I've so far only constructed a test piece to validate techniques. The two main challenges were:
1. Finding a way to make a mould for some two-piece cosmetic chairs in resin, such that they would cast up faithfully without too much difficulty and would not be too tall for the application.
2. Soldering rail to PCB in such a way as to get a strong joint but leaving the sides of the rail completely free of solder, since I wanted a nice clean sleeper top and rail side to allow the chairs to be glued in place neatly and without fuss.
I think I've got somewhere. I'll expand on techniques later, as food beckons just now. Here are some pictures to contemplate in the meantime...
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Although I have some leftover C&L chairs, scrounged from a good friend, I decided not to blatantly rip-off the makers by copying those in resin, even in modified "split" form. They are that bit chunkier than the SMP representations of chairs. As well as possibly aggravating the height problem, that chunkiness makes it necessary to give them a good trim around what might be described as the "heel" of each half chair, otherwise they won't nestle in to the angle between a PCM sleeper and a directly soldered-on rail. also, the protruding key on the C&L chairs, while a nice touch, is tricky to cast nicely in a copy and doesn't assist with matching the appearance to Scaleway flexible track. IF the only way forward were to use the C&L chairs as patterns, I'd probably have trimmed the keys off anyway.
An attempt at copying the SMP chairs seemed a nice idea, but it was obvious to me that I wouldn't be able to cut chairs from sleepers, leaving just the thinnest possible base, in order to use them as masters. It looked a potentially tricky business too to take impressions of the chairs while still on the sleepers. The jaws of the complete chair are close together, leaving little space for moulding rubber between the jaws, a recipe for weakness in the mould encourage early disintegration, or retention of air bubbles with consequent failure of the rubber to form a proper mould in the first place. Worse still, below that narrow are between the jaws is a square hole in the sleeper with significant undercuts.
I wasted some time initially putting little chips of plastic into some of those holes in the sleepers, with only a half-developed plan for separating the chairs into inner and outer halves before making a mould. I then realised that the task was easier than I had imagined, there being no need to fill those holes. All that was required was to cut through the sleeper with a sharp blade, tight against the "heel" of each half chair. This eliminates the longitudinal webs linking the sleepers and leaves three major parts of each sleeper. These three parts can then be arranged with a broad 40 thou thick strip of plasticard in place of the original web, giving a nice wide gap between the chair jaws and no hole for rubber to enter. as you can see in the pictures above, I made a little test mould using just eight sleepers stuck closely together on the base of a moulding box. The (pink) rubber captured the details of the chairs nicely, although it did invade the narrow gaps between the sleeper sections. That was no problem as the unwanted narrow strips of rubber were easily trimmed from the intended flat face of the mould with sharp straight clippers.
The Soldering
The only method I was ever taught/shown for soldering up the joints on copperclad track involved applying the flux, then the iron and the solder, to the clean rail and sleeper, with those parts held in contact. This always results in some sort of blob of solder being left in the angle between the sleeper and the foot of the rail. It is frequently suggested that his blob looks a bit like a chair - a big stretch of the imagination. I found that I could get a blob-free result without too much trouble, subject to a little preparation. I tinned the foot only of the rail before use, and tinned each patch of copper cladding where the rail would sit. With the rail and sleeper pressed together, the faintest additional smear of flux paste on the sleeper (not the rail), and the close application of a hot iron (with no deliberate use of any extra solder) it was possible to sweat the joint together, stopping as soon as a small meniscus of solder formed in the angle. No solder creep up the rail sides occurred. either I was lucky, or the technique was just the job!
After washing off the greasy flux residue with white spirit the trimmed resin chairs were easy enough to stick in place with runny superglue.
The height of the chairs was still a little more than I had hoped it would be, so I trimmed the outside parts down to expose the sides of the head of the rail. The inner parts of each chair were also trimmed down to provide wheel flange clearance. If and when I make a mould for a "serious" number of chairs I can ensure that the master parts are trimmed to give the desired height of cast resin chair automatically.
Currently, I'm happy that this technique represents a good compromise between ease of construction and satisfactory final strength and appearance.
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RM web has a lot of "ups and downs" but it worth visiting just for this thread alone, some superb ECML and other models to be seen on Tony Wrights thread.
I will admit Track has little interest to me personally. I use Peco points with SMP Code 75 by the time its covered in ballast and paint it doesn't look too bad.
Evening all, Peco do a very accurate track system in code 83 FB rail....for the USA market. Based on US track design and construction, the xings are to NMRA RP 25 Standard, and allow British outline stock to run through them very smoothly, NO wheel drop at all, if the sleeper spacing does not bother the eye, this range should be on any shortlist for consideration. Best make of wheel I have found? the Dapol ones, as found in their wagon kits. Now available in packs of 12 axles as spare parts, because of the shallow angle of the pinpoint end Bachmann wagons are a lot freer in their running, quite unnerving at first, till you get use to it. I have not tried them on Hornby or any other manufactures except the afore mentioned Bachmann. Just don't leave a converted wagon on a gradient and turn your back on it as it will runaway very quickly!!!
Are you serious? The sleeper spacing and other aspects of "proportion" are the whole point of what I'm talking about here and trying to improve! The American look of Peco code 83 is even more grossly unsuitable for British modelling.
If you've found consistently good Dapol wheels you must be almost the only person on the planet to have done so. I've come across a number of Dapol wagons with absolutely DIRE factory fitted wheels, and even the best examples have been nothing special.
