Hawk

Thanks to all for the interest in my project! One of the reasons for the metal floor speculation is this image: You can glimpse the floor behind the open door, and to my eye it looks like the floor is smooth. I have tried to increase contrast and lighting, but I have not succeded in finding even traces of grooves or texture in the floor. On the other hand, the arguments made by Adam against a metal floor sounds reasonable, and I am having a had time making a descision... Please feel free to join the speculation!

Thanks for all the kind comments! Hope that my postings might inspire others to go ahead and try their hands at some scratch building following obscure prototypes! Speaking of the prototype, I lack information on the inside of the wooden body. Have anybody heard of a wooden mineral wagon were the floor is covered by thin metal sheeting? My guess is that the wooden floors of a gravity-emptying mineral wagon would get worn out quite fast.

Indeed he did. It was Precision Wax in the UK that printed the master. It took a couple of reprints before the master was perfect, but they kept at it until everything was fine. I can recommend them highly for wax printing.

Thanks to all for the positive feedback! By the way, this thread was initiated by another forum thread discussing the Bill Bedford W-irons. Here is an image that shows my implementation of this concept: I saw no need for connecting the W-irons across the wheelset, but pinned them directly to the side beam (solebar?) This way the design can be used on wagons that have exposed frames. Once blackened, the arrangement will be barely visible, me thinks.

There are a lot of people that deserve credit for making this project possible. David has already been mentioned, but here are a list of some other people that deserves credit: -Erik Olsen for making the wheels. A fine article on his techniques can be found here. -Erik Walde for designing the leaf spring castings and working "Norwegian Couplers". (Not yet added to the model) -Erik Holt of Erik Holt Kappler Mill & Lumber Co. for making the excellent stripwood for the body. PPLtd deserves credit for the very crisp etchings. Their service is fast and reliable, and they will take on your job no matter how small the sheet is.

The prototype for this project is a steel underframe wagon with a wooden body. It was built for the meter-gauge Thamshavn Railway in 1908. It was used for transporting copper ore from the mines at Løkken to the port of Thamshavn some 25 km further north. Even if the protoype is rather obscure, I think the construction of the wagon is quite typical for European rolling stock built in the early 20th century. All the beams of the underframe and all other hardware is etched in 0,25mm nickel silver. The long beams with the narrow flanges poses quite a challenge during the folding up process. I suspected this before starting to build my kit, so I persuaded my good modelling buddy Øistein into making me two pairs (the picture shows just one pair) of custom-made bending bars. These bars make it possible to fold up the beams in one go. I used the proven and tested concept of W-irons with springing by guitar strings. I learned about the concept at the CLAG website, and I copied the design with very few modifications. The most import change I made is that I mount the W-irons directly to the solebars. Using brass rivets in etched holes to keep everything in position during soldering assured a sqare an level frame. I have not counted them, but I think there are more than 100 turned brass rivets in each wagon. I also decided to omit bearings of any sort. The axles are narrows down from a diameter of 3mm to just 0,8mm at the journal boxes. So the steel axles just run in plain holes in the movable part of the W-iron. I was a bit worried about the rolling properties of this set up, but the wagon turned out to be quite freerollling. Not quite as goood as pinpoint axles in brass bearings, but good enough. The cosmetic leaf springs with hangers and journal boxes are meant for an entirely different type of wagon, and these brass castings are in adition to the couplers some of the very few commercial parts that I have found suitable for my Thamshavnbane projects. After all, to my knowledge I am the only person in the world modelling the TB in 0-scale! The body is not yet finished, but it is going to be built board by board from real wood with brass castings for hardware. The boards for the model has milled tongue and groove just like the prototype. A lot of experimenting went into making them model boards, but wood for several cars are waiting to be assembled. The master for the custom castings was printed on a Solidscape wax printer from a 3D model that I made in Solidworks. The actual casting was done by Dave Sciacca of Valley Brass & Bronze. I have also started to experiment with painting of the wood and blackening of the brass The plan is to make the doors operational on at least one model. All in all I hope to build 11-13 of these wagons. I hope that the images show how things fit together, but feel free to ask questions or make comments!

Really nice work! Would love a detailed description of how you made the tarpaper roof on the first building. It is absolutely superb.

