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Something old, something new, some things bodged and some things askew. A steamy saga of masochism and scratching.


Gorby

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And now for something completely different….

 

It's very different for me, but I can also guarantee that this hasn't been done on this site before. Let me introduce you. It's a civilian (no, please don't go!), wheeled vehicle (at least close the door on the way out). I know you're a load of vicious brutes who usually get your kicks from things that go BANG! But if you hang around you might even learn something (if you already know I'm an idiot, you might as well turn to the other channel now).

 

This is a class of vehicle that I wasn't previously aware of. Road Steamers were a development to the very early Traction Engines. Where as Traction Engines were intended as a portable engine – to do a job of work when the reached their destination, road steamers were pretty much, the first trucks. This one is loosely based on the first Robey Steamer which first trundled the roads in 1870.

Robey_Steamer.png

 

Disclaimer:

This may not be the most historically accurate model in the history of the universe, I scoured t'internet and only found about a dozen or so pictures of the vehicle in question. And ALL of them are different. We aren't talking minor differences, they all show major variations, as a result this is going to have to be a bit of a hodgepodge. I believe this is the first model ever attempted of it – I wonder why? Oh yes, I will be using the past tense because I have completed the build – I didn't have time to do a WIP on here until now.

Part of the reason for the differences is probably because this is long before mass production. Each of these vehicles was individually made, possibly for a specific job. The working life of them may have been measured in decades, so they could possibly have been altered at some point. Another problem is that I think that some of the differences are down to artistic licence as these two engravings show. They are obviously the same machine, but it shows differences:

Steamer+comparison.png

 

As an example, in the first engraving I've shown, you can clearly see something clinging to the back of the boiler. I can only find two other pictures of this and ALL three of the pictures are completely different, so I can't use those pics to work out what this one looked like. Every other picture I have doesn't show anything attached to the back of the boiler at all. Add to that, they all disagree on the shape of the body; the details on the boiler; the funnel; the wheel details, the steering wheel etc. etc. So if you see me do something and think "That doesn't look like the picture", you'll have to accept that I've seen that element in a different picture. Honest.

 

Anyway, enough excuses, if you've manage to get this far - onto the actual build.

 

As usual I'll tackled what I've decided would the most complicated bit first (before discovering that most of the rest of the model is even more complicated). I started with the gears, although to be honest, I wasn't sure how much of them would be visible on the completed model. Scaled to the correct size in Inkscape, print off, cut out and glue on to plastic card with white glue.

IMG_0325.JPG

Top tip!

You need to go out to your woodwork workshop in the garden and in the fourth drawer down in the tool chest, at the back you'll see your Robert Sorby wood carving gouges. Choose the one that exactly matches the radius of the inner wheel rim….. What? What do you mean you haven't got a carpentry workshop in the garden? Well that's hardly my fault is it!

 

Using the gouges and a varied multitude of tools I removed the bits that are non-gear and voila, I was left with a toothless gear. A gummy-gear?

IMG_0296.JPG

Trying to cut the gears by eye was a disaster (stupid idea, eyes are much too soft to cut plastic) the teeth looked like the work of a 14th century blind dentist. Even marking them with a pencil was futile as the file kept slipping on the convex surface. My JLC razor saw came to the rescue. I used a bit of 1mm thick styrene as a spacer between two blades. One of the blades was set higher than the other so that when one blade had sawn down to the correct depth, the other blade just scored where the next cut would be – then move the saw along one space. This gave a key for the file to get a decent grip. The diagram below should help the hard-of-thinking.

IMG_0333.JPG      Cutting+gears.png

 

Nearly three bloody hours it took to make this thing!

IMG_0335.JPG

 

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I know you won't be able to sleep tonight until you've seen the next instalment of the 'gear' saga, so I'll continue.

