Against all good advice - bought a junker Jamco

[mmagliaro]

Randy,

I like the new crosshead guide.  The pieces are straight and sure, and they are thin and delicate enough to look good.  I am, however, a little worried about making them from brass, which is going to wear as that crosshead slides back and forth.  It isn't under much pressure, so it might not wear, but I think some nickel silver or phosphor bronze strip would be a safer choice there - they are still pretty easy to cut and solder, but are much harder than brass.

Be that as it may, what's done is done, and I am betting that you would not want to make that part again!  I am poking my nose in here only as a suggestion in the event that you (or anybody else) ever has to make a part like that again.

So ... onward!

[Doug G.]

Of what is the original running gear made? Nickel Silver? Tin?



Doug

[mmagliaro]

Looking at the photos, in all seriousness, the rods and the valve guide look like they are nickel.

[randgust]

When I scraped them there was brass underneath, so I'm guessing nickel-plated brass.   I was able to solder to them.

It may wear, and that's why I put the whole stupid replacement assembly in with screws instead of soldering it in - I can punt if it fails.   But there's zero force on it now, and it doesn't twist like it did before, so it's riding flat on the crosshead guide instead of 'digging' the lead edge into the guide every piston stroke like it did before.  I'll be soaking everything in Neolube once I get there.

With all drivers geared, it's still pretty robust.   I got the pilot wheels and lead driver regauged last night using my Micro-Mark gear puller I got for Christmas, that is a handy tool, beats tapping on things with a hammer.   The flanges on the pilot truck are much smaller than the other flanges.  It was also so corroded up it wouldn't roll, wheels just skidded along, that's fixed.

Got the pilot pretty much straightened out.   Delta trailing truck is pretty poor for sure and I'm looking at the Shapeways replacement anyway.    I'm still debating on turning the driver flanges as my rolling tests showed it is fine through my Peco C55 switches, and considering the short wheelbase to length to weight ratio, if this thing drops in frogs its going to wobble - hard.   So we'll see, have to test it on more track.    Pilot truck will get remounted, trailing axle will be regauged, and we'll roll it around a bit, then start playing with the motor ideas.   I've got a pretty good assortment of motors, gearheads, etc., we'll see what works, last resort will be to use what came with it.   You can see that the existing method for mounting the motor is pretty poor and it has the ability to flex the frame to throw the worm out of alignment with the worm gear.

And, this thing is HEAVY.  I think the only heavier steam I've got is the Kato GHQ L1 conversion.   This thing is such a Platypus in terms of design, I've never seen anything else quite like it.  It's not really brass, well almost, and it's got a variety of approaches in it that never were done again, like blind flanges on the center tender trucks.   Overall dimensions are good, it was scaled right.

In a perfect world I'll do a lot of redetailing on this but none of it will happen unless I get it to run the way I hope it will.   I'm optimistic now that I got the chassis and running gear issues mostly behind me.   I have to keep reminding myself that this isn't much newer that the HO Tyco 4-6-2 I made from a Mantua kit when I was about 12.  At the time, that kit was just totally and completely intimidating to me, remember it well, I'd only done plastic models before that.   RIVIT the valve gear?  Are you NUTS?

Anybody have ideas for the locomotive brake shoes between the axles?  They are rather pronounced, missing, and don't look particularly impossible to put in.   Delrin?  Shapeways?   Some odd Bachmann part that I'm not familiar with?  Driver size is around 78".

[SP-Wolf]

When I scraped them there was brass underneath, so I'm guessing nickel-plated brass.   I was able to solder to them.

It may wear, and that's why I put the whole stupid replacement assembly in with screws instead of soldering it in - I can punt if it fails.   But there's zero force on it now, and it doesn't twist like it did before, so it's riding flat on the crosshead guide instead of 'digging' the lead edge into the guide every piston stroke like it did before.  I'll be soaking everything in Neolube once I get there.

With all drivers geared, it's still pretty robust.   I got the pilot wheels and lead driver regauged last night using my Micro-Mark gear puller I got for Christmas, that is a handy tool, beats tapping on things with a hammer.   The flanges on the pilot truck are much smaller than the other flanges.  It was also so corroded up it wouldn't roll, wheels just skidded along, that's fixed.

Got the pilot pretty much straightened out.   Delta trailing truck is pretty poor for sure and I'm looking at the Shapeways replacement anyway.    I'm still debating on turning the driver flanges as my rolling tests showed it is fine through my Peco C55 switches, and considering the short wheelbase to length to weight ratio, if this thing drops in frogs its going to wobble - hard.   So we'll see, have to test it on more track.    Pilot truck will get remounted, trailing axle will be regauged, and we'll roll it around a bit, then start playing with the motor ideas.   I've got a pretty good assortment of motors, gearheads, etc., we'll see what works, last resort will be to use what came with it.   You can see that the existing method for mounting the motor is pretty poor and it has the ability to flex the frame to throw the worm out of alignment with the worm gear.

