J15 & G5 Wheels

GMaslin

J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby GMaslin » Wed May 31, 2017 9:12 am

This might seem a dumb question but I'm flummoxed over which wheels to use when converting the Hornby J15 and the London Road Models G5 to P4.
What sizes do I need and what are the merits of different makes. I seem to remember a year or more ago that for one of these locos (can't remember which) the right size was available but with the wrong number of spokes. I'm happy building the layout and track, and converting wagons but this will be my first venture in converting a steam loco. I'd like to get it right.

And is there somewhere I could have looked this up for myself?

dal-t
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Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby dal-t » Wed May 31, 2017 9:48 am

Hmm, if this is really just a plug for the Society's latest publication I've been suckered by it, but according to my 'original' (third edition) copy of 'Wheel Specifications for the Modeller' the J15/Y14 used 4'10" 15-spoke drivers with an In-Line crankpin and a stroke of 24", and the G5 used 5'1" 16-spoke drivers (3'1" 12-spoke carrying) with an In-Line pin and 22" stroke. Matching that against the Gibson range it does seem you will have to make choices - there is a 4'10" 16-spoke with 11" throw (i.e. 22" stroke), and a 5'0" 16-spoke with 11" throw. They would be what I would go for, but not everyone likes Gibson wheels. They've always served me well but others have different experiences. HTH (and hope I haven't done the Sales Officer out of another 'hit' ...) :thumb
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Knuckles
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Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby Knuckles » Wed May 31, 2017 10:14 am

I like Gibson wheels due to the look but so far getting them on the axle square even with the G W Models press/quartering jig is hit and miss and I have got into the habit of wasting money my buying two or three sets of wheels for whatever I'm building. I'm likely doing it wrong but heh ho.

I also wish Markits/Romford or someone would produce some P4 wheels with their self quartering axles and nuts. Many P4 modellers and newcomers from 00 or EM would be happy bunnies. The nuts can cosmetically be covered.

I have had good experiences with Ultrascale's ready set on axle wheels but they for the most part are unviable as is usual with them you know I need not post my two major complaints as everyone does.
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Jol Wilkinson
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Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby Jol Wilkinson » Wed May 31, 2017 10:29 am

Markits do sell P4 axles, but their wheels are too wide and with RP25 profile flanges.

Tom Mallard wrote an excellent article in MRJ 166 and 167 on LSWR Black Motor 0-6-0s in which he dealt with overcoming wobble on plastic centred wheels. Worth a read.

Bill Bedford is continuing to develop his steel tyre/printed centre wheels. The example he showed me at Railex looked very good and includes built in quartering.

nigelcliffe
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Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby nigelcliffe » Wed May 31, 2017 10:45 am

When I measured a dismantled Hornby J15, I found it incredibly tight on outside clearance over the outside faces of a P4 wheelset. Sufficient that I expected to have to at least grind down, if not replace, the inside front faces of the splashers and probably cab sides. Exact amount of clearance required depends on the side-play being left to allow the loco around corners. Its a while since I measured, but I recall that some parts are metal, so those need complete clearance, or an insulated layer adding. I guess that the outside dimensions of splashers and cab-sides might be close to scale, but practical material thicknesses and clearances for models mean compromises are necessary somewhere.
With that problem, combined with the comedy-error position of the boiler hand-rail knobs, has caused me to shelve plans to convert one. Maybe one day I'll have a go.

Wide-tread wheels from Romfords (etc) would make the clearance issues even worse.


- Nigel

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Will L
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Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby Will L » Wed May 31, 2017 5:19 pm

Exactoscale did the J15 wheel (actually suit J14 through J20), if they are still a available and you can afford the price, they are a very nice wheel.

Mark Tatlow
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Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby Mark Tatlow » Mon Jun 05, 2017 8:38 pm

Knuckles wrote:I like Gibson wheels due to the look but so far getting them on the axle square even with the G W Models press/quartering jig is hit and miss and I have got into the habit of wasting money my buying two or three sets of wheels for whatever I'm building. I'm likely doing it wrong but heh ho.


