Fixing and Fettling

I've always been frustrated with the poor running of the Skylark I built a year or so back. The Kato chassis just didn't seem to perform as well as other people's, and indeed the one I have under the railcar, it would run smoothly at speed but stall frequently at lower speed. I'd checked the wheels were clean and all appeared to be in order, but running didn't improve. It would be nice to have it running well for the Shepton Mallet show next week, so last week I took the loco along to a Sussex Downs group club-night and with the help of others we set about a diagnosis.

Eventually, as suspected, we traced the problem to the pick-ups. Although they looked fine, they clearly weren't making good contact, there may have only been one working pick-up each side. We found the only way to fix this was to remove the white clips on the top of the chassis (carefully, they can ping!), and ease up the pick-ups where shown with the yellow arrows. We did one end at a time, and as well as cleaning the pick-ups I tweaked their shape to have more of an outward splay, before feeding them back in behind the wheels. While the chassis was apart we applied a tiny drop of oil to each worm too. 

The result is a chassis that runs as smoothly as it should, without stalling and controllable down to a slow speed. Since I was rather pleased with the way the body came out, it is great to finally have the loco running as well as it looks!

Spurred on with that success, I thought I'd address the uncoupling magnets. The Neodymium magnets I had tried in two locations really hadn't worked, they are actually too strong - wagon wheels and coupling tails shoot towards them, sometimes resulting in derailments. However in trying to excavate them I managed to damage the track - it didn't help that there are double rail-gaps and cut-about sleepers over the hole in the board for the magnets, but having rails sticking in the air was never going to work! And with a week to go before an exhibition this is not ideal.

Fortunately I managed to bend the rails back flat (it was the fishplates that had bent) and added a new "spare" Peco sleeper. A piece of paper was glued in place under the track (to support ballast), then the original cupboard-catch magnets inserted from below with lots of hot-glue to hold it. The glue-gun was also used to stick the tips of the sleeper to the baseboard. By this point the track looked like it would at least support trains!

I dug out some fine ballast and tapped it into place between the sleepers, not too thick to not limit the magnetism, but enough to cover the paper and glue lumps! Finally a little acrylic paint was mixed up and slopped over the lot to blend it in. The colour may not be an exact match, but I've tried not to be too even anyway so it looks fine.

Phew, disaster averted. Back to cleaning wheels and testing stock...!

Front Page News!

 

When I posed my newly-built train on Chris Ford's layout at the Haywards Heath show, Mick Thornton (known as the Roving Reporter within the 009 society) was keen to get a picture. I thought it might get into his photo-report in the 009 News, but it is a real compliment to see it make the front cover!

Also in the News is the news that Tom Dauben and Steve Fulljames will be jointly taking over the editorship - I'm sure they'll do a great job!

Larking Around in Haywards Heath

Saturday saw the Sussex Downs 009 group host their Biennial "member's day" exhibition in Haywards Heath. The club's own layout, the Upsan Downs & Everleight Railway, was assembled for the first (and quite probably the last) time as a 50ft x 10ft L-shape, achieved with the modular format of the layout and arranging the "universal" fiddle-yard in the centre. Parts of this layout are 30 years old, but it is superbly detailed. I spent most of the day operating the Upsan Quay end, seen here.

There were plenty of other layouts, some by members, some by previous members, and some by friends - some even in scales other than 009! John Thorne's Purbeck was voted favourite by the public ("Best Unfinished Layout" - because no layout ever is!). The show went well, plenty of visitors (much better than 2 years ago, perhaps due to a better venue and date), excellent catering, and a good atmosphere.

Chris Ford had his excellent Tal Coed layout on display - recently featured in Railway Modeller, and the first time I had seen it, I can say it is a superb scene but much smaller in reality than it looks in the pictures! Chris had suggested a double-header to compare Skylarks, so having bodged a suitable coupling onto the rear of mine we gave it a go. The Kato and Fleishmann chassis ran at very different speeds, and that train doesn't really warrant a double-header, but they look pretty good together I think!

I also couldn't resist posing my Skylark and the Egger-bash coached on Tal Coed for a photo of them in the countryside. This is a fake though, although these are not large coaches they are too big for the clearances of Tal Coed!

