Sorta scratch buiding

[deemery]

I think K&S is cutting back on its product lines.  So I'm slowly stocking up, my goal is to get the same kind of "at least one bag of everything" that I have for Evergreen Styrene and NESL/Mt Albert stripwood.


dave

[bparrish]

Dave...

I think you and I have the same theory of keeping stuff under the bench and at the ready...

My wife and I do not agree on this maxim........ It is better to have and need not than to need and have not !

see ya
Bob

[bparrish]

 Next is a new pilot.
The original pilot was modeled after the 1880's and too long for my purposes and for switching.  Below is a layout photo  for a pilot.  This is not scaled as I will do that with a scribe on the sheet brass.  I'm showing this on paper as there is so little contrast on the brass it will be very hard to see.


Plot the shape of the pilot you want to outfit your loco with.  It will be best with .015" to .020" thickness brass sheet.  The fold for the lower part of the pilot will be made later.  Also the legs going up that will be soldered to the deck beam are all made as one piece.

The black lines shown below are the rough outline for the framework of the pilot. The red lines are the plot lines for the holes that will be drilled.  In laying out the holes for the bars on the pilot, start in the middle and line out as many bars as you want.  A notch out for the coupler is to be made now and shown as a series of dots.  The bars will be brought up underneath the coupler pocket.


The object of all of this is to plot the lines so that when finished the holes for the various bars will be exactly vertical.



Once the holes are drilled the fold can be made for the base of the pilot and the vertical portion.


In bending the wire for the pilot it is best to use .025" brass wire.  Each piece will be hardly over a half inch when done but need to be longer for handling purposes. Bend into each wire a 90 degree angle that will be where the wire goes into the upper bar of the pilot.


When all bars are located in the pilot, flash solder the wires to the pilot frame. Flash soldering is where you take a liquid flux and wet everything. Introduce solder on the underside of the pilot and the back side of the vertical.  Make you holes a few thousandths larger than the wire so the solder has a place to get into the space.  You will be filing off all of the tag ends of the wire and most of the solder.


There you have it.
see ya
Bob

[bparrish]

On to the next batch of photos.

These are various progress stages.

All of this is made up in about two hours.

Even the last photo is before final clean up.

see ya
Bob

[jbvb]

When I was active in the club at college, I read all of MR back to the late '40s; I don't recall anyone using that technique to build a pilot.  When the subject comes up, I hope I remember this...

[ACL1504]

Bob,

Wow, great stuff. I'm anxious for the next set of photos but I'm not rushing you. I know it all takes time.

Tom

[donatode]

Bob,

Wow, great stuff. I'm anxious for the next set of photos but I'm not rushing you. I know it all takes time.

Tom

I'm not saying anything .... I'm what you call patient.... !!!  Just saying.

[bparrish]

In order to finish the pilot and locate it on the frame I need to make up a pilot truck.

The wheel set is an insulated both sides Precision Scale wheel set. 

The brass carrier is folded brass with the sides turned down and a fork cut in for the axle. I then flooded the center with solder for weight.  The axle path was re-cut in the lead to allow the wheel set to roll freely.

Then a cover was made up and held with a single 0-80 screw.

I have yet to punch in the hole for the mounting to the frame.  I need to lay it all out and adjust for the swing of the wheel set.  Working in NG has little tolerance for friction or binding.

Yet again, all of this is yet to be finished in a final cleaning.

Nothing complicated about a pilot truck.

see ya
Bob

[DACS]

Great looking pilot bob!
Never seen it done like that!  I will have to find something to try that method with.

Dave
Seattle

[bparrish]

I started getting the frame together last this afternoon.

I located the pilot truck on the frame and then brought the pilot to it.  It is essentially the same dimensions as the standard gauge that I started out with but it still needed to be fitted for appearance.

Tomorrow I start on the motor saddle

see ya
Bob

[S&S RR]

Bob


Great new project - I will be following along.

[sdrees]

Bob,

This is good stuff.  When I get some track laid on my layout, I am going to half to work on my old locomotives to get them to run smoothly again and also work with DCC.

[bparrish]

It's Friday and I got some bench time to get on with this..

I first built an angle mount for the motor.  This is a simple piece of brass bar with the forward end tabbed down between the frame rails so I only need a single screw at the back to locate and hold the whole business down.  I cut a long slot so it can be placed anywhere when I get ready to set the gear lash.

I will glue the motor to the angle mount with RTV.  It is easy and it cuts down a LOT of vibration transmitted to the locomotive.

I soldered an 0-80 nut at the rear of the motor mount so it was one less thing to try and balance while assembling. Also the .020" brass mount is not enough to hold threads as tight as this needs to be for permanent alignment.

The little tab in the last photo is a nose bushing soldered to a small piece of sheet brass.  Again the slot around another bolt point allows me to only need to use a single screw to hold it down.   I put a shim under the mounting tab to locate the motor shaft vertically for gear lash.

This nose bushing is the same idea as the armature bushing in the starter motor of your car.  It keeps the worm gear from walking away from the spur gear and holds everything in the same location, forward or reverse.  The end float on the worm gear is held by the bearings in the motor.  The motor shaft in the nose bearing is free to float where ever it might want to go.

Next will be the cab stage up from the frame to hold the rear of the superstructure.

see ya
Bob

[deemery]

Great photos and explanations!!


dave

[bparrish]

So I finally got some serious modeling time in and got the back deck support done for the loco.  The cab area looks huge in this photo as it originally had a open frame motor. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  I'm not sure I want to build a back head for it.  Besides, the photo makes this whole loco look bigger than it really is.

Then the whole thing has to go to the paint shop as all of the handling of the loco wore and chipped a lot of stuff away.

So now I'm on to put electrical wipers on the trucks for the tender and convert that too to narrow gauge.  When I'm done the loco and tender will be all wheel pickup for DCC signals. It's about the only way you can make these early brass locos run at all well.

see ya
Bob