5” Gauge Lion

[neil_1821]

So I’ve decided to keep a log of the build here although it is going to be a very slow build as summers coming up, so me and my dad will be doing a bit of running at our local track with a 5” gauge City of Truro and a 3 1/2” King Edward VII.

I decided that I wanted to build something I could ride after finishing my hoglet (still trying to get the damn thing going) and I was very set on building a traction engine until we went to the engineering show in Doncaster and I saw the OLCO Lion stand bringing back memories of The Titfield and Thunderbolt Ealing comedy, one of my all time favourites and so my mind changed and I knew I had to build one.

I’ve been acquiring materials and have the full set of plans as well as detailed ones of the full size one available through OLCO in the hopes of making a true scale model. The first issue is that the wheel castings available are not true to scale. The front 2 wheels have 18 spokes, the rear driving ones have 16 spokes, the trailing wheels have 10 spokes and the tender wheels have 11 spokes, so a big mismatch.

I am machining the wheels from steel, which I made a start on today but it is going to be a long and tedious process, only took a few pics but I will keep this updated! Sorry for the long initial first post.

Made a start on the back ready to machine the front and profile, then It’ll be onto the rotary table to do the spokes.

View attachment IMG_0299.jpg

View attachment IMG_0301.jpg

View attachment IMG_0302.jpg

 

[Herbiev]

Looking forward to your progress. Keep the pics coming

 

[neil_1821]

Update time!

Now the V Twin is finished and running I’ve made a start on the Lion again, trying to figure out where I left off.

Whilst I’m turning the wheels my dads setting up the milling machine to start cutting out the spokes. It’s going to be a very long process but I’ll keep the thread updated with pictures as we go

The lathe is only just big enough to hold the billets of steel

One machined wheel mounted for cutting the spokes, once done it’ll be back onto the lathe to turn the profile

And here’s a link to my YouTube channel, it has videos of the V Twin as well as our 3 locomotives running at Ruddington.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiK4RmaOcnl5u5A0aPJ_H5w

 

[Baner]

Looking forward to this build. The Lion is a great looking Loco. I checked out your channel too. Great work on the Hoglet. Totally jealous of your loco collection.

Dave.

 

[neil_1821]

Progress has been a little slow but getting close to a finished product. It takes a long time cutting each slot and changing cutters etc. Be worth it in the end though, I hope! Just the profile left to turn.That is of course when the little helper isn’t getting in the way

 

[neil_1821]

Small update

All four of the main wheels are now completed except for the profile which needs to be turned. It’s taken some time to machine these between other jobs and illness but at least the larger bulk is almost done. They need some more filing and smoothing prior to being painted but overall I’m quite pleased with them. Only another 6 small wheels to go!

 

[jimsshop1]

Good Lord man, how many hours do you have in those 4 wheels? It took me forever to do 2 flywheels with only 6 spokes each. Amazing work and patience on a manual machine!

Jim in Pa

 

[deeferdog]

Artistry. Sheer artistry. No other word suffices.
Cheers, Peter

 

[skyline1]

Crumbs !

Talk about climbing the north face

Making a pattern and getting them cast would be hard enough but hacking them out of solid is quite amazing.

Best Regards Mark

 

[neil_1821]

Thanks for the kind words! I estimate for these 4 wheels there will be roughly 200 hours into them.
I had considered trying to get them cast but due to how thin the wheel spokes are they’d prove to be very hard to get a solid casting unless they were pressure cast. We also explored avenues of laser cutting and water jet cutting but ultimately this seemed the only viable option while keeping costs down.

 

[mortimer]

Only 200 hours ! . that is amazing work , how many days or weeks did you spend on those 4 wheels ? how did you cut the radius in the spokes Regards Tony

 

[neil_1821]

It’s hard to say for definite as it’s not been a continual process, a bit of work has been done on the frames and other jobs came up but it’s perhaps taken 6-8 months roughly. The radius on the spokes was done using a corner radius end mill and then some filing on all surfaces to get a good finish.

The next laborious process is making close to 300 square headed bolts for the frame detailing.