Dave's 4mm scale Industrial Loco Workshop.

[simond]

If you have a sprung axle, you’ll be using the coupling rods as springs too, if they’re not jointed.

 

[Dave]

If you have a sprung axle, you’ll be using the coupling rods as springs too, if they’re not jointed.

Good point, Simon. I'll try it with a rigid set first, on flat and straight track, just to check the quartering and whatnot.

 

[Dave]

I have made and fitted the guard irons to the frames and the sandboxes are under construction.

I fitted the rods without any washers behind them, which caused the crank pin nuts to wind in under power. Everything became so tight that the rods locked up. A High Level gearbox and motor would have stalled before it got that far, but the N20 kept going and chewed up the nylon drive gear so that instead of it having a D-shaped hole for the gearbox's output shaft it now had an O-shaped hole and lost drive. I had to replace the chewed up one. Rods refitted with washers and it ran smoothly once more.

The target weight is 250g. The DJM model, straight out of the box, is only 147g and 250g is the target because that is the reported weight of the forthcoming Austerity from Accurascale. I could just wait and buy an AS one, but where's the fun in that?

I reckon on being able to get a speaker, Stay Alive and decoder in and still achieve the weight. The Austerity connoisseur may have spotted that this isn't a DJM. It is in fact a modified Dapol body but I will be making another chassis for the DJM one.

 

[Dave]

It runs very well and not just on straight track. I jury-rigged a decoder and gave it a run on the curve and over switches & crossings on Blacker Lane and it didn't fall off the track, so that's a win. There isn't a great deal of vertical movement in the centre axle and what there is seems to be taken up by the slack in the crank pin holes in the rods, so I'll probably leave the rods without joints. If it turns out to need them then the rods are screwed on, so actually replacing them on the model will be easy. Making them won't be so easy though.

Things to do:
Make and fit wheel balance weights.
" brake gear.
" sand pipes and then fix the sandboxes in place.
Paint and weather all the shiny bits.

 

[Dave]

Sand pipes and properly fit DCC to do now.



I made the body a few years ago. It's a combination of Dapol, RT Models, Mike Edge and scratchbuilt parts. It is finished in the livery carried by Wm. Pepper's Austerity that worked at Bowers Row opencast site, near Castleford. I don't have the works number to hand but it was built by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns for the Ministry of Supply/WD in 1944. Scrapped 1969.

It has come a long way from the thing that it started as.

 

[timbowales]

Dave, can I ask what make of wheels you used on the Austerity?

 

[Dave]

Dave, can I ask what make of wheels you used on the Austerity?

Hi. They're from Alan Gibson.