Knuckles,

One of the issues I found with the Gibsons is that the axle has sharp edges around its ends from the cut. I therefore put them in a dril and use it as a crude lathe to deburr the end of the axle and introduce a very slight chamfer on about 1/2mm of the end.

I do not have a 100% hit rate with Gibsons but it is much improved as a result of this trick.
Mark Tatlow

Armchair Modeller

Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby Armchair Modeller » Mon Jun 05, 2017 9:25 pm

Mark Tatlow wrote:
One of the issues I found with the Gibsons is that the axle has sharp edges around its ends from the cut. I therefore put them in a dril and use it as a crude lathe to deburr the end of the axle and introduce a very slight chamfer on about 1/2mm of the end.

I do not have a 100% hit rate with Gibsons but it is much improved as a result of this trick.


This is a definite must if my limited experiments are anything to go by. I also lightly twisted a very fine round file inside the inner end of the axle holes on on my latest wheels, just to make sure the edge was clean. That seemed to go well.

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Knuckles
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Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby Knuckles » Tue Jun 06, 2017 8:25 am

I've been doing the slight shamfering yet still have issues.

Really wish Markits/Romford would pull their finger out and make their self quartering screw in axles to P4 with a variety of spokes and crankpin throws (like Gibson's have) , then a lot of us, newcomers and experts alike would probably throw a party.

Why they don't I can't work out, I'm sure there would be enough of us to make it worth their while.

Maybe we should make a poll and if results are good propose it to 'em.
“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.” Thomas Paine

https://www.sparkshotcustomcreations.com/
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Jol Wilkinson
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Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby Jol Wilkinson » Tue Jun 06, 2017 12:17 pm

P4 axles are available from Markits (if you ask).

Whether he will ever produce P4 profile wheels - if the centres are narrow enough - is the question. Have you asked him?

GMaslin

Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby GMaslin » Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:37 pm

My original post wasn't a plug for the society's latest publication. Honest. I recently persuaded my family members to buy me a London Road Models G5 for my birthday plus Gibson wheels for that and the Hornby J15, rather than something that I'd never use. Nigel is definitely right about the lack of clearance with the splashers. The body is made of zinc alloy and increasing the clearance isn't easy. It's going to take some very thin plasticard to make a new faces where I've gone all the way through. Oops. And the odd marks where my dremel look-alike slipped will probably be covered when I get round to weathering. And as for the handrail knobs, they just glare at me every time I look at the loco, so they'll have to go.

Like Mark and Knuckles, I've also found out the hard way that Gibson axles are hard to push into the wheels because of their lack of any end taper and they are very hard to set exactly perpendicular to the wheel. I foolishly used a jeweller's hammer to drive the axles in and in the process accidentally hit the plastic gear wheel which broke in two. A very big oops. Yes I know I should have used a press, but the little hammer seemed a good idea at the time. I've not come across any source of a genuine replacement gear wheel but a year or so ago I bought 'Every Boy's Bumper Pack of Little Gear Wheels' from eBay for next to nothing and one of them is the right diameter (inside and outside) and approximately the right tpi and seems to work, but I haven't tried it on load yet.

I've been following the Gibson guide to converting the J15 to EM, but with S4 bits of course, and the tender was fairly easy to convert, and it glides very smoothly on my track. One point though, you''ll need four packs of Gibson's 2mm washers rather than the one listed in the guide. And you won't need any of the 1/8 inch ones listed in the guide. The guide also hints that electrical pickup is from the tender alone, yet the loco also has pickups on each driving wheel. Are they just something that got accidentally incorporated and have no useful purpose, or are they fully functional? If the former it would possibly cost more for Hornby to design them out than to leave them in. If the latter, it's a pain bending them to reach the S4 wheels which I'd be happy to avoid. It was bad enough doing that on the tender pickups.

They say you learn by your mistakes and I'm certainly getting a hell of an education with the J15. Nevertheless I'll persevere to the end, though in the words of Captain Oates, "I may be some time".

