Lacathedrale

I'm not confident on my ability to be able to file down that brass bearing perfectly flat so using a phosphor bronze bearing might be a better shot and would appear to kill two birds with one stone, since I can double check the alignment while I'm at it. I'll have a crack today and see how it pans out - thanks all!

Ah, so an adapter in one side of the worm and axle steel in the other side? Genius! After some trimming and fettling, this looks like it will work with an 8mm adapter sleeve which is a much tighter fit - I'm lacking thread locker and have just ordered some, probably not a bad shout regardless. Right now motor and adapter/worm shafts are just resting in place.

Well, that's a fair point, d'oh! I can have the motor aligned vertically and move it forward about this far - maybe one or two mm further - before it fouls the gear on the middle axle - it's raised off the chassis with a thin piece of plasticard I can have the motor rotated 90 degrees and suspended above the driving wheel and it'll clear everything except the inside of the tanks and I've not got the equipment to do that, so I guess this is where it needs to be?

I've managed to get my Jinty chassis rebuilt and rolling and I'm very pleased. There appears to be one final small hurdle to overcome however, before I can consider it the home straight. The motor I am using is an association flat can motor with a 1mm shaft. This needs to be adapted for the worm and bearing to 1.5mm. Using the 'half gearbox' method I understand requires me to have a single continuous shaft from the bearing through to the motor, a length of approximately 15mm - however the adapter shafts supplied by the association shops are only 8mm in length. To this end I have purchased some brass tube of nominal equal measurements (1mm inside/ 1.5mm outside diameter), but in any event, it is loose on the motor shaft. I've already sent a request to Shop3 to see if I can get some of the uncut adapter tube, or in longer lengths - but failing that, is there a solution to maintain concentricity AND fix the brass to the steel motor shaft? See picture below - note the brass tube is obviously quite oversized, it won't poke out that far beyond the gearbox when I've figured out how to do this. @CF MRC thank you kindly - should I not worry too much about maintaining its concentricity? it's very minor but over the inch or so it feels like it could be a problem!

Axle swapped, continuity checked and wheels quartered. I've also checked the motor fits (it does) and that I have the correct tubing to telescope the shaft across the helical gear and out of the other side (I do, I think). The only thing I'm not clear on is that last time I used an adapter it was an extremely tight fit on the motor shaft and this one is a little loose - so I have no idea how to fix it to the steel motor shaft without it slipping.

Oh no, you're totally right! Good catch and thank you!

The Jinty forges onward - an hour or so this morning saw the idler axle with gears and the middle driven axle fitted: Much like previously, I found a small issue - the idler axle wasn't long enough by a gnat's whisker - so I pushed the old axle through with a new axle, using a brass tube on the opposite side to support the chassis side and provide a place for the axle to pop out. This time I did not open out the bearings at all or fit simpson springs, so the middle wheels are very sensitive in maintaining contact with undulating surfaces - but it all moves smoothly and as expected so far with no binding or catching anywhere. next up are the coupling rods and then I'm more or less back where I was 6mo ago!

Have you converted any of the numerous Type 2's you have acquired? It would appear to be a home run!

A bit further along today - infact this whole process has been lightning fast compared to the first time I did it - a smaller tipped soldering iron and flux paste seems to be working OK for me for now, looking like a bit of a dragster, the chassis rolls quite freely. There were a few small things to overcome - one of the axles had come out of centre with the wheel, so it was wobbling all over the place when run along a surface - I took it out and used a drill chuck and some thin pliers to rotate and bend it slowly back true. Infact I think that's been a theme of this build so far - being able to properly identify and address small issues as they arise, rather than ignoring them or not seeing them at all in the first place.

So from what I can gather, one could expect a profusion of 0-6-0PTs (and some of the early saddle tanks towards the start of the 20th century), and by some rare exception the small and large prairies (i.e. Kingsbridge) - but what of tender locos? Doing some cursory reading suggests that the route classifications for most branch lines were such that only the lighest tender locos could run on it, such as a the 2800-class, Manor, etc.. IIRC there was a branch that saw Kings, but it is my understanding this is by far the exception. Presumably in reality a branch would have a particular set of locomotives assigned for a period that would rarely deviate, compared to a shed on a main or secondary line which could roster based on a combination of suitability and availablity at the given moment?

