Questions for everyone out there-
Some of the passenger trucks I've seen have a flat bar connecting the two pedestals on each side of the truck. This bar runs underneath the equalizing bar in most cases, but on some Carter Brothers cars its outboard or in front of the equalizers. I've also found photos were the bar is curved to follow the profile of the equalizer as shown in the attached photo.
On many of the D&RG cars it doesn't look like this flat bar connects the pedestals, and Bob Hartford's truck kits have pedestal braces that do not connect the two pedestals. Is this accurate, or does the flat bar continue behind the equalizer?
I ask because I'm working on some trucks made by the Ohio Falls Car Manufacturing Company, and the flat bars appear to extend behind the equalizers similar to the D&RG trucks. See the other photo, marked with the right hand red arrow.
Any idea what the round bars are wrapped around the equalizers? (Marked by the left-hand red arrow.)
The photos are from the display at Mammoth Cave, and I'm hoping to save a trip back down there.
EZ
Well folks, it's been quite a while since I had any modeling to post. (Still been lurking though.) I managed to get down to Mammoth Cave a couple of months ago and the park rangers were also kind enough to let me inside the fence to measure and photograph the trucks in detail. This answered my questions about the pedestal braces and the round bars on the equalizers. These trucks are a little different than most I've seen because the lateral braces run between the equalizer beams instead of between the pedestal braces. I'm not sure why it's done this way, but you can see everything in the attached photo. I guess this all works because the equalizers are outside of the pedestal braces.
So with this new information I was able to draw fairly accurate measured drawings of the trucks. My original plan had been to take a pair of Hartford trucks and modify them to more closely resemble the Ohio Falls trucks. Unfortunately, the wheel base on these trucks is 54" instead of the more typical 60", meaning I would need to essentially build them from scratch to get the level of detail I want. Pretty intimidating considering the number of parts and the need for them to operate smoothly.
My goal is to finish a pair of trucks over the next couple of months as the first step in building a coach from scratch. (I haven't decided exactly what kind of coach yet, but it'll probably be a combine.) It's going to take me some time, so please be patient!
Interesting. What scale will this be? What material are you planning to use to build the trucks?
1:20.3 Ray, and wood and brass for the most part. I also hope to use some of the white metal parts from the Hartford trucks where possible. I'm using the Sierra Valley wheelsets that came with the Hartford trucks, but I've got some thoughts on how to modify them to better match the wheels on the Ohio Valley trucks.
This would seem a good candidate for 3-D printing. If you have the metalworking skills to crank out a pair of trucks I will be most impressed. -- Russ
Those are pretty cool!
I'm glad i have no desire for passenger service on my 1/16th RR!
I look forward to seeing these develop.
Marty
We'll see Russ - I'm not sure I've got the skills either. I tend to have an agenda for each new project, and one of my goals for this one is to learn how to photoetch. I started this about a month ago, so I'll catch everyone up on my progress to date.
I started with the wheelsets. I love Sierra Valley's wheels, but it's always bothered me that they lack details like the cast letters on the front, and the ribs or whatever on the back. It would be great to be able to buy cast wheels like these, but since I model eastern narrow gauge, this isn't an option.
It's a little hard to tell in this picture, but the wheels on the Mammoth Cave car are based on a Washburn-style wheel, with lettering on the front that says "Louisville Car Wheel Company", along with the diameter of the wheels.
Here's the back of a Washburn wheel from one of the Car Builder's Dictionaries.
My thought was to create a photoetched overlay that I could glue to the front and back of the Sierra Valley wheelsets. The depth of the lettering and the ribs would be seriously flattened, but it would still be closer to a cast wheel than nothing at all. Certainly when viewed through the completed trucks underneath the coach.
Using the pictures from Mammoth Cave, I drew the overlays in CAD...
And then converted the CAD drawings to the mask for photoetching. I ended up using a two-sided mask so I could etch half of the sheet brass thickness in some locations, and the full thickness in others. The register marks in the corners were used to align the front and back sides.
I did a bunch of research online on photoetching and decided to use ferric chloride from Radio Shack. (Before they declared bankruptcy!) Based on what I found online, I built a simple dunk tank from plexiglass, and used an aquarium air pump for bubbles to agitate the solution.
Here's the tank empty...
And here's it in use.
It's a pretty nasty process, and I'm still not sure what to do with the spent ferric chloride. I'm afraid to flush it down the drain.
