A CAB and r/c FOR ZELDA (aka EDRIG)

Brian I may have a smaller battery pack spare if you tell me what space size you have.

Be careful though with smaller lower-power packs they may not have enough oomph for the servos depending on the load.

I have trouble with 600mAh in some locos 2 channels and above.

Patrick is right...I'm a little concerned with angle of the dangle on the regulator. Was it supplied like that?

BTW, who is (or was) Zelda please? People often name their locos after ex-lovers.....

carl hibbs wrote:

Brian I may have a smaller battery pack spare if you tell me what space size you have.

Be careful though with smaller lower-power packs they may not have enough oomph for the servos depending on the load.

I have trouble with 600mAh in some locos 2 channels and above.

Patrick is right...I'm a little concerned with angle of the dangle on the regulator. Was it supplied like that?

BTW, who is (or was) Zelda please? People often name their locos after ex-lovers.....

That's kind, I'll have a measure - given that probably only one servo will be working at a time - as the second one is whistle only, and it's running fine off a tiny camera battery - smaller would be fine

The regulator was supplied like that brand new out of the box - there's no evidence of paint loss or fracturing, I assumed they were built like that !!

Zelda is the name of my wife's horse - so if she spends money on Zelda, I can spend money on trains - it works fine until we're both skint!

You've done it now with that horse.
My daughter has just invited herself to your house. Poney/horse mad.

Do you have any more?

There are quite a lot of horses v trains families around. I believe Mark Biffin keeps them too.

carl hibbs wrote:

You've done it now with that horse.
My daughter has just invited herself to your house. Poney/horse mad.

Do you have any more?

There are quite a lot of horses v trains families around. I believe Mark Biffin keeps them too.

Well in that case Carl you absolutely MUST bring the family down.

Your daughter will love it, we have two donkeys as well, called Belle and Sebastian, Belle is my Avatar.

We're also training Sebastian the bigger grey donkey to pull a Cariole (trap) so donkey cart rides may be possible, plus of course the minor distraction of the railways.

Cheers Brian

I know this is completely off thread but this is our donkey 'Elzo'. He is a 4 year old stallion.



Mikey

We'll have to make the time and try and visit both of you.

Seriously If you don't mind. My daughter is mad about horses, poneys donkeys and alike.
Wife....not really.
Me....well amazingly I learnt to ride many years ago and have had 2 horses of my own at livery at various times in my life plus a one eared donkey too..

If we had the time, money and the space would have them again too. Nil on all three.

Joséphine my daughter has just passed her galop deux which is the second level for kids riding ability.

I will look at the calendar and see if we can sort something out, now you've posted those pics.

mikeyh wrote:

I know this is completely off thread but this is our donkey 'Elzo'. He is a 4 year old stallion.



Mikey

At last a perfect mate for Belle!

How much are your stud fees? ( I mean for Elzo )

I was hoping to pull things back on thread by posting pics of progress with Zelda (the loco). But have spent today visiting Angouleme, lunch at Resto-Marche (cheap and cheerful), buying a horse rug at Gallup 16, and fencing (to keep the dogs in) at Brico Depot.

They're forecasting rain tomorrow so hopefully back in the workshop!

Bonne soiree

Brian

It's been pretty awful here today - cold and wet - a horrible contrast to last weeks perfect spring sunshine.

HOWEVER it has meant almost a full day in the workshop - however doesn't seem much to show for it, some of my soldering skills deserted me this morning and had to spenfd a bit of time cleaning up and fixing - that's the great thing with brass, easy to dismantle and start again.

After much thinking decided to shave 5mm off the length of the roof and create two profiled ends into a kind of clam shell ...



note the glass of red wine - provided for scale

Soldered the sides into the rear frame and created a really strong structure by bolting the rear to the existing cab back - these bolts are temporary, I plan to tap 2mm M2 thread into the frame which will make the whole cab assembly easily removable...

With a view to having the cab assembly removable and not repainting the existing loco, I didn't like the sides ...



So made a dummy rivet strip to cover the join - soldering not brilliant, but hopefully OK when painted...

So that's about it construction wise, though thinking about a dummy cab roof ventilator and a possible rear bunker! All down to smoothing, cleaning filling and painting now. I just hope Land Rover metallic red is a good match for LMS Crimson Lake

I like that roof now, a lot.
The profile is very good and a tad reminiscent of some old SECR type tank engines.

You were going to show us how you rolled the shape please.

And what a good idea it would be if Accucraft could supply paint or give us modellers info on a good match.

carl hibbs wrote:

You were going to show us how you rolled the shape please.

To get the tight profile at the edges ( could be good for the corners on a tram body) clamp the brass tightly between a piece of 10mm round steel bar in a vice backed with a piece of oak. Gently bent by pressing the palm of your hands on the surface of the brass so that it follows the profile of the round bar ...



