Saturday, September 11, 2010

Ew time

Well, about time I got back to this. I have been looking at this sorry pile of bits for a while now, but trying to sort out just how I was going to put it all together was a bit of a struggle.

When I last thought about this, the plan was to use the 2 end frames as the gear towers, and attach them to some sort of frame. Just what sort was evading my brain cell as it wandered round its vast prison.

A couple of nights ago while burning my fingers (well, making track, but they tend to go hand in hand) I suddenly thought that I could build a frame out of plasticard. So, a few measurements and out with the knife.
I cut the plastic to size, then made a cutout for the bogie to fit through, with the plan of attaching the gear tower to the plastic somehow.


I had to trim down the bogie sideframes to get everything to fit, and then cut out a bit more to clear the pickups . Still, it wasn't doing it for me.

Then , I remembered that back in the dark ages when I had been looking at drive systems all the drawings had been with an overhead frame. Duhhhh said my brain cell.
This seemed like a far easier set up. First up I checked to see if I could solder onto the split frame. With Phosphoric acid as the flux the answer is yes, but man does the frame metal get hot fast, and stay hot for a while. A quick search of the bits box revealed that I didn't have any brass bar, so I soldered 2 bits of 1.5mm square brass together and then cut them to length. I then set them up in a couple of clamps in the correct orientation, and then applied heat. To my pleasant surprise it all worked. Putting everything back together I got something looking like this.


How will it all hold together? Well, I'll just ask Mr Woods nicely for some bits of thick PCB board (A long 15mm wide strip will do nicely please; the check is in the mail), and use this as the spacers between the 2 brass bars. All the pivots will be on this, and the motor will sit on the center bogie, as I had originally planned. This project now looks more promising, and will definitely go back onto the front burner (or into the pile of projects that can be looked at).

12 comments:

steve w. said...

how do you cut the plasticard / styrene ? what sort of knife are you using ? I see you have edges which are in an angle. when I cut that stuff with a x-acto #11 knife and a metal ruler I always get edges which are not in an angle they always end up crooked. any help from the die hard plasticard users would be very appreciated... (or do I have to buy a TrueSander ?)

cheers...
steve w.

'bente' coste

steve w. said...

and btw, good to see you're back into building models... :-)

steve w.

espresso corretto 'grapha'

Lawrence said...

Steve:

You could look up my styrene articles in NZMRJ way back in the 90's.

Lawrence said...

If I were trying to graft all this together I'd be drilling and tapping (M1 or M1.4).
Its generally safer, more esaily adjustable, you can easily disassemble and you aren't poking phoshoric acid into things that would rather not be exposed to such stuff.

steve w. said...

Hi Lawrence, yes I could if I would know in which one - back in the 90's, do you or anyone else know which number... ?

cheers...
steve w.

swiss'chies'

Lawrence said...

Steve: styrene articles were Feb/Apr 96 I think.

Motorised Dandruff said...

Lawrence, you know what my collection of tools are like.

Anonymous said...

What model is the Mashima motor?

Steve - try many light cuts rather than few deep cuts. I find this gives better control of the knife and hence straighter lines.

Motorised Dandruff said...

its a 1224 cam motor. seems to have resonable performance specs.

If only I could get any details about the Atlas slow speed motors.
just as cheap and with pre fitted flywheels. I don't know why S scale modelers wouldn't use them in smaller locos.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info MD.

Re the Atlas motors:
Try here on EBay....
http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m570.l1313&_nkw=atlas+n+scale+slow+speed+motor&_sacat=See-All-Categories

Anonymous said...

Again re the Mashima...I would like to source the 1220 can motor - any suggestions for a local source?

Also "That Train Place" on EBay (http://stores.ebay.com/That-Train-Place/N-Scale-Trains-/_i.html?_fsub=10989108&_sid=353828397&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322) has 734 Atlas/Kato etc items in its N scale inventory.
It would be great if someone with the time, and knowledge of what parts could be used for NZ120 loco construction could go through and identify these items for those of us with lesser knowledge!

Motorised Dandruff said...

Knowledge; check.
Time to look at 734 items? You must be joking, Guv!

For a 'local' source for mashima motors, (with North Yard currently being in limbo) the next best bet might be Hollywood foundry.
http://www.hollywoodfoundry.com/mashima.htm.

This does have all the performance stats. A curse on the house of Atlas...