CONWAY 0-4-0 3 1/2" GAUGE LOCO

[vcutajar]

I am not into locomotives but still enjoying your build and photos.  With the assembled frames on the X3 table, it gave me a good idea of size.

Vince

[Firebird]

Thanks Vince

My X3 is not the standard table it has the extra long 700mm table fitted.

Cheers

Rich

[Firebird]

Hi

Right then boys and girls, question time again 

The wheels. On the plans its a simple drawing. The text from the article is short and sweet



I'm not going to buy castings, I have some slices of 4" steel, supplied by my mate Julian 

As the wheels are inside the frames and for the most part can't be seen I figured I would just turn them as plain discs. I can't see that there would be any balance problems but I would welcome opinions.

It does say in the text the flanges should be well radiused into the treads? What would be considered a well radius?

Cheers

Rich

[Jasonb]

Easiest way would be to turn the recess all around the wheel and then cut some weights to the 5/8" width and then rivit them into place. If you do get vibration then add the hole as well.

As for the radius I'll leave that to the loco types.

[Firebird]

Hi

Thanks Jason  that sounds easy enough, a clever way to get the balance weights in

Cheers

Rich

[joe d]

Looking good, Rich.

Glad to follow along.

Cheers, Joe

[crueby]

The flange is tapered out thinner towards the rim, so it doesn't try to climb the rail. Not sure about the proper radiux, I would suggest checking the Gauge 1 association website, they have diagrams of wheel profiles that you could scale from.

[Jasonb]

Google "loco wheel standards" and you will get what you need about angles, radius, flange size etc

[Firebird]

Hi

Thanks Joe and Crueby.

From your suggested search Jason I found this



I think I will have to find a scrap of something and have a go at getting the correct profile before I b****r up one of my wheel blanks.

Today I started on the inside motion plate/stretcher. Its a piece of 3/16" thick steel plate. A straight forward machining job as per the plans



Plus a bit more assembly work on the frames



Cheers

Rich

[Firebird]

Hi

Got the valve rod guides set up in the 4 jaw on the rotary table and drilled the holes. I decided to go with 4 holes



Fitted into the reamed holes in the motion plate and used as a guide to drill the holes





The outside motion plate hangers took a bit of thinking about. They are made from 3/16" thick steel plate. I started by printing out an actual size drawing and sticking it to the steel plate with with spray glue.



Initially the 2 plates are bolted together through the waste portion and the the 5 angle bracket holes centre punched followed by the 4 holes for the slide bar brackets. Thes holes were then drilled. I then used one of the 5 bracket holes and drilled another hole in the waste down in the corner to keep the plates bolted together while I chopped out the waste with a hacksaw.



followed by a series of end mills



And a T slot cutter



Use the holes in the hanger to drill corresponding holes in the angle bracket







It fits about here





Cheers

Rich

[Steamer5]

Hi Rich,
 Looking good!
Like the use of the tee cutter to do the rebate! I'll file that away for future use!

On your wheels, the trolleys I've built the guy that did the design, David Hudson, uses a round insert, he also figured out how to put the proper curve to taper on the tire & designed a tool to do it. It all works well & is easy to do, the wheel sets are self steering & using just a single axel running on the rail the wheels wobble about then self align, interesting to watch!

Oh  consumption is going up!

Cheers Kerrin

[Kim]

Looking very good Rich!
Lots of ops for that bracket there, and it came out great!
Kim

[Firebird]

Hi

Thanks Kim

Kerrin, thanks. Julian and I went to another loco club yesterday much closer to home so we have decided to join that one. We spoke to the boiler inspector and he is quite happy for us to go ahead and make our boilers as long as we stick to the published plans, fair enough.

On the wheels he said its ok to stick to the published design as the club track is made of flat steel sections. I think I will angle the flange slightly though.

Cheers

Rich

[Steamer5]

Hi Rich,
 That's good, all the tracks here in NZ are made from flat bar, with Davids desgin the wheels are correctly coned as per full size. He reckoned that doing them this way would work fine for a loco.

Cheers Kerrin

[Firebird]

Hi

Today I turned my attention to the axles. These require some fairly precise turning. I decided that to make life easier and hopefully more accurate some sort of DRO would be needed. A cheapo 6" digital calipre was sacrificed. These things are really hard and almost impossible to drill so I attacked them with a Dremmel type tool and fitted with a diamond cut off disc.



A few bits of alluminium saw them mounted on the lathe





The alluminium block that the rear jaw bolts to has a thumb screw underneath that allows it to slide along the alluminium angle and be locked in the required position. It gives about 5 3/4" of movement.

It has proved to be a great success, One day I'll make a proper job of it 

One axle has been turned





Cheers

Rich