Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by Trevor Thompson » Wed Apr 07, 2021 9:38 pm

So far I have both sides completed and joined together with the doors attached. I am now printing the floor. Here are the first sections fixed onto one side:
IMG_1472.jpg
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As you can see the end sections of the floor are raised to make room for the bogies. My first attempt at the bogie frames:
IMG_1469.jpg
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I am going to try to make the axles sprung - like in full size practice, rather than compensating the bogies themselves, as I have done in the past. You can see that I have made cut outs for the axle boxes to slide up and down in. The square bits sticking out are for the springs to work against. I have printed a set of axle boxes with springs incorporated on the resin printer. I have prepared the same .stl file for the filament printer. I will see which method works best. It might even end up with metal springs. I wonder if it will work?

Just as an aside for anyone with the same type of printer, I am on my third flexible build plate. I find that using ABS I need strong adhesion to the build plate and that means that the sticky backed surface film doesn't last very long. So rather than buying another plate I have tried without the film. I have cleaned all the old adhesive off (lots of acetone and elbow grease), and sanded the bare plastic surface. I have prepared that surface using acetone and some desolved abs. Spread thinly and evenly with a bit of rag. Lots of ventilation and gloves of course.

I am printing on this without a raft. It is working well. In fact the print is sticking well while hot, and when the print has cooled it often just falls off. I am refreshing the surface every couple of prints.

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by Trevor Thompson » Thu Apr 08, 2021 8:43 pm

That is the four floor panels printed and the basic coach assembled.

It all went together OK!
IMG_1473.jpg
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So its the bulkheads to do next - and the ends need modifying to fit properly. There is a recess at each side to engage with the side panels and I didn't get the width of the recess right.

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by Trevor Thompson » Tue Apr 13, 2021 11:10 am

I have the end walls made and fitted, and am in the process of fitting the "bulkheads" which divide the compartments. The information I have is that the bulkheads in the 3rd class compartments were not to roof height, but in 1st and 2nd they were. However it seems illogical not to make the end compartments walls full height as they were intended as luggage compartments (or for servants of the 1st class passengers)!

So that is how I have built it:
IMG_1475.jpg
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I have used the clamps to hold the sides parallel which the glue hardens (or solvent evaporates) which is more accurate. One down side of making the sides from 4 parts has been the tendency for the glue lines to move as the solvent evaporates. I held them flat for 24 hours but obviously not for long enough or firmly enough. So the clamping arrangement in the photo is intended to flatten any kinks after softening the joints with solvent. I am going to leave them in place for longer this time.

The seat units are currently printing. Plain planks for the end compartments, wooden seats for 3rd class, lightly upolstered for 2nd, and full upholstered seating for 1st class.

I am also working on the bogies. The stores revealed stainless springs which I bought in case they would come in useful on a live steal loco, and which will fit nicely in the bogies. More on that to follow.

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by philipy » Tue Apr 13, 2021 12:57 pm

I am both amazed and in awe of how flat the sides look. You should be proud of that achievement if nothing else!
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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by -steves- » Tue Apr 13, 2021 4:18 pm

Looking really really good as always Trevor. As Philip says, how on earth do you get anything that straight! :dontknow: :thumbup:
The buck stops here .......

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by ge_rik » Tue Apr 13, 2021 7:48 pm

:thumbright:

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by Trevor Thompson » Wed Apr 14, 2021 11:13 am

And now I have something which looks like a coach. It also looks remarkably like the one I made by hand!
IMG_1480.jpg
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Back to the bogies.

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by philipy » Wed Apr 14, 2021 11:37 am

Most impressive!
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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by -steves- » Wed Apr 14, 2021 5:58 pm

It is indeed very very impressive, full marks for that one :salute: :thumbup:
The buck stops here .......

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by Trevor Thompson » Mon May 17, 2021 10:44 pm

The bogies are now working.

I settled for this arrangement in the end:
IMG_1494.jpg
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You can see the spring between the axle box and the bogie. So the axle boxes move as per full size, but when fully loaded I expect the springs to bottom - and act more to keep the wheels in contact with the rail than to actually make the coach properly sprung.

