Finishing off a 5" Gauge Simplex Loco

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Deko:
Hi Stew
Glad the little box thing was put to good use. The job looks to be coming along nicely, if anyone can make a silk purse from a sows ear you can. Hope to see you on the club open day, ( 15th September ? ) if not sooner.

Cheers Dek. :thumbup:

sbwhart:
Thanks Dek

The club open day is on the 16th I got it wrong I've told a few people its the 15th I can see myself getting well stuffed (insert imotion of turkey getting stuffed)

Stew

Deko:
Thats buggerd that then! The 16th is my birthday and i shall be racing my rocker covers,about a mile away. :hammer: :offtopic:

Cheers Dek.

krv3000:
well thats sum brill work well dun

sbwhart:
Thanks for your interest guys.

The more I get into this project the more I regret taking it on, spent the last few days checking out the wheel,axles and axleboxes in the frame, and what a bag of crap they are :(

The axles are under size and tapered, the axle horns are 3/16" undersizes and the ones for the trailing axle are out of square in the frame, the axle boxes are undersize fit in the undersized horns as well as tapered and out of square, the axles centres should be 7 1/8" what I've got is 7 3/16" between the driving and leading axles and 7 1/16" between the driving and trailing axle. As a result everything fits like a turd in a pisspot.

I've bin pondering long and hard the best course of action, and come up with a number of options.

Option one:- Find a bloody big hammer and beat the crap out of it, then cash it in at the scrap value.

Option two:- Just bodge it together as it is and hope for the best.

Option three:- Split the axle boxes off the wheels so that I can make new, as one of the wheels is pinned to the axles there is not much I can do with them except bore the bearing bushes to fit. As the frame is bolted together strip it down this will alow me to cut the axle horns to the correct size and to get them square and a correct fit on the axle boxes. Then I have to remake all the linkages and valve motion etc etc

I've too much cash tied up in in for option 1.

As for option two having spent quite a bit of time hanging round the club track, I've noticed there are two types of loco's there are those that run like clockwork visit after visit the owners will turn up get them in steam and run round for a couple of hours only stopping for water and coal, and there are those that turn up do one lap of the track then something falls off siezes breaks they lose boiler presure can't keep the water level up etc etc etc this happens at every visit. I don't want this i want something that is going to be a decent runner so option two is out.

So its option three:- But I'm realy getting itchy feat to build the Dake engine, so I'm going to work on the loco until end of September try get as much done as I can, then build the Dake I know it looks a complicated engine on paper but their realy arn't that many parts to it and having given it lots of thought I recon there's only two or three months work in it, I will then dedicate the rest of the winter to finishing off the loco, so that by next spring I should have it finished with luck.

Stew

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