Joeuf Coffee Grinder.

[Stephen Rainsbury]

I seem to have successfully rebuilt the much damage Decauville loco that I bought a few months ago and the naked chassis happily whizzes, sorry wheezes, round my test track for ages without a cough. I have a decent replacement body (and one for the loco) but it is minus its cab roof so now I now have two choices in how I restore the body:

• Toy, Red Chassis, roof at "toy" height, thicker roof supports, original driver
• More prototypical, black chassis with red buffer beams, slightly higher roof, thinner (brass angle) roof supports, new driver, tall enough to have to stoop slightly, this emphasizing the scale better

OK I actually have two but one of them does not run as well and needs either more TLC or a new 5 pole motor, and is going to be painted red and a companion for the first one.
Grief I am not looking forward to doing the lining!

[B.Meldon]

The main issue with fitting a lower roof is that it will just look like a Decauville with a roof that is out of proportion to the rest of the loco!
The form and outline of these locos is just too well known by anyone who has been involved with 009 in the past 50 years. It is even on the 009 Society logo.
But do have a go if you like.

Brian Meldon

[Stephen Rainsbury]

The main issue with fitting a lower roof is that it will just look like a Decauville with a roof that is out of proportion to the rest of the loco!

I am actually looking at raising the roof :-)
I have acquired several drawings and I can see from one of your earlier comments that the Jouef is not based on any one prototype Decauville loco, but probably closest to the 3 tonne one, so I am proposing this. I appreciate that this now gives problems with the furniture on top of the boiler, and the fact hat you can't see under it, but at least an 00 gauge figure would fit in the cab (just) and hopefully give a different perspective, making the loco appear to me smaller.

The cab uprights would be 1.5mm brass angle (which I already have) and a roof bent from tin or maybe plastic.

Or the easiest route which is just to put it back as it was originally cast. :)

[Graeme Dunbar]

I remember looking longingly at the photos in Railway Modeller in about 1968, but even then I was puzzled by the apparent height of the cab roof (or the shortness of the driver).  I take it is to  maintain some proportion in the model and that it is nothing like 3.5 mm/ft. What is it? Closer to 5 mm/ft??

I see raising the roof improves proportion, but wouldn't the chimney need extending to clear it too?

[Stefan Krebs]

To my knowledge the Jouf Decauville is close to S-scale (1:64).

If you raise the roof you need to at least raise the chimney too, you don't want to have '...smoke get's in your eyes...'!   :laugh:


Just an observation
Waldschrat

[Stephen Rainsbury]

Yes it would need a taller chimney, and the dome is a bit small.
I don't have access to a lathe anymore and to be honest I am not sure if I would try to make a new one because it is a longer length of brass with Chimney at one and and a screw thread on the other which keeps the whole thing together. 
My son thinks he could 3D print a sleeve that would fit over the original chimney making it slightly wider and taller. I would paint this black,which is prototypical for Decauville stock.
Having said all this it is a nice chassis and will pull a reasonable load, but it is a bit jittery at low speeds and makes one heck of a noise so I don't want to spend ages on something that isn't used much.

[Stephen Rainsbury]

To my knowledge the Jouf Decauville is close to S-scale (1:64).

I read that too, but that makes the driver a real midget.  Brian suggests that the size was determined as eh smallest they could make it for the motors available at the time, which makes sense. I can see aspects of the Decauville 3 Tonne and 7 Tonne locos so I look on it as a bit of a freelance, and am not going to lose too much sleep if it doesn't quite look like any specific photo.
I just wanted one as I always liked them, so even if it is just run as a toy I ill be happy, much in the same way that several people seem to be happy for  Thomas the Tank engine to run on their layouts :)
Stephen

[Hobby]

I'd be pretty sure there were smaller motors around at the time so I suspect that cost had more to do with it than size, that one being the cheapest smallest motor they could find... Same as the eternal argument about the origins of OO scale which may well have been down to the size of loco running plates/splashers and steam roller wheel treads for British prototypes rather than small electric motors...

I think somewhere I'd read (probably Brian!) that it was 4.7/4.8mm/ft, whatever that is in a ratio...

[Stephen Rainsbury]

I think somewhere I'd read (probably Brian!) that it was 4.7/4.8mm/ft, whatever that is in a ratio...

