Shasta Pacific outdoor railroad

[finescalerr]

Marty, if you have a 2-D CAD program it takes about ten seconds. If you don't, tell me what you want and I'll send you the result. -- Russ

[NORCALLOGGER]

Thanks Russ.

Or you can try it the old fashioned way.
I'll admit I had to go back to one of my apprenticeship books to totally remember, this build was 13 years ago.

So I just shot a couple of photos, it is pretty self explanatory.

[NORCALLOGGER]

A little more to show.

After the hub and all the spokes are glued to the .020 disc they are trued up in the "poor man's mill" to fit into the recess cut into the wheel rings. The .020 backer is then cut out from between the spokes leaving a solidly constructed wheel center.



This picture is just showing an assortment of pieces that went into the wheel construction.



A set of completed wheel "rims" set in the track assembly and held in place with the wood block. The track is an extra set I ordered, with this project in mind, when I built the Cat 60's, they are not really correct for the Athey Truss Wheels but more on that later.


Thanks for taking a look.
Rick

[NORCALLOGGER]

Back with a little more progress. It has been a fun build so far trying to engineer from pictures is always a little problematic. I always find a few spots where I scratch my head and think "why didn't I take a couple more pictures or measurements in that spot?"

The "Athey Truss Wheels" did not have cleats on the track pads so obviously the "cat" tracks had to be altered to make them at all usable. I found that I could mount the track section in the drill press vise and hold them reasonably well while I ran them through the mill and cut the cleats and bolt heads off. There was quite a lot of variance in the cuts because each individual pad would be held tight or not so tight depending on the part of the casting clamped in the vise. I only ruined 3-4 pads but they are easily replaced and when all done everything had to be hand dressed with a file for uniformity anyway.


The completed "Athey Truss Wheel" assembly with the axel beam in place. The tracks look alright on there but they are definitely not a reproduction of the prototype. It was pointed out during the course of the original construction that I did not include the inner pad that the wheels ran on. At the time I just did not feel that this project warranted fabricating of masters, casting 96 to 192 plus pieces, then assembling them to get a finished product that will look so similar once painted that not one in a hundred will know the difference anyway. Sloppy I know but that's the way of it.




That's all for this morning
Rick

[finescalerr]

What a tedious and difficult modification! -- Russ

[NORCALLOGGER]

Back again

The angle arch was laid out and cut from 1/4 inch Sintra and laminated between sections of .030 Styrene sheet. In this picture I am drilling the holes for the "Athey Truss Wheel" axles before laminating on the edge pieces of .040 Styrene strips.



This picture shows the Truss Wheels mounted to check the axle bores and the truss wheel clearances before beginning the edge strips.



OK, for a way to anchor the vertical arch to the angled arch I had to stop and rethink the possibilities. My original idea was to just use some Styrene plates glued to the angled arch and drilled to hold the vertical arch pin bolts, but I realized in time (which is unusual) that this could be a very weak point in the model construction
 So, after a lot of foot dragging I decided that there was only really one way to do it. Route out both sides on the top of each arch leg and insert a brass plate that would tie the truss wheel axle to the vertical arch pins. This procedure though time consuming (Sintra doesn't grind worth a darn) is proving to be a very good solution.

This view shows the edge pieces in place but needing the uneven gaps along the edges filled with putty. You can also see the brass anchor plates that will hold the vertical arch in place once everything is assembled. After routing out the areas for the brass connector plates I had to cover the mess with Styrene "patch" plates. I don't think this will be much of an issue, if you go back and look at the prototype pictures you will see similar plates in different places.



Just a glamour shot showing the tracks draped over the wheels and Ole Hansen, the shop foreman, getting another photo op.


More later

[Bernhard]

A nice little model. I like it.

Bernhard

[lab-dad]

Thanks guys!
I like learning and the old way.
Computers break and power can go out.
Rather use my brain while I can.
I hope I don't get the urge to build another wagon.
MJinTN