Best Of The Overland/Wiseman brass Western Maryland Shay thread

[u18b]

A Great Solution

So here is the new design that I discovered and which now works so wonderfully.  I’ll enumerate the parts needed.

1.  Motor:  7x16mm coreless

Part #0716D  from Tramfabreik in the UK.

https://tramfabriek.nl/motors.html

I described earlier in this thread how I made a motor housing out of brass tubing.)

Also from Tramfabreik, you need AD1015 - Brass adapters for worms and gears with ID 1.5 mm
Get the 30mm length and buy extras.  I love these and use them often.

This one has an inside dia of 1.0 mm and an outside dia of 1.5mm.

2.  Worm.  .25 module nickel/silver.

Order from Japan at:
http://www.narrow-garage.com/NarrowGarage.html#Gear

Order part # NG-P200

The worms are pretty cheap, but the shipping is really high. Packages arrive quickly.
Thanks Chris for pointing me to these folks.



Here is the worm and the tubing.



Very gently tap the tubing into the worm.



3.  Worm bearing from an old Atlas/Kato RS-3, GP7, GP9 made in the 1980s.    This might be the hardest part to get. You might have to buy a whole used loco just to get the bearing.  (glad I had a few extras)

What makes this great is the bearing is a ball mounted in a plastic housing- so the ball can pivot as needed.

EDIT:  Max called Atlas, and they still have some.  Part # 420002.  The are cataloged under the classic U25B.




Here is a test fit of the tubing inside the bearing. 



But the plastic housing is a bit restrictive on the back side.   So I use a big drill bit and open the plastic hole up a bit.

Now the tube can pivot all it wants.



4.  Pick-up strip from Atlas loco.    I think this came from a VO-1000 (it is a bit narrower).     You can cut a strip of brass if you want.

This piece is the bearing retainer.



Bend the strip around the bearing.  The bearing has grooves- put the strip inside.




Here is the whole setup so far.   The tube has been cut to length and placed onto the motor shaft.



Here is a side view.  Notice the drive shaft is at an angle:  the motor is low and the worm is high.    This is because a.  the bearing is a bit tall- but this is good because the worm is fatter also--- we need the extra height;  b. the motor is in the same spot using the stock holes in the motor mount.

This is now the beauty of the bearing with the ball in it- the exact angle does not matter.



What you see above runs very quietly.  So that solves the :
-noisy motor problem
-soft worm wear problem
-noisy bearing problem

[u18b]

Now I need a functioning worm gear-- and Max was a big help with both design idea and where to look for sources.

5.  I ordered custom gears from the place he suggested in Poland.

You want:  Spur Gear - Customized Gearwheel

https://shop.kkpmo.com/product_info.php?info=p21680_spur-gear---customized-gearwheel.html&XTCsid=2ndpruqb843gp60ndkb77j2c67

They have stock gears, but you want a custom gear.   I filled in the order form as follows:



I ordered 6 gears.   They were slower getting here, but priced reasonably.

They arrived in interesting packaging:



The gears are made of Delrin.



6.  steel tubing:  inside dia of 1.4 mm and outside dia of 2 mm.

Max also suggested I buy a strong inner tube for the gear, so I bought some.  I bought some off ebay.   No need to post the link since it will be dead in a few weeks.

I’m going to reuse the stock worm gear screw.




Since I ordered gears with a hole of 1.4 mm, I had to open the hole larger.   I used a small mini file of 2 mm.   



I spun the file back and forth and made the hole larger.   Do not use a "sawing" motion, but a spinning motion.  Doing this slowly kept the hole centered.



I kept going until the gear went all the way up the 2 mm file.



I cleaned up the flashing and made sure the gear slipped over the tubing.




The tubing was then cut.




I then fit the tubing inside the gear.  The tubing should be a little taller than the gear.   (Those edges will then be smoothed.)




7.  Gear Shim
Now, we are not quite ready yet- because the gear is too low for the worm- we need to lift the gear.   Instead of using a stack of washers,  I wanted a solid piece and found this bearing in my parts box.  It is a worm bearing from a Life Like SD7 (plastic frame).   This was just the thickness I needed:  1 mm.



However the diameter was too large- the cylinder gear or worm teeth might hit the spacer….



So I made the diameter smaller by dragging it across a file, and spinning while I drag (in order to keep the round shape).



Now the gearing is safe from hitting this shim spacer.




I’m ready for the final assembly.

8.  I bought some Atlas thrust washers.  Used in many locos.
Atlas part # 440108



I now assembled this new worm gear assembly.

I placed the steel tube bushing  in the gear.

I placed a thrust washer on the screw and then slid the gear with inner bushing onto the screw.

I then placed this assembly onto the shim (on the bottom).

I then install this assembly into the Shay and oiled everything up.



I had some concerns about this new straight gear interfacing with the skewed teeth of the gear in the cylinders.
But this turned out to not be a problem at this thickness.