 

The next gear probably wouldn't have taken as long but I still hoped for a short cut. I like to try new things with each build and I decided to have a go at casting the remaining gears in resin. Someone on another site suggested using Alumilite resin and after several eternitys it arrived from darkest Yankshire. The kettle went on for a cuppa and for a mug of boiling water to melt some Oyumaru to make the moulds. I wasn't convinced that all the detail of the gears had been reproduced in the moulds but I decided to risk it anyway – cus that's the kinda guy I am (too tight to buy silicone type of guy). God the resin smells BAD. Even with my extractor sucking for all it's worth, the smell was overpowering. The reek makes the day after a particularly caustic curry seem like a fragrant scented summer breeze in comparison. Just as well we don't have canaries, otherwise we would be holding a series of canary funerals. It got dumped it in the shed in the hope that we're not talking nuclear half life time scales before it would be approachable.

Fear kept me away from the shed for two days, by which time almost all the awful whiff had gone.* They came out of the mould easily and this is how they were before being cleaned up. Unfortunately now my Oyumaru smells. disgusting. This is them directly out of the mould:

IMG_0525.JPG

 

The Alumilite is a little bendy but very tough. It sands and files quite easily, but the clean-up isn't easy on such small intricate parts. This is the medium sized gear (13mm diameter) after being tided up.

IMG_0526.JPG

 

The Oyumaru mould wasn't great with the teeth of the gears and the definition of the parts is a bit on the soft side, so I wasn't sure if the parts would be usable or not – but that's no fault of the resin. Using silicone for the mould would probably be better, but the instructions say that you need to use 'platinum curing silicone' as it sticks to other types.

 

The small 6mm gears didn't cast well. Unfortunately I wasted more time trying to make them acceptable than it would have taken to make them in plastic. I gave up on them and did what I should have done to start with.

IMG_0592.JPG

 

This is how they all turned out.

IMG_0598.JPG

 

The two larger sizes did pass quality control – not perfect, but they'll do. As you can see, I've done a bit more than just the gears.

 

* Two weeks later the smell is only noticeable if you hold the part to your nose and inhale deeply. But what sort of deranged idiot would do that? :blush:

 

Thanks for having a ganders.

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So basically you've been faffing about making stinky Spirograph wheels?  Surely only a deranged idi....Oh, you said that.

It struck me that possibly the design changed every so often due to repairs after disruptive parts failures. To whit, it kept blowing up!

Ah well, It looks kind of interesting so I'll pass by occasionally. (With a bucket of coal)

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15 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

It struck me that possibly the design changed every so often due to repairs after disruptive parts failures. To whit, it kept blowing up!

My thoughts exactly.

I do the occasional guided tour at an aircraft museum and we have a display about S F Cody and his pioneering work in aviation. There are several photos of his aircraft which if studied closely are all different in some small detail. It transpires that not only was he developing an aircraft, but he was also teaching himself to fly at the same time, with the result that each flight would likely result in some minor prang that needed the aircraft rebuilt. Each rebuild would also likely involve a certain amount of design improvement resulting in a case of 'never the same aircraft twice'.

I'm going to be following this one. Who could resist a steam winch on wheels?

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Mrs Gorby is getting suspicious as to where all the lids are going. She's developing a haunted look, so I needed to find a good (easy) way of making reasonably accurate cylinders/tubes. The lids I originally pinched for the two main wheels turned out to be unsuitable – the plastic was too thin and poor quality. Fortunately, along came a brain wave of truly tsunami proportions (although in hindsight it was more like a ripple that'd be unlikely to make an ant loose it's balance). Remember back when we were at primary school learning about dinosaurs and other current events? We used to use scissors to curl paper and stick them to other bits of curled paper for our parents to throw in the bin when we got home. Using the same method 0.25mm styrene curls very easily (I used the brass rods as I'm more likely to injure myself with scissors than when I was five).

Wheels+1.JPG

 

0.5mm was a bit more effort (using the back of a scalpel blade) but still worked well.

Wheels+2.JPG

 

0.75mm was equally successful but required a stronger device (the gouge/chisel).

Wheels+3.JPG

 

Even when I trained as a draughtsman I rarely used pi. I've used it more on my last three scratch-builds than since I left school. It's almost as if it was worth going to school. Not a lot of my education seems to have stuck, but is it my fault if I haven't got a sticky brain? Rather than use the currently known 31 trillion digits of pi, 3.142 was close enough to find the length of the side walls then a narrower tab was glued to the inside so that when the full circle was done the front and back face could slot inside using the inner tab as a stop/spacer. I didn't take any photos of the assembly as I'm giving you credit to be able to understand written instructions (okay, I forgot to take photos).

