Very Little Gravitas Indeed*

[Simon]

Absolutely fabulous photographs Adrian, that looks properly enjoyable and it is really nice to hear from you on WT.

Having been similarly absent for a couple of years I am now contemplating a return to the WT shores.

I have a new G1 garden railway scheme on the go and it is no more sensible than the last one....

 

[Osgood]

Dare we hope that a SITREP on the Hudswell railcar, last seen in Sep 2017 in Vauxhall green and with all its glazing still intact, might appear?
Did it survive the abuse of the track lifting gang? Is it being used by the track laying gang?
Some views of it in last week's s/h book acquisition THE SPURN HEAD RAILWAY, Hartley & Frost, pub IRS 1976 - a great little book.

 

[Chris Veitch]

I think I got into a horrible circle of lack of exercise, missing the invigorating cycle to work, and then not being able to walk away from work at the end of the day. I just ended up too exhausted, physically and mentally. So I had absolutely zero motivation for anything let alone any modelling.

I'm sure you know by now that it's affected many of us that way - it looks like you're having the break you need and here's to you getting back to the bench and using modelling to restore the balance. I'm really looking forward to see how you're doing with Holywell Town, but it looks like you're concentrating on the other end of the scale right now...

 

[oldravendale]

Adrian - it's really good to see you back. Hope to see more from you very soon.

Brian

 

[adrian]

The retail therapy and slow recovery was intended to be a nice stress free bit of fun. The kit is a good mix of plastic parts, etched components and castings. Some of the sprues are obviously meant to cover other vehicles as well so there will be plenty of parts left over. The instructions are a little sparse with a couple of drawings that require a little interpretation but it wasn't too difficult to work out.

The main body goes together first and quite nicely. Some details and instructions though just make you wonder if they actually built a test vehicle. There are little cast lamp irons included for which it says you need to drill locating holes in the buffer beam. Don't because the detail is wrong - which is immediately apparent when you fit it to the buffer beam. Looking at the prototype photo shows that the lamp iron needs to be a U shape.



The kit as supplied has plastic W-irons and build up as a rigid chassis - I couldn't see an easy way to make them sprung so decided to try the Bill Bedford sprung units. The extra bits of white plasticard are packing pieces to provide the correct height and offset.



The instructions also suggest fitting the wheels before sorting out all the brake details so after a few evenings work I'm now at this state. Sorting out this photo reminded me that I'd scratched the floor with a steel scratch brush before building - hopefully when painted giving a little more texture to the planking.

 

[AJC]

Looking at the prototype photo shows that the lamp iron needs to be a U shape.

As you'll have worked out (but apparently Slater's hadn't), the end won't drop otherwise, albeit when a lamp is not in place. The BR series have always looked to be nice kits, however, just as the 4mm wagon mouldings are excellent so I'll be interested to see how you get on. Good to see you back.

Adam

 

[adrian]

Unfortunately I didn't take that many photos during the build but there are a few.

So the wheels are fitted, a couple of spacing washers minimise any side play and the W-iron is glued in. The NP17 was written on to remind me that I changed the spring wire in the suspension unit. The spring wire supplied was much too fine - more suitable for 4mm I suspect. It's not the heaviest of wagons but as supplied it was bottoming out on the spring so I replaced them with NP17 guitar string.

The instructions are a little confusing in the placement of the cylinder so take care with that - and then it was building up the etched brake gear.


There are also little etched support brackets - I suspect they should be a right angle but none of them were so they needed a little fettling with pliers and a file to get them to seat nicely.



With the sprung units in the way the brake blocks needed a little bit of chopping around to fit. Also with the detailing on the outside of the block it meant that the moulding taper was in the opposite direction to the cone on the tyres so they needed filing back at the rear of the cone to match the tyres allowing them to fit closer. This did mean quite a bit of fiddling to get the linkage adjusted as well. Straight out of the box I suspect the brake blocks would end up a scale 6" away from the tyre.



