Chris Brown (Emettman)'s workbench

[Mountain]

Does it pull ok being an 0/4/2?

[Emettman]

Does it pull ok being an 0/4/2?

Adequately for my little trains: everything above the drivers is metal.
Plus, I have an edge. I haven't yet, but if necessary I can coat ALL drivers with Bullfrog Snot: liquid traction tyres.
Hee hee, battery power!

[carnehan]

The more oddities and mash-ups you build the more I imagine your home to be a Mr Magoriums Emporium of the weird and wonderful. Your head must be filled with all manor of ideas.

Paul

[Emettman]

Since I appear to have had a burst of recommending my madness to others, I thought I'd put another item here,"walking the walk".

Over Christmas I spotted and acquired a box full of LGB "Gnomy" bits.
I have just converted (couplings and some paint to do) two tram coaches into two tram engines, and will be putting a few passenger and goods vans onto old Triang / Hornby short wheelbase goods chassis.
If you want to imagine a scale it might be about O.



The locos come out at 4" long, the carriages and goods vehicles at 3"

I also have some nice solid clip-together plastic track, including points, at 16.5mmm gauge.
This is fine since the two locos, now with Hornby 0-4-0 chassis, also have low voltage motors, batteries and radio control.

I envisage a genuine table-top railway, assembled for each session as required, probably with several possible trackplans.
I think I'm going to be using a fiddleyard from a previous project.

Oh... and the crew and passengers will be:-



Pokemon.

Chris

[Bufferstop]

I first saw a Gnomy tramcar complete with springy plastic trolley pole at a Manchester Tramway exhibition, without realising what they were, Once I'd read about Gnomy on line I thought I'd look out for them at next exhibition (they're bi annual) found the same stand, talked to dealer, "wish I could still get 'em, they've stopped making them". How inconsiderate.

[Mountain]

Many Gnomy trams ended up being converted to 7mm narrow gauge. I've never found one myself as only about two years ago I heard of their conversions via a tram book and internet.
Welcome into the realms of 0-16.5 modelling.

[Emettman]

My newest conversion, Nellie as an 0-4-2, demonstrating my delayed action tension lock conversion.
(did 20 cycles with no error)

Large magnet, flush with sleepers. can be paint camouflaged.



Magnetic wire lifts hook.



Hook passes under clear plastic plate to couple normally



Tension lock draws back over magnet without uncoupling.
Clear plate somewhat assists this.



Slight push forward, uncouples as usual.



Returning to wagon, raised hook drops on top of plastic plate: cannot couple.



Wagon can be pushed as far as wished, and left. Hook drops, and will engage at next contact.



Single ended: no good with turntables or return loops.
Quick conversion, plate end uses hook cut down in situ.

Chris

[carnehan]

That is very clever. I'm logging that away for future reference.

Paul

[Emettman]

Two new things coming today, with a modicum of luck.

First: I have a new window display.
Changing the window is more of a job than it used to be, so this will have to last for a while, with some changes of stock.

With nice thick stone walls I have roughly 4ft x 2ft to play with.



This variation has two tight circuits and an easy one.

On the right is a new circle of Fleischmann 6020 10" radius curves.
On the left is something even tighter (for a shallow window ledge, originally) The *broader* curves are 10"

Inside the OO track on the right is an N gauge circle.

The two OO lines keep circling, but the N gauge line, here with with a Bandai "shorty" train, is worked by a push-button from outside the window.
Yes, I am "known" in the village.

The tighter oval.



The bigger circle.


Tomy make lovely inset N gauge track for trams or dockyards.
This is 6" radius: they do a 4.5"... an oval on a 102 wide board (with the correctly selected or adjusted stock!)

Chris.

[Emettman]

And the second picture posting today

O-16.5 ish:

The two Gnomy steam tram locos are finished and running, with just enough stock converted.
(a van and a brake van to come)





In addition, a peculiar little vertical boiler loco which is track powered, allowing the Gnomy to take it's turn on window display duty.





Then there is the "mixed special" still awaiting the mounting of its power unit.


