Rail Car for Dirranbandi and Toowoomba Light Railway

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DAVID L
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Re: Rail Car for Dirranbandi and Toowoomba Light Railway.

Post by DAVID L » Sun Mar 24, 2019 5:33 pm

Looks great. I'm starting on an IP Colonial railbus, which won't be anywhere near as original as yours, but should have a few tweaks compared to the out of the box version.

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Andrew
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Re: Rail Car for Dirranbandi and Toowoomba Light Railway.

Post by Andrew » Sun Mar 24, 2019 6:54 pm

That's looking great! Very nicely made, and a convincing "might have been" too - to my un-tutored eye anyway!

Looking forward to further progress reports...

All the best,

Andrew.

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Re: Rail Car for Dirranbandi and Toowoomba Light Railway

Post by ge_rik » Mon Mar 25, 2019 9:02 am

That's nice. Very nice!

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IrishPeter
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Re: Rail Car for Dirranbandi and Toowoomba Light Railway

Post by IrishPeter » Mon Apr 08, 2019 2:50 am

That looks just the ticket, Ian! I an see something of the old KSR 'buses in it. Lovely!

Cheers,
Peter in Va
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Re: Rail Car for Dirranbandi and Toowoomba Light Railway

Post by -steves- » Mon Apr 08, 2019 9:18 pm

Oily Rag wrote: Sun Mar 24, 2019 3:37 pm Like most other things on our railway it is all scratch built. It is twin motored, has a wooden "coach built" body and a metal chassis of brass and steel. Even the wheels were made in house. The bits box provided enough plastic gears suitably modified with two 50pence Mabuchi can motors to knock a couple of transmission units.

I have a complete build history from cutting the first bit of ply (plus the works drawings of course) but I won't bore you with that. es sanded from laminated balsa, and the bonnet cover is O.5MM (20thou) plasticard heat moulded to shape at the second attempt to get something close.

Hope someone finds it of interest.

regards
Ian
Ian

Very interesting thank you :)

I am particularly loving the dual motor setup. How much of the motor setup did you scratch build? I would really like to see the mechanical side of the build if you wouldn't mind posting it up?
The buck stops here .......

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Re: Rail Car for Dirranbandi and Toowoomba Light Railway

Post by -steves- » Thu Apr 11, 2019 4:09 pm

Ian

That is an amazing but of engineering and I am thoroughly impressed with how you have put the chassis together and got them to work so well. Great write up, it must be great as even I could understand it and I if anyone doesn't understand something, it's usually me, lol

Really appreciate you taking the time to give an in depth reply as it gives me ideas for doing my own kind thing and ideas for how to go about it. :thumbup:

I have to ask though, but how on earth did you make the highlighted bit below????? :shock: :shock: :shock:
Attachments
suspension pattern.JPG
suspension pattern.JPG (97.37 KiB) Viewed 6300 times
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Re: Rail Car for Dirranbandi and Toowoomba Light Railway

Post by -steves- » Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:53 pm

Oily Rag wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 6:03 pm Hi Steve,
Well Ahem! Those dummy "springs" were turned from brass rod. I used a tipped tool with a triangular insert which is straight on and usually used for cutting threads. Cut in concentric rings to a common depth moving the saddle along the bed quite simply by measurement with a steel rule. I should n't say this as the health and safety are not happy with it but some careful jusicious dressing with a needle file finished the tops. Part them off to length ( I did fractionally over) and then file the back off to a full diameter, that means when assembled the pattern will come out of the mould with no undercut. A bit over length means you can adjust the fit. I did cheat and milled the back off.
The worst part of that job was getting the thing to solder up without previous bits falling off again. You can see quite clearly the flood of solder towards the back of the recesses. I should have used differing temperature solders or solder paste and warmed the whole lot through. There might have been less expletives.
it's actually nice to know you have issues doing things like that sometimes too, makes me feel a little less useless when I can't get things to go right when I do things, lol. Like solder a few things to something, then watch them all drop off when I solder something else on, these days I use engineering clamps for all soldering work as I got fed up on the Peckett build with everything dropping to bits again, lol.

I do love those brass springs! Very impressed with the molds, what are the molds made from and what resin or ? do you use to make the casts?
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Re: Rail Car for Dirranbandi and Toowoomba Light Railway

Post by Jbs » Fri Apr 12, 2019 10:25 am

Ian,
Thank you for your very interesting posts about your pattern making and resin casting. I have done some preliminary searching for suitable mould making and casting materials, but it helps to have a firm recommendation of types and sources that have been found to work as is evident from your photos. If you have the time, I would appreciate a bit more information about white metal casting as I would like to have a go at both resin and white metal casting at some stage.
Regards
John
Regards,

John Smith

Harrogate

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Re: Rail Car for Dirranbandi and Toowoomba Light Railway

Post by -steves- » Fri Apr 12, 2019 1:42 pm

Ian

I would just like to thank you for your very clear and helpful posts which are always packed with useful information. :thumbup: I look forward to reading them when I see them come up in the New Posts section :thumbup:
The buck stops here .......

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Re: Rail Car for Dirranbandi and Toowoomba Light Railway

Post by Big Jim » Fri Apr 12, 2019 3:29 pm

Outstanding,
I am off to raid my son and heir's Lego box.

I was aware of the fine tolerances of Lego after I watched a program about it. Apparently, it has to be very accurate or it won't work. The knock off or copied versions are not nearly so well made.
If at first you don't succeed, use a bigger hammer!

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Re: Rail Car for Dirranbandi and Toowoomba Light Railway

Post by Big Jim » Sun Apr 14, 2019 10:55 pm

This looks very interesting. Thanks for sharing it with the forum.
If at first you don't succeed, use a bigger hammer!

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