As always careful attention to a prototype photo is required as the instructions again are misleading. This shows the little handbrake lever (66) attached to the outside of the of the sole bar V-bracket where as if you look at the prototype the angle crank is actually inside of the V bracket.



Everything else folds up quite nicely and fits okay.



The buffers and couplings need to be sorted - otherwise this is completed state as supplied in the kit. The axle boxes are a little drunk as I've glued them to the bearings but at the moment there is nothing stopping the bearings rotating in the W iron. So a little drop of superglue should sort that out. There a few more little extra details to add but otherwise with a little care on assembly I found it quite a nice little quick and easy kit to build.

 

[AJC]

Very nice, Adrian. As I've found in 4mm, the various safety loops are quite visible - there's some good detail shots in the Rumney Models instructions: http://website.rumneymodels.co.uk/w...05-BR-Clasp-Brake-Chassis-Instructions-v4.pdf (p. 28 shows how they're fixed which I reckon you could emulate in the larger scale).

Is there provision for the stay for the lever guide in the kit? It may seem a minor cosmetic detail (it is!) but adding them makes that assembly much more durable, just like the real thing.

Adam

 

[adrian]

Very nice, Adrian. As I've found in 4mm, the various safety loops are quite visible - there's some good detail shots in the Rumney Models instructions: http://website.rumneymodels.co.uk/w...05-BR-Clasp-Brake-Chassis-Instructions-v4.pdf (p. 28 shows how they're fixed which I reckon you could emulate in the larger scale).

Is there provision for the stay for the lever guide in the kit? It may seem a minor cosmetic detail (it is!) but adding them makes that assembly much more durable, just like the real thing.

Adam

Many thanks for those instructions, with the prototype photos included they made it a lot clearer how they go together, better than the Slaters instructions anyway.

Unfortunately any modelling got severely curtailed these last couple of weeks due to catching "a virus" - probably Covid's older brother - influenza. Basically I've had all the Covid symptoms etc. but the test results have been negative for Covid, but it has meant 2 weeks of doing sod all!

So adding some of the little detailing has been quite theraputic - there was nothing in the kit for the lever guide stay but a little bit of spare etching was used to fashion the required stay, also used to bend up a little U shaped lamp iron bracket more suitable for the wagon.

Most of the lowfits seem to have a quite distinctive triangular, rather than rectangular, safety loops - again easily fashioned from a length of 0.5mm n/s wire.

The supplied couplings are really nice, the casting for the hook has a nice weight/presence to it, the shackles are castings. The trunnions and centre threaded bar are nicely machined steel items and the bar is threaded with a left hand thread on one side and a right hand thread on the other, so it tightens up correctly on turning the bar once you have matched up with the correctly threaded trunnion.

I'm going to leave it as is now, a little cleaning up to do and then a waft of paint beckons.

 

[adrian]

I always get a bit nervous at the painting stage as it usually goes a little "Pete Tong" for me. This was no exception - I was positive I'd done a through clean and wash prior to painting but I must have missed a bit as it didn't like it on one side.



So a gentle wipe down with IPA soaked cotton bud and a re-mist of primer saw me back on track. I then sprayed the under frame black, masked off and then the body with the red oxide. The inside planking was masked as I will apply the wood planking colour by brush, also I didn't want the securing rings clogged up with paint so I touch those in with a brush as well.







So a little bit of cleaning up and touching up still to do, I managed to miss coating the top of the buffers shanks whilst painting the chassis.

The transfers are on order so hopefully with a lit bit more fettling it will be finished soon.

Whilst I'm waiting for the transfers my thoughts turned to the planning of the next project. Hopefully a relative quick one but as usual with my own particular take on the matter. As a smaller teaser - which is probably quite easy clue especially for those of an industrial bent - I started with the motor and gearbox.

