The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by GTB » Thu Apr 02, 2020 10:36 am

big-ted wrote: Thu Apr 02, 2020 3:13 am Thing is, they're covered in solder and flux, and the plastic coating that food-tin-cans get. I don't have much hope of cleaning all this off, so I wonder what my best hope is of getting paint to stick? ............. I don't really want to take the wheels off either since they're soldered on...
Big Ted,

The skips look good, are they based on the design from the website run by Marc Horovitz (tinplate dad) and one of his daughters (tinplate girl)?

If you used normal tin cans as the material source, the inner lining will likely be an epoxy varnish and the outside printed label will be some sort of printing ink. A solvent based paint should work OK on those. I don't think water borne paints would work though.......

Enamel paint, or car duco, in a spraycan should stick to both, but I'd try the paint on a can first, as the solvents may attack the printing.

I don't always remove wheels for painting. Just spray them body colour and remove the paint off the wheel treads with a pipe cleaner dipped in paint thinner, while the paint is still soft.

Tom,

You've got chemical blackening on the brain....... ;)

Tin cans are made from steel with a thin tin coating and a final varnish coating of some sort. No chance of chemically blackening that as it comes. Even if you manage to strip off the varnish, ordinary blackening solutions don't work on tin. Stripping off the tin to get down to the steel to blacken that isn't a trivial exercise either.

Regards,
Graeme

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Thu Apr 02, 2020 5:28 pm

Being confined to your 'house' looks OK to me!
I should point out that the running pics are definitely NOT in my home! The local garden center used to have a permanent layout available for public running, and a g-scale train shop on site. Sadly both have been disbanded for business reasons, but our club remains on good terms with the garden center. Every year during the late January-early February slow period they let the club setup the portable layout in one of the near-empty greenhouses, which is where those pics were taken.
The skips look good, are they based on the design from the website run by Marc Horovitz (tinplate dad) and one of his daughters (tinplate girl)?
Yep. That's the one!

Thanks for the painting tips. Do we think an enamel paint would stick to the solder joints where there's dried-on flux remaining? From what I'm reading this is going to be the biggest problem, and scrub as I might it's been on there so long I don't think it's coming off. I guess if whatever I use doesn't stick to the joints I can probably use something else in a rust colour at the joints...

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by GTB » Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:19 am

big-ted wrote: Thu Apr 02, 2020 5:28 pm Do we think an enamel paint would stick to the solder joints where there's dried-on flux remaining? From what I'm reading this is going to be the biggest problem, and scrub as I might it's been on there so long I don't think it's coming off.
What flux did you use?

I use an acid flux when soft soldering brass or steel and clean up the joints as I go with an old toothbrush and Ajax cream cleanser.

If you just used rosin cored solder, electronic stores sell flux remover for cleaning up circuit boards, which should remove it. rosin is very brittle and not very sticky when cold. I'd probably just scrape most of it off with a small screwdriver, then clean up the joint with a fibreglass burnishing brush.

I'm guessing you used rosin flux. If you'd used an acid flux like Baker's Fluid, the model would be heavily rusted by now if it wasn't cleaned at the time it was built.

Regards,
Graeme

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by Puddlejumper » Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:31 pm

I’d be tempted to give them a waft over with an etch primer first??
Doug

Hopelessly bodging stuff into some sort of semblance of a railway up in the frozen wasteland of County Durham.
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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Sat Apr 04, 2020 3:39 am

Yep. Just rosin electrical flux. Just lots of it as it's tough to solder tinplate when it's coated with the aforementioned printing & epoxy layers. Even if I did try & sand down to metal at the joins.

I'll see if I can pick up a wire brush attachment for the Dremel tomorrow & some appropriate paint & primer. Cheers for the help folks!

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:35 pm

Do you ever make ambitious plans of doing everything perfectly, then wake up the next day and think "S*d it?!"

Despite writing a mental shopping list of all the things I was going to go out and buy yesterday (flux remover, etch primer, top coat...) I woke up in the morning and figured why bother? I've got literally the cost of the wheelsets into these wagons, why go buying lots of fancy paint?

So instead I had a rummage through my paint box. I found some automotive epoxy primer in red oxide brown, and some satin clear lacquer of a different brand intended for 'craft' applications. No cleaning. No sanding. Done.
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It's very easy to repaint again if necessary. The colour is a bit too red for my tastes, but maybe it will tone down.

The one trick I did do was to use a product called liquid mask on the wheel treads before painting. It's a liquid latex solution used in painting RC car body shells. You brush it on, let it dry into a rubbery film, and then cut and peel away segments as you want to paint them. It just saves having to mess around wiping wet paint off the wheels whilst the rest of the wagon is wet.

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by Old Man Aaron » Mon Apr 06, 2020 12:51 pm

If you can tolerate the smell, I find cotton swabs dipped in enamel or lacquer thinners, makes a quick tidy job of removing paint from the running surfaces of wheels.
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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by FWLR » Tue Apr 07, 2020 8:33 am

Great paint job Ted. And cheap too. If you have any weathering powders, you can easily tone the paint down, some black, brown and grey mixed up to a dirty mud colour. Experiment on a bit of scrap of whatever you have and you will get something that will work.

