Interested in 1/150 6.5mm or 7.1mm gauge?

[Ken Ford]

Nice find! We're getting back to modeling season...

[cteno4]

It's funny how looking at prototypically correct gauge models looks funny when you have been so use to loong at the wide, unprototypical gauge regular models! But they do look nice!

 

Like the Spring power couplers they tried. I had tracked down some tiny springs to try this last year, but one of those projects put aside...

 

Jeff

[kvp]

Actually 6.5 mm is a tad too small for 1:150, so by adding the thickness of the rails, it looks much smaller and it is a bit smaller than prototypical. The large flange size of the wheels doesn't help either. (actually i found that from a side view, using darkened finescale wheels have a large impact on the look, especially with relatively exposed wheels, typical on 2 axle cars) Also the bogie frames are usually made thinner on cape gauge Nj scale models to not protude out too much and resizing them instead of just pushing the wheels in on the axle could create much thinner bogies than on the prototype. Looking at the photos, the writer does both, depending on the type of the wheelsets.

 

The various power couplers are interesting as i would like to create (or source from somewhere) a rapido power coupler that could be remotely uncoupled and still provides a reliable power connection.

[Darklighter]

Is there a guide for the conversion of current Tomix DMUs?

[railsquid]

7.1mm and 9.6mm gauge side by side:

 

 

[Ken Ford]

Hey, strangers... life has kept me away from here and Japanese modeling in general.

 

That video is a great find, railsquid.  My minimal experimentation with 6.5mm makes me think I can live with the compromise, to my eye the narrower than scale track is still a huge improvement over 9mm and the availability of commercial track products is a huge plus.  If someone were to start offering even a limited range of 7.1mm track and points, I would definitely give it a try.

[katoftw]

@Ken Ford welcome back

[Englehart]

this thread have interest me.

 

does 7.1 is commercially availble or do you have to handlay them?

 

if conversion is need have anyone converted the locomotive axle?

[Kamome442]

@Englehart I am modelling 7.1mm track on Yurakucho. My track is hand made and as far as I am aware track at this gauge is not commercially available. Some people convert trains to 6.5mm as Z gauge track is available.

I have converted a couple of emu's so far there are two main steps, changing wheel position on the axel and for motorised cars removing some of the plastic block that holds the gears on the bogie.

Changing the wheels is pretty straight forward but bear in mind there are different types of axel. Kato and I believe Microace use a plastic axel, essentially a tube that each wheel pushes into with a small gap to electrically isolate the two wheels. Tomix uses a metal axel with a small plastic ring on one wheel for isolation. This diagram shows how each type can be converted. 

 

For the plastic axel pull the wheels off the tube, gently tap the metal pins out from the back on each wheel. Then cut the required amount from the plastic axel, for motorised wheels with a gear (shown in green) it is important to remove the same amount from each side so that the gear stays in the same position relative to the centre of the axel. For metal axels gently tap the front face of each wheel along the axel. My personal experience it that the wheel with the plastic sleeve is easier to move than the metal to metal contact of the other wheel. This makes it quite tricky to move one wheel without accidentally moving the other. I tend to keep checking each wheel with callipers to make sure nothing is out of alignment.

 

The hard part is removing the supports on the motor bogie, I will try to take a picture of how much material I had to remove so the inside face of the wheel did not rub against the bogie. It is pretty drastic but is possible.

I hope this helps.

Joe

[Englehart]

^^ seems the plastic and motorized are much easier to remove and convert it

for tomix i kinda find somehow very hard to re-gauge (except for their old plastic wheels)

 

another question did you modify the trucks or just fill in some plates for the gap?

[Kamome442]

@Englehart For sure the plastic axels are really easy to convert for that reason most of my not Shinkansen rolling stock is Kato. The only Tomix trains I have for Yurakucho are a 185 series and a 215 series and I am not looking forward to converting those!

 

There is no need to modify the trucks or add any filler. Cutting 1.9mm from the plastic axel moves the wheel spacing down from 9mm to 7.1mm. By tapping each axel pin outward by 0.95mm ensures the overall measurement from tip to tip of the axel remain unchanged and they can just drop back into the truck. This photo is a little crude but hopefully you can see the pin on the converted wheels (left) stick out further than those on the right.

