What About The Bee

Mentioned at last update was my intention to take a look at the body shell. Size Matters I have already purchased a OO Planet Tender, along with the Hanazono motor boggie it fits. I thought the best approach would be to align the locomotive shell design to that tender, given that this is a cosmetic exercise. In CAD, I placed a scale next to OO Planet. 5 mm cubes, all stacked in a row. Printed the entire model on paper, making sure the printed scale was the correct size. That is, an image of OO Planet, the same size as OO Planet will be, with a ruler next to it. I placed the OO Tender next to the image and aligned everything manually, so the pair would appear as if they were on rails. Yikes!! That tender doesn't look right. It is entirely too tall! I checked and re-checked, finding nothing wrong with the process. Issac Shaw I have an image of Planet, herself, by Shaw, a known good observer. This is a contemporary 1831 image. Given all the conversation about tophats, strangely, nobody is wearing one. The tender floor is higher than the footplate, as the engineman seems seated in that ledge. Importantly, the front of the tender seems a bit lower than the boiler. Armengaud I then examined Armengaud. Armengaud has the top of the boiler 2000 mm over the rails. OO Planet has the top of the boiler 27 mm over the rails. My OO Planet is within 0.03" of being accurately scaled for height. So if the locomotive is a close match, how does Armengaud portray the tender? Armengaud draws the tender at exactly the same scale, and clearly identified that tender as a match for the locomotive. Armengaud draws them on separate sheets. I grabbed both and put them into one image, aligning by the rail tops. The odd tender floor to footplate relationship is present. The front of the tender aligns fairly well with the top of the boiler. That doesn't look like my pair, but does confirm Shaw as a known good observer. Especially side by side. Here, the side by side of Armengaud and the reproduction Planet at the museum. That's a reasonable match. Leaving the purchased OO Tender odd man out. Hornby Hornby produced Lion and Tiger, with LMR generation 3 tenders, just as this OO Tender is, an LMR generation 3 tender. The front of the Hornby's tender is a height match for Hornby's Tiger Locomotive. Well, that's odd. My OO Tender is nearly a perfect height match for Tiger's tender. Is Tiger taller? I do have a very special image of Lion, as it was found in the 1920s. This is what Hornby based Tiger on. I put it next to an image of the reproduction Planet. Now both rear wheels just so happen to be 5 feet in diameter. The green bars are the same size in both. So yes, Lion/Tiger are taller. But how much taller? Records do indicate that Lion's boiler was 6" taller, and 3" wider than Planet's boiler, Lion's boiler is oval, Planet's round. It stands to reason that the boiler would sit at least 6" taller on the sandwich frame. I measured the images using various methods, but I am limited by the resolution of the Lion image and its' less than square on perspective. I get a range: between 6½" to 9" taller. Does that account for the difference? Assume 9" taller in real life. In OO, that is 0.118" or 3mm. Sadly, OO Tender's front is ~6mm taller than OO Planet's Boiler. Simple arithmetic gives a 18" height difference, which cannot be. I am left with the inescapable conclusion that the purchased OO Tender is too tall for an accurately scaled OO Planet. It started out as an N scale model, sizing it upwards to OO, per the designer. He made it to fit the Hanazono motor bogie. The designer specifically stated that it was for Planet. Welp, not so much. Perhaps for a larger LMR locomotive, such as Lion, or any of the Bird class, but not Planet. What to do? I altered the vertical scale of the OO Tender image, so as to make the front of the tender match the top of the boiler. Shrinking the image vertically. The result follows Bottom half, before and after. Top half, next to OO Planet. While that looks much better, it also means that the tender cannot just be tweaked to look the part. Alternatively, I could make OO Planet taller, but that means it would be out of scale with the Hornby models, so no. I think this means I must add a OO tender to my list of things to do. I see no other real alternative. Bee

Another fun video. Good stuff Alberto! Bee

Hello Arjun I have been giving more thought to your situation. Consider this: The Captain of a ship is in command of that ship. What happens when the Admiral is on board? The Captain is still in charge of the ship, but he must obey the Admiral. Like you, I do not have a permanent layout. I set up my track on a table and I command my trains. I am the Captain of my layout. Oh the fun that I have, as I dream of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. And then along comes SWMBO (She who must be obeyed). The Admiral, otherwise known as my wife. The Admiral says she needs that table to do her chores. "15 more minutes?" - Captain "Yes, but that is it" - Admiral And then I carefully pack everything away. I would really like a permanent layout in a room. I have plans and ambition! But I must contend with the Admiral. Very few people are in command of every aspect of their lives. There is always another with more power. There is always compromise and rules. Conclusion: Learn how to deal with a person who has more power. A son will not have more power than his father, until much, much later in life. Until then, the son must negotiate for privilege. Bee