Anyway, for the rest of the photos and the other layouts, click on the link below:

Haywards Heath Sussex Downs 009 Group 2013

Skylark and Egger Coaches Completed

So here are some pictures of the completed Skylark loco and coaches. Well, I need to add some passengers at some point, and maybe one day I'll get some transfers to add lettering. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out - the modifications made to the Eggerbahn coaches have made a big difference to their look, the tram skirts on the Skylark look convincing, and by my standards the painting and weathering has come out well. Most of all both the loco and the coaches look right at home on Awngate, together or with my other stock, and fit in with the tramway theme.
       

Don't forget the Sussex Downs 009 group exhibition this Saturday in Haywards Heath. I'll be there helping out on the club layout or one of the other member's layouts, so do say hi. More details here.

Painting, Windows and Finishing

I'm not great at the painting, but being a mug I decided a two-tone livery would look best on the coaches, and brush-painting that took me a while! That was followed by a little weathering with dirty washes and weathering powders. The windows are the original Eggerbahn mouldings which have a ridge round each window, the only way that was going to look right was to paint it to look life a frame. More fiddly work with a brush, especially with the bars on the end door windows!

 

At Brighton I had picked up a bottle of "Micro Kristal Klear", which is a PVA-like glue that dries clear and does not mist plastic glazing. This was ideal for sticking the windows in, once in place the seat backs were stuck in place that hides the bottom of the glazing. The other feature of the glue is that it can be drawn across small openings to form the glazing, which I have tried with the Skylark spectacle plates, it can be seen drying in the picture above. If it works well I've got quite a few locos with unglazed spectacles...

 

Despite my best efforts keeping all the bits together I found I'd lost the glazing for the guard's compartment doors. I cut new glazing from clear plastic - set in an part open position, as all the other opening windows are open, so it would look odd if they were closed. A piece of microstrip finishes the frame.

 

Having added coal to the bunker and a driver figure inside it was time to stick the roof on the Skylark. The curvature of the plastic roof is slightly too much, so here it is being held in place while the epoxy dries!

What the heck, get on with it...

I said I was waiting for warmer weather to prime the recent projects ready for painting, but as the ghostly apparitions below show, I decided to press on anyway! Perhaps because of seeing that Chris Ford has started and finished his Skylark in the meantime...

 

Preparation involved a scrub in warm water with a few drops of Cif cleaner using a toothbrush (I'm talking about the models here). Since it is still cold out, and spraying has to be done in the garage at the bottom of the garden, the technique was to keep me and the cans of paint indoors between coats, and the model too every couple of coats.

The brass balcony railings had a few light coats of etch primer, this is very thin so it was followed by the usual Halfords grey primer to get an even coat, which was also used for the roofs and the loco. The coach bodies though were treated to white primer. Priming is very useful as it shows up all the surface blemishes, I was pleased to find very few except a few stray blobs of glue on the Skylark. With them cleaned up and another quick spray I'm ready to start painting the top coats.

Finishing the Skylark build

Well this one seems to have taken a long time to build, mainly because I've spent very little time on it recently! However it is worth taking time over the finishing of a model as it does make a difference. For example the roof casting is nice and clean, but works out a scale 6-8 inches thick, whereas in all the photos the Skylark roof is clearly very thin. So I decided to make a new one from plasticard, a sheet was taped to a tin can and dunked in boiling water. The roof was made from 3 laminations for strength and stability, the lower two layers cut to fit within the sides and the top one has chamfered edges. A sheet of brass may have been better still, but I find it easier to add the details in plastic.

 

The cab interior looked rather empty, and with no motor in there it was easy to knock up a firebox and backhead with more plastic. The gauges are stamped out of plastic sheet with a leather punch, while the safety valve cover is the end of a fountain pen ink cartridge! There's also a wire handbrake lever on the left of the cab. It may not be very accurate, but it's enough when viewed through the cab-sides.

 

Other details include the sand-box with it's pipes, and the operating rod from the cab. The couplings are screwed to plastic packing pieces behind the buffer beams, they will be removed for painting as will the cab roof and firebox. I then spent a while removing excess glue and fettling inside the body to get it to sit flat on the chassis again!

 

So now, along with the coaches, it awaits primer and paint. There may be some smoothing and filling to do as the primer shows up imperfections. However, right now it is far too cold to be spray-painting in the garage!

Above The Footplate

This time of year brings many distractions from modelling - half term, family visits, a child's Birthday and party to organise, and of course the big day later in the month that seems to require so much preparation! So progress with the Skylark has been in stops and starts, but here's where I'm at anyway.

