Bilco's Bodgements #4

[Bilco]

Back at the beginning of the year I saw a little blue 00 gauge 0-4-0 loco on eBay, for a BIN of only £10, I felt rather sorry for it, and thought I might be able to make something from it, so I splurged out some hard-earned pension ...

This is what came ...





It was said to be a runner - yeah, right ...



Reduced to its major components - I applied power to the motor, but nothing happened, and the wheels take a bit of force to get them to rotate ...



I can't make out why the power lead from the pickups is attached to a piece of tubing, then to the chassis, and then to the lead to the motor ...



... and the pickups seem to have been moved from the central hole to the off-set, so that neither makes a very positive contact with the wheels ...

Ah, those wheels. I thought that I'd try to make it into an outside-framed loco, for a laugh, and I found 4 Romford wheels of a suitable size in the bits box - I think they've been there since the late 1980s. I then spent slightly more than the loco cost on some Roxey Mouldings extended axles and Markits Delux outside cranks - I must find out how they're all supposed to go together ...



Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

WARNING! Contains pictures of extreme violence!

Further to my comments on the pickups - this is how they contact the wheels ...



... I suppose that, in their current form, if they were in the hole central between the wheels they would wouldn't contact wheels too well, but I still don't think they are in their original form ...

The strange arrangement for the wiring ...



... the cylndrical thing is (dirty) light grey, with two black markings ...



... and the cylinder is hollow - so is it a capacitor?

Meanwhile ...



... the body after an overnight bath in neat Dettol, and first removal of the bits that don't look like the mental picture I have of what I'm trying to make (I think) ...



... and the chassis, after brute-force removal of the wheels and gear wheel, and after removal of the big lump at the rear and other excrescences. A slop of thick black paint hides the scars of my clumsy hacksaw work ...

Hours of fun ...

[Albert]

I wonder if it will ever run again...... 10 pounds in the bin???

I wish you strength and courage and wisdom.....

Albert

[Steve Holland]

The cylindrical thingy is for spark suppression. Having bodged a few Nellie chassis over the years removing the suppressor makes no difference to the running - if you get the motor working. Maybe the magnet has weakened with age? I have seen adverts in the modelling press for a place called Peter's Spares, maybe they may have the bits to sort out the lack of "go"?
One of the bodges I inflicted on a Nellie chassis was a 7mm scale model of the FR's Blanche. I converted it to outside frames by chopping up a second set of wheels to make the fly cranks. No Romford conversion bits around (censored!!) years ago. I needed to use some bearing bushes to fit 1/8th inch silver steel axles as the original axles were 9/64th inch. A 5 pole X04 replacement motor and new gears were also fitted. The thing did run after a fashion, but with a plasticard body it was way too light for reliable pick up. I think its sorry remains are still lurking in a box at the back of the garage somewhere, probably buried beneath my overalls that I wear for firing the real Blanche and her sister Linda.

[Bilco]

Funny you should mention bearings, Steve ...

The first stage of construction after the scenes of destruction - I've fitted Romford 1/8" bearings to the frames ...



... and the gear wheel ...



I'm working on a plan for the outside frames, but I want to get the basic mechanism working first ...

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

And the next step - fitting the wheels ...



... and the gear wheel



The Romford wheels and Roxey axles make fixing the wheels securely easy - and quartering isn't a problem at this stage. The gear wheel has to slide onto the axle, although not loosely, but after the wheels secure the axle in place the centre section was roughed up and Superglue applied, and the gear slid swiftly into place ...



I sourced 8 nuts from my box of assorted nuts and bolts that fit on the extended axles, and put two on each side. The inner nut is a spacer, while the outer is to act as a lock-nut for the outside cranks (in due course). Is the space between the wheel and crank going to be too big? The outside frames are going to be less than 1mm thick, but I don't want them to rub on wheel or crank. We shall see ...

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

Now to fit the Delux Cranks from Markits. First I modified them; I want to use Hornby connecting and coupling rods, and Hornby crankpins. The crankpins supplied are about 1mm diameter - the hole in the rods is about 2.5mm. So, I drilled the crankpin holes out to 1.8mm to take the Hornby pins ...



I used a jig to hold the cranks on my bodged-up vertical drill stand. It may not be extremely accurate, but all the cranks are inaccurate by the same amount ...

Fitting the cranks is easy to start with. First the cranks are attached to one side - no need to worry about quartering at this stage ...



There isn't room for an outside nut to fix the cranks - the excess length of the threaded axle has to be cut off, as it fouls the rods. Hence the lock-nut on the inside ...

Then fit one crank to the other side - again, accurate quartering isn't necessary - just approximate is fine ...



The coupling rod fitted to the two crank side - the wheels turn freely (once I cut off the excess axle) ...



The tricky bit is to come - getting the last crank fitted so that there is no binding. A job for tomorrow ...

Hours of fun ...

[Broadoak]

It all looks good so far Bill.
It will be interesting when you get to fitting a suitable motor.
Good luck with that.

Regards Peter M

[Bilco]

I have a spare open-frame motor, so that's my first try ...

Right, the last crank is fitted and adjusted for quartering ...



... and the chassis moves easily - no binding, no hesitation, just a smooth-rolling chassis. I've put superglue on the ends of the extended axles and behind the cranks, so I hope they won't come loose ...



Time will tell if I need to trim back the ends of the Hornby crankpins ...

