A new standard for N gauge?

Started by belstone, May 09, 2016, 08:17:37 PM

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Dr Al

Removing wheels repeatedly from Poole axles is not recommended (as I said earlier, though it was more aimed at early Dapol) - the Poole wheels originally are heat treated onto the axles and therefore never loose quartering. Taking a wheel off breaks this, so you can refit, but only limited number of times. I've neve used locking compound, mainly as I'm sure it's of little value given the tiny size of the contact surface area between axle and wheel - it would need a more potent adhesive (never good) or a new splined axle.

Generally Poole quartering from that era (early 80s) is spot on anyway, so it's rarely necessary - the late Poole production (mid to late 90s) was more variable, or substituting different parts produced at different times can give issues, even if they are nominally the same.

Cheers,
Alan
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If Dr Al is online he may be able to provide a more comprehensive answer.

"We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces."Dr. Carl Sagan

Izzy


Having converted a Farish Jinty and 4F to 2FS using the 2mm SA conversion parts the smallest radius I have been able to persuade them to cope with is 12" minimum. This is 9.42 gauge widened soldered track (produced using a 3-point track gauge). Without gauge widening the minimum is about 15-16".  As these are just simple inside cylinder 0-6-0's the minimal 24" radius figure is a good basic guide for most steam locos and especially larger/outside cylinder ones. I haven't had issues with any 2FS diesel/DMU down to 12" radius (non-gauge widened). I don't know as I have never tried, but I would think 9" radius might be a problem for some. 

I do not believe the N wheel and track standards using 9.42 would work overall because it might prove difficult to widen the b-t-b of all N gauge stock - particularly the newer designs - by 0.42, as there often isn't the clearance needed between the solebars. Conversion of stock to use 2FS wheels generally works as the thinner wheels offset the wider b-t-b used. Indeed 2FS wheelsets are about 11.2mm to outside faces while Farish/Parkside Dundas N are 11.4/11.6mm.

As the N gauge track and wheel standards were primarily arranged to allow all loco types to cope with very small radius i.e. down to 9" and sometimes smaller, I would suggest that you face a choice between sticking with N standards on 9mm track, and using 2FS with the restrictions that apply.

Izzy

belstone

Quote from: Izzy on May 12, 2016, 09:41:59 AM

Having converted a Farish Jinty and 4F to 2FS using the 2mm SA conversion parts the smallest radius I have been able to persuade them to cope with is 12" minimum. This is 9.42 gauge widened soldered track (produced using a 3-point track gauge). Without gauge widening the minimum is about 15-16".  As these are just simple inside cylinder 0-6-0's the minimal 24" radius figure is a good basic guide for most steam locos and especially larger/outside cylinder ones. I haven't had issues with any 2FS diesel/DMU down to 12" radius (non-gauge widened). I don't know as I have never tried, but I would think 9" radius might be a problem for some. 

I do not believe the N wheel and track standards using 9.42 would work overall because it might prove difficult to widen the b-t-b of all N gauge stock - particularly the newer designs - by 0.42, as there often isn't the clearance needed between the solebars. Conversion of stock to use 2FS wheels generally works as the thinner wheels offset the wider b-t-b used. Indeed 2FS wheelsets are about 11.2mm to outside faces while Farish/Parkside Dundas N are 11.4/11.6mm.

As the N gauge track and wheel standards were primarily arranged to allow all loco types to cope with very small radius i.e. down to 9" and sometimes smaller, I would suggest that you face a choice between sticking with N standards on 9mm track, and using 2FS with the restrictions that apply.

Izzy

The solebar clearance isn't as bad as you might think. as 2mm FS has a much wider back to back compared to N than the difference in track gauge would suggest.  9.42 on NEM wheels would be around 7.85mm B to B compared with 8.51mm for 2mm FS. I tried regauging a couple of Farish wagon wheelsets to 7.85 and there was still plenty of clearance, but this might not apply to all models. Thanks for the input on 2mm FS and sharp curves.  I do wonder whether it would work if you narrowed the B to B and widened the check and wing rail clearances to compensate, but those wheel treads are pretty narrow and I suspect you can't shift the dimensions too far before the wheels start dropping into the middle of the frog, which kind of defeats the whole point of the 2mm FS wheel and track standard. Given a choice between 2mm FS and a continuous run I'll take the latter.  I'm bored with building branch terminus layouts.

Richard

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