Causes of poor running #137

Or idiot's mistake #6..  Look at it how you will :-)

As part of renovating my fleet of tired P4 wagons, a Coopercraft GWR open wagon with sheet rail came to hand.  I've had a preliminary look at it, taken off the old S&W couplings that were not as well-fitted as the ones that I build now, and given the wheelsets a spin to see if there was any wobble.

There wasn't, but one wheel was catching very badly on the brakeshoe.  Looking at the one on the other side, it was running well clear of the brakeshoe.  Odd to find.  So I popped the wheelset out, and looked at it carefully, and this is what I found.

Notice the difference?  When I had checked, and presumably adjusted, the back-to-back setting on this wheelset I had made a simple mistake.  I'd pushed the wheels along the axle until one was far back from the coning, and one was actually sitting over it.  So although the wheelset was to the correct measured back-to-back, it didn't sit squarely in the chassis.

A lack of care on my part, and something to make sure that I don't do again in the future, but if you get poor running from a particular piece of rolling stock, it's something else that merits checking.

Hoorah for Alan Gibson!

I had a call on Saturday from Colin at Alan Gibson saying that he had an order for me ready for shipping. On Tuesday I had a card through the door saying that the Royal Mail had a package for me to sign for, And finally today, I was able to go down to the post office and collect a stout brown box with my name on...

And inside were :-)

I haven't opened the boxes yet, but they should both have a full complement of P4 wheels included, and be ready for full springing on all axles. Excitement!

Scaleforum - OMSL

In a blatant steal of a title from RMWeb, with Scaleforum 2009 only about a month away, I've started thinking about what I need (or simply would like!) to stock up on. The list so far (and this post will be edited as I go along) is:

- miniature snipe nosed pliers. When I started dismantling the wheelsets and w-irons on the LNWR open that I'm repairing, I wanted to twist back the lugs on the rocking w-iron, and found that I didn't have a precise way of doing it. In the end I used a pair of flat-ended pliers, but I need a proper tool to enable me to work with more precision.

- a w-iron spacing jig. One of these, in fact - http://www.brassmasters.co.uk/axle_gauges.htm as I found that the Bill Bedford gauge that I have works perfectly for setting up parallel axles, but doesn't work at all when checking already-fitted pinpoint axles.

- wagon wheels. I've just realised how many unmade wagon kits I have, and how many sets of wheels they will need. Alan Gibson will do remarkably good business off me...

- waisted pin-points. If I need the wheels, I need the bearings as well, and these type might mean that you have to junk the ones that arrive with some wheels or in kits, but they are sooooo much easier to use than filing or drilling big chunks out of the back of an axlebox.

More on this post in future as I think of other things to add :-)