Passenger Brake Van C1860

[Jon Nazareth]

Having not carried out any modelling for months and months, I decided to force myself to go back to work on this Brake Van. Here is a picture of the van plus some of the parts already made. I have made some plates that the brake hangers will be suspended from and if I can work out how the various 'rods' operate, I may be able to get the brakes to work. I have made the four leaf springs but only two are shown. I've yet to settle on a way of fixing them to the under frame and how to incorporate the coil springs that will be doing the actual work. I can envisage much bolting on and off of the W irons before all is settled.
The one good thing about this particular piece of stock is that it will be painted green which will make a pleasant change from the mahogany of the carriages that I recently made and the grey of the wagons that I've constructed over the years.

Jon

 

[John Gledhill]

That looks great, Jon! What railway did it come from? I'm just planning my first scratch-built wagon in G3, so I'll be very interested in your progress on this vehicle.

John.

 

[Jon Nazareth]

John
Its from the LBSCR. The majority of my stock is from there but I do digress a bit if I see something that strikes me as interesting or different.

Jon

 

[Marc Dobson]

I built a slightly later version from one of Ian McCormick's 7mm kits a few years ago it looks a lot more interesting than the later stock. It's one of the reasons that my 7mm layout is now running as LBSCR circ 1890-5 as it get more types of vans. And all the locos are either in IEG or the darker goods livery.
Marc

 

[John Gledhill]

I really like the LB&SCR. I'd assumed the springs were castings but I'm guessing now you've used shim stock? Very neat! What are you using for the underframing? I would like to use wood for my wagon, but I'll be guided by somebody not as new to G3 as I am!

John.

 

[Ian_T]

Hello John,

I'll let Jon advise you on his methods and materials but the use of wood - whether hand or laser cut - is perfectly practical in G3.

I prefer to use a hardwood (mostly Beech) for framing and fortunately have the means to cut it to the required sizes I generally use. An old beech-framed armchair has yielded a lot of useable good quality material - you don't need very much. I also use small dowels (cocktail sticks) to secure the frame parts together, not essential but they are useful to 'dry' assemble parts for test fits and make a strong joint once glued. I toyed at one time with the idea of making real rabbeted joints but decided it really was too far over the top.

I use a small jig to drill the dowel holes and wrote this up in a NL some time ago (you can find a PDF of this on the 'Downloads" page of the G3S Website - Article No 47). There are of course many alternative build methods/materials & kits available, including 3D print these days but I'm still quite old school in this respect (e.g. cheap).

Regards,

IanT

 

[Jon Nazareth]

John
The springs are made up from 3mm wide x .020" thick nickel strips cut to length etc. I drill a hole in the middle of each strip and insert a pin which holds all together. The spring is then placed into a jig that I have, photo later, and screwed up tight which holds the spring leaves at the correct curve. I then solder from one side only and enough solder flows between the leaves to hold them together. The back of the spring is covered in solder but the front remains clean.
The under frame is made from Evergreen styrene strip bought on line from a shop in Canada which I've bought from over the years. The size of styrene that I use is not available in this country as it is 24" long, the Evergreen code being No. 403, it's a tad under size but it suits me well enough.

Jon

 

[Jon Nazareth]

Here is a picture of the spring jig that I used to assemble the leaf springs. In use, it is only the leaves themselves that are held while the solder is applied. I used a soldering iron for this job and all went well. I did think that the metal of the jig would act as a heat sink and that I would need to use a torch but, this wasn't the case. The small links and the hangers were fitted after the soldering was finished. Once these were in place and lined up, I placed a small drop of solder behind the forward facing link in order to hold them still otherwise they would hinge at those points making them difficult to fix to the underframe. I decided on the rear of the forward facing link so that the solder wouldn't be seen when the spring was viewed from the front. I hope that that makes sense.

Jon

 

[John Gledhill]

Wow! Thank you Ian T and Jon, some real food for thought there! I was hoping that G3 would be more model engineering-leaning than the smaller scales, and it is!

