advice for a beginner?

Hello to whom this may concern,
My name is kaleb I'm 19, Australian, and I'v been riding, driving and doing minor repairs on model locomotives for as long as I can remember. For some time I'v wanted a locomotive for myself and so I'm in the planning stages of a project to build my own locomotive from a kit ideally a Maid of Kent or a Boxhill kit in 5 inch gauge. Currently I have no machinery/tools to start the project however I am purchasing a small metal lathe in coming weeks. I'm a woodworker at heart so I'm no stranger to jumping into a project head first but I figure its best to get some advice on this first in this situation. I'd really love to know what tools are best to start off getting? What part of the kit is best to start building first? Basically just any advice that may help my situation?

kind regards, kaleb

A lathe and a mill/drill would be my suggestions, although you can do a great deal with the lathe alone.

A good set of twist drills is essential in my opinion. Lots of places offer the 115 pc sets of fractional, number and letter size drills in high speed steel quite cheaply. There are similar metric sets. The drills can obviously be used for drilling holes, but the shank end can be used as a pin gauge. If you need a reamed hole but have no money for reamers, you can drill .010"-.015" undersize and then run a drill of the finished hole size through, and it is almost as good as a reamed hole.

A drill press is handy for drilling. Many beginners try various mods to drill presses to do milling in them, but the drill press is really not rigid enough for milling. If you go with a mill/drill instead of, or in addition to a drill press, it will do most of the drilling you will need and all of the milling too, because it's built for it.

Would also recommend a good set of high speed steel lathe tools, and good quality small and medium size centredrills as a start. A small bench grinder for grinding lathe tools and general hand grinding is useful.

Good luck, have fun building!

+1 for Jeff's advice, but I'd add:-

• It's true a bench drill isn't rigid enough for milling, but a vertical slide on a lathe is, so long as you don't get greedy with cuts.
• Add a set of taps and dies in the threads you're most likely to use. A budget carbon steel set in metric can last you quite a few years.

If it's a kit your starting with I'd ask whoever produces it. I'd not forget hand tools - files, toolmakers clamps. I'd just buy the set of metric or imperial drills you need. Again the kit manufacturer will know what you need and you'll be able to save some money for the unexpected. I think a lot of kits are quite prefabricated with not much machining to do.

Best single bit of advice I ever got from the forum was to buy the biggest lathe I could afford and accommodate. Within reason anyway! Unless you're into fine work like clockmaking, a big lathe generally does all that a small one will in terms of precision. It also comes with a shower of advantages. Obviously it will handle bigger work. But it is also easier to set up and measure medium sized work on it, - more space for fat hands! Not having to fiddle about saves surprising amounts of time. Also you can remove metal faster with a heavier lathe and a more powerful motor.

I know very little about loco making and guess the key decider would be the largest part of the model that needs to be turned. I guess that's probably a driving wheel. Now I'm stuck! I don't know how big that might be on a 5" loco, except 5" can be fairly hefty. Presumably it depends on the engine as well - the wheels on a dinky tank engine like Tich must be much smaller that those on an express locomotive. When the chucks won't hold big work you can switch to the faceplate, but there are limits to that and to the toolpost. I hope a loco maker will comment.

You can manage without a milling machine but they're massively useful if you have money to spend. They save loads of time compared with filing and drilling by hand, and clumsy oafs like me make fewer mistakes!

Dave

Hi Kaleb ,

Thats a pretty ambitious first project ! Might i suggest a loco that is a little bit less ambitious ? Something like a Wombat or similar .I would look for a kit that is available here in Australia so if you get something wrong it is easier and less expensive to get a replacement part .

For tools i would recommend the following :

1 - marking out tools like a good quality steel rule , dividers, scriber, centre punch , engineers hammer etc becuse before you can make anything you generally have to mark out the workpiece .

2- cutting , filing and drilling - a hacksaw for starters then coping , piercing saws later on , a quality set of files , buy a set in something around 8 inch length and a set of needle files - don't skimp here as good files are a pleasure to use and cheapies are a headache ! Drill bits - this will depend on what your loco is set out for ( imperial or metric ) once again don't buy cheap junk ! Sutton ,p&n or dormer are my go to drills , inch set in 1/64 increments and metric in .1mm increments - leave the number and letter drills until you are sure you need them .

3- threading - once agian it depends on what your loco requires so i would wait until you have the drawings and buy what is needed . Tapping sets are nice to have but when you have metric , imperial ,BA and ME sets available costs can add up pretty quickly so for your first project i would recommend buying only the required taps and dies along with the correct tapping drills and build up your collection from that .

4- drill press or milling machine - you will eventually need both but a mill is also a drill press , its just easier with both as you dont have to disturb a job set up on the mill to drill a few holes in something else  , steer away from the dinky little units from a hardware store as they are gutless , you want aomething with at a least 3/4 hp motor preferably 1hp .  I would recommend something like an X3 sieg sort of size or an RF 30  size if you can afford it . Even though i love my little X2 sieg there are times where i just give up and use the bigger mill because set up is easier !

lathe - as big as you can get ! Stay away from the combi units that come with the milling machine on the headstock or bolted to the bed . You may only need to swing 4 inches over the bed now but what about next year ? You may want to make a model with a large flywheel etc - better to buy now and be done with it . I would recommend a new lathe unless you know the person selling a second hand lathe to you . The last thing you need is to have to fix the lathe before you make something !  

Edited By XD 351 on 19/04/2018 17:42:15

Those pre machined loco kits are seriously expensive - you can get a pretty good workshop kitted out for that. However either will be a serious drain on your resources. Start with a good shed, bench and vice. Too many people get the lathe and only then think about what they are going to put it on.

You might want to look at the non-round bits that don't need a lathe. Only about 10% or a loco is lathe work. If you are going to have to make those bits eventually by hand start with them that way if you do decide making locos isn't for you not so much is wasted.

Further to the comments from XD351, as an Aussie relative newcomer myself, I've found my drilling machine gets more use than the lathe, so to me that would be first choice, along with a set of metric drills from 1mm to 10mm in 0.5mm increments initially, followed by a vice and a selection of hand tools such as hacksaw (standard size and 'junior' size), files (probably one set second cut in mill, flat, round, triangle, square and 1/2 round would be enough to start, plus some small smoothing files for tidying up rough edges), punches (centre and pin), hammer and tinsnips (good quality in both LH and RH cut). You'd be surprised how much you can make with this basic equipment. You really only need a lathe for turning things that need to be accurately round such as axles, wheels etc. If you are able to join a local ME club many have lathes and milling machines available to members along with free instruction on how to use them.

Unless you are keen on having scale-size hex-head bolts everywhere on your loco, i'd recommend going metric for all fasteners. There is a wide selection available in Australia down to M2 in high tensile (try NutzandBoltz) in socket head, button head and countersunk, as well as the hex-head and Phillips head in mild steel and sometimes stainless steel from major hardware chains from M3 and larger. They usually don't cost as much as more traditional model engineering thread types from the specialist suppliers. Tap and die sets for metric threads are also readily available from the major machinery retailers (Hare & Forbes, Blackwoods etc). Also download and print out a couple of comparison tables for various fastener types so you can get an idea of relative size of BA, metric, and other thread types.

The usual disclaimer for the retailers mentioned above, i'm simply a satisfied customer.

Where do you live Kaleb? You need to join a club.

Kaleb, it's a good idea to go to the top green line and go to Settings click on Profile, then put in a little info, including an approximate area of where you live. This helps other who would like to help you, you never know there may be a fellow modeler just down the road (mind you, in Australia that might be 100K down the road).

Ian S C