And, this thing is HEAVY.  I think the only heavier steam I've got is the Kato GHQ L1 conversion.   This thing is such a Platypus in terms of design, I've never seen anything else quite like it.  It's not really brass, well almost, and it's got a variety of approaches in it that never were done again, like blind flanges on the center tender trucks.   Overall dimensions are good, it was scaled right.

In a perfect world I'll do a lot of redetailing on this but none of it will happen unless I get it to run the way I hope it will.   I'm optimistic now that I got the chassis and running gear issues mostly behind me.   I have to keep reminding myself that this isn't much newer that the HO Tyco 4-6-2 I made from a Mantua kit when I was about 12.  At the time, that kit was just totally and completely intimidating to me, remember it well, I'd only done plastic models before that.   RIVIT the valve gear?  Are you NUTS?

Anybody have ideas for the locomotive brake shoes between the axles?  They are rather pronounced, missing, and don't look particularly impossible to put in.   Delrin?  Shapeways?   Some odd Bachmann part that I'm not familiar with?  Driver size is around 78".

For the brake shows, would this work:
Gold Medal Models N 160-42 Steam Locomotive Detailing Set

It has a lot of useful stuff.

Wolf

[peteski]

When I scraped them there was brass underneath, so I'm guessing nickel-plated brass.   I was able to solder to them.

It may wear, and that's why I put the whole stupid replacement assembly in with screws instead of soldering it in - I can punt if it fails.   But there's zero force on it now, and it doesn't twist like it did before, so it's riding flat on the crosshead guide instead of 'digging' the lead edge into the guide every piston stroke like it did before.  I'll be soaking everything in Neolube once I get there.

Even if made from brass, that guide will not wear down in your lifetime. There isnt any appreciable load on those parts. They are merely cosmetic.  Other than looking wrong visually (in real life those are silver, not gold), it will be fine.

[randgust]

Lead truck is finished and mounted, tracks well on the frame.   Another issue resolved.   Smooth and no issues.    I'm really pleased how well the frame and running gear roll around now, that gives me courage to continue on with this nutty project.   ATSF completely rebuilt their original Baldwin 3400's, this just continues the tradition.

I just ordered a Shapeways Hodges trailing truck, and a replacement cab.  The cab is kind of iffy, not sure if that will help or not as the current one has so much wrong with the sides and window spacing it makes the entire locomotive look 'off', but the Shapeways one has the wrong roof and right windows.  Existing cab is missing all the front windows, it's just a sheet of brass.  The cab is soldered to the boiler (poorly) so it's hard to say how that will go.  The existing trailing truck is really poor, and the wrong one anyway for 3415.   I could live with it but I don't have to.

Best discovery is that I've found that the worm geometry is identical to existing Kato worms, so if I have to I can transplant a Kato worm, bearing blocks, universal, flywheel, and five-pole motor into this and still have the gearing match up and it would fit in there .   That makes me a little more fearless when I'm evaluating that existing motor and worm.   It really needs an end support shaft bearing so it isn't jacking the worm vertically under load, the frame isn't all that stiff and you're putting too much vertical force on the motor shaft that translates into a flex force through the motor and into the rather light frame motor mount.   A 'normal' gearbox arrangement would fix that, we'll see.   The trick is finding a way to secure it to the frame, but the gear pitch and teeth are right-on between the two worms - complete surprise.

[randgust]

Finished up the running gear and regauging, decided to start on the motor mounting and testing.   It then occurred to me that before I did that, and I had the frame and running gear accessible, that I should probably paint some of the more inaccessible areas while it was in pieces, like the frame body, interior of the running gear, sides of the drivers, etc., so I got that done.    Getting that area painted Engine Black immediately resulted in some of the more ugly features of that mechanism suddenly becoming irrelevant to the final appearance.    My final finish will be the current appearance of 3415 on the Abilene & Smoky Valley, not the in-service appearance of 3415 - which would be more grimy black, some weathering, etc.

And finally, motor testing.   I really like the idea of mounting worm bearing blocks, new five-pole motor, universal and flywheel to this thing as I think it will fit and work, but it was also really tempting to just remount the old motor and see what would happen.   Somebody posted that the motor had to be shimmed, that's an understatement, I think I had to jack up the rear of it at least .030 to even get the worm to engage and yes, it flexes just a hair as the frame is really flimsy behind the rear driver.

But even with that old five-pole motor, she runs, and runs surprisingly well.  I hot-leaded a test wire to the motor (no rebuilt tender yet to test with) and let it run through my switches and crossovers with the boiler perched on it to see how it did and it was surprisingly quiet, had controllable low speed, did not overheat at all even at full slip.   So for now, at least, I'm leaving the original motor in.

At this point there's no doubt this thing will run, and run pretty well, so I can begin the luxury of shopping for lipstick for the pig and looking at what detail I want to add.

[randgust]

OK, well, this is the kind of project that can be effectively 'derailed' by one casual observation.. or at least made a lot more complicated.

While I'd measured the tender, drivers, wheelbase, I hadn't really checked the ENTIRE locomotive after reassembly for dimensions, and compared it to the ATSF clearance diagrams in "Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail".

