Wooden ore cars

[Marc988]

Great work as always.

Looking forward to the working brake crank 


PS: you've got a pm

[Hauk]

Great work as always.

Looking forward to the working brake crank  


PS: you've got a pm

Sorry for not responding earlier!
You asked about my source for rivets, and as maybe others might be interested, I post the answer to that here as well; I get my rivets from Hassler profile in Lichtenstein.

He has a very good selection of brass and nice silver profile, strips and rods as well.

Good quality, great service.

And here is an image of the crank fitted to the car:



It works, but I am a bit unsure of the geometry of the bottom L-shaped crank that transfers the movement from the vertical to the horisontal plane. I think  have to redesign this one.

[finescalerr]

Something is wrong? Could have fooled me! -- Russ

[Hydrostat]

Hauk,

do you have any drawings of the prototype's brake system or pictures showing the assemblage?
I'm asking because my following thoughts are completely assumption based. For my opinion this wouldn't work at all. I'd rather expect a shorter brake rod with the thread sitting in front of the beam in an additional bearing beneath. Usually from the spindle nut two articulated bars run to the L-shaped crank. Even if they had an assemblage like you showed a second bearing at the beam would be lacking to prevent stiffness and the L-shaped crank needed to have an elongated hole to provide room to move along the vertical fixed spindle nut. If no elongated hole the upper hole of the short length of the L at least would not be sitting in a fixed bearing but mounted in articulated bars to provide the necessary norizontal movement.

So far about assumptions, conjecture, supposition, hunch, guess, presumption, suspicion, impression, surmise, expectation and speculation.

Volker

[finescalerr]

Volker, stop showing off your obviously comprehensive knowledge of freight car engineering and English vocabulary. Even with a thesaurus I could never amass such a string of synonyms and, as everybody knows, the only thing I can recognize beneath a freight car is the brake cylinder. Go stand in the corner. -- ssuR

[Hauk]

Hauk,

do you have any drawings of the prototype's brake system or pictures showing the assemblage?
I'm asking because my following thoughts are completely assumption based. For my opinion this wouldn't work at all. I'd rather expect a shorter brake rod with the thread sitting in front of the beam in an additional bearing beneath. Usually from the spindle nut two articulated bars run to the L-shaped crank. Even if they had an assemblage like you showed a second bearing at the beam would be lacking to prevent stiffness and the L-shaped crank needed to have an elongated hole to provide room to move along the vertical fixed spindle nut. If no elongated hole the upper hole of the short length of the L at least would not be sitting in a fixed bearing but mounted in articulated bars to provide the necessary norizontal movement.

So far about assumptions, conjecture, supposition, hunch, guess, presumption, suspicion, impression, surmise, expectation and speculation.

Volker

Here is a prototype picture showing the L-shaped link that causes my concerns:



As you perhaps can see, the bell crank resembles an inverted L. The axis of rotation for the bellcrank is at the top of the short leg, *not* the corner of the L.

When the brake crank is turned to apply the brakes, the long leg of the L moves upward. The corner of the L moves towards the threaded, vertical rod. To me, it seems obvious that this will push the vertical threaded rod outwards (to the right in the picrture above. Maybe this is exactly what happens, but for some reason I find this a bit unesthetical.  And I have never seen a picture of a wagon with this rod in anything but a perfect vertical position.

Not that it really matters.... I am giving up the trains and converting all my railroad equipment to highway vehicles:

[Hydrostat]

Here is a prototype picture showing the L-shaped link that causes my concerns:



As you perhaps can see, the bell crank resembles an inverted L. The axis of rotation for the bellcrank is at the top of the short leg, *not* the corner of the L.

When the brake crank is turned to apply the brakes, the long leg of the L moves upward. The corner of the L moves towards the threaded, vertical rod. To me, it seems obvious that this will push the vertical threaded rod outwards (to the right in the picrture above. Maybe this is exactly what happens, but for some reason I find this a bit unesthetical.  And I have never seen a picture of a wagon with this rod in anything but a perfect vertical position.

Thanks a lot Hauk. Considering your outstanding modeling I was quite sure you would not have contrived anything. Your picture and your words explain much better, what I tried to say intricately. The radial movement of the L's long leg MUST move the threaded rod outward. Now there's the question which solution they found to provide the necessary free scope. If there's only that one bearing at the upper end of the rod it can't be a usual plain bearing because this would cause the rod to get stuck if it tries to move outwards. Do you have a photo of that bearing? Maybe theres a ball joint inside? I mean: The rod may have a fixed ball in the bearing area and the (divided?!) bearing itself has cups inside. This would give the necessary free scope and at the same time prevent the rod from moving upwards when you unlock the brake or downwards when applying it.

However, this is a very interesting technical solution.

As your solid rubber tire solution is.

Volker, from the corner (Hi Nick!).

[Hauk]

Grab irons were this weekends challenge. They are formed from straight 0,5mm nickel silver rod. I bend them using pliers and bench vise. The flat ends where the holes for the rivets are drilled are flattened using an arbor press.

This is what they look like before drilling the rivet holes:
 




It is very seldom that a task turns out to be less hassle than I think, but drilling the holes in the grab irons was one of them.

I thought that i would have to mill a fancy jig with lots of recesses and stuff, and solder the irons in place for the drilling, first with a 0,25mm centre drill, then with  a 0,4mm regular drill.

I did need a jig, but it was no more than a 8 mm long and  0,6mm wide slot in a piece of brass. No soldering was necessary, i just covered the iron with a small piece of wood, and drilled right through it using the 0,4mm drill only. Easier done than written, I really should have some pictures of the process. I used the CNC router both for making the slot and doing the drilling.



But at least I have a picture of two grab irons test-fitted to the end beam. They are not soldered, so they sag a bit. When they are properly soldered, I dare say they are going to look as good as I hoped!

[Chuck Doan]

Very impressive!

[michael mott]

Very nice work indeed.

Mike

[Ray Dunakin]

Very impressive!

Ditto that!

[1-32]

lovely lovely fabrication pitty to paint it

[finescalerr]

Wow. -- Russ

[Hauk]

lovely lovely fabrication pitty to paint it

All the metal parts will be chemically blackened, so at least there is no paint film to worry about.

[Bill Gill]

Very nice to look at.