Garden Railway Forum

Hi there, I’m new to the forum and as my first foray outside of the introduction bit I thought I’d share a little diesel project I’ve been working on. It’s actually nearly finished but I’ll start from the beginning.
I found a bit of suitably sized round steel in my pile of bits so thought I’d have at making some wheels on my little myford lathe, they turned (pun intended) out ok so I figured id best think of something to do with them!

I’d previously built a chain drive 040, so figured the next logical step would be an outside coupled 060, so after a bit more time on the lathe and a trip to a mates for some time on his mill ended up with some axles and cranks:
Frames were next, decided I wanted to keep the motor below floor level to maximise space in the body, hence the slightly odd wheel spacing...steel plate was dawn into two lengths, bolted together and the holes drilled on the friends mill. Coupling rods were done at the same time but I forgot to take a photo! Bearings are 1/4” id flanged ball races and she rolls a treat. Spacers are 1/4 square brass drilled and tapped m3. It’s kind of a hybrid from what I think are the best features of the Essel and roundhouse commercial chassis. Motor is a mfa geared jobby with bevel gears final drive
I’m still working and out of time now so I’ll add to this when I get a chance!

Excellent work, your well and truly on your way.
Grant.

The small Myford lathe you mention, what model is it?

It’s an ml7, I think!

It had a little test run as in the last picture, hooked up to the battery and rc gear from another loco. Once I was happy with the running it came apart again for a bit of detailing and paint:

That's rather tidy. Looking forward to further progress.

I always have respect for someone who can paint WASP stripes.

what couplings are they (sorry fairly new to most of this)

SeamusOD they’re accucraft choppers, play times a bit limited these days so the less faff getting a train together the better!

Hadn’t really thought about a body up until this point as I was just concerned with getting a chassis running, after a bit of googling decided to loosely base it on Harlech castle, by no means a scale model but aiming for that general look. Some brass was acquired from the local model shop before they closed up and after some cutting, drilling, bending, rivet pressing and soldering ended up with this:
Some details turned on the lathe and soldered together:
And the whole thing given a coat of etch primer followed by regular primer:

That's a lovely piece of work and looks great in primer. Can you let me know where you get brass bevel gears from please?

Peter Butler wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 10:03 am That's a lovely piece of work and looks great in primer. Can you let me know where you get brass bevel gears from please?

Thanks Peter! Bevel gears were from essel engineering, although I had to drill out the one on the drive axle as they only supplied 6mm and I decided to go with 1/4” axles for roundhouse part compatibility in case I messed up the wheels

The lamp looks smart.

I do like looking at stuff in bare metal, you see more detail...

I do love the bare metal stage, things tend to sit like that for a while until I can bring myself to paint them. Decided to go with br green colours on this one :
And after a light weathering:

It may not be a perfect model of a prototype, but it is very nice, wish i had the skill and time (not furloughed).

That looks superb. Well done.

Superb build. Hats off to you for this one.

Cheers for the positive comments, much appreciated! Roof and a bit of cab interior next:

Garethh wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 10:19 am Cheers for the positive comments, much appreciated! Roof and a bit of cab interior next:

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Gareth, where are the louvred panels from? They add huge amounts of realism just on their own.