Goings on at the Norfolk Wagonarium

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Lord Colnago
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Re: Goings on at the Norfolk Wagonarium

Postby Lord Colnago » Wed Apr 01, 2020 9:22 pm

B+ and A. I'll take that Terry. Thanks.

I started off tonight by fitting the end tank support stays. These are simply 0.45mm. n/s wire threaded through the tank supports and down into previously drilled holes in the chassis overlays. There was a little mis-alignment in one or two which was easily fixed by slightly opening up the holes in the supports. The wires were soldered at the chassis ends only, apart from one which was just a little too close to the vacuum cylinder for comfort in the light of recent events! This one was superglued in place. The reason the outer ends are not fixed is so that when the tank if finally fitted, the supports can be gently pushed up to it and then secured. I have had a dry run with the tank and it won't need much of a push as the fit is pretty good. This is what it currently looks like. The stays will be cut to length once the ends are secured.

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The next job is one that I never look forward to, the making up and fitting of the brake lever guards. I seem to struggle with the Great Western ones in particular as I find it difficult getting the curve at the top and bottom of the guard correct. I managed it nicely on one of them but got it a little wrong on the other. Not badly, but you can see it from some angles. Anyway, having folded the guards up, I then had to fit the stay that secures the bottom of the guard to the w-iron. This is a fine piece of fiendishness as you have to line up three 0.35mm. holes and pass a wire through, and all whilst the middle bit tries to get away! The top and bottom holes are in the guard and the stay fits between them. I almost lost my mind trying to do the first one and yet, as is the way of such things, the second one went through first time! Having done all this I fitted the guard to its bracket, which I had fitted to the solebar some time ago. The stay was then soldered onto the w-iron and that was it for the evening. More to follow but until then here's a couple of photos to show the lever guard in place.

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Lord Colnago
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Re: Goings on at the Norfolk Wagonarium

Postby Lord Colnago » Sat Apr 11, 2020 12:49 pm

I thought that now would be the best time to tackle the tank itself. I put the weight in the tank when I built the LMS 2000 gallon version and can't see any reason not to do the same here. I decided to roll the lead sheet so that it would be a good fit inside the tank and hence give me a better glued joint between the two. I didn't want it to come loose after fitting the tank ends and not being able to access it. Here it is prior to fitting with another photo showing the fit inside the tank.

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I wanted to replicate the way that the tank securing straps disappear under the tank lagging. Possibly a bit over the top but I wanted to give it a go anyway. The straps disappear into rectangular slots in the tank sides and the biggest problem was to work out the positions for these slots as they had to be level with each other on both sides. I started by marking a line along the length of the tank which would act as top dead centre. I then worked out from photographs where the top of the rectangular slots should be on the tank sides and then comes the rather primitive bit. I placed two of the timber baulks that the tank sits on at either end of the chassis, more or less in the correct position, and placed the tank on top. The tank was aligned using the scribed line and a mark made on either side at the lower end of the tank, (it is a sloping one) corresponding to the position of the slots gleaned from the photographs. A line was then scribed from these marks along the tank to give the alignment of the strapping slots. It was then back to the chassis in order to get the spacing correct. I measured from the centre line of the chassis out to each of the points where the strap is fixed to the chassis and then transferred these measurements to either side of the tank. A light punch was made at each point to give the drill a start. This is what it looked like and hopefully it will make my woeful description a little clearer.

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The tank was then drilled 1mm. at each point and these holes were then elongated using a round seconds hole file and the corners were squared off using a square seconds hole file, like so.

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I soldered small squares of 5 thou. brass behind each slot to give a fixing for the straps when they are finally fitted, which will be one of, if not the, last jobs. It was now time to glue the weight in place, followed by the tank ends. There is a visible join between the sides and ends which doesn't exist on the prototype and so I filled the gap and filed and sanded it to shape once the filler had set hard. The last thing I did was to determine the position of the tank filler from drawings and drill a 1mm. hole for it, which will be opened out to fit the casting in due course. So, here are a few shots to show the process.

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That's all for now. Next up are the ladder/platform assemblies which look like fun but at least there's a jig to assist.
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Lord Colnago
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Re: Goings on at the Norfolk Wagonarium

Postby Lord Colnago » Wed Nov 04, 2020 2:11 pm

I hadn't realised just how long it has been since I posted anything about this milk tank build. So long, in fact, that it is almost finished. Below shows the current position.

20201104_104726.jpg


As you can see, everything has been painted and the next steps will be to add what lettering there was and then weather it, assemble the various parts and finish by blending the weathering together.

I previously built a LMS 2000 gallon milk tank for our Area Group layout, North Elmham. This used Exactoscale parallel axles and runs very nicely. With this one, I decided to try pinpoints. I have used washers behind the bearings to eliminate side play on the outer axles and have allowed a little side play on the centre one, which is why you can see two bearing/spring carriers laid out separately from the others. If it turns out that I'm not as happy with it as with the parallel axled wagon then changing over is a simple matter but I thought the comparison would be worthwhile.

Hopefully my next post on this won't be quite so long in coming.
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Will L
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Re: Goings on at the Norfolk Wagonarium

Postby Will L » Wed Nov 04, 2020 3:15 pm

John

How about pinpoints at the ends and parallel on the middle axle?

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Lord Colnago
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Re: Goings on at the Norfolk Wagonarium

Postby Lord Colnago » Wed Nov 04, 2020 3:55 pm

Hi Will,

I did think of that, so much so that I actually thought I had done that until I checked the parts prior to painting! Just shows how long it has been since I built the chassis! If it doesn't run well in its present form then it's certainly an option worth trying before resorting to full parallels.

John.
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