Printed couplings which are reasonably close to the ones which these coaches were originally fitted with. The only difference as far as I can work out is that mine have a coupling hook at both ends whereas I think the originals had only a hook at one end:
IMG_1497.jpg
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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by Trevor Thompson » Mon May 17, 2021 10:52 pm

The couplings installed:
IMG_1498.jpg
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The ring is a bush to hold the coupling pivot ring up - and preventing it interfering with the bogies movement. There is a brass loop in the bottom of the coupling to take coupling hooks - so that wagons can also connect to the chopper couplings.

and the bogie fitted:
IMG_1495.jpg
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I have used a 6BA brass bolt fitted into a tapped hole in the bottom of the coach. Tapping into the ABS seems to leave the thread a bit tight, and that is helpful as it locks the bolt without resorting to lock tight. It is interesting to note how far the bogie will pivot, I think it is going to go round quite tight curves!

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by Trevor Thompson » Mon May 17, 2021 11:13 pm

With the coach on the test track I have tried connecting it to the other bogie coaches. The ride height seems perfect - with the end platforms both at the same height (pure fluke). In this photo the coupling on the new coach is a bit higher than the other - so I remade the couplings with the height adjusted to my standard coupling height. The basic coupling is a component that I use on all my models - I just change the way it connects to the model. In this case the long shaft and ring.

As far as the springing is concerned there is about 2mm of spring left to compress when the coach is on the rails (less its roof) and the couplings are of course a touch high.
IMG_1500.jpg
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I have now made the roof in 4 sections. I tried ABS but the section curled up along the length of the coach, so I made the 4 sections from PLA (using a new nozzle which is now reserved for use only with PLA). This resulted in far less curling. I printed the sections flat on the bed by the way. I know I could have printed them on end - but I am going to fill and sand this roof to hide the joints so the steps are going to be filled in anyway.
IMG_1524.jpg
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I printed the oil lamps as part of the centre sections of the roof. However I made a mistake in centring them on the roof and when I cut the middle one in half, printed the roof section with the lamps on twice, and tried to join them the two halves didn't mate up. So oil lamps have been cut off - and I will make separate oil lamps to glue on. At least it will be easier to sand the roof now.

And now there is just over a mm of spring to compress, so the model is actually near enough fully sprung and sitting at the correct height on the track. It will be interesting to see how it handles on the track in the garden.

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by ge_rik » Tue May 18, 2021 8:34 am

Fascinating that the couplings swing independently of the bogies. Presumably, there are lugs on top of the bogies to align the coupling with the swing of the bogie?

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by Trevor Thompson » Thu May 20, 2021 3:05 pm

No Rick there is nothing to make the coupling swing with the Bogie. They are totally independent of each other.

In fact I am pretty sure that they have to be independent - in that I think the couplings won't always align with the bogie angles. Think of a slate wagon hanging off the end of the coach coupling for example. When two couplings are connected the hooks hold the couplings in alignment.

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by Andrew » Thu May 20, 2021 3:08 pm

That's very clever, I like it!

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by ge_rik » Fri May 21, 2021 8:08 am

Trevor Thompson wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 3:05 pm No Rick there is nothing to make the coupling swing with the Bogie. They are totally independent of each other.

In fact I am pretty sure that they have to be independent - in that I think the couplings won't always align with the bogie angles. Think of a slate wagon hanging off the end of the coach coupling for example. When two couplings are connected the hooks hold the couplings in alignment.

Trevor
That is interesting. I suppose I follow railway modelling manufacturers' practice of mounting my couplings on extensions of the bogies rather than prototypical practices of mounting them independently. Having the couplings on the bogies means that auto coupling is easier on curves as they align with each other. Presumably, with independently mounted couplings, the guard will have to manually align each coupling when coupling-up?

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Re: Festiniog Railway Coaches 15 and 16

Post by Trevor Thompson » Fri May 21, 2021 9:30 am

I suppose I have been influenced by looking at photos of the real thing. I noted that on the double fairlies, now that they have buck eye couplings, there is still a swivel in the coupling even though they are mounted on the bogie. I wonder if there is a centralising spring in side the real thing which isn't obvious?

I hadn't considered auto coupling - although I can understand why you would want it (I read your description of running trains to a timetable etc).

So yes in this case I will have to align the couplings and manually connect them.

Trevor

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