I was pleased with the results. The sheet brass comes out of the process looking like this. I used 0.010" sheet, and the etching process took about 40 minutes. I found that about 25% of the pieces had some sort of flaw; over-etching, under-etching, etc. I'm not completely sure why there were problems, but it seems like the solution near the top is more aggressive than towards the bottom of the tank. I ended up flipping the sheet around about half way through the process, but even so, I etched double the number of overlays I needed to make sure I got enough that were usable.
And here they are after trimming them from the frets.
The front overlay fits in the recess in the Sierra Valley wheelsets like this. I had to "shape" it to match the curve of the wheels using hand pressure and a wooden dowel. I glued the brass to the steel using a very thin CA.
You can see there's a small gap between the brass and the steel along the inside and outside perimeters. My plan is to fill this with putty when I prime them.
And here's the back after I glued them in place. I chucked the axle in a drill and filled the edge of the overlay to match the curve of the flange, but I'm betting I still need to add some filler at the joint. We'll see when I paint them.
Here are two completed wheelsets next to a Louisville Car Wheel Company door stop I found on eBay.
Nice work...I've been afraid to try the etching, for one of the reasons you mention, getting rid of the nasty stuff, esp. since I have a septic system.
However, with enough of the stuff you have in the background in some of your pics, maybe I could get over that :)
Seriously I wish there were a bunch of etching vendors that catered to the small hobbyist type client.
Paul
The wheels really turned out great!
Eric, I'm not a chemist. Ferric chloride is a very aggressive acid. Heat tends to hasten its reaction. It can be reused several times, though the timimg will increase.
It can be neutralized with a base. I believe baking soda ( NaHCO3 ) is one cheap possibility and so is washing soda ( Na2CO3 ). Check a college chem dept for a safe procedure. Many municipalities have strict requirements for disposal and some places have hazaedous waste disposal days but may not take it, but neutralizing it is a good idea when you're done with it before you dispose of it. Add the base carefully to avoid a strong reaction - think baking soda + vinegar jacked up.
Eric, those wheels look extremely adequate. The process you developed and the etched results are, uh, much above average. By the way, young Watkins really does turn out nice products, doesn't he? (Gary Watkins manufactures Sierra Valley wheelsets and hand builds outstanding limited run, ready-to-run rolling stock.) -- Russ
Those etchings are BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am very impressed.
Looks like I may have to learn CAD or at least a dumbed down version.
Cant wait to see more!
-Marty
Thanks guys. I think they'll look okay once they're painted and weathered, despite the flattened depth. I'm going to try some more ambitious and detailed etchings once I start on the coach body. Things like luggage racks and such.
Paul - you're 100% correct on heat making a big difference in the etching process. I used a small space heater to warm up the liquid ahead of time, as well as during the etching. I didn't do any sort of timed testing, but my seat-of-the-pants guess is warm fluid cut the etch time by 25% or so. I've also found it only takes a little bit of fresh ferric chloride to "renew" the solution. Something like 1 ounce of new to 12 ounces of old. I'm hoping our local recycling center will take the spent solution once I'm done with all of this. I'll let you know what they say.
Russ - you're right about the wheelsets. One thing I find really impressive is the dimensional consistency from axle to axle.
Marty - there are a lot of options with CAD, but if you're going to take the time to learn a program, make sure it's one that can interface with 3D printing, and preferably with CNC milling. There are so many new possibilities with these two technologies, and unfortunately my CAD experience doesn't include either. I face a similar learning curve...
Thanks for the post Eric! I'm glad to see you back. A nifty solution to the problem!
So to catch everyone up on the wooden parts, here's what I've gotten done so far. I was only able to use a few of the parts in the Hartford kit since most of the dimensions are different on the Ohio Falls trucks. I was able to use the two spring planks and the two bolsters, but all four pieces are going to need to be narrowed to fit between the transoms. I was also able to use the two outboard end sills that are notched to clear the draft gear. Everything else I had to cut new from basswood. I prestained all of the pieces with several coats of Silverwood stain.
I put the base color on the wooden parts by spraying the stained wood with hairspray, and then brush-applying Vallejo 70.950 black. As soon as the black was dry, I rubbed the pieces with a brass brush to "open up" the paint some, and then scrubbed the black paint with water and an old model paint brush. This left some of the paint in place, but also removed some of it following the wood grain. I'm hoping it looks okay once everything is assembled and weathered. We shall see...