The single small front wheel started it's modelling career as a Micro Sol lid. Little did it know when it was young that one day it would be discovered and go on to achieve great things. Unfortunately it got that wrong, as I chopped half it's body away drilled holes in it and hid it's natural beauty behind layers of plastic. Here it's been shown having a face lift. Originally I'd used double sided tape (as in my A7V build) but it wasn't up to the job. I had to apply super glue to it as you would normally use Tamiya Extra thin. Bit messy, but worked well.

Wheels+4a.JPG

 

The wheels temporarily in place:

Wheels+5.JPG

The blob on the deck (?) is a drop of water to see if the deck is level.

 

The thing I thought would be the next most difficult bit turned out to be quite easy – if a little fiddly. It's what I believe is called an 'elliptic leaf spring'. Only one of my reference pictures shows this springy thing, the rest don't, but I like it so it's in. First I made a simple, and pretty tiny jig.

Springy+Thing+1.JPG

 

Over the two bits of tube on the jig slip two fatter bits of tube and the first strip of 0.3mm plastic gets wrapped around.

Springy+Thing+2.JPG

Then:

Springy+Thing+3.JPG

 

Off the jig so that I don't end up with a nice springy thing – but stuck to a bit of wood:

Springy+Thing+4.JPG

 

Looks a mess as it's before it got cleaned up. That's just a wooden 3mm thick spacer in the middle:

Springy+Thing+5.JPG

 

Front wheel assembled and primed:

 

Springy+Thing+6.JPG

 

 

Time for my Robey to get some body and other extremities.

 

There is much to catch up with, as a result, this post is turning into something of an ordeal.

It was about this time that my mojo hit the buffers. Due to all the reference photos bickering about their petty details, I was wondering if the build was possible at all. I abandoned modelling and went of to do something completely different, but of equally futility. The only reason I returned to it is that I've never ditched a project part way through and I didn't want to start now. It was also because I found something I want to have a go at building – that won't happen until this out of the way. I needed more reference pics.

A glass half full sort of person would have relished the opportunity to search down the missing information and set off skipping though fields of daisys, whistling merry tunes. A glass half empty person would have thought “sod it” and punched a rabbit or something. I'm more of a “who pinched half my bloody drink” sort of chap, and ploughed grimly on for two days through the deep dark Google mines. I found a bit more, but it only added to the confusion. Damn.

 

Anyway, back to the only type body-building I'm ever likely too do.

This is the underside of the deck (if I was playing Tetris, I'd have lost). The bits on either side are water tanks.

Body+1.JPG

 

Next the boiler gets fitted (odd that, it looks like half a test tube). The cone at the top was the result of plan B, as so many of these bits are.

Body+2.JPG

 

The ruins of 'cone - plan A', all three attempts:

Cone+1.JPG

 

Plan B was just four disks glued together (the pole is to keep them central) and then turned on my mini lathe like this:

Cone+3.JPG     Cone+4.JPG

 

Okay, it's a Dremel with delusions of grandeur.

 

I couldn't resist putting the bits together.

Body+3.JPG

 

Next I need to dress the body and as my Robey is dead macho, this should under no circumstances be referred to a skirt.

Body+4.JPG

 

As I seem to be drawn to things covered in rivety pimples, I've re-purposed a bradawl to make the experience less painful (for me, not you).

Body+5.JPG     Body+6.JPG

 

I've got no idea what the things on either side of the deck are. One image shows them as rectangular and one shows them with rounded fronts. I went with rounded.

Side+Bits+1.JPG     Side+Bits+2.JPG

 

Side+Bits+3.JPG

 

The yellow stuff is the double sided tape before the backing is removed.

 

No prizes for guessing the base for the steering wheel is half a wheel from the spare parts supply. The riveting on the deck is a work of fiction. Like much of the build really.

Side+Bits+4.JPG

 

As I've not been doing this modelling business for long, I haven't got many spare bits to rummage through. This is my entire mini hoard:

IMG_0630.JPG

 

Coal bins for the back.

