Wooden ore cars

[Chuck Doan]

I have heard of test that show issues, but I can't say that my models have shown any significant effect after several years. My Red Oak Garage still looks fine after 10 years, but it doesn't see much fluorescent light.

[finescalerr]

A friend and former member of this forum (who has passed away) had used SilverWood extensively on two or three models. He kept them under fluorescent lights for a few hours a day and after about a year the color had disappeared from the wood. I recall inspecting them carefully and he told me SilverWood doesn't stand up to fluorescent light. Yes, it is true. No, I am not making a joke.

Apparently sunlight and incandescent light do not affect SilverWood in the same way.

Russ

[Hauk]

Yes, it is true. No, I am not making a joke.

I did not mean to question your claim, Russ!  I trust your sanity. At least most of the time...

[Hauk]

Those that have followed this thread during the all of its thirteen pages might remember that I struggled a bit with the drilling of the castings.

In fact, I struggled so much that I stopped short of finishing the job. When I started to make the connections between the castings and the rest of the hardware I discovered that I still had quite a few holes to drill.

My heart sunk when I discovered this, and the mood did not improve after breaking the first three drillbits. But suddenly I had a minor flash of insight. Maybe using a piece of brass as a holder for the casting during drilling was not such a great idea after all.

This is how I set up the work last time:



While it keeps the workpiece quite firmly in place, you can not feel when the drill has bored through the casting and into the holder plate. And if you try to bore all the way trough casting/plate/casting I can almost guarantee you that the drill will break. This means not only wasting a drillbit, but also a quite annoying job with a dremel to free the casting from the plate.

To succeed with this rather delicate drilling job you have to drill two holes, one from each side of the fork in the casting. Replacing the brass plate with a piece of stripwood gives an immediate feedback when the drill breaks through the brass.

This is the new setup:



The success rate increased immensely using this setup. Part of the reason is probable that the wood also acts like a cushion, helping to avoid putting too much pressure on the drill bit. You build, you learn!

[finescalerr]

Those straps are just gorgeous. Glad you found a solution to your problem. -- Russ

[lab-dad]

I know it's too late but I use wood all the time as fixtures, holders, spacers etc,.
Styrene too.
-Marty

[marc_reusser]

Beautiful and delicate work all around. The T&G boards were definitely worth it. that end detail makes all the difference. the straps are lovely as well.
I found the breaking of the bits is and issue with these types f drill bits.....especially the thin ones when doing hand drilling, or when like you drilling into brass, where the slightest bit of seizing/catch in the metal will snap the bit. I found that slightly sticking the bit in some bee's wax before drilling helps cut the loss rate a bit. ...though you need to remember to clean the part well afterward so you don't have residue when going to paint.

[Lawton Maner]

Do you use any form of lubricant when drilling these holes? 

I find that using Bur Life from Rio Grande Jewelery Supply greatly lengthens bit life.  It comes as a liquid, a waxy compound very much like a Chapstick (which btw makes a good lubricant on the metal lathe) and a solid much like a bar of soap (which also extends the life of jeweler's saw blades immensely).  I use both the liquid and the solid when boring holes in brass all the time.  Also using a different set of bits for plastics seems to make the ones for metal last longer.

[Bill Gill]

The staps look terrific, glad the drilling is going better too.

[Tom Neeson]

Hi Hauk

When I worked in a metal shop we would use bacon grease as a lubricant for drilling & tapping.

Worked really well...

Tom

[Lawton Maner]

Tallow (beef fat) works as well as bacon fat, and both drive the cat crazy.

[Hauk]

Thanks for the all the advice regarding lubricants for drilling, even if not all of them were exactly kosher!

[finescalerr]

Oh, if you want a kosher lubricant, try CHICKENFAT! -- Russ

[Design-HSB]

Hauk hello,

I work with these drills in my CNC machine, where it can easily make hundreds of holes with a drill. If I stretch the same drill into the box column drill, I create only a few holes. In the CNC machine I'm working with 12,000 to 15,000 revolutions per minute, which unfortunately never reached the pillar drill. With the Dremel drill drill that goes much better, because yes reached up to 30,000 revolutions per minute. Drilling oil or any other fat I do not use these very fine drills for example, 0.3 mm, since a very high speed is much more important.

Another cause may however also be in the cast material. When the metal is soft and chewy load it also pierce only with the greatest difficulty. MS 58 and nickel silver are hard and can therefore be better drilling. Brass casting is almost always made of MS 63 and the load to drill very poorly.

Continued success in your great work.

[Hauk]

Time flies, and progress on the wagons have been rather slow. But I have finally made the brake shoes for the first wagon. My first idea was to make the brake shoes entirely from etched parts, and there is a picture of this design a couple of pages back. But then I realized it would be a perfect design for a wagon that eventually will lead to short circuits.

So I decided that the actual brake shoe should be machined from an insulation material, and the hanger made from a etched part. I got myself a lathe dusted off, and I turned  a ring with a slot for the etched part.

Here is a little photo-essay on the process: