Scalefour Forum

Square socket screws were the original 'timesaving' fasters for industry. One of the big US car companies used them on their assembly lines and the US military also took them up. However, the guy who patented the idea charged a royalty for their use. That's why the rest of the world uses hexagon dri...

Having dealt with all the hopper door control castings, I decided it would be a good idea to work out how the hopper bodies should be attached to the underframes. There is no provision in the kit for getting the two aligned. Geoff Kent describes how he used a rectangle of 20 thou platic card glued o...

I see that there have been 1883 views of this thread, so time for another update. Andrew from Wizard Models has been very helpful (as always!) in helping me understand the castings for the hopper door control gear. You may remember this picture, where I highlighted the two different casting shapes t...

It's probably an ER11 collet set, rather than ER10. Something like this might do if you can find or make a suitable adapter.

https://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogu ... kJT1-Taper

James

Having got the handwheels polished to my satisfaction/limit of attention span, they were added to the hopper door cross-shafts and then fixed to the underframes. 7EB4F585-2190-41BE-8BFE-D0864CCBCC90.jpeg This shot highlights the ends of the outer vee hangers sitting in mid-air, rather than being jus...

A cruel (no, what's a couple of stages on from cruel?) close-up showing the state of these handwheel etches. BF2C8096-4016-4CD7-B07F-8834BCC9603E.jpeg Top row: those from a 2nd generation etch, soldered to shafts, cleaned up by spinning in the Dremel against fine wet and dry paper, then lightly dish...

Terry Bendall wrote:Stenson Models do a useful range of handwheels which are very nice.

Indeed they do and I have a good selection in stock, but none that match the size of these ones.

Actually, 51L do some frets of handwheels that are much better than these ones.

A few more sessions this week have resulted in brake levers and their guards being fitted. The levers are supplied as two mirror-image pieces, the main lever and the link to the shaft being half etched, with the lifting link being half etched from the other side. When soldered together back-to-back,...

Before leaving the brake gear behind, there are some other little details to add, namely the brake centre safety loops. The kind of thing highlighted in the image below (that I'm aware isn't of a D1/163 iron ore hopper). AC93AF18-4DDD-47DB-ABF6-FAF911285428.jpeg These should have a French name that ...

Terry Bendall wrote:Yesterday I used the lathe to turn down 26 Gibson short handrail knobs to remove the flange and these were soldered into holes to be used for the lashing ring mounts.

How did you hold the handrail knobs in the lathe, Terry?

Well done on tackling an A1 kit. They're not for the faint of heart!

Hi Tomy, If I was starting again, I would replace the buffers with Lanarkshire ones (the kit ones are crooked on two axes) and chuck the brake shoe/push rod assembly in favour of something different. Maybe one of Guy Rixon's 3D printed units would work better? I see that the later kits come with etc...

Some more progress has seen the outer V hangers fitted and a start on the springs and axleboxes. The outer V hangers are held on C brackets from the solebars. The instructions suggest soldering the brackets to the V hangers and then fixing these to the solebars. However, there is no mention of how t...

Those lubricators look the business, Dave. Really nice work

So here's the finished drilling jig. D0381D42-8B28-41D3-B9DE-B419CA72E896.jpeg A bit of random flatbottomed rail from the scrap box has been soldered on to act as a handle. A Rumney number plate is positioned as a check. Here it is ready for use. A center line has been scribed on to help align it wi...

Here's a converted Std 4MT in my possession, Steve. The Bachamnn drivers have been turned down and kinda spaced out a bit. The pony wheels aren't quite right, but I think I'll get away with it after a spot of weathering :? 6F3C6E7D-3E20-4DFC-9EBE-B26A1B0A884E.jpeg 3DB56913-A5AF-4DA8-A2D5-52D7B02037C...

All three wagons now have their brake shoes, push rods and safety loops fitted. This has taken waaaaay longer than expected, as the brakes don't line up with the inner vee hangers, so 4 of the 6 had to be packed off the floor. For two wagons, I messed about grinding most of two brake shoes away unti...

Drilling on a lathe only works if the rear spigot and buffer shank are concentric. This depends very much on the manufacturer, but can't always be assumed. Guess how I know...

What stops you getting sufficient weight into them, LC?

A new chassis sounds like excellent news! I'll look forward to developments on that.

Does the V3 Mk2 have a support structure, Dave?

If you've already partially constructed the wagons then they aren't eligible for the Socially-Distanced Challenge. Sorry.

Nevermind, there's still plently of time to start something new

Some more investigation of the brake gear this afternoon. I decided to solder in the inner V hangers so as to have a datum to set out the brake shoes from. One set of brakes was clipped into position and offered up to a buffer height gauge. 185BCAC2-12AA-4B29-BD95-A66E942A432E.jpeg As you can see, t...

Probably not. I did buy them a long time ago at the Michigan Toy Solidier Co. Got a lifetime's supply of Evergreen 10th black plastic sheet while I was there, too. Several lifetimes, more likely.

Don't forget to add your entry to the Registration Thread, Dave!

Good to have you joining in.

Here's a pic of the hexy ones, Horse. Some of them are etched to suggest a nut and bolt, but i'm not convinced that they'll be terribly useful for that.

As often happens, it's been two steps forward and one step back. The solebars as supplied with the kit have lots of bolt heads on them. Unfortunately, the pattern of bolt heads is for the vacuum fitted wagons, and not the D1/163 unfitted wagons. Fortunately, some of the boltheads can be removed to l...