Farish Jinty, 4F, Ivatt 2MT - 2FS & DCC/stay-alive. NGS Hunslet Industrial. Farish B1

[Izzy]

2 hours ago, 2mmMark said:

Thanks Bob, very useful information as I've also acquired an NGS Hunslet for British Oak. I was planning to use 2mm driving wheels but seeing your photos, I shall follow your option of thinning down the flanges.

I'm wondering if it's worth making some new axles to suit the increased width over the outside faces of the wheels set to 2mm back-to-back standards.

Mark

Thanks Mark, although I do think 2mm wheels would look better.  I may try them in the longer term, but this conversion is economic to get it up and running and sidesteps the gear clearance issue. Extending the axles would only be needed for cosmetic looks really. The wheel hubs extend a way back giving good support. Plus they are an odd size, around 1.2-1.25mm ** if I remember. Once I discovered that I didn’t bother going any further with that aspect. I could have turned some up, but I am very lazy sometimes when there isn’t an imperative to do something. But do note the bearings as below.

 

** just remembered why there was axle size differences. The middle axle -with the gear wheel - was the 1.25mm one. No doubt to ensure a good tight fit of the gear. Made shifting the wheels on it much more difficult too. They both had to come off to alter the bearings….

 

1 hour ago, Nigelcliffe said:

 

The key with thinned flanges is extending (or creating new) bearing blocks so the wheels are adequately supported.

    

A different axle length is a very small matter in comparison to the bearings.  

 

 

- Nigel

 

 

Yes, after I had turned and fitted the 0.2mm flanges to the bearings and then turned them inside out to extend them further out from the chassis, so the new flanges sit in the slots,  I did wonder if just reversing the bearings would have been sufficient on their own. Not sure. But you do need something extra on the outside, just using them in the right way around isn’t enough as you so rightly point out. The hubs fall out of the bearings then at maximum sideplay. 
 

There is no doubt these are lovely designed and made models that run so nicely. There is one in the classifieds at the moment for £65. What a bargain!

Bob

Edited March 2 by Izzy
add a bit

[Revolution Ben]

 

Hello all,

 

Happy to see the NGS Hunslets finding a role on 2mm layouts.  And I should point out that Nigel can take a good share of the credit for the sweet running of these locos as he was heavily involved in testing, developing and improving the PCB with its integrated decoder in the models.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

[Izzy]

Hunslet wheels

 

A small update to say that I have just discovered that the wheel flanges are too deep for 2FS, or to be more correct to run on chaired track, as they hit the inside chairs. They are around 0.65-0.7mm deep while 0.5mm is the depth needed, which most present day N gauge rolling stock seems to adhere to. How/why I missed this when re-machining them I can't say but for anyone doing the same reducing them is thus advised. I shall have to now do this or perhaps try a 2FS conversion using 2mm SA wheels and other parts. 

 

Bob

 

 

Edited March 16 by Izzy

[Izzy]

I've now reduced the Hunslet wheel flanges to 0.5mm. Here is a short video of the loco running on Exchange Yard sidings. The sound is at maximum which helps show how quietly it runs, virtually silently. 

 

 

Bob

[Izzy]

Hunslet - new coupling rods

 

Having used the loco to test the build of Exchange Yard Sidings it’s had quite a bit of running. Now that the layout is up and running I have taken the opportunity to further refine it in that I have made replacement coupling rods. This is the one aspect of it that has stood out for me as being rather overscale during all the testing.

 

I made up some using the cut & shut method from the J94 rods on the 3-205 etch for Farish locos. They look a bit better size wise.

 

 

Making these meant that new crankpins were also required. The originals are shouldered 14ba bolts so I took some 14ba countersunk screws and filed them down to remove the head and thread and leave the main shank at 0.5mm with just 2mm thread to go into the wheel.

 

 

 

 

Once screwed in they were retained with some cryno. Retaining washers were cut from some 1mm OD/0.5mm ID Albion alloy brass tube.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I decided to paint them yellow thinking that Blue Circle might have thought that a good idea after seeing BR start doing that with it’s shunters and that it would go well with their colour scheme.

 

 

Now all I have to do it weather it, perhaps using the airbrush, I’m not sure at the moment.

 

Here’s a shot with a couple of cement wagons I am fitting with simple steel loops for the DG’s.

 

 

This is an experiment to see if uncoupling by waving a magnet over them will prove workable. Tests so far indicate it is, but until the ballasting of Exchange Yard Sidings is done and the track is usable again I won’t really know.

