12" working railroad
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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.
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.
Re: 12" working railroad
My phone actually takes very good pictures, like 16mp. One of it's few positives. But that's the problem the files are far too large then. My old droid had an option to change the size/quality and I could also hook it up to my computer and DL pics to it. This one doesn't, cell phone company must want to make us pay more for data by having 4.5 meg pictures that I have to send....scam artists I can open them in "paint" at work and resize so they fit. If I'm working through my dumb phone on the weekend though, I can post them to FB and recopy them here. Easy enough.
Not a whole lot gained this weekend, I purchased a 12 volt air compressor, the 150 PSI one from harbor freight, and some brass pipe fittings so I have it all on hand when I start laying out my chassis.
Not a whole lot gained this weekend, I purchased a 12 volt air compressor, the 150 PSI one from harbor freight, and some brass pipe fittings so I have it all on hand when I start laying out my chassis.
Re: 12" working railroad
https://imageshack.us/user/rkcarguy
Imageshack is working again. I have ALOT of pictures in there if you'd like to have a look. This is a paid account, so no pop up ads or anything.
Imageshack is working again. I have ALOT of pictures in there if you'd like to have a look. This is a paid account, so no pop up ads or anything.
Re: 12" working railroad
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MA6M8V7?m= ... etail_page
My thought is, the horse-shoe shaped plates would be welded onto 1x2 steel, sandwiching each side of the truck sides with some .006" shim stock clamped between. I'd install a grease fitting and grind some grease grooves so that this sliding area was well lubricated.
The hole where the springs and 1x2 would pass through, is .030" over width, which combined with the radius corners on either a rectangle tube or hot roll bar, will allow the truck to pivot some front to back.
Not shown, I'm assuming I'll need some kind of grooved spring perch that will support the bottom of the springs. Easy enough.
These would be 3/8" plate I'm looking to have laser cut. Thoughts? Critics?
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- Location: Laguna Niguel CA
Re: 12" working railroad
I'll share my first experience with laser-cut 1/2" steel parts. The parts were nice and very reasonable, but they started the cut on the part outline, which blew a big divot out on each piece. I'll probably fill them with "Bondo" or such.
If I had known that, I would have paid more to have them start the cut off the part about a 1/4" or so, then sweep it into the part profile. The sweep could have then been cut away (I think) at the very end of the part cut.
I am not sure how to model that, but I would think it might be a programming option.
Just to be careful, I had them cut lefts and rights, although they told me the kerf would not be tapered more than a few thousandths.
Kimball
If I had known that, I would have paid more to have them start the cut off the part about a 1/4" or so, then sweep it into the part profile. The sweep could have then been cut away (I think) at the very end of the part cut.
I am not sure how to model that, but I would think it might be a programming option.
Just to be careful, I had them cut lefts and rights, although they told me the kerf would not be tapered more than a few thousandths.
Kimball
Re: 12" working railroad
I've been playing with the shape a lot, getting some better looking results now.
As for right and left sides, no reason to do that with laser as long as your parts are symmetrical, as camber is next to nothing.
Re: 12" working railroad
I'll have the "arrowhead" portion of the frog laser cut from plate, the rest will be groovy track style flat bars, and flat bars welded to plate for the sliding point rails.
I've decided I'm going to have a plate jig laser cut such that I can screw it down to an assembly of ties and router around it to give me all the grooves for my rails. Using plate will allow me to flip it over for RH or LH turnouts and router cutting all the rail grooves at once will allow me to rapidly produce turnouts.
The turnout ends very shortly after the frog, I did this to keep the overall length at 10' for material and handling purposes. I will make a special piece of track to attach to the diverging route that has the proper length straight portion then a curve to bring the line back parallel with the main line.
Re: 12" working railroad
I made a good score during lunch today, I dropped into the local metal vendor near work, and they had a chunk of this very fine expanded metal mesh in aluminum that was all bent up from shipping. I want to say it's .035" thick and has 5/16" long expanded metal "diamonds" in it, it's the smallest expanded metal made and it's perfect for the grille on the S12. They sheared a usable chunk from it and sold it to me for $10:)
I also calculated the "spread" on my hood lump, and then 1/8" at a time, broke a nice radius on either end the piece that will make the headlight "lump" on the hood of the S12. I've got a little trimming to do, and then I can finally put that together this weekend and have the hardest part of the body behind me.
I also calculated the "spread" on my hood lump, and then 1/8" at a time, broke a nice radius on either end the piece that will make the headlight "lump" on the hood of the S12. I've got a little trimming to do, and then I can finally put that together this weekend and have the hardest part of the body behind me.
Re: 12" working railroad
Looking forward to seeing photos of your progress.
Thanks for sharing.
~RN
Thanks for sharing.
~RN
Re: 12" working railroad
Next I've got to cut, notch, and taper the back of the headlight assembly to fit....
Re: 12" working railroad
I was looking at the S12 pictures SMS sent me. The pieces of the locomotive body over the engine are actually a formed L-shape plate that starts at the top of the access doors, and wrap around on to the top of the hood, attached over the other plate work. This is a bonus, because these contain 95% of the louvers. If I can figure out a way to cut/form so many louvers these could then be formed and riveted over the current body.
Re: 12" working railroad
Did an AAR truck drawing last night for my locomotive.