Garden Railway Forum

Back in 2011, I bought boiler shell material for Keith Bucklitch's "Charles" loco design, I had also turned the wheels. But then I shelved the plan and went on to build the Live Diesel, using the wheels on that locomotive. I now have two large scale Penrhyn steam locos and feel enthused to make a start on this fine "mainline" loco. I am planning on concurrently building a completely different loco as well, so these projects will take a lovely long time. I've been checking my stock, I have one more unused pressure gauge

Years ago I scanned and .pdf'd Keith's Garden Rail "Building Charles" 8-part series from which this general arrangement is taken

Good, haha I was worried you were going to rest on your laurels a bit after the ossie Hunslet and I wouldn't be able to look forward to seeing your build updates. Looks like I was worried for no reason.

That's it Keith, no need to worry

It's been too windy to run the new loco so I've made a start cutting the wheel blanks - the hard way! I used to use the bandsaw at work... Now I'm using a parting tool down to about 1" diameter and then hacksawing the remainder. It's the first time to use the backgearing of the lathe in a long time and I'd nearly forgotten how. My target was to produce one wheel blank per day, but missed a day yesterday
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It's far too windy to run the new loco, so I've been turning wheels
This is the front face of the wheel and this recess will be painted black

dewintondave wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:16 am It's been too windy to run the new loco so I've made a start cutting the wheel blanks - the hard way! I used to use the bandsaw at work... Now I'm using a parting tool down to about 1" diameter and then hacksawing the remainder.

That's definitely doing it the hard way.

When I got into garden scale I started cutting some wheel blanks with a hacksaw. I got about 1/4” into the first cut, got in the car and came back an hour later with a 4” x 6” bandsaw in the boot. Best $400 I've ever spent.............

Will this Charles be 7/8” scale?

Regards,
Graeme

GTB wrote: ↑Wed Dec 18, 2019 11:43 am
That's definitely doing it the hard way.

When I got into garden scale I started cutting some wheel blanks with a hacksaw. I got about 1/4” into the first cut, got in the car and came back an hour later with a 4” x 6” bandsaw in the boot. Best $400 I've ever spent.............

Will this Charles be 7/8” scale?

Regards,
Graeme

It turned out to be rather pleasurable Graeme The parting was aided by syringing-in cutting oil using the trusty lubricator draining syringe. And, with an 18tpi hacksaw blade, the 1" was easy to cut, again with cutting oil.

1" Scale. It's a lovely scale to scale up to from 16mm scale metric drawings, just divide the dimension by 16 and that's the new size in inches. Charles' drawings are imperial though

dewintondave wrote: ↑Wed Dec 18, 2019 10:57 pm It turned out to be rather pleasurable Graeme The parting was aided by syringing-in cutting oil using the trusty lubricator draining syringe. And, with an 18tpi hacksaw blade, the 1" was easy to cut, again with cutting oil....

+1 on that
I cut all my wheels with hacksaw and it's no bother at all.
Simply no space left in my tiny workshop for a bandsaw

I seized the opportunity Christmas presented in the early evening and finish turned the wheels
The wheel turning mandrel wasn't true in the 3-jaw chuck, so I used the 4-jaw. Even with the extension, the set-up was rigid enough for the 3 mm deep LGB flanges

Whilst looking at my steel sheet for making frames I remembered all those years ago I'd already got steel strip in for them, and there it was oiled-up on my stock shelf in the garage

Here we are setting up the frame to mill the end face

The weather's too hot for running the new loco so I've been doing some more work on the frames, making the distinctive buffer beams. I filed the radii this time
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This is the latest state of play

Fine work Dave, I am many years behind!

Love your work Dave. You have a skill I truly admire...

Thanks lads! Get stuck-in, this hobby is a very therapeutic

what a great start dave! i will enjoy watching the build thread on here.

LnBmad wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 10:35 pm what a great start dave! i will enjoy watching the build thread on here.

Nice to have you back

It's been so hot and dry that I haven't been venturing out to run anything on the line. So I have been making some progress on the frames. I have been closely looking at pictures of the real thing to work out axle box dimension, I thought I'd better make proper axle boxes even though they may not be sprung

Milling the axle box slots in the frames Finish milling the axle boxes - end mill sharpened on the bench grinder

Nothing like a bit of sharpening on the bench grinder to keep your eye in. Another great build moving along.
Grant.

Re-cutting the distinctive front cut-out to better match pictures of the original

Why does the prototype have that cut out, is it purely cosmetic?

tom_tom_go wrote: ↑Sat Mar 21, 2020 7:58 am Why does the prototype have that cut out, is it purely cosmetic?

I don't know. Perhaps it's to give it a graceful swallow-like appearance befitting a mainline engine