Hudswell Clarke 0-4-0 - pickups?

[David Thorpe]

For some time now I've been building a High Level Hudswell Clarke kit. It's a tiny loco, and has been very challenging, but at long last it's nearly done. I am, however, at a loss to know how to go about putting in some pickups.

Below is the loco. To complete, the lower boiler assembly, cylinder saddle and motion (both of which have been built), roof and one or two details still have to be added. The driving wheels are smaller than wagon wheels!

hc1.jpg

Below is the chassis, side view. You'll see that as built, the brake rods run approximately 1mm below the chassis. There is a further 2mm between the bottom of the brakerods and the railhead.

hc2.jpg

Below is the chassis underside (should have allowed for greater depth of focus). However, you'll see the situation clearly, especially the brake rods. The brake gear, i should add, is fully removable and also serves to hold the front wheels in their hornguides - if the brake gear is removed, the front wheels are then free to fall out! You'll also appreciate, i hope, that there isn't an awful lot of room for any pickups.

hc3.jpg

Below is another view of the underside of the chassis. (The rear crankpin rods may seem too long, but the connecting rod to the cylinders still has to fitted)

hc4.jpg

Finally, just to give you an idea of the size of the thing, below is a picture of the chassis alongside a set of wagon wheels.

hc5.jpg

As will be seen from the top photo, the driving wheels are fully exposed , while the top of the chassis contacts with the footplate along its entire length. Any pickup from above the driving wheels would therefore be difficult. Underneath, we have 1mm space between the bottom of the chassis and the brass brake rods, with only a further 2mm below the brake rods. The brake rods also, of course, secverely limit the space on the bottom of the chassis for a pickup assembly.

I'm tempted to do away wih the brakerods, but they are a distuinctive feature and that would be a shame. So if anyone has any good ideas for a working pickup that will fit in the chassis and not short against the brake rods, I'd be very grateful.

DT

[Paul Townsend]

You may have space for phosphor bronze strip, not wire, that is a U-shape folded over top of chassis. Pre-wrap the area with insulation tape. The strip is soldered to PCB inside chassis and bears on back of wheels ideally at 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock.

Or split frames

[Tim V]

It's a good idea to plan the pickups before building the chassis, if you have to drill holes to screw on pieces of PCB for example, easier to do that while the frames are flat.

Might be able to put some top wipers on, have a look in Iain Rice's book on etched chassis construction, it's quite old now, but covers wiper pickups quite well.

[SHurst]

You could also have a look at the CLAG Website (clag.org) and under "Construction Articles" look up "Coronation 0-4-0" by Ted Scannell.
He used a method of working the pickups in with the brake blocks. Fiddly but workable

Simon

[DougN]

Davey, you can get a small copper clad strip under the Cylinder area and make up springy phospher bronze pick ups. I will get a photo of my HL Black Hawthorn that I finished a couple of weeks ago, to show what i mean. The rear axle pick up I really stuggled with and I have put long PB wire from the front coper clad. Not an elegant solution but I know it works, the loco takes about 5 minutes flat out to move along my test track! As a suggestion you can also use enameled wire rather than the multi core from the copper clad to the motor. It is thinner and easier to hide.

[Paul Willis]

I'm tempted to do away wih the brakerods, but they are a distuinctive feature and that would be a shame. So if anyone has any good ideas for a working pickup that will fit in the chassis and not short against the brake rods, I'd be very grateful.

DT

As posted on my Beer and Buckjumpers thread, this is how I have done it on the High Level chassis kit for the L&Y Pug.

pickups v3.jpg

The pickups run between the chassis and the brakerods, and I haven't had any shorting problems by making sure that they are both well painted.

HTH
Flymo

[Will L]

There are several goes at variants of this problem on the forum if you look for them. Mine can be seen on this post. One feature of this is the wire fingers live to the pick-up which stops the pick-ups shorting on the break rigginging and other pipework. This is something that might work for you.

Will

[Philip Hall]

I have used the brake rodding in the past as busbars to hang the pickups on. This idea was in a High Level kit, I believe. Basically the brake cross rods are replaced with slivers of thin PCB, gapped in three places, one in the middle, and one each side of the brake pull rods. I soldered the slivers to the cross rods for strength before slitting the gaps with a cutting disc. Then you have made two bus bars - the pull rods - to solder the pickups to. It's a bit permanent, but allows lots of places to put the pickups. I did it on a GWR 72XX 2-8-2T, using the 'wound spring' kind of pickup in Flymo's post, although I always use 0.3mm hard brass wire, which works better on steel wheels.