 

[adrian]

The transfers arrived from Fox so they were applied, the rest of the details picked out, buffers fitted etc. The coupling supplied had a split pin to hold the spring and washer in place. Absolutely f*****g impossible to fit in the tight space between the chassis beams so that got substituted by a bit of nickel silver wire instead.

 

[adrian]

As alluded to in the previous post but 1 - a little teaser for the next project. Something I hoped was a quick one to get my modelling mojo back and one I've wanted to do for a while.

So yes the next project is a Walsworth models Y1/3 kit. There have been a few builds posted online so I'm not proposing a step by step instruction. However as usual I never seem to be able to build any kit straight out of the box, so in my usual inimitable way I've deviated from the usual instructions and I'll post the differences.

We had quite a nice little discussion a few years ago when @Sandy Harper was documenting a Y1/1 build from Walsworth models. Walsworth Models Sentinel Y1 8400 . So the Y1/3 build is very similar but I'll come back to that in a minute.

On initial look at the kit I tackled the chassis first. As supplied it's a single etch be folded up with brass bushes to solder in for the axles.


Unfortunately my preference is for a sprung chassis - so some tweaks were going to be necessary. However this then causes a problem in working out how to mount the motor and gearbox. In the kit it's hung off one of the axles and then there is a delrin chain drive to the second axle so it makes the springing arrangement interesting as the motor and gearbox then needs to float a bit. I spent a few days mulling over how to work it when I remembered my comment in Sandy's thread and a potential solution started to develop.

In the prototype the engine is mounted centrally, the Sentinel type designation is CE for central engine underneath which is a gearbox. There is then a chain drive from each side of the gearbox to each axle. So in reality there is no chain link from axle to axle [ that arrangement is in the DEDG engines] they are both driven from the gearbox. So my cunning plan is to mount the motor and gearbox vertically and centrally in the chassis and drive the axles from the central location. Hence building the gearbox with delrin gears on both sides to drive each axle, I also managed to open out the holes to use miniature ball races rather than plain bushes. The purposes of the outer shroud will become evident in the next few photos.



My preference for springing is fully floating springs rather than compensation so it was trying to work out to arrange a system of continuous springy beams (CSB) for the suspension. The other issue was to work out how to keep the delrin chain at the same tension during movement of the axles. If I simply enlarged the axle holes to fit horn blocks up and down then there would be a small, but realistically infinitesimal small change in length from the gearbox to the axles.

So my solution has been to make up some lever arms that pivot from the miniature ball race and hold the axles at the correct spacing. The next epiphany was arranging the fulcrum point for the CSB. Normally these are aligned directly above the axle centre line but I soon realised that being a simple 0-4-0 then there was no reason why the pivot points couldn't be arranged outboard of the axle centre line. Hence the arms below, when cutting out the arms I cut a slot in the outer section, folded it back on itself and twisted the top bit to provide the fulcrum point.



So as illustrated below these arms locate over the ball races and the gearbox shroud then fits around the outside to stop the arms dropping off. If you look closely on the shroud the little tab that is folded inboard, below the ball race hole, has a small hole drilled in it. This provides the central fulcrum point for the CSB.



So fitting it all together I have ended up with this sub unit - a little sprung arm 0-4-0 chassis.





So the next task is to work out how to modify the chassis to accommodate this sprung unit.

 

[adrian]

A surprising amount of progress this week - after pondering over the details for a while it actually all worked out quite nicely.

Rather than make completely new chassis frames I decided to butcher the chassis in the kit. Hence started with this


and ended up with this. You can see in the original above I was sketching out what was needed.


However in marking out I hit the first problem, I originally drew out the required cuts based on a Sentinel drawing. Usual thing mark 3 times cut once but something went slightly awry and didn't look right. Now the vast majority of builds are fine and nobody has noticed this before as the discrepancy is really tiny but the kit is a scale 6" too short! Unfortunately I noticed it when marking out for the modifications. Also in the kit the chassis length and wheelbase is symmetrical however on the prototype it is slightly asymmetrical and there is an extra 6" overhang at the cab end with the boiler. You can see this on the real thing as a wider gap between the guard iron and sandbox at the cab end.



