building a 3" scale bobber caboose

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Harlock
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building a 3" scale bobber caboose

Post by Harlock »

The San Lorenzo Flume & Lumber Co. has decided to add a caboose to its roster. As its line continues to grow into the redwoods, it no longer remains practical for crew to ride in and around the log cars, locomotive cab and on flatcars. This also includes operations carrying rolling stock over the Santa Cruz & Felton Railway down to the docks at Santa Cruz to offload lumber onto waiting steamships bound for San Francisco.

A bobber caboose was decided upon after noting that a two truck unit would add too much dead weight to the consist that could instead be used to haul more timber. With its diminutive 0-4-0 #2, horsepower is at a preimum on the fledgeling SLF&LCO.

An officer of the railroad heard reports about narrow gauge lines in the Rockies and decided to more or less copy a Colorado & Southern bobber caboose (#1006) that was originally acquired as a way car from the Denver, South Park & Pacific and modified with a cupola on one end. The necessitated a window being removed from each side to accommodate the resulting interior change.

For a back woods logging railroad this would be an ideal practical shop built car.

A call went out for drawings and photographs and while a number of leads turned up, what was settled upon for now was the (somewhat inaccurate) maxwell drawing, the Grandt Line On3 kit with its drawings and highly accurate parts, some photos from Mallory Hope Ferrel's books and other sources, and a number of Gazette articles. Rumors abound of a very highly detailed set of solidworks models for most of the hardware, but this has yet to surface, so in the mean time the author will be making his own from above references. A trip to Silver Plume for direct measurement is out of the railroad's budget so approximations are made where needed.

With that back story, lets get started and see what's going on over in the carpentry shop.
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maxwell.jpg
Last edited by Harlock on Sun Jan 27, 2013 2:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Harlock
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Re: building a 3" scale bobber caboose

Post by Harlock »

In the Carpentry Shop, the side frames are coming together. Learning from experience with wood splitting issues making the boxcar, we are applying a new technique for making tongue and groove siding. Instead of the Tongues being a part of each piece of siding, the new siding has grooves on either side, and separate tongues / splines inserted. Every other piece of siding has splines glued in on both sides, and the alternating pieces have no glue, so the entire thing is allowed to move with the weather and drying.

The side frames are held together with glue and dowel pins, and will later have some metal fastenings near some corners. Use of metal is avoided where possible so that later holes drilled to attach other pieces will not have anything to interfere with them.

The planking is kiln dried doulas fir, and the frame is poplar. (edit/correction: the port orford cedar is used for the roof material, see below)
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Last edited by Harlock on Sun Jan 27, 2013 12:22 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: building a 3" scale bobber caboose

Post by Harlock »

Here you can see some loose splines, these are made from model aircraft wood. (birch plywood) And also some leftover remnants from the grooved panels. Look closely and you can see one has splines inserted into it.

Also in the carpentry shop is the beginnings of the frame, carefully cut and fit together. The frame is made of Red Oak.

The outermost longitudinal members will be yellowheart, you can see it in the background.
Attachments
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Last edited by Harlock on Sun Jan 27, 2013 12:21 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: building a 3" scale bobber caboose

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Another job for this weekend was to create all of the longitudinal pieces that make up the roof. Each one had to be milled with a convex and a concave router bit to make pieces that dovetail into each other for a continuous curved roof.

The use of wood in this case is the highly sought after Port Orford Cedar. POC is known for it's straight grain, high strength and rot resistance. An incredibly fragrant wood with a ginger spice, the entire shop smells like a potpourri dish after heavy use of the table router.

It is very hard to come by due to being in high demand for export to Japan, but the railroad managed to obtain some through circles.

I cut and welded coupler pockets RMI style, using RMI couplers. Tabs will be welded on once it is known exactly how it will be positioned in the frame and at what height.

A set of RMI spoked locomotive pilot wheels was obtained for use on the bobber.
Attachments
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Last edited by Harlock on Sun Jan 27, 2013 12:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: building a 3" scale bobber caboose

Post by Harlock »

Over in the hardware department, I am at work on a 3D model for the pedestals and J-boxes soon to follow. These will eventually become patterns for traditional castings. Several sets will be made as there is another 3" scale bobber that will be built from them by someone else.

on the original pedestals, the back side does not extend up on to the side of the wood like the front, but structurally we did not like this and changed the back to mirror the front.
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Rwilliams
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Re: building a 3" scale bobber caboose

Post by Rwilliams »

Looks like management of the SLF&LCo. has made a good decision for rear of train equipment. Will be nice to see the finished product roll out of the shops. Just watching it fall together is going to be interesting. I look forward to see how the special router cut pieces work for the curved roof. I know my next curved roof caboose will definitely be individual strips of wood. I may be able to employ the same procedure in 1.6 scale if possible. Looks like you are making some rapid progress on this build.

Keep up the great work,

Robert
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Re: building a 3" scale bobber caboose

Post by FLtenwheeler »

Hi

What size are you using for the side? Every railroad was different. I know some single sheathed boxcars used 5/4"x5" or 5/4"x6". Some reefers used 25/32" outside sheathing.

Tim
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Harlock
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Re: building a 3" scale bobber caboose

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FLtenwheeler wrote:Hi

What size are you using for the side? Every railroad was different. I know some single sheathed boxcars used 5/4"x5" or 5/4"x6". Some reefers used 25/32" outside sheathing.

Tim
The vertical sheathing or paneling on the sides in scale is about 13/16 on our 3" scale model, which comes out to 3.25" wide at full scale. I think on the 1006 caboose they are actually about 6" wide. We did not follow prototype in that regard.

Cheers,

-Mike
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Harlock
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Re: building a 3" scale bobber caboose

Post by Harlock »

Rwilliams wrote:Looks like management of the SLF&LCo. has made a good decision for rear of train equipment. Will be nice to see the finished product roll out of the shops. Just watching it fall together is going to be interesting. I look forward to see how the special router cut pieces work for the curved roof. I know my next curved roof caboose will definitely be individual strips of wood. I may be able to employ the same procedure in 1.6 scale if possible. Looks like you are making some rapid progress on this build.

Keep up the great work,

Robert
Here are some close ups of the cedar roof paneling profile on some scrap pieces.

Note that there is not a full radius - if you were to do that the pieces would interfere with each other unless you took some off the edges of the female side.

After assembly the top side will be sanded a bit to smooth it out, then covered with black canvas.
Attachments
13-01-26_bobber_caboose-3756.jpg
13-01-26_bobber_caboose-3746.jpg
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Re: building a 3" scale bobber caboose

Post by PRR5406 »

Inspirational. 3" scale is bold! Good for you!
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Harlock
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Re: building a 3" scale bobber caboose

Post by Harlock »

PRR5406 wrote:Inspirational. 3" scale is bold! Good for you!
It's a compromise scale that about matches my engine and keeps things to a reasonable size for transport. I also have a 3" scale boxcar and two log cars.

Cheers,

-Mike
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Re: building a 3" scale bobber caboose

Post by DJSteamer3017 »

Harlock wrote:
PRR5406 wrote:Inspirational. 3" scale is bold! Good for you!
It's a compromise scale that about matches my engine and keeps things to a reasonable size for transport. I also have a 3" scale boxcar and two log cars.

Cheers,

-Mike
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