H0e forest railways with H0 branch line

[Martijn Meerts]

Got a little more work done (been tempted by the other kits I have recently, so I'm working on like 125319823 at the same time ;))

 

I did work a little on the cab, but it remains a bit of a trial and error process because the manual pretty much is just an exploded view of the parts rather than a step by step guide. Also, I don't really have that many tools so clamping bits and pieces together for soldering is usually problematic, I really need to get me one of those small table vice thingies with a ball joint so I can move it in all directions ..

 

 

Image 011:

Added some bits and pieces to the frame. The primary motor mount as well as the 'spoiler' that'll hold the frame for the 2nd motor. It's quite an intricate system they come up with in that the frame part for the 2nd motor, including the motor, all gears and the axle actually spins, to it can handle sharper curves.

 

Image 012:

The sheet for the secondary motor frame, lots of bending to do =)

 

Image 013:

And this is what it looks like after a little bending and soldering ;)

 

Image 014:

Quick shot of the boiler and bits of the cab. The proportions just look completely off. The boiler is pretty much N-scale size while the cab is more towards H0 scale. Once all the detail bits are added to the boiler it'll probably look a little less freaky though.

[Martijn Meerts]

Not much happening with this project the past weeks.. I'm awaiting a letter from Loco1hobby with some screws that were missing form the original kit (known problem, so quickly solved by World Kougei.. Gotta love the service of small companies like that :)). The screws are rather important ones considering the keep the 2 frame halves together, and I don't want to continue too much before testing the frame and eventually the motors.

 

I have worked a little on the cab, which is at times refusing to behave.. The main part of the cab comes as a pre-formed shell with details like the little rivets and the curved roof etc, and an inner shell which has no detail, but provides all the strength and rigidity. It's a really nice way to build these things, but the disadvantage is that you need to line up the 2 shells perfectly and then solder them. Obviously, I didn't get them aligned quite perfectly, and ended up spending half a day trying the get both shells apart again.

 

Once the 2 shells were soldered as they should, I started adding the rear or the cab, which turned out to be yet another problematic piece. Not so much that it didn't fit right or was hard to reach, but more because there's no way you can hold the shell, the rear, a soldering iron, and some tin with only 2 hands. One of those helping hand things didn't do much good either because the shell still moves all over the place. I'm going to go look for a mini-vice soon-ish.

 

I did get it all soldered eventually though. Some bits were slightly off, but not really noticeably so after a little bit of patch soldering and filing. The shell in it's current state is reasonable straight and very solid. Some bits and pieces ended up getting a little bent, or snapped off, requiring a little more soldering, but in the end it adds to the charm of the loco.

 

I forgot to take pictures of most of the progress, but I'll see if I can upload some soon-ish. In the meantime, I'm sorely tempted to order an H0e loco kit, but I should probably wait a bit .. (And I'm not even sure if it's possible to get the kit I've been looking at anyway :))

 

 

(In general, still fun building these things, but every once in a while I feel like giving it to the parrot for him to chew on :D)

[Martijn Meerts]

Pictures :)

 

 

Image 015:

The shell in its current state.

 

Image 016:

Different angle. Note the detail parts such as the steps and the small triangles along the bottom. These triangles are about 1mm wide ... Also added the bracket which holds the rear light.

 

Image 017:

Quick mockup of the 2 frame halves with wheels installed. Of course, I wasn't thinking when adding the small rear wheels. The wheels need to be shoved on the axle through a couple of holes in the frame. That means that once the axle is installed, you can't easily remove it, or rather, you have to remove the wheels from the axle again. The advantage is that the kit came with 4 axles rather than 3, so I have a spare. (Of course, the reason to remove the axle again is so I can actually paint the frame)

 

Image 018:

Light fixture, which has a hole for wiring, and a little tube going down and back to hide the wires. The interesting bit is that the little tube is actually too short to completely hide the wiring. Another interesting bit is that the kit includes lenses for the light fixtures, but they don't fit anymore the moment you install an LED.. Guess I'll figure it out as I go :)

 

[marknewton]

Martin, your little Baldwin is looking very jazzy so far. I know what you mean about the tiny boiler - some years ago I did some work on a similar 2-foot gauge Baldwin 0-4-2 tank engine that was being restored at the museum at Thirlmere.

