LBSC Virginia plans

[backyardrails]

Thank You
I've always liked 4-4-0's. Good luck with the project.
Bernie

[Wayne Davis]

Very nice looking engine Is this in 1" scale? If so what size are the dirvers and were did you get them from? I like the square end conter weights.

Wayne Davis

[backyardrails]

Wayne
Yes, it is 1" scale. I got it in April. It's stored for now, but I can get you the dimension of the wheels next week.
Bernie

[Steve Bratina]

Nice engine Bernie but I like your other hat better!

[backyardrails]

You mean this one?
Bernie

[Steve Bratina]

That's the one! Makes me start to hum Stompin' Tom tunes.

[Andy R]

With Sunday's successful running of my chassis on air without the eccentrics slipping or other maladjustments, I'd like to relay some things about LBSC's design.

The only elevation of the loco is on pages 2 and 3 of his book (same as the full-size drawings) and it shows Rods DOWN. If drawn with Rods UP it might have shown the interference between the main rod and the rocking shaft. A Plan View of the Stevenson Motion would have also revealed the interference. Lots of cats have built the loco and solved the interference without reporting it. I made a new rocking shaft lever (original shown on page 44) inset 1/8 inch from the design and added a 1/8-in. "pip" at the valve shaft link to accommodate.

LBSC shows one set screw to hold rocking shafts. It will be easiest to place these at 90-degrees apart before fabrication instead of modifying stuff after making them per plans like I did. I ended up using two on the rocking shaft and two hardened cone-point set screws seems to work well. Those obtained from McMaster-Carr are a lot better quality that found at the hardware store.

I had already pressed on the eccentrics when I discovered that the orientation of the eccentric makes valve adjustment an item worthy of expanding one's vocabulary. A better design (at least I think so) would have included shoulders on the eccentrics for mounting set screws at 90-degrees apart. That also would have aided the manual rotation of the assembled eccentric straps when adjusting the valve gear. There is very little space to reach my 1:1 hands between the frames with 5 eccentric strap assemblies - 4 of which needed adjustments.

I can't report on the suggested dimensional revision that "Baggo" reported in the third page of this string of messages - I had already made my parts. I have too many locomotive projects on-going. That's why I've just now been able to report on a successful "dry run".

Now mounting the boiler - will report more later.

Andy

[Andy R]

Rereading it - I didn't press on the eccentrics, I pressed on the drivers thus capturing the eccentrics - a big difference!

[SteveM]

Can you show some pictures of the issues and modifications?

Steve

[dnevil]

Don Althouse modeled this locomotive in SolidWorks. During the process he found and fixed several mistakes in LBSC's plans. You may want to take a look at this extensive article and associated documents that Don put together over a two year period.

http://ibls.org/mediawiki/index.php?tit ... s_Virginia

Enjoy,
Daris

[baggo]

Out of interest, at home I've got LBSC's original pencil drawings for Virginia as well as a few more. Not sure if there is the full set as I haven't checked them yet.

I really must get around to getting all these originals scanned so that they don't disappear for ever

John

[Andy R]

I placed a sheet of paper below the linkage to improve the picture.
You can see the new offset and the two setscrews. I left the shaft the original length because it clears the main rod.