I assembled the basic truck frames using clamps and medium-viscosity CA. You can kind of see in the picture that the ends of the transoms and the end sills have a 45° bevel on the ends. Sanding these was a pain in the...
Once the perimeter frames were dry, I began test fitting the various pieces of hardware. In some cases I was able to use the cast pieces from Hartford, but many of them are scratch made in brass. I made simple drawings to use for aligning everything - the frame is sitting on top of one. I haven't glued any of the hardware in place yet so I can prime and paint the bits and pieces first.
One of the biggest differences between the Ohio Falls trucks and many of the other prototypes out there is the use of flitch plates for the side beams. You can see them in the photo. On one of the trucks at Mammoth Cave the flitch plates were flush with the wooden beams, but on the other they were proud by about an 1/8 of an inch. I chose to model them almost flush.
I cut them from 0.015 brass strip, and then drilled lots and lots of little holes for the various fasteners.
Once I had the flitch plates fit to the frames, I glued the upper wooden wheel guards between the transoms and the end sills. That completed the basic truck frames, and that's where I am today.
Beautiful work. I like the weathering on the wood parts, it looks like something that has a few years on it yet is still in good shape.
Had a good weekend and was able to get quite a bit done on the trucks. (And still mow for the first time this spring, clean out the planter beds, and a few other honey-dos.)
I worked on two things:
1. The pedestals for the journals. Accurately placing these will be the most critical thing to make sure the trucks track well without wobbling or "hunting."
2. The swing motion. I'm working from the inside out on the trucks to make sure I can get to the bits and pieces as a finish and assemble everything.
I started with the spring plank. I was able to use the laser cut piece from the Hartford kit, but I needed to narrow it by a scale four inches since the transoms are closer together due to the shorter wheelbase than the Colorado prototype. I also needed to move the mounting point for the yokes that hold the spring plank. The transoms are much deeper on the Ohio Falls trucks, which lowers the yokes by a corresponding distance. This also shifts the mount point for the yokes from the sides of the spring plank to underneath it. You can see this on this photo of the underside of the trucks at Mammoth Cave.
I made the new brackets for the underside of the spring plank by soldering a short piece of round brass tube inside a piece of square tube. A couple of NBW castings and some CA secured it to each plank. I drilled out the inside of the tube on each end and tapped them for 00-90 machine screws.
I dressed up the Hartford spring castings by scribing lines on the edge to indicate the different leaves of the spring sets, as well as the joints between each spring set on the hinge pin that connects them. We'll see how clearly this shows up when I paint them.
I cleaned up the yokes and yoke hanger castings to remove parting lines and temporarily mounted them to the undersides of the transoms. You can also see that I'm painting the pieces with A.Mig 2005 black primer as I go.
The pedestals were next, and since they literally identify the trucks as Ohio Falls products, making them is probably the most important part of this little project. The left pedestal on each side of the trucks has the name of the make along the top, and "No. 11" below, which I presume is the casting number for that size pedestal. The right pedestal on each side only has the number, which means I needed to make four of each type.
I decided to approach the pedestals similar to the wheelsets, photoetching a brass overlay to put on top of the Hartford castings. So far this is the most detailed photoetching I've tried, and I think it came out fairly well. I followed the same process as before by creating the masks in CAD, photocopying them on a special blue transfer film, and then laminating the blue film to the brass.
The pedestals came out of the etch tank looking like this. (You can see where I used black Sharpie to cover flaws in the blue mask.)
There are a few locations where the etchant started to erode the sides of the lettering, so next time I will increase the line weight a little on the drawings to compensate.
I cut the overlays from the fret and cleaned up the edges with files. I also had to file the cast details from the front of the Hartford pedestals to create a smooth surface for the overlays. I tried a couple of different glues using scraps and found a very thin CA provided the best bond once both surfaces were cleaned with alcohol.
After the glue had set overnight on Saturday, I filed the edges of both the overlays and the cast pedestals to make sure everything aligns and looks like a solid piece.
I made a little jig out of MDF to hold the front and back pedestals in position and epoxied brass spacers at the bottoms of each leg. The pedestal brace that runs along the bottom will be attached to these braces. I also formed a simplified fillet at the joints with epoxy so they look more like a single casting. I think some paint and weathering will make it more believable.
