Contractors Loco Project

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by Lonsdaler » Mon Jan 10, 2022 12:27 pm

Hi Philip,
A fascinating build and some excellent research on a difficult to track project. The origin of the steam engine fascinated me and drew me down a veritable rabbit hole :lol:
I have found many excellent pictures of various launches, but none with the arrangement of a horizontal firebox/boiler. However, one in particular yielded some excellent detail photographs of the various elements of the drive train. I've pasted a link below; whilst it is a vertical boiler, the rest of the components should offer inspiration for any further detailing you choose to do. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished product! :thumbup:
https://www.stationroadsteam.com/steam- ... screen/11/
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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by philipy » Mon Jan 10, 2022 1:27 pm

Thanks Phil. I have investigated that particular rabbit hole myself! I looked at the StationRoad Steam site as well. TBH, I'm not aiming to get that detailed, as long as it looks something like, that will be good enough for this one. It's only a bit of fun and I'd guess won't really get much of a run.
Philip

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by Lonsdaler » Mon Jan 10, 2022 4:19 pm

Fair enough if you've already been there :lol: But just imagine the detail that could go into the same subject at 5" or even 7 1/4"😱
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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by GTB » Tue Jan 11, 2022 9:39 am

philipy wrote: Mon Jan 10, 2022 1:27 pm I have investigated that particular rabbit hole myself!
I finally found the entrance to the rabbit hole I was looking for............

http://www.consuta.org.uk/workshop/Technical.html

At 50', with a 100hp steam plant and a water speed of +20 knots, the preserved Consuta is a bit bigger than the machinery in the little loco, but it shows the sort of thing I was suggesting.

This is not a putt-putt work boat like the African Queen with a vertical boiler and a single cylinder engine. More an expensive toy for the late Victorian chinless classes to hoon around in on the river.

The printed engine looks about right to me for what it needs to do. Unless we keep our inner finescale modeller on a short leash we never finish anything. 8)

Graeme

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by philipy » Tue Jan 11, 2022 10:51 am

Thanks once more Graeme.
Yes that does look generally similar to what I've printed. The backhead also looks very similar to the loco, which is reassuring. I've been trying to draw the pipework ( a representation again) based on the photo. It's drawn, stl'd, and sliced, but awaiting printer time later on today hopefully, to see if it works. However the slicer kept objecting to the fineness of what I was wanting to print, so I don't have a lot of optimism. :lol:
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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by GTB » Wed Jan 12, 2022 2:46 am

philipy wrote: Tue Jan 11, 2022 10:51 am However the slicer kept objecting to the fineness of what I was wanting to print, so I don't have a lot of optimism. :lol:
There are reasons why I use soft copper wire for pipework, not all of them because of my allergy to CAD software.......

If all else fails, print out a bending jig for shaping the basic pipework parts and print separate fittings like flanges and valves to thread on the wire.

Graeme

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by philipy » Wed Jan 12, 2022 5:57 am

Yes, I was planning something on those lines. Printing the whole thing was always going to be optimistic, but worth a shot. :D
Philip

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by philipy » Thu Jan 13, 2022 7:36 am

I've been playing, with somewhat amazing results.

In the last year or two there have been a number of fairly well publicised 'colourisings' of black and white films and photo's. You may or may not know that there is a Family History/Genealogy site called My Heritage and one of the tools that they offer is a colourising service for old family photo's.
Now I've been musing about what colour to paint 'the beast' when I get that far and it suddenly dawned on me that the crew in the photo might be ancestors of mine who need a bit of colour in their lives and if they did, their chariot might get accidentally coloured at the same time!! :lol:
There is also a 'sharpening' option which I applied as well.

So this is the result. I have to say that I'm mightily impressed at the entirely plausible result, just starting from the standard big picture that Rik posted originally.
jpeg2.jpeg
jpeg2.jpeg (228.4 KiB) Viewed 2149 times
I don't have a clue how the algorithms work, but the faces look entirely plausible and so does the vegetation, so I'm assuming that other colours are reasonably close to reality ( although the front guy's trouser leg changes colour from blue on one side of the post to a greenish grey shade on the other!). If that's correct then the basic colour of the loco would seem to be black.
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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by Andrew » Thu Jan 13, 2022 8:23 am

Wow, that's incredible! It really brings it to life - it's sometimes easy (well, for me, anyway...) to forget that the relatively distant past did actually happen in colour!

I was wondering what colour you'd paint it - I'd thought black looked most likely...

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by ge_rik » Thu Jan 13, 2022 8:58 am

That really is impressive. I hadn't realised there was a tool that did colourising automatically. I thought that the loco was standing beside a road, I hadn't noticed it was a water course. Given they're building a reservoir, a water course makes a lot more sense.

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by philipy » Thu Jan 13, 2022 10:46 am

The thing I noticed was that the SV dome over the dome appears to be shiny steel and not brass as I might have expected - although I did wonder how they'd keep brass polished in the environment it's working in.
Interestingly, blowing the picture up to 500%, brings out colour subtleties even more and you can see that on the backhead the pipes have a coppery sheen and the fittings look to be brass, all of which you might expect as well, of course.
Philip

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by Trevor Thompson » Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:15 am

I think that the clothes look entirely plausible as well. Blue Cotton work clothes were the norm and they faded rapidly with washing. So the various shades of blue with dirt layered on top seem correct to me. As does the hint of more colour in the drivers neck cloth. Really amazing colourisation !

