Sample Build
Sample Build
Well, having gone through the 'how to do it' I suppose that I had better go through the entire process from start to (almost) finish.
This is how I built 'The Ackerman Rubicon'
The original source was a small 16 page pamphlet that someone in Napier had put together to raise money for their club. It got passed down to me via family.
I am a Mac user and I use it to produce all my drawing -despite all the highly expensive software that is on it I find that I will run Classic and the old copy of Claris Works 4 is my best friend when it comes to designing what I am about to do. It has a text editor to produce notes with, a database of parts and suppliers, and a spreadsheet to help me keep track of the costs of what I am about to do. I am somewhat of a cheapskate and limit myself to about £10 per week for my model. This may sound rather low, but if it takes me 6 weeks to build a model -then the cost of the model would be around £60. Add to this the fact that most of my models are made from free junk and scraps then the £10 per week limit begins to fade....
How to build a Climax Type ‘A’
As I have said in the section in the locos –this is a Climax clone rather than a true Climax. This is something that was built with the materials to hand –something that I had to do to build it!
I started out with the 'Visualisation Drawing' this is basically a very pretty version of the 'Working Drawing' and it is from this that the 'Working Drawing' is developed. The 'Visualisation Drawing' is as prototypically correct as I can make it -it will be full size @ 16mm scale then I start putting things on it to see what will and what will not -fit!
Having got a working drawing to my satisfaction it is then off to the local shops to see what is on 'special offer'. In this case I went to Nottingham and picked a Bargin Bag bundle of Bass Wood for around £8 -this did the loco and a couple of wagons afterwards.
The working drawing us then cut up for templates -in this case cereal packets were used to produce a rough mock up for visual purposes. As this was to predominantly a wood based model the base board technique came into its own....
As normal I started out with my sturdy base board, in this case made of 3mm thick birch ply and framed with 10mm x 5mm spruce strip.
The top of the base plate has been partially covered with ‘Tongue Depressors’ which I normally use to produce large flat planks in my models, here is the other side.
When the base has set solid the boiler can be constructed. This is simply a length of drain pipe covered with lollipop sticks suitable trimmed and a decorative brass strip wrapped around it to make it look nicer (and to hold everything in place)…
The fire door is made from a piece of PCB with ‘zener’ diodes for hinges and sundry pieces of copper wire soldered into place. The whole lot is then stuck to a piece of balsa wood and then the curve of the boiler transferred to it by wrapping a piece of wet and dry and then rubbing the balsa over it. Then fix it to the boiler with wood glue.
The main body –I can not call it a ‘cab’, of the loco is built in the manner of a simple greenhouse (honestly). The original method comes from one of my Great GrandFathers Apprentice books -I don't know how many greenhouses they built on the LNWR -but in some small way it has been re-born here....
As you can see the sides are simple sheets of balsa with spruce edging, the balsa will later get plated with tongue depressors on the outside and lollipop sticks on the inside, with a spruce ‘window sill’.
The next few shots will give you a ‘Fast Forward’ of the main body process.
Here the main structure is complete and the start of the roof ties are seen.
The roof is test positioned –the roof is simply 2 ply sheets plated with lollipop sticks
The main parts are test positioned –the boiler and the start of the motor.
This shows the initial test fixing –used to mark out fixing pins.
The boiler has been stuck down and the gallows re-enforcing struts fitted to the main part of the body. The top of the boiler fitted –but not fixed down. The first part of the steam plumbing fitted. It was a new thing for me to have to bend small bore brass pipe, the technique I used was to push a length of coax down it and then bend it over a chair leg.
The loco has brass re-enforcing straps epoxy bonded to it for strength.
The main parts of any loco are the wheels, as I love strangeness, I read a little bit more into the book -and found out that later in its short life the cranks were replaced with chains and cogs. As I had never done anything like this before –I had to do it!
The MFA/Como cogs and chains came from Maplins –I needed two sets. They are 16 and 8 tooth cogs with a 5mm pitch wire chain. The primary drive is from my favourite motor to a set of IP Eng 40:1 worm and spur gears –which had to be drilled for shaft size. The drive then taken from an 8 tooth via chain to another 8 tooth and then to a 16 tooth.
The next shot shows the two bogies with the connecting chains installed.
