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?
Hi, if those gears don't work out, there is a Polish company that will sell custom gears, allowing you to select gear modulus (0.4 for backwoods gears I think), number of teach, bore size and clearance (interference or running). I haven't seen a combination 10T20T gear, but you could get one 10T and 1 20T gear, both with interference fits, and put them on one shaft. Website here: https://shop.kkpmo.com/product_info.php?info=p21680_spur-gear---customized-gearwheel.html
ReplyDeleteHopefully that helps if you get stuck.
Someone told me a while ago that the gears came from Weinert in Germany. They have a 20/10 gear listed in their catalogue, part no.9630
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