Atso's new loco works - now including my Hadley Wood layout build

[Atso]

Thanks Bunkerbarge,

I'm forever sticking my two pence in but for once, I thought I'd stick it in where it might actually be useful!

Seriously though, while the Dapol A3 is a great model (and a major step up from the old Farish A3), the smaller size of the N Gauge market meant that Dapol couldn't offer the range of variations that Hornby did - which is completely understandable.

I could have simply re numbered and renamed Papyrus but I would've always known that it was right. There will still be some bits wrong with Great Northern once I'm finished with it but I can live with those (at least for now) and it is unique amongst all of the factory standard versions out there.

I wouldn't have tackled this if it wasn't for the chance buy a few years ago of a basket case to rebuild and practice on (now running as 4472 in roughly pre-1936 condition). It think Humorist was the hardest as I had to repaint a BR green one to be able to get the double chimney - trying to match the finish of the Dapol LNER green was not the easiest if jobs but the loco has received positive comments when I've shown it to others - it was even allowed to haul the Queen of Scots rake on The North of England Line (scratch built by one of that club's members) at an exhibition for a whole day!

[Atso]

It seems somethings that, for ever model that makes it off the bench, there are always one or two more that didn't quite make it and need a rethink before they see fruition (if they ever do!).

Those with good memories may remember a few months/pages back I obtained a NQP Dapol Britannia and a NQP Dapol Grange in the hope that I might be able to combine the Britannia's wheels and the Grange's chassis to create the basis for an LNER C1 Atlantic. Unfortunately, Dapol didn't use the same size gear wheel for the driven axles of these two locos and also redesigned the axle so that they could not be swapped without modification (and risk of damaging the plastic axles). Therefore the project was once again shelved.

Fast forward to June and I was lucky enough to arrange a swap of some locomotive bodies for chassis units with a 2mm fine scale modeller. Within that little lot was the remains of a Dapol Hall chassis. This went unnoticed due to various events that lead to another bout of depression and some other health issues.

Fast forward again to today. I spent quite a bit of time today measuring the Black Five chassis and transferring it into CAD to get the fixing points correct for a Hawksworth County commission. Yes, you would think that would have been the first thing I would have done but, when I started the project, I wasn't in the best frame of mind and this didn't occur to me for some reason - I almost got away with just measuring and transferring directly to the loco body too!

Anyway, after several hours of doing this, I'd just about lost the will to live and needed to do something else. While searching for that something else, I came across the remains of the Hall and the Britannia. Anyway, long story short, the Hall and the Britannia both use the same size of axle gear and therefore are compatible! I'll need to shim one or two of the gears in the gear chain to stop them disengaging but this is easy to do. Having proven that I could fit the Brit wheels, I found a very old C1 body that I designed awhile back - it also has several mistakes that I'd like to correct but is accurate in the major dimensions. Anyway, bluetacked onto the the chassis with a spare Farish bogie temporarily standing in, the C1 concept...

The Brit wheels are slightly too small for a C1 (but bigger than the Hall's wheels) and the Hall chassis is a scale two inches too long in the coupled wheelbase but I think it is close enough - due to how close together the coupled wheels are, I couldn't fit anything bigger anyway! The loco body will need to be completely redesigned to both correct mistakes and make it easier to fit properly on the Hall/Brit chassis. As I've got plenty of other things that I need to get through, I doubt this will progress for a few more months but I'm very happy that there maybe a way of making a close to scale C1 after all!

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Wow, an N gauge Atlantic, don't see many of those, good luck with it.

manna

[Atso]

G'Day Gents

Wow, an N gauge Atlantic, don't see many of those, good luck with it.

manna

Thanks Manna,

I know of two in N Gauge. The first was scratch built out of Peco Jubilee and post on here by someone else (sorry I can't remember who) many years ago.

The second is my model of 3279, 3D printed body on a heavily modified Farish Jubilee chassis. To be honest I was never 100% happy with this model as the loco body was compromised to heavily in length and, despite the scratch built one looking perfectly good like this, my 3279 never looked right to my eyes. I'm investigating how I can remake that model closer to scale length using a spare Farish Black Five chassis (7' centres on the first two driving wheels) but fitted with Jubilee wheels. I need to pluck up the courage to turn about 0.15mm off the flanges to get theme to fit though. The Black Five is my choice over the Hall for the remake as it comes with valve gear that can be made presentable as Gresleys modified K2 type.

The concept model of 'standard' version shown in my previous post will need a lot of though in its design and, as I've got a lot on the go at the moment, it'll be a little while until I have a chance to do this.

[Atso]

A page or so back, I posted my efforts at cutting up an old Graham Farish chassis block to get the correct 6'6 by 6'6 wheelbase for an A5 tank engine. In between some other bits and pieces, I made up a keeper plate out of some copper clad board, rigged some pickups out of phosphor bronze wire and glued in a Nigel Lawton 8mm motor. A 40 tooth MOD0.2 gear was fitted and after a little time fiddling with the pickups and running the chassis in, got to the happy state of affairs shown in the video below.

https://youtu.be/DFSxZjleviI

[Atlantic 3279]

Both the Atlantic and the A5 chassis must provide you with some justification for feeling "on the up".

Very nice to see the progress.