Your brass spoked wheel is a solid proof of concept for using this process for driver centers. I´m currently struggling to improve my CAD skills sufficient to model spoked wheels, and your postings are a great inspiration! My plan is to make my centers slightly oversize, and then use a small sandblaster/air eraser to remove any stepping or regular patterns from the wax masters. Then all surfaces that need optimal precision will be machined on my manual lathe. I have tried Shapeways´ brass process for a coupler pocket, and while impressed by the resolution, I am annoyed by the regular pattern: To give an idea of the size of this part, the square holes in the pockets are 3mm X 3mm. Looking forward to see more on your experimenting!

This is getting interesting! How does the dimensions on the actual brass wheel compare to the .stl file. Any shrinkage?

I have just discovered this thread, and I am mighty impressed by the work shown. But I still dare to post more of my own efforts. This time it is a H0 wooden roadbridge based on a Norwegian prototype from ca. 1941. I have seen very few prototypes for wooden truss rod bridges in Norway. I think this bridge was built in wood due to an shortage of steel in WWII. The bridge was prefabricated in a factory pretty far away from the place of use. The material of the model is Kappler Stripwood: Here is a little trick I used for making two identical sides. I built the trusses as one piece, and cut it in half after completion:

Thanks for the kind words! There is no other postings about the club at this time, but as we get some more progress done on the scenery, this might change! Here is a couple of images of the building placed in the unfinished scene:

Hope it is OK to just dive in with a H0 scale warehouse from the middle of Norway: You might call this a custom made kit as the core of the building is a laser cut plywood box clad with Stripwood. The windows has etched mullions and stripwood framing. The big sign is made from a custom made CNC-cut stencil. But then my modelling motto is "By Any Means Neccesary" ! And here is a prototype shot: I chose to build my building in a better condition, as it is going to be used as an operating industry on our club layout at the Trondheim Model Railroad Club.

Thanks for the additional info! I have experimentet a bit with Feed/Speed on the High-Z, but do not feel that I have found the "Sweet spot" yet. It i always interesting to hear from people that have found settings that work.

Thanks a lot for the information! I thought about milling the driver centers, but I am afraid that the High-Z CNC router I have access to is not up to the task. It protests loudly when I try to mill brass with it...

I have tried to find out what type of wax-printer shapeways uses, and what the resolution is. Unfortunaltely, they seem to be a bit secretive regarding this type of information. I have not yet tried to use the process for drivers, but I made some coupler pockets with it. Here is a close up: The square hole in the part is 2mm X 2mm. You can clearly see the annoying pattern. My hope is that sandblasting will remove it. On this part this was not an option, as I felt sandblasting would remove sharpness. It is quite irritating that Shapeways wax prints is not quite state of the art, I have seen better results using wax prints from Solidscape printers. If I needed drivers for several engines, I would consider having a silver master made by Precision Wax as they use the Solidscape printer, and then use a casting company for the actual castings.

Really beautiful wheels! What sort of CNC mill did you use for those, and what type of brass?

Please note that I am talking about the brass parts offered by Shapeways. This is one-off brass castings made from 3D printed wax masters. The brass in the castings are easy to drill and machine. So for driver centers in 0-scale where the outer diameter will be machined along with axle holes and counterweight faces, I feel this is a route worth exploring. It depends a bit on the specific drivers, if they have fine detail like lettering you are likely to loos the finer detail when sandblasting the parts prior to machining.

Very interesting thread! Any progress since last year? I am going to make some spoked driver centres myself. I plan to have them made in brass by Shapeways. Since all the critical surfaces will be machined on a conventional lathe, It should be possible to sandblast the parts to remove the annoying surface pattern that brass parts from Shapeways unfortunately has. The wheel threads will be machined in steel on a conventional lathe. Hope to be able to show some progress in the not to distant future.

A man of taste! But what about some symfonic prog: Check it out at spotify! Regards, Hauk

This may have been covered before, but why is that dude chasing the train with a baseball bat? -Hawk

Lots of nice modelling in this thread! Personally, I do not feel that models of railways are in any way superior to other subjects by default. Quality mdodelling is quality modelling. And railway modellers has a lot to learn from other modelling communities. Take painting and weathering for instance, the military modellers have deloped skills and techniques that are far more advanced. I enjoy building non-railway subjects, but they are from the same era and area as my train models. Here is an example, an Fordson grader built from an white-metal kit. I added some details like the cab, toolbox and fuel drum. Regards, Hauk