Harboro Stone Co.

[Barclay]

I hesitate to suggest this as I have no experience of making stuff like this, but it seems to me that any kind of door or trap trying to close against stone chips falling through it is liable to jam at some stage. What if your stone was in a cylindrical container, with a small hole on one side - it is mounted on its side over a hopper that leads down to a chute that loads the wagon. You start with the hole at the top, and a mechanism rotates the cylinder one revolution. When the hole nears the bottom, stone falls out into the hopper and continues to do so until the hole climbs up the other side again. Amount dispensed can be varied by size of hole, and then fine control by speed of rotation - the slower, the more falls out. 

 

Nothing touches anything else and there is no door that needs to be opened and closed. The cylinder is filled at one end, which can be tilted slightly higher to keep the stuff in, the hole being near the other end. If you used a cylindrical biscuit or coffee tin it would come with a handy lid.

[Ruston]

2 hours ago, Barclay said:

I hesitate to suggest this as I have no experience of making stuff like this, but it seems to me that any kind of door or trap trying to close against stone chips falling through it is liable to jam at some stage. What if your stone was in a cylindrical container, with a small hole on one side - it is mounted on its side over a hopper that leads down to a chute that loads the wagon. You start with the hole at the top, and a mechanism rotates the cylinder one revolution. When the hole nears the bottom, stone falls out into the hopper and continues to do so until the hole climbs up the other side again. Amount dispensed can be varied by size of hole, and then fine control by speed of rotation - the slower, the more falls out. 

 

Nothing touches anything else and there is no door that needs to be opened and closed. The cylinder is filled at one end, which can be tilted slightly higher to keep the stuff in, the hole being near the other end. If you used a cylindrical biscuit or coffee tin it would come with a handy lid.

Now that sounds like a cunning plan! It's really just a matter of being able to fit it in. I'll have a look at what I can do. I doubt a coffee tin will fit but I'm sure I can find or make something. If it has a friction drive, say a wheel with a rubber tyre, attached to the gearbox, then the container can be lifted out for refilling and several can be kept loaded away from the layout itself, which completely avoids spillage.

[Ruston]

Rapid prototyping in card. I don't have anything to hand for the friction drive but a gear system with a bearing to hold the thing in mesh seems to work and still allows the coffee tin to be lifted off and on.

 

This was just before a trial run. I have since altered it so there is more space at either side of the hole in the tin. With a full load, the stone starts to spill out roughly 90 degrees from top and doesn't stop until roughly 270, so it is still spilling down the side and the gap between the frame and the tin has to be widened to allow the spillage to drop into the chute and not jam the tin.

 

 

[Ruston]

It seemed like a good idea but I can't get it to work reliably. I don't mean the construction itself, although that could be better. It's the physics of the way the stone flows and the fact that it begins to flow after a relatively short duration but continues to through roughly 180 degrees when the tin is full. Once it's flowing there's no control over it until the hole has rotated 180 degrees and the flow stops again. Added to the lack of control over the flow, the speed of flow increases as the hole gets nearer the bottom and decreases as it comes back up, which makes it unpredictable.  The more the tin becomes empty the less stone flows per rotation and so on. The bottom line is that it's virtually impossible to load a wagon without it overflowing, let alone get a load of realistic appearance.

[Barclay]

14 hours ago, Ruston said:

It seemed like a good idea but I can't get it to work reliably. I don't mean the construction itself, although that could be better. It's the physics of the way the stone flows and the fact that it begins to flow after a relatively short duration but continues to through roughly 180 degrees when the tin is full. Once it's flowing there's no control over it until the hole has rotated 180 degrees and the flow stops again. Added to the lack of control over the flow, the speed of flow increases as the hole gets nearer the bottom and decreases as it comes back up, which makes it unpredictable.  The more the tin becomes empty the less stone flows per rotation and so on. The bottom line is that it's virtually impossible to load a wagon without it overflowing, let alone get a load of realistic appearance.

Shame - I did begin to wonder if the level of fill would affect the flow rate and total amount delivered.

[CameronL]

17 hours ago, Ruston said:

It seemed like a good idea but I can't get it to work reliably. I don't mean the construction itself, although that could be better. It's the physics of the way the stone flows and the fact that it begins to flow after a relatively short duration but continues to through roughly 180 degrees when the tin is full. Once it's flowing there's no control over it until the hole has rotated 180 degrees and the flow stops again. Added to the lack of control over the flow, the speed of flow increases as the hole gets nearer the bottom and decreases as it comes back up, which makes it unpredictable.  The more the tin becomes empty the less stone flows per rotation and so on. The bottom line is that it's virtually impossible to load a wagon without it overflowing, let alone get a load of realistic appearance.

