The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

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artfull dodger
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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by artfull dodger » Sat Apr 08, 2017 12:12 pm

Painting is definatly a lost art to many. And painting from rattle cans never will equil the factory Roundhouse job, which has more "hardener" in the paint, giving that nearly indestructable hard glossy finish on the factory painted engines. When I do build my next Lady Anne, I am going to have a friend that paints cars professionaly paint the body for me. I will give him the pint of paint and he will do the proper hardener mix and then bake it in the paint booth when a car is in there baking. That wont be for a year or two, I am set for motive power for now. Mike
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Post by tom_tom_go » Sat Apr 08, 2017 12:28 pm

Just caught up with this one, building a loco in an apartment must be a first on here so well done!
big-ted wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2017 6:21 pm One of the rear cranks seems like it's not on completely straight, despite my best efforts to line the g-clamp up correctly. We'll see if it binds with the connecting rods on. If so I guess I'll have to bring it in to work and use the big vice (with rubber jaws!)
I don't want to piss on your parade but this may come to bite you in the bottom later so I would get it sorted now by using a vice with rubber clamps as you mentioned.

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by LNR » Sat Apr 08, 2017 1:30 pm

Afraid I agree with Tom completely Ted. The rear cranks have the long crank pin so anything out of true is excentuated, even worse than the other cranks. Personally I would be taking the offending crank off, and examining it under magnification if necessary, to make sure you haven't picked up a corner or burred it in some way. There's not a lot of metal in that area and it is easy to drag a fragment of metal down to the shoulder to prevent the crank pulling down square.
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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by GTB » Sat Apr 08, 2017 2:08 pm

big-ted wrote: Fri Apr 07, 2017 6:18 pm All this paint stuff is such a black art!!
Paint formulation is a science, but applying it is still a craft and with any craft there is no substitute for experience. They don't pack that in a spray can.........

Traditionally, signwriting paints were a high quality enamel and so would be suitable for bodywork. If it is an acrylic, it will soften when it gets hot.

Provided the paint you used on the chassis was an auto acrylic it be OK. Roundhouse use two pack auto acrylic over an etch primer on their RTR models, which gives a very hard and chemically resistant finish, but you need the right gear for that.

I'd also agree with Tom, if you haven't yet sorted out that axle crank, square it up now, while you can still get at it without dismantling the loco. Not sure if rubber jaws would work, as I use aluminium safe jaws on my bench vices. A couple of blocks of wood might be better if you don't have aluminium jaws available.

Regards,
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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Sat Apr 08, 2017 10:53 pm

Thanks all. Good to know the paint on the frames should be ok. Yep, the crank was removed and straightened. Bizarrely, pressing it on as far as it wanted to go resulted in it becoming crooked. I pressed it on with a vice as far as I could without it getting crooked, tightened down the screw, and that seems to have held it straight. Trying to wobble the pin by hand couldn't budge it, so I'm hoping it's ok. I do still worry that the crank pin screws and crank pins themselves would benefit from some loctite but, again, I'm doing everything by the book now!



Smokebox now assembled and footplate painted, but I can't really do much more this weekend since I'm still waiting on the expansion link bush. I could start soldering the body but I need to practice on something first since I've not soldered with a torch before. I think I'll try and build another tin plate tipper wagon since I have plenty of tinplate saved up.

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Sat Apr 08, 2017 11:42 pm

Just for the hell of it, my full 'train' as it stands:
20170408_152834-1.jpg
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The coach received it's insulated wheels and buffers courtesy of Garden Rail Specialists. As luck would have it, I had to leave he 3D printer at work making a laser enclosure over the weekend. It was fairly trivial to add my attempt at some carriage lamptops alongside the enclosure, so hopefully the printer doesn't crash over the weekend and I can bring those home on Monday. :)

The tipper wagon is still waiting on some smaller wheels to downsize it a bit, but I don't think it looks out of scale, despite claiming to be in 7/8ths scale, so I'll make a few more at some point.

Buffer beam and buffers fitted to loco, and cheesehead screws painted with Humbrol enamel to match the buffer beam. Boiler and smokebox just rested on for now whilst I wait on the expansion link bush for the other side.

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Mon Apr 10, 2017 8:57 pm

Lamptops and plugs out of the 3D printer. The plastic lifted at one corner which has lead to some distortion, but I have three usable sets, so I'm happy.
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The printer I used is fairly basic, so gives a rough surface finish, but with some primer and sanding I think they'll be fine.