I had problems with the first attempt getting stuck to the jig, so I shaved a bit off the top and used a narrower brass spacer to get back to the correct height. This formed a small void at the interior corner between the pedestals and the braces that kept the epoxy from sticking to the MDF.
Here's how they look on the truck frame with a thin coat of primer. You can also see I've started attaching some of the hardware to the flitch plates just to see how things are going to look.
And that's where I am today. I wish the lettering was crisper on the pedestals, but not enough to do it all again.
Oh man, that is some nice work Eric!
It looks freaking awesome to me!
You actually found something to nitpick on that assembly? Get real! It is absolutely adequate. -- Russ
Great information here, thanks for taking the time to document it for us.
I know it eats into "production time".
The trucks are really looking great, cant wait to see each update!
-Marty
I had been watching quietly because this is so far beyond me, but your project and documentation of it is superb!
Thanks guys - I hope its useful. The thing I enjoy the most about this forum is sharing our methods. (Like Volker's chairs.) That, plus everyone's willingness to nit pick.
Eric,
Who makes the wheels you showed on the first page that were not prototypical for your use?
-Marty
Marty,
They're made by TrueScale and are available from thetraindepartment.com.
Guys, I've realized I've screwed up.
I started working on the equalizing assembly tonight and had planned on reusing the cast journal boxes from Hartford. They've got decent detail, and the profile is a good match for the Ohio Falls trucks. But I didn't think about the fact they have ribs on each side that need to fit around the pedestals. My new pedestals are wider than those from the kit because of the flitch plates on either side of the main beams, and from the new brass overlays I made.
The obvious solution is to keep the rib towards the outside where it is, and relocate the back rib. But I have no idea how I'm going to do this since the back rib is so close to the back end of the journal box. Gonna have to think about this a bit...
I found a workable solution, and it didn't even take that long to fix once I tried it. I thought about cutting a saw kerf in the casting and glueing a brass strip in the slot to form the back rib, but I was concerned about my ability to maintain the accuracy needed for the journals to move freely in the pedestals. But the easiest thing to do was to file off the rear rib, mark the width I needed between the ribs on the casting, and then remove the back of the casting up to that line. (I used a disc sander to do it.)
I then rough cut a new rear plate for the casting that was wide enough to form the new rib on both sides using some sheet brass.
I glued the brass plate on the back, lining up the hole in the brass with the hole in the casting, and then filed the brass down to form the ribs and align with the top and bottom of the casting. It's not very prototypical, but it will be hard to see on the finished trucks, and some paint and weathering should blend it all together. Hopefully.
That end of the journal box would likely have a nice buildup of oily glop. I have been getting some nice results with brown/black oil paint mixed with super fine dirt.
Eric,
that are some very nice etching results. I envy you a bit for your experiments with that technique. One question about mounting: Why don't you solder the metal pieces instead of using CA? Please forgive my question if soldering is beyond your abilities, but maybe there's another reason for it.
Volker
Sorry I've been missing in action for a couple of days. It's been crazy at work.
Thanks for the tip Chuck. I tried creating this effect on the trucks for the reefer I built a couple of years ago, but wasn't happy with the results. We'll see if I can do better on these trucks.
Volker,
Very good question, and no worries about questioning my abilities! :D I do it all the time! I'm fairly adept with my Radio Shack pencil iron, but I haven't taken the plunge with a resistance unit. I assume you're asking about the pedestals, and the answer is I've had mixed results soldering brass to white metal. Since my success rate is something less than 100%, I didn't want to risk ruining one of the white metal pedestals. I thought about it for the wheel sets as well, but I'd have to use a torch to get the steel hot enough, and I was worried about melting the Delrin insulators.
Improving my soldering skills is high on the priority list. You'll get to see the present state of my soldering abilities very soon. For good or for bad.
I was able to work on the trucks a bit over the weekend. My next task is the equalizing gear and getting the journals installed. The biggest challenge on the equalizers is the truck wheelbase of 4'-6". The cast equalizing beams from Hartford are sized for a 5'-0" wheelbase, so using them as-is doesn't work. My original plan was to mill new beams from brass. I've got a manual knee mill - an Index model 40 from WW2 - plus a little bit of tooling like a rotary table. I'm capable of milling the inside curves and the straight runs, but I just couldn't come up with a way to mill the outside curves without tremendous effort. In the end I decided to modify the cast parts.