Looks like your comment about 'it seemed kinda big' isn't entirely off-base, Drasko.   The dimension from tip of pilot to loco drawbar is 'long' by almost two feet.   The drivers are OK (and they are that big, 79" monsters, no wonder it looks like a Northern's little brother) pilot wheels are OK, rear truck is about 12" too far back.  It looks to me like a good portion of the 'too long' problem is the cab, and in the cab it's the spacing between windows.  I don't have a good cab measurement but if anything could be fixed, that's already on my list of things to do here.

And, it's most certainly about 18" too high on the dimension to both the center of the boiler and the top of the stack.   Well, that's pretty obvious when the loco steps are hanging in space anyway.  The entire boiler simply sets too high on the frame.   It could be lowered, fore and aft, about a scale foot, if I can prove to myself I'm not shorting out the top of the motor into the boiler, but even so, should be able to fix that.   Maybe.  The rear motor of the boiler to the frame is easy enough to drop, and the cylinder saddle can be ground down as well.

Surprisingly, it's not too wide.   For a minute there I started to wonder if they'd made this thing to 1:150 Japanese instead of 1:160.

I have a Shapeways Hodges trailing truck and replacement cab coming, and a replacement 12,000 gal. tender from ATSFmodels that's really exquisite, will justify whatever work I do for detail on the locomotive itself.   But after getting that chassis squared off, yeah, that's built better and works better than a lot of much newer production that I've seen so I keep telling myself this won't be wasted.  I'm trying to cherry-pick the real 'blacksmith' work here on this project before I start to detail anything.

[draskouasshat]

IMO, its a great piece of history and that's about it. Id wait for a Pecos River Brass model to come across the Bay and buy it. the money you've spent on the model, cab, and tender so far has probably gotten you to at least half of the cost of the correct PRB model with accurate detailing. The PRB models are beautiful and both of mine run well.

Drasko

[randgust]

Yeah, I've been watching those brass PRB's for years, and finding the 'right' one (modernized, like the 3415) with the 12K tender are rarer than hens teeth and priced like unicorn horns.   I actually enjoy this kind of rebuild work anyway, and when I found a dirt-cheap Jamco that I couldn't make much worse, yeah, as I say in the title, against all good advice....  I can't necessarily disagree, but the other 'plan' I had (completely rebuilding off an Atlas 4-6-2 to do 1316) literally fell apart when I found the zamac frame had degraded to the point of no return.   

I got a good deal on the excellent Hallmark 4-8-4 years ago, but it required so much rework to get around 11" curves that I often thought I would have been almost as far ahead to redo a more current Bachmann.   And it felt like I was really messing with a collectors item I shouldn't mess with, but I did anyway.  I've always torn stuff apart since I was a little kid. 

[wm3798]

I'm reminded of a cartoon I saw many years ago.  A small boy was standing there with the parts of a broken toy, and he's explaining to his dad that he had to break it to see why it wasn't falling apart...  A true engineer in the making.
Lee

[randgust]

Made some progress.   I ground down the cylinder saddle and steam admission lines to drop the front of the boiler about a foot, now the ladders are firmly in contact with the pilot deck.  Removed the rear cab mount after I put a spacer about a foot thick on top of the 'hot' motor brush cap to see if I could get it down that far in the rear.   It look some dremeling to get enough space in the boiler on that spot, but it worked.   Now the height at the rear cab roof is the desired 15' 8" per clearance diagram.  The stack is high, but it also looks like some of the class had stack extensions and this is a high stack in comparison to the dome height.  I'll leave it as it is.  The centerline of the boiler is now darn close.

Now it's pretty obvious that the cab roof won't clear the original tender front.   Well, another tender is on the way.

That boiler height correction improved the appearance more than I imagined, much less 'daylight' under the boiler.   The main rod just barely clears the air compressor on the LH side, so that's another issue, but it's good.

I also Neolubed up the rods on the LH side to see what that looks like, and test ran the whole thing again to see what I messed up.  Still OK.

Now if you are following this thread, here's another one for you.   There's a PRB ATSF 4-6-2 out there on the auction site at an equally absurd price, not marked as PRB but "ATSF brass 4-6-2" or such, and in a blue box marked "dummy" (how much more warning do you need?), with what looks like some handrails hanging off the front.  "Does not run" in the description and scant else.   It's the most modernized version with the bigger tender and the final dome modifications, painted in what looks like high-gloss thick black 3425.   Hard telling if there's even a motor in there or if was similarly dropped.    So there you go, Railwires, if you think that one is easier, have at it.  Always room for one more person with more confidence than brains....

[draskouasshat]

So far im in the lead for this one. Im hoping for another mechanism ti stuff some 84" drivers in!

Drasko

[randgust]

I'm watching it but that's all.  That's typical of the indecision I've had for years, do I chase after one of those, change out the domes and the tender, strip it.....???  Or rebuild something else?   I'm in way too deep now to look back.  Anyway, it's running really well so far, even with the old motor.  If I put the new 12x12 pickup 12K tender on it to get around the electrical issues I'm hoping it's a solid performer.

I'm probably going to be disposing of the old Jamco tender, if anybody is interested PM me.  I haven't messed with it at all.