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by ge_rik » Thu Jan 13, 2022 12:31 pm

philipy wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 10:46 am ...blowing the picture up to 500%, brings out colour subtleties even more and you can see that on the backhead the pipes have a coppery sheen and the fittings look to be brass, all of which you might expect as well, of course.
That's incredible. How on earth does the algorithm differentiate between copper and brass? I thought it was clever being able to recognise flesh and clothes, but reacting to steam fittings takes it to another level

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by SimonWood » Thu Jan 13, 2022 12:40 pm

ge_rik wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 12:31 pm That's incredible. How on earth does the algorithm differentiate between copper and brass? I thought it was clever being able to recognise flesh and clothes, but reacting to steam fittings takes it to another level
My guess is this is all simply machine learning. The system has a bunch of photographs of copper and/or brass that have been correctly identifies, and tries to extrapolate. Getting the overalls the correct colour is probably easy - lots of similar photographs to provide the data. What the algorithm almost certainly won't have been able to do is identify that this is a locomotive, because I can't imagine it has (m)any other locomotives in its database that look remotely similar. But it will have lots of pictures of copper pipes, and brass fittings, that look similar enough to copy the colours for.

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by philipy » Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:10 pm

Not sure it will have ANY loco's in it's database, given that its purpose is to colourise vintage photo's of people. :)

Anyway, this is the colourised photo blown up to 500%.
Screenshot 2022-01-13 13.04.26.png
Screenshot 2022-01-13 13.04.26.png (1.02 MiB) Viewed 2148 times
The difference between copper pipes,brass fittings and steel hand wheel shafts is clear.
Philip

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by ge_rik » Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:40 pm

There's even a hint of rust on the backplate - incredible!

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by Lonsdaler » Thu Jan 13, 2022 3:51 pm

It's quite incredible how colourisation has added a whole new dimension to that photograph, and made it appear so much more 'real'. Regarding recognition of copper/brass etc. I would think that the geneology site simply pays to use a commercially available product rather than run their own system, so it will in fact have a lot of examples to draw upon to produce believable results - after all, we will never know if it's accurate or not. Anyway, as I said - incredible :thumbup:
Phil

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by philipy » Thu Jan 13, 2022 6:40 pm

Okey doke, having done colourisation to death, more or less, back to the model. :lol:

Unless somebody tells me differently, I've decided on the water tank. I have a 6v motor, so that requires 5 x 1.2v cells. I was originally thinking less than that and was thinking of a box holding 4 side by side, disguised as a water tank against the back wall. 5 cells would require 2 rows... 3+2) which makes the box quite bulky. Then Graeme made a passing comment about the tank possibly doubling as the drivers seat and that got me thinking. A realistic sized seat would only hold 2 cells, one above the other, laying across the body and it needs a home for three more somewhere. I've now got the motor position firmed up inside the coal bunker and that just leaves room for two cells one above the other in front of the motor, and the last one alongside them, over the top of the motor. I think that just leaves space for a charging socket and an on/off switch.
Screenshot 2022-01-13 18.36.56.png
Screenshot 2022-01-13 18.36.56.png (33.5 KiB) Viewed 2601 times
Obviously the tank needs a lid! By my calculations, this tank would hold approx 130gals
Philip

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by philipy » Fri Jan 14, 2022 11:14 am

Now we are getting somewhere :D

Basic body put together,
Chassis running but still needs the chain to the rear axle.
The water tank battery box is still loose but in position.
The boiler is still loose but in position.
The engine is still loose but approx in position.
The dome is loose but in approx position.

Plenty more small details need adding, inluding the smokebox and chimney on the far side and some pipework on the boiler backhead and inside the cab.

DSC_0003.JPG
DSC_0003.JPG (4.47 MiB) Viewed 2569 times
Before anyone says anything, the axles are in the correct position as near as I can tell, but I think the original must have been std gauge, or 4ft, or something along those lines, and the perspective of 32mm is making them appear too far forward.

For general info, the two different shades of grey show which bits were FMD printed and which were resin.
Philip

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Re: Contractors Loco Project

Post by GTB » Fri Jan 14, 2022 11:38 am

philipy wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 6:40 pm Obviously the tank needs a lid! By my calculations, this tank would hold approx 130gals
The steam engine is small, as is the boiler, so the loco wouldn't have used water at a very high rate and I suspect 130 gallons would be plenty. As a comparison, the water tank on a Kerr Stuart Wren is only 87 gallons and they are a larger loco.

The battery layout must be right, as that's how I'd have laid it out...... ;)

You'll find out when you get the chassis working and can do some test running, but you may only need 4 cells. My gang motor is about that size and has a 6V N20 motor with a 50:1 gearbox. With 20mm dia. wheels and 4 cells (4.8V nominal) it toddles around the track at about 11 scale mph. I can't see a home made contractors loco being any threat to City of Truro.......

philipy wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 11:14 am Before anyone says anything, the axles are in the correct position as near as I can tell, but I think the original must have been std gauge, or 4ft, or something along those lines, and the perspective of 32mm is making them appear too far forward.
Yes, definitely getting somewhere. I assume the engine is a resin print, as I wouldn't have thought a filament printer would manage parts that fine.

3' gauge was commonly used for reservoir projects for some reason and that may be the gauge of the prototype. My 3' gauge Hunslet 0-4-0ST is based on a loco that was used by the Fyld Water Board on a reservoir project.

Graeme

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