The Kato chassis I am using has quite a low profile, but the boiler casting is cut away to clear a motor, this was just visible as there is a gap between the tanks and the boiler. So I filled the gap with plasticard, then stuffed the boiler with lead. I've also cut out the opening on the inner tank side to match the outer, and spaced the sides with plasticard - there was about a 15-thou gap along the tank top. The sides were filled with lead too. As you can see the cap side openings have had the "door" removed (the prototype did not have a door) and the edges chamfered.

Preparation of the parts like this does take time, but once assembled on the chassis it is worth it. The cab rear has also been extended below the bunker with plastic. The cab is quite visible so I will have to make some representation of the firebox and backhead.

Side-on the arrangement of the side skirts, tiny inclined cylinder, and the "pony" wheel appearing under the rear frames, all seems to work quite well. The trailing wheel should be behind the cab step so it is a bit too far forward, but it looks OK.

The tank fillers require a rounded handle on top, however I thought they looked better upside-down with the locating peg filed to a rounded shape- see the one in the foreground, than on the left is unmodified. Another job was to drill out the chimney top.

The chimney was a pig to get vertical, even after a long time adjusting the fit with a small file. 5-minute epoxy does give time to check it from all angles as the glue sets, using a square, even so I think it might not be quite right!

 

A little bit of skirt...

Apologies for the title on this post, and to all those who don't find what they expect within it!

For those that are still reading, I am of course referring to the tram skirts for the Skylark. Using the cheap and reliable Kato chassis means it's diesel outline frames and incorrect wheels need hiding, and since Awngate is supposed to be a tramway tram-skirts are completely appropriate. My supposition is that the tramway company approached Kerr Stuart for a "standard" loco rather than order a bespoke (hence much more expensive) tramway loco, and simply had them add skirts around the moving bits.

 

They are made from plasticard, which is straightforward enough, although it has taken a little while to get the proportions right. The box section represents the skirts, with an extension for the front frames.

Looking at photos of Skylark locos the cylinders appear very small. Indeed at 12" stroke by 7.5" bore they are small! I reckon that would make an outer diameter of around 12" over cladding, or 4mm, but I only had 3mm diameter tube. So I cut a slit in the back, and pushed a strip of plastic in, widening it to about the right diameter - at the front at least! The back is flatter, but that makes them easier to stick to the frames, not being the full depth is not really visible and indeed is helpful as the frames are further out than they would be.

 

A little extra detail - bolts on the ends of the cylinders, and access hatches for maintenance of the motion - and the skirt/frame/cylinder assembly is glued in place with epoxy, along with the buffer beams. The result works rather well I think, hopefully the rear wheels appear as the pony wheels under the rear frames. Right, now on with the body...

 

Larking Around

I did buy a can of primer last week, but I haven't got any further with painting the coaches, instead moving on to another project! This is the Chivers kit for a Kerr Stuart "Skylark" that I got last month, along with a Kato chassis. On the face of it this is a reasonably straightforward white-metal kit that should fall together over a few evenings, right?

 

So here are the main parts, nicely moulded on the whole with just a little flash. It is always tempting to see how with a little extra work the end result can be improved, for example here I couldn't help thinking that the cab-side doors were a little unlikely and would look a whole lot better opened out - you can see I've done this to the right hand side already.

 

The more immediate challenge is fitting the kit to a chassis it was never designed for. Actually it isn't too hard, the footplate needed the opening extending under the smokebox, and the chassis having it's plastic footplate and side detail cut back to slide into the dummy rear frames of the kit. There were also some bocks cast under the footplate to sit on the Ibertren chassis it was intended for, which I have had to cut away, and with a little fettling the chassis slides into place.

 

The Kato chassis is low but long, and protrudes under the smokebox, the front support to the boiler has needed a recess cutting into it. On the other hand, much of the "missing" boiler that would have fouled the motor of the Ibertren could now be reinstated! I should point out that I will be building this as a tram loco, and the chassis will be completely hidden behind skirts.

 

Another minor improvements is to the fit of the buffer beams, if slotted under the footplate as intended the rivets fall too low and the bufferbeam is very close to the rail. The best solution seemed to be mitring the join, as shown  here. I've also had to open out square holes to take the Microtrains couplings I use.

Well I'm a few evenings in already and so far I have just cut and filed lots of metal, and sliced my finger and thumb open. You know that rule about always cutting away from you?