Bachmann B1

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barhamd
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Bachmann B1

Postby barhamd » Mon Apr 06, 2020 10:12 pm

Hi folks

I've just purchased a 2nd hand Bachmann B1 from Hattons for £46. damaged box and a 'Warped drive wheel'
It will be interesting to see if it is a bargain or a turkey.

David

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Horsetan
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby Horsetan » Mon Apr 06, 2020 10:29 pm

barhamd wrote:...I've just purchased a 2nd hand Bachmann B1 from Hattons for £46. damaged box and a 'Warped drive wheel'
It will be interesting to see if it is a bargain or a turkey....


Just waiting now for Dave Bradwell to come along and interest you in one of his fabulous B1 chassis kits..... :mrgreen:
That would be an ecumenical matter.

davebradwell
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby davebradwell » Tue Apr 07, 2020 8:01 am

Plenty in stock.

DaveB

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barhamd
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby barhamd » Tue Apr 07, 2020 1:07 pm

I'd better crack out the cheque book.
thanks
David

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Horsetan
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby Horsetan » Thu Apr 09, 2020 10:09 pm

davebradwell wrote:Plenty in stock.


The horse's mouth speaks. :mrgreen:
That would be an ecumenical matter.

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johndarch
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby johndarch » Fri Apr 10, 2020 8:24 am

... and you would know all about horses' mouths!

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Horsetan
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby Horsetan » Fri Apr 10, 2020 5:49 pm

johndarch wrote:... and you would know all about horses' mouths!


And :?:

20200410_164026[1].jpg
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That would be an ecumenical matter.

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barhamd
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby barhamd » Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:52 pm

Enough with the horse jokes!

Delivery arrived from Hattons, Letter to to Dave Bradwell for chassis, nice call with Colin for Gibson wheels....

IMG_7924a.jpg


I've also been working to finally improve the tender on my Bradwell chassised J39. Trying to get that off the list before I add a new project.

David
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barhamd
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Re: Bachmann B1 - a social isolation project

Postby barhamd » Sat Apr 18, 2020 11:32 pm

Chassis delivered from Dave Bradwell, Wheels from Alan Gibson, looks like I have a suitable motor and High Level gearbox in stock.

I got the loco chassis underway. All went together quite smoothly so far. I'll take the fact the sides are straight and there is no rocking when placed on a flat surface as a good sign.

IMG_7937a.jpg


I've also soldered together the main coupling rod etches, earlier than the instructions say, but I like to have the rods the check things with a jig. The chassis fits the Bachmann body well.

IMG_7938a.jpg


Now I don't have a copy of the appropriate Yeadon's to hand so I'm not completely sure what I need to turn 61199 into 61046. Both would appear to be North British builds of 1946-47. Any guidance would be great.

IMG_7939a.jpg


I've purchased a couple of lovely pictures off transport treasury.
https://www.transporttreasury.com/p9689 ... #h9fccc231

David
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John Bateson
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby John Bateson » Sun Apr 19, 2020 10:13 am

IMG_20200419_0004.jpg

IMG_20200419_0006.jpg

IMG_20200419_0008.jpg


Hope this helps

John
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Slaving away still on GCR stuff ...

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barhamd
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby barhamd » Sun Apr 19, 2020 3:20 pm

Thanks for that John. I think that it would seem to confirm that the two were not too different.
David

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barhamd
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Re: Bachmann B1 - remote QA required -cylinder angle?

Postby barhamd » Mon Apr 20, 2020 8:05 pm

Having got the frames made up I moved on, per the instructions, to the cylinder fronts and rears. This slid down into the slots in the frames ok and a rod through the piston gland lines up nicely with the centre of the middle axle.

IMG_7940a.jpg


I'm a bit confused though as the slots in the frames in which the cylinder front and rear sit appear to be damn near vertical, the instructions don't imply that the front and rear plates need to be bent but then suggest that I should 'ensure that front and back of faces are parallel - i.e the cylinders slope and the front a rear slope at the same angle'. Without bending the front and rear plates I can't see how they end up doing anything except following the near vertical line of the slot in the mainframe. The diagram in the instructions seem to show inclination as about 1:16.

Do these look too vertical to you?