Hence I adjusted it slightly to move the chassis forward a little to give a bit of an offset but it's still missing an extra 6" overhang at the cab end. After cutting and folding the chassis ended up like this. The wire pins front and rear are the outboard fulcrum points for the CSB.



The drive unit now fitted with ball races and delrin drive. I initially opted for a slightly larger sprocket on the axle to give another slight reduction on the gearing but there is a little slack on the chain - well worn! If it's a problem I might have to go for a smaller sprocket and a link out of the chain to tighten it up slightly.


So now I have the drive unit fitted to the chassis.






So up on the wheels - as requested the kit was supplied with "Scale7" wheels - which are basically Slaters Finescale wheels with a plastic washer stuck to the rear to space them out to Scale7 - they will need a quick trim with the Scale7 form tool to clean up the flange.

In the photo below - I've marked it up to indicate the fulcrum points for the CSB so hopefully it's a little clearer how I've arranged the springing.



The drive unit can be removed from the chassis with the 4x10ba screws and the motor bolted in later as required. Note the wheels are not fully pressed on the axles - so the gap between the wheels and the chassis is not representative - it's currently about 40mm gauge!

 

[mickoo]

As alluded to in the previous post but 1 - a little teaser for the next project. Something I hoped was a quick one to get my modelling mojo back and one I've wanted to do for a while.

So yes the next project is a Walsworth models Y1/3 kit. There have been a few builds posted online so I'm not proposing a step by step instruction. However as usual I never seem to be able to build any kit straight out of the box, so in my usual inimitable way I've deviated from the usual instructions and I'll post the differences.

We had quite a nice little discussion a few years ago when @Sandy Harper was documenting a Y1/1 build from Walsworth models. Walsworth Models Sentinel Y1 8400 . So the Y1/3 build is very similar but I'll come back to that in a minute.

On initial look at the kit I tackled the chassis first. As supplied it's a single etch be folded up with brass bushes to solder in for the axles.
View attachment 150268

Unfortunately my preference is for a sprung chassis - so some tweaks were going to be necessary. However this then causes a problem in working out how to mount the motor and gearbox. In the kit it's hung off one of the axles and then there is a delrin chain drive to the second axle so it makes the springing arrangement interesting as the motor and gearbox then needs to float a bit. I spent a few days mulling over how to work it when I remembered my comment in Sandy's thread and a potential solution started to develop.

In the prototype the engine is mounted centrally, the Sentinel type designation is CE for central engine underneath which is a gearbox. There is then a chain drive from each side of the gearbox to each axle. So in reality there is no chain link from axle to axle [ that arrangement is in the DEDG engines] they are both driven from the gearbox. So my cunning plan is to mount the motor and gearbox vertically and centrally in the chassis and drive the axles from the central location. Hence building the gearbox with delrin gears on both sides to drive each axle, I also managed to open out the holes to use miniature ball races rather than plain bushes. The purposes of the outer shroud will become evident in the next few photos.

View attachment 150269

My preference for springing is fully floating springs rather than compensation so it was trying to work out to arrange a system of continuous springy beams (CSB) for the suspension. The other issue was to work out how to keep the delrin chain at the same tension during movement of the axles. If I simply enlarged the axle holes to fit horn blocks up and down then there would be a small, but realistically infinitesimal small change in length from the gearbox to the axles.

So my solution has been to make up some lever arms that pivot from the miniature ball race and hold the axles at the correct spacing. The next epiphany was arranging the fulcrum point for the CSB. Normally these are aligned directly above the axle centre line but I soon realised that being a simple 0-4-0 then there was no reason why the pivot points couldn't be arranged outboard of the axle centre line. Hence the arms below, when cutting out the arms I cut a slot in the outer section, folded it back on itself and twisted the top bit to provide the fulcrum point.

