Scattergun 16mm scale SAR NGG16

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Well I've bounced around the idea for several years now, basically trying to justify why I shouldn't make one or find valid reasons why I should, in the end they're all pointless mind arguments, so, as we say at work JFDI

The next choice was scale, now Backwoods make a very nice rendition, but me being me would rather the engine frames and chassis were a little more....full fat...., thus I'd end up etching new frames and then that would lead to this and that and in the end it'd be pointless rebuilding another kit, besides in O gauge it's quite small...I'm beginning to find even O gauge standard gauge small these days.

Next scale up is of course Gauge 1 and things are looking up size wise, the engine still comes in at just over 440mm long but again not really quite big enough, having said that I did also / still am looking at some 3'-6" SAR engines which are quite a lot bigger and still fit inside my 'window' which I've set as about 1m long.

In the end I opted for 16mm scale, which uses 32mm track, the same track I use to test OF etched models on and by pure chance, the same size for Gauge 1 3'-6" SAR locos ;)

So where do we go from here, scale and gauge are set it's just a case of getting on with. There are still a lot of unanswered questions but rather than mind wrestle them like I traditionally do I thought I'd just wing it for a change.

Starting at the front, 'literally' I whizzed up the front buffer beam and a couple of brackets in CAD just to get an idea of the actual size, it's big. The buffer beams are quite substantial affairs, not quite sure why as there's no load bearing fittings on there, probably more to do with wildlife impact I suspect. I've basically two choices from here, one transfer a paper outline and cut raw material or, two work up an etch sheet for PPD. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages, but either way I still have to do the CAD work, the CAD work is also handy if I ever decide to do another or scale smaller for a gauge 1 model.

Scratch building is cheap, there's no getting over that, however it's time consuming and requires a certain amount of skill, despite what many think, I still struggle making anything straight or flat that has a surface larger than the tool doing the work, so etching has it's attractions, but at a cost. Of course making a model in 16mm as big as the NGG16 as etched art work is silly isn't it, or is it?

The front buffer beam scales out at roughly 0.8mm thick, that's a substantial slab to cut and make all edges flat and square if you were scratch building, add to this is has a lot of bolt head detail on the front, 59 to be precise, all 7/8" Whit which scales in 16mm as near as can be bothered to 14BA, so a lot of holes to drill. Lets also bear in mind that all of this has to be done twice. Another option would be to laser cut these parts, I've not explored that option yet but it might work out cheaper.

Either way, the original idea of being at one with metal and tools is rapidly receding to be replaced with letting technology do the work but at a cost, in fact it's probably cheaper because the time saved is better used to progress other commercial aspects.

Image2.jpg

So we now have some artwork for the front buffer beam, it's not much, but it's a start. All of the holes will be bolted with 14BA to angle or parts behind, I did toy with making the bolt heads a half etch overlay but have opted instead for two layers of 0.45mm etched brass, I may just go for Nickle Silver but I've not decided and there's virtually no difference in costs these days.

Next up is the drag box, quite a large affair and not unlike the W1 in part fabrication, following that will be the cylinder stay and they I'll just work back to the rear of the engine as required.

Will any of the model be scratch built, almost certainly yes, angles and bunkers etc can all be scratch built, boiler, smokebox, firebox and chassis are good candidates. The main engine frames and outside cranks will be milled from 3mm brass by someone far more skilled than I and then drilled (frames) for bolted construction.

One thing looming is axle boxes and suspension, I've seen a lot of live steam 16mm locos with rigid frames, is that the norm? I'm also going to go for ball race bearings, just because I can really.

To surmise, I suppose I'm trying to model in 16mm without the need for reasonably robust engineering workshop tools or facilities, I'll see how well that approach works in the future :thumbs:

Mick D
 
Last edited:

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Jim,

I need a lot of things LOL ;):thumbs:

Looking at it another way, I can get a lot of etching done for the price of a CNC mill and it's not as though I'm going into production with this thing.

But your right though, having a CNC mill or Pantograph mill would be a asset, or even a basic plain milling machine would help.

Mick D
 

unklian

Western Thunderer
You could do with a good friend who has a CNC mill LOL .