Hello Arjun You mentioned your return from "Delhi". Since I cannot know, I will ask politely: Do you live in India? If you do live in India, then I will retract my comment. My comment does not account for your culture, or the family structure of your culture. I am in the USA, and any advice I may offer is based on that. I have met many Engineers from India, but only in a business setting, which will not be applicable to your situation. Bee

Hello Robc058 I can only offer what I have done, it may not be useful as advice. Printing services are available, I only need purchase the print, not the printer. This gave me the opportunity to experiment with the product output without a heavy up front investment in a printer or learning about that printer. I decided to start at the deep end of the pool. For me, the value is in the intellectual property, to wit: the design. The first choice presented then was which tool. I selected "FreeCAD". It is extremely powerful. I've barely scratched the surface. The learning curve can be daunting. Other CAD package recommendations are sure to come in, for example Solid Works. FreeCAD is free. Zero cost. Everything resides on your computer. You can never be locked out of the system. FreeCAD has been quite informative, as I struggle to set details, tolerances & etc, to create OO Planet. But I think this perfect to help clarify which printer I should use to capture details. Here is an example. Planet used a 1 inch nut in places. If I was to scale that properly for OO, the nut would be 0.013" or 0.33mm. That is below 1 pixel for FDM, typically around 0.4mm. Forget hex or square nut, I will get a blob of plastic. This will be even harder in TT or N. You are correct about scaling upwards. I purchased an N scale print of a tender, scaled up to OO and tweaked to fit a commercial motor boggie. The details, while satisfactory at N, suffered at OO. Your mileage may vary, and when the tender is whizzing by, details are barely visible. Find my thread on OO Planet to see what FreeCAD can do. Good luck and have fun! Bee

Roger, I did not want to be perceived as "that guy", who finds fault with everything. In re-reading my post (something I ordinarily do to check grammar, punctuation and spelling) it suddenly dawned on me that I possibly could be considered as such. It was a that moment my post was summarily removed and my explanation added. ÷÷÷ Alberto, please do check how you have parked the cars at the hotel. The hotel manager is likely to have a private word with you about following the markings on the pavement. Bee

Thank you Going Spare, that was quite informative. I do appreciate the insider knowledge. Bee

Back in February, I did indeed have an email exchange with Hornby on this matter. I requested the service sheet for Lion. This was the response ÷÷÷ Thank you for your email. We do have a service sheet for the Lion/Tiger engine, however at the moment I am not 100% sure that it is for publication as it has not been uploaded to the website. If you could let me know if you have a specific part enquiry I'd be happy to look into if for you, and if you are after it more for general interest it will be uploaded to the website as soon as it is signed off. ÷÷÷ Going Spare, As you have knowledge of the process, would you mind informing us what the approval process generally looks like? Bee

I've deleted my post, making 96RAF's post to be somewhat puzzling. Sorry about that 96. It cannot be helped. Why did I delete? In retrospect, the post could have been taken two ways, something that only occurred to me later. I meant to contribute to the layout, but later realized the post could be considered a critique, which was not my intention. I thoroughly enjoyed Alberto's video. Alberto always looks to be having fun! Bee

Hello Arjun Welcome back. You said two things which stand out to me. 1) your track is laid out on the carpet 2) your Father steps on the track This leads me to believe that your layout is in a common area of your home. That is, your layout is in a shared space. A space that others ( Mother and Father) also generally use. Being considerate of others, having empathy for others, is a hallmark of maturity. You see the world through the eyes of another. So ask yourself these questions (a) what does Mother see and how does my layout impact her? (b) what does Father see (apparently not your track) and how does my layout affect him? The reason there were so many suggestions for boards, and being able to put them away, is so that you can show consideration of others. I second this. Your layout is on the floor, possibly in the way of others. Bee

There is little chance of a voting scheme in the forums. It is, for all intent and purpose, moot. Live with the forum in its current realization. Yet here is a perfect example of why a dislike button should be available: A question about the Gaugemaster high frequency track cleaning device and modern DCC ready locomotives came in. In providing an answer that considered only the motor, I indicated that the Gaugemaster device would not hurt the motor. Yet, I thoroughly ignored the blanking plate and the noise suppression RC circuit mounted there. The advice that it would not hurt the motor was true. The device would destroy the blanking plate, said others. I accepted that correction and revised my comment, making it strike thru text. I added a note of the error as well, indicating why it was strike through text. So would you want to down vote that bad advice? Perhaps you would. Perhaps not, as my error was retracted. Now suppose I was stubborn and ignored consensus, without accepting my mistake. Correspondents may wish to mark my poor advice for others. To warn them, especially as I would not relent under the stubborn scenario. That could be expressed with a down vote more readily than a conversation. Far less confrontational too. ÷÷÷÷ From a philosophical view, an upvote, without the facility for a down vote, is undemocratic. Head on over the Parliament and tell the MPs that they may only vote for something, never against. The ideas they disagree with, well, say nothing. Bee

