Rhymney Railway R class.

[Nick Dunhill]

So today attention turns to the brake rigging. The kit has some good blocks, hangers and spreader plates, but the pull rods are wrong for an AR. So I made a load of little components for the compensators.

And here are the spreader plates with the compensators built up.

And fitted to the chassis. Will make the brake shaft and cylinders etc tomorrow. Will hopefully get the sand boxes in place too, then the chassis is complete.

 

[Nick Dunhill]

Short-ish day today but I made the brake shaft with all the gubbins. I made a representation of the steam and air brake cylinders from ones left over from previous jobs or scratchbuilt items. I also fitted sand boxes and added a bit of an embelishment with the operating rods.

 

[Nick Dunhill]

I got a little lucky with the footplate etching. Adrian drew it with a bit of extra width down each side and it sat on top of the widened chassis underneath. The footplate etch needed only a minor amount of modification to fit. The main modification was to accommodate the section of chassis above the footplate, planting it on the footplate in line with the chassis below.

This will mean that the smokebox will have to be made slightly narrower at the base to fit between the narrowed frames, but hey, something has to be wrong here! I have spent quite a while building inside motion and detailing the frames. I hope that the new owner will be able to see all the moving parts without seeing a step in the chassis, so I'm affraid the compromise will be a narrow base to the smokebox (no-one ever notices, I've built a few like this now!)

Anyway the footplate has an half etched line into which the top bit of the chassis fits. I filled this with some 0.375 mm rod and a lot of solder. The whole lot was blended in with my trusty sanding disc. I soldered the valances and buffer beams in place. The etched chassis extension is too short. It covers the bottom of the smokebox then just disappears behind the splasher. I made a new section of chassis and soldered it on top of the footplate in line with the chassis below. I used some blue roll soaked in water as a heat sink so my slot filling exploits nearby weren't disturbed.

You can see that the valances are straight-through from buffer beam to beam. Usually they swoop down to meet the bottom of the buffer beam, and this leaves the large gusset between chassis and buffer beam on view, so I decided to make some. First though I needed to make the buffers self contained. The ones supplied are nice cast tapered buffers correct for the locomotive, and they work. This means that there's a load of casting and buffer tail and a huge 10 BA nut behind the beam. I think I'd prefer my buffers not to work than have all this stuff sticking out behind the beams.....and it's in the way of the big gussets.

I took the opportunity to remove the cast fixing blobs in the corners of the fixing plate and replace them with some nice turned fake nuts from Germany.

 

[Nick Dunhill]

The first job of the day was finishing off the air reservoir tank for the Westinghouse system. It's just made from tube and scrap bits of strip. That was installed on the model with some pipework to the brake cylinder. The couplings were made from a Slater's kit. The rear coupling hook has a very long shaft that is anchored to the drag beam under the cab.

I also made and installed the big gussets between the buffer beam and chassis.

Mick Davies 3D printed me some decorative horn guide bolt plates to fit round the horn cheeks already installed, and made from brass angle. They look very nice I think.

Splashers and pickups tomorrow.

 

[Nick Dunhill]

I have spent a couple of days soldering the bodywork together. So far I have done the splashers over the front and middle wheels, the bunker/cab rear and the two water tanks. I have also done an experiment with the pick-ups. I have installed conventional phosphour bronze wipers but mounted outboard under the footplate. They are out of the way and you can't see them when looking at the inside motion but.....wires have to be unsoldered everytime you remove chassis from body, and the downward force did distort the footplate etch until I added the tank sides. Swings/roundabouts.

The kit is a little gem and the parts go together with sub millimetre precision so a big pat on the back to Adrian Rowland who designed it. I hope he was speedily and generously rewarded by Dragon Models for whom he did the CAD work.

 

[mickoo]

Why don't you put the wires from the pick ups into a miniature plug, that way you simply unplug and lift the body off, or (preferred) make the leads longer so that lifting the body off and then unplug.

I found these perfectly good for the task.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07X8MT3SB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[SimonT]

The write up is a bit racey:
"2-Pin Plug: This male femele connector wire is 2-pin plug wires, one side is for plugging the other side for welding, male connector match well with female connector, easy to install and use. It is durable, practical and environmental." (Not my taping mistakes!)

I wish I could find some connectors that match the fine wires we are using for DCC wiring; this is to reduce the number of soldered connections that can fail. 7/.11 is heavy compared with the Zimo wires
Simon

 

[simond]

I tried some miniature JST connectors that we use at work on my Garratt, I’d have to look to know which range, but 4-pole ones similar to the ones in Mick’s picture. The terminals are tiny & very fiddly to crimp and the very thin “decoder wire” doesn’t like it. It’s obviously possible to have machine crimped terminals on any size of wire, but hand crimping is challenging at these small sizes.

