This evening, however, I earmarked a little time to progress the RCH wagon and had a go at adding the axle boxes, springs and brakes. I started by looking over a lovely model of a MINK D built for me as a birthday present many years ago by my good friend Nick.
The compensation units that he used are very similar the the current MJT units and the wagon has been easily converted from EM to P4. The springs on this MINK are J-hangers and Nick had cut the spring away from the hangers on the rocking unit allowing a good 1.5mm of movement.
I thought I'd try and follow his example but after adding the springs on the rocking unit the movement has been restricted to 0.5mm which is most disappointing. The buffer beam height looks OK when compared to the 57xx so I'm not sure how I can achieve more movement?
I cut the springs away from the shoes thinking this would be the least obvious place rather than having a gap between the spring and axlebox. Perhaps I should rethink the way I'm doing this as I would have thought a 1.0mm movement would have been preferable? Also I'm not sure of the look of the gap in the springs?
While at the Leatherhead show I purchased one of the 'more modern' sprung subframe compensation units from Masokits. Looks like I'll have to learn how to use a soldering iron again! Perhaps give this unit a try on one of the many minerals wagons I have to build?
Why would you need more that 0.5mm?
ReplyDeleteSeriously... If you have the ability to build rolling stock like this, then your track is NOT going to have 1.0mm steps in it.
A lot of people over-worry about suspension travel. If your track is reasonably level then you don't actually need that large amount of movement.
Yes, you need a small amount of movement for normally aligned rail joints, crossing vees, etc, but it was one of the dead-ends of the 1980s that stated that P4 stock needs to be able to cross matchsticks and climb hilsides. It doesn't, and that's why drop-in conversions have suddenly become so popular now the penny has dropped.
So don't worry - what you've done should be fine :-)
PS - it's better if you try and weight it to 25g per axle
ReplyDeletePPS - it looks very nice :-)
Thanks for the advice Flymo
ReplyDeleteI take your point about track, but I've still got to prove my track building skills consistently on a layout. I'm just trying to hedge my bets a little on this wagon.
Anyway I feel I am making progress all be it very slowly and it does run nicely on my short test track even though it is running light.
Thanks again
Yan