Seriously, I don't want to discourage you, because having seen what you get up to in 7mm anything you do in 16mm will be excellent. However this is what I have found moving up from small scales to Gauge 3 or 13.5mm. Firstly there will be parts that have to be steel or cast iron because brass is not strong enough. There will be parts that have to be bolted or riveted together because they are too big to solder ( and you might have to take them apart a few times too ). There will be parts that need silver soldering because lead solder is not strong enough. And why because everything gets heavier exponentially as you increase the scale. These are the reasons bigger models take longer to make.
So steel chassis, steel wheels and steel motion. Then all platework a minimum of 0.8mm thick, because you will have to pick it up at some point and you don,t want to squash it doing so. I think you can see what I am driving at.
There is though a considerable upside, every part that you make is way more satisfying, the finished result something to much more proud of and nobody will ask you who's kit it is . JFDI indeed, that really did make me laugh .
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Ian,

Very good points :thumbs:, I prefer to work in Nickle Silver which is not as strong as steel but stronger then brass, the choice of brass for the main frames is simply to make the cutters life easier, having said that, I may opt for laser cut steel frames and will need to explore that avenue with some of the commercial ventures to see if they do 3rd party cutting from CAD drawings.

I'm hoping I don't have to go to weight training classes to lift it :cool: I'd planned on 3mm brass bar frames and fabricated Nickle Silver stays and assemblies, probably all 0.6mm, I think you can silver solder (something else to get to grips with) Nickle Silver? These'll be bolted to the frames.

Boiler, firebox, smokebox will all be 0.45mm, I'll try a trial in brass and see how strong it is, with decent support inside it should be ok, cab plate work will be 0.60mm Nickle Silver. Boiler frame will certainly be 0.8mm, that's the major section holding the two locos together and tanks fore and aft can probably be 0.45mm brass or Nickle Silver.

To be honest it'll probably not be a run day and night model, in fact it may never run and become a show model, don't know, haven't thought that far ahead but suppose I should in case it does become a garden hauler.

Someone did comment at Sudbury yesterday about how light I hope to build some of the parts and how it might effect haulage, to which I replied, I'll just fill the bunkers with water, so fill points and discreet drains will probably be added in and water tight assemblies will be required, may even do the same with the boiler, that'll probably add a Kg or so.

I normally work with 188°C solder but I think I'll have to up the game and as you say silver solder a lot, one thing I have noticed, even in 7mm is how fragile butt solder joints are, so I will probably be adding backing angle to those joints or internal support to minimise the flex between the two parts, no flex = no break, that's the theory anyway. I used to do plumbing and refrigeration work so gas torch soldering and brazing are dormant skills, I'm hoping I don't need to call on them too much for this project.

O gauge, your too kind, I just dabble here and there LOL I will be heavily back into the W1 at the weeks end when the new cab and footplate test etches return, so I've a few days to get something going here, even if it is just art work and planning/research.

Mick D
 

Peter

Western Thunderer
Hi Mickoo,

Should you not know of this site, it may help you with photos of NGG 16 No129 being restored to running order in Melbourne Australia. Not a straight restoration but also a conversion from 2ft gauge to 2ft 6in gauge.

Puffing Billy Workshops

Best regards,

Peter
 
Last edited:

unklian

Western Thunderer
One small point, steel cuts better with a laser than brass. Something to do with melting points and heat conductivity, but the brass can come out with a very raggedy edge.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Peter,

Thank you, yes I have been aware of Puffing Billy for a few years now, it's a site I check almost daily...certainly weekly to see if there's any new updates, it was their high quality photos of the engine rebuilds that watered the seed from a 'twinkle in a deam' to 'I might be able to pull this off' scenario.

As you say, it's also a conversion to 2'-6". So you have to be careful with some of the stays as Puffing Billy have modified them for the wider frame width, their boiler frame has also been modified too, off the top of my head I don't think theres much of the original left. Having said that, the photos they do show and the CAD drawings they have uploaded to their Blog are very good.

Ian,

Agreed, if I run with brass frames then they will be milled on a pantograph mill, if I opt for laser cut then they will be steel, either way the CAD artwork is the same.

Tim,

Live steam would be nice, but for a first project an articulated engine is perhaps not the best choice, I'd like a quarry Hunslet Alice class and have my eye on the Slaters kit, but may change my mind and make that my first live steam model. I think Bressingham have some of these, or used to have, that's a lot closer than Wales for research ;)

Mick D
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Right, another hiatus in O gauge as I wait for etches to come back from PPD for the W1 allows thoughts to return to the NGG16.

A brief visit in CAD brings me the smoke box wrapper and ends ready for printing.

Image2.jpg

The next step is to translate this to metal and begin cutting out, and then drilling the hundred or more holes for the bolts and rivets, in this scale they just simply cannot be pushed out. Finding suitable rivets and scale bolts to fit into all these holes has been a bit of a chore.