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Sat Jun 06, 2020 7:48 pm

The Reading & Squamish workshops recently commissioned some supporting motive power in light of the increased stock arriving on the line...

The work experience kid already managed to drive it into the workshop doorway, incurring some minor roof damage. The manager had some coarse language to share!
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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by sjrixon » Sat Jun 06, 2020 7:58 pm

OOOhh. That will look nice pushing the skips around.

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by LNR » Sun Jun 07, 2020 12:40 am

Nice one Ted, I like the way the windows drop down either side of the engine casing, very prototypical.
Grant.

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Sun Jun 07, 2020 5:15 am

LNR wrote: Sun Jun 07, 2020 12:40 am Nice one Ted, I like the way the windows drop down either side of the engine casing, very prototypical.
Grant.
Heh. It's an IP Glaslyn kit, built exactly per the instructions, so I can't take too much credit!

I'll be honest, I was a bit disappointed with some aspects of the kit. The website description describes it as "made from CNC machined & cast metal parts." This is a bit of clever wording, as the only CNC-ing is on plastic parts, which make up the bulk of the construction. Further, as far as I can tell, the supplied battery box is too large to fit under the bonnet (where the motor also sits) so for now it's in the cab in plane sight. I plan on reconfiguring the electronics at some point anyway. Still, it'll be fun to have trundling around between steam-powered runs.

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by FWLR » Sun Jun 07, 2020 6:36 am

Nice.
Is the roof plastic Ted, or aluminium. :?:

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Sun Jun 07, 2020 4:24 pm

FWLR wrote: Sun Jun 07, 2020 6:36 am Nice.
Is the roof plastic Ted, or aluminium. :?:
Plastic. Whilst the kit has no interior I wanted to make the roof removable when/in case I make one. I heated the roof a bit to help it form around the supports but overdid it slightly I guess, hence the warped corner.
Last edited by big-ted on Thu Sep 17, 2020 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by sjrixon » Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:15 am

Up 99% of adverts are clever with their descriptions ;)

But with a 9v? motor and some weight, she should do ok..

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Thu Sep 17, 2020 6:00 pm

Diesel had it's first outing last weekend.
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I now have far more stock than I can reasonably store in my apartment, so I'm going to make a conscious effort to hold back on building anything new and instead focus on quality rather than quantity. My Lady Anne is set to receive some detailing bits and get some paintwork done over winter. First up though, some builders plates. I've been trying to 3D print these on and off as time allowed for a while now. The printer I usually use just didn't have the resolution to produce the text, so I had to bight the bullet and learn how to use the new one. You can see I'm just about at the limit, but I think they look pretty good.
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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by philipy » Thu Sep 17, 2020 7:45 pm

Those plates do look very good. What are the dims and what printer did you use for them?
Philip

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Thu Sep 17, 2020 8:51 pm

Sorry, I should have left something in the picture for scale! The plates are 17 x 13 mm. I'm using a Form 3 printer. Up until now I had been using an Ultimaker 2+. The Form 3 definitely has better resolution, and gives a smoother finish without visible layering. But it's a bit more involved in terms of handling all the chemicals associated with it. The other thing I struggle with is removing the support structure. I find it impossible to remove from the part without leaving some kind of divot in the surface of the part itself. Fortunately with these plates I was able to print them so that all the support structure was on the back...

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by FWLR » Fri Sep 18, 2020 8:08 am

I think they look superb Ted. :thumbright: :thumbright:

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Thu Dec 17, 2020 4:25 pm

I'm going to make a conscious effort to hold back on building anything new and instead focus on quality rather than quantity.
I am weak... :silent:
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This is a very early meths fired Dylan kit courtesy of Anything Narrow Gauge. I'll need to convert it to 45mm gauge, which shouldn't be too hard thanks to some tips from Tony at Rhos Helyg Loco Works. However, it's definitely going to be a step up from my Lady Anne build. Step 1 is to decide on the wheelbase and axle configurations and drill frames and coupling rods accordingly... :? I sense I might be doing some 'overtime' in the machine shop at work over the holidays...

Two other immediate concerns on inspection are that it has a brass boiler, and both the exhaust pipes need re-soldering into the cylinder blocks. Reading around it seems brass boilers want tap water and to be drained after every run. Since I do both these things anyway (Vancouver water is very soft) I'm hoping I needn't be too concerned?

Regarding resoldering the exhaust pipes, they look to be soft soldered, but I'm thinking these likely get pretty hot and I'd be better off silver soldering them? I can easily soft solder at home, but silver soldering is going to require me to borrow a propane torch.

Oh, and whilst the chassis instructions appear very detailed, I seem to be missing the instructions for assembly of the bodywork. Longshot, but if anyone happens to have a copy...

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