The out of the box version doesn't seem to have been based on any one prototype but seems to be to be closest to the 3 Tonne version, which is the one in the society Logo. However the model is 50mm long from buffer beam to buffer beam, but the original was 2.72m (8'11"). That's a ratio of 54:1 not the 76:1 that we would want to see, even further from the 87:1 that you would need for H0e.

It does however have some characteristics of the 7 Tonne one was 3.8m long which is an exact ration of 1:76 so bingo! However to me the model is not a good representation, if nothing else, the prototype has 6 wheels!



I think I am going to have to regard it as a freelance model "inspired by" the original Decauvuille, there is no point trying to get too close, the tanks are too lumpy for either of them, the body is too low and the model gear over simplified. 

This brings me back to the original question, do I leave the chassis red like the toy of paint it black with red buffer beams like the prototype  ???

[Stefan Krebs]

The driver is an H0 passenger from Jouef's set of passengers and compares well with the Preiser range as well accurate 1:87, i.e. shows that the engine is not even 00, but S-scale. He still carries his brief case!

The motor is the one Jouef used in their slotcar range, which was already in production, i.e. Jouef was not focussed on producing a scale model, but on utilising as much of their existing production line as feasible, and the Decauville was designed to fit the motor.

Think laterally, you can extend the chimney with a brass bead/ collar/ tube at the base, creating an ornamental feature, or you can use a piece of tubing to model a 'stove-pipe' chimney as common on contractor's engines. Of course, their are chimneys coming around as some engines were supplied with extras, e.g. the Liliput class U.


Cheers
Waldschrat

[Stefan Krebs]

Currently 2 sets in the bay of 2nd hand with 3 days to go:
GEM model railways OO-9 narrow gauge & industrial loco fittings

Order No. 9104

Contains 3 different chimneys.


Cheers
Waldschrat

[Stephen Rainsbury]

Currently 2 sets in the bay of 2nd hand with 3 days to go:
GEM model railways OO-9 narrow gauge & industrial loco fittings

Thanks I have put a watch on :)

[Stephen Rainsbury]

The driver is an H0 passenger from Jouef's set of passengers and compares well with the Preiser range as well accurate 1:87, i.e. shows that the engine is not even 00, but S-scale. He still carries his brief case!

The motor is the one Jouef used in their slotcar range, which was already in production, i.e. Jouef was not focussed on producing a scale model, but on utilising as much of their existing production line as feasible, and the Decauville was designed to fit the motor.

My ones are 22mm tall which in H0 is just over 6', but he looks like a midget.

I suppose then that he factory only tooled up for the loco specific items and bought it as much as it could pre-assembled.

[B.Meldon]

The Jouef loco was designed around the size of the smallest motor Jouef could source in France at the time. There were smaller motors available in Germany, but Jouef did not want to go outside France for their suppliers.
The proportions were just scaled up from the size of this motor.
It should be noted that there were three sizes of the Decauville Type 1 steam loco. The drawings that are available, including the one in the post above are all for the smallest 3-ton type and several of those actual 3-ton locos survive today.
However the Jouef model was quite obviously based on the proportions larger 8 ton version, these have the same basic outline but the cab is proportionally lower compared to the size of the tanks, sadly none survive and I have never seen a drawing, but there are some photos. These larger versions do have the same tank size to cab height ratio as reproduced in the Jouef model.
So basically, the proportions in the 3-ton loco drawing is not correct for this 8-ton loco. I recommend that you try to stick to the 8-ton loco proportions and do not make the cab any higher.
It also should be noted that all the type 1 Decauville locos were outside frame locos. There was a kit produced a few years ago to convert the Jouef chassis to outside frame, but I would only recommend using this on one of the 1980's chassis that run far better than the 1960's and early 70's chassis.

[Stephen Rainsbury]

It should be noted that there were three sizes of the Decauville Type 1 steam loco. The drawings that are available, including the one in the post above are all for the smallest 3-ton type and several of those actual 3-ton locos survive today.

Thanks, Brian. I wasn't aware of an 8 Tonne version and will have a quick google after this.

Looking at it now I would probably be better off just restoring one model back to as close as I can to packet fresh, keeping this one in mind



And assuming the other one runs as well go for this paint job. And just ignore the running gear :)



Mind you I still can't decide if I want to paint the chassis black :)

Stephen