 

 

[yaxxbarl]

Yes - I'll be doing a cut and shut on the 3-205 J94 rods for mine too.

 

How did you cut them prior to soldering them back together? As both sides need to be shortened I'm going to be leaving one layer as long as possible for strength.

 

Cheers,

 

john

[Izzy]

1 hour ago, yaxxbarl said:

Yes - I'll be doing a cut and shut on the 3-205 J94 rods for mine too.

 

How did you cut them prior to soldering them back together? As both sides need to be shortened I'm going to be leaving one layer as long as possible for strength.

 

Cheers,

 

john

 

That seems like a good idea John. What I did do was to layer them so they were plain both sides, put the half etch on the inside which can then be flooded with solder. I thought that would make them stronger.  But leaving one side as long as possible and cutting the other to suit is something I haven't tried to date as it depends on the lenghts needed but could well be better still when it can be done.

 

Bob

[yaxxbarl]

11 hours ago, Izzy said:

 

That seems like a good idea John. What I did do was to layer them so they were plain both sides, put the half etch on the inside which can then be flooded with solder. I thought that would make them stronger.  But leaving one side as long as possible and cutting the other to suit is something I haven't tried to date as it depends on the lenghts needed but could well be better still when it can be done.

 

Bob

Bob,

 

Yes - I've done similar on my J94 and on my Panniers, flooding the fluted side with solder and having that in the inside of the layering. I'll be making one of my usual jigs from a few  cut off track pins in a piece of scrap MDF, it looks like I'll be able to use the rods as a guide to marking up the MDF for pre-drilling the holes for the pins. I can then solder the cut rods back together on the jig and they'll all be nicely aligned.

 

Cheers,

 

John

[Izzy]

Just a little update regarding the Farish 4F. I have been impressed with the use of a pack of 4x25v tantalums in the 2FS Royal Scot I made in respect of the difference they made to the running reliability. With the issues with the odd 16v tantalum going bang I have not felt it safe to use them in any more plastic bodied locos bar those that already have them but 25v seems enough headway to take a chance. So I have now made up and fitted a pack into the Farish 4F.

 

As I had fitted a CT DCX75 into the top of the firebox with this loco it meant moving the decoder into the tender where Farish had originally sited the decoder socket - now of course long gone! As trying to add wires for a stay-alive pack to these particular decoders isn't that easy I did a swap with the Zimo MX622 fitted into the class 16, ( which is now awaiting painting), as there are nice solder pads on it for adding the wires. And Zimo's are much more SA pack friendly. It also means the Class 16 has the same decoder as it's Class 15 stablemate. Silly I know but I like uniformity when possible.

 

Anyway here's a shot of the Zimo & pack ready for the tender top to be plonked on.

 

 

They just clip on which is very nice and easy. I had to fit a pad of PCB onto the top of the loco chassis where the decoder used to be to connect the motor wires, and the tender cannot be parted from the loco without unsoldering them. Just as it was originally before I changed it around!

 

I don't quite know why but I do find fitting SA's to all my steam locos neccesary and beneficial, even tender ones, while non of my bogie diesels have or seem to need them, thankfully as it turns out as there really isn't the space.

 

Bob

Edited May 26 by Izzy

[woodenhead]

@Izzy I managed to get a speaker and Lais into my class 24/25s without any metal grinding.

 

Just had to lose the cab interiors.

 

A 37 was a lot more work to grind space and I didn’t even attempt a 47,  simply bought a Next18 chassis and stuck a blue body on. With the 47 I do now have one extra forward light to deal with but I can live with it presently.

[Izzy]

A Farish Thompson B1 to 2FS

 

I have thought for a while that it would be nice to have an express passenger loco to use on Priory Road in the steam era alongside the other steam locos I have been gathering together. Part of this arose from running my Royal Scot as a visiting loco along with the knowledge that before the 25Kv EMU’s took over B17’s and B1’s were often used on the local passenger services between Clacton/Walton and Colchester and thus regularly visited St Botolphs. Both were allocated to the area in some numbers and have been produced in N gauge in the distant past, the B17 by Dapol and the B1 by Graham Farish and I believe the B17 might appear again in the near future. Converting both of them to 2FS has been covered by Bill Blackburn in the 2mm magazine. In December 2010 for the B17 and April 2016 for the B1, copies of which are available to read online in the members area of the 2mm association website.

