New York, Vermont & Northern Rwy. (HOn3 coal line + HOn30 Quarry Line)

[Bernd]

Build me a Shay! 

Good seeing these again Bernd!

Philip

More to come.

On my workbench this Sunday. I got a load of corrugated sheets to work on the upper portion of the crusher building. I was going to use board-n-batten. After a year it looks like they shrunk and left a wide split. I used double sided transfer tape to fasten the sheets. I was going to make new sides but decided I could use the old ones and just cover them up with the corrugated sheets like a real building might do. Anyway as I loaded the last sheet on the back of the VW crew cab I stuck it through the rear window. Gonna' be a cold ride home.        




Bernd

[ACL1504]

Bernd,

This is looking good. I have many of the cinder block sheets but haven't used them yet on any project. I think I need to try them now. I have an old metal boiler kit that can easily be turned into a block structure.

Tom

[Bernd]

Bernd,

This is looking good. I have many of the cinder block sheets but haven't used them yet on any project. I think I need to try them now. I have an old metal boiler kit that can easily be turned into a block structure.

Tom

Tom,

Those are real blocks. I used "soap stone" to make those. There are over 1,000 blocks in just the front and one side of the building. Looks like I'll need to post how I did all that. Perhaps I should start the next post on how I built the bottom part of the building. I had it posted on the Railroad Line Forum but that's all gone now.

Bernd

[Philip]

My old VW had 2 temps. Fry or freeze! Looking great!

[ACL1504]

Bernd,

This is looking good. I have many of the cinder block sheets but haven't used them yet on any project. I think I need to try them now. I have an old metal boiler kit that can easily be turned into a block structure.

Tom

Tom,

Those are real blocks. I used "soap stone" to make those. There are over 1,000 blocks in just the front and one side of the building. Looks like I'll need to post how I did all that. Perhaps I should start the next post on how I built the bottom part of the building. I had it posted on the Railroad Line Forum but that's all gone now.

Bernd

Bernd,

Amazing, they look fantastic and to me I thought they were embossed paper. 

Well done for sure.

Tom 

[Bernd]

Bernd,

Amazing, they look fantastic and to me I thought they were embossed paper.

Well done for sure.

Tom

Tom,

I just found that I had already started a thread on this building. I started a thread back in February of 2021 on this build in the "Scratchbuilding" section. You even made comments on it back then.

Here's the link: https://modelersforum.com/index.php? topic=5670.0

I had another modeler interested in the build. I remembered I'd done a thread on the defunct Railroad Lines. My search turned up that I had also done one here. So no need for me to go into how I did that build. I'll continue on with the upper portion of this scratch build story.

Bernd

[Bernd]

Deleted. Already posted a link to the beginning of this build.

B

[Bernd]

At the workbench this weekend.

Started to glue corrugated panels on the upper portion of the crusher building.



Time to go get more panels.



Bernd

[deemery]

Time to go get more panels.

Roll on, Bernd!

dave

[ACL1504]

Bernd,

Amazing, they look fantastic and to me I thought they were embossed paper.

Well done for sure.

Tom

Tom,

I just found that I had already started a thread on this building. I started a thread back in February of 2021 on this build in the "Scratchbuilding" section. You even made comments on it back then.

Here's the link: https://modelersforum.com/index.php? topic=5670.0

I had another modeler interested in the build. I remembered I'd done a thread on the defunct Railroad Lines. My search turned up that I had also done one here. So no need for me to go into how I did that build. I'll continue on with the upper portion of this scratch build story.

Bernd

Bernd,

Yes, I remember the thread and the soap stone blocks.

Tom

[Michael Hohn]

Looks good, Bernd. 

[Bernd]

Looks good, Bernd. 

Thanks Mike.

B

[Bernd]

After I finished siding one wall of the upper portion of the crusher building with corrugated siding, I started another project related to the quarry line build. I need about 36 to 40 quarry cars. Right now, I have 16 of the Minitrains HOn30 cars. Being made of plastic is not going to work for me because I plan on animating the operation of bringing quarried rock to the rock crusher building and dumping with a rotary dumper in a pit by the crusher building. Crushed and sized rock will then be loaded into a rock bin via conveyor to fill the bins. The bins will be animated to dump the sized rock into cars waiting below to be taken to the standard gauge line for transfer into standard gauge hopper cars. The operation from the quarry to the rock crusher will be a push pull operation. No running around the train. I've seen lots of videos of operations such as what I'm contemplating. The plastic Minitrains cars are just to light weight to push and derail easily. The plan is to build all brass cars and using miniature ball bearings for less friction.

Below are 100 of 170 ball bearings I've accumulated for the last few days.



The bearings are 2mm i.d. X 5mm o.d. X 2mm wide. They fit the axels nicely. Lower right in the picture. These are the cars I'll use as a template.



This picture shows the corrugated wall finished. I'm not very happy with the out come from using the previous board-n-batten siding. I shaved all the battens off because the pieces of corrugated aluminum didn't glue on to well. Also, the wall is bowed even though I have it braced in the back. I'll be redoing it with a new subsurface of chip board and well braced.

I also finished the shear wall behind the building. This view shows six cars and how they will fit under the rock bins for loading. A second track with six more cars will go in the back behind the ones shown. I am looking at a 12-car train when loaded.





So, taking a closer look at the cars you'll see rivet lines on the corners and the bottom of the cars. Marked with red outlines.



The last couple of days I've been working to see if it's possible to make a rivet line on a piece of metal that is .033" wide and rivets spaced .060" apart. The first attempt was to see if I could make a piece that could be folded 90° to fit around the corners of the car. The first pictures shows the bottom side which show rivet indents in the .003" aluminum shim stock. The second picture is what you would see when the rivets are soldered to the corner of the cars. I'm using aluminum shim stock that I used for the corrugated siding because I had the correct size thickness for what I wanted to do. And it's a bit cheaper than brass shim stock, especially if you're doing development work. I did try .005" but it was to thick.



The rivets facing the viewer.



Since this idea didn't work, I figured individual strips would work better. So, I redid it with ten single strips. Worked much better. The engraving of the cut lines took a while to get correct when you're working with material only .003" thick. Again, you're looking at the back side of the rivets in the view below.



And the reverse side with the rivets facing you. There are close to 1000 rivets in the ten rows per four-inch-long row.



The engraved lines on the reverse side will be used to cut the rivet strip out. It's only .003" wide so a steady hand, good straight edge and a sharp hobby knife is what's needed. I lacked the sharp hobby knife when I cut the strip out.



Remember I said that the cars will use a rotary dumper to empty the cars? I ran across this little gem on the net and will pattern my rotary dumper after this one.



So that brings you up to what's been happing at the Kingstone Model Works. Too many projects started and the warmer weather is coming on. Pretty soon it'll be time to head up to the St. Lawerence River to open camp for the summer. Little to no modeling time then. But I still have a few more weeks before that happens. Plus I plan on taking some projects with me this summer. It does rain and you have to stay indoors. 

Bernd

[deemery]

How much do those itty-bitty ball bearings weigh?  Great way to both add weight and make the (heavier) cars roll better.

dave

[PRR Modeler]

Wow, how have I missed this thread? You have a very ambitious project and it looks like you have all the necessary skills to make it happen. I look forward to following your progress.