May I gently suggest that a "like button" has unintended consequences? If we must have a like button, then it is also required that we have a dislike button. Are we really going to total the Up votes and subtract the Down votes? That is only fitting and appropriate. We voted, what is the score? Are posts about to become a popularity contest? How will you handle a child's post? Specifically, as we are generally not privy to the age of the poster. A child's enthusiasm for the hobby could be destroyed as we send his/her post down the escalator of doom. Thank you but NO! There is a place to like Alberto's video. If you feel so compelled to vote, sign in to youTube and give the video an Up vote. I did, because I truly liked Alberto's video. I can appreciate his effort. I prefer the conversation we have here to continue unburdened by likes, subscribes and the notification bell. Its far more egalitarian and welcoming, without urgency or pejorative judgment. My apologies for being slightly contrarian here. I can see opposing viewpoints expressed by other contributors. I would just like the unintended consequences considered. Bee

Thank you ThreeLink, very much appreciated. I must say, that was completely unexpected! The size of the bed members is huge and it is surprising that they are of wood, not metal. I suspect that the legs are a later addition, as the channel iron they are made of would have been far more suitable for the bed. Perfect for vibration dampening though. The lathe is a freehand lathe, meaning no lead screw driven cross slide or lead screw for feed. Being freehand, precision parts will be difficult to make and impossible to reproduce. Possibly a lathe for cutting wood, not metal, as controlling the freehand chisel on metal would be difficult, a function of feeds and speeds. The pulley system is clever. High rotational speed of the turned part. Unexpected, but clever. I like it! While Armengaud does show us hex nuts in the 1830s, I am always surprised by them. Coach builders forged their own nuts, making them typically square. Standard thread sizes simply did not exist. As such, the threaded rod (outside threads) and nut (inside threads) were cut to fit each other. Interchangeability did not exist. The time of lathe manufacture was also just when machine cut threads were first available. Those are cutting edge components for the day! Bee

At the last update, the support brackets for the valve gear on the front of the smokebox and support brackets on the backhead were placed. Clutch Control The clutch controls are mostly a static item. I've no need for a functional clutch. Making it functional, within the context of the valve gear is a needless complication. That said, the clutch controls are an integral part of the appearance of OO Planet. The only thing the model must do is look the part. With one major exception. Those two walking rods, which hold the eccentric rods up at the smokebox, must slightly rotate. The small angle of rotation permits the eccentric rods to move in and out. Blue arrows point to one of two eccentric rods. Pink arrow points to one of two walking rods. As the eccentric rods thrust in and out, the walking rods rotate on the clutch axles, yellow arrows. Axle Support The light blue supports each consist of two pieces. The bottom half toggles into a notch. The top half round holds the axles. The control rods are shown floating by the chimney. Short Connecting Levers On the prototype, the short green levers will transmit the command from the control rods to the walking rods. The small upper green lever is pulled towards the backhead. The axle transmits the rotational force to the walking rod, lifting it up. When lifted, the eccentric rod is disengaged from the eccentric rod follower, permitting manual control of the slide valve, via those oscillating curved footplate handles In OO static mode, the short green levers simply hold items in place. In order to assemble / disassemble the shell from the chassis, the control rods will need to be removed. The small screw will detach the control rods from the short green levers. Here, you can see the axle rings and screw at the top of the walking rod. The other walking rod is hidden, to show the sleeve that the walking rod walks in. I am not convinced there is sufficient material in the lever and will likely make the surround wider. The concept should be evident. A sleeve protects the tiny screw threads, and that sleeve is a bearing surface for the hole in the lower green short lever. Backhead Clutch Handles. The mounting for the handles follows Armengaud, inset. A short rod is bent and fixed to a plate. The etched handle is bent and threaded onto the base. A screw connects the clutch control rod to the clutch control handle. It sits statically in place, looking marvelous! With this, the first pass at the valve gear and clutch is complete. Everything is supported to the chassis and proper tolerances have been considered. Plan Forward Consider the shell and how it will attach to the chassis. How all the small control bits fit onto the shell must be added. For example, the base of the clutch control by the backhead is a small disk. There should be a corresponding shallow counterbore to not only locate the base relative to the shell, but to also hide any glue lines. The sandwich frames and spring assembly to be redrawn for OO. Recall I drew iteration 1 of the sandwich frames at full scale, a rookie mistake. Detail all the rivets and other associated decorations. The journey continues Until next time Bee