View attachment 150271

So as illustrated below these arms locate over the ball races and the gearbox shroud then fits around the outside to stop the arms dropping off. If you look closely on the shroud the little tab that is folded inboard, below the ball race hole, has a small hole drilled in it. This provides the central fulcrum point for the CSB.

View attachment 150272

So fitting it all together I have ended up with this sub unit - a little sprung arm 0-4-0 chassis.
View attachment 150273


View attachment 150275

So the next task is to work out how to modify the chassis to accommodate this sprung unit.

It might just be me, but I think this is brilliant out of the box garden shed style engineering, simple, elegant and functional.

Very impressive

 

[Simon]

5mm more and you'll be OK!

Lovely work Adrian, Cynric would be impressed.

Simon

 

[simond]

Mick

it’s not just you. I think it’s a cracking bit of design-and-build too.

atb
Simon

 

[adrian]

Thanks for the feedback - it is appreciated. The build is now progressing slowly as supplied in the kit so nothing special.

The main frame is all one etched unit - the metal is quite thick - probably 19' or 22' thick so quite entertaining producing the reverse fold.


Once folded up. I started adding a few of the supplied castings, buffers, axle boxes etc. Just to highlight deviations from the kit - as supplied and indicated in the instructions the guard irons are mounted on the inside chassis and fold out. However if you look at the prototype the guard irons are mounted on the outside frame and fold in to the rails so quite a noticeable difference. The shape is quite different as well so rather than modify the ones supplied I decided it was easier to make new ones, my effort is on the left, the kit supplied irons on the right.

The whitemetal castings for the sandboxes were a little rough around the edges so needed a little fettling to get reasonable. I was half considering making some replacements but in the end I ended up using them. The brass castings also needed quite a bit of fettling, they were quite distorted and had to be clamped in the vice to "adjust" them. Anyway current state of progress.



The casting for the torsion bars needed a little packing piece to get them in the right position.

 

[adrian]

Slowly ticking along I turned to getting the main bit of the bodywork together. So these are the etches supplied, a rear cab unit, front tank unit and a couple of extra plates.


I suspect that the kit has a few years under the belt as it seems the artwork has been hand drawn, it does not have the consistency of a CAD drawn artwork. This is the rear of the etches with half-etched dimples for pressing out rivets, one of the front windows is missing the half-etched rivets.



As always when pressing out rivets on the edge of panels like this it stretches the metal and causes a little bowing of the material!!



However it is etched in nickel-silver and it really is a nice metal to work with, just 5-10 minutes gently working it with finger pressure returns it to a more or less flat state.



It was then a case of bending it to shape - the instructions suggest a 5mm drill, in my case a length of 3/16" steel in the vice sufficed. Again with nickel-silver this was all done with finger pressure to bend it to shape. The front tank.



The cab



These were then positioned to the lower frame to make sure everything fitted. Note when pressing out the rivets in the bodywork there were quite a few missing half etched ones to press out. So a careful study of the prototype for the extra rivets was required. In this photo the black marker pen lines are showing where the extra rivets were required.



I decided that the door openings needed a little reinforcing to keep the sides straight and provide a little depth so I soldered on a length of brass angle to the bodywork. The cab and tank elements were then tack soldered onto the frame. I never like soldering it all up in one go, my preference it to tack these elements in place with a couple of spots of solder and then leave it. Take a few photos and come back to it the next few days with a fresh set of eyes just to check that it looks right. If something doesn't feel right I then have a chance to adjust it at this stage. Looking at the photos the cab sides are a little bowed compared to the frame edge so I'l try to adjust it before soldering along the seams.

 

[LarryG]

"I never like soldering it all up in one go, my preference it to tack these elements in place with a couple of spots of solder and then leave it. Take a few photos and come back to it the next few days with a fresh set of eyes just to check that it looks right."

I go along with this completely. The camera is a tool in modelling that highlights hick-ups.

 

[Mike Garwood]

Fair play Adrian, fair play!