 

Looking at the conversions alongside the details I could find about both these models I found downsides with both. Eventually I decided on a Farish B1 as something I felt might be more of a known quantity in respect of basic design and construction standards. However, the bigger issue I then found was in trying to obtain a model in BR livery and not pay silly e-bay prices into the bargain should one be found. This was of course for secondhand examples. I searched on and off for a considerable while without any joy. I then thought about just getting a loco and tender body from Bachmann spares as I did for the Royal Scot. I decided it wasn’t the route I wished to take this time and particularly considering the cost. For not a lot more than the bodies getting a complete loco which would also provide tender underframe and loco cylinders let alone all the wheels and the rest of the parts seemed a far better proposition.

 

Then I struck lucky. I asked my local go-to model shop, John Dutfield in Chelmsford, now having been run by Ken & Heather Wilkinson for quite some years. They always have a good selection of second-hand. I didn’t expect the reply I got though, they still had a brand new one on the shelves! Apparently it seems it had been waiting patiently for me for the last 14 years…... the date on the inside of the box indicating that it was produced on the 15.11.2010. Despite the time since being made it ran decently enough straight out of the box and cost less than the odd secondhand ones in LNER livery I had found around. And it was a nice run out to their Chelmsford emporium to collect it into the bargain. It’s not often you can say a trip up the A12 from the coast is a pleasant experience these days.

 

Here it is sitting on Priory Road as bought.

 

 

The original idea I had was to convert it in the easiest and cheapest way possible by re-machining the tender wheels and re-rimming the loco ones, both drivers and bogie, using the rims available from the 2mm association. This hasn't worked out. I thought I would detail what has gone wrong in case it helps anyone else avoid the same mistakes and then show how it is now being converted.  I'll start with the original tender conversion in the next post.

 

Bob

Edited June 21 by Izzy

[Izzy]

The original tender drive conversion

 

As bought the the loco came with two spare tender wheel sets. One with traction tyres and one without. There was also another bogie with correct sized wheels, undersized ones being fitted as default to allow it to get around very tight curves. And accessories to fit such as cylinder drain cocks etc.

 

 

When it came to giving the loco an initial run around my simple circular test track at first it all seemed okay. But at slow speeds it kept stalling. Eventually this was traced to the loco pickups most of which weren’t pressing on the wheel backs. Adjusting them cured this issue but raised another in that then the wheels would stop turning at times due to the increased friction. I have heard that this can be a problem with tender drives. I have never had one before. This experience did begin to make me question whether trying to produce a 2FS tender drive loco was such a good idea but I decided it was worth pursuing in order to find out for myself. It also occurred to me that a split axle loco chassis would not have this issue. Sadly it is only the later design tender drive locos that came with the split axle current collection system Farish used for a while and the simple chassis fitted to the B1 would not allow this to be an option. Another aspect about this that worried me was that the loco weighed in at as much as the tender drive, this being necessary to help make the wheels turn but giving the tender drive a lot to do. It really did seem all back-to-front to my way of thinking.

 

 

Despite all these reservations converting the tender drive itself went okay, really no different than altering any N gauge diesel by machining the wheels, which I have now done more than a few times. The basic configuration is of a small flat can motor driving a worm gear reduction which powers the rear axle fitted with traction tyres with spur gearing used to transmit the drive to the other wheels. Current collection was obviously just from the front two wheels sets, strips pressing on the wheel flanges, but of course also from the loco wheels as already mentioned.

 

 

 

 

I did try replacing the traction tyre axle with a spare supplied without tyres but then the drive had trouble moving the loco body and would at times just sit there spinning it’s wheels. Hm. So the traction tyre axle went back in. By removing the small pcb with a 6-pin decoder socket I was able to find the room to fit a Zimo MX617 and to squeeze a pack of 3×220uf 25v tantalums in as a stay-alive pack.

 

 

 

It ran okay if a bit fast by comparison to any Farish diesel which I found strange, but I also felt unsure as to whether this back-to-front notion of a tender pushing a loco body was really what I wanted, even if I could get it working to my satisfaction. Then it was on to dealing with the loco.

 

Bob

[Izzy]

 

The original loco conversion attempt

 

This is where as they say it all went pear shaped. The chassis is a simple mazak affair with the 1.5mm axles just running in slots in it so using 2mm association wheels wasn’t an option. Bill Blackburn used anodised axles in order to do so with his, but I’m not about to start messing around machining the current Mk5/6 stainless steel wheels to do the same. The loco wheels actually looked nice and so I thought that re-rimming them would give me decent wheels to 2FS. This I intended to do with the bogie wheels as well as the drivers. However it turned out re-rimming them wasn’t possible. Well it was, I did it, but then found it wasn’t of any benefit in the end. I suppose I didn’t think it through properly before starting. Let’s explain.

