Woodinville Shops

[Glenn Brooks]

Quick followup to the plastic workholding problem from yesterday.

I decided to try to clean up my two plastic thrust washer disks today. So bolted then up on a threaded arbor on the lathe and turned the ends down to .300” thickness - just shy of 5/16”. However, The nut in the center left a noticeable ridge.

So , I tried gripping them in medium grit sandpaper in the vise, and machined the center bump flat.

This seemed to provide enough friction to hold them well enuf to take the cut. Might be good enuf to do more extensive Milling with this stuff.

Glenn

[Glenn Brooks]

Today, Welded up the final bits of the frame, and added the car bolsters and main bearings. The bearings will actually be bolted to the bolsters- prototypical style.

6011 is getting old to work with. There’s always a lot of cleanup with stick (welding). A nice little mig machine would be so much cleaner and easier to work with...! But oh well. Old School rules!

Also, got to use my gantry crane to flip the frame over to finish welding up the top of the joints. Certainly easier than man handling these things- particularly when they are nearly finished and weigh twice what the initial frame weighs...

Great fun!

Glenn

[rkcarguy]

You're making some good progress Glenn.
I haven't really found a cheap option for a MIG welder you typically get what you pay for. I got lucky and grabbed a Miller-matic 250 from a fence and gate shop that closed in the "great recession" for $800 with a large tank, tub of tip dip, and all the extra tips and parts.

My dad only has a stick welder and a torch, and he's gotten pretty good using stick to tack stuff together and then brazes everything with the torch.

[Glenn Brooks]

Yep, decent size Mig’s are always in demand. They show up on CL in Seattle once in awhile, at a good price. Iam generally happy with my Lincoln Tombstone, yet it is always a PITA to clean up the welds- particularly on inside corners on these small hobby frames - often no room to get a grinder inside the small angles and parallel parts.

I have a small HF sand blaster kit I’ve never used. Think I will set it up and try out on this frame. Might be a solution. Also need to clean up my gantry crane and get a coat of paint on it. Might be a good experiment to do both at the same time.

[rkcarguy]

The only thing I can think of is to try some anti-spatter spray? Might keep the "berries" from sticking to the steel around the weld and ease cleanup.

[Harold_V]

You might consider exploring 7014. Much easier to clean up than 6011.

H

[Glenn Brooks]

Thanks Harold. I’ll go look into this. I’ve used to use 7014 as a covering pass years ago, but gave it up eventually, as it’s not recommended for dirty surfaces - aka junk yard steel I often source. although I usually clean up the weld area to shinny bright - ALMOST every time.

Glenn

[Glenn Brooks]

Finished up the bits and pieces for the running gear.

First, welded up the parts for 2 sets of draft gear to hold the couplers.

Then, welded and drilled the mounting plates for the main bearings. Then fit to the trucks.

Actually, made a quick change to the top bolster plate, after trying them out on the trucks.

I noticed the top plate was to long, and slightly interfered with the secondary support bearings when the trucks swiveled on the frame. So shortened and rounded the plate to accommodate the swing of the trucks.

Still going with the idea of bolting the bearings to the bolsters and trucks, as this was the prototype method. When they wore out, the early day RR maintenance departments could easily replace the parts. ( plus no welding process was available in 1885). Could easily weld them into place, but I want to run the car a bit to make sure the design works properly. If something goes amiss, it will be easy enuf to drop the bearing assemblies and installed a revised assembly. Don’t think it will be necessary, but it’s easy to be surprised.

Next step is to strip down the trucks, service the roller bearings and give them a coat of paint and grease. Oh yes, also need to fab up and fit new secondary bearing plates to the outer ends of the trucks- to support the outer edges of the cAr body. The old friction plates are to short for the new pivot point. Maybe tomorrow, although the GM has commented several times now that I really need to concentrate on getting the deck railing rebuilt at the back of the house, and finish up landscaping “that pile of dirt” that The extra gang so carefully installed and sculptured in the backyard, along the edge of the ROW.

It seems my priorities may be changing for the next few days.

Glenn

[rkcarguy]

Looking good Glenn. Will that setup have any forward/back swivel, or will the bearings simply be flat and limit the swivel of the truck to where it can only be flat in relation to the frame?

[Glenn Brooks]

Ryan, this design should swivel well, with almost no front to back rocking motion in the bearing. My first prototype had maybe 20 thou clearance in the bearing, so was plenty “loose” all around. But a retired railroader in the club convinced me to make the bearing tighter, e.g. a slip fit, al la prototypical main line freight car practice. My existing trucks are well sprung, riding on 4 springs sets (2 inners and 2 outers on each side), having between 1” to 1.5” available compression. So any 3 dimensional movement will be (should be) accommodated by the well sprung trucks - hopefully.

Note- my working theory is that the 1.5” scale cars usually have a lot of movement built into the pivot point - usually just a bolt dropped down through holes in the bolsters... and extra slop allowed in the secondary bearings - because the small size truck design often doesn’t allow for sufficient spring compression and car body movement over uneven small gauge track. Hence all the extra clearance built into the pivot points. I am hoping to avoid all of that.

(I do plan on a slight gap in the secondary bearings, as was normal practice.)

Glenn

[rkcarguy]

I really like BDD's design, where he uses ball bearings ( you could use bushings too) in the place of those slide bearings to allow the truck to pivot front to back independent of the springs in the truck. For our rolling stock which may see heavier capacities and have stiffer springs to suit, it may really be needed. As a bonus, the load is only transferred an inch or two inward, and it puts a lot less weight on the center of the bolster which really only becomes a pivot point and the only load it sees is under braking.
I know your RR is pretty flat, so it probably won't be an issue. Mine on the other case, is going to be like SP management said when interviewed after the El Cajon pass runaway " a 3% grade to a train is like dropping it off a cliff"

[Glenn Brooks]

Eye candy...

A small diversion from working in the shop.

My boy entered the greenwood car show today in Seattle with his ‘71 MGB coup. So I went along to help out. Saw this walking the ave. Would make a nice train hauler....