If you look at the attached photo, you can see that the curve at the bottom of the equalizer beams is quite close to the journals, and that the beams taper slightly as they angle up towards the top of the journal. The springs are a tight fit between the journals and the transoms, and there are round brace rods around the equalizer beams.
Making the cast parts from Hartford match the Ohio Falls trucks required reducing the overall length of the beams to match the shorter wheelbase, and shifting the angled ends closer to the journals to provide room for the springs.
I started by removing the cast spring seats from the Hartford parts using snips and files.
I then drew a quick template for the original equalizing beam profile, as well as the new, shorter version. On the bottom drawing you can see two sets of red vertical lines. The outer line is the cut line for each end, and the inner line is the length of the tenon I'm using to splice the beams.
I'm using a piece of brass tubing to splice the cut ends together, which requires tight friction-fit tenons on the cast ends. I placed the splice joints where the brace rods are located so the rods will conceal the joint.
Shifting the curved ends closer to the journals required cutting a notch to clear the journal itself. (Compare to the unmodified beam at the bottom.) The notch isn't prototypical, but it will be concealed behind the pedestals. I also decided not to attempt to taper the ends of the beams since so little of this will be visible on the finished trucks.
Shifting the curved ends also meant the original pin was in the wrong location, so I filed these off and inserted new brass pins in holes drilled in the new location.
Here's how the splice looks with the brace rod in place.
And here's how the beams sit on the journals. I've got two more sets to make, and then I'm on to the spring seats.
Very nice work, and a good solution to the problem.
Did you hand file the end sections? Exceptionally precise work throughout. -- Russ
Very exacting planning and execution, excellent fabrication.
Yea, nice work!
How did you make the tenons?
-Marty
I cut the tenons just like you would with a furniture joint. I marked both ends of the tenons, made a shallow shoulder cut at one end, and cut all the way through at the other end. The shoulder cut needs to extend all the way around the piece, and this is the most precise part of the process. From there it's just about careful hand filing. I file on top of a wood block so it's easier to see that I'm keeping the file parallel with the surface. It helps that the cast pieces are a lot softer than the brass tubing. Once the fit was close, pushing the brass over the tenon indicated the high spots. A little more filing and things fit like a glove. It took about twenty minutes a tenon.
Getting the new pins in the ends was much worse. The white metal is too soft to simply drill a hole the same diameter as the brass rod. Instead I had to start small and work up the final size using progressively larger bits.
I found a little bit of time to work on the lower spring seats this weekend. I made them from several bits of brass soldered together.
I started with a small brass screw and enlarged the slot using a Dremel and hand files to fit snugly around the equalizing beam. Once this was done, I filed the threads down so they would fit inside a couple pieces of telescoping brass tubing. The idea was to use the tubing to form a raised lip to keep the springs in place.
I used a brass washer to form the bottom of the seat itself. I turned the washer down in outside diameter using a lathe, and then rounded the edge profile to match the photos of the Ohio Falls car. The hardest part was making sixteen of them in the same size.
I soldered everything together, and once each piece had cooled, I filed down the telescoping tubing to leave just a bit above the washer to keep the spring centered.
Here's a test fit on one of the equalizing beams.
This is great work Eric! Very clever way to splice the bars.
And you must make seven more? You are a very dedicated lunatic. Nonetheless I am impressed by both your ingenuity and your patience. -- Russ
Eric, your work is the best kitbashing by far that I've ever seen!
Ingenious!
-Marty
Thanks guys. We're all "special" here in our own way!
I will have to admit the need for 8 or 16 copies of everything has slowed me down on this project. When I started I wasn't looking past this pair of trucks. I probably should've been making masters to have castings made, but such is hindsight.
The worst will be over once I finish the upper springs seats and have functional equalization gear. The brake gear will be relatively easy since I can use some of the Hartford parts and things like brake shoes are readily available from several sources.
Eric,
very beautiful work and interesting to follow your steps. This is going to be a lot of repeating work. I like that :D. Do you use a jig for bending the brass wires?
Volker
Volker-
Initially I used a scrap piece of the brass tubing as a jig to bend the wire, but I just couldn't get the bends tight enough to fit well. After some trial and error, I ended up filing a shallow notch in the rod at each bend location, using a small triangular file. (60° notches.) The notch allows me to bend the brass with a very tight radius, and the notch isn't really visible after the brass is bent. I un-bent the first one that fit well and marked the notch spacing on my work surface so I could make all eight of them consistent.
