Westlake Publishing Forums

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.