Well, my work-imposed 6 months of purgatory are close to coming to an end with the complete replacement of the North Island Radio Processing systems within Train Control here in Wellington. Not that it all ends there of course; The Otahuhu signal box then gets migrated south, a separate booth to control Wellington Suburban gets set up, then time for a quick holiday to visit Nana and Grandad Druff before the Rugby World Cup. For me, RWC 2011 means being at work whenever there is a game at Wellington or Auckland in case I am needed to fix breakages effecting the lives of hundred of rugby mad commuters, so that's September and October shot....and on days when there is a game in each centre, it could mean a 3pm start then not getting home until after midnight...on a Saturday!
Still, I'll have a lab to curl up in and sleep, as well as all my tools....
Anyway, the real purpose of this post. A good friend has left the police to join us in Train Control and despite all of his superb traits (having me for a friend for a start), he is intent on modelling Gore (where he grew up) in 3/16ths. Discussions ensued and a SouthHead Models Ab kit is now in my hot little hands. I've been going through it (and even made a tentative start) and its made me think about the good and bad stuff that's foisted on kit builders these days and what we should try and emulate/avoid for Nz120.
First of all, the good: The boiler and tender are all one piece WM castings. Superb! Just make sure they are still round and you are good to go.
Apologies for the blurry boiler shot, but you get the drift.
I think the material of choice for a similar foray in nz120 would be resin, similar to what the 2mm association in England get up to. A one piece resin boiler with suitable cutouts for a decoder and motor would be a great start in building a steam locomotive (maybe with the funnel and domes on as well?) And to quieten the fundamentalists yelling "If its not brass I'm not interested!", I would contend the cab could indeed be folded up from etch.
A good illustration of this point is the Bob Jones "9F" in 2mm. A resin one piece boiler over an etched chassis and cab. Sure, the tender is etch, but a resin one piece would save you hours at the workbench.
And now for my pet hate with 3/16ths, and one I hope with careful thinking we can eliminate from Nz120 (once we get serious about it). Why O Why do people still base their lives on the standard NY RP25 wheel and pinpoint bearings? With the width of the tyre and the standard axle length (to lazy to go and measure one) followed by then mating it to a couple of pinpoint bearing, there is no way in hell that you are going to be able to achieve anything close to a scale width over solebars/bogie sides.....which is annoying, especially when the stretchers included in the kit (NY again) set the distance between the side frames anyway...wrongly, might I add!
Sure, you can get it all to fit by bending the crap out of the sideframes, but you shouldn't have to....If I could find a decent Ab size main driving tyre I'd be tempted to completely rewheel the beast (Might have to visit NWSL line and look for some suitable /88 tyres)....Anyway, while doing some boring testing yesterday on the new system, I did this....and man, are those castings crap or what...
Anyway, the Head Druff is keen to start this debate as he will need several steam loco's for his "Paekok" layout (and I've furnished him with the 1964 locomotive allocation list, so now he can start choosing which ones). So the idea is one piece resin boiler/tender, etch chassis and cab, and either resin or WM for detail?
Thoughts?
7 comments:
I would say that even in 3/16th, modelling compromises are made for the ease of parts supply, and in the case of NY bogies, standard assembly. I have built one of these kits and the finished product is quite acceptable. Again, for nz120, your ideas are all possible (probable), it's a case of who's willing to do the work mastering it.
There's no shame in using an etched boiler, so long as some thought is put into the design, such as using a former to solder the wrapper to, rather than just relying on hand-rolling. It is not easy to roll an even cylinder by hand, and unless one is a commercial model builder, there is little chance of getting enough practice to do it properly when it matters most. There are certain advantages to using etched parts over castings, such as no detail 'fade' caused by worn moulds.
You just have to look at all the superb On30, Gn15 and 1:20 scale resin and plastic components in circulation these days, the models they make and stunning work of notable modelers in those scales to show just how good resin is and how non mainstream brass is!
Drew, I think its probably more to do with the British vs American modelers thing. The Brits are quite (maybe) happy to attemopt etched kits, and there is a sizable industry built around them. Theres a few resin casters. Contrast that with the US scene where resin and plastic predominate with very little/no brass etched kits. The detail manufacturers are there, but it seems to be far too much of a stretch for a modeler to pick up a soldering iron and assemble a kit.
Plenty of fuel for the fire there.
A one-piece boiler casting can certainly save a lot of work and may make a kit seem less intimidating. Regarding the resin boiler on Bob Jones' 9F, on his next kit he used pewter instead because he struggled to put enough weight into the 9F.
Drew (not him - another one)
[Engineering design experience springs into action] Seems sensible to me to use a basic cast whitemetal core to which 'twould be relatively simple to affix etched brass sheets and brass castings which contain all the detail. The etched wrapper only needs to extend down as far as the running boards, and the underside of the boiler could be an extension of the chassis, thus creating a natural split line making it easy to access motor, decoder etc, always a challenge in these smaller scales.
"A good friend has left the police to join us in Train Control and despite all of his superb traits (having me for a friend for a start), he is intent on modelling Gore (where he grew up) in 3/16ths. "
Small world! Please say Hi from SteveF
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