There's basically three sizes, 5/8" bolts and rivets for the wrapper edges and smoke box face, smaller 1/2" for the wrapper joints and larger 3/4" for the smoke box saddle fixings, these equate to 1.50 mm AF/Head, 1.30 mm Head and 1.70 mm Head, all available but not all from the same source :headbang: I'll dig a little more this evening, as such the actual hole sizes are just place holders and I may need to open some out depending on which rivets or bolts I finally get.

As a point aside the wrapper joint is not present on all engines, some engines have no joint and thus no rivets, some have the joint and only one row of rivets, it doesn't seem builder consistent either, ergo, what ever you do cannot be wrong ;)

MD
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
Mick,

Have you looked at Scale Hardware in the US? They have hex head bolts and rivets very close to your requirement - 1.2, 1.4 and 1.6mm sizes rather than your 1.3, 1.5 and 1.7mm.

http://www.scalehardware.com/miniature-hex-bolts-c-1
http://www.scalehardware.com/miniature-rivets-c-10

They have a fast delivery from the States. I got some small rivets from them at the start of this month - I ordered on the Friday evening and I had the parts through the letterbox the following Wednesday over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Jim.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Jim,

Yes I am considering Scale Hardware as well as Grandt Line and Cornwall model boats, but E bay gave me this seller as well

M0.6 M0.8 M1.0 M1.2 M1.4 M1.6 Miniature Brass Hex Bolt Screw x10 Pocher Upgrade

The bolts are the perfect size AF but quite pricey for a pack of 10.

The Scale Hardware HXB-10-8-B is 1.47 AF so I can live with that.

There's
44:- 1.30 mm rivets
32:- 1.50 mm AF bolts
54:- 1.50 mm rivets
20:- 1.70 mm rivets

Just for the firebox :eek: I might opt for a late version model with welded tanks at this rate!

Cornwall model Boats are the choice for the rivets at the moment they're good value for money and do all the sizes except the 1.70 mm but I can live with 1.80 mm so long as they look bigger than the wrapper ones that's mostly what matters.

RB Model Boat Fittings - Brass Dome Head Rivets

They also do metric bolts but infuriatingly no head sizes.

RB Model Boat Fittings - Mini Hex Head Bolts

MD
 
Last edited:

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
When I last went down the Mickoo Road in regard to scale fixings I found a shop in Belgium which sold Scale Hardware stuff.... purchase within the EU removes the worry of HMG if buying in bulk.... sorry, cannot remember the name of the store.
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
Mick,

The price of the Ebay product is a bit steep when compared with Scale hardware. I sometimes find nowadays that Ebay is not necessarily the cheapest place to find items.

When I was looking for small rivets for my S scale corrugated van ends the Scale Hardware 0.4mm head ones were the only ones I could find that were suitable. I had a memory of a European supplier who also did rivets and bolts down to the sizes Scale hardware produce but couldn't find it. I think my problem is that the web site is probably in a European language - probably German - and I don't know enough of that language to use a suitable search term. :)

Jim.
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
When I last went down the Mickoo Road in regard to scale fixings I found a shop in Belgium which sold Scale Hardware stuff.... purchase within the EU removes the worry of HMG if buying in bulk.... sorry, cannot remember the name of the store.

My $30 purchase of rivets from Scale hardware attracted no interest from the VAT people, but my Andy Reichert spikes from the US, of similar value, copped the whole VAT + handling charges a couple of months earlier. :( It seems to be aa bit of a lottery. :)

Your Belgian supplier of small hardware may be the European one I'm thinking of.

Jim.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
So, burning the late night oil we have cut metal and I have to say, for the first time in my modeling experience I have some home brew parts I'm 100% totally happy with, though the path was a bit rocky to begin with but in the end the rest will be much easier.

The first issue was turning the rough cut shapes on the lathe, lesson one, try to at least cut a reasonably circular blank :rolleyes: and as close to the line as your reasonably comfortable with! Second, just trying to cut thin sheet with out a backing plate is fruitless, it just generates a lot of noise and heat...and blue language.

So in a fit of frustration and skill set self doubt I just made a very, and I mean very, rough backing sheet.

IMG_6670.jpg

The hole in the middle is large enough to accept the rear nut on the work piece centre holding bolt.

IMG_6673.jpg

The work is simply held by a bolt in the middle with a nut on the back, the work is then jammed in the chuck and clamps the backing plate between the two, only friction holds it in place. All very crude but it works if your patient and if the work should snag then the block of wood just stops spinning, as does the work piece as it slips on the fixing nut.

