1. Julian Evison, July 23, 2017
I bought a part completed Ian Kirk kit for an LNER 51 ft third class compartment coach at one of the Guild shows. It has been (part-)built very well, so I am pleased with my purchase.
Among the parts completed are the bogies which have a nice adaptation as shown in the photo.

By comparison with other Kirk kits I have, it looks like most of the kit parts have been used but the axles float in steel(?) strips which are held to the bogies by a pivot in line with the central bogie pivot. The whole thing runs very smoothly and adds considerable weight in a very useful place.
As I have other coaches like this to complete, I have two questions. Does anyone recognise this method of improving Kirk bogies? Are the parts for this method commercially available?
Thanks, Julian

2. Paul Copsey, July 23, 2017
Great idea and simple to replicate .
Cheers
Paul

3. Pat Buckley, July 23, 2017
Julian, I used to do all of my kirk coaches like that and you have to make your own pivot beams up. Cut the strips to length and solder them together -I used to do 8 or ten at a time - mark out the top one and drill on a pillar drill to get all the same. I actually stopped doing that and just build the bogies as normal as I find it doesn’t really make all that difference. I have done about 70 kirk coaches including a quintuplet set which is the only one fitted with compensation now all the others including twin articulated sets and the quad set that’s on the bench are just as normal.
Derailments are almost non-existent even on the very rough test track I visit and the normal coaches cope with anything. All my bogies pivot on 4ba bolts that are perfect for the holes in them and I use a 4ba nyloc nut to give just a bit of movement with the bogie. The nyloc nut can be tightened or slackened to give easy adjustment .
Pat.

4. Julian Evison, July 23, 2017
Pat,
Thanks for the clear and helpful reply. I had rather assumed that unmodified bogies would be rather light and prone to de-railing, but your extensive experience tells me otherwise.
Just for clarity, do you add any weight to the bogies (or coach) at all?
Julian

5. Pat Buckley, July 23, 2017
Julian,
No weight at all just use Easybuild wheels they are much better than Slaters. The slaters ones are I presume a scale thickness but they are very light and the axles are rather thin and prone to bending very easily. That of course gives you wobbly wheels and lots of derailments.
I have used Easybuild wheels for a long long time and as they are quite heavy they give you a lot of weight exactly were its needed. The only thing you need to do is cut about a maximum of 1.5mm off the end of each axle and remake the pinpoint on a slitting disc by twirling the axle in your fingers. Check the fit of the axle in the bogies very carefully as the kirk bogies are a trifle narrow. You may have to file down the spigot that the bearing cup goes in to to move the bearings out a tad. And deepen the bearing hole as well. Do one bogie and it will be all clear to you. Take it slowly and methodically and you will have a well running set of bogies.
If you can squeeze a bit of lead flashing into the hollow battery boxes that will help a lot as well. If you need any more help put a post on and don’t be afraid to ask a silly question. I have done an awful lot of them and I know all the little tricks.
Pat.
PS. don’t forget a little drop of thin oil in the bearing cups before you put the axles in.

6. Bob Alderman, July 23, 2017
The photo seems to show the axle end running as a journal in the steel strip. No pin point bearing at all.
Bob

7. Pat Buckley, July 23, 2017
That’s correct Bob, that’s the way its done with the beams. The beams have of course to be fairly thick so that they provide a reasonable amount of material for the axle to bear on without distorting or wearing away. The pinpoint bearings only get used into the plastic sides when there are no compensated beams. You do have to cut the point of the axle off to keep it clear of the side frame its quite tight to do and that is one of the reasons I stopped doing it. It wasn’t worth all the faffing about as the flexing plastic bogies give a primitive form of compensation anyway. There is not really much difference with or without the compensation provided you use the heavier Easybuild axles. The much lighter Slaters ones are just not heavy enough. I have built many many Kirk bogies both with and without compensation and the difference is not big enough to be really noticeable.
Pat.

8. Jim Snowdon, July 23, 2017
The compensation system is quite elegant, and in essence what the 2mm scale people have been doing for a long time. Strictly, only one beam is required to give three points of suspension. I assume the bogies themselves are arranged so that one can rock fore and aft only, with the over one able to rock in both axes.
What does surprise me is the suggestion that the Slaters axles are easily bent. They may only 1/8“ diameter, but given how short they are, it would take a level of force bordering on abuse to actually bend them. Or am I missing something? Of course, I should ask how heavy a carriage should be - none of my bogie stock (all NPCS) has any additional weight and all ride quite well.
Jim

9. Julian Evison, July 23, 2017
Pat,
Thanks again. I will look out for the Easybuild wheels. You are correct in answer to Bob's question - there are no pin point bearings and the axle end runs as a journal in the steel.
Julian

