Woodinville Shops

Discuss park gauge trains and large scale miniature railways having track gauges from 8" to 24" gauge and designed at scales of 2" to the foot or greater - whether modeled for personal use, or purpose built for amusement park operation or private railroading.

Moderators: Glenn Brooks, Harold_V

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Topics may include: antique park gauge train restoration, preservation, and history; building new grand scale equipment from scratch; large scale miniature railway construction, maintenance, and safe operation; fallen flags; track, gauge, and equipment standards; grand scale vendor offerings; and, compiling an on-line motive power roster.
Glenn Brooks
Posts: 2930
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 1:39 pm
Location: Woodinville, Washington

Re: Woodinville Shops

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Decided to outfit the shop to scrape in precision surfaces. So ordered an 18” ‘Featherweight’ straight edge casting from Denis Foster up in Bellingham. Just arrived via UPS yesterday.

The quality of the casting is supberb. Almost no imperfections visible from the sand in the mold. The flat ridge along the top is designed to be scrapped in as a parallel surface. Fascinating idea. The backside is hollowed out to save weight I suppose, and fitted with two gussets that allow for drilling and taping screw holes to mount a handle. Although my initial impression is that the hollowed out back and top parrellel ridge make a perfect natural handhold.

Should have taken photos of the packing material. Denis fitted the cardboard mounting board with cardboard flaps and cross bracing, held in place by use of a glue gun. The flaps encapsulated the entire casting in a pyramidal tube, glued to the backing board. The cross bracing and mounting board was a work of art in itself. Needed to do surgery to free the casting from the mounting board!

All in all a high quality and well thought out design - reminiscent of old school, steam era castings and hand drawn pictures that one finds in bygone foundry catalogs. Thanks Denis!

Glenn
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Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
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Harold_V
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Joined: Fri Dec 20, 2002 11:02 pm
Location: Onalaska, WA USA

Re: Woodinville Shops

Post by Harold_V »

Glenn Brooks wrote: Fri Nov 09, 2018 12:59 pm Although my initial impression is that the hollowed out back and top parrellel ridge make a perfect natural handhold.
Which would also become a perfect source of heat transfer from your hands to the straight edge. Handles are intended to limit heat transfer, which encourages unwanted movement in the straightedge.

H
Wise people talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something.
Glenn Brooks
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Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 1:39 pm
Location: Woodinville, Washington

Re: Woodinville Shops

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Thanks Harold. Never thought about that. I’ve been playing with a design for teak handles riveted to brass frames for the loco. Might be the straightedge is my first prototype Glenn
Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
Glenn Brooks
Posts: 2930
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 1:39 pm
Location: Woodinville, Washington

Re: Woodinville Shops

Post by Glenn Brooks »

my Dapra scrapper and a couple of carbide scraping bits arrived yesterday. Pleasantly surprised, the bits are preground at 60 and 90 mm radius, with 5* negative rake. Alleviates having to set up a slow speed carbide grinder for the moment.

Anybody know where I could order a decent, cheap, 300 RPM 4” grinding motor? The 600 mm diamond wheels are readily available, but haven’t seen many small size grinders for sale.

Still awaiting spotting ink from two different vendors. Canode Yellow apparently is available only when ordering Hens Teeth. Surprised how few vendors actually service this part of the industry. I’ll try to post a photo when I get out to the shop.

Also did a bit of follow up reading regarding heat transfer from hand holding the straightedge and effects of temperature for determining flatness of reference surfaces. As Harold mentioned, directly holding a straightedge casting will transfer some heat from ones fingertips to the straightedge, possibly altering the surface flatness due to expansion.

I have a Grade B inspection plate (tool room grade) inspection plate. Grade B is inspection grade plate having 4x the variation in tolerance of AA (laboratory grade) and 2x the tolerance of a Grade A (inspection grade) surface. So far as I can tell, only the AA grade labroatory surface is dependent on a temperature controlled environment. So have concluded, in normal usage, the slight variation in flatness tolerance caused by heat transfer from ones fingers to a straightedge likely isn’t a factor with a grade B or grade A straightedges.


