ScaleStructures LTD Cinder Conveyor

[Oldguy]

Thanks all.


I still wasn't all that pleased with the"rust" wash.  In person, it just looked too garish my tastes.  As I was weathering the pit sidewalls with black Pan Pastels, I thought what the heck.  I did a little test section on the back of the middle tower, and bingo.  I brushed all the washed parts.  In the photos below, are before and after shots.  (Oh look, I missed a spot)

Now that the pit sides are weathered, I could add the front, bottom, and back pieces.  I started with the bottom.  I first double check that the rail spacing in the drawing is the same as the rail spacing on the middle tower.  Perfect.  This is critical as the side rails run down the middle of the casting.  I then used a set of dividers to ensure correct width and do the typical score and snap the plastic piece.  Sand off the edges and corners to ensure a flat fit.  Broke out a 30 year old tube of Goo.  (Does this stuff ever go bad?)  I glued one side and went to check the clearance for the other side, and ooops.  Way too narrow.  Hmmm.  Okay lets check the drawing again.  What the  . . . . . The side cutting template has the sides flush with the bottom, but the cross section shows them extending past the casting.  Well nerts.  At least I used Goo and not CA.  So I again got the spacing for the entire needed width and cut a long plastic piece to ensure all sections will be the same width.  It was a matter of cutting, filing, and CA each piece on.  I'll let the pieces sit overnight and paint the pieces with concrete.

[Oldguy]

I finally got to the stage that I was dreading, well the first of several.  Putting the main tower together.  The first photo shows the various parts that make up the unit.
I decided that I need to install the left one first.  Upon first go around, it leaned to the left.  A lot.  Some careful sanding of the bottom, got it vertical.  While the glue was setting up, it was time to assemble the piston sheaves.  I first glued in the end of the uncut axle and added the sheaves.  While that set up, moved back to adding the piston cylinder to the left tower piece.  I did measure the cylinder bosses and they were different widths.  Off by slightly more than 0.20", but didn't know where to trim, so dry fitted in place and it had a tight fit, so went ahead and glued that in place.  A word of caution, the cylinder has an air inlet on one side.  That should face to the rear.  Then back to the piston sheaves.  I cut off the excess axle length, and ground off any excess rod.  Then came the question as to what length the piston should be.  If fully down the cart would be fully raised.  But how far up should it be?  I measured the travel of the cart and figured it was close to 40 scale feet.  So with 4 sheaves, the piston should travel up about 10 feet for the cart to return to the pit.  So I cut it for 10 foot length.
Now onto the right hand side of the tower.  There are 2 "bearings" on the inside top of each section.  I drilled each fairly deep to give me some wiggle room.  Again, I glued in one axle end to the left section.  When dried, added the last two sheaves.  Did a quick dry fit, eye balled where to cut off the excess and cut off the excess.  Putting the right section back into place showed a problem.  Not only was it taller, but wanted to slope to the right.  No big surprise since I sanded the bottom off the left section.  A bunch of sanding, dry fitting, sanding, and dry fitting, until it looked correct.  But it wasn't fully contacting the cylinder.  Now I knew where the offending boss was located.  Some judicious filing and finally I was able to glue in the right section.
I still have a bit of weathering to do on the sheaves and repair paint chips here and there and add the top cap.
Looking down the road, the original kit including some thread for the hoisting cable.  And typical for this material, it is really fuzzy.  The instruction wants the one to feed one end up through the top cap and tie a knot before going around the sheaves and down to the cart.  Hmmm, tie a knot?  Not.  Unfortunately, my prototype photo does not show this attachment, so I must wing it.  I am looking at using some J C Higgins (Sears) casting line.  (I'm thinking that it was bought for use on a fly rod) . My first thought was to use a turnbuckle, but they are all too small.  Maybe drill out the end of a NBW casting?  Nope they are too small as well.  I'll have a think overnight and hopefully have it figured out by Noon tomorrow.

