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A tale of two gondolas

Started by John McGuyer, January 17, 2009, 04:18:00 PM

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John McGuyer

The other end of the side view.

John McGuyer

The inside now has the brace rods that run from the outside center brace through the inside, down through the floor and around the bottom beams. There is a plate over the ends with homemade square nuts.

John McGuyer

Last shot for now shows the platform end. The lower brake rod support is on. It was fabricated from one piece of brass sheet that was sawed out, then bent to shape. Again you can see the truss rod ends and their homemade nuts and washers.

Krusty

#18
Gidday John

How do you make your bolt heads? I've made them in the past by turning up a sort of 'tee' profile in brass pin wire, then filing away the bits of the arm of the tee that didn't look like a bolt head, if that makes sense (I've tried milling them but my ancient Unimat has too much slack to work well for this). I'm not sure that it's the best way, though, and I've generally chickened out on washers, other than square ones.

(model is 1:34 scale btw)
Kevin Crosado

"Caroline Wheeler's birthday present was made from the skins of dead Jim Morrisons
That's why it smelt so bad"

John McGuyer

Greetings Krusty,

Some of them are spin cast from Ozark, some are injection molded from Grandt Line, some come machined from Scale Hardware and if I have to make them, the easiest way is to buy square bar stock from Special Shapes. With that, you can just drill a hole in the middle and slice off whatever you want. This thing must have a thousand bolts and/or nuts in it so I use whatever works best for the application. I also sometimes go sideways and index a series of equally spaced holes in strip stock then cut in between. When you have a size that isn't readily available by the other methods, the last one will pretty much get you what you want. That is how I did the nuts on the end. I milled the strip to one side to side dimension, spaced the holes for the same plus the width of the saw cut, drilled and sawed them out. Also to keep the drill from 'walking' I will quite often use a carbide circuit board drill or even a center cutting end mill. The last is to chuck tiny drills with only 1/4" sticking out.

John

finescalerr

That be some GOOD modeling, John. -- Russ

jacq01


  John,

  you ARE nuts  ;) ;D ;D   
  Knowing beforehand the amount of rivets, nuts and bolts it must have demanded a lot of discipline and patience.
  FANTASTIC MODELING.

  Jacq
put brain in gear before putting mouth in action.
never underestimate the stupidity of idiots
I am what I remember.

Krusty

Thanks John. That's very interesting.
Kevin Crosado

"Caroline Wheeler's birthday present was made from the skins of dead Jim Morrisons
That's why it smelt so bad"

John McGuyer

A lot of the end brake detail has been done. Here is an overall shot of the end with added detail.

John McGuyer

The brake stand is wood with brass bracing. I haven't seen a decent brake post ratchet so made one. That is a fun project as it is a 36 tooth gear with offset teeth and is .350" in diameter. Actually made several so we can make a mold of it. The brake release still lacks the handle and the line that runs to the cylinder. The grab irons are .045" rod with tiny brackets soldered on that are made from .093"x.032" brass strip. The brass rod sticks into the wood to give them strength, then nut bolt castings are run through a hole in the bracket and into the wood to give the appearance they are bolted on.

John McGuyer

As I mentioned previously, the stirrup was made from a piece of sheet then folded to shape. The brake rod is brass tube to aid fabrication. It then has a piece of piano wire run through the center to give it strength.

John McGuyer

The brake system valves are resin castings from brass patterns. The brass patterns then went to Ozark to make spin cast versions.

John McGuyer

The clevises are a milled brass U channel that I then slice off pieces and drill a hole in the end and side. The rod then goes in with a small piece of tubing. The bellcranks are all brass sheet. The bellcrank guides are tubing that has been very carefully bent, then the ends flattened and drilled for the mounting bolts.

John McGuyer

The valve end will get the line to the release valve. This bellcrank guide is much more elaborate and fabricated from brass strip. You can better see the pipe fittings which were turned from hex bar stock. The 90 degree ones are notched, bent and soldered.

John McGuyer

This last shot is an attempt to give you a better idea of what the truck mounting bolster looks like. It is a strange T-section piece that is tapered and the top and bottom do not look alike. As the old drag racers would say "It is too strange to believe".