Percy and the couplers

Excited by the prospect of having a working engine, even if it doesn’t look like anything that ran on the Canada Atlantic, I printed a copy of Percy’s original running board, and mated it up with some Accumate Coupler lids from my folder of standard 3D designs. Bachmann had glued the cylinders on with CA, […]

Percy’s new main rods

Percy’s new main rods follow the same pattern as the connecting rods, with keys holding the rods in place, rather than nuts. I re-used the original crossheads. These have a plain plate to hold the rod in place on its pin and also to keep the crosshead on its guides. Filing off the end of […]

Percy crosses the chasm

That gap. It doesn’t look so dangerous, but once I installed phosphor-bronze wipers to pick up current, the fine wire would find the tiny gap between rail heads and launch poor under-weight Percy into the sky. Sometimes with disastrous effect. Finally, with Percy’s split chassis assembled, and a few sharp corners filed away so they […]

Percy and the Split Axles

We’re coming to the home stretch of Percy’s story. After months of experiments, I have finally landed on a plan for Percy’s wheels that should work more permanently than the plans I had for #622 or #10. It was time to put it to the test, and so, I turned up some tyres, assembled some […]

Learning from Percy

Every month, the North Shore model railroaders get together, lately via Zoom, and share some recent projects. I’ve offered to do a quick presentation on what I’ve learned from Percy. I’ve put it up here should anyone be interested.

Percy and the Driver Test

I’m nearly ready to go ahead with the “final” set of wheels for Percy. These will feature a combination of keys and Loctite to ensure everything goes together in alignment and, more importantly, stays that way. The 3D printer makes test fits unusually easy, and so, I’ve broken from my damn-the-torpedoes tradition, and made a […]

12L14 Tyres

Up until now, I’ve only made tyres out of 316 Stainless Steel, which is supposed to be machinable. While small wheels were not too bad, my little Sherline lathe struggled with the 17.5 mm drivers of #622. So, I asked the local Metal Supermarket to bring in some 1″ 12L14 free-machining steel. They probably sell […]

Holding on to the Axle

We’ve now seen that even reliable old Percy can lose the grip between axles and wheels when things get rough. I’m driven to ask what exactly is the best way to connect the wheels to the axles so they don’t slip? There are plenty of scale locomotives running around with an interference fit between wheel […]

Percy’s wide chassis

For Daylight Savings Hour —- that magical extra hour of modelling time you get once a year when all the clocks go back — I designed and printed frame spacers for Percy that give the chassis dimensions similar to #622. For the first time I also tried pushing the chassis on glass, which turns out […]

Percy’s new rods

Percy received a new set of connecting rods to match his new split frame. For those keeping score, this is Percy’s third set of connecting rods. I decided to try out the new style of crank pin to see how it behaved and how easy or difficult it is to manufacture. Over all, this pattern […]