Other than an RCH chassis built last night ahead of the AGM (to preemptively justify loads of bits being purchased) I haven't done much modelling - three months of intense work and sorting some personal circumstances out have lead me to put things away. That said, with the encouragement and kind words of many, I'm tackling the Jinty again: It's already gone very smoothly - the whole of the above done in a few hours this evening. I'll let you know how it pans out!

hello all, it's about time I tackle a second run at the Masterclass Jinty chassis - the last time I built it, I'd made a pig's ear of the motorisation. It was a one-two punch where I wasn't able to align the can motor concentrically with the worm gear in 3D space, and I didn't figure an effective way to transmit the rotation in such a way to mitigate that misalignment. I tried again by removing the gearbox entirely, but the motor shaft wasn't rigid enough to keep a positive alignment with the helical gear and it slipped. With a fresh set of eyes and feeling re-engerised I want to get started, but I'd like to know how to tackle this before I get too far along. If I remember correctly Chris H. suggested that a potential solution was to remove the 'full' gearbox and leave only the bearing on the face beyond the helical gear, opposite the motor - this way, the worm/shaft/motor assembly can pivot in the bearing and be fixed with glue/etc. when positively engaged. Some have mentioned a few times that building the as-is gearbox with its worm-shaft, albeit terminating on a dog clutch. I'm not all that clear on how that would work on this particular chassis (given that the loco can't roll with the worm in-situ anyway, and it's not a tender loco which would require removal of the motor from the driveshaft). Any thoughts or opinions gladly taken - I know there are many ways to skin a cat, but at this point I think I'd really just like the simplest, most bullet-proof solution!

That's really coming along well bud, it looks fantastic. Do you have any closer shots of the siding with the check rails in place?

Hi chaps, I'm a consultant by day job and have had the luck of being based within commuting distance for the last eighteen months or so, but the next block is four months based in Leicester. Along with a bundle of other things I can catch up on I thought it might be a good opportunity to do some modelling. I've got a nice little setup at home, but I'm not sure whether a 'travel workshop' is even a thing - and if so, what I should reasonably expect to be able to pull off. Any thoughts or opinions would be gladly appreciated!

I was really convinced that I'd end up sending back my C-class given the preceding discussion around comparative difficulties/etc. and having done a whole lot of nothing in the hobby for the last few months, but got it on the layout for a little photo shoot with the birdcage stock and damn, it looks good: Gigantic coupling rods and N-gauge wheels aside, that is

Thank you all, I spoke to dcc concepts and they said basically the same thing - The T3/Frog output coming straight out of the input connection explains everything

You're on the home straight now with the last turnout @justin1985, right? As usual, your perseverance and eye for detail have paid off handsomely.

Another few hours of fiddling last night got the 37 running. One of my crossovers has gone dead, so there's work to do there. I filed and tweaked the nose of the middle turnout and re-set the check rails and it's better but not perfect. I can't quite figure it because the gauge is fine and if anything the nose is at a lower level than the rest of the surrounding pointwork, but wheels still ride up. Ian, I will gladly take all criticism - this is wholly a learning experience and there are a number of things I will do differently on the next iteration so please fire at will. With regard to your two suggestions - the first dogleg is actually quite benign, I have used a little brass rod on the outside face of the rail to make sure it's aligned and it has blobbed out a bit, combined with it being the curved leg makes it look offset but the inside faces are perfectly flush. The other kink (on the foreground rail) you're totally right about, so far it's had no impact on running but it's on the list Thanks for that info Izzy, I had no idea - I was thinking about putting an 0.5mm shim between the bogie and the body, but using smaller wheels would also work As for the 37 - the main issue appears to be if the front wheel is deflected momentarily in any way, it can ride up onto the railhead or over it - this doesn't cause the loco to stop, but primes for a more catastrophic derailment on the next vee/checkrail.