Side+Bits+5.JPG

 

There is only a little empty space at the top so that I don't have to fill the whole bin with 'coal'. I remember reading somewhere, somewhen, that coal is one of the few things that modellers can use that can be used for itself in miniature. If you see what I mean. But I haven't any coal and having a bag delivered is probably likely to be considered to be overkill, when all I needed was one lump. I'll probably use crumbled cork.

 

In the original engraving I showed a few posts back, the funnel is a little dull. I can't have dull. Most of the other images I've found show a much more flashy funnel. As is so often the case, plan A failed. I tried sawing a few mill down from the top, all the way around the tube, splaying the petals outward and inserting tiny triangular wedges in the gaps. It sort of worked, but it was so fiddly and time consuming I gave up. I desperation I had a rummage in my drawers and thought this might be a possibility:

Funnel+2.JPG

 

After filing, scraping, puttying and sanding, I'm quite please with the result:

Funnel+3.JPG

 

I have no evidence that this was on any Robey steamer, as this build is delving into the realm of fiction, mine does. I know you can buy plastic 'I' beams, but I've never had a use for them, I just wanted to see if I could make them. Saw a square tube lengthways,

I+Beam+2.JPG

 

Glue them back to back,

I+Beam+3.JPG

 

Tadaaaaaaa.

I+Beam+4.JPG

 

All together now…..

Side+Bits+6.JPG

 

 

If you've managed to get this far, some countries would award you a medal and a small pension. This, being Britain, I'll just say “Ta”.

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5 minutes ago, Gorby said:

In desperation I had a rummage in my drawers and thought this might be a possibility...

OMG - what the hell...

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Love it Gorby! 

 

If nothing agrees then go with what you agree with. Make someone else argue their case.

 

   

 

9 hours ago, Gorby said:

Plan B was just four disks glued together (the pole is to keep them central) and then turned on my mini lathe like this:

Cone+3.JPG     Cone+4.JPG

 

9 hours ago, Gorby said:

Okay, it's a Dremel with delusions of grandeur.

 

My dremel just wet itself with excitement!

 

 

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" …  haven't got many spare bits to rummage through. "

 

I know fellows with entire rooms full of parted out kits and they claim the same! 

 

you're using imagination & skill , and that cannot be bought by the pound.

Edited by s.e.charles
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Thanks for all the comments and likes. It's almost as if you lot haven't got anything better to do.

 

This bit I had very little evidence for and was dreading it as a result. It ended up being one of the most enjoyable bits so far. I had these two cross sections, but as usual, they didn't bloody agree with each other. Another session of 'make it up as you go along' time.

Engine+1.png   Engine+2.png

 

How many of us really understand how a steam engine works? It certainly wasn't knowledge that I picked up working on various mainframe computers – not even the ICL ones. Time to do some 'tinterneting.

 

This is the parts of one element to the main crank-shaft (there was also a shorter brass tube that didn't get the memo to turn up for the photo-shoot).

Engine+3.JPG

 

Those bits assembled.

Engine+4.JPG

 

This is one of the guide supports for the secondary piston – with the piston by the side.

Engine+5.JPG

 

After a hard weekend playing with me toys:

Engine+6.JPG

 

I was surprised how much I managed to get done, but this was the weekend when Mrs Gorby was away, therefore less interruptions. The crank-shaft alone has 29 parts and the whole lot together has about 70 parts. I've no idea if it would really have looked like this, but it is feasible according to the basic principles of steam enginey operation (it is in Gorbyland anyway).

 

Quite please with the result after it's glad-rags had been slapped on. I used four different metallic colours so that everything didn't look like one confusing pile of scrap. Think of it as an artistic interpretation of an artistic interpretation.

Engine+7.JPG

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Stap me vitals! as the late great Terry Wogan often said. A thing of ingenuity (enginuity?) and Victorian beauty.

The pistons and drive gear turned out very convincingly. I'd guess those rounded 'blocks' are more water tanks?

For curving plastic card, I just run it between my thumb and the edge of the six inch ruler. This will only do the thinner variety though.

Thicker card can be wrapped around a round object, fixed in place with an elastic band and dunked in hot water.

Or, If you score across it at random it will start to curl on it's own. Fix in place, then fill the scores and rub down.

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This is a truly splendid endeavour, Gorby.