 

 

I could barely get inside the firebox to fit the new grates, and I was constantly thinking about raising the boiler centreline so I didn't have to bend over to work on it. A video of it is here:

 

 

And on the subject, there's a recent photo of one of the Kiso engines here:

 

http://tokyorailwaylabyrinth.blogspot.jp/2013/08/old-baldwin-in-forest.html

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

Edited August 20, 2013 by marknewton

[Martijn Meerts]

That's a lovely video.. They look so completely out of proportion, especially the caboose. I've read the typical caboose for a narrow gauge line is actually wider than it is long :)

 

I never was much into narrow gauge, but for some reason or the other it's been growing on me. I do think I need a bit of regular gauge alongside the narrow gauge once I make a layout of it though, partially because it puts things into perspective, and I think having only narrow gauge would creep me out at some point :D

 

The picture of the Kiso Baldwin is great, shows how well the World Kougei kit is made considering I recognise many of the details. It's also great in that it shows the color scheme of the locomotive, which is helpful. I thought it was all black, but it seems parts of the frame are red. Of course, the question is, was it always like that? ...

 

 

As for my version of the Baldwin. I get the replacement screws a while ago, but quickly hit a another slight snag connecting the 2 frame halves. The instructions told me to use a ring, but the 2 that were included with the kit were already used as spacers for the axles. Now, it's likely I made a mistake here, as in, maybe only 1 axle needed a spacer rather than both, but I couldn't really make that up from the instructions. I did scan the instructions for the axles and ran it through an OCR software, and then translated it through Google (not the best, but it does help), and it doesn't really mention anything about only using it on 1 axle.

 

Either way, I made a new ring from some scrap metal after temporarily connecting the 2 halves to see what the ring was for in the first place. So now the frame is pretty much done, just need to glue in the 2 brass cylinders that hold the motors in place. I hope to get them glued in soon. It requires some epoxy, which I don't really like using because you always ended up wasting a ton of it, so I'm waiting until I have several more bits and pieces that need to be glued on :)

 

I did try pushing the frame through some curves, and it looks like it can handle even the Tomix 103 curves, which I wasn't expecting. Not that I'd likely use such tight curves, but it's good to know anyway :)

[Martijn Meerts]

Managed to install the motors. Took a while considering some parts need to be glued, including the worm wheels on the motor shafts.. I tend to let those dry at least 48 hours before doing anything..

 

The locomotive has a rather interesting construction with the 2 motors.. The front one drives the front 2 axles, and the rear one drives the single rear axle. Since the wheels have a different diameter, the motors also have different worm wheels and different gear ratios.

 

I did give the loco a quick test run (on my newly arrived Unitram V50 set of all things :D), and it's working reasonably well. It's not running quite smooth yet, but with a little more grease and some running in, it should be fine. After a couple of minutes it already started improving. Also, once the shell and additional weights are installed, it should run better as well. 

 

All in all quite happy with it so far, now I just need a couple of years to get the shell built ;)

[cteno4]

wow, thats beautiful martijn! nice work!

 

jeff

[Nick_Burman]

Managed to install the motors. Took a while considering some parts need to be glued, including the worm wheels on the motor shafts.. I tend to let those dry at least 48 hours before doing anything..

 

The locomotive has a rather interesting construction with the 2 motors.. The front one drives the front 2 axles, and the rear one drives the single rear axle. Since the wheels have a different diameter, the motors also have different worm wheels and different gear ratios.

 

I did give the loco a quick test run (on my newly arrived Unitram V50 set of all things :D), and it's working reasonably well. It's not running quite smooth yet, but with a little more grease and some running in, it should be fine. After a couple of minutes it already started improving. Also, once the shell and additional weights are installed, it should run better as well. 

 

All in all quite happy with it so far, now I just need a couple of years to get the shell built ;)

 

Here in Brazil such a mechanism would be considered "uma gambiarra tecnica" ("a technical gerrymander"). But the assembly looks flawless.

 

Cheers NB

Edited August 26, 2013 by Nick_Burman

[Martijn Meerts]

It's a lot of fun seeing these things come together.. Progress is relatively slow once the frame is constructed considering the shells have a ton of detail that needs to be soldered/glued on.

 

I'm also getting to the point where I need to figure out what I want to do DCC wise. I'm still thinking a sound decoder somehow, and obviously front and rear light, firebox light, maybe cab light.. Question would be high the lights functioned on the prototype. Judging from what pictures I've seen, both lights are just standard headlights actually.

 

I can hardly wait to get an H0j locomotive actually, but I must prevail! (or at least until I manage to finish this kit ;))

[keitaro]

hows this coming along.