Ah, what a cracking idea! I will give that a shot and report back.

I've got a layout which is wired up for DCC - I've not yet decided to chuck the towel in, but I think it would be helpful to be able to toggle between DC and DCC to simplify things. It looks like, based on the owners manual for the Cobalt Digital point motors that they can be powered by DC and actuated with a momentary contact pushbutton. Presumably because they are intended for DCC layouts, they note 'since the track power will be different from the DC power to the unit, you can't use the frog polarity switcher and have to use the associated auxiliary switching points' - but in my case I would be running both the layout AND the point motors on DC. Is this a configuration that's supported/advised/possible? Owner's manual here, I can't seem to find the answer: https://www.dccconcepts.com/manual/owners-manual-cobalt-digital-point-motors/ I was planning on using a cheap 12V 2A power supply to feed the motors, if this worked out.

For those of you who use the Easitrac tie bars, is there any good solution to holding the switchblade plates against the tie bar in a vertical axies? For some unknown reason, one of the switchblades on a turnout I've just replaced is curving up by 0.5mm or so, which means when the turnout gets set, the plate jams against the adjacent rail instead of moving underneath it. I've used rail and PCB sleeper with no chairplates, and left the switchblades unsoldered/free to move where there would be slide chairs. If I poke at the end with the tip of a file, it dings underneath and functions how would one hope until it's set in the opposite direction and pings out again.

Lots of splicing later, and I think we're close to being good. There are a few small trouble spots still extant elsewhere on the layout but I've spliced in about three short sections of rail already to repair some gaps that were wider than optimal. With much annoyance, it seems the switchblade plates used with the easitrac tie bars are catching on the underside of the rail one side of the new turnout I've fitted, which is particularly galling since it ran perfectly well on my workbench on the same bloody piece of wood that it's currently mounted to! The only thing I can think of is to try to file it down in-situ, probably a mug's game but I can't face taking the whole thing apart again. You can see one of the new rail splices just to the right of this shot. On similarly frustrating note, I'm very close to the end of my tether with DCC on this layout - did a whole bunch of continuity checking and everything's perfect, plonked my Type 3 on and my z21 App wouldn't work, so dug out the Roco WLANMaus and it connects, but not a carrot a from the loco. Wired up a temporary programming track, then spent half an hour trying to find out how to reset locos on the prog. track with no luck, Took the whole thing apart and finally got some life out of it, but the sodding thing derails on the vee foreground turnout too now. EDIT: Also mystifyingly the Dapol coach wheels are 6.5mm and thus underscale, so normal scale 2FS coach wheels rub on the underside of the carriage body, so that's a nice £12 wasted Overall, a very disheartening day.

I'm pretty sure I've gone over them a number of times, I will be checking that when I come around to running some trains. After some swearing and lots of weight, the joins are good and aligned well. My task for the next few days is to just go over the entire track plan with a fine toothed comb. When I initially had the layout down I was fatigued with such a length of sustained work and I just 'wanted it done', which resulted in some unfortunate glitches. So far I've caught a number of areas to focus on - mismatched railheads, tight spots and little gaps. The latter seem to present the most troublesome issue - too small to splice and too big to flood with solder. I'm debating my options, becaue a particularly egregious problem is right in the middle of the runaround loop...

How did you handle the chairplates around the vee and on the check-rails?

I got the turnout placed in-situ and cut to length - since this photograph was taken I've soldered the outside rails and added a little glue to the inside rails to keep them aligned, but as it's now buried under sundry pieces of heavy metal to set properly, please see the 'before': Through the hole in the sky you can see the end of Cassette V1 - I was planning on using pincers made from brass wire to both transfer current and hold alignment but I am definitely going to need something more rigid. Everything appears to line up, and all of the feeds are wired and isolating gaps have been cut - so hopefully I can connect up the droppers and with nothing more than a good clean, and be in a position to run trains. Of course, I don't actually have any trains to run on it other than my constantly-derailing Type 3 - but let's not focus on that too much yet.