 

You might be interested to see how the French approached a similar subject. This is a recreation of Cugnot's road locomotive, purportedly the first such thing.

 

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11 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

For curving plastic card, I just run it between my thumb and the edge of the six inch ruler. This will only do the thinner variety though.

Thicker card can be wrapped around a round object, fixed in place with an elastic band and dunked in hot water.

Or, If you score across it at random it will start to curl on it's own. Fix in place, then fill the scores and rub down.

Yes I've tried the dunk in hot water approach before, but I found that curling the plastic first made it much easier – particularly as I was using quite thickish card. I've not tried the scoring thing before.

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That Cugnot looks like bloody hard work. I've steered a steamroller before and that was hard enough, what with taking up the slack on the steering chain before anything even started to happen  as far as actually changing direction!

Love this model, something a little different, and just a tad eccentric!

 

Ian

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Thanks every one for taking the time to have a ganders or comment. I'm please that here seems to be more interest in this thing that I originally thought there would be.

 

I actually did consider the Cugnot, but decided against because of all the wood – pointless making it in plastic and then having to paint it to look like wood. Perhaps one day I might do a wooden model of it. It's certainly a fascinating critter.

 

1 hour ago, limeypilot said:

just a tad eccentric!

That's exactly why I fell in love with it the first time I saw the picture.

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Hi I'm Sillyass Bodd. You might be wondering why I'm standing like this.

 

IMG_0385.JPG

 

It's because some buggers cut me rear end off.

IMG_0387.JPG

 

Stings a bit. I might need to see the specialist for a bit of plastic surgery..

 

Not a promising start if the end point is a Victorian gentleman engineer, but beggars, choosers and all that. Robey steamers rarely attained significant altitude, so the parachute and flying gear were considered surplus to requirements, whereupon he appeared a little too 'naturist' to be deemed presentable to Victorian society. I decided to cut his arms off to make it easier to put his coat on. Which may explain why Mrs Gorby never asked me to put the kids coats on when they were young.

I considered two options for the coat, a tiny bespoke jacket made form the finest quality Italian bog paper, or the more industrial milliput approach. I went milliput because….. I don't know, whatever. Initially it did look like he was wearing a poorly tailored, but very cosy 75 tog duvet. It need a lot of whittling. 

 

Although the driver in the illustration I'm working to didn't have a top hat, it just had to be done. 5 mm tube was the first attempt but it was soon obvious it was miles too big. 4 mm rod was tried next – miles too small :wall:. After a exhaustive search, I managed to find a small piece of 4.5 mm rod, you'd think that would be perfect wouldn't you? Still too bloody small – but only fractionally :wall:. Starting to loose the will to live, I eventually used 5 mm rod, filed down to size. I removed half his head in order to fit the hat (I'm not sure if I fully understand this hat fitting business).

 

After a lot of fettling, filing and farting around.

IMG_0663.JPG

 

BAD Sillyass! I'm going to have to hose that wheel down now. :fuyou_2:

IMG_0661.JPG

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So, just to be sure. The driver is doing a teapot impression to fit in with the steam/hot water theme, eh?

And, I had a thought today. (stop sniggering!) Those rounded bins. Not water. probably for coal?

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19 hours ago, hendie said:

I'd be tempted to include all the detaily bits just because of the challenge, and no-one can prove you wrong

I am very much enjoying the twiddly bits and obviously, I always relish the opportunity to mess with the rivet-counters heads. I found with my last build that I enjoyed the bits that I made up as I went along. I just need to figure out builds that will allow me to do more of that sort of stuff.


 

17 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

So, just to be sure. The driver is doing a teapot impression to fit in with the steam/hot water theme, eh?

And, I had a thought today. (stop sniggering!) Those rounded bins. Not water. probably for coal?

His odd stance will make sense at the grand reveal (probably the only thing that will make sense). You were probably righter (I've decided that's a word) with the water tanks. I haven't got any evidence that those tank/bins have a lid, but the coal bins and the bit where it's feed into the burny bit is at the back.


 

15 hours ago, Anteater said:

I tried to decide if this is mad or brilliant, but I've come to the conclusion it is both.

I'm happy to go with mad.

 

 

Thanks all for taking the time to run this though your brains.

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