Putting the rods in a fixture and making the notches on the mill would make them exact. Not sure you have a mill to go with your lathe though.
I seem to use the mill more than the lathe.
Making multiple parts all the same builds character - and skill!
Marty
Baeutiful, beautiful work with some stunning thinking outside the "box".
Marty,
You're correct on the benefits of using a mill. I do own one - it's a very old and heavily worn Index model 40, made in 1941. I have very little tooling to go with it, and my skills are novice at best. ("Hack" is more accurate.) The machine has a No. 9 Brown & Sharpe taper in the spindle, which complicates things, and I'm finding several of the bearings are too worn for the accuracy I need for modeling purposes. My grandfather used if for facing steel castings for farm implements and such, and I'm sure it was fine for that. But not for what I need. Plus, it's really heavy and takes up a lot of room in the shop. Rather than buy tooling for it, or having the spindle reground and the bearings replaced, I'm considering buying a smaller CNC setup.
At this point most of what I do - for good or for bad - is done with the simplest of hand tools.
Eric, What you accomplish with 'the simplest of hand tools' is inspiring. My modeling is restricted by space, budget and very limited mechanical experience, yet watching your fabrications gives me the idea I can do some of it too. Thanks for posting your process and progress.
Folks,
It's been quite a while since I've posted any progress on my passenger car trucks. I took a break on them to practice my painting and weathering skills. You'll have to tell me if they've improved once I finish the fabrication and start the final painting and weathering.
Since the last update I have finished all four equalizer beams and all eight sets of upper and lower equalizing spring seats. Here's one of them with a coat of primer on it.
Once the equalizers were done and I assembled a truck, I realized I didn't like the appearance of the 24" diameter wheel sets I originally planned on using. So I'm using 26" wheels instead, which means I needed to make a new set of larger brass overlays for the raised lettering. It was easier the second time I guess...
Last weekend I shifted my attention to the pedestal braces and tie rods. Many companies made their trucks with the pedestal braces and the tie rods as separate pieces, bolted together. The Ohio Falls prototype I'm modeling has these fabricated as a single piece. (I think they originally started out as two pieces of bar stock with a rod between them, and then the three were forge welded together.) You can see the tie rod is tight against the equalizer bars. I decided to leave a little space between the face of the equalizer bars and the pedestal tie rods. I don't know how much the trucks are going to "spring" and move around since I haven't built the car these will support yet.
I made the pedestal braces first, bent them to shape to fit the pedestals and the end beams, and then filed an "S" curve on the ends toward the center of the truck. The S curves were my starting point for the transition from flat bar to round rod. A short section of brass rod was cut to fit, with the right amount of overlap with each pedestal brace. You might be able to see that I pre-rounded the ends of the rod to save me some tricky filing later. While the pedestal braces on each side of each truck were bolted in place, I cut a chipboard spacer to fit exactly between the tips of the S curves. This allowed me to remove the pedestal braces and clamp them to a scrap piece of wood, using the chipboard template to get the spacing between them correct. Once everything was spaced correctly, I soldered the brace rod to the two pedestal braces, using a lot of solder to create a fairly large fillet between the pieces.
I wasn't able to find brass flat stock that was the right width and thickness for the pedestal braces, so I ended up having to anneal and flatten square brass tubing.
Here's how they looked after massaging the soldered joints with files and sand paper. Each piece differs slightly, but this is also true on the prototype!
And here's how they look with some black primer on two of them for comparison.
Geez, Eric, that's very well done. That's going to be one impressive car. I thought I was doing well with 'the wheels on the trucks go round and round...'
Most satisfactory. -- Russ
Amazing fabricating!
Holy carp, that is some great work!
Beyond incredible!!!!!!!!.... Allan
Thanks folks. I'm moving slow, but steady.
If I'd been smart, I would've been making molds of the details as I went in case I ever want to make another set. Too late now.
The next task is the brake gear. My prototype has four different brake beams on the two trucks, and I can't really tell which one is the oldest or most original. I like the "trussed" type with the diagonal truss rods shown in the picture, but this will also be the most difficult to make since it has angled fittings at the ends of the brake beam.