Next up - the outside frames ...

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

I've spent the last few days whittling a set of outside frames ...





They're made from 0.5mm nickel silver strip, 12mm wide. I thought that styrene would not be strong enough - but it would certainly have been easier to cut out the openings - and make them neater ...

The frames fit against the front of the chassis, but there is a slight overlap at the rear, so a block of metal has been hewn to fit ...

Still to come - the cylinders ...

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

After a bit of fancy file work I managed to marry up the frames, chassis, and footplate ...



The over-wide slots for the axles are a tribute to my inability to measure/mark/cut/file accurately ...

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

On with the show - cylinders (with slidebars) made and fitted ...





The white blocks locate the chassis accurately (well, as accurately as I do anything) ...







The slidebars are overlong - I'll trim them to length when I see how far back the still-to-be-made crossheads come ...

Hours of fun

[Bilco]

I started last week by making cross-heads and piston rods - paper-clip wire and a bent bit of brass ...



... then slid them onto the slidebars to check clearance of the fixing pin with the crankpin on the front wheel. Disaster - there was over 3mm overlap ...

So, Plan B. I have in my 1980s stash some simple, thin outside cranks ...



... much slimmer than the Delux Markits cranks. The Delux crank plus crankpin is 6.5mm wide, the slim crank and pin 2.5mm. So, the cranks on the front axle were wrenched off and the slim ones fitted, some slimmer crankpins attached and the clearances checked again ...



In the end I thinned down the pins on cranks and crossheads as much as possible, and tweaked the slidebars, and we appear to have sufficient clearance now ...

So, the current state of play ...







The rear crankpins are not fixed in place permanently just yet, to allow for final adjustments, but the time when I shall have to make a start on the body is fast approaching ...

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

At the end of my last posting I said "The rear crankpins are not fixed in place permanently just yet, to allow for final adjustments" ...

Little did I know. There was an annoying little catch in the rotation of the wheels at one point, so I enlarged the hole in one end of one of the coupling rods a little and tried again...

There was an annoying little catch ... after two days of fiddling with the holes in the coupling rods, the holes were so big that the rods didn't couple too well, so I wrenched them off and fitted an old spare set ...

There was an annoying little catch ... another two days of fiddling with the holes in the coupling rods ensued ...

I was beginning to get a touch frustrated when, while the rods were off I noticed ... that the holes I'd enlarged in the delux cranks were a little off-centre. Could that affect the operation of the motion? Damn right ...

So I wrenched the delux cranks off and replaced them with two more of the thin cranks (as fitted to the front wheels to increase the clearance). Then I redid the quartering, fitted a new set of coupling rods ...

And there wasn't a little catch in the rotation of the wheels ...

Before anything could go wrong I refixed the gear wheel on the rear axle - it had come loose in the throes of all those futile adjustments - fitted the motor - after cleaning the commutator and bushes - and fitted the pickups - after 5 minutes with a pair of needle-nose pliers and a bit of shouting to get them to contact the wheels in the right places ...

... applied power ...

...and it runs beautifully ...



The chassis finally ready to go ...



... and the adjusted pickups - not as neat as Les's but they do the job. There is clearance between the gear and the pickups - honest ...

Right - now I can get on with the body ...

Hours of fun???

[Bilco]

Right - back to the butchery of the body ...

I've re-profiled the sides of the smokebox ...



Added a rear bulkhead ...



Cut away the insides of the side tanks, leaving the outer faces waving in the breeze ...



And filled in the sides of the boiler now exposed ...



I had hoped to have a bit more of the curve of the boiler, but the width of the X-04 motor means that I can't do that, certainly not at the smokebox end. I hope it won't be too obvious behind the tanks, and I'll have to resort to Auldreekie-style distractions at the front ...

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

Slow progress, due to away weekends and other commitments ...

However ...



... the little blue loco's body (now the little red loco's body) has had the final bits cut off and is now glued to the footplate. The tops of the chimney and the dome have been removed, and little cut-outs established in the tank sides ...



What were the outsides of the tanks will now become the insides, despite some decidedly dodgy hacking with the razor saw. Bits of half-round styrene strip have been strategically placed behind the smoke box and on top of the truncated dome.

New tank outsides have been cut from 1mm styrene. Now we start building up rather than cutting off ...

Hours of fun ...

[Steve Holland]

Bill,

Its looking good. Your progress puts my absolutely minuscule additions to a few projects to shame!
Are you sure that you have not been inspired by the Kerr Stuart Diana? The cut-outs in the bottom of the new tank sides have a bit more than a passing resemblance.

[Bilco]

Might be ...

[Bilco]

More building up progress ...



The tanks have been constructed, and suddenly the whole thing seems bigger ...



A firebox has also been bodged together ...



... from the front ...



... and from the rear ...

The inadequacies of the boiler are much less apparent now and, no doubt, a good coat of black paint will hide them further ...

Next up - detail on the firebox and other cab details ...

Hours of fun ...

[Bilco]

Now at the 'fiddling about with little bits of styrene' stage ...



The firebox and cab backsheet are just propped in place ...



... and from the other side ...



... the front ...



... and the back. The safety valves are an old whitemetal casting from my 1990s stash, with a built-up base from styrene and Green Stuff. Are those rivets on the firebox a bit over-size, or is it me? That's what comes of mixing scales ...

Hours of fun ...