[Atso]

Thank you Graeme. I'm very surprised and pleased with the A5 chassis - proof that somebody reads your articles and attempts to 'out crazy' you! Just to add a bit of context, below is a picture of the A5 print - which unfortunately is of the wrong subclass for '5007' (silly mistake on my part!) so I'll have to revise it and print another!

It remains to be proven if the Atlantic chassis will work. I'll need some time and inclination to strip the whole thing down to measure it up and transfer it into a 3D CAD drawing. That way, I can design some replacement components to provide fixing points for the cylinders (Dapol mount these to the running plate for some reason), bogie and pony. In fact all that will remain of the Hall will be the two frames, one of the plastic frame spacers, the coupling rods, con rods and part of the gear train!

Thankfully, I didn't pay for this chassis (2mm scale modellers are a nice source of unwanted chassis parts) and, as I'd ultimately like to have at least a couple of Atlantics, I'm hoping that Dapol have a few cheap returned items for spares/repair at their open day at the end of the month.

[Atso]

Having gotten some long overdue CAD off to Shapeways today, I turned my attention to some lining work for a customer.

This is one of the original V3 test prints I did at the beginning of the year. So far I've applied the grey lining on one side using a bow pen and the corners touched in using a fine brush. Once this has hardened up a little, I'll do some cleaning up/touching up and apply the red line. Due to the small size, I'm not going to attempt to add the cream line. Since this picture was taken, I've also addressed the slightly wonky lining under the cab windows.

[Atso]

I've just got back from the Dapol open day where I picked up the following spares/repairs locomotives for a grand total of £95.

Two Dapol Halls for use as donors for my Atlantic projects. Despite how little of the donor locomotive will actually be incorporated into the final model, it was still cheaper to purchase these two locomotives rather than buy the source and buy the spares separately.

Mallard, a non-runner. However, I'm pretty certain I've got sufficient bits to return it to operating condition. As I want to remove the beading off the tender, and renumber (I don't like the wonky ones currently on the cab!) and reletter, I was loathed to purchase a running example at RRP.

[Atso]

While I've not started any modifications yet, a bit of spare time today as seen Mallard get transformed into a pretty good running locomotive. Curious to start assessing what would be required and bracing myself for the possibility of a full strip down and rebuild, it turned out to be both of the wires linking the loco and tender had been snapped and the drive shaft had been removed (found in the box!). Total repair time, 25 minutes and £30 well spent purchasing this one!

However, when I get around to modifying the tender body, I'll be spending a bit of time investigating why the tender isn't contributing at all to the pick up. The motor (mounted in the tender) should have turned yesterday despite the snapped wires when I did the initial test.

[Blink Bonny]

I hadn't this problem on a Dapol Brit. The tender pickups aren't the best design in the world but a touch with a hot iron and sweet running was restored.

[Atso]

I hadn't this problem on a Dapol Brit. The tender pickups aren't the best design in the world but a touch with a hot iron and sweet running was restored.

There does seem to be a bit too much slop in the tender frames to get 100% reliable pickup and the thin wires between the loco and tender probably aren't the best solution for an N Gauge locomotive - but with careful handling perfectly viable.

In Mallard's case it turned out the be that the tender had been incorrectly connected to the draw bar which in turn lifted the first three wheelsets slightly off the track. Unscrewing the draw bar and then reattaching it solved the problem and Mallard now seems to have sufficient pickup to run reliably.

[Atso]

The C1 project has been started properly and is showing some promise that it might actually work!

The above photographs show a series of compromises while trying not to disturb the overall dimension or looks of the prototype too much. The loco body is to scale length but with the splashers being 0.35mm further apart to accommodate the Hall front coupled wheelbase. The Dapol Britannia wheels look acceptable to me and I don't think that the smaller diameter shows with the body on (didn't Bachmann do this with their 4mm one?).

Scale bogie wheels are unfortunately a non-started (despite ones being available) due to the exceptionally tight clearances and therefore Farish's largest bogie wheels were fitted instead. Even using underscale bogie wheels and driving wheels, I've had to move the rear bogie wheel forwards by 0.3mm to clear the front drivers on curves. The bogie itself is a custom designed part which replaces the Dapol front chassis spacer and cannot turn. Sufficient side play has been provided for the bogie wheels so that the loco will negotiate 12" radius curves. Due to the loco being a little nose heavy, the bogie wheels are sprung using coupling springs which seems to have successfully transferred some of the weight towards the driving wheels.

The rear radial truck is another custom designed/printed replacement for the rear chassis spacer and, as per the 'bogie' works using generous side play. While the model is to scale length, it is 0.5mm too wide to be able to accommodate the connecting rods, slide bars and cross heads once I fit them.

Due to the small size of the Class B tender, the original Dapol motor will be replaced with a Nigel Lawton 8mm coreless motor. This will fit nicely within the tender body while leaving room for some weight to ensure a good ride and pickup. The tender wheels are spares from a Peco Collett 0-6-0 locomotive.

I've attempted to model a C1 several times over the years. I'm hoping that this will be the version that is finally successful!

[Atlantic 3279]

Looks well on the way to a convincing C1 to me Steve. What's causing the apparent diverging angle between the rear edge of the cab and the front edge of the tender sidesheet?

[Atso]

Looks well on the way to a convincing C1 to me Steve. What's causing the apparent diverging angle between the rear edge of the cab and the front edge of the tender sidesheet?

Thanks Graeme. That's a good question, I'll investigate in the morning!