Jon, I may give the styrene a go: I have found proper engineering plastics quite good to work with. I was surprised what a good finish I got when turning tiny lamp lenses from acrylic. It was Peter Jones used to use a gas torch swiftly applied to texture Lego bricks to resemble stonework, so maybe that could suffice for wood graining, or as much of it as you can see in our scale.

Ian, I have also used hardwood from old furniture: I once sank gracefully through a deckchair, but cheered up when I realised that I could now legitimately use the dark tropical hardwood frame for modelmaking. It ended up as the framing for a small fleet of four rectangular tank wagons in SM32. I imagine you have a planer/thicknesser? I've been steeling myself to buy one of those, the problem is getting a compact one that isn't the near-£500 Proxxon one!

Thank you both for taking the time to enlighten me! Just out of interest: I'm about half way through making a model of an LNWR water tower, from the drawings in Jack Nelson's LNWR Portrayed. I've turned the tapered column from aluminium round bar and the tank itself is 10g aluminium pipe. I have bored a hole through the column and am hoping it will be possible to make it a working model, to water my as-yet unbuilt steam loco. When it's a bit more advanced I'll put some pictures up. Trouble is, I keep getting distracted by wagons!

John.

 

[Ian_T]

Hi John,

I have a jointer (but not a planer/thicknesser) but I don't use it for modelling work. For that I just have a bandsaw and several table saws.

The bandsaw I use to cut larger 'lumps' down to more usable sizes but mostly I just use my table saws to prep wood stocks. However, I've fitted Freud Diablo 7.1/4" 'Framing' blades to them which give a very fine cut - with virtually no need for any other finishing. They are very thin blades (60thou/1.5mm) and I have both 24t & 40t fitted (in theory Rip & Crosscut) - although both give super results. For wagon frame parts, I might cut a larger piece on the bandsaw down to 13.5mm thickness and then in turn, slice that down to 5.6mm (& 3.9mm) widths (although I can live with 5.5mm (and 4mm) if I get it!) on the table saw just using the fence. All my machines are pretty old but the trick is to invest in new blades (or if you buy a new machine throw away the blades it's supplied with...). The Freud blades are not cheap but they do last and I've found nothing nearly as good. The saws do create quite a bit of dust, so they have to live in my outside workshop - I tend to have a a small cutting 'session' when I need more supplies.

In my small inside (e.g. warm) workshop I do have a little Proxxon KS230 (the cheaper one they make) but I often just use a small razor saw to cut parts to final length - which is very simple/quick once you have the correct size of stock to hand. Everyone has their own preferences with regards to materials. I've seen IanD (another G3S Member) build a G3 wagon body as a 'demo' (in Slaters plasticard) in about 20 minutes (whilst explaining to onlookers what he was doing). But I've always liked working with wood - and in G3 it's a perfectly practical choice for building wagon stock.

Regards,

IanT

 

[John Gledhill]

Hi Ian, thank you for the tip about the Freud Diablo blades- you might just have saved me nearly £500 there! I've got an old Machine Mart table saw that I've had from new, although it has done very little work: I will see about getting the Freud blades to fit it. It will need a new rip fence making as the one that came with it was made out of laminated banana skins, judging by how it would flex as I pushed the workpiece through.

I've got the Proxxon KGS 80 chop saw- lovely to use, but it has a habit of throwing the cut-off piece straight up into the spinning blade, then across the workshop.

I'm very enthused about using real wood for G3 wagons, but I'd love to see IanD's performance with plasticard!

I hope some of you gentlemen will be at the 30th anniversary show next month, it would be nice to put faces to names!

Thanks again,

John.

 

[Ian_T]

We'd best stop hi-jacking Jon's thread John - but I will be there by lunchtime hopefully.