I ended up with the JST 4-pole in the leading engine, and using larger wire from there to the firebox where the decoder is fitted. The rear engine was rewired and a standard 0.1” crimp pin (eg Hobbytronics, RS, etc) connector in the gap between the cab floor and the footplate.

 

[Nick Dunhill]

Not sure where the electronics will end up, boiler or ashpan. Will choose a suitable plug/socket later....

 

[mickoo]

The write up is a bit racey:
"2-Pin Plug: This male femele connector wire is 2-pin plug wires, one side is for plugging the other side for welding, male connector match well with female connector, easy to install and use. It is durable, practical and environmental." (Not my taping mistakes!)

I wish I could find some connectors that match the fine wires we are using for DCC wiring; this is to reduce the number of soldered connections that can fail. 7/.11 is heavy compared with the Zimo wires
Simon

No idea about the write up, typical Chinglish. Having commissioned eight cranes from China, I tend to ignore everything they write, to call much of it a blatant lie would be too kind

All in all they work and thus far, I've only used them for pick up or motor power side of things, so the larger wire gauge is helpful.

 

[Tim Humphreys ex Mudhen]

No idea about the write up, typical Chinglish. Having commissioned eight cranes from China, I tend to ignore everything they write, to call much of it a blatant lie would be too kind

All in all they work and thus far, I've only used them for pick up or motor power side of things, so the larger wire gauge is helpful.

Mick,
I ordered a pack of these connectors, via the link provided, on Friday. Good news the parcel arrived yesterday, great service. It was quickly opened there in the bag was a roll of masking tape!! To get a refund requires the tape to be returned, Hermes will collect it in 4 0r 5 days. The good news is that this has given me some excitement from my normal routine during lock-down .

all the best
Tim

 

[Eastsidepilot]

No idea about the write up, typical Chinglish. Having commissioned eight cranes from China, I tend to ignore everything they write, to call much of it a blatant lie would be too kind

Ancient Chinese Prophet, Confucius, he say "when sitting on bog do not wipe arse and blow nose at same time"

Col.

 

[Nick Dunhill]

I have spent a today and a few hours over the weekend adding a few details. Lamp irons are on, so are all the handrails and steps on the water tanks. I decided that the tank tops were too narrow, so I extended them and reattached the inner walls. This gave me the opportunity to fill the tanks with lead sheet. I made a new cab floor and the portion of the front tanks that are inside the cab.

Tomorrow I think I'll complete the cab interior with some sand boxes and planking. Then I can make a backhead, or might make the steps that are below the footplate, who knows......

 

[oldravendale]

Hi Nick.

I've just scanned one of Tim's photos which happens to be a RR R1 (not an original R) at Swindon.

Not one of Tim's finest it has to be said but just wondering whether it could have any aspects which may be helpful? He's described it as the last RR loco and it's at Swindon for scrapping. I'll be pleased to put it up for you - just don't tell anyone else as it'll put the Tim Mills thread out of sequence.

Brian

 

[Nick Dunhill]

A quick update on today's work. I have installed the window thingy on the rear of the cab. Someone kindly sent me a pic showing what's there. I added some sand boxes to the cab interior. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that red-faced Dunhill had to remove the cast white metal ones already installed on the chassis sides! Note to self, read the bl**dy drawing first! I also installed all the steps below the footplate and did a modification to the footplate edge under the cab door (thanks Penrhos of RMWeb.)

So tomorrow I will make a new backhead, finish off the cab floor and build the cab upper and roof.

 

[Nick Dunhill]

Today I have done a number of jobs. I shortened the front steps, made a backhead, planked the floor of the cab, made a handbrake stanchion and finally a reverser. The castings on the backhead are from Laurie Griffin.

More cab based activity tomorrow.

 

[Nick Dunhill]

I have done a bit more on the cab. The doors have been attached (the door reveals were very tricky and it would have been better to have added them earlier!) I finally planted the cab sides on top of the tanks.

Tomorrow I'll tackle the roof and backhead. If anyone out there knows how a Rhymney Railway Ventilator roof works please let me know.....


For all you ERSA fans out there I had to replace my tip today. £16 for a new one but not bad value for 26 months or so continuous soldering.

 

[Lancastrian]

That's a big one ! Width-wise that is ! Hehe.

Ian

 

[Lancastrian]

Nick,

Don't know if this helps
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...0-6-2T_geograph-2564218-by-Ben-Brooksbank.jpg

Ian

 

[Nick Dunhill]

Thanks for the pic, all info is very welcome.

ruler in metres...