[deemery]

You could go to a craft store and check out the various lines/threads they have in the -beading- department.  I got some stuff there once that looks a lot like scale steel cable.  It'll be strong and not fuzzy.


dave

[PRR Modeler]

Very nice job Bob. I actually like the patina on it now. Like Dave said I found some braided wire (very flexible) at Jo-Ann's that reminds me of braided steel cable.

[Oldguy]

Dave and Curt - sounds like a trip to JoAnn's is in my future. 

After my think last night, I had an AHA moment  - "Well you dope, you have to install the pit and the rails, before you can add the cable" 

I just might also try to give the black casting line a wipe of pewter or tin paint, just to see what it looks like.  I mean, I wouldn't want this 50 year line just sit there unused or anything.   

[Oldguy]

I had a chance to stop by JoAnn's and found the beading wire.  Bought two types - 7 strand and 21 stand and they do look like wire rope as well as being a lot thinner than the casting line.

My next dreaded stage was cutting out the yard homasote.  I had already cut a hole for the original conveyor pit, so it was a matter of figuring out where the 1/2" gatorfoam board would go.  As you can see, I have already laid out the service area and the receiving track centers were drawn for the 3 11/16" center lines required by the pit. 

Next was to lay everything out.  Considering the other SNAFUs that I encountered, it was a matter of measuring, remeasuring, and measure again.  There are two 4 foot wide aprons that needed to be located.   But before I install the pit, I needed to finish the interior weathering with the black Pan Pastel using my favorite pastel brushes.  They are a bit stiff, but not too stiff. 

Now it was time to cut the foam.  Man that outer layer is tough to cut through.  Then it was a matter of using a chisel blade to create the apron slope.  Once everything was cut out, time to install the pit.  Epoxy was mixed and placed around the pit edges.  I added weights to aid in keeping everything level.

 

[ACL1504]

Bob,

Great job on the conveyor. All the issues you mention are bringing back old memories of when I did this one. I never built the pit as I found a brass cinder conveyor I used.

Wonderful job and tutorial on the SS Ltd. kit.

Tom

[Oldguy]

Well, this is an inconvenience.  Seems as though I can try to sort out all the little potential gotchas and trying to stay a step or three ahead of them during the build, I overlooked a stick of strip wood, causing the board to sit at an angle.

A lot of the old salty Navy language came flooding back.  Okay, take a deep breath.  I hoped that I could use a Dremel with a flexible shaft attachment to simply cut away the offending epoxy.  (And yes, whenever I can be in the direct path of a cut off disk, I wear a face shield)  No joy.  I had to completely cut the pit out and remove all traces of the epoxy and start over.  I cut out a section of Gatorfoam and painted it a dirt brown.  While that was drying, it was on to cutting 6x8 short tie sections.  So let's see.  According to the instruction, that wood is marked with gold paint.  Well, I guess red is close enough.  And the white pieces?  There to be 10x10 pieces.  At least one was.  Somebody must of had a bad day when this was packaged.  Not really all big of a deal, but still . . .

So I got the wood stained and cut, but couldn't do much with it until the pit is reinstalled.  So it was time to take a hard look at the 3 rail beam to carry the service rail over the pit.  Well, it makes no sense to have two rails side by side, upside down to support the service rail.  So, I found Robertson's original patents online.  And no, they are not upside down at all.  Further more, there are no extra rails in the kit to make these.  Probably just as well as the height needed would depend up on track is being used as tie heights can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.  I am using ME track and their tie height is 0.73".  So, code 70 rail would work.  But then I can't even make these until the pit is installed. 

[Oldguy]

Okay, where was I?  Oh yeah, installing the pit.  Cut new gaterboard, cut new pit hole, and re-epoxied t it.

While that is setting up, it was time for another dreaded task, bending the tram rails.  As mentioned before, the older kit came with code 40 rail while the newer kit came with code 55.  Since I had some scrap code 55, I'll start with it.  One needs to install the pit rails, as things are real tight and adding anything over the pit can cause some major issues in adding the pit rails later.