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

IMG_7941a.jpg


IMG_7942a.jpg


thanks
David
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davebradwell
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby davebradwell » Mon Apr 20, 2020 8:54 pm

I don't see any problem - cylinder axis should point at centre of driven axle and it seems close. Is there a mark on the frame to check - I usually provide one. Gland castings usually come out a bit eccentric so you can adjust here by rotating them but ensure your wire is parallel to frames.

Damn near vertical isn't vertical but you can check it's at right angles to your wire to confirm your bending

Your tube for the valve should stick out the front a bit - see diagram.

Have faith!

DaveB

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barhamd
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby barhamd » Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:53 pm

Thanks Dave

I didn't mail direct as I thought you might be getting fed up with my questions by now!
Unfortunately I am isolated from the usual Cambridgeshire based QA team at the moment and my self-confidence isn't necessarily the highest as I have never built a locomotive with whirly nashy grindy bits before (AKA outside valve gear)

I think it was typical that the lining on my Bachmann model was actually on the dink compared to the cylinder on one side.

I would like to say that I am really enjoying putting this together.

The valve tube sticks out by .9mm which I think should ok as my understanding is that I need to drill out the rear of the valve cover to fit.

Thanks
David

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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby davebradwell » Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:28 am

It's looking fine and I'm relieved you're enjoying it. Valve gear isn't something to dread but there's no harm in being cautious.

DaveB

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barhamd
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby barhamd » Wed Apr 22, 2020 12:02 am

Today I had fun making the motion bracket. I was a little daunted but the parts folded up nicely and, following the instructions and the diagram, it was not as hard as I feared.

I had to solder a 10BA nut under the frame spacer because my tapping wasn't quite up to spec.

IMG_7943a.jpg


IMG_7944a.jpg


David
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barhamd
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby barhamd » Thu Apr 23, 2020 12:15 am

I found a High level gearbox in the station ( A RoadRunner + 40:1 I think ) and a used Mashima 1424 (I think). I've got them assembled and it doesn't seem to run too badly, motor starts to turn at a very slow speed and top end seems only as noisy as I'd expect from maximum welly.

IMG_7947a.jpg


I've positioned gearbox in place and removed just be bit of one of the frame spacers to get it in nicely between the horn guides. Bear in mind that nothing is fastened in and the gearbox is just sitting on deck.



There don't appear to be any tight spots and the motor is still fairly cool after a good burst of power.

shall I keep going?

David
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davebradwell
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby davebradwell » Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:21 am

What ratio is it David? It might account for the noise. Don't forget to solder the gearbox arm when you get the configuration right - perhaps just tack it at first. You can reduce gearbox noise a little by adding spacers to the intermediate shafts so gears can't rub on each other but it's quite a job and you'd probably need access to a lathe.

Can't see any reason to stop now when it's getting interesting. Looking at earlier pictures, is the body sitting right down at the front? Body should sit on frames right along and cylinders flush with top of frames and touching body.

DaveB

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barhamd
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Re: Bachmann B1 -construction progress

Postby barhamd » Fri Apr 24, 2020 11:00 pm

I made a good deal of progress on the B1 chassis. I'd already prepared the coupling rods so it was time to face preparing the bearings and mounting some wheels. Each of the bearings gets numbered and the kit includes an etch with the numbers on which doubles as the functional spring hanger which is rather neat. I prepared each bearing and made sure that with my London Road jigs the coupling rods and bearing all matched up nicely. This gave me the confidence to carry on with the wheels.

Dave Bradwell tells you to sand down the face of the wheel so it doesn't protrude in front of the type as space is quite limited behind the valve gear. Fortunately these Gibson wheels had the crank pin hole drill through so putting the pins in was straightforward. I had two different lengths of crank pin available so went for the longer one on the centre axle on the principle I can cut it down not up!

Putting on my brave trousers I reached for the GW wheel press, I managed to get the axles assembled remembering the gearbox and some washers to limit side play on the front and rear axles, I had to leave them out on the centre axle to get the chassis to go round my ~40" minimum radius on Clare.

Much to my satisfaction I was able to slide the coupling rods on and the chassis rolled without any binding. I had only opened up the coupling rods to just fit the crankpin bushes and I would have often expected to need to add just a bit more clearance to get a smooth rotation. I'm rather chuffed!

Being a Barham locomotive there is the obligatory lump of blue-tac to hold the gearbox upright.