Philip Hall
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Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby Philip Hall » Sun Jun 25, 2017 7:53 pm

Although I haven't had a Hornby J15 through my workshop I would be extremely surprised to find that the pick ups on the driving wheels were anything but functional. It is admittedly difficult to get the right pressure on the wheel backs on any Hornby or Bachmann conversion because the phosphor bronze strips are so short, but as there are also pickups on the tender a slight lack of pressure on the drivers will not cause a problem.

Fitting Alan Gibson wheels does cause grief sometimes. I seem to have found a way which minimises this, as have many of us. An axle may not be the correct length for P4, sometimes a little short. Therefore the only solution to this is to make up new axles from the correct diameter stock. I believe that the Hornby J15 uses 2mm axles. It is important that the axles are not too short, as otherwise the axle will not fully enter the wheel, which in my experience can result in wobble.

Using a GW quartering jig (reverse the locating pins which are 2mm on the other end of the 1/8" ones) and pressing together gently should give you a wheelset that is relatively wobble free and round. As has been said before, relieving the sharp end on the axle is the way to go. I give it a nice rounded edge, but not to excess, as that will effectively give you a short axle, see above. There can be the odd occasion when an eccentric wheelset is found and here the solution is to ask Colin Seymour for a replacement - he is very good.

It is a newish problem that we have with RTR manufacturers, in that in the pursuit of heavier engines, they have moved back to diecasting components, which is great for the weight but a dead loss if we have to start grinding away the inside of splashers etc. Our market in RTR terms is very small so our skills have to overcome these slight drawbacks!

Philip

billbedford

Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby billbedford » Mon Jun 26, 2017 8:12 am

GMaslin wrote: I foolishly used a jeweller's hammer to drive the axles in and in the process accidentally hit the plastic gear wheel which broke in two. A very big oops. Yes I know I should have used a press, but the little hammer seemed a good idea at the time.


The jewellery hammer was a mistake, you should have used something heavier, say a 4oz one, or better still a chasing hammer - designed for hitting punches. https://www.cousinsuk.com/product/chasing-repousse-embossing

mikemeg
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Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby mikemeg » Tue Oct 23, 2018 12:04 pm

When deciding what diameter wheel to fit to any model it is worth noting that locomotive driving wheels could lose up to 2 1/2" off their diameter before they were retyred. So a wheel of nominally 5' 1" diameter could remain in service until it was less than 4' 11" diameter, at which point new tyres would be fitted at overhaul. This reduction in diameter was due to both wear on the road and to re-profiling on a wheel lathe due to the profile becoming out of spec, again due to wear.

I'm not sure how well known was the fact that locomotive wheels had tyres; albeit they were steel.

Cheers

Mike

RichardS

Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby RichardS » Tue Oct 23, 2018 2:56 pm

mikemeg wrote:When deciding what diameter wheel to fit to any model it is worth noting that locomotive driving wheels could lose up to 2 1/2" off their diameter before they were retyred. So a wheel of nominally 5' 1" diameter could remain in service until it was less than 4' 11" diameter, at which point new tyres would be fitted at overhaul. This reduction in diameter was due to both wear on the road and to re-profiling on a wheel lathe due to the profile becoming out of spec, again due to wear.

I'm not sure how well known was the fact that locomotive wheels had tyres; albeit they were steel.

Cheers

Mike


Indeed this is true and I am sure that in the pursuit of getting it all right all P4 modellers thoroughly research the dates of all work on their chosen prototype and carefully calculate wheel wear over time thus ensur8ng that their modelled wheel is 100% accurate for time and place. I mean I will...............

mikemeg
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Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby mikemeg » Tue Oct 23, 2018 3:15 pm

RichardS wrote:
mikemeg wrote:When deciding what diameter wheel to fit to any model it is worth noting that locomotive driving wheels could lose up to 2 1/2" off their diameter before they were retyred. So a wheel of nominally 5' 1" diameter could remain in service until it was less than 4' 11" diameter, at which point new tyres would be fitted at overhaul. This reduction in diameter was due to both wear on the road and to re-profiling on a wheel lathe due to the profile becoming out of spec, again due to wear.

I'm not sure how well known was the fact that locomotive wheels had tyres; albeit they were steel.