Hello Kyle As this is your first post, I would like to say "Welcome Aboard!" Many folks who come here for the first time, think they are speaking to Hornby. Strange as it may seem, Hornby does not monitor these pages. If you would like to express your displeasure directly to Hornby, you will need to contact customerservices.uk@hornby.com Or customercare@hornby.com As others have mentioned by now, precise duplication of models cannot be performed because the model simply will not go around the curves on your layout. The broad curves required would be far beyond what the average enthusiast could ever dream of. As to content of your set, I would urge you to examine the description and photographs with extraordinary care. Hornby does state what is included, but sometimes, a magical decoder ring is required (nah, just kidding. Hornby tells you) Now what follows is completely unsolicited, old man advice. Who doesn't love a curmudgeon with a keyboard, telling you what to do, how to act, what to think! Seriously, who doesn't love that. Here it is: play trains. Get lost in the majesty of the Flying Scotsman! Dream of your locomotive. Watch the valve gear. Maybe get a few more cars if it suits your fancy. But most of all, have fun! Bee

Hi ThreeLink When you type text to be posted, it is in a box. Right at the top of that box is a rectangle. The icons in that rectangle, left to right, are Bold, Italic, Underscore, Strike through, Emoji, and Picture. Just tap on "picture" and navigate to your image. Select it, and your image will appear in the text entry box Easy Peasy!! CAUTION: When you hit submit, your post needs moderator approval. It will NOT be displayed. Do not submit it twice!!! Look for the banner message saying "moderator approval", or words to that effect Bee

FULL STOP ThreeLink, you said, about George Stephenson's lathe "there was a wheelbarrow leaning against it. I took the liberty of moving it so as to get a decent photo". May I please see that photo? Please!?!?!!! I'm also quite curious. How was it powered? I do suppose it was line shaft, but that is a tentative guess at best. About the Museum The head curator, the director of a museum sets the tone and tenor. Sometimes it is a financial strain which causes a shift in focus. It sounds as if the current director has a different focus than early industry. Perhaps a formal letter to the museum will jolt them back to reality? Bee

Hi ThreeLink It is incredible how artifacts from long ago can appear before us, as if by magic. To think that you stood where George would have operated the tool is fairly startling!! V Bee

Hello Fishy I selected the word "oddity" carefully. It first appears in 1713 but is in common use by the 1830s. Specifically, it is "something old or peculiar" by 1834. "Oddity" is a period word! I know most will not get that reference so I make it explicit here. The thread will not explicitly restrict itself to the LMR, although I make no secret of my adoration. Bee

Hello RT Right you are! Although Walschaerts Valve Gear was widely used, there were many other types. Railway Oddities may examine other strange things as I go, as well. When I get around to LMR32 Experiment, I will be studying that photograph of the Dundee and Newtyle locomotive as a functional example. As 96RAF points out, not all of those artistic representations could function. And yes, there are plenty more to come! Bee

Hi Roger B. Would you mind turning the images the right way around? They all appeared correctly when I posted. I would really like it if the image in the editor would appear the same way around as it will be, when viewed later. There are quite a few installments already in mind. The real conundrum is the order! I am saving an extra special one for the Holiday Season, a present for all. Bee

Hello Paul It does indeed take a bit of work to set a joke up properly. I'm glad someone saw the humor and thank you for that note. Even if it didn't last, someone saw it and had a chuckle. Makes it all worthwhile. Bee

Hello Al About youTube The US government enforced regulatory compliance on this matter. People were marketing to children via their channels. Using their own kids as bait in the videos, making them exploited child actors. Other small children will not be aware of a clever schemes. It was fairly nasty business. When youTube asks you "Is this for kids?", the question is part of that compliance. All kinds of things happen to your video when you say "yes, its for kids", mostly negative from our perspective. I know one youTube channel who reads right off the Lionel box "ages 14 and up" to protect himself from the nutters in youTube compliance. Just say No! About the Black Five I always appreciate locomotives on test. When reading those early books, the common thread was the development and testing of theories. Would this or that work? Who had the better idea from a practical or economic sense? Your tests mirror that. How much tractive effort? Does the locomotive have enough adhesion? So many factors and tests. Have fun Al! Bee

Hello Arjun I cannot imagine why you would be embarrassed. It is actually a good thing for us to know. You will get better suited advice! Bee

It was indeed! Smoothly rolling away. Have you marked your videos for kids Al? It seems as if you have, which restricts many youTube actions. For example, notifications: youTube doesn't want children alerted to a new video. This means,even if I am subscribed, I won't be notified Bee