Passenger Truck Question

[Chuck Doan]

Oh man, that is some nice work Eric!

[Ray Dunakin]

It looks freaking awesome to me!

[finescalerr]

You actually found something to nitpick on that assembly? Get real! It is absolutely adequate. -- Russ

[lab-dad]

Great information here, thanks for taking the time to document it for us.
I know it eats into "production time".
The trucks are really looking great, cant wait to see each update!
-Marty

[Bill Gill]

I had been watching quietly because this is so far beyond me, but your project and documentation of it is superb!

[EZnKY]

Thanks guys - I hope its useful.  The thing I enjoy the most about this forum is sharing our methods.  (Like Volker's chairs.)  That, plus everyone's willingness to nit pick.

[lab-dad]

Eric,
Who makes the wheels you showed on the first page that were not prototypical for your use?

-Marty

[EZnKY]

Marty,
They're made by TrueScale and are available from thetraindepartment.com.

[EZnKY]

Guys, I've realized I've screwed up.
I started working on the equalizing assembly tonight and had planned on reusing the cast journal boxes from Hartford.  They've got decent detail, and the profile is a good match for the Ohio Falls trucks.  But I didn't think about the fact they have ribs on each side that need to fit around the pedestals.  My new pedestals are wider than those from the kit because of the flitch plates on either side of the main beams, and from the new brass overlays I made. 

The obvious solution is to keep the rib towards the outside where it is, and relocate the back rib.  But I have no idea how I'm going to do this since the back rib is so close to the back end of the journal box.  Gonna have to think about this a bit...

[EZnKY]

I found a workable solution, and it didn't even take that long to fix once I tried it.  I thought about cutting a saw kerf in the casting and glueing a brass strip in the slot to form the back rib, but I was concerned about my ability to maintain the accuracy needed for the journals to move freely in the pedestals.  But the easiest thing to do was to file off the rear rib, mark the width I needed between the ribs on the casting, and then remove the back of the casting up to that line.  (I used a disc sander to do it.) 

I then rough cut a new rear plate for the casting that was wide enough to form the new rib on both sides using some sheet brass. 

[EZnKY]

I glued the brass plate on the back, lining up the hole in the brass with the hole in the casting, and then filed the brass down to form the ribs and align with the top and bottom of the casting.  It's not very prototypical, but it will be hard to see on the finished trucks, and some paint and weathering should blend it all together.  Hopefully.

[Chuck Doan]

That end of the journal box would likely have a nice buildup of oily glop. I have been getting some nice results with brown/black oil paint mixed with super fine dirt.

[Hydrostat]

Eric,

that are some very nice etching results. I envy you a bit for your experiments with that technique. One question about mounting: Why don't you solder the metal pieces instead of using CA? Please forgive my question if soldering is beyond your abilities, but maybe there's another reason for it.

Volker

[EZnKY]

Sorry I've been missing in action for a couple of days.  It's been crazy at work.
Thanks for the tip Chuck.  I tried creating this effect on the trucks for the reefer I built a couple of years ago, but wasn't happy with the results.  We'll see if I can do better on these trucks.

Volker, 
Very good question, and no worries about questioning my abilities!     I do it all the time!  I'm fairly adept with my Radio Shack pencil iron, but I haven't taken the plunge with a resistance unit.  I assume you're asking about the pedestals, and the answer is I've had mixed results soldering brass to white metal.  Since my success rate is something less than 100%, I didn't want to risk ruining one of the white metal pedestals.  I thought about it for the wheel sets as well, but I'd have to use a torch to get the steel hot enough, and I was worried about melting the Delrin insulators. 

Improving my soldering skills is high on the priority list.  You'll get to see the present state of my soldering abilities very soon.  For good or for bad.

[EZnKY]

I was able to work on the trucks a bit over the weekend.  My next task is the equalizing gear and getting the journals installed.  The biggest challenge on the equalizers is the truck wheelbase of 4'-6".  The cast equalizing beams from Hartford are sized for a 5'-0" wheelbase, so using them as-is doesn't work.  My original plan was to mill new beams from brass.  I've got a manual knee mill - an Index model 40 from WW2 - plus a little bit of tooling like a rotary table.  I'm capable of milling the inside curves and the straight runs, but I just couldn't come up with a way to mill the outside curves without tremendous effort.  In the end I decided to modify the cast parts.

If you look at the attached photo, you can see that the curve at the bottom of the equalizer beams is quite close to the journals, and that the beams taper slightly as they angle up towards the top of the journal.  The springs are a tight fit between the journals and the transoms, and there are round brace rods around the equalizer beams.