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Garden Railway Construction  

Construction of Lollypop Farm Railcar Kit

20th August 2007

The construction of the kit from IP Engineering of EASTVILLE LINCS ( link below ) began with looking at the packets and thinking "I need to record its construction" which has lead to this part of my engineering site.

The kit is nicely packaged to that items ca be readily identified and then stored in the packet again.

The instructions are relatively clear but may be to the inexperienced builder taking the advice of the provider to do a "Dry Run" is well worth taking. The base was marked out and the then sides and buffer beams added. It is a good idea to check the fit of the wheel and axle boxes as I found that a dimension of 60mm rather than 61mm was better else there is rather too much slop in the axle.

You can see the relied sections which were shown on the drawings.

The top side of the assembly was marked as indicated in the instruction and holes drilled accordingly where they had been previously marked. The instruction indicate to make this part with the dividing wall laying down but I found it easier to make it on the base when there was something for all the parts to bond to rather than two side just being unsupported. Well it would well for me !!

You might note that the right hand piece is different from the left. This was because it was missing from the box ... but I had some ply so decided to cut it myself.

The front cab is taking shape. Now all to the rear has also been completed and a light piece of wire pulled around to hold everything in place whilst the PVA glue set.

Another view The motor is temporarily in place
Another view The buffers have been cleaned up of the "flashing " from the casting.

The insulated wheels and axle blocks I decided to reinforce the top part with little square of "off cut".

The last thing done today was to cut out the grill for the front of the loco.

21 August 2007

So the next day I started the painting in the drab green ... The small pot is in fact a jam pot with a small amount of the Eggshell paint descanted into it .

The detail of the sliding door. I have made both doors slide. the handle were fitting prior to painting as I found that I could still insert the door by sloping it across the unit top in first and then the bottom in. The door was removed for the second coat of paint. The bogie and axle box. I am still trying to work out a way to hold the axle box relatively tightly against the timber whilst the glue dries hence the reason for not getting on!!!!

After great thought as to how I would keep the axle boxes upright and apply only a little pressure so the the epoxy resin was not completely squeezed out of the joint I remembered that somewhere I have a plastic clamp . the picture tells the rest of the story.

One has to be very careful with the epoxy as it tends to run everywhere whilst in its near liquid and keeping it off the axles is difficult but achievable by NOT applying too much epoxy.

 The other set of wheels was clamped up first and after 10 minutes the epoxy was set sufficiently to remove the clamp and not to disturb the fixings.

The little loco which has been fun to build will soon be finished.

The front light come as a white metal units into which the bi-colour LED must be fixed. Similarly with the rear light and here it is fitted to the loco..
I chose to use Blue and Red wire for wiring up in place of that supplied - but that was my preference. The switch is yet to be mounted on the rear panel. The photo shows the door slide. The white metal console was soldered up using 70deg C solder with the temperature controlled iron at 140 deg C and special flux. It could of course have been put together with epoxy glue.
The front lights and grill have been fitted. I decided that the roof would be best to be removable so two additional pieces of wood were glued into place.

The first loco for my track is completed and made a complete circuit with out stopping first time round. The loco has been used during the laying of the track to check the gradients. If the loco did not make it the gradient was too much. The DER stands for Darley Enterprises Railway !!!