First up was making a pattern, since eventually there will be 6 rails that will have to be installed.  I found a piece of decent looking steel rod and bent it to shape.  A lot of bending and fitting, straightening, bending and got it as close as I was going to get.  I don't what this rod was made of, but a dremel cut off disk couldn't cut through it.  Maybe I should have tried cutting it first?  I did manage to lop of the excess using an ancient set of wire cutters. 

From that, I made a jig to bend the rail.  I found a couple of round things to develop the different curves.  It is important to label the jig as to where the rail goes.  I found some scrap Code 55 and put it in the jig to bend it to shape.  No jy.  It kept rolling over, no matter what I did.  Then I remembered that I have a bunch of code 55 flex track.  The idea was bending a set of rails, held in to the ties would be easier to bend back in itself.  Pulled out a stick and went to cut it, and whaaaaa.  This is code 40 flex track!  So that is where it has been hiding.  I knew I had it, but couldn't find it.  Thank fully I hadn't sold it at the area meets that I have been trying to off load my excess stuff. 


So, I place a cut section vertically in the jig and slowly bent it to the general shape.  One that is done, I cut the rail loose from the ties and finished the bends by hand.  I got thinking that I need to check how the two towers are going to fit alongside the receiving rails.  I had to find the center if the pit and draw perpendicular lines to aid in keeping the towers square with the rails.  I also added parallel lines for additional placement aids.  Grabbed a hopper and checked clearances.  Wow, they are exceptionally tight.  Now I need to check to see if I can fudge on their placement.

PS - I previously mentioned that each kit was short air piping elbows.  They include 4, but need 7, maybe eight depending on how it is run.  I e-mailed SS LTD and they responded that yes, they will sell any casting in any kit, even if it isn't in their catalog.

If anyone hasn't seen code 40 flextrack, below is what it looks like.

[deemery]

Great idea bending flextrack to get your two (parallel) rails!!  This has been an interesting build thread, as you work through the difficulties.


dave

[postalkarl]

Hey Old Guy:

This is coming along nicely and look like lots of work.

karl

[Oldguy]

Hey Old Guy:

This is coming along nicely and look like lots of work.

karl

It has definitely tested my patience. 

[Oldguy]

I had an eye doctor appointment at he VA this morning, so about the only thing I could handle was gluing the main support to the base.

But, I am happy to report that bending the code 40 flex track was a success.  I didn't need the template, the ties were too thick to fit it anyway.  I have a marble sample disk that was close to the pit curve and a paint bottle that came close to the upper curve.  It was a simple matter of using the printed curves as a guide and gently bending the flex track to fit.  The molded on ties kept the rail from rolling over.

[deemery]

Yay!!!


dave

[Oldguy]

Time to put on the big boy pants and install the rails.  First up was removing the molded on spikes.  I used my sprue cutters to cut of the spike head, a bit more of an issue that I had thought, as I had to cut off both sides.  Eventually, the rails came loose.  Then it was a matter of insuring the track spacing, especially in the pit.  So I measured the distance between the ends, subtracted the rail head width, and an additional 0.01" just of eye ball error.  Then using the micrometer tail piece, got the distance, marked it on a piece of 0.02 plastic and cut out a length.  I thought I might have to add a handle, but I made it long enough to handle at then end of the pit.  I was going to be a bit of an issue just to keep the rail in place to glue it down.  Then, I thought, well there is the middle tower and it has pockets for the rail.  Just use it as a guide to at least to get everything centered.  Well, gall darnit, it also gives me the track spacing!  I didn't need to make the gauge after all. 

I did a quick coat of initial rust as some sections are going to be hard to get too when installed.

So after a little bit of futzing, I got all the rails glued in place.  Then, I glued down the middle tower  I'll let everything dry overnight and see what tomorrow brings.