Last night I got started on the brake beam hangers. For now I'm planning on using the basswood brake beams that came with the Hartford kit, as well as the brake shoes. My prototype has the beam hangers mounted to the underside of the end beams. The hangers themselves are round rod that hangs from a mounting plate held to the end beam with a U-bolt that has two nuts on top of the end beams. You can them in the photo.
This is different than the hardware included in the Hartford kit, which has the hangers mounted on the side of the end beams facing the wheels. I could probably live with this compromise, but I don't have enough room for the hangers between the end beams and the wheels since my trucks have a shorter wheelbase. So this means I'll need to make eight beam hangers from scratch so they can be mounted to the underside of the end beams like the prototype. (Makes me think the clearance issue is why they original manufacturer configured them this way.)
I started making the hanging brackets by soldering a piece of 1/16" brass tube to a brass strip.
Once this was cleaned up, I squared the end of the brass, drilled a pair of holes for the U-bolt, and then cut the first finished bracket off of the strip.
Here's how the first one looked temporarily mounted to the underside of the end beam. You might noticed I'm going to have to fill the original Hartford mounting holes in the sides of the end beam.
I repeated this seven more times, and cleaned up the edges of the mounting brackets with files and sandpaper. The U-bolts were bent from brass rod, and I'll eventually use Ozark Miniatures nut-bolt-washer castings for the hardware on top of the end beams.
The hangers themselves were also bent from brass rod. I decided to make them in "halves" to make it easier to position the brake beams when I glue things together. I also had to add a small brass tube in the large hole in the Hartford brake shoe castings so the hanging rods were a tight fit.
Very interesting!
That's some fine fabrication ... I like your solution for making the hanging brackets. Looks very good so far.
Cheers,
Volker
So I've made some more progress on the brake beams. The bearing saddle for the tension rods is 1/16" brass tube soldered to either side of 1/32" by 1/8" brass bar, and then filing off the top half of the tubing. I made a strip of this profile about 2" long to get the four pieces I need now. (I'm saving the left overs for future projects.)
The end caps for the tension rods use the same basic approach, except that I left the tubes full round. After doing some filing, I added an end plate and filed it to a profile that is reasonably close to the prototype. This is a shot of the underside that will be glued to the wooden brake beams. I'll post a better shot once I have a completed brake beam assembled and painted.
I've also tried my hand at pin striping for the first time. I SERIOUSLY underestimated how difficult it would be to apply the decals on the pieces. I originally planned on using dry transfers, but I needed the ability to move them around to adjust their position. I'm not very happy with their raw appearance, but I think they'll be okay once they get a coat of flat finish and the trucks are weathered. My goal is to barely see remnants of the "original" paint job showing through the grime and dirt. We'll see how well I can pull this off...
More excellent fabrication. The decals look convincing, I think the traces of gold pin striping effect you want will work well when you get to that stage.
I agree with Bill, it looks good.
I am really enjoying these trucks Eric. I think the stripes are going to be fine.
Let me get this straight: You actually have a problem with how the pin striping turned out? Gimme a break! It will be perfect after weathering. And the latest metal fabrication is beyond reproach. As I see it you face only one issue: Finding enough time to build a second pair of trucks by the end of this century. -- Russ
Quote from: finescalerr on April 23, 2016, 12:12:42 AM
As I see it you face only one issue: Finding enough time to build a second pair of trucks by the end of this century. -- Russ
I second that, it's a problem that affects us all, all those, who deal with a matter in an intensive way :-\
And yes, this truck alone is an unique piece of art. I love your approach in fabricating those small brass fittings - very educational!
Cheers, Peter
Thanks for the feedback guys.
Point taken Russ. Speed is not a skill I possess.
Eric-- Sure has been fun watching the truck(s) come together, and the pinstripes add an air of elegance... I had to do some worn and weathered pinstripes on my Farmall and am including a picture to show how they came out (only one in the shot-- look on the lower edge of the hood-- easy to NOT see!). The stripe is a thin strip of gold decal film with the curved ends added with gold paint. It was then washed over with thinned gray paint, as it would have been eroded by sun, wind and rain and gold paint is especially fragile to the elements. Finally the gray base paint was dry-brushed in several places and a few random full-strength dabs added where it had completely chipped off. The Pur-O-Lator decal on the oil filter was chipped with dabs of paint as well. Your trucks may be more protected from such heavy damage, but some weathering will certainly make a difference! DF
Dave, I thought that was a prototype pic until I read the text!