 

I turned the wheels down to fit the association 12mm steel rims. I could only take 0.5mm off the front faces as they were flat faced. This meant far too much of the hub of the wheel casting sat to the rear. It then proved totally impossible to get a pair of wheels on their axle down to anywhere near the correct btb for 2FS. Bother – and other words. So I machined away the hub but then there wasn’t the support for the plastic insulating bush to sit in the hub correctly and allow a wheel to be concentric and true, they ended up wobbling horribly. I only tried two wheels like this. That was enough to show it was all a total no go. I didn’t bother to try the carry wheels, I’d basically given up at this stage.

 

If I’d stuck to just machining the wheels by taking metal off the rears to reduce the flange width to the necessary 0.3mm them it might have worked. However whether there would have been the clearance behind the motion with them then set to the 2FS 8.5mm btb I can’t say. And they would have looked.. wide. I originally machined the Farish Jinty wheels like this but did manage to reduce the width quite a bit. I still ended up fitting ‘proper’ 2mm association wheels in the end. Part of the problem here, a big issue really, is that for some unknown reason the cylinders are 2mm too wide overall. Why I can’t say, none of the other Farish outside cylinder steam locos I have are over-width like this but whatever the cause they needed reducing. This would mean even less room between the front wheel faces and the motion.

 

I was then faced with the option of getting another set of wheels from Bachmann as they have stock as spares at present and just reducing the flanges, with the unknown situation of room behind the motion, or ditching the whole idea and making new chassis for the loco and tender with a drive arrangement similar to the Royal Scot. I decided the latter was the way to go. An awful lot more work scratch building alongside the cost of the wheels and all the other parts needed, but with the prospect of a better final result. Hopefully.

 

So the tender drive has been put to one side for possible future use somehow – although I can’t see what, sans the decoder and stay-alive of course which will be used in the new configuration. What is left, the loco and tender bodies, the tender underframe, the cylinders and valve gear, will now form the basis of the new conversion. I’ll start to deal with that in the next post.

 

Bob

 

 

[Matthew W]

Bob,

 

I converted a Farish B1 afew years ago. I filed the backsof the drivers and also took a bit offthe frontface as well. The result was still fatter than a 2FS profile, but in dirty black and under the footplate I thought was acceptable. I did the same to the ( larger ) bogie wheels - again, overscale but adequate. I also filed down the tender wheels, keeping the traction tyred set. I can't remember whether I adjusted the pickups - given the wider back to back I think I must have. I did not reduce the width over the cylinders and I kept the Farish motion.

 

 

 

This ran OK apart from the same intermittent jamming of the drivers which you encountered. I have periodically attempted to solve the problem, but so far without success.

 

I doubt the pickups are the cause ( or the primary cause ) of the trouble - if they were too tight it would tend to skid all the time, whereas what I have experienced is a sudden jamming, ie the drivers revolve freely until suddenly they don't and lock up. Removing the pickups temporarily would prove it one way or another. 

 

I suspect the cause of the trouble is in the motion, where all is well until one rod gets in the way of another. The causes of this I think are one or more of:

 

- the loose and generally  "floppy" construction o f the motion

- the amount of play between the crankpins and the coupling rods

- the amount of sideplay in the wheels.

 

After I read your latest post I fished the thing out again and had another look. Twiddling the drivers with my fingers suggests that the connecting rod can foul the coupling rod. As you can see from the photo below, the con rod is kinked, and the flat bit adjacent to the crankpin and the coupling rod can get pushed together. There appears to be room to put a washer between them to keep them apart, and I am going to try that.

 

If that does not cure it, then reducing the sideplay in some or all of the wheels may help. 

 

 

 

A new 2FS mechanism would undoubtedly be the ideal option, but I have not yet given up on the Farish chassis - not sure I can face scratchbuilding a Walschaerts valve gear if it can be avoided ! 

 

Many thanks for your very helpful posts on this thread.

 

Matthew 

 

 

[Izzy]

1 hour ago, Matthew W said:

Bob,

 

I converted a Farish B1 afew years ago. I filed the backsof the drivers and also took a bit offthe frontface as well. The result was still fatter than a 2FS profile, but in dirty black and under the footplate I thought was acceptable. I did the same to the ( larger ) bogie wheels - again, overscale but adequate. I also filed down the tender wheels, keeping the traction tyred set. I can't remember whether I adjusted the pickups - given the wider back to back I think I must have. I did not reduce the width over the cylinders and I kept the Farish motion.

