Wheel arches.

[Redimus]

I've been looking around for my next loco to tackle, and I've run into a bit of a problem. What ever I model, I want it to be from the Southern Railway, but the vast majority of the nice looking and/or recognisable ones suffer from the same problem, large wheel arches. There *are* a few Bulleids I could do, but seeing as I'd inevitably just copy the rather nice ones someone else has done, I'd like to do my own thing first (I know I'll break down and build at least one eventually).

So, do any of you guys have any techniques for dealing with arches too big to get away with slightly undersized wheels/slightly too high footplates?

[jtlan]

Can you post a picture of a locomotive that has this modeling problem?

Aside: I'm not familiar with some terminology. Is there something particular to the locomotives designed by Bulleid that makes them not have this problem?

[Redimus]

Bullied built some very interesting looking engines, none of which (all for different reasons) has wheel arches.

That last one is a steam engine too believe it or not. It wasn't very successful.

As for the loco I'm currently modeling. I'm not. I'm trying to decide, but I'm looking at the majority of them and have the same problem that I have no idea how I'm going to represent the wheel arch.

My previous project, I was able to negate this by by using brackets and plates to make the footplate appear a bit larger and hide the fact the wheels don't go up as far as the wheel arches, but that won't work on most locos, because they tend to have curved kinks in their footplate, which would be hard enough to replicate without having make em line up with brackets and plates as well!

Not sure if this is what I want to model next (although it's on the shortlist) but here's a Schools Class which should illustrate what I'm looking at:

Edited September 23, 2014 by Redimus

[Watchman]

I too had been hoping to build a 4-4-0 Schools Class by modifying an Emerald Night ... and replicating that approach to the wheel arch issue.

[snowvictim]

As for the Schools Class. Might be a bit overscaled but for the front and back:

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=30099

Then use dark green plates with dark green tiles on top to fill that in. Put some inverted slopes in the middle to thicken that section.

Alternatively:

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=6005

Then build the rest of the arch with 1 x 1 Dark Green Bricks and do the thickening with 1 x 1 Modified Dark Green Bricks (with a stud on 1 side) to which attach a 2/3 Dark Green Slope tile. Personally, I think the first one looks better, but the second one fits better with the scale.

[jtlan]

Bullied built some very interesting looking engines, none of which (all for different reasons) has wheel arches.

<snip>

That last one is a steam engine too believe it or not. It wasn't very successful.

Ah yes, the Leader. commanderwolf built one years ago. I've been wondering if it's worth revisiting...

Bullied built some very interesting looking engines, none of which (all for different reasons) has wheel arches.

<snip>

That last one is a steam engine too believe it or not. It wasn't very successful.

As for the loco I'm currently modeling. I'm not. I'm trying to decide, but I'm looking at the majority of them and have the same problem that I have no idea how I'm going to represent the wheel arch.

My previous project, I was able to negate this by by using brackets and plates to make the footplate appear a bit larger and hide the fact the wheels don't go up as far as the wheel arches, but that won't work on most locos, because they tend to have curved kinks in their footplate, which would be hard enough to replicate without having make em line up with brackets and plates as well!

Not sure if this is what I want to model next (although it's on the shortlist) but here's a Schools Class which should illustrate what I'm looking at:

I feel like the same technique used on the model of the Q class should work here, or at least something similar. You'll probably need to use Big Ben Bricks XL drivers for the drivers, but they don't come in green. The problem is that no equivalent part exists in LDD, and the simulations thereof don't give an accurate idea of where the actual drivers will scrape in real life.

[Redimus]

Hasn't someone done some add on files of Big Ben Bricks' wheels for LDD? I'm sure I saw mention of that somewhere on this forum a few months back.

As for the colours, are they not able to do custom lots? I'd assume the all you have to do is do a run in a different colour? It's something I'll have to look into.

[Hrw-Amen]

If you find a good way then please share it as it is something I have wrestled with for a long time now.

What width do you want to build? I have tried 8 wide and just about managed to get something realistic but ideally I'd like to keep the main build to 7 wide so it matched the rest of my stuff.

[Redimus]

As I focus on the UK, I have decided on 7 wide. Most 8 wide UK designs look a bit fat and bloated to me (although there are good ones out there), and unless there's plenty of greebeling on them, the full stud distance between the wheel and the side of the train tends to look a bit too obvious and detracts from the overall look.

[ScotNick]

I don't know if this will help.

Although it isn't quite the same I did a similar thing just recently: https://www.flickr.c...07/15274398016/

Edited September 23, 2014 by ScotNick

[Redimus]

Hmm, that may well prove useful should I decide to do the T9 at some point (an engine I'd very much like to tackle some day).

[zephyr1934]

As for the loco I'm currently modeling. I'm not. I'm trying to decide, but I'm looking at the majority of them and have the same problem that I have no idea how I'm going to represent the wheel arch.

My previous project, I was able to negate this by by using brackets and plates to make the footplate appear a bit larger and hide the fact the wheels don't go up as far as the wheel arches, but that won't work on most locos, because they tend to have curved kinks in their footplate, which would be hard enough to replicate without having make em line up with brackets and plates as well!

Why don't you just cut the wheels flat so that... no no no, just kidding. That is a big nasty problem to work around. If you are not against modifying parts, you might be able to hollow out the inside or backside of some of the curved slopes.

Hasn't someone done some add on files of Big Ben Bricks' wheels for LDD? I'm sure I saw mention of that somewhere on this forum a few months back.

Here's the BBB ldraw files

[Redimus]

Cheers!

[Captain Green Hair]

Here's how I did it on my engine, the dark red plate is lowered and the wheels go a bit behind it (8 wide model):

[Redimus]

That's one of the nicest mods I've seen to the EN loco. It actually looks like it could be British, and like it's in proportion! (I'm not a big fan of EN, and even less of a fan of it's price.)

[zephyr1934]

Here's how I did it on my engine, the dark red plate is lowered and the wheels go a bit behind it (8 wide model):

Wow, that is a great EN mod with lots of small but significant improvements (but now back to topic). Perhaps using plates at 8 wide as in this example, but maybe even one or two plates lower, plus curved slopes above could achieve the look you are going for? Maybe with an arch brick behind the curved slopes to hide the top of the wheels too.

[Paperballpark]

My latest steam train (7 wide), I'm using jumper plates to move the arches back half a plate so they're over the wheel, and using the 'telephone' 1x4 bow as the arch. It's quite delicate, but it works well.