 

Originally I would measure the length of the pin with a calliper, subtract 0.95mm and very gently tap the pin with a small hammer until it was pushed out to the right length. This was no as hard as it sounds you quite quickly find a rhythm and feel for how hard tap. After some practice I could usually get within 0.1mm with 4 taps. Seeing as I have around 40 train sets to convert I have since made a little jig to speed things up. I talked briefly about it in this post.

 

I really should post in more detail about converting motorised wheels. The next time I convert something I will take plenty of pictures and share the process.

Joe

[disturbman]

15 minutes ago, Kamome442 said:

For sure the plastic axels are really easy to convert for that reason most of my not Shinkansen rolling stock is Kato. The only Tomix trains I have for Yurakucho are a 185 series and a 215 series and I am not looking forward to converting those!

 

You might be able to change the Tomix wheelsets for Kato's. I have done so on my Tomix KoKi and Tomytec trains with no noticeable issue, except maybe a bit more friction but ou can probably arrange that by slightly enlarging the holes in the boggies.

[Kamome442]

@disturbman thank you, I was wondering if that was an option glad to hear it is possible. I think I will be ordering a bunch of Kato wheels in the not to distant future! 

I did try to convert an old Tomix 211 series with metal axels, long story short I now have a 211 with more wheels on one side than the other 😳

[Englehart]

2 hours ago, Kamome442 said:

@disturbman thank you, I was wondering if that was an option glad to hear it is possible. I think I will be ordering a bunch of Kato wheels in the not to distant future! 

I did try to convert an old Tomix 211 series with metal axels, long story short I now have a 211 with more wheels on one side than the other 😳

 

they're kinda drop they some wheel have shorter axle because of the pickup plates

 

I will order a caliper first and try all the tips you gave 🙂

[disturbman]

@Kamome442I would try first with things I have at hand. I only tried on boggies without pickups. You could try swapping one axle in each set you want to regauge. I used 11-606.

Edited April 29, 2022 by disturbman

[Englehart]

5 minutes ago, disturbman said:

@Kamome442I would try first with things I have at hand. I only tried on boggies without pickups. You could try swapping one axle in each set you want to regauge. I used 11-606.

now i'm curious if this was to be done on a SL

[Kamome442]

@disturbman that would certainly be a sensible first step. I will swap a few wheels over first to check which ones fit best.

 

@Englehart I remember seeing at least one SL converted to 6.5mm a while back. I cannot imagine that it was an easy task to keep all the little linkages lined up.

 

Edited/Updated

I found this YouTube video of a Kato C56 running on 6.5mm track. They also have videos of a converted C12 and C57, as if doing it once was not painful enough😄

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Kamome442

[Englehart]

4 hours ago, Kamome442 said:

@disturbman that would certainly be a sensible first step. I will swap a few wheels over first to check which ones fit best.

 

@Englehart I remember seeing at least one SL converted to 6.5mm a while back. I cannot imagine that it was an easy task to keep all the little linkages lined up.

i'll try to convert some of my American DL to see if it is doable will go with the 7.1mm route since i'll be handlaying tracks

 

[Englehart]

did a first attempt today

 

using visual reference and old school ruler, also some old tomix track

 

it measures around 7-7.3mm

 

narrow on the left normal on the right

 

kiha converted to narrow on the left e233 normal on the right

 

 

 

difference if profound when skirt is installed

narrow

9mm

 

 

can't wait for my ordered rails (code 40 and 55) and caliper

[Kamome442]

Great first effort @Englehart my first attempt was nothing more than rail and styrene strip held together with double-sided sticky tape.

 

I am looking forward to seeing what you can do once you have a calliper and a supply of rail.

Joe

[Englehart]

10 minutes ago, Kamome442 said:

Great first effort @Englehart my first attempt was nothing more than rail and styrene strip held together with double-sided sticky tape.

 

I am looking forward to seeing what you can do once you have a calliper and a supply of rail.

Joe

 

 

i've created my own gauge checker for the meantime

 

also converted the tomix switch track

 

 

today progress 4 S280 was converted to 7.2mm

[Englehart]

 

first "handlaid track" some rails with not stick on the tomix trackbed

this I used some matchstick as ties. will color it brown later on

[Englehart]

did another protyping of the rail this time I added some spike to stay in gauge then with super glue

 

spike are from old ethernet cables then using a electornic tweezer to drill a hole on the ties

 

[Englehart]

my caliper arrived so I thought was doing around 7.0mm

well it wasn't....

 

edit: I might stay with these measurement as a comprimise for my 1/150 and 1/160 stocks 🙂

Edited August 15, 2022 by Englehart