Springing advice

[John Donnelly]

I'm currently in the process of building what will be 18 Dave Alexander Tyne Dock/Consett iron ore wagons. I've built 2 so far with no springing and they run nice and freely without falling off the track even through my dodgy pointwork but I do feel that I should at least have a go at springing them. As you can see from the photos below, the bogie construction is as single as it gets with 2 sides and a plate at the top with a circular bearing that acts on another circular bearing on the underside of the chassis.

Having never even considered springing a wagon before, I'm looking for suggestions as to how I'de go about adding springing to these bogies...







John

[Alan Turner]

If it's not bust why fix it? If they work without springing then they can't work any better with.

However what I would do is to ensure that one bogie can rock side to side and the other fore and aft. This can be achieved by putting some wire in a grove filed into the plate. You may have to reduce the height of one bolster plate to compensate.

See here: http://www.proto87.com/model-railroad-f ... nsion.html

regards

Alan

[Tim V]

Too short a wheelbase to consider springing.

However, if they are going to be high milers, you might want to consider the quality of the pin points, they can wear plastic side frames - leading to derailments. Just make sure the ends are free of burrs.

[allanferguson]

The late Mike Gilgannon left a number of "odds and ends", some of which I aquired. Among them was this springing system for a whitemetal coach bogie which seemed to me to be very admirable. I don't know whether he ever built any complete coaches using this system, and I haven't tried it yet; but I will!

Note that the pinpoint bearing is soldered into an L - shaped piece of brass which can slide up and down. The spring is soldered into a groove in the top of the bolster.

Incidentally I also have a 50 ton bogie wagon (the Ratio model) which he built, and he hasn't bothered with any springing. It runs beautifully!

Allan F

DSCF0074.JPG

[John Donnelly]

Thanks for the replies, I may well stick withouth springing.

Tim, the bogie sides are white metal which I made sure was clean before the pin points (also clean) we fitted so I should be OK on that score.

John

[Will L]

I'm currently in the process of building what will be 18 Dave Alexander Tyne Dock/Consett iron ore wagons. I've built 2 so far with no springing and they run nice and freely without falling off the track even through my dodgy pointwork but I do feel that I should at least have a go at springing them. As you can see from the photos below, the bogie construction is as single as it gets with 2 sides and a plate at the top with a circular bearing that acts on another circular bearing on the underside of the chassis.

Having never even considered springing a wagon before, I'm looking for suggestions as to how I'd go about adding springing to these bogies...

Hum, tricky. I think the Irish excuse, that is, I wouldn't start from here, applies. However if you must...

Too short a wheelbase to consider springing.

I'd agree with that.

...If they work without springing then they can't work any better with.

Don't agree with that, there is a significant difference between working and working well...

However what I would do is to ensure that one bogie can rock side to side and the other fore and aft.

But I would agree that some flexibility between the bogies at each ends is important and failure to provide it is likely, particularly in P4, to produce "unexplained" derailments. Unless, that is, your track is perfectly flat and ditto the wagon chassis for that matter. The bogies may have a short wheelbase, but the whole wagon hasn't.

If you want springing, rather than fitting Andrew Reichert's style stabilisers (Whats that? Didn't you follow Alan's link?), or attempting to spring the bogie axle boxes, you could try fitting the sort of secondary springing that Bill Bedford has suggested in the past. An explanation of how to do that follows and I hope the attached picture may help make sense of the words.

Fit a bar down the top dead centre of the bogie stretcher bar at the same hight as the pivot boss. Otherwise leave the bogie as it is.
Reduce both bogie pivot bosses on the wagon floor by 0.5mm.
Mount springs wires parallel to the floor and the vehicle centre line, either side of the bogie pivot boss and about 1mm above the top of the reduced bogie pivot, supported say 10 mm either side of the bogie pivot and as far apart as you can while ensuring that the bar on the bogie stretcher can't drop between them at the maximum degree of bogie turn.

Mount the bogies loosely so that they are just resting on the spring wire when upside down but are not forced into it.
Choose a spring wire that will be strong enough to ensure the bogie pivots are still not in contact when taking the wagon body weight. The springs should be loose in their supports, just bend over the ends so they can't drop out. A small amount of buffer hight adjustment is also available by changing wire size.

bogie secondary.jpg

There is also a piece about this sort of secondary springing on the CLAG website, though I'm not convinced it will necessarily calcify things much.

[John Donnelly]

Many thanks Will certainly food for thought. Thanks also for the diagrams which make perfect sense even to my mechnically challenged brain. The fact that the system can be applied retrospectively is also very appealing.

John