 

in my experience you get about halfway and do nothing for 3 months then smash it to end up with a half decent loco ( even if i did break the coupler box and supa glued the couplers on :laughing6: )

[Martijn Meerts]

Still going, just taking my time ;)

 

Of course, I've got way too many projects going on at the same time, but then, I do easily get bored when I work on the same thing for months and months. So, I'm working on finishing my yard, planning the helix, figuring out how to best do a temporary loop to test the yard, t-trak modules, 4-5 world kougei kits at the same time, wooden HMS Victory kit, brass large scale C62-2 kit, doing some train control app programming, working on some sites, keeping the forum going, and occasionally playing a computer game... And all of that in the 3-4 hours of spare time I have per day ;)

 

 

I'm also still considering which H0j kit I want to start with, but that'll likely have to wait considering the new iMac I ordered wasn't really cheap ;)

[keitaro]

lol i don`T have anything model related to work on atm no space for anything.

 

hopefully next year that will change.

[Martijn Meerts]

Not much going on with my Baldwin, although I did finally order a sound decoder and a small collection of speakers. It's going to be quite a challenge to get a good sound in there though. I'm not even certain I can fit it in at all. I'm fairly certain it'll be difficult to completely hide the decoder and/or speaker. Of course, the motor driving the rear axle is already clearly visible inside the cab, so the question is whether it's really going to be an issue. There's still the option of leaving that motor out completely, and install a capacitor so it continues to run well.

 

I've also pre-ordered my first H0j locomotive: http://www.loco1hobby.net/world-craft-ho/488-187-12mm-hokutan-railway-unit-2-steam-locomotive-assembly-kit.html .. Prototypically I don't think it goes well with the Baldwin, but I don't really care about being prototypical anyway. The idea is that this one is going to be a shunting locomotive that handles the cars at the lumber mill/transfer yard.

[Nick_Burman]

I've also pre-ordered my first H0j locomotive: http://www.loco1hobby.net/world-craft-ho/488-187-12mm-hokutan-railway-unit-2-steam-locomotive-assembly-kit.html .. Prototypically I don't think it goes well with the Baldwin, but I don't really care about being prototypical anyway. The idea is that this one is going to be a shunting locomotive that handles the cars at the lumber mill/transfer yard.

 

Quite to the contrary, I dare say. Japanese industrial users had such a mishmash of locomotives that anything (almost) goes...

 

Cheers NB

[Martijn Meerts]

Finally manage to get a little more work done on the Baldwin.. Nowhere near finished, but I just had to do a quick test assembly. The rear axle is missing, but I can't put it in until the frame has been painted. (I did have the axle installed, but I had to remove it so I could paint the frame. That meant destroying the axle though, but luckily, the kit came with a spare axle ;))

 

Not great quality pictures, used my phone to take them. I can't find either of my DSLRs, or my point and shoot.. Getting new furniture and cleaning up is nice, but stuff tends to get misplaced :)

 

 

[macdon]

Glad to see you finally had a bit of time to work on this. Its coming along great.

 

Looks like I need to catch up with you in HOn30 ................... but most likely I'll cheat and get a RTR :D

 

Mardon

[Martijn Meerts]

It's starting to look a little like a locomotive now :)

 

I've been trying to find room for both the decoder and speaker, and I might actually get it all to fit even if I leave in the secondary motor. Just not sure I want to leave it in yet because it's obviously very visible in the cab. In N-scale I don't mind that, but in H0 I think it might start bothering me. Will have to experiment a bit with that.

 

Most of what's left now (apart from painting) are detail bits, which for the most part will be glued on instead of soldered, so that's going to take a while. I'll probably be using epoxy to glue all the detail parts, and the epoxy does take quite a while to fully dry.

 

Just need to find a sound set now that works well with a Baldwin.

[marknewton]

Martin, that looks very nice - very neat, square and straight. Well done!

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[velotrain]

Martijn,

 

Now you've pre-empted me, I was going to say to start easy with Minitrains and Arumodel stuff, them move up to World Kougei and Modellwagen stuff.

 

 

Cheers NB

 

Nick - Thanks for the mention of Modellwagen, which I took to be a German company.  I've just spent some time looking through the site - especially the Light Railway Model Festival and the gorgeous Kiso modular layout, which I've seen before.  Kind of makes me want to look for my Precision Scale Shay and Kiso Baldwin, acquired in my HOn30 days.

 

I mean, really - who can resist beautifully modeled scenes like this?

 

 

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Yeah, narrow gauge allows for a lot of charm and quite a lot of activity without taking up a huge amount of space.

[cteno4]

and a good excuse to go vertical with the scene quite dramatically.

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Time to revive this thread / project 😄

 

I've finally started working a little on the World Kougei H0j kit I got a long time ago. It's a small Hokutan Railways 20t steam locomotive which I mainly got for experimenting, as it was a relatively affordable kit.