Cheers

Mike


Indeed this is true and I am sure that in the pursuit of getting it all right all P4 modellers thoroughly research the dates of all work on their chosen prototype and carefully calculate wheel wear over time thus ensur8ng that their modelled wheel is 100% accurate for time and place. I mean I will...............


Or, conversely, a slight discrepancy in wheel diameter between the prototype and the model can be justified by this same explanation, thus releasing the modeller from having to check the wheel wear profile against time and place or even having to be absolutely accurate in the choice of wheel diameter. After all, no-one really knows, now, exactly when the wheels were re-tyred and how quickly they wore for a specific locomotive; that depended on track conditions, curvature, etc. They simply know that the wheels did wear! My point does not demand more research or accuracy, but less!

So a 5' 1" diameter wheel can perfectly reasonably and accurately be represented by a 20 mm (5' 0") model wheel, assuming that the number of spokes, crankpin location and throw are the same; even 19.5 mm (4' 10.5") falls within the wear profile of 2.5" - just!

Doesn't half help if splasher clearances are a wee bit tight!!

Cheers

Mike

RichardS

Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby RichardS » Wed Oct 24, 2018 4:20 am

mikemeg wrote:
Or, conversely, a slight discrepancy in wheel diameter between the prototype and the model can be justified by this same explanation, thus releasing the modeller from having to check the wheel wear profile against time and place or even having to be absolutely accurate in the choice of wheel diameter. After all, no-one really knows, now, exactly when the wheels were re-tyred and how quickly they wore for a specific locomotive; that depended on track conditions, curvature, etc. They simply know that the wheels did wear! My point does not demand more research or accuracy, but less!

So a 5' 1" diameter wheel can perfectly reasonably and accurately be represented by a 20 mm (5' 0") model wheel, assuming that the number of spokes, crankpin location and throw are the same; even 19.5 mm (4' 10.5") falls within the wear profile of 2.5" - just!

Doesn't half help if splasher clearances are a wee bit tight!!

Cheers

Mike


I couldn't agree more. In fact I'd go further and suggest that when wheels are rotating the number of spokes, position of links, length of throw etc are not calculable to the observer. All depends if you are making a museum replica for static inspection or modelling a working railway where it is the 'whole' that matters most. The nice thing about this hobby is that it accomodates all.
I can even live with the dodgy Hornby handrails. At normal viewing distances it's hardly apparant. I have little enough time to allocate to modelling that such matters are well down my list of concerns.

mikemeg
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Re: J15 & G5 Wheels

Postby mikemeg » Thu Oct 25, 2018 9:25 am

GMaslin wrote:This might seem a dumb question but I'm flummoxed over which wheels to use when converting the Hornby J15 and the London Road Models G5 to P4.
What sizes do I need and what are the merits of different makes. I seem to remember a year or more ago that for one of these locos (can't remember which) the right size was available but with the wrong number of spokes. I'm happy building the layout and track, and converting wagons but this will be my first venture in converting a steam loco. I'd like to get it right.

And is there somewhere I could have looked this up for myself?


If you look on the thread - Hessle Haven a Model of a Railway - on the Layouts topic area of this website - on the third page of postings (around #60) you will see some photos of London Road Models G5's (I built three earlier this year), including 67340 the one with extended tanks. All of these have Gibson 20 mm (5' 0") 16 spoke wheels and 3' 0" 12 spoke bogie wheels.

My thread on RMWeb (Building locos of the old North Eastern) does include a 'blow by blow' of these builds (towards the end of the thread), which were done in parallel as a batch.

These kits were quite heavily 'breathed on' with a number of changes, additions, etc. This kit was drawn and developed in around 1990 and though still very good, has the odd flaw (diameter of the smokebox, shape of the dome, depth of the coupling rods, etc). I also used quite a number of more recent white metal and brass castings from Arthur Kimber's North Eastern Kits range, which are very good and do enhance this kit. All of these castings (smokebox door, safety valves, tank fillers, Westinghouse pump, cab backhead details, etc.) are available separately from Arthur.

I also fitted two of the models with push and pull equipment, this from Dave Alexander's range. These white metal castings are as good as I have ever seen.

Might just help!

Cheers

Mike
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