Member postings for John Morgan 1

Many, many thanks for your responses and suggestions.

Okay, message received, the brackets are not for lifting the loco, tempting as they may look. I’ll move on to your plan B’s.

I’m not suggesting the track at the club needs attention! It’s more a lack of confidence in the Modelworks suspension. This weekend I modified my approach track and to my surprise, the loco now rolls onto the rolling road without me having to take some weight off the wheels. I was then able to watch how the suspension “moved” (or in my case didn’t move) as I pushed the loco and I’m now wondering if the suspension is too stiff. I need to take it to the club “as is” and ask… Modelworks gave no instructions on how many spring leaves to use (no, I didn’t use them all!!).

John - from Bedfordshire

So, what am I doing here you may well ask. No workshop but dad did take an interest and I learnt a bit from watching him. I've inherited some tools including a pillar drill, which has proved very useful.

18 years ago I signed up to buy a 5" gauge Britannia from Modelworks. Sold as a "bolt-together kit, its turned out to be more like an attempt to bolt together, fail, modify then bolt together.

In 2017, the frames were sent away to a professional to have the motion sorted out, I could not get a smooth running loco. After a year it came back working on air and with a bag of scrap metal - some original parts had to be remade, so a good move on my part!

After much work since then, it is now steaming and running on a rolling road. The blower seems to work with one injector, the smaller injector I fear suffers from the water feed passing too close to the firebox, the water is too hot for it to "pickup"??

Once the above is fixed I will fit the finishing touches, cab, running boards etc.

The advice I need now is regarding how to take the weight off the wheels for maintenance or to sort any derailment on the club track. Each 7mm diameter bar would slide into brackets, one under the smokebox and the other the footplate.They are 6mm thick and 100mm apart, the bar would be unsupported in the middle. The bar has to be 400mm long to clear the frames and give handlers enough to hold, so a lot of leverage at the lifting points, the loco, according to Modelworks, weighs 77Kg.

What metal should I use? Strong but not brittle would be my guess. I’ve tested silver steel but that just bent!

I’ve tried local engineering companies for help, they either refuse to give advice (“not qualified to do so&rdquo or ignore my requests altogether.

Is there anyone that can give advice on what to use please?