IMG_7948a.jpg


IMG_7949a.jpg


IMG_7950a.jpg


Dave asked what ratio the gearbox is, I think it is 40:1. It is actually a fair bit smoother size I soldered the '+' bit to the RoadRunner bit. I'm suspecting that some of the noise is actually because the Mashima is of rather unknown heritage, I've had it ages and I think it has been in several abortive loco projects before. I have a space but don't have the necessary gear puller to hand to remove the worm and swap it. The loco construction should mean that swapping out the motor later won't be an issue.

Looks like the next step is the front bogie.

David
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davebradwell
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby davebradwell » Sat Apr 25, 2020 8:13 am

That's a great stage to reach, especially when successful first time which is normal with this hornblock system. I have 40" radius curves and there's plenty of movement on the bogie so there'll be no problems there. Have you missed out the bogie pivot screw? This might bring on a bout of stress or bad language. Perhaps make the dummy spring unit soon so the wheels don't keep falling out.

DaveB

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Julian Roberts
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby Julian Roberts » Sat Apr 25, 2020 9:37 am

I would expect Dave you've covered this in your instructions but just in case it's helpful and if this applies to the B1 as well, on my Crab conversion I had trouble with the Bachmann body being a bit flexible, particularly the relationship of the footplate/ running board/platform (not sure exact correct term) to the boiler, without the front fixing screw that keeps the original chassis married correctly and the whole thing together. Much earlier than I did I should have glued the platform to boiler for good. (I didn't use the fixing screw for my conversion, the white tab behind the bufferbeam holds the front end)

Enjoying this thread and your Clare thread, great stuff.
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Will L
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Re: Bachmann B1 -construction progress

Postby Will L » Sat Apr 25, 2020 11:50 am

barhamd wrote:Dave asked what ratio the gearbox is, I think it is 40:1. It is actually a fair bit smoother size I soldered the '+' bit to the RoadRunner bit. I'm suspecting that some of the noise is actually because the Mashima is of rather unknown heritage...


Experience with Highlevel gearboxes is that they run very quiet, so I would suspect the motor as the primary source of the noise, although having it loose in the frames like your video may be allowing and amplifying vibrations which may disappear when it is more firmly held by the axle bearings. Give it a run with the wheel on but no rods and see what you get.

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barhamd
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby barhamd » Sat Apr 25, 2020 1:39 pm

davebradwell wrote: Have you missed out the bogie pivot screw? This might bring on a bout of stress or bad language. Perhaps make the dummy spring unit soon so the wheels don't keep falling out.

DaveB


Yep I have! I can happily screw it in to the tapped hole from underneath but going down from the top is a +%$&*$. If it is meant to be soldered in I'd could just solder the threaded bit of the bolt into it?

David

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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby davebradwell » Sat Apr 25, 2020 5:40 pm

Yes, just cut the head off the screw, insert from underneath and tack solder on top.....away from the bogie sliding face which must be smooth.

Whatever the state of the motor it would be quieter with 30:1 but something for next time, perhaps.

DsveB

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barhamd
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Re: Bachmann B1

Postby barhamd » Sun Apr 26, 2020 11:42 pm

The weekend has been spend working on the functional springs and bogie.

The cosmetic springs hold the wheels in place and also hold the functional wire springs. The spring wires are held in a hole at one end while at the other they are bent to pass through a 10BA grub screw. The grub screw can be adjusted to alter the ride height of each individual axle. The bogie went together well though I did exchange emails with Dave Bradwell as to the exact bending of one of the parts where the instructions weren't quite clear to me. The etched top for the chassis had two half etched lines on the rear 'prongs' but the diagram only showed one right angle bend. It turns out the the part needs to be folded into a Z shape to form part of the restraining for the side play springs, if fitted. Dave indicated that I might not want to add them given the relatively tight curves on Clare. They will be relatively easy to fit later so I've left them off for now.

With the bogie in place I decided to reattach the motor and try to chassis under its own power - albeit via jump leads



I had to add a fair amount of lead to get the track holding but I'm very pleased with the results so far. The lack of judder and the fact it starts smoothly are very pleasing.

I think I'm going to work on adding some pickups next so I can run it properly on the layout.

Now if I was doing a B12 I'd be nearly finished!

I'm not scared of the valve gear really..

David


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