C-30 wood caboose

[Rwilliams]

A black surface is never a good place to do an accurate layout. I needed to locate points for four guy wire hold down brackets to make the stove pipe appear to be secure. A piece of heavy paper of about 25 or 30 pound bond weight seemed like a good material to work with. A layout of the hole in relation to the cupola and roof edge was drawn. The points in relation to the hole were then added before carefully cutting out the hole to check the layout with the stove pipe assembly in place. After the location check the stove pipe was removed and the 4 points located with a center punch. A small drill in the Dremel tool took care of the drilling operation and the #2 hex head lag bolts were threaded in place. Sorry, no brackets just yet, I need to bend them to the correct angle. Now I know for sure that the roof walk on the front face of the cupola will clear the guy wires and brackets. The blue material is painters tape holding the paper template in place.

[Rwilliams]

The stove pipe weather hood is now silver soldered in place and a check of the guy wires was in order before final cleaning and painting.

Based on much photographic research the flange and insulation sleeve was made of cast iron and the tall pipe and hood from sheet metal. The lower end will be done in a cast iron look paint and the upper portion will be done in silver which should set it apart from the black of the roof quite well. Always nice to apply some paint to a part and achieve a more finished look.

[hpesoj1950]

I belong to the C&O Hist. Soc. they've been a tremendous help in all my building projects

[Dick_Morris]

Beautiful, as always.

[Rwilliams]

This stove pipe assembly is full of little details not seen by most which are important to the final presentation of the effort. Before the weather hood was silver soldered in place forever, I used the fine point Sharpie pen to layout 4 slots to hold the top ends of the guy wires. The hood had to be there to insure I had room for the .032 guy wires once the hood was soldered in position. With the hood again removed, the 4 slots were cut with the Dremel tool cutoff blade and then cleaned up with needle files and 400 grit abrasives. With the slots completed and checked for proper fit of the .032 wire, the weather hood was a done deal.

The self etching metal primer went great yesterday in the 100 degree heat. Today will see the silver on the top with more high temperatures.

Thank you Dick for the nice comments.

Robert

[makinsmoke]

Nice work Robert.

On the Santa Fe's cars, the entire assembly was cast pieces. Even the base.

Brian

[Rwilliams]

Silver paint at last. Sure is nice to see a more finished looking part. Today will see masking tape and the bottom end coated with the cast iron look paint.

Brian, That ATSF caboose sure has a heavy duty stove pipe assembly. Perhaps it was made to withstand gale force, tornado, or hurricane force winds. Most museums today are very fearful of patrons climbing on the equipment and to be on the roof to get such a photo is a rare event. Most cabooses have the ladders removed to prevent such activities. You must have been in the right place at the right time to get such a photo.

Robert

[Rwilliams]

This will be the final images of the stove pipe assembly showing some of the details not seen earlier. Note the angle of the photo shows the guy wire in the tiny slot at the top of the stove pipe which will allow for easy replacement if unforeseen damage should strike. We also may note the slightly darker graphite color on the flange casting which I had hoped would be darker in relation to the silver paint on the upper portion of the assembly.

The O-80 studs have been installed along with some tiny square nuts. The flange casting is cored for the 0-80 holes ready to be cleared with a drill and followed with a 0-80 bottoming tap. The square nuts were found in the many detail parts which Howard Gorin of the Machinery Works has to offer. I had started to use hex nuts but when the square nuts were discovered, it was time for detail improvement.

The flange casting is stepped on the bottom side so machine work to clean it up is minimal at best. The custom casting is available from Brad Bluth of Model Rail Castings. It may not be listed in his website just yet but he does have it. Quite often suppliers have things not yet updated to their website. Note how Brad placed the sprue on the bottom side of the casting so it would clean up nicely and never show on the top where the efforts of cleaning could be visible later.

The entire stove pipe assembly is different from the drawings provided by Keith Jackman for construction of the C-30 caboose. Keith is great to work with and has a website where many images of the caboose he measured are posted. He also has many construction photos of his pilot model caboose under construction for your viewing pleasure. They can be seen at his website, keithjackman.com for those interested in a slightly different approach to building the caboose model.

I have been giving thought to the interior lighting for night operation. Any thoughts or past experience in this area of model building will be appreciated. It seems to be a much neglected arena of our scale and one that needs to be addressed. Too many times we focus on the motive power and the other end of the train is given a secondary effort.

Robert

[makinsmoke]

It's okay Robert,
I'm with the band....

September 2011, Chanute, Kansas

June 2012, Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Nice work on the stove pipe, as with the rest of the car. The attention to detail is what counts.
Brian

[Dick_Morris]

OK, I know why we use cages around our plants here, but do they have moose in Kansas as well?

[makinsmoke]

White tail deer like that stuff too, Dick!

[crackerjackhoghead]

Around here the crackheads would consider the fence as a bonus when they scrap the caboose.