Could you use something like a screw conveyor-type mechanical stoker, so the stone is lifted out of the loader and transferred to the wagons at a steady rate, rather than it varying with the angle of the coffee tin? You'd need to watch it to make sure it didn't overflow, though, unless you could work out how long it took to fill each wagon type and had on switches which only stayed On for those set times (beyond me but I'm not an electrical expert). A quick Google found this on an aquatic supplies website. I  see some potential here, cut down and motorised. It's quite a large diameter, but with such systems the rate of delivery of the material varies with the speed of rotation of the screw. 

 

Love the layout. Following with interest.

 

Best wishes.

 

Cam.

Edited August 19, 2022 by CameronL
Added a bit

[long island jack]

 

from across the pond

[Ruston]

10 hours ago, CameronL said:

Could you use something like a screw conveyor-type mechanical stoker, so the stone is lifted out of the loader and transferred to the wagons at a steady rate, rather than it varying with the angle of the coffee tin? You'd need to watch it to make sure it didn't overflow, though, unless you could work out how long it took to fill each wagon type and had on switches which only stayed On for those set times (beyond me but I'm not an electrical expert). A quick Google found this on an aquatic supplies website. I  see some potential here, cut down and motorised. It's quite a large diameter, but with such systems the rate of delivery of the material varies with the speed of rotation of the screw. 

 

Love the layout. Following with interest.

 

Best wishes.

 

Cam.

I've decided to keep it simple. I won't be going with any system of automatic dosing to give a wagon load. I'm going back to the hopper that I built but without the cam and microswitch. It worked quite well, except for the occasional jam, which necessitated reversing the motor. I will fit a DPDT sprung centre-off switch that simply opens one way and closes the other. It's the same system that I used on White Peak and that loader is still working reliably.

 

9 hours ago, long island jack said:

from across the pond

Interesting. It's pretty much how my hopper works but that adjustable chute is a nice idea that I may adopt.

[Ruston]

I made some progress on the building. The walls are now clad in corrugated iron and some windows have been fitted.

[Ruston]

I may have overdone the rustiness. I guess it will tone down with stone dust weathering.

[SR71]

I think with the stone dust and general dirt that will look just right.

[Ruston]

In situ.

 

[eastworld]

On 25/08/2022 at 20:41, Ruston said:

I may have overdone the rustiness. I guess it will tone down with stone dust weathering.

 

I don't think you have....

 

Stu

[Ruston]

The FY is ready to go. Power is fed to the traverser by copper tape and wires to the fixed part of the runners. Wires go from the moving part of the runners to the rails on all tracks, which, being as this is DCC, are live at all times. On the left hand side of the traverser is a length of brass bar, bent at 90 deg. that slides into brass tubes to lock the traverser in line with the tracks to the layout proper.

 

The lower track is the quarry line, where wagons will be loaded with real stone, so the track is a simple plug-in stick that can be removed to clean up the inevitable spillages.

[Ruston]

I've had the entire thing set up and working, for the first time, today. I took a few snaps of the motive power.

 

Ceridwen has been used on 4 layouts in various guises now. The last was on Charlie Strong's yard, after the footplate was lowered and the entire engine repainted. She's now had her chimney cut down even more than last time and safety valves have also been lowered to fit the tunnel here. The oiler has been positioned on the front of the tank.

 

This as yet unnamed Peckett was the original Osiris from the Calder Vale Mineral Railway but that one had a body transplant and the plates went with it. It has had the cab, chimney and safety valves lowered for the tunnel here. It has also gone DCC sound and in a first for me the Stay Alive has been fitted under the tank with the decoder. This was made possible by the new generation of Zimo decoders being even smaller than the previous ones and by replacing the Hornby motor with a 10x10x16mm 6-pole motor that saves space that is otherwise wasted by the Hornby motor. A 11x15mm ESU speaker is between the frames at the rear.

 

 

[NHY 581]

Morning Dave, 

 

The lowering of the bodywork and fittings etc really imparts a lovely squat, chunky look to these locos. 

 

I'm tempted to follow your lead here and start experimenting. 🤔

 

Rob

[Ruston]

Another one to add to the roster.

 

I bought this Hornby 48DS early this year. It was second hand and pristine, in its box, for £50. I couldn't resist! It was in that awful brown and cream livery, with the signs on the sides of the engine casing and the first thing I did was to get those off. It lay in pieces for months until it became a prime candidate for having the top of its roof lopped off to fit the tunnel.

