Garden Railway Forum

It's interesting that it looks totally different to mine...............




............... which looks a litte "Welsh Highland" hauling 16mm scale stock...........

tom_tom_go:106236 wrote: How do others solder really fine parts so it looks like as if it was simply glued into place?

Looks good, I can't see any excess solder......

When attaching small parts, I tin both parts first, put a bit of liquid flux in the joint and heat until I see any excess solder squeeze out of the joint. If possible, heat from the back. When it cools down I clean off any excess solder with a fibreglass brush (then pick the bits of glass out of my fingers with fine tweezers ).

it also helps in large scale to have a soldering iron that can generate a decent amount of heat. Mine is a 100W soldering station and with a 3mm chisel tip I can solder seams in 0.8mm brass bodywork with that. I had one person argue with me that you can do everything you need with a 25W iron. I can only assume he had never tried soldering a garden scale size body together.....

Regards,
Graeme

Hopefully the Help & Advice theatres that were video'd at this year's Peterborough show will make it onto a 16mm NGM DVD at some point (MDLR?). I attended the Soldering theatre which included how to fit those small parts - the body kit being used in the demonstration was Brian's (MDLR).

Chris Cairns

The editing is ongoing as I type this - there was an awful lot to edit!

Now, a question for all you Accucraft owners. I'm an Accucraft virgin - always ran Roundhouse and Mamod in the past. With a Mamod, you watch it like a hawk. With a Roundhouse, if you start off with full gas and water, the gas runs out first with just a little water left in the boiler. I find that if I do this with the Baldrig, there's only about a syringe-and-a-bit of water used - I can happily get away with two fillings of gas without the water running dry. Is this to be expected?

This is my first Accucraft as well, however, I got into live steaming because of seeing Accucraft 0-4-0's run at a nearby garden railway that I was invited to see once I had joined the association.

The old boy then use to get pressure up first then fill up the gas again to get a longer run.

I really enjoy following your work... and wonder if something like that could be my next steamloco-project, after the O&K loco ( two or three years from now... Time is a strange thing )

Very nice, I think that gas control mod is very nice and makes a huge difference to the cab area. Looking forwards to seeing it finished.

I have fitted TTD steam & gas valves, makes a big difference:

http://www.thetraindepartment.com/ttd-upgrade-valves/

The gas is very easy to adjust now and the regulator has much finer control.

Cheap upgrades, including shipping (from the US) was under £25.00

I've fitted a TD77 replacement steam valve to my Ragleth (yet to test it), with one to fit to my Edrig at some point.

A fellow 16mm NGM WoSG member was telling me recently that the TD75 Gas Valve is currently not available for the Edrig.

Chris Cairns

MDLR:106240 wrote:It's interesting that it looks totally different to mine...............


............... which looks a litte "Welsh Highland" hauling 16mm scale stock...........

Now that looks very nice too

tom_tom_go:106236 wrote:

I am using this guide for soft soldering:

http://www.steves-workshop.co.uk/tips/s ... gindex.htm

Thanks very much for the link.

Dome and boiler bands now painted:




I think the body will go nicely with the red boiler bands once lined with red.

Time for R/C:



As I have replaced the regulator for one of TTD versions it should not take much effort to move it so the micro servo should be sufficient.  Hopefully, I can get away with just using servo tape to attach the servo to the side of the frame.

I will drill a hole through the foot plate and modify the existing Accucraft regulator handle to take a linkage rod connector.  

Giving Ripmax a go this time servo wise as this was cheaper than the Hitec equivalent and even has metal gears.

Safety valve bonnet on order from DJB as well.

This is progressing well Tom.

Chris Cairns

Progressing with the body kit although I am still trying to perfect my soldering skills:








The mini blow torch I bought does not get the solder hot enough and cuts out so I have gone back to the larger Go-Gas torch although having to be careful not to get everything too hot.

Having a wet rag to hand to cool parts after soldering seems to help.

I think I am finally happy with all the R/C gear.

The charge socket is flat against the body so you cannot see it:



The regulator servo along with the receiver, battery pack and on/off/charge switch is all hidden below (took a while to figure out the positioning of components, however, nothing touches the loco body and it's been fine during testing with no loss of signal/overheating:

Thank you for your photoseries. I find it most interesting (and tempting)