Very much like your spring jig Jon - great idea! Are you going to the "30th" GTG? I was hoping to see you at a Farnham GTG but then Covid happened. :-(

Regards,

IanT

 

[Jon Nazareth]

I need to machine and solder onto the brake hangers, the small pieces of tube that will accept the connecting brake rods. The problem that I have is that I can't work out how the shoes on the far right is released. Ignoring the connection on the right shoe of the left wheel, if the cam(for want of a better word) is rotated clockwise, the brake blocks will release except the one on the far right.
As I see it, the left shoe of both wheels is connected via a rod. The left shoe of the right wheel is also connected to the cam.
Once again, as the cam is rotated clockwise, it frees the right shoe of the left wheel.
The left shoe of the right wheel is also connected to the cam so that would free up as well.
There is a rod that fixes to the left shoe of the right wheel and also to the left shoe of the left wheel so, that will free up too.
Mm, It may be that another rod, not shown, connects from the top of the cam diagonally down to the far right shoe in order that they all are able to release.
ANYONE ANY IDEAS?

Jon

 

[Jon Nazareth]

We'd best stop hi-jacking Jon's thread John - but I will be there by lunchtime hopefully.

Very much like your spring jig Jon - great idea! Are you going to the "30th" GTG? I was hoping to see you at a Farnham GTG but then Covid happened. :-(

Regards,

IanT

Ian
Yes, I too was hoping to have gone to the Farnham meet but, sadly, that layout no longer exists. I wanted to bring Enigma along to give her a run, hey ho.
I won't be going to the 30th GTG as it's a bit of a haul from here and I'm still not happy about the current situation. I don't think that there is another layout this side of the M25 or within a reasonable driving distance.
The spring jig idea came from a chap in Australia. I used it to make the springs for my Manning Wardle, another that I had cast and now these. I used to dread making them up but this last set weren't too bad. Must be getting extra mellow as the years pass by. The brass plate is shaped for two types of spring and there must be another plate somewhere but, I'm not too sure where that is.

Regards
Jon

 

[AndyB]

Hi Jon,
In your GA drawing extract, the left side is an elevation whilst the right side is a sectional view.
Noting which lines are solid / hatched, I think that there are 2 rods - one connects the left side brake blocks on each wheel and it runs along the outside of the wheels / axleguards, the other connects the right side brake blocks on each wheel and it runs along the inside of the wheels.

Put another way, the outer brake blocks are actuated by rods from their respective inner blocks and not directly by the crank arm.
Hope this makes sense.

Andy

 

[Jon Nazareth]

Andy
I can't quite see that. I've looked at the drawing again and yes it does show rods running inside the wheels but, the only broken lines that I can see are for the running board on the righthand side and a couple of broken lines on the right of the V hanger. It's all very confusing, maybe if I stare for long enough at the drawing, it may make sense.

Jon

 

[Jon Nazareth]

Andy
I can see it now, and you are correct, thank you. I'll have another look after typing this just to satisfy myself that I'm not seeing things.

Jon

 

[Overseer]

ANYONE ANY IDEAS?

It looks like it might be a two sided clasp version of the brake system used by the Victorian Railways from 1869 for some years. A prototype photo and a couple of model photos showing my version. To make the clasp version work it must have only one bar connecting the outer brake block to the inner, one on the outside for one end and one on the inside for the other end, instead of the double bars used on the VR example.

 

[Jon Nazareth]

Overseer
I have just read your post and my first reaction is, ay? I'll compare your words with the drawing and I'm sure that it will all make sense. I am still working on the brake blocks and the plates that the hangers are suspended from. These will take a little time and then I'll concentrate on the bars/rods.

Jon

 

[Overseer]

Does this help?

Sorry about the messy scribble. The inner brake blocks are pushed on by the cranks on the central shaft, exactly like wagon brakes, and the outer blocks are pulled by the rods onto the outer face of the wheels. There doesn't appear to be any compensation in the linkages so it relies on equal wear on both block of each pair to work effectively. The pull rods can only be on one side of each pair of blocks to avoid the pull rod of the other pair. My elevation shows them offset vertically for clarity while the GA shows them at the same height, which makes sense so they have the same mechanical advantage and therefore all brake blocks exert equal pressure on the wheels. There are lots of reasons this arrangement didn't become widespread.