For the gentle curves in the cab roof use the normal boiler rolling technique of pressing a steel bar across the brass on a deep dense rubber mat. Some of the UK O gauge kit bulders sell specialist mats and rolling jigs but mine is two scraps cut from an old computer mousemat. You need all your weight on the bar for 1mm brass and just roll back and forwards until you get the curve you want ...

A quick update on Zelda (loco not the horse)...

I've sprayed the cab frame and sides with the nearest match paint I had to hand, the colour looks worse in the photo's than in the flesh, but I will try and get a better one later - just wanted to get a general idea of how it would look.

I also wanted to remove all the black plastic control knobs so she's now sporting a dummy brake handle for the gas control, Eynots valve for water filling, and dummy handle on the steam regulator



Oh and a new SVC cover in front of the cab

Apologies I forgot to photo the second servo for the r/c installation but it is mounted just in front of the first one in the right hand side tank. This one operates the whistle and in order to get the motion through 90 degrees made a little crank out of 1mm brass



Needing somewhere to mount it decided upon the direction control lever bracket. The direction lever had become redundant with the addition of r/c and it wasn't possible to operate it manually anymore as it couldn't overcome the resistance in the servo. ( I've kept all the bits, and as no surgery is involved I can easily revert it to manual later if desired}.



I'm quite pleased not to have to mount any servo's in the cab - there's even room for a driver - CLIVE !!!

You'll probably have spotted the handrails, I hope it ties the new and existing cab components visually.

Well done Brian.
That was a good use of space and existing fittings. I've seen people take out the complete reverser and mount a servo in it's place (usually for the regulator).

Excellent work Brian.

As far as a driver figure is concerned, well you'll know the drill by now! What space is available for the figure though? Are we talking about a 1:22.5 scale figure or slightly smaller, e.g. 1:24? Never done one to fit into a live-steam loco before.

clive_t wrote:

Excellent work Brian.

As far as a driver figure is concerned, well you'll know the drill by now! What space is available for the figure though? Are we talking about a 1:22.5 scale figure or slightly smaller, e.g. 1:24? Never done one to fit into a live-steam loco before.

The other way actually more like 1:18 about 90 - 95mm high. I don't actually want to commission one right now, but might keep a lookout for ideas!

What would / could you use as a basis? Preiser is out at that scale - could be a complete scratchbuild.

B

Scratch-build would be ok of course, or at a pinch, Sleisch (1:20) - there's a link in the 'Figure links' thread in this forum...

clive_t wrote:

Scratch-build would be ok of course, or at a pinch, Sleisch (1:20) - there's a link in the 'Figure links' thread in this forum...

Surprisingly our local Charente Coop (Farmers cooperative) sells these Sleisch figures, they do a fantastic range of farm related items animals, buildings etc.
They do a superb model stable which would be perfect for G Scale, and I don't think that I'd have too much trouble getting Caroline to invest in one!They are presented on a display stand near the cash desk. Not surprisingly being in the middle of Farming communities they also have fantastic ranges of 1/32 Farm Machinery.

Perhaps I should be modelling in Gauge 1

For these bigger models a whitemetal figure is often used.

Usually referred to as the 'IP Jane figure'. Originally made for IP engineering's Jane Mamod thing.

Available from GRS and other good retailers.

BTW They had a second hand Lumberjack for sale about 2 months ago (in January's steam list) for £495.

Hi Guys

Finally got to Bati LeClerk (our nearest one 20k away) today to get the spray paint to finish the cab roof.

I'll probably have a go at re-spraying later but at least I can see now how she will finally look ...

she looks complete now Brian. where have you put the antenna?

mikey

So was it worth it ??

The basic manual Edrig costs £405 about 435 euro

The manual Caradoc (basically an Edrig with a cab) costs £534 about 575 euro

My costs were approx
Brass sheet & 2mm set screws ( L'Octant ) 35 euro incl. postage
Brass channel ( Bricomarche ) 10 euro
Two cans spray paint ( Bati LeClerk) 7.50 euro
Solder etc, I had but allow 7.50 euro so Total Cost about 60 euro

With the Caradoc price difference of only 140 euro, possibly not financially worth it!

And of course I've already spent the saving (and more) on ...
Hand rails
Secondhand r/c set (thanks Carl)
Steam whistle
New gas and regulator handles
Eynots valve and water bottle

But I am very happy with the loco I now have and feel that through dismantling and customising have enjoyed and learnt far more than if I'd bought a similarly spec'd ready to run version !

Now thinking about - nameplates, more handrails, lining,,,,,,,,,,,,,

mikeyh wrote:

she looks complete now Brian. where have you put the antenna?

mikey

Coiled in the right hand tank. - works fine with no glitches, but I am miles from civilisation, I'll be interested to see how it behaves in a radio wave rich environment!

Ultimately I will invest in 2.4 Ghz, particularly if I get more Steamies