In foreground the battery case and IR receiver: very compact.

I hat two ideas for crew and passengers for this line, but for the moment I'm going with Pokemon.





(the other would be normal 7mm cale figures but in a fairground or holiday resort setting.

Chris.
poining of it

[Emettman]

A neat and easy sector-plate fiddle yard.

Well, that was the plan
My next one will be, but having got this one working as intended, I won't need another for a while.


My mistakes? Not realising that a short sector plate is actually more tricky than a long one,
and getting the assembly sequence wrong (things could have just fallen into place, as intended.)

Why short? This is intended for a "bring out of a briefcase" railway. 16.5mm gauge, in OO, O, or G.
(Hence the wider track spacing than would be necessary for OO alone.)





Three tracks, with a 2-track loco traverser.
Since the traverser only needs 2 positions, registering is easy.



I needed more curve than I realised.



Underneath: one socket, four teeth (later reduced to three)
The teeth don't have to be identical, nor spaced with precision. This is the big trick.

(anyone know the story of "the perfect archer"?)

Chris.

[Emettman]

"I'm reviewing, the situation..."

First, a minor bit of fun.
An old Triang loco, revived with a new magnet
Perfectly happy on 10" curves without any modification.


Now my tight-curve terminus is nearing completion, I'm evaluating it.
It's been a worthwhile building and learning exercise in itself, so no regrets.

Two issues:
I designed it as an exhibition layout, which is what I wanted, but it means the best viewing side and the operating side are direct opposites. And I'm not going to be exhibiting for years, if ever.
My attempts at getting a double-ended version of my delayed action couplings that will work with 10" curves have not succeeded.
I should therefore have had in this instance a sector plate fiddle yard, not a turntable, but the turntable has taken up more room in a small area: wasteful.
A new version would be longer and thinner, with the fiddle yard at one end. 4' 6" by 1' 4" possibly, for the same area, or 6ft by 1ft in two 3ft sections.


The battery locos.
I have about 24 in various states from components, to part built, under test, under rebuild, awaiting rebuild.
And 12 locos performing to about the best I can tweak out of this low skill cheap technology approach.
Only five of those are steam outline, as noises acceptable from diesels may not be so acceptable if the model is supposed to be powered by steam.
But I'm discovering motor and gear options which more nearly deliver what I want, and I have a couple more decently quiet steam outlines nearing completion.
Enough that I can slowly develop the others as and when I feel like it.


Serviceable, just needing final paint touch-up is this Class 5.3 (?)



Nellie as an 0-4-2 has been running before, but is now quieter and 25% faster than its last outing.
On-board recharging ofrectangular batteries has allowed more room than using 2 AAA's (which are otherwise somewhat more convenient)



I am having fun with shortened and lowered Triang saddle tanks, here with a Bachmann junior 0-6-0 chassis.
Enough "see through" now at running board level that I've had to fit a "bottom of the boiler" piece.
The cab is loose, pending the installation of the R/C chip.
This loco does take two AAA batteries in the saddle tank while still leaving room for everything else.



The plan is now (probably) to develop the "take out and play" idea for the battery locos,
using plastic slip-together track, with some low relief buildings in OO and in O (for the Gnomy tram engines and stock.)

Chris.

[Mountain]

Very impressive indeed.

[Beynac]

[Emettman]

Latest little ugly diesel battery power conversion
A cut-down Lima shunter body on a Lima power bogie.



3rd set of internal guts, performance markedly improved.

On a different front, my portable "put away" railway for the battery locos is almost at track completion as I have finished the station throat.

Four points and a diamond.



The diamond is there because it is more convenient to take the goods sidings (lower right) off the platform road, since the loco release / loco shed crossover can then be operated with spring points.

Left hand route at top is for the bay road, left hand at bottom is the line to fiddle yard.

Two of the point are, just, remotely operated: the right goods siding point with a straight push-pull,
the left goods siding point with a plastic rod in tube incorporating a 90 degree bend.
The rods will get some sort of knob at some point.



Chris.