Split-frame tender design

When I built number 10, I included a detailed underframe, complete with boards and the stringers. You can’t see it, and frankly, the tender frame is a bit of a weak spot. Not only that, but I didn’t think about how to get current from the trucks to the decoder until very late in the […]

Accumate coupler boxes

Maybe they should be called “draft gear,” but they don’t look much like them, and they don’t behave much like them, and so, like “throwbars” they should get their own name. “Coupler box” is what I’ve always called them. I standardized on Accumate couplers for a couple of reasons: firstly because they are near-scale size, […]

Excavating Mt Flood

There is not much more of this virtual modelling I can stand before I need to get physical again! What’s more, there are some parts of 622 that need to integrate with commercial parts. So tonight I took to the garage, knife and tape in hand, to dig through the pile of boxes that I […]

622 brakes revisited (again)

Thanks to Don Ball for replying to my previous post regarding brakes. He came up with a page from the 1906 Locomotive Builder’s Dictionary, and a Model Railroader article by Gordon Odegard that completely reformed my belief about how these brakes probably worked. Rather than that tiny vertical equalizing lever, it is likely that they […]

Drawbar dreams

“I do all my best work in bed,” famously and salaciously declared Mae West. And so it was, I awoke the other night with the solution to a problem I’d given up on long ago – the drawbar. Confusingly, the drawbar of a locomotive is not the thing that pulls the train; I think that’s […]

Loco frame jig

The basement shows no sign of being finished, and so, I am continuing to refine the plans for 622. One of the challenges will be maintaining the relationship between the two frame halves while the insulating epoxy layer sets. I had been thinking I would add sacrificial tabs at the ends of the frame, and […]

Brakes in the darkness

It appears that the brakes are another part that has now been redesigned. I’ve simplified them somewhat from the first version. To tell the truth, I’m hoping that someone can point me to a resource that shows how this pattern of brakes worked. It seems they were favoured by Baldwin for a short period in […]

3D CAD saves the day

…or at least an hour anyway. As I was working my way through design of the running gear for 622, the reach rod for the reverser proved to be an interesting conundrum. According to the drawing from Baldwin, the lever for lifting the valve gear is supposed to be 21 inches long. This, along with […]

Valve gear – a complex OnShape part

The valve gear for #622 will be printed as a single part. As with most of the parts, the original drawing needed to be redone. The first time around, I thought I was very clever by using a minimum of sketches. I chose parts of the sketches to extrude to different depths, but hard-coded the […]

Improved cab design

A couple of weeks ago, The Boy and I were lucky to be invited to visit Dan Gelbart’s amazing lab. The Boy was so inspired, we’ve been working our way through Dan’s YouTube channel. There, Dan stresses the benefits of keyholes to facilitate removal of parts. As he says, they’re free with a water jet cutter, […]