Glenn
Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
Glenn Brooks
Posts: 2930
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 1:39 pm
Location: Woodinville, Washington

Re: Woodinville Shops

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Fired up the Great Northern Miniature Railway today to host a Christmas Holiday train for neighbors, friends , and family. We were able to give rides to little kids and big kids all afternoon- with nearly continuous departures from noon to dark.
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Here are a couple of You Tube videos of the Ottaway Polar Express winding its way through the northern country forest to Santa’s work shop. My boy posted several additional videos on our fledgling you tube channel “Great Northern miniature Railway”. Still experimenting with how to incorporate You tube and have yet to do any editing. It’s interesting, but a bit daunting. You are welcome to subscribe if you wish!

https://youtu.be/n0d_ecw-IhQ

https://youtu.be/Aks33cfCC4o

Glenn
Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
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10KPete
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Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2015 5:29 pm
Location: Nordland, WA, USA

Re: Woodinville Shops

Post by 10KPete »

OK, Glenn. I'm the first to subscribe to your channel... Beautiful loco and it runs very well.
Congratulations!!

Pete
Just tryin'
Patio
Posts: 1369
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 3:14 pm
Location: Centralia Wa

Re: Woodinville Shops

Post by Patio »

Looking good Glenn!
Live for the moment!
Prepare for tomorrow!
Forgive the past!
Glenn Brooks
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Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 1:39 pm
Location: Woodinville, Washington

Re: Woodinville Shops

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Thanks Guys, Enjoy the Holidays!

Here’s one more video my boy posted. The new cell phone cameras are amazing. This one shows about 3/4 of the mainline. We only have room for about 430’ of mainline track. But if you go around 10-12 times, it’s pretty close to a mile. :)

https://youtu.be/zRTxfRlfu6w
Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
rkcarguy
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Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:33 am
Location: Wa State

Re: Woodinville Shops

Post by rkcarguy »

Looking good Glenn!
Glenn Brooks
Posts: 2930
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 1:39 pm
Location: Woodinville, Washington

Re: Woodinville Shops

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Finally circled back around to making up a gantry for the shop. I need to move a Bridgeport clone into the shop soon as it’s finished - hopefully early next week. Also I am looking forward to using a gantry to lift tcars and locomotives off their work stands and to pull an old boiler I need to work on.

Debated a long time how big to make it. Finally settled on 1.5 ton (3000 #) capacity. The structure is 3” square tubing. Cross beam: 3”x6”x 4’ (3’ working width) for use in building and repairing 12” and 7.5” gauge locomotives and rolling stock. This will be easier to move around in the shop. The working height in the shop will be 8’ and a fully extended height of 10’. The base is 5’. I may make a second 9’ beam to occasionally pick stuff off the back of my pickup. The beam will be bolted to the vertical supports so the whole thing can be disassembled and stored, or to change out the beam for a wider lift. For example, I have an old Farmal Cub that needs new brakes and rear main seal. The wider beam will make an easy job, lifting both sides of the tractor to do the repairs.

Yesterday and Today, cut and drilled plates for the casters and end caps, and welded up the verticals. Tomorrow I plan on welding a smaller horizontal support inside the triangles of each vertical, to better support the load.

Naturally I only have three 1000# casters. Apparently gave one way to someone in need during our summer steam up. So need to order a replacement.

Glenn
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Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
rkcarguy
Posts: 1730
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:33 am
Location: Wa State

Re: Woodinville Shops

Post by rkcarguy »

Glenn, that looks good. I think your height to width ratio is about right too, always scary when they are too narrow and want to tip over when you get something heavy swinging around. Too wide and they get hard to maneuver and take up too much space.
I may be able to snag you your "wide" beam if you are open to using wide-flange sizes. Hoist beams are often S-beam. Size varies as stuff comes and goes during jobs and remnants age and go in the scrap dumpster. The funny thing is, up to certain weights the width is still pretty narrow and will work fine as long as your trolley will fit the beam.
Before I went on Xmas break we had a couple W8x18's that were bought cut to length ~18' and rejected for flange damage. I think there is around 12'-13' usable but I'm not sure if that would be good for 3k#'s concentrated load.
The scrap dumpster is paying about $40/ton now as all our scrap is clean remnants and skeletons from the laser table, so my boss may want to get donuts for the office or something for a beam, otherwise would be N/C, let me know if interested. No strings attached or return favors expected, we toss a lot of steel because we don't have much yard space and it's great if a fellow railroader can make use of something. So much of the steel for my build is all scrounged haha.
Glenn Brooks
Posts: 2930
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 1:39 pm
Location: Woodinville, Washington

Re: Woodinville Shops

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Ryan, thanks, I could certainly use the beam, or part of it anyway. I’ve got a 9’ I beam I planned to use for my 9’ beam, but so far, nothing lined up for the 5’ shop beam. (I want to make interchangeable beams and use the one set of uprights with the two beams - just to cut down on duplicate tooling.)

There’s a former donut shop nearby that I could visit on the way up!

Glenn
Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
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