Sunday, 10 May 2020

L1 Progress Report

Have had a couple of good days jousting with not only the rear bogie on the L1 but a couple of Leylandii roots in the garden,,,, the Leylandii is my least favourite weed of all time,, why people in the 70's & 80's saw them as trendy is a complete mystery to me,,, they are a pain,,, and if you don't keep on top of the pruning with the wretched things they take over.

When the 2nd one went crack / snap then pop I decided it was time for a celebratory refreshment,, such is my distaste for the bloomin things.

Onto more pleasant things,, the rear bogie on the L1,,, apparently the brakes on these things were just short of hopeless,, which is not ideal if you have 30 or 40 laden coal wagons behind you on a downhill gradient,, so it was decided to put brakes on the rear bogie wheels as well in an attempt to improve the situation,,,, unfortunately that didn't work either and so the reputation of not only being ugly as sin but difficult to handle was born!!! which is good co's that's just how I like my freight engines.

This has made it quite an interesting challenge for a modeller as component parts for rear brake shoes on bogies do not appear to be available so I have had to make my own,, what a phaff,, but now one side is finished they look OK even if I say so myself.

The first picture is of the bogie with the power cylinders fitted and fiddling the shoes into place,,, the tatty wheels are "build wheels" which I use when making loco's as bogie wheels go on and off umpteen times in the process of getting the bogie to look and work correctly.
The second picture is the bogie fitted to the loco with one side complete including the proper wheels and apart from a good clean up I am quite pleased with the result,,, it is also interesting to look at pictures of a build as I will have to put some dummy frames in over the rear bogie to hide what appears to be an enormous 10BA nut,,, as no discerning modeller wants to see that or daylight in the wrong places.
I do hope I'm not starting to take this too seriously as I have a manic urge to go and count my rivets!!

Good value blog this as this is the second post in a week!!!!! ENJOY



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