My Scratchbuilt Catenary

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OO gauge OLE

Big improvement Ed,looks just about right to me ,,
:thumbs;-):cool:
Owen

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Hi Ed,

Looks very nice (whichever version). One thing about catenary wiring is that it zig-zags from side to side to keep the wear on the pick-up bar even. Nothing obvious, but it's there. Easier to do with version 2 I would imagine.

Try K&S PB wire, 10 or 15 thou' diameter, comes straight, about 8" long and is very robust.

Nigel

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Wow Ed, the catenary has certainly come a long way. The last pic looks really good to me. Top job. :thumbs

Cheers, Gary.
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Thanks chaps, think the 1/0.6 hook up wire is the way to go and I use it for droppers on the layout anyway.

Thanks for the suggestion about K&S PB wire Nigel.

Many people appear to use guitar strings or piano wire, but I'm trying to keep costs as low as possible and use readily available 'standard' materials.

Moving on to masts, for some reason everyone seems to have run out of stock of 4mm square styrene tube. I've some on order, but may have to wait a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile I'll make a couple of new posts using the 5mm tube I've already got.

Slight design change for the arms and going to use 0.8mm wire (stripped 1mm2 twin and earth) to again make things a little less 'chunky'.


Think this is going to end up a design cross between BR Mk1, BR Mk3 and LNER Shenfield line 1500Vdc :mutley

Talking of which, I found this old film. Haven't watched it all yet, but interesting bit between 10:30 and 11:30

http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/764

'elf and safety, what's that!


Ed








 


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What a wonderful film Ed - as you so rightly say, "Elf & Softy" were nowhere to be seen so work progressed at a goodly pace. :thumbs:thumbs:thumbs

What always strikes me about these old films is how hard we (they) worked in those days, how dedicated they were and how "proud" everyone was of their achievements.  Nowadays, everything is done by machinery in half the time and nobody gives a damn.

The result seems to be that most people are short of cash, most don't have any spare time many thousands of people are unemployed…………:???::???::???:

I wonder where we went so badly wrong ………………….:hmm

'Petermac
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:lol::lol::thumbs
I'm happy being a Luddite ………………..:cheers

'Petermac
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G`day Ed, 
That cantenary is looking really good.:thumbs:thumbs:thumbs:thumbs
I reckon once you paint the wires it won`t look chunky. I found that when I painted the staples on my tension lock couplers they practically disappeared.
Another thing….don`t know if it`s of any use to you, but if you lay a length of wire on a flat, hard surface and then lay a length of timber over the top of the wire and roll the wire under pressure and sandwiched between the timber and the hard surface…….it will help straighten the wire.
:cheers  Gormo

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Hi Gormo

I've read that if you paint the wires black they look thinner. Someone made the analogy with women and little black dresses, but I couldn't possibly comment.

To straighten and harden the wires I put one end in a vice and the other end in the drill chuck. Pull and turn slowly for a few revolutions and et voilà.

Works for 1mm2 and 2mm2 twin and earth and 1/0.6 equipment wire, unfortunately didn't work on the 0.4mm copper and brass jewellery wire.


Ed
 


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that is the way I do it too Ed,
:thumbs;-):cool:
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Knocked up masts mark IV yesterday and gave them a quick spray with grey primer.









That'll do.

Working on portals for the station and an anchor mast for the end of the line now.

I'm still a bit undecided about height though.

According to Hornby, their old system should have the contact wire 73mm above the running rails and the UK Model Shops article by Alastair Thompson says 76mm above rail tops.

Prototypically, BR Mk1 catenary had the contact wire 16' 6" above the running rails (66mm) and some people on RMWeb quote 64mm.

:hmm

Think a lot depends on whether the catenary is being used for power pick-up, which in my case it isn't.

Bearing in mind I doubt my track is that level, and I want the pantographs fixed a couple of millimetres below and not touching the wire, think I'm aiming at roughly 68mm for the catenary contact wire and fixing the pantographs at 65mm.

Of course, that could all change :mutley


Ed



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I seem to recall reading that if you anchor the end of the curly wire at one end and give the wire a sharp tug it will straighten it out, or I could have dreamed it…….. :???:.


Pete.

it was already on fire when I got here, honest!
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I believe the other way of doing it is stretching and apply heat via something like a blowtorch :shock:

Done drawing for the portals to carry the catenary through the station area, just got to build it.



Also found another shorter old film about the electrification of the Southend line.

http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/766

(The music in these early post war films really dates them :mutley)


Ed






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Love the attention to dimensional detail Ed. I really enjoy that part of nutting out how to do a scratchbuild. They're looking great.
keep it coming.


cheers
Marty

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Newcastle Emlyn Station is "Under construction"
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that looks good,as Marty said keep em coming
:thumbs;-):cool:
Owen

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Thanks chaps, however my ability to create drawings 'to the millimetre' and my ability to cut and drill holes 'to the millimetre' are not necessary the same  :lol::lol::lol:



Ed

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Excellent research Ed (the video is fascinating viewing, thank you) and you're overcoming the challenges of the build process brilliantly. Keep it up and you'll have a most worthwhile result.

Superb drawing work too and as to accurate hole drilling, don't worry, just take a note from Eric Morcambe's book when piano playing for Andrew Preview: all the right holes have been drilled, just not necessarily in the right places! (only joking!) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7yb-JncKow

Looking forward to the next report. Bon courage as we say in these parts,

Bill :)

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At 6'4'', Bill is a tall chap, then again, when horizontal he is rather long and people often used to trip over him! . . . and so a nickname was born :)
 
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G`day Ed,
You`re making good progress there and those cantenary look really good.
Your forward thinking with the height possibles makes a lot of sense. All you can do is try what you think will work and test it thoroughly. Then you`ll know for sure what works.!!! There is bound to be some variation in height somewhere……..Murphy`s Law….so you may have to make some adjustments, but at the end of the day, slight adjustments will not be obvious to the visitor, they will only be obvious to you. I would think rise and or fall of track between two masts would be your biggest hurdle, so compromise may have to kick in there somewhere.???
Cheers
Gormo

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Thanks Bill.

That link doesn't work, might be a licensing issue in the UK, but I know the clip you mean.

As for "all the right holes have been drilled, just not necessarily in the right places", I've been saying that since I started the layout two years ago

Ed

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Thanks Gormo.

Doing this has made me realise how glad I am that I'm not trying to model a four platform terminus station.

All credit to the blokes that do though, the amount of masts, portals, head spans and 'knitting' would be far beyond me.


Ed

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