After he left the LSWR, J V Gooch designed his Class A 2-2-2WT for the Eastern Counties Railway, with the same combination of inside and outside frames. I built mine with inside frames the outside frames being purely cosmetic. I used compensation beams with an offset pivot to push more weight onto the drivers. The rear axle is pivoted to give three point suspension. I was afraid the drivers might just spin, but it does pull my trains of light rolling stock quite well.
gooch class A 012.JPG
 
Jon Nazareth

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
I made some new guides for the driving wheels only to discover that the guides for the leading and trailing wheels have too big a slot for the bearing, I now have to make 8 new ones! This is a right pain as there be quite a bit of work involved in marking, cutting, cleaning and drilling etc eight new guides. Now, where did I put that sheet of brass?

Jon

IMG_5188.JPG
 
Jon Nazareth

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
I thought that I'd got it right this time. Having made six new axleboxes and twelve new axlebox guides, I assembled the whole thing today only to find that I'd made the driving wheel guides too short!!!!! You can see in the picture that the driving wheels are hanging in the air. Ah well, only the four new guides to make then.
Ian Maccormac kindly printed this dome for me and I'm not sure whether to paint it to match the wheel colour or to cover it in gold leaf.

Jon

IMG_5191.JPGIMG_5193.JPG
 
michael mott

michael mott

Western Thunderer
Jon I see that having to make things over comes with the territory of designing and building a model from scratch. Beautiful work on the model. I wonder if it is possible to get the printed dome “vacuum plated” similar to the chrome parts in model car kits.
Michael
 
NickB

NickB

Western Thunderer
There is inevitably a lot of conjecture about the finish of early locos, but examining the few LSWR photos that date from this period does suggest that the dome was finished in body colour. Except for one photo that shows a polished dome suggestive of brass. That led one author to consider that the LSWR painted some domes to look like brass (they were, of course, made of iron). So maybe brass paint isn't such a bad idea!

Thanks to Ian for drawing attention to brass leaf. I wasn't aware of that.

Nick
 
Mike W

Mike W

Western Thunderer
NickB said:
painted some domes to look like brass (they were, of course, made of iron
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I'm not so sure about that Nick. Most LNWR authorities seem to think that their domes were made of brass and painted, at least before 1900. Its only in recent times that somebody scrapped some paint off, found brass and decided to polish the domes on some preserved engines (Columbine, Pet and Cornwall) that were never previously polished (although Cornwall's dome had been polished for a few years in the early 1920s).

Mike
 
Jon Nazareth

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
Could I ask the team something re the set up with this loco before I make new axle box guides? The leading and trailing axles are sprung with small coil springs hidden behind the guides. I’m thinking that with the leading and trailing axles fully loaded, all three axles should be in contact with the rails. In my case, they are not. I’ve measured the distance/gap between the driving wheel tyre and the rail. This measurement amounts to 9/64”. I am assuming that this is the amount that I need to increase the new guides by in order for the chassis/frames to work/roll along correctly. Am I right?
 
M

mswjr

Western Thunderer
I would say yes to that, But also can you take the bottom stop plate off the middle wheels and drop the wheels down onto the track, this would be an easy way to measure , And give you some idea what the new horn plates will look like. This is as seen in your picture above.
 
Jon Nazareth

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
michael mott said:
Jon I see that having to make things over comes with the territory of designing and building a model from scratch. Beautiful work on the model. I wonder if it is possible to get the printed dome “vacuum plated” similar to the chrome parts in model car kits.
Michael
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Michael
You are right there. When I built Enigma, I had a full set of accurate drawings and the build west without a hitch well, almost. I found that things were a bit tight for the splashers which I had to leave off. There's plenty of room on the new loco and I'm planning on fitting splashers to the drivers.

Jon
 
Jon Nazareth

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
mswjr said:
I would say yes to that, But also can you take the bottom stop plate off the middle wheels and drop the wheels down onto the track, this would be an easy way to measure , And give you some idea what the new horn plates will look like. This is as seen in your picture above.
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Garry

That's a good idea, thank you. I'll try that method as it's not easy to get the ruler in to measure with the axle in the way.

Jon
 
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