I don't have the loco any more, so I can't photograph the arrangement, but hopefully this is clear enough.

Philip

[David Knight]

Davey,

I used the dummy inside motion to support the pickups on my Neilson. This still allows the brake rodding to be fitted. The PCB is held in place by a screw through the board to a piece of fret waste crossways on the motion.

pickups.jpg

HTH

David

[DougN]

As promised here are a couple of photo's of the Black Hawthorn!

DSC_0432.JPG

Now one up the right way. The Driver is a slightly modified Bachmann prefinished driver

DSC_0431.JPG

The other side

DSC_0430.JPG

I hope all the pick up photos are helping Dave.

[David Thorpe]

I hope all the pick up photos are helping Dave.

I'm now trying to decide which method to use!

I like Paul's idea of phosphor bronze strip folded over the top of the chassis as it seems fairly simple. The immediate snag about it is that the chassis is in direct contact with the footplate all along its length, but I reckon that if I filed or cut a little bit out of the top of the chassis in the appropriate places so that the pb strip could fold over the top of the chassis without coming into contact with the footplate and could contact eaco of the wheels at 3 or 9 o'clock, it would be feasible. Painted black, I don't think it would be at all obtrusive.

I'm not confident that I'd manage the brake block methods - I feel sure that if I approached any of the tiny brakeblocks with my soldering oron they'd at once fall to bits. I had enough trouble putting them together in the first place!

Then there's the use of wire pickups, curled into springs. I've tried these (35 phosphor bronze wire) on another loco and they worked, but there was much more space there. Also, I couldn't get them to lie flat like Flymo and Will did - on mine, the springy bit looked rather too much like an actual spring. I also found all too often that after I'd soldered one in position, attempts to solder the other of the pair into position usually meant that the heat of the iron then relased the first one, which would spring away to much cursing from myself. I do think that Will's idea of the wire fingers is very useful.

Philip's idea is ingenious, but means, as he says, that the brake set-up becomes permanent. I'd also find it a bit easier to fully understand if there was a photo, but of course with no loco, there can't be a photo. David's solution is of course similar to that of Flymo and Will, but not as curly! It looks very neat and i'd very much like to be able to produce something like that, so it's one that I might well try.

Doug, I can't understand how the long wire pick-up to the rear wheels on your loco doesn't fouls the brake rodding. I'm sure that (in my hands at least) there would inevitably be some not inconsiderable verticle movement in a wire of that length, and the space available to me (only 2mm between the bottom of the brake rodding and the railhead) really doesn't allow for anything more than the tiniest possible movement, if that.

Anyway, I'm currently mulling over the various ideas and will also have a look at Iain Rice's book as suggested by Tim. Provoded that you have the patience to wait another month or three, i'll report back with the result!

DT

[DougN]

Well Dave, the reason why is doen't foul the brake rods is the loco only has brakes on the back axle! I have just run out of room for another pick up block as there is a gearbox and fire box below that area! I have decided to standardised on the curly pick ups. I have found that practise on making them they end up quite flat and minimised. I have made a large number and pick the ones that are most suitable. The other thing that is not obvious is you can have then in both hands... ie clockwise/ anti clock wise. Give them a try but expect to make a lot and throw a reasonable number away. I have used a slot in a 2mm axle to form mine!

Generally my picks ups are getting better... but they are still a mess generally

[Clive Impey]

Davey
I had the same problems as you with the pickups on my High Level RSH and at one point even considered cutting the chassis in half lengthways and reassembling it with PCB spacers to make it split axle. I did finally fit 0.3 PB wire pickups. Coil pickups to the rear of the front wheels and plain wire to the rear of the rear wheels. Insulation from telephone cable was used for the rear pickups where these went between the bottom of the frames and the brakegear. The PCB for the pickups was screwed to a brass crosspiece like Dav K's Neilson. This is well worth the extra work as it allows the pickup unit to be worked on away from the loco. The other thing I would suggest is to make a scale drawing of the underside of the loco showing exactly where the contact points on the wheels are together with all the obstructions that the wires have to miss and the PCB plate. Use this to build the pickup unit on. All the main adjustments can the be made off loco, much easier on these small locos than the usual bending in situ.

CliveLincs

[Philip Hall]

Philip's idea is ingenious, but means, as he says, that the brake set-up becomes permanent. I'd also find it a bit easier to fully understand if there was a photo, but of course with no loco, there can't be a photo.

It might be possible for me to borrow the loco back in the next few weeks, and if I can, I'll take a picture. Failing that, I am going to do the same on the 42XX I'm building, and can take a photo as that progresses, but unfortunately that won't be soon.

Philip