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by artfull dodger » Tue Apr 11, 2017 2:15 am

The only part of building my Roundhouse kit that was stressfull was drilling and pinning the return crank on the rear axle. I still have the 1.6mm drill bit, used it when I did the cranks on Sammie! Looking good so far! Mike
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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by LNR » Tue Apr 11, 2017 8:26 am

Just for the record, I haven't drilled and pinned any of my return cranks and they have never troubled me. I did discover the Hunslet looked out of whack some time after its only derailment. It was still running OK, and as I time my locos a different way to that suggested by Roundhouse, with a vernier calliper, I don't have to open the valve chest to put it right.
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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by artfull dodger » Sun Apr 16, 2017 7:10 pm

The Pearse and Merlin return cranks are also not pinned. But I suspect that RH does this to help the live steam beginner by not having to worry about knocking the return crank out of proper position. Setting the timing on both my Pearse and Merlin are done with calipers and taking measurements at certain points of driver rotation.
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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Tue May 30, 2017 6:16 pm

We're back in business! Canada Post managed to lose the first replacement bush that Roundhouse kindly sent out, so a further replacement was sent and received last week. This allowed me to finish the valve gear and take a first stab at setting the timing. Needless to say, the first attempt was a complete failure, but a second attempt seemed far more promising. I managed to get the wheels to turn in both directions using my bike pump to deliver pressure to the superheater tube. The (terrible) video below shows it running forwards. On this occasion, it refused to run backwards but it now does, although it does have a tendency to stick. Still, I will proceed now to the point where I can steam it to bed it in properly. The video was taken during my mum's visit, who you can hear goading on the cat in the background!

I picked up top coat this morning. I went with a 2K product that one outlet was able to put into a fancy aerosol for me. There's a button on the bottom one presses to mix the hardener prior to spraying, and the vendor was very confident that this will stand up to all the oils, heating and rough handling one can throw at it, so fingers crossed!

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW33pP0zBp4[/video]

Edit: embedding videos defeats me...

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by tom_tom_go » Tue May 30, 2017 7:32 pm

Try using this link to embed (you can edit your post):

https://youtu.be/XW33pP0zBp4

This is how you embed YouTube videos:

https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=9208

Nice to this the loco running in your flat, brilliant!

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Sun Jun 04, 2017 4:38 pm

A bit more progress. The plan was to paint the boiler wrapper and than proceed with the build so that I can steam test the loco. However, I realised that the fancy 2K paint has a pot life of only 8 hours or so once you mix the components, so I'd be wasting a $35 can of paint just painting the wrapper. Much better to bite the bullet and solder up the body so that I can top coat everything at once.

The gaps at the front of the tanks are a little larger than I'd like, but I don't think I can get it any better as, due to the design of the body I couldn't quite bend the fronts to 90 degrees. This meant that I had to clamp it as tight as I could to hold it in place. Trying to 'fill in' the gap with solder just resulted in the joint popping off. Still, the joints are all pretty tidy, at least from the outside!
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And all etch-primed. Maybe it's a WD loco...!
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I've not decided whether to do the the cylinder covers black or the same maroon as the body yet...

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by tom_tom_go » Sun Jun 04, 2017 5:08 pm

I like the green colour!

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Sun Jun 11, 2017 7:46 pm

Ta-da!

Now all I need to do is test it and start the fettling/adjusting process. I might get the chance to run it on blocks this afternoon or one evening this week. Unfortunately I wont be able to run it on rails until at least next weekend.

Pretty pleased with it. Bending up the pipework in a way that still allowed the body work to fit over was pretty tricky. I think the copper was thoroughly work-hardened after my numerous attempts at getting everything to fit properly. I did try re-annealing it with my blow torch to soften it again, but it didn't help much. Any advice here would be appreciated?

Can't wait to run it and see it in action!
20170611_104344-1.jpg
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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by LNR » Mon Jun 12, 2017 12:34 am

That is a nice looking job you've done, you should be well pleased. Hope it runs as well as it looks.
Grant.

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by Soar Valley Light » Mon Jun 12, 2017 7:20 pm

Grant is right, that's quality workmanship. I LOVE the livery! :thumbup:

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Fri Jun 16, 2017 7:30 pm

Thanks for the comments gents. And now.... it lives!



In truth, this was the 4th attempt. On the 1st try, steam leaked poured out of the 'T' that connects the superheater to the cylinder inlet pipes. In my defense, the instructions specifically mention not to overtighten the gland nuts and, having broken the expansion link bush by overtightening it I think I can be forgiven for erring on the side of caution here! On the 2nd try, the wheels did half a turn and then locked up. Later inspection revealed one of the return cranks had slipped and the timing was way out as a result. On the 3rd try, it ran for about 15 seconds before the bolt holding the radius rod to the expansion link fell out of one side. Ahem... But, 4th try is a charm!

It's still a bit sticky, but is getting better. It moves very smoothly with no noticeable stiffness when rolling by hand in 'neutral gear', so I suspect the timing is still slightly off. Still, I'm hoping to run it on Sunday on the local club's portable layout. Hopefully it will bed in a bit more and maybe I'll tweak the timing to see if things can be improved.

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by tom_tom_go » Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:29 pm

Live steam in an apartment, my hat off to you sir!

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Re: The Reading and Squamish Light Railway Stock Thread

Post by big-ted » Mon Jun 19, 2017 9:54 pm

Well, despite my showing up on Sunday armed with tools and ready to apologise to families for cussing and swearing as I irond out all the teething issues, she ran like a dream. Certainly, far better than I could have ever asked for. Lots of compliments were received and I left beaming from ear to ear, in spite of the miserable weather!

I chose not to run with my wooden carriage as I was nervous about bringing it out in such wet weather, but the tipper wagon drew almost as much praise as the loco. Scratch building on the cheap seems way less prevalent on these shores than in the UK, which is a shame.

Vide evidence:


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