High Level 57XX Chassis

[Jeremy Good]

I've had one of Chris Gibbons' fully detailed chassis kits part-built for a while but waiting for wheels and pick-ups to be done.

The kit makes provision for plunger pick-ups but the collective view seems to be that they don't work well in a compensated chassis. So, I've been trying to work out how to fit wiper/wire pick-ups avoiding all the additional brake gear details and dummy springs, which I'd quite like to try and retain.

Has anyone successfully completed one of these chassis with wiper pick-ups? If so, how was it done as all the clearances between the parts of the chassis and between the chassis and loco body are very restrictive?

I've also got a part finished 14XX chassis at the same stage of construction but the larger wheels on that loco seem to give more room to manoeuvre the pick ups into place.

Any ideas gratefully received. Thanks.

Jeremy

[David B]

Have you considered top wipers, Jeremy? I did this with 4600, a 4-4-2T where the tanks allow easy, non-visible wipers to be mounted. They are also not as vulnerable as those underneath. This post shows my first attempt which I modified later. I am not sure if I posted the later version but I have pictures at home. Unfortunately I am away for the best part of the next 3 weeks. Sorry.

[David Knight]

Jeremy,

You might find this useful, http://www.clag.org.uk/pannier-csb.html . Pickups are covered near the end.

HTH

David

[Philip Hall]

Without seeing the underside of the chassis it's difficult to make a considered suggestion, but one dodge I have used in the past is to hang the pickup wires from the brake gear, using the pull rods to carry the volts fore and aft, with the cross shafts made up from thin pieces of PCB. It's not easy to make this kind of gear removeable, if that is your desire, but does often remove at least one set of wires from underneath. In this case, though, the pull rods are outside the wheels and it would be very difficult to make them carry the current.

Using 0.3mm brass wire for the wipers with a coil in it, bearing on the edge of the flange, gives a nice light spring pressure, and works well on Alan Gibson wheels. If yours are Ultrascale then you could use phosphor bronze wire, but I usually stick to brass.

I thought sprung plungers have had a sufficiently bad press over the years to have been consigned to history. I didn't realise provisions were still made for them. All the ones I have seen over the years either seized up solid after a few years or were virtually that way from the start!

Philip

[Jeremy Good]

Thanks all for your responses. I like the CLAG solution to the problem and think I will try to adopt a similar solution.

Having read that and several other posts about making the axles removable, I think I need to go back a couple of steps with this chassis to modify the chassis frames to allow the under the cosmetic springs to be removable so that I can drop the axles out for adjustment/maintenance.

Thanks again for your comments and I'll try to remember to post a couple of photos of the final solution in a few days time.

Jeremy

[Enigma]

Very useful CLAG article. I have a couple of these to build for 'Drybrook Road' and also, in all probability, a 64XX version to fit a Green Lined one I picked up yesterday.

[Andrew Ullyott]

Yes I have done one. I cut off the spring details and used that as a gap. Yes it's cheating but that's the EM modeller in me!
I can't tell they're not there from 3ft away.

[Will L]

I have gone over the topic of pickups once or twice and you may find the following posts useful

The first is one is big on how

While the second is more into why