I had some old N gauge locomotives that had been sitting on the window sill of the shed for years and they were turned into cash to buy sound gear for this loco, so it now has a Zimo MS490, Lais Kungfu 8710001 Stay Alive and an 11x15mm ESU speaker installed. All of which had to be fitted before I could fit the new roof.

 

The tarp, to keep out the worst of the wind up on the site at Harboro Stone, was made from paper. The driver is a Modelu fireman who has thrown away his firing shovel in order to take up his new post. The Ruston isn't powerful enough to haul trains of stone from the quarry so will be used for shunting the BR wagons when it's not worth lighting up a steam loco. I will build a P.W. train that it can be used on as moving and relaying the track at the quarry face would be a regular occurance.

[sb67]

That looks fantastic Dave, very nicely weathered as well. 👍

[JIJ]

Hi Dave,

 

I know you said that you were planning to portion the loads by hand, but I was cleaning my rabbits' pet food dispenser and thought that the design may be useful to you:

 

The design is based around the rotating portioning disc which contains a number of voids. The number and size of voids can be tailored to your specification, the pet food dispenser has 3 voids of approximately one tablespoon of capacity each

 

The void fills when it is under the hopper. When the disk is rotated, the outlet will appear under the void, and the load can be released.

 

For your purposes, a conductive strip around the outside of the disc, with suitably placed gaps and a pickup, could be used as an electrical latch with a push to make switch:

When the switch is pressed, the motor will rotate the portion disc by 180° (or 120° if a three hole disc is used) allowing exactly one portion to be dispensed per short button press.

 

In the pet food dispenser, this function is performed buy a stepper motor and programmable microcontroller, which could be another option.

 

The dispensed food is a very hard pellet of irregular size so I suspect that your chosen use case should not be a problem for the design. The sides of the portioning disc voids are sloped which seems to avoid pellets getting stuck, a feature that I would recommend keeping.

 

If you plan to load several different sizes of wagon, it might make sense to choose a "highest common factor" portion volume and dispense multiples thereof.

 

 

Please excuse the poor sketches, I am a software engineer, not a draughtsman.

[Ruston]

Thanks, JIJ. It's a good idea, in theory, and the design obviously works for its intended use but, unlike rabbit pellets, crushed stone is very hard, very small, and has sharp edges that want to jam any moving parts that will let them. I've found this the hard way and I don't want to waste more time building another thing only to find that it doesn't work after all the effort of building it.

[Ruston]

I have made a loader that works. There are however two drawbacks.

 

1) it makes continuous noise whilst in operation.

 

2) the spout where the stone comes out is just inside the building.

 

The noise is from a motor with an off-balance flywheel. This causes the spout to vibrate. Without vibration the stone simply sits in the spout, blocking it. This means there are no working parts at all. No doors, hinges, anything where stone rubs on anything that can cause a jam. It also means that as soon as the power is cut the flow of stone stops instantly. The flow is also gradual and so there's no great dumping of the load that can overflow or not be stopped immediately. It works and has been rigged up in the building but only operated on the bench. I need to see how noisy it is on the layout. If it transmits too much vibration to the baseboard, or makes enough noise to drown out the sound in the engines then it's back to square one.

 

The spout being just inside the building is simply an aesthetic thing. It looks a bit odd filling a wagon when only the first third of it is actually under the building. Obviously as the wagon is moved to get an even load it ends up with all of it under the building, so I guess it's just one of those compromises I'll have to live with. The only reason it is so near the end of the building is so the loading can be observed and getting around that is where all this nonsense with complicated loading systems started.

 

Another thing that needs to be done is to build up the scenery at the loader end. I was planning on having a low-relief workshop building at the end but that sort of thing never really works well from all viewing angles and so I have decided to have trees as the backdrop. Large trees don't grow in solid rock, so the ground needs to be brought up at the near side of the headshunt cutting.

There will be smaller trees and bushes added to make the edge of woodland.

Edited September 15, 2022 by Ruston

[Sweet pea]

This is looking great. 👍

[sir douglas]

how much noise would a real one make?

[Ruston]

3 hours ago, sir douglas said:

how much noise would a real one make?

A lot, I would imagine. But then the sound of a stone crushing plant is quite different to the sound of a little motor buzzing, so it's something I'd rather not have.

 

The sound is tolerable and doesn't drown out the hissing sounds of a stationary steam engine.

 

The hopper.

It rests on foam mounts and is also insulated from the sides with foam. The motor is wired to a decoder so it can be operated from the same controller as the engines.

 

[Tullygrainey]

Brilliant!!