Oh Gear!

We're hopeful that there may have been a breakthrough which will enable us to complete our final NGG16 kit - not that there's actually a locomotive to model until the FR ever gets around to putting a collection of standard parts called 140 into service....

The issue is that we discovered one of the two Garratt kits we bought last year - the final two ever produced - were missing a vital set of gears for each bogie.

They are plastic gears with the outer ring having 20 teeth and the inner one with 10, and so far we've been unable to find anywhere that we can buy replacements.

However, the other day Himself was looking through his chassis bits box and discovered something that looked familiar.

It turns out they are gears from an old Ibertren 'Cuckoo' chassis, and it would appear that the only difference between them is in the centre which requires reaming out to accept the axles on the Garratt chassis.

He's going to make up a gearbox and see if his hunch is correct.

Whoever would have thought that the rough old Ibertren, the staple chassis of white metal 009 kits for so many years, would have anything in common with the ultimate expression of 4mm narrow gauge modelling, the Backwoods kits?

Weight Watching

With the prototype chassis complete and working well, Himself has been beefing up the Bagnall, Gelert, to give it a little more tractive effort.

One of the challenges with 3D printed bodies is their extreme lightness, especially in a scale which has previously got used to heavyweight white metal locomotive bodies.

So he has stuffed lead into every available orifice.

The only visible bits are these pieces you can see in the bunker, which has yet to be filled with coal.

Lead has also been fitted inside the side tanks and also stuffed into the smokebox and the front section of the boiler, which all helps with the weight distribution on a model which runs the risk of being tail-heavy.

The chassis we've test build for the developer has an very clever roller system above the bogie truck which provides excellent support and a smooth swing.

If you look carefully you'll also notice that the nuts to secure the motion have been fitted now, and Himself has also created a firebox piece to fit inside the cab.

The fixed rear coupling will need to be replaced with one that swings before it can haul anything around our tight curves going boiler-first, but visitors to the Troon show this weekend might catch a glimpse of it having a - rather improbable - test run around the Dduallt spiral.

Gelert Goes To Dduallt

Gelert has moved under its own power.

Himself sent me a short video of it undergoing a test run on Dduallt.



As is self-evident from the film it now has the motor wired to the pick-ups and the motion fitted, although on the rear axle the rods are just held in place with a bit of plastic sheath for now because we don't have any 16BA nuts yet.

The motion looks very skinny under a relatively large locomotive, and Himself tells me that assembling the slidebars, crosshead and connecting rod made making up Garratt motion seem like working on 7mm scale!

It's encouraging to see that it will haul a pair of plastic carriages up the slope quite happily which makes me believe that it will be up to the job I have in mind for it on Bron Hebog, where the gradient is less severe.

(I know, I know....)

In any case I'll be encouraging Himself to try to stuff as much ballast into the lightweight 3D plastic body as he can.

Those big side tanks are a prime candidate, as is the hollow smokebox.

Chassis Fit

The mystery chassis for Gelert has been test fitted into the Robex body.

At this stage it doesn’t have the fly cranks - which have to be fabricated as a four slice sandwich of brass etches! - nor has the motor been wired up yet, so it hadn’t gone for a test run.

Himself is relieved, though, that he many to remove the false frames from the body without managing to break anything off, which is a step in the right direction after putting his finger clean through the body of the last 3D printed loco he built.

Beginning Gelert

Output at Himself's end of the operation has slowed on account of a spell of dry sunny weather which has necessitated his presence in the garden - well that's his story anyway.

While I was away, however, he did make a start on the prototype Gelert chassis.

This, he reports, has been quite fiddly so far - he describes it as being in the watchmaking class.

(And this from a bloke who is onto his fifth Backwoods Garratt currently.)

The motor bogie - with its tiny can motor and rubber band drive - has been made up and can be see in the background.

Towards the front is the main frame and the rear pony truck.

Progress is on hold while he awaits delivery of a 16BA tap to make up the cranks.

I suppose the lack of any visible valve gear on this loco will cheer him up...

Secret Squirrel

This is all very cloak and dagger, but Himself has taken on a secret mission.

If you watched the recent TV documentary on Hornby you may remember they featured a modeller who volunteered to test-build their latest Airfix kits.

Himself is doing something very similar, the only difference is that we’ll get to keep this one afterwards.

It’s a prototype for an outside frame chassis kit for the Baganall 0-4-2 tank, such as Gelert on the WHHR.

Even the packaging was very mysterious and must have puzzled the postie.

I’m limited in how much more I can tell you but hopefully I can post a few updates as the project progresses.

It Runs!

So here's what you've been waiting to see!

The first power bogie of 143 is finished and is being tested.

Doesn't it run beautifully?



I could watch that all day!

Gottle Of Gear

Lots of people find the idea of building a brass locomotive kit intimidating: I know I certainly do.

One of the things that would most certainly give me nightmares is Walschaerts valve gear, so I find this picture Himself sent me of one complete set ready to be installed on an NGG16 power unit quite astonishing.

I am not mechanically minded at all.

In fact I don't mind admitting that I struggle to following what all the bits pieces are doing when they're cranking around and jiggling back and forth.

All I know is that I'm in awe of both the people who design the etches and those, like Himself, who can put it together.

I can't imagine it will be very long before this is fitted on the power unit and ready to be tested.

Watch this space......

Welsh Pony Chassis Breakthrough?

Himself has had some titanic battles with kits over the years.

Some have had him turning the air blue, others driving him to the point of hurling recalcitrant mechanisms across the workshop.

But the Mercian Models England kit must rank as the most difficult yet on account of the sheer unbuildability of the chassis.

As previous discussed on this blog the motor and the gearbox will not fit together as designed - the laws of physics will not allow it - and so he has had to resort of creating his own solution to get our Welsh Pony on the move.

After two days hard slog he has bodged up a gearbox and a longitudinal motor mount (as opposed to the damned silly transverse arrangement in the kit) and installed it in the frame.

He reports that he had to cut a bit out from the inside of the frames and so will now have to find an alternative way of attaching the chassis to the footplate at the front as he had cut some bits out at the front trying to fit gearbox in the original position.

As you can see from this video below  the motor is running in the frames.

Until we get the other axle in place and the motion fitted up we won't know for sure how good the gearing is and whether our pony will go at a canter or a gallop!