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I'd like to present my latest locomotive, loosely based on various British 0-6-0 goods engines. This MOC is a first for me in several ways...it's the first locomotive for which I've attempted to print decals, and the first I've built using BBB wheels. I'd like to thank @ScotNick for graciously granting me permission to use his magnifying glass technique for the front cab windows. Lord Dudley is named after a 15th century politician and its number is an homage to the USS Voyager (NCC-74656). Lord-Dudley-1 by the chestertonian, on Flickr Lord-Dudley-2 by the chestertonian, on Flickr The 3-axle tender holds a 9V motor (the third axle swivels to go around curves) and features the classic BR "lion-on-a-unicycle." I don't have a proper label maker, so I printed out the decal on regular paper and covered it with a slightly larger piece of adhesive laminating sheet. This leaves enough overhang of the adhesive layer to stick to the sides of the tender. Note that only the logo and the red lining are printed; the white lining is brick-built. Lord-Dudley-3 by the chestertonian, on Flickr The tender holds a battery box to power the locomotive lights. The batteries are accessible by removing the coal. Lord-Dudley-4 by the chestertonian, on Flickr Lord-Dudley-5 by the chestertonian, on Flickr Finally, Lord Dudley's driver and fireman pose along the line by their engine: Lord-Dudley-6 by the chestertonian, on Flickr Lord-Dudley-7 by the chestertonian, on Flickr Thanks for looking! Soli Deo Gloria
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Dear All, I don’t know whether this makes much sense or not; I know at least two people (including me) who were interested in how to get “grooves” into Ben Fleskes’ BigBenBricks (BBB) train wheels so that they can be equipped with rubber O-rings. The purpose of running the wheels with O-rings is to (strongly) enhance adhesive forces of engine-powered steam locomotives. This is supposed to be a brief “tutorial” on how to make grooves into BBB train wheels. TLC has its own new version of large flanged train wheels and they have already such a groove. The Emerald Night (#10194) and the Toy Story Train (#7597) feature these wheels. Now, if you’d ask me, BBB L-wheels are actually nicer in their appearance and color as compared to TLC’s version. And at BBB you can choose many different sizes and colors! But: BBB wheels (L or XL) don’t have grooves … so for now, we need to make them on our own. Before we begin, here is a figure to explain things more easily: For BBB L wheels and new LEGO wheels DW = 31 mm. The red LEGO O-ring (shown in black in the figure) has DO = 25 mm and WO = 1.5 mm. The entire machining process is rather straight forward. All you need is: An O-ring which goes into the machined groove. Make your O-ring choice first and then continue. A tool to carefully “grind” the groove into the BBB wheel. Some sort of machinery to continuously spin the BBB train wheel for the grinding process. Here are some details: 1) O-ring choice O-ring width: I’d suggest using an O-ring width ("WO" in Figure 1) of about 1.5 mm. This is more or less matching the red LEGO O-ring width. The Toy Story Train for example comes with red LEGO O-rings. But you can make your own choices! There are tons of different kinds of O-rings out there; just follow the guidelines below and it’ll work. I further suggest that you choose an O-ring with a smooth circular circumference (well, I guess if that is not the case it wouldn't be an O-ring after all ...). O-ring diameter: The O-ring diameter should be “slightly” smaller than the wheel diameter. Example: The large LEGO train wheel diameter at the inner running surface close to the flange (see Figure 1, “DW”) is 31 mm. This is the same for BBB L wheels. The “relaxed” red LEGO O-ring diameter ("DO" in Figure 1) is roughly 25 mm. Summary: A 1.5 mm thick, 25 mm diameter O-ring works perfectly well for large LEGO Train wheels and BBB L wheels. 2) Grinding tool = hand file To actually make the groove you need a hand file. The shape should be rectangular with fine teeth on the short side. Here as an example of a relatively cheap file set (< 10 Euro) I purchased for this purpose: The width of the file should not be larger than the diameter of the O-ring you are going to use. I’d suggest that you use a slightly smaller width than the width of the relaxed O-ring, since it will loose thickness when stretched onto the wheel. For the red LEGO O-ring, a 1.2 mm file works perfectly well - that was by coincidence the width of my cheap file. 3) Machining the wheel There are many ways to more or less constantly spin the wheel; you could use a drill press or an M or XL PF motor bed to spin the wheel: All that is required is a smoothly spinning wheel. Now we need to make the groove. Switch on the power and … … slightly press the file against the wheel flange. You don’t want to grind the flange - just feel its resistance. Once you are there, press the file towars the wheel center, but not to the extent that the wheel stops spinning. Making the groove may take some time but you will see the file eventually going into the material. Be patient(!!!) - don’t melt the plastic due to excessive heating caused by going too fast into the material. From time to time stop and try to get the O-ring into the groove; don’t wrap it all the way around though, it will be rather tough to get the O-ring off again without damage to both, wheel or O-ring: Once the O-ring is “almost entirely” disappearing in the groove you are done. That is a trial and error procedure. With the 1.5 mm thick red LEGO O rings, my groove is about 1.2 mm “deep”. And finally, you should remove any ridges by tilting the file about 45 degrees (the angle doesn’t really matter) and let it “run” carefully over the groove. This should be the ideal result: I guess this is about it. Once you have the O-rings on the wheels, your engine will have strongly increased pulling power – provided the motors are capable of delivering enough torque of course. Maybe this is worth another thread, maybe not: On my BR23, I needed only two O-rings to get full tractive power although there are six driving wheels. In fact putting O-rings on all six wheels made things worse when negotiating curves; I guess this has to do with increased friction forces. On curves, the inner wheels have to travel far less than the outer wheels, but they are mounted onto rigid axles … but I have also heard that four O-rings worked better than two. Oh well, just try it out. There is absolutely no problem at all running BBB wheels with a groove but without an O-ring – so absolutely no harm is done here. After all, TLC’s large train wheels have this groove as well ... Good luck and Play Well, Thorsten