Anyway, the first backing ring took over an hour to make, the last piece, smoke box door ring took 10 minutes, mainly because I didn't apply lesson two very well :mad:

Finally whilst turning the parts I learnt lesson three, RPM is important, I was getting a lot of chatter and noise, probably because the work is flexing truth be told, so in normal dock worker mode I just went faster, yeah that worked well....not! I finally ended up running at around 80-120 RPM to turn the brass plates with each cut at 0.05 mm...that's why lesson number two is so, so, important ;)

So, after about three hours of faffing around we end up here. Two wrapper backing rings, a smoke box front and smoke box door flange blank.

IMG_6666.jpg

Four pieces of brass, importantly, for me at least, all flat and all perfectly round with crisp clean edges. you'll have to forgive the solder mess on the middle of the smoke box door ring blank, that was a vain attempt to solder the first bolt (6BA) to the work to stop it spinning when it snagged. It worked for about 0.2 milliseconds and then promptly sheared the work clean off the bolt shaft, head and all :mad: After recovering the work and extracting the remains of the bolt I scaled up to a 6 mm nut and bolt system and just let it spin as a sort of clutch if it snagged.

I haven't cleaned the solder as this are will be removed in the next few steps.

IMG_6667.jpg

Smoke box face with smoke box door flange laid on top, these two parts will be sweated together, then the part will be chucked up in the lathe and the centre part cut out. Before I do that I need to fix the rear wrapper ring into place.

IMG_6669.jpg

This is the rear face and the ring will be soldered onto the smoke box door rear face, then the holes for the scale bolts drilled through both parts, the lip will allow the wrapper to sit on the ledge and give a joint to line up with. The smoke box front is slightly over size (0.25 mm) at the moment to allow it to be trimmed back for a perfect diameter to match the wrapper, hence leaving the middle still intact as the completed assembly needs to go back in the lathe for the final diameter trimming once the wrapper is formed and test fitted.

Next, well I'm considering the front tube plate to attach to the rear wrapper ring I have already turned, of course in this scale you can't just get away with holes, the main superheater tubes (15) are 8 mm in diameter so you really do need to tube them, the smaller tubes (152) are 2.4 mm diameter, now that's a lot of holes and all very close to each other so I'm edging toward a etched part for this.

Image2.jpg

The only other option is to go for a coalie and fit the cinder guard which basically covers the view into the smoke box, oilers tend not to have the cinder guard fitted.

22747048862_c3bcc0146c_o.jpg

Cinder guard off the interweb, the story behind this shot was that the crew had put lunch in there, pie, spuds, veg and at the end of the journey it was cooked just so :thumbs:

Here's a crop of the general area I'm working in and shows the relevant parts and there relation to each other, once the smoke box door flange is fitted then I'll slip in the ring to give the lip for the door seal.

Image4.jpg

Finally, I miss counted the 1.50 mm rivets, there's 108 around the wrapper :eek:, that'll keep me busy, not least drilling all those holes.

Onward!

MD
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
When I last went down the Mickoo Road in regard to scale fixings I found a shop in Belgium which sold Scale Hardware stuff.... purchase within the EU removes the worry of HMG if buying in bulk.... sorry, cannot remember the name of the store.

My $30 purchase of rivets from Scale hardware attracted no interest from the VAT people, but my Andy Reichert spikes from the US, of similar value, copped the whole VAT + handling charges a couple of months earlier. :( It seems to be aa bit of a lottery. :)

Your Belgian supplier of small hardware may be the European one I'm thinking of.

Jim.

Whilst browsing for fixings I came across this company 'Bestbalsakits' in Belgium, via Ebay it has to be said.

bestbalsakits TAMIYA PROTAR DOYUSHA SCALE HARDWARE HIRO STUDIO 27 FUJIMI GUNZE GUILLOW 1/12 1/20

They list a lot of scale hardware, but also don't stock much of it, but from a quick look around there site they also stock other suppliers of miniature fixings.

Technically a 1.00 mm bolt should have nearly the right size head AF but as I'm finding out, that's not always the case :rolleyes:

MD
 

adrian

Flying Squad
Second, just trying to cut thin sheet with out a backing plate is fruitless, it just generates a lot of noise and heat...and blue language.
A while ago whilst searching for information for another project I came across this thread about ceramic burners, buried in amongst this there are quite a few useful examples about turning thin sheets using a wax chuck.

Making a Ceramic Burner.

Although you've already done a great job this might be a useful technique to file away for future experimentation.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Adrain,

Cheers, I did look at that thread way back when you originally posted it and I do have a few more bits to turn up so I'll look into it, certainly stops you having to have to drill a hole in the middle, which I imagine is quite important for a burner :cool:

MD
 
Top