The Woolwich beast

[finescalerr]

Nothing wrong with that start. -- Russ

[Barney]

Looking Good Les a great start - I'm still trying to work things out but have now got a few drawings of the chassis of course with a bit of modellers licence
Barney

[Ray Dunakin]

Great start!

[Les Tindall]

Making slow progress, its 80% thinking, 20% actual modelling!   The large single cylinder of the oil engine is installed (other bits to add to it at a later date), along with the flywheels/con rod.  The flywheels are made from laminated styrene sheet cut roughly to size then turned on a dremel firstly with a small chisel then sandpaper.  The frames are painted acrylic dark blue (which will be weathered down later). The colour scheme was a subject of great debate between Barney and myself as obviously no colour photos exist, but he had some references which indicated this may have been the colour prior to WW1
Next stage will be the gears.  That will take even more thinking!.
Les

[Barney]

The Blue turned out nice - and the gear box well what can I say - it will keep you awake all night
Barney

[finescalerr]

Adequate.

As Les ponders his next step, Barney should be building his own version. But you have let us down, Barney; you are just commenting from the peanut gallery like I am. Go stand in the corner.

Russ

[Les Tindall]

After spending some time in the horizonal position (its supposed to help the flow of blood to the brain) plus a glass or two (or three) of Australian Chardonnay I have figured out the gearing system.  The biggest headache was trying to work out how they reversed the drive on the beast.  Anyway it utilises bevel gears.  Now being able to sleep tonight I have come to the conclusion that modelling is still fun!
Les

[Barney]

But-err - no excuse - I will stand in the corner - Still scale hopping back to 1/35th !!!!
Barney

[Ray Dunakin]

Awesome! I love the blue, really looks good on it.

[Bernhard]

Great work, Les. I like the paint job. It turns a plastic model into a real thing.
Bernhard

[Bill Gill]

It has weight. I like the blue too.

[1-32]

Hi Les.
Very interesting subject and a great start with such an interact  frame.
cheers

[Les Tindall]

More progress, all the gearing is now in place, next part will be the coupling rods.  The gears came from a cheap pack (81 in the pack!) of plastic gears from China at just £4.60 ($5.50) including postage!!!  They came within days too. A good selection of sizes enabled me to fit the gears about as the prototype photos looked. The only difficult one was the large gear with the slots in. This had to have some styrene strips added and the slots carefully cut out and filed to shape as per the original loco.  The strange contraption on the top of the gears holds the vertical gear the is part of the reversing mechanism of the loco. The clutch (just about visible in a very crowded area of the engine - remember it is just 18 inch gauge) came from the bits box, a metal disc of just the right size.  The clutch on the prototype was operated by a long lever from the cab, pushing against a moveable tube (in the centre of the disc by the large slotted gear) which then disengaged the drive and also allowed (via another lever) a gear wheel to move up against the vertical gear suspended from that contraption above the gears.  I hope that makes sense, its all a bit "Heath Robinson" but obviously worked.
More progress shots in a couple of weeks.
Les

[Barney]

Looking great Les - and all them gears /cogs between a 18in frame amazing !
Barney

[finescalerr]

Compared to figuring out how the gears work and then how to replicate them, the actual construction must have seemed simple. At this stage, things appear adequate. -- Russ