10. Ian Kirk, July 23, 2017
Hi,
The only time I ever bent Slaters axles was through my own stupidity. I had an assembled finished coach on my stand and while I was packing up I laid it on the table. This was not quite level and it gravitated off the end. I picked it up found it had sustained minimal damage then put it back on the table……. The second trip to the floor reduced it to a kit of parts and bent a couple of axles. Although these are 1/8th they are turned down over the part that goes through the plastic centre the shoulder giving the back to back.
The compensation system was one I used when I produced these mouldings for the first time. I envisaged batch building rather than kits and the first production of LNER bogie sides had quite a large hole in each axlebox and a smaller hole on the back for the pivot and there was a matching hole in the moulding that went behind. I used brass strips with three holes drilled in each. I soldered the bearings in the outer holes and a short length of rod provided the pivot. The bearings could move up and down within the larger hole in the back of the sideframe. IIRC once assembled I Araldited one side leaving one side on each bogie compensated. Later I found that non compensated bogies seemed to run just as well so I altered the tooling to have bearing size holes in the plastic sides themselves. If anyone wants to try the compensated way I still have somewhere….. a pile (perhaps 1000) of mouldings from the original tooling.
best wishes,
Ian

11. Bob Curling, July 23, 2017
Hello everybody
Is there any reason why pin point bearings couldn't be fitted to the beams? I can't imagine that the vertical displacement of a wheel would be sufficient to cause the parallel part of the axle to come into contact with the bore of the bearing (or am I missing something).
As far as comparative running characteristics between compensated and non compensated bogies are concerned perhaps the wheelbase of bogies is generally too short for compensation to give any advantage. Within the wheelbase of any one bogie even if not all wheels stay in contact with the track there would have to be considerable track deformity for any flange to be lifted clear of its running rail.
Where most coaches seem to fail is in accommodating track 'twist' over the length of the vehicle (and compensation won't deal with that anyway).
Bob

12. Pat Buckley, July 23, 2017
Ian, that solves one of life’s mysteries, I stopped compensating as I didn’t think it made a difference and also as the sides were suddenly different and it wasn’t as easy - I always wondered why you changed them.
Jim, its not the thick bit of the axle that gets bent but the little bit that goes into the wheel -its smaller .I have had to replace about ten or twelve axles over the years and have straightened one or two more when I had no spares. No idea why I should have had so many maybe its because I don’t have a layout and all my trains get transported around and put on and off the tracks a lot.
Pat.

13. Bob Curling, July 24, 2017
Hello Pat
Like you I've had Slater's axles bend in the reduced diameter area (usually at the point where the diameter changes) for no obvious reason with the resulting strange motion of the vehicle concerned. I've found that they are made from fairly soft material and can readily be rectified by holding the offending end in a lathe chuck and gently bending the axle straight using a centre in the tailstock as a reference. A quick spin at not too high a speed will soon show whether or not you've cured the problem.
Bob

14. Jim Snowdon, July 24, 2017
Interesting. I suppose we all have our different experiences. It's not a problem we have experienced with any of the stock in our club, carriage or wagon.
That said, how heavy do you make a carriage, as if you put all the weight in the body, it has to be carried by the thin end of the axles?
Jim

15. Pat Buckley, July 24, 2017
Jim, not much at all if any, The worst one I have had was on a kirk four wheel LNER van that had I think about two ounces of lead on the floor. I have also had a four wheel Slaters southern van that had nothing in it at all go wobbly on me and as I had never had the problem before it took a while for the penny to drop as it only comes out to play as part of my non LNER parcels van rake. Some times I have found that it doesn’t have to be all that noticeable to have an effect on the running so its a bit of a head scratching to figure out what’s wrong.
As Bob in the post above has said its always right on the step of the axle were the diameter changes and in one case I managed to straighten the axle by simply bending the wheel with my fingers. It is not an isolated incident but has happened enough time to be in the back of my mind when a van or coach starts to derail. And I have just remembered that I fixed a van with coach wheels for a friend who got it second hand and wouldn’t run at all and had to get a new set of axles for it as both were bent. I am wondering if its due to the way they are made or if its just that the steel is not hard enough.
Pat.