Holy cow Dave! That's beautiful work, and like Ray, I thought it was the real thing at first!
My original plan was to "pre-chip" the artwork for the decals to approximate the wear and tear you've described, but I found it was too small to make a difference on the decals. The pinstripes are only 0.012 inches wide, and even at the highest resolution print setting, the Xerox at my office couldn't reproduce the subtleties that were in the Photoshop file.
Thanks for the suggestions - we'll see how this turns out. Just not very quickly.
It's been quite a while since I've posted an update on my passenger car project. As Russ observed, I'm not very fast. I've been thinking a lot of what he said, so I decided the best thing I could do to keep things moving is to build a second set of trucks at the same time as the first!
I know this sounds nuts, but several things converged at the same time. A friend's wedding put me in Denver and I was able to stop by the Colorado Railroad Museum. They have an old passenger wheelset in the yard with paper wheels, and I've always been fascinated by them. I knew I had to make some.
I was also able to pick up a new old stock Bob Hartford coach kit on eBay for a remarkably low price. This gave me everything I needed to kit build a second coach while I scratchbuild the first. My long term plan was to have a second coach anyway, so I decided just to do everything assembly-line style at the same time. (It'll still take me a long time...)
And most recently I was able to stop by the roundhouse in Durango and they also have some paper-wheel axles, along with several pairs of old trucks. This game me some more prototype photos to reference.
Here's the set from Durango - they're in much better shape.
So I started with some drawings from one of the standard references - I'm not sure which one. I etched sheet brass overlays for the wheelsets just like I did for the Louisville Car Wheel Company sets.
This is how they look installed. I decided not to do a matching overlay on the back of each wheel since the wheels do not have a recess like the prototype.
And here's how both wheel types look with some primer and pre-shading applied.
Not as nice as the cast ones you can buy online, but I'm pleased with how simple the process has been.
Once I finished the wheels, which was back in February, I started assembling the Bob Hartford trucks. I'm keeping the original 5'-0" wheelbase since the second coach will be longer than the one I'm scratchbuilding. This made things a LOT easier since I could use the stock equalizers, etc. I did make a second set of the Ohio Falls Car Company pedestal overlays so the trucks will have something of a family appearance with the first set.
I'm also using the same kind of pinstriping on both sets of trucks, which will also help with consistency.
Here's a shot of most of the parts to the second set of trucks. I've got the color base coat on everything, and I'm just about ready to start final assembly.
And here's a similar shot of the first set of trucks with the shorter wheelbase. They're in the same state - mostly painted and ready to start assembly.
There's a lot of parts in passenger car trucks...
So the next step is deciding how far to take the weathering. I want them to be about halfway between freshly painted and these trucks in Durango. I'm going to do some test painting on some plastic Bachmann passenger trucks first. And that's where I am right now.
Have a happy 4th!
Eric; looks great! How did you get the "copy" on one of them? Allan
Allan,
The copy is etched on a 0.010" sheet brass overlay that is glued to the face of the wheels. If you go ALL the way back to the first page in this thread you can see how I did it. This was my first attempt at photoetching and I've gotten better since then. It's also gotten easier to get more predictable results with practice.
These are looking great Eric! I'm surprised by how many parts there are.
Eric, Your thread has held my interest. A while back I tried to detail an old HO scale Mantua Civil War gondola for a friend just getting into model railroading. Nothing remotely like your level of work, but the weathering on the finished truck looks something like the photo you posted today of the trucks in Durango. Here are a couple looks at it:
1. There was no way to remove the original plastic wheel sets from the trucks without breaking something, so they had to stay.
2. Here are the parts (On3laser cut brake shoes, drafting Mylar hanging straps) before painting
3. The original Mantua truck, one with just the end beams, one with brakes.
4. On the gondola
And perhaps this might be of assistance for your trucks, or maybe it will just add another question: Why are there three different size links on this prototype safety chain?
Great stuff!
In a way, those paper wheels were ahead of their time -- a precursor to modern composite materials.
Nice work Bill, especially at that scale!
The safety chains are very interesting. I've seen a bunch of different ways or securing them to the sill on the car, and to the truck itself. But I've never seen the hook kind of in the middle of the chain like that.
Might need to do some research on that...
Don't obscure the beautiful pin striping; keep the weathering subtle. -- Russ