Sorta scratch buiding

[bparrish]

So I'm doing a sorta scratch.

I've had this Ken Kidder Porter Mogul forever.  I put a can motor in it and a decoder about ten years ago but never ran it much.  My railroad is an operational pike that uses Ship It for a switching system.

The original loco has a long pilot and no front coupler.  Not good for switching. 

So I decided to convert it to HOn3 and put a usable pilot on it at the same time. I'm making all new parts so that it could be put back to HO (however not easily).

These locos were scaled a bit small so the move to NG is going to be acceptable.

So here are the starting photos..... with the original loco.

see ya
Bob

Original loco


Progress

[bparrish]

And to continue...

[ak-milw]

Great so far.

[donatode]

Scratchbuilding 101  .... great work......you DO know you do great work?

[bparrish]

So here is the first of three axles.

It is still on the running rod and will be cut off tomorrow.

The old HO axle is shown and will be pressed off and put on the HOn3 axle.

see ya
Bob

[bparrish]

Donato...

Thanx for your kind remarks and for following along.

This is just some fun stuff........... a lot of it is to see if I can really do this.

Not everything works the first time.  But like that guy Norm Abrams guy on This Old House.......... you don't see that ! ! !

I really don't like that guy as he never says, "ooops".

see ya
Bob

[deemery]

Cool stuff, I hope you provide details on the machining (both the planning, i.e. deciding what to do) and the execution (i.e. how you didi it.)


dave

[bparrish]

Dave...

Thanx for your prompting. 

The machining part is not that tough.  It is all about matching the HO frame.  Since the side rod length of any steam loco (No one ever clearly says this in the commentaries) must equal EXACTLY the center lines of the drive wheel axles, and I am not remaking the side rods, the axle cuts in the frame must match the original frame.

After making the lash up for cutting the axle locations in the frame, it became obvious that it would be easier to simply mark it out and push them out with a hand file.  This is old Mel Thornburg stuff from the 1950's.  He was my hero then for building stuff in the Model Railroader.  He did everything with common tools around the  house.

To make both rails the same I solder them together in the waste material beyond the area of the frame I know will remain when cut to length.

Then a filler strip is made up to the width of the frame less the total side rail thickness.  In this case .190" as the side rails were .0625" each.  That's 1/16th inch by 1/4 bar stock.  Depending on the model, the frame width of an HOn3 loco is about .315" across.  Full size HO is .500".  Easy !

The axles are turned out of 1/8" mild steel gas welding rod.  At the speeds I run locomotives, these will never wear out.  I will use only a light watch maker's oil and then never oil them again until they complain. 

There is a rule that in a full circle turning shaft running in something, you cannot use the same metals.  No amount of lubrication will work.  No brass on brass or steel on steel.  This is evident in you car where a hardened steel crankshaft runs a very long time in a soft lead-tin-nickel alloy called babbit.  It is about as soft as common solder that we use in modeling.

I don't use any sort of elaborate resistance soldering rig.  I have a simple pencil type iron that is a heat element induction to the tip.  I don't use any thing that has one side of the AC circuit on the tip.  It is too dangerous around soldering rail around DCC.

To prevent melting of a previous made joint I use wet cotton balls for a heat sink.  They are easily shaped to what ever I am working on.  When they stop steaming I know that they have gone dry and are no longer sucking up heat.  Get 'em wet again.  Most of the time that is not an issue as I use a tinning flux and not relying on the rosin in the solder.  Rosin goes off at a much higher heat and the tinning flux more closely acts like flash soldering.  Plus the capillary action is much better.

OK...  So there you have it for the moment.

see ya
Bob

[donatode]

Will there be a quiz on this material on the finals??

[deemery]

Some great tips in that last post, Bob.  Keep 'em coming!!


dave  (who bought a bunch of small size brass strips in his 'undisclosed location's hobby store, and will probably wish he bought more whenever he gets around to starting a brass project...)