 

The kit comes with several white metal (I think at least) detail parts, and in my N-scale World Kougei kits I've been using epoxy to glue them to the brass frame. For this kit (and future IMON kits) I've been looking into soldering the white metal parts though, since it creates a better bond, but obviously I need special low melting point solder and flux for it. This is where the fun starts, since apparently in the Netherlands, no shop sells the stuff, and the only 'low melting point' solder I found, had a melting point of 227 degrees, which is still about 50 degrees higher than the melting point of white metal  ... I did find solder in the UK which a lot of modellers use (Carr's solder), and they also have flux for white metal, but they're not allowed to ship the flux outside the UK. I'll likely order some of the solder there at least, but the hunt for white metal flux continues.

 

Another thing I've been looking at, is hand laying the track for this project. I currently don't have any 12mm track, but I'm looking at at least getting an oval of standard TT track for testing. For the actual layout I really want to go with actual wooden sleepers/ties (possibly with the occasional copper clad sleeper/tie to solder the rail to for added strength) There's various places in the US that sell those, I just need to figure out which ones to get exactly, as they don't have TT scales ones. I could of course just get strips of wood and cut the sleepers/ties to the correct length myself. The rail itself is also interesting, since H0 has various codes with 83 and 100 being the most common, but also out-of-scale ones. There's also 55 and 70 I believe, but I'm wondering what the best option would be for a branch line in Japan, especially one that has sections of dual gauge.

 

Of course, there's more things to research, such as the spacing between sleepers/ties on regular sections, and the layout of sleepers/ties on turnouts, but that should be possible to figure out by looking at existing branch lines, especially the not often used ones that may still have the old track in place.

 

As seems to be common with my projects, I'm probably making this too difficult on myself, but hey, why do it the easy way when there's a hard way 😄

 

[ChibiNippon]

"Special Solder and Flux", "Can't ship outside the UK".

 

That sounds like the type of stuff that's delving into sections of the RoHS that speak to me, and they say "Use the Epoxy, Luke"

[cteno4]

Sounds like a weekend vacation to Britain may be needed. Maybe visit Paul.

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

18 hours ago, ChibiNippon said:

"Special Solder and Flux", "Can't ship outside the UK".

 

That sounds like the type of stuff that's delving into sections of the RoHS that speak to me, and they say "Use the Epoxy, Luke"

 

Not sure it's RoHS certified or not, the solder isn't special as such, it's just a solder with lower melting point than white metal. The flux contains phosphoric acid, which they're not allowed to ship by air, I did find a possible alternative in the Netherlands though. But I might still go the epoxy route, because a lot of the parts are really small, and probably wouldn't work to solder without losing detail.

 

 

17 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Sounds like a weekend vacation to Britain may be needed. Maybe visit Paul.

 

jeff

 

I have actually been considering a trip to the UK sometime this year to visit some friends and do a little bit of travelling, but haven't really made any actual plans yet. Lots of places in the UK I want to visit 🙂

 

 

As for the project, I've been looking into the decoder and speaker install in the Hokutan steamer. Decoder is possible to place inside 1 of the side tanks, although after finishing the kit, you won't be able to reach the decoder anymore, unless I can somehow install a hatch. The speaker is a bit of a problem, there's no room for it other than in the cab. One option is to mount it to the underside of the roof to make it at least less obvious, but I'm also looking at scratch building some interior detail like a firebox and some instruments, and I might be able to integrate the speaker in that. It will not be prototypical and probably a bit out of scale, but it might be less annoying than having a speaker glued to the roof. Also, if I'm going to scratch build the interior, I can also add an LED to simulate a fire. I've also looked at a smoke generator, but I'm not a fan of them, and the smokestack isn't big enough to drill a hole through for a smoke unit. Instead, I might look into possible adding an ESU power pack inside the boiler, which should help a lot with smooth running. I'm not sure it'll fit though, I need to order a power pack to test it (and they're quite expensive ..) 

 

I also remembered that a long time ago I bought some downloadable building plans for 2 H0 structures. The building plans are to scale and are meant to be built using scale lumber. Due to various reasons I never got around to work on those, but I downloaded a new version, checked some measurements (the plans are in inches), and ordered several types of scale lumber in a couple of different sizes. This should be great to work on during weekdays where I don't really have a lot of time to work on other things. Also planning on using some of the scale lumber to add a floor in the Hokutan steamer, and hide some of the screws that are visible there.

 

Other than that, I'm still researching hand laying track. Pretty sure I know where I'm going to buy what I need for the tracks, I just need to check spacing of the sleepers. Just getting TT scale turnout fixtures probably wouldn't be correct, but they also have H0m turnout fixtures, which I think might work for a branch line. It's not something you want to buy if you're not sure though, considering a turnout building fixture / jig is quite an initial investment.