The Home Machinist!

Looking into having patterns printed and bronze castings made in either 3” or 3.75” scale of D&RGW narrow gauge style 16” hand brake wheels, ratchet/pawl and a lower brake stirrup.

Would there be any interest in one of these two scales or in purchasing some extra sets to help offset my costs?

Just throwing it out there and I’m open to suggestions.

I’m thinking the price per set would be in the neighborhood of $60-$75 shipped?

One set would include a bronze casting of each:
hand brake wheel
ratchet & pawl
lower stirrup

You might want to update your post to reflect the diameter of the wheels, these brake castings would fit...

Thanks
Glenn

I want to clarify a couple of things Glenn brought up.

These castings are not for brake arms or brake shoes.

They are for DRGW narrow gauge 16 inch diameter hand brake wheel, ratchet/pawl and lower stirrup. Like were used on DRGW highside gons and flats.

I looking at casting them in either 3” scale
(1/4 scale) or in 3.75” scale. Whichever has the most interest.

3” scale (1/4” scale) 16” brake wheel would be 4” in diameter.

3.75” scale 16” brake wheel would be 5”in diameter.
Correct me if my math is wrong.

The reason for offering a set of castings in one or the other of theses two scales is:

I’m wanting to build a DRGW narrow gauge railroad in 3”scale ( 1/4scale). Similar to the Mesa Grande Western. Difference is, I’d be running a larger 12” gauge track, instead a scale 9”gauge. This due to several factors. Stability and there are two other 12” gauge railroads within a short drive.

Since I plan on running a 12” gauge track, I intend to build the narrow gauge freight cars a scale 10’ wide for more comfortable seating. So I think a larger 3.75” brake wheel would possibly look better than a 1:4” scale wheel.

That’s why I threw out the option of either.

Curt, thanks for clarifying.

Now you really have my attention. Another 12” ga enthusiast is good news any day, in my book!

I might actually be interested in the larger 3.75” scale parts- as the larger 5” handwheel would physically be more functional than a 4” wheel.

BTW, for informational purposes, I just finished building a small, 1880’s style MOW flat car- basically a bit over 32” wide x 8’ long. It’s very stable laterally, for 12” gauge. And it tracks around short radius curves much better than the 12’ long Ottaway passenger cars. So I think you would be quite happy building up to 3” scale in this gauge.

Couple of questions: Do you have motive power already lined up? Or do you plan to build something from scratch?? And how are you doing for 12# rail and overall length of right of way?? Tell us more!

I can guess at your general location based on the narrow distribution of existing 12” ga RR’s, but don’t want to disclose if you rather not.. I can say, until Ryan lays his mainline up in Bellingham, my closest 12” ga track is 900 miles in either direction - then another 2000 miles back to the other side of the Great Plains. So envious, to be sure.

Glenn

No worries Glenn,

One railroad would be the North View & Frisco
The other would be WF&P. It made no sense to build in 9” gauge with those RR close by.

As of now it’s all still in the planning stage and collecting up parts. Unfortunately live steam is out of reach for me ($$$). Everything will be scratch built. Fortunately I’ve got roughly 25yrs in residential construction and wood working. Motive power will be a scratch built GE50 tonner based on the SP#1, but in DRGW paint.
As to date I’ve been fortunate to acquire
40 - 3” scale 8.25” diameter wheels.
Thanks to Ryan, I’ve got the locomotive sideframes and 4 sets of freight car sideframes.
No track as of now. However I do have a solid lead on a few thousand feet of 12lb rail.
Recently acquired all 4 tolomatic gear boxes for the locomotive trucks. Hopefully will be able to start building locomotive this winter when things slow down on the farm.

Curt,

Yep, that’s what I thought. James at the Northview and Frisco has been a superb resource for me. Very knowledgeable guy. He’s here on Chaski a bit also. I’ve wanted to visit him, but it’s a long drive from the left coast. And of course Mike at the WF&P is a superb resource as well.

Also, not sure how far away it is, but you might contact Mike Hawkins at the C&H RR in Northeast Kansas. They have several Ottaway’s and would likely invite you to visit and run there, when you get your loco built.

Good luck, and post a build thread, by all means!

Glenn

I did play with drawing up a brake wheel for these to be laser cut, but it would only be 2D and would lack the 3D look of a casting. Our laser has been running full time for the last 3 months so I haven't had the luxury of running "toy" parts for awhile:)
I'm anxious to see you start your RR build, I'm stuck doing site work for the house now so I haven't been able to give my project much attention.

Ryan, after giving laser cut brake brake wheels some thought, even with the of ease of producing laser cut brake wheels, it’s still hard to beat that traditional casted narrow gauge look.

Glenn,
I will wait to make a build post until I actually get started. I did follow your flat car build and it was very cool seeing it in action, and hearing how well it preformed. After some debate on which scale 3” vs 3.75”, the functionality of width and length of my highside gons and flatcars, I’ve decided to go with all cars being 30” in width and 8.6 overall length. Really trying to stay with scale look as much as possible.
I’m interested in hear how well your truck/car frame bolster works out over time. Still have decided which way to go a more ridged design like yours or a 2 bolt flange bearing like Ryan’s?
Would like to try some bolsters machined like “cbrew” made for his loco build.

I don't blame you there Curt, sometimes you can't beat real castings for such exposed detail parts. If I end up building a steamer one day, I'll laser cut the wheels from plate, hand grind the bevels into the spokes, and then roto-blast them to get that cast look before I lathe the tires and flanges.

Ryan, funny you should mention cutting drivers. Coming up with some 3" scale 9.5" diameter spoked drivers is one of the ideas I'm bouncing around for a 2-6-0 steam outline based on C&S #22. Saw where you and Glenn were discussing cutting drivers and it got me thinking, hmmmm! Problem is I don't have anyway to turn them.

Yes that is the hard part, if I didn't have access to that big lathe I'd have to pay a machine shop to turn the wheels for me.
I think, that if I wanted to have a driver wider than 1", I could laser cut 1" plate centers, finish bore the axle holes, and then shrink fit 8" Sch 80 pipe tires onto the laser cut centers along with a stitch weld on the backside and it wouldn't go anywhere. As long as the little bump is filed smooth where the laser stops cutting, the parts have been coming out round within a few thousandths. At my scale, 1" is equal to 6" though, and I doubt real wheels are 6" wide so I'd be ok just using 1" plate wheels. In 3"-4" scale like Glenn and yourself are modeling, you probably want 1-1/4" to 1-1/2" wide wheels.

I have long term plans of modeling Northern Pacific's 0-6-0 #1090, it's drivers scale to around 8-3/4" in 2" scale.

Just a thought- in Park gauge, really in 7.5” gauge also, the width of the tires probably shouldn’t be made to scale. Foremost, they should be a proper width to mate to the cross section of rail they will be likely be run on, plus wider for the center drivers to stay in contact with the rail head on curves, all the time. Someone recently, maybe NP317, or one of our retired BNSF engineers, was saying he had seen prototype locos that had different width tires on each driver, specifically for traction on curves, and so they wouldn’t fall off the inside rail. Hmmm, thinking about it, actually, scale drivers would probably be different widths, anyway - if they were exact replicas of the real McCoy...

Glenn