Type 4 couplings

I wanted to design some easy to make 006 couplings for fitting to locos and larger wagons, styled rather like my type 2 couplings but made from square styrene section for convenience. I chose to use 3mm material, and prepared a sketch on the back of an envelope (literally);

As I use link and pin couplings for 006 work there's a .4mm hole drilled for either a pin or split pin. The front face is filed to a curve.

The advantage of these is threefold, they're quick and easy to make, I can hold the material in a self-centring 4 jaw chuck, and, I can drill the pin hole by hand rather than set the machine up. 

Here's a batch that I've made (there were 6 but 1 didn't cut the mustard);

Note the front two coupled together. And that white plastic is a pig to photograph.

As these are 3mm square and I'm using a coupling height of 6mm a centre line needs marking on the bufferbeam of any vehicle they're fitted to, using a 4.5mm gauge that I made to use with my earlier couplings;

Once the height is marked a 1mm hole can be drilled and the coupling temporarily fitted;

The photo shows a 'link' coupling.

Like all of my 006 work these are an experiment, so I need to fit them to a pair of waggons to see how well they work.

Paul.

Hole punch

I needed a 4mm hole punch for a project. So, I made one;

It's made from 7mm dia. silver steel, 60mm long. The business end was drilled 3.7mm and reamed to 4mm, only about 10mm deep. A 60 degree taper was turned, using my compound slide, leaving a nice sharp edge. Then I heated it to bright red to harden it and followed that with a couple of hours in the oven at 200 degrees to temper the steel.

It's been tested, on leather and thin plastic glazing material, and it works well enough. It could do with a slot behind the cutting edge to eject the punchings, which I could have milled, but I didn't fancy the extra work. Punches are of course available to buy, in fact I have a set (which doesn't go down to 4mm) but I wanted to make one for a couple of reasons.

Making my own means that I can make punches to any size that I want (within reason), handy if I want to cut out glazing for loco spectacle plates. And some ready made punches are of variable quality, if mine are rubbish then I only have myself to blame.

Paul.

Knightwing Jung

I built this back in 2008, as a way back into modelling after a long (even by my standards) lay-off.

It's a plastic kit of a Jung RK20B 4 wheel shunter. It was also my introduction to airbrushing, using a newly bought Badger 150.

The body colour is Tamiya XF-5 Flat Green, I can't remember the frame colour but it's probably Phoenix Precision Dirty Black acrylic or Tamiya Nato Black.

I used Tamiya XF-3 Flat Yellow on the buffer beams, and the wasp stripes are Impetus transfers. Varnish is Phoenix Precision Airbrush Enamel.

The end guardrail was soldered up from brass wire as I decided the plastic moulding was too heavy. I also replaced the bonnet side handrails with wire.

I meant to straighten that coupling (Smiths LP10 3 links) before taking the photo!

Buffers are brass A1 Models 18" jobs.

Can interior;

And the underside;

Power comes from a 35mm wheelbase Tenshodo spud, converted to EM with 14mm Romford/Jackson disc wheels, the bogie being held in place by friction. I had to move the sideframes out by a few millimetres to clear the wider gauge. To add some much needed mass I used lead fishing weight, glued in with PVA. No nasty side effects so far!

It's quite a nice kit, and I'm still happy with the build although it's never seen use. The paint finish is pretty good and it fulfilled its function of getting my hand back in as well as being my first attempt at spray painting.

A 4mm scale kit of a Jung is an odd choice for the UK market but I believe the loco was chosen for the possibilities for kit bashing, there are certainly many of these running as 009 locos. But, I still think Knightwing missed a trick by choosing a German prototype instead of something British, a Ruston 88DS would have been a far better choice in my opinion.

Paul.