 

 

 

This ran OK apart from the same intermittent jamming of the drivers which you encountered. I have periodically attempted to solve the problem, but so far without success.

 

I doubt the pickups are the cause ( or the primary cause ) of the trouble - if they were too tight it would tend to skid all the time, whereas what I have experienced is a sudden jamming, ie the drivers revolve freely until suddenly they don't and lock up. Removing the pickups temporarily would prove it one way or another. 

 

I suspect the cause of the trouble is in the motion, where all is well until one rod gets in the way of another. The causes of this I think are one or more of:

 

- the loose and generally  "floppy" construction o f the motion

- the amount of play between the crankpins and the coupling rods

- the amount of sideplay in the wheels.

 

After I read your latest post I fished the thing out again and had another look. Twiddling the drivers with my fingers suggests that the connecting rod can foul the coupling rod. As you can see from the photo below, the con rod is kinked, and the flat bit adjacent to the crankpin and the coupling rod can get pushed together. There appears to be room to put a washer between them to keep them apart, and I am going to try that.

 

If that does not cure it, then reducing the sideplay in some or all of the wheels may help. 

 

 

 

A new 2FS mechanism would undoubtedly be the ideal option, but I have not yet given up on the Farish chassis - not sure I can face scratchbuilding a Walschaerts valve gear if it can be avoided ! 

 

Many thanks for your very helpful posts on this thread.

 

Matthew 

 

 

Hi Matthew,

 

Thanks for that, very interesting and helpful, and shows that if I had just stuck to thinning the wheel flanges of all the loco wheels as I did for the tender it would have worked okay. A case it seems of me trying to be too clever by fitting new rims to them. The trouble is I do like to experiment and push the limits of my skills in the process. Sometimes I get away with it, other times not. This has been a not time!

 

When I can I’ll detail the alternative route I’ve gone down which does at present seem to be slowly coming together but is on the back burner while other matters take precedent so progress isn’t that quick.

 

Bob

[Matthew W]

A postscript: 

 

I have now tried adding a 12BA washer between the coupling and connecting rods. No apparent improvement.

 

However, leaving the washers in, I then slightly adjusted the position of the return crank (  I think that is what it is called ? It's the crank screwed onto the middle axle ) and that did noticeably improve matters, but I still got the odd jam.

 

So I then looked at the quartering, by eyeballing how the cranks lined up, and decided that one wheel was slightly out of line with the others. I tweaked it ( by pushing it round the axle slightly with a finger ) and after testing with a few shuffles up and down a straight-ish bit of track, no problems SO FAR ! So perhaps it was the quartering which was the issue after all ?  I will try and give it a proper run on Copenhagen Fields next weekend ( while Tim Watson is not looking ) to see if I have a cure !

 

I did a similar conversion on a Farish J39, which also has a powered tender, but hardly any motion, and has the advantage of split axles so no pickups on the engine, and that has given much less trouble. With traction tyres the J39 pulled about sixteen four-wheel wagons quite happily, including uphill, so the pulling power of the B1  ( with traction tyres on the tender ) should be adequate despite the deadweight of the unpowered engine.

 

Matthew 

 

 

[Izzy]

3 hours ago, Matthew W said:

 

I did a similar conversion on a Farish J39, which also has a powered tender, but hardly any motion, and has the advantage of split axles so no pickups on the engine, and that has given much less trouble. With traction tyres the J39 pulled about sixteen four-wheel wagons quite happily, including uphill, so the pulling power of the B1  ( with traction tyres on the tender ) should be adequate despite the deadweight of the unpowered engine.

 

I am coming to the considered opinion that diesels are much easier to convert on the whole 😀

 

Bob

 

 

[Nigelcliffe]

On 29/06/2024 at 15:26, Matthew W said:

A postscript: 

 

......  I will try and give it a proper run on Copenhagen Fields next weekend ( while Tim Watson is not looking ) to see if I have a cure !

 

 

I'd recommend doing it when Tim Watson *is* looking, because he'll help you understand and diagnose where there are any shortcomings in running, and what a practical solution might be  :-).    

 

 

Edited July 1 by Nigelcliffe

[65179]

On 28/06/2024 at 12:47, Izzy said:

Hi Matthew,

 

Thanks for that, very interesting and helpful, and shows that if I had just stuck to thinning the wheel flanges of all the loco wheels as I did for the tender it would have worked okay. A case it seems of me trying to be too clever by fitting new rims to them. The trouble is I do like to experiment and push the limits of my skills in the process. Sometimes I get away with it, other times not. This has been a not time!

