Garden Railway Forum

Let's celebrate our occasional failures

Here's my meths fire damaged LGB truck
This truck was right behind my #1 De Winton, when the loco picked-up pace I was curious, ten yards later this truck was on fire with yellow flames. It still runs well though

ummm... "Ooops"?

I like it, you should do some more damage to it!

A while back I melted a couple of Big Big Train wheelsets and part of the bogie when my IP Jane left a pool of burning meths on the track... It was a hot day and the flame was almost invisible so I didn't notice until the carriage kind of sagged to a halt. I managed to repair the bogie with some quite extensive plastic surgery, but the wheels had to be scrapped... I'll keep my eyes open for evidence of past disasters to add to the thread!

Andrew.

No pictures, but my Lady Anne has had a badly bent buffer beam when it derailed and hit a very substantial bridge support. It also suffered a dent, since removed in the tank side when it fell from an elevated section of a friend's railway.

I am just about to post this on my Wild Rose build, but before I do I thought it appropriate to post it here too

Yes, you're right, there should only be 2 cylinders and not 3, and those bolts near the cylinder on the right don't look so health either. That's the way to break a brand new 10ba tap within 10 minutes of opening the packet I was not happy and a few choice words were spoken. I also learnt not to try and tap bolts once you have made them and wait for the die to turn up, just wait for the die and tap them before you part them off, another lesson learnt

There's already some great stories and valuable lessons learnt

Here's my "I'll just disturb the safety valve" moment

Failure? Hmmm, that would be myself. I have a knack of failing at most things I do.

Busted Bricks wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2019 7:21 pm Failure? Hmmm, that would be myself. I have a knack of failing at most things I do.

Let's embrace our failings and no longer hide them away!

dewintondave wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2019 10:41 pm

Busted Bricks wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2019 7:21 pm Failure? Hmmm, that would be myself. I have a knack of failing at most things I do.

Let's embrace our failings and no longer hide them away!

A mate of mine got his failings out and the judge gave him six months.....

Big Jim wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 10:14 am A mate of mine got his failings out and the judge gave him six months.....

Let's acknowledge our occasional ineptitude.. Like this time I forgot that red hot brass is as soft as Plasticine

My first attempt at silver soldering:

See 7m 51s into this video.


One day, I must edit together a collection of such moments - unfortunately, they are not as rare as I would like.....

Rik

I remember making a part for a locomotive- a small box consisting of three small pieces of brass sheet. Took me ages to solder them together to my satisfaction. Scrubbed it clean, then thought it would be a good idea to dry it by holding it in a pair of pliers in front of my garage heater. Those propane heaters push out some heat, don't they. In seconds it had disassembled itself into its component parts on the garage floor !

There's some valuable learning experiences here. Well done chaps, it's important that we learn from each other

With the recent talk about broken thread cutting taps let's not forget that dies can break too

5BA and 7BA oldies

Here's a minor fail from a would-be running session this afternoon...

Over the last few days I've been doing a variety of jobs around the garden, but this afternoon I took a bit of time out to rectify some dodgy points at Penlan and clear the track as far as there so I could test out my handiwork.

Unfortunately, my test train was only halfway there when this happened:



From my vantage point on the other side of the garden, at first I couldn't work out what had happened - there was no obvious obstruction. A closer look revealed that a scenic lump of rock had fallen across the train and just caught the ducket on the brake van:


I'd moved the rock when I repainted the wall a couple of days previously - I guess it was precariously balanced and the gentle rumble of the passing train was enough to dislodge it...

Alas, the train never did make it to Penlan - the loco's batteries died just a few yards from the scene of this minor disaster! I'll try again tomorrow...

Cheers,

Andrew.

I did everything right, but still...

Some stainless angle from an old inkjet printer was pressed into service to make an ash pan. A test braze with my high temp silver braze took well using the butane canister blow torch.
Let's give it a go However when the real thing was attempted with the Sievert going full bore on domestic LPG..

Nicely modelled piece of lineside scrap you've created there, Dave!

philipy wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2019 6:31 am Nicely modelled piece of lineside scrap you've created there, Dave!

That's a grate idea

All my fails end up a scrap, why throw them away?