[bparrish]

Dave......

Downtown Idaho is without a hobby shop...... Again.

Because of that I am ordering stuff where I can find it.  There is a hardware outfit in Brooklyn NY that has a third party relationship with Amazon and fills orders on K&S brass products. 

Good prices and fast service. 

See ya
Bob

[donatode]

Dave......

Downtown Idaho is without a hobby shop...... Again.

Because of that I am ordering stuff where I can find it.  There is a hardware outfit in Brooklyn NY that has a third party relationship with Amazon and fills orders on K&S brass products. 

Good prices and fast service. 

See ya
Bob

You know the answer to that dilemma ..... Open up your own Hobby Shop....

[bparrish]

Donato...

That's a good idea but I'm pretty sure I would only stock what I would use and thus have no customers and use up the profits on myself.  This is why I never started a single malt scotch distillery.  I would drink up all of the profits.

So here is the next step.

Below are the three axles need for the NG conversion.  They are a mild steel aloy and have yet to be fully polished.  I leave a little of the slug ends on the shafts as these can eat the distortion of pressing on the wheels.  Prevents mushrooming.

I have in the past piddled with case hardening steel in a charcoal oven but I'm never going to turn these things fast enough or need to guard against the heat rise of rotation.  This is only a HOn3 model locomotive.  Not something that is going to get me across town to the grocery.

Next will be quartering.

see ya
Bob

[ACL1504]

Bob,

Wonderful thread. I'm learning a whole bunch of stuff. Thanks for sharing. I love this thread.

Tom

[bparrish]

Tom...

Thanx for you very kind remarks and also for following along.

I'm doing all of this at the risk of making things look too simple .... but... none of us knew how to do any of this when we started.  My machining goes back to freshman high school when I bought the Unimat that I am still shoving along.

I then did a stint of 15 months on the east coast in the navy and ran a machine shop aboard an LST (read... long slow target ).  I've never done any of this for a living and only for my modeling addiction.

So below are the wheels assembled onto the axles and loaded into the frame.

Again....... what makes this work is that the center line spacing of the axles matches the center line of the holes in the side rods.  No one in a "How To" story has ever clearly said that.  Even going back to the bible ( MR ) in the 1950's.  I guess I was slow in making that assumption but once I got onto that ...... everything started working with much less fight.

In diagnosing a hitch there are a few steps.  Put everything together one piece at a time and watch it turn,  If there is any load........fix it now and then go on.  Then if you do have a hitch when all together..........  look for which side is in the horizontal to the table or rails. That is the culprit.  If you are building everything from scratch then the frame spacing is probably not the fault.  Look for a hole in the side rod that is in a bind... too long or too short.  Horizontal means the side rod and its throws are at 3 or 9 of the clock.  At 6 and 12 there is nothing that can cause a load or hesitation.

On this build the side rods used to work so any bind has to be in my spacing on the frame rails.

If  you play with some of the current production steam locos you find that there is a lot of slack in everything.  My problem is that I make things too tight and then have to loosen stuff back up.  But that beats too loose to start.

Regarding quartering........ it is not a black art ! ! !  It is about doing everything the same.  The degrees around 90 are pretty forgiving as long as they are all exactly alike.  I use an old NWSL quartering jig and when I take things apart I map how they fit in the jig.  I will look at all axle sets and often find that one or another is not spot on.  Another count for this is pretty forgiving.  I do try and put them back as close to the same as possible.

When taking wheels out of the frame, mark the insulated wheels for going back together.  I only work one axle at a time so I don't get two insulated wheels on the same axle.  Run tests with an ohm meter if the insulator is hard to see.  The modeling standard is that the insulated side is on the left, as looking forward, fireman's side of the loco.  In addition almost all wiring for DCC is the black is to the fireman's side also. I suppose there is an exception and even then things will try and work.

On now to the retainer plate on the bottom.

see ya
Bob