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Most of my wagonry is based on Dapol kits. Their early wheels with the plastic tube are pretty diabolical. I have just one still with those, a wagon which is posed with the door down and some unfortunate malcontent shovelling the load out! Of the remainder, those,which came with one piece metal axles have proven themselves worthy of keeping although you do need to check the back to backs. These do tend to be a little variable, although I have also had the same problem with Hornby and Bachy wheel sets.
If you are unfortunate to have the early axles wi plastic muffs then get rid of them for God's sake! Hornby axles are as good as any and cheaper than the Bachy equivalent. Both need a splash of Matt black paint in the outer face of the wheel,if you are fastidious.
If I ain't here, I'm in Bilston, scoffing decent chips at last!!!!
It's not just the sets with the plastic muffs BB, famous for also never have the stub axle quite in the middle of the wheel, which would be okay if we wanted all wagons to look like cripples hobbling along. Even the steel axled later type include some ghastly examples. We all know what a flange should look like in section, more or less. I've seen several from Dapol with the ragged tip of the flange hooked outwards towards the rail. Some wagons, thus afflicted, won't even run along straight track without climbing the rail on one side and finishing up in the ballast. One poor modeller once complained about his wheels, sent them back to Dapol for exchange, and got a set equally bad as replacements! My absence from RMweb for several years was brought about by my wholly justified comment on these wheels, which incurred the displeasure of the Stasi.
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I can confirm the above. I built a Dapol brake van as a Toad D (you can find it back in my WB thread) for use on [Thurston. At the first show it ran, it flung itself off the track at what seemed random locations and for no apparent reason. Forewarned by m'learned colleague, I replaced the supplied Dapol wheels with a pair of Hornby equivalents I had brought along and there has been no more trouble.
The flanges on the sets I had seemed OK< but the coning looked quite exaggerated compared to the Hornby ones.
In fairness, Dapol's N gauge wheelsets don't seem to suffer from these problems so maybe somebody has paid attention to something - now I'm not going to comment on other problems I've had with Dapol products!
Mr King, while your track experiments will not apply to me unless I swap scale (and gain an awful lot of space to fit it all in!), I must say that I'm fascinated by your efforts and look forward to seeing how this progresses.
I must have been lucky with mine, which is a 1st! I do remember buying a kit with plastic muff type wheels where 3/4 of the wheel had no flange at all. Swapped for Hornby ones, not worth bothering about.
I can confirm Atso's comments renDapol's N gauge kit. I had no worries with either wagons or coaches and their locos were good,little runners!
If I ain't here, I'm in Bilston, scoffing decent chips at last!!!!
Are you serious? The sleeper spacing and other aspects of "proportion" are the whole point of what I'm talking about here and trying to improve! The American look of Peco code 83 is even more grossly unsuitable for British modelling.
If you've found consistently good Dapol wheels you must be almost the only person on the planet to have done so. I've come across a number of Dapol wagons with absolutely DIRE factory fitted wheels, and even the best examples have been nothing special.
Evening all,
Yes, the point I am trying to make is that if a modeller is not bothered about the sleeper spacing of Peco code 83 track then it offers a good range of track, plain line and S&C. Whereas all the other points in code 75 and code 100 have at least one curved rail through the xing (frog),the code 83 xings have only straight rails in the crossing, as per prototype here and in the USA. The Dapol wheels I was referring to are the metal ones and not the plastic ones. The Bachmann wagon I fitted these wheels to came from a 16ton mineral wagon kit. They were checked for true running before fitting to the wagon, which then displayed the much improved running characteristics as described before. Perhaps the dire factory wheels you encountered were a result of poor fitting, quality control or manufacture. The aspects of "Proportion"I fully understand and it is a pity PECO have not brought a more British product to the modelling world. This maybe because their chief designer models USA in HO. Only in the fullness of time will this situation maybe change for the better, product wise.
Are you serious? The sleeper spacing and other aspects of "proportion" are the whole point of what I'm talking about here and trying to improve! The American look of Peco code 83 is even more grossly unsuitable for British modelling.
If you've found consistently good Dapol wheels you must be almost the only person on the planet to have done so. I've come across a number of Dapol wagons with absolutely DIRE factory fitted wheels, and even the best examples have been nothing special.
Evening all,
Yes, the point I am trying to make is that if a modeller is not bothered about the sleeper spacing of Peco code 83 track then it offers a good range of track, plain line and S&C. Whereas all the other points in code 75 and code 100 have at least one curved rail through the xing (frog),the code 83 xings have only straight rails in the crossing, as per prototype here and in the USA. The Dapol wheels I was referring to are the metal ones and not the plastic ones. The Bachmann wagon I fitted these wheels to came from a 16ton mineral wagon kit. They were checked for true running before fitting to the wagon, which then displayed the much improved running characteristics as described before. Perhaps the dire factory wheels you encountered were a result of poor fitting, quality control or manufacture. The aspects of "Proportion"I fully understand and it is a pity PECO have not brought a more British product to the modelling world. This maybe because their chief designer models USA in HO. Only in the fullness of time will this situation maybe change for the better, product wise.
No actual new modelling achievements to show or discuss at present I'm afraid, so for now I'll simply wish a Happy Christmas to all. See you on the other side of it.
Most subjects, models and techniques covered in this thread are now listed in various categories on page1
Dec. 2018: Almost all images that disappeared from my own thread following loss of free remote hosting are now restored.
Atlantic 3279 wrote:No actual new modelling achievements to show or discuss at present I'm afraid, so for now I'll simply wish a Happy Christmas to all. See you on the other side of it.
Yer mean no actual modelling will be done over the festive season? Tut, tut - where's your dedication man!