16. Jim Snowdon, July 24, 2017
Pat,
Thank you for that. I appreciate that some people, clearly not yourself, like to put what is to my mind a lot more weight in rolling stock than is necessary.
Jim

17. Bob Curling, July 24, 2017
Jim & Pat
Funnily enough I've not experienced any coach axles being bent; mine that have gone that way have all been fitted to relatively lightweight (from plastic kits) freight wagons. It's possible (probable?) that they had a heavy landing or handling somewhere which wasn't recognised at the time or perhaps I just take more care when handling/using passenger stock.
Some years ago I spent some time converting some coaches from inside to outside bearings for which I required replacement axles. David White at Slater's was happy to supply these as a separate item and no doubt will do the same for anyone else that requires them.
Bob

18. David Smith (DLOS), July 24, 2017
Ref post #17 -
I was asked to look at a coach that had bent axles. It was not particularly heavy in itself but it was just slightly too tall for the box that it was stored and transported in with many other boxes of stock on top … the solution, apart from straightening the axles, was to insert pieces of stiff cardboard inside the lower section of the box.
David

19. David Atkinson, July 24, 2017
the solution, apart from straightening the axles, was to insert pieces of stiff cardboard inside the lower section of the box.
or use taller boxes.
David A

20. Jim Snowdon, July 24, 2017
I appreciate this is beginning to drift off topic, but the above illustrates one reason why I stopped putting stock in individual boxes and took to using the 24.5 litre Really Useful Box \\(http://www.reallyusefulproducts.co.uk/uk/html/onlineshop/rub/b24_5litre.php) instead. This size is deep enough to comfortably hold a single layer of stock standing on its wheels on a foam bed, with enough room for a foam layer on top, and is stackable.
Jim

21. Jeff Moore, July 24, 2017
I know this is going a bit off-topic (but I am following the obvious thread drift here), but with respect to stock storage/transportation, can anyone recommend a supplier of the wooden cases, suitable for R-T-R US outline, it's for 1 of our younger club members, who happens to be autistic, (which is why I'm trying to help), thanks.
Jeff

22. Bob Alderman, July 24, 2017
Ref post #20 -
Likewise, though I'm using the under bed boxes from Wilco or Tesco, cheaper but equally substantial and secure. Having 18 coaches in individual boxes is a real hassle packing and unpacking them at show. Whereas packing them in bulk makes this process quicker and safer and you don't have a large number of card boxes littering the area.
Bob

23. Nick Lowe, July 24, 2017
Just picked up on this topic and I, Severn & Wye Model Railways, produce an etched compensated bogie which is adjustable for length and uses inside framed roller bearings which can accommodate Easybuild or Slaters wheels. Cosmetic bogie frames mount on the central bolster. I'm just getting over an Ulna nerve decompression op and when I get the proper use of my hand back I will be looking at a powered and 6 wheel version.
Nick

24. Pete Joy, July 24, 2017
Likewise, just had a busy weekend and picked up on this thread. I too have built Ian's bogies both with (as per his printed instructions) and without compensation beams and both run equally well so no beams since. Additionally, David's critique, of storing stock in individual boxes not tall enough to accommodate the item with the lid on, has provided me with bitter experience with white metal bogie fitted stock. ( Like a banana would best describe the results! ) Excess weight of a vehicle on it's own over an extended period produces a similar result on white metal. So have Kirk or other plastic bogies been tested for long enough yet?
Wayoh's of course have brass weight bearing with cosmetic white metal sideframes. Price (see Nick above) will always have a bearing on matters.
With regard to overlong axle pinpoints for the bogie frames on Kirk kits, an additional thin plastic strip between the bogie 'plate' and sideframe before assembly brings the sides out sufficiently to accommodate although too much may interfere with bogie swing against the solebars.
My own choice now includes replacement of white metal with Easybuild bogies on LMS Westdale items, and raising box lids with stiffeners, but I will follow Jim's advice in future re multi storage boxes, common sense. Interestingly, I visited 'Wallsea' a week or so ago and made a point of examining some of Barrie's scratch built coaching stock, some as old as 1972, of predominantly plasticard construction and not too weighty in overall terms and there was only very slight 'sagging off' of whitemetal sideframes in that time. (Well wouldn't you after 45 years standing around) He provides a brass sleeve through the central bogie holes for the retaining bolt. Strengthening whitemetal sideframes with brass, or similar, strip would seem quite problematical, how do you easily fix it together? Different build and component requirements on a coach can create huge variations in weight ie cast or plastic underframe parts, seating, flooring etc, etc, so Jim's comment regarding never weighting stock can be seen as subjective if one is seeking parity if in one's variously constructed vehicles.
For wheels, Peartree seem well founded.
Cheers, Pete

25. Julian Evison, September 8, 2017
Ref post #5 -
Just to report back, I bought some Easybuild wheels at Telford and very nice they are, too. I have now put them in the Kirk bogies and the result is most satisfactory. However, rather than cutting off the end of each axle, I packed out the horizontal part of the bogie with a strip of 30 thou plastic along both the side edges before adding the side pieces (as also suggested by Pete). This widens the bogies and allows the wheels to fit in un-modified. As you suggested, I also cleaned out the bearing holes in the bogies sides using a 2.6mm drill held in my fingers after which the bearing cups fitted in nicely.
Thanks for your help.
Julian