Scalefour Forum

Julian. I've just compared my Comet Crab valvegear against the drawing in the Wild Swan profile book. The length of the bottom section of the combination lever, from valve spindle to the anchor link is pretty close, even with a slight joggle - 2' 8 1/2" vs about 11 mm . However, the cross head ...

Hi Julian. At a guess, I'd say the return crank on your Crab looks about right. Just over 2 mm in advance of the axle at bottom dead centre would be spot on. I agree with you that an impression of reasonable valve gear movement is more important than the exact amount of travel and I generally aim fo...

Julian. I'm not sure what the relevance is of the eccentric rod being parallel to the connecting rod? The outer end of the return crank should be approximately at right angles to the wheel boss crank, allowing for any difference in slope of the cylinder and the eccentric rod at mid swing. On the Cra...

I'm sure David will be very pleased. It looks to run smoothly and reliably - better, in fact, than my carefully hand crafted Brassmasters version. Sickening, isn't it?
Dave.

Mike, Looks to be a well produced kit and turning into a very nice build. With regard to glass fibre brushes, how do you avoid getting the bristle splinters in your fingers? Whenever I use one, I'm afflicted with painful slinters for days after, even though I try to sweep them off the work tray stra...

Generally speaking, I do a lot of planning and scheming to work out when and how to fit various components during loco construction. For parts provided in the kit, I find the instructions are usually a pretty good guide although some deviations might seem appropriate here and there. For additional d...

Phew! Very near to a complete disaster today but I think I've just about got away with it. Spent some time finishing off the brake gear by fitting the cross beams, pull rods and crank and securing the brake hangers, which had been left loose in their mountings to the frames. All appeared to have gon...

Dave, I hadn't really given any thought at all to the question of diameters of different batches, just assumed all the tyres are machined to the same tolerance, whatever the batch. I'm not familiar with the production process, but can one assume that tyres and moulded centres are made in batches tog...

I've put the Ivatt Class 2 tank to one side whilst I figure out how best to deal with the Bachmann body - the question being whether to do major surgery to replace the boiler with a spare DJH cast white metal unit or stick with the moulded plastic version. Suggestions on a post card...... Instead, I...

Julian.
Yes, sorry to read of your problems. It's so frustrating when a finished model gets damaged or malfunctions like that. It sound as if you have a solution, even if it involves a fair bit of re-work.
Best wishes for a successful repair.
Dave.

PS. Sooo envious of your visit to Chris;s layout.

Please all feel free to carry on any vaguely relevant discussions. My use of the Ultrascale recessed type crank pin bush resulted from a need to have longer thread engagement on the crank pin screw than that provided just by tapping the return crank material. My method is to thin the outer flange of...

My BR 9F, built from a Model Loco kit with Gibson milled frames and coupling rods (correct axle spacing), was never my best runner, in terms of slow running due to excess slop in the horn guides and axleboxes, but was OK at line speed until it suffered a major mishap whilst running round Dewsbury at...

Ralph.
Congratulations. The representation of the engine looks very nice and, glimpsed through the engine house windows, creates just the right effect.
Looking forward to seeing the whole thing in the flesh at Scaleforum.
Dave.

Robin.
All looking very impressive - and realistic. I especially like the internal shots. It just needs a 100 years of soot and grime (and a turntable deck), but I'm sure you've got that all planned.
How is the fiddle yard and wiring coming along?
Dave.

Mike,
They're filed down brass lace makers pins. Just held in a pin-chuck and rotated over a file to reduce the diameter and then thinned down.
Dave.

After a period of reluctance to actually do anything, I've finally roused myself to make and fit the cylinder drain cocks and operating mechanism to the cylinder/valve gear unit. To be honest, my efforts probably fall into the "artistic impression" category, rather than a scale reproductio...

All very impressive, Tony. As a matter of interest, how many tie bars/stretchers does a set of E switches have and how many functional ones do you intend to fit?
Dave.

As Philip says, the body moulding is rather old (and not much improved on the latest version, as I understand) and is definitely not up to current RTR standards. Interestingly, on another web site, Larry Goddard made one of these tanks by replacing the boiler unit (not sure if it included the front ...

Mmm... Definitely not the quickest - the Ivatt 2 tank chassis I've almost finished was started in 1995! Perhaps the slowest build ever? Actually, I had it running years ago, so not the whole 24 years to reach the stage Knuckles specified. Since I model purely as a hobby, speed is not a consideration...

Julian. Sorry if I've caused any confusion by using different terminology but the method of springing is exactly the same as the Crab, or rather the Crab is the same as this, as this was the first loco to use the diagonal hair pin springs (also recommended by Brassmasters for their Ivatt truck etch)...

The chassis is almost complete, now. Just the cylinder drain cocks to represent. Needless to say, rather like the injectors, I cannot find any suitable commercial product for these. Brassmasters do a very neat cast brass LMS drain cock casting, but unfortunately they have a different operating arran...

[quote="ralphrobertson"]Howard Bolton and Dave Holt have already provided details about the engines and Howard has provided his 3D animation shown earlier in this thread for us to produce the engine - if we can. Many thanks gentlemen for your help on this. One of our members, Chris Morgan,...

Hi Andrew. The coal bunker is off at present. It's a separate moulding and hadn't been well aligned at the factory on my model. Luckily, I managed to prise it off without damage, to be re-fitted later. I wouldn't worry about the injectors. To be honest, from a couple of feet away, you can't really m...

Having completed the BR Standard 2 tank recently. my attentions have turned to finishing the Ivatt version, which I actually started before the Standard. For some years it has remained as a running loco but devoid of the finer details but I have now made some progress towards completion. The model c...

Presumably, one could use the ball cutter to remove the bulk of the material and then use a smaller cutter, file, or burr to create the smaller radius and blend in to the larger? Still looks a lot easier than trying to do it all by hand.
Dave.