 

When I can I’ll detail the alternative route I’ve gone down which does at present seem to be slowly coming together but is on the back burner while other matters take precedent so progress isn’t that quick.

 

Bob

 

It doesn't solve the 'what to do with the loco?' issue if converting from tender to loco drive, but the J39 replacement chassis in Shop 3 has a tender chassis and frames which with minor modification will suit a B1 tender. Thanks to Tony's work suitable axleboxes are also available.

 

Simon

Edited July 2 by 65179

[Izzy]

25 minutes ago, 65179 said:

 

It doesn't solve the 'what to do with the loco?' issue if converting from tender to loco drive, but the J39 replacement chassis in Shop 3 has a tender chassis and frames which with minor modification will suit a B1 tender. Thanks to Tony's work suitable axleboxes are also available.

 

Simon

Yes, I thought that might be a possibility recently when looking through shop 3 parts but wasn’t sure so thanks for highlighting that option.

 

At present in between other jobs I’m exploring u/j joints and how to get the best arrangement so all my tender mounted motor/loco drive are out of action or the builds are at standstill at the moment.

 

Bob

[Chris Higgs]

For a long time a B1 replacement etched chassis was on my to-do list. It never came to pass, conceptually I couldn't decide h ow to design the motion bracket, which is a much more delicate thing than on a Black5/8F. On the real thing it hangs off the footplate, mounting it to the mainframe instead  is tricky.

 

Chris

[65179]

2 hours ago, Chris Higgs said:

For a long time a B1 replacement etched chassis was on my to-do list. It never came to pass, conceptually I couldn't decide h ow to design the motion bracket, which is a much more delicate thing than on a Black5/8F. On the real thing it hangs off the footplate, mounting it to the mainframe instead  is tricky.

 

Chris

 

Is there any scope to stiffen up the assembly using the lifting arm support as seems to be the case on the Dave Bradwell 4mm chassis?

 

See photos towards the bottom of this page: https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6875

 

Simon

 

[Chris Higgs]

1 hour ago, 65179 said:

 

Is there any scope to stiffen up the assembly using the lifting arm support as seems to be the case on the Dave Bradwell 4mm chassis?

 

See photos towards the bottom of this page: https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6875

 

Simon

 

 

Mr Bradwell does make exceedingly good cakes kits. Some food for thought.

 

Chris

[Izzy]

It is replacing the motion that will be the main challenge for me. I have taken the Farish one apart but haven't got any further. Using it with association wheels under a scratch chassis didn't seem a good match. But the cylinders, slidebars, and crossheads will be used. They are really quite good, and particularly the latter. Having to abandon what I thought - ha - was a fairly quick and simple conversion has revealed that I didn't think through an alternative option should it go pear shaped as it has now done. The Farish motion braket is fixed to the chassis with a screw and is a solid moulding so it won't be re-used but producing a replacement will be a tricky job that's for sure.

 

There has been some success in that chassis have been made , sadly before the notion of the etched tender chassis/underframe emerged, and the basics got up and running, but some aspects need to be sorted before I feel able to begin posting about it all. And currently family life in various ways has taken precedent at the moment so it's going to take quite a bit longer than was originally anticipated. But a lot of my 2mm modelling seems to be a case of suck and see where I get to so nothing new!

 

Bob

[Chris Higgs]

10 hours ago, Izzy said:

It is replacing the motion that will be the main challenge for me. I have taken the Farish one apart but haven't got any further. Using it with association wheels under a scratch chassis didn't seem a good match. But the cylinders, slidebars, and crossheads will be used. They are really quite good, and particularly the latter. Having to abandon what I thought - ha - was a fairly quick and simple conversion has revealed that I didn't think through an alternative option should it go pear shaped as it has now done. The Farish motion braket is fixed to the chassis with a screw and is a solid moulding so it won't be re-used but producing a replacement will be a tricky job that's for sure.

 

There has been some success in that chassis have been made , sadly before the notion of the etched tender chassis/underframe emerged, and the basics got up and running, but some aspects need to be sorted before I feel able to begin posting about it all. And currently family life in various ways has taken precedent at the moment so it's going to take quite a bit longer than was originally anticipated. But a lot of my 2mm modelling seems to be a case of suck and see where I get to so nothing new!

 

Bob

 

I could at least etch the valve gear parts, coupling and connecting rods as I did get all of those drawn.

 

Chris