Any Backwoods builders?

[Huw Jones]

Hi All,

I've taken a fair aount of time out of the hobby, but now have the joys of a 17 month old son who is very interested in trains (and busses, and anything large and mechanical!) so have thought about hunting down all my old kit from the roof.

This hunt found my soldering iron and the Backwoods minitaures kits that I had purchased but not built, including two dodgy powerbogies for a NGG16 Garratt (both had dubious quartering by myself and were therefore not working very well at all).  A bit of un-soldering and more care and attention has now resulted in two perfectly quartered and running powerbogies that now need their Walshaerts valvegear soldering together and assembling.  As this is a slightly tricky job I have gone back to my roots of brass kits and have just built myself one of Petes superb Barclay kits to get my hand in once more.......pics hopefully below!









It needs a steam cleaning now to get all the flux residue off it, and then it probably needs to have some paint, although I do love the look of a brass model after it's been built!

There doesn't seem to be many posts on here about Backwoods kits so I was wondering how many others out there build the kits, and if so if they have hints and tips for each model?

I have 'Linda' to build next, the Garratt NGG16, and then my absolute favourite of Backwoods kits which is the supremely good looking L&B Manning Wardles.

[theelliotts]

When I built 'Linda' some years ago I mounted the motor in a piece of slit bass tubing. This gave an excellent friction fit and the brass was soldered to the motor mount. At that time the instructions recommended that the motor used at that time be glued to the motor mount. Works for me

Good Luck.

David

[Frank]

Hello Huw,

That looks a really nice build.   I have one of those untouched in its box, waiting for me to pluck up courage and start it.    You could very well be the catalyst for that.  

Any more details / photos would be very welcome.

Frank

[Huw Jones]

Hi Frank and David,

The new motor in the 'Linda' kit is pretty tiny so I'll have to have a detailed read of the instructions before I move onto that one.

The Barclay goes together very nicely Frank.  My points to watch out for whilst building would be......
1.  The instructtions tell you to ream out the hole in the side of the frames for the plastic bush for the pickups prior to construction.  They don't tell you to file those bushes down at this point.  It's a whole lot easier to file the bushes flat with the back of the frames at this point than it is with the chassis constructed
2.  Make sure the frames are properly square before soldering the motor mount into place.  The instuctions don't mention this but the frames become very difficult to square up with the motor mount soldered on.  Mine had a marginal twist so I ended up un-soldering the motor mount to get the frames square.
3.  If you don't have some calipers a well running N-Gauge chassis works well to get your back-to-back measurements correct on the wheels prior to quartering them.
4.  File off any etch edges off the slidebars (this is delicate!) and polish them before installing on the loco.
5.  Don't make the jink in the connecting rod quite as close to the crosshead as I did as it can contact the back of the slidebar assembly (I have about 0.1mm of clearance on mine!).
6.  The instructions don't make it clear but solder the bushes that hold the coupling rods onto the front wheels BEFORE dropping them out of the chassis assembly.......it's a pain in the proverbial to do them afterwards off the model because the slidebars and cylinder assemblies will be in the way of the crank pins!
7.  If you use liquid lead for ballast - as I always have - then its best hese days to hold it in place with very thin super glue.  You can get an activator for superglue and a minimal squirt of this helps set the superglue and liquid lead in place fast.  The old technique of PVA works, but it can lead to expansion over time and these tiny little tanks would look awful if they started to bow out.
8.  Installing the motor worm gear is a VERY tight interference fit.  There's nothing in the instructions about how to do it but I found clamping the back end of the motor mount in a vice and the tapping the worm on with a small hammer worked well.  to get it further onto the shaft I then used a pair of pliers opened up slightly on top of the worm and tapped the pliers with the hammer.  The shaft then slides inbetween the gap in the pliers beaks.  Not elegant, but it does the job nicely.  The back end of the motor shaft should then be cut off flush with the back of the motor otherwise it will foul on the back of the firebox door causing a short.

Hope that helps a bit.