Flying Scotsman
The vacuum brake reservoir stores enough vacuum to enable the brakes to operate, the brakes on this locomotive are the auto-brake system, that is, if the locomotive becomes separated from the tender the brakes are automatically applied. The reservoir tank is a simple thing to build, I have deviated
Flying Scotsman
This was a fun thing to make, again it's fully functional and follows the same principles as the prototype. Of course it won't function exactly as full size as water doesn't scale but it will have water flowing through it as it should. To
Flying Scotsman
I started to follow Dons method for making the hook which basically starts off as a 4 1/2 x 1 x 3/16 flat BMS which you turn down in stages, the 3/16 dia shank first and then cutting away the access steel 3/4 at a time.
Flying Scotsman
There are in fact 32 shock absorbers on Gresley's Pacific and I guess I should have built them all at once. However on further reading about FS it's come to light that the loco shocks ( except the trailing bogie) have a different shape to the tender,
Flying Scotsman
In this update I'm going to describe the fabrication of the leaf springs and I'd like to start by pointing out that the thickness for the springs as given by Don is incorrect. This is something that I didn't discover until after making all
Flying Scotsman
spring hangers.. ahh.. bless the little buggers, these take a fair bit of work resulting in soar fingers, you'll probably hear me say this a lot as the build progresses. So what was involved with these... Don suggested machining the hangers from 1/2 x 3/8 BMS
Flying Scotsman
These are made from solid and begin life as lumps of steel cut to 3" lengths ready for machining the buffer stocks. I'm not sure what steel this was as it was an old 2' length of 1 3/4" bar that my son brought
Flying Scotsman
I have probably said a number of times so far, how impressed I am with Don's design and how accurate it is in following the prototype, the handbrake is just one of those very clever designs which are seen throughout Gresley's Pacific's. Probably not
Flying Scotsman
Today I have details of the brake shaft construction, this one item took me two days. So much work for a relatively small yet important part of the tenders braking system. The picture shows the start of machining on the shaft itself. It starts life as a 6" piece
Flying Scotsman
Continuing with the brakes here we have the last laser cut part from Malcolm's brake hanger kit. This is the front brake beam, if you look closely you'll spot the ascribed lines across the end tabs. I decided to remove these and turn up the required
Flying Scotsman
These are the brake hangers, they are laser cut items from Model Engineers Laser. There are 8 in total, 2 front which are the ones with the boot leg shape at one end, 4 intermediates and 2 for the rear. In the foreground is a jig made to ensure that
Flying Scotsman
Ok, so we now move onto both the spring hanger and brake hanger brackets. The brakes and suspension components will be filling these blog pages on and off for a while, there's a lot to them. First the spring hanger brackets, these are simple items made from right