The final results are astounding.

I now have a Shay with a strong worm and a good gear with no excess wear.

It runs smoothly and VERY quietly.

[u18b]

Conclusion

I’m really pleased with how this design has turned out.

I’m currently running the loco for hours a day and have seen no problems so far.

If the Delrin gear ever wears out, I’ll just replace it- they are cheap.   Since I have 3 Shay’s, I’ll be ordering more of these gears.

Previously, the best noise rating I could achieve was a decibel rating of 56- which was VERY good.

This Shay with all new gears now runs at….. 54 decibels.
This is a sound reduction of almost 50% from my previous best!

This thing is now so quiet, that from about 8 feet away, I can hardly hear it running.

Now I need to make the full conversion for the other two Shays.

[mmagliaro]

Terrific result, Ron!  I really think the Delrin gear is always going to be the best solution for this.  That tough plastic will protect the metal gears on either side of it, and kill whatever gear mesh and vibration noise there is.  It will be interesting to see how long it lasts, but I bet it holds up better than a brass gear.
...
And now... about that cool spherical bearing you used.  They are actually still available from Atlas as spare parts.  I stumbled on them completely by accident.  All I know is that I saw the photo, called Atlas up to make sure they really had them, and they fellow went to check on the parts shelf and they did. 

So I ordered 1000 of them.

KIDDING!
I think I bought 10.

Part 420002.  The are cataloged under the classic U25B.

And now that I've posted this, the spherical bearings I've sought for the last 10 years will be gone forever.   
Oh well, at least I have a few.

BTW, Atlas also seems to have the original Kato motor for the old U25B, if anyone has a deep need for one.

[Chris333]

Well Ron has been telling folks to take those bearings out of diesels for years. There should be a big pile somewhere 

[u18b]

...
And now... about that cool spherical bearing you used.  They are actually still available from Atlas as spare parts.  I stumbled on them completely by accident.  All I know is that I saw the photo, called Atlas up to make sure they really had them, and they fellow went to check on the parts shelf and they did. 

So I ordered 1000 of them.

KIDDING!
I think I bought 10.

Part 420002.  The are cataloged under the classic U25B.

And now that I've posted this, the spherical bearings I've sought for the last 10 years will be gone forever.   
Oh well, at least I have a few.

It's always best to buy up what you need BEFORE posting a source on  Railwire.
 

[mmagliaro]

"It's always best to buy up what you need BEFORE posting a source on  Railwire."

Yup.  That's why I already have 10 of those bearings in my stash. 

Funny, when the Atlas parts guy (don't remember his name) went to find them, he said over the phone, "Oh, yeah, these
are the old Kato ones". 

[u18b]

Well, I'm so pleased the resurrected Shay which I super detailed is finished.

It is now time to turn to painting.  And I'm a bit stumped.   I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to make some custom decals.

I'm modeling the active service years from 1945 to about 1950.
There are no pin stripes.   Pin stripes were first applied by the WM when they shopped the retired Shay to send to Baltimore.

So far, I can only find three decent vintage photos on the Net.

Here is the builder's photo from Lima (forget the white walkway edges- I'm not doing it.  It wore off pretty fast.)
You can see in the photo below that the door is a different color.   I assume red- but uncertain.

I'm 90% sure there is no red on the roof.
I cannot tell what color the smoke box up front in the nose end.  All black?  Dark gray?  It certainly does not look silver.




Then there is this photo in active service at Vindex on the Chaffee Branch.
Is the lettering Duluxe gold?


That photo originated here:  https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/001044

And lastly there is this photo.   The background is not the Chaffee Branch and makes me wonder is this is when it was retired.




Questions, questions.
information appreciated.

[PiperguyUMD]

Fantastic work Ron! This photo is not my own. I’ve gotten in a habit of screen shotting things that my be useful for my own research and not keeping track of where they come from. That said I believe this shot is of big 6 at Ridgley while in for shopping or after being retired.

[u18b]

Fantastic work Ron! This photo is not my own. I’ve gotten in a habit of screen shotting things that my be useful for my own research and not keeping track of where they come from. That said I believe this shot is of big 6 at Ridgley while in for shopping or after being retired.

WOW!  A color shot.   Thank you.    This helps some.

[PiperguyUMD]

Too bad you can't see the door!

I'm planning to build a WM coal branch in free-moN modules in the future. Maybe we can connect at a show at some point for a photo op. I should have my H9s done by then 

[u18b]

Does anyone here have back issues of Blue Mountain Express Mag from the WM Historical Society?

I'm looking for 2 issues:

2001, Fall/Winter
2002, Spring

These issues contain info of the Chaffee Branch.
I'm hoping to build a layout for my brass Western Maryland Shay.

Any research help appreciated.

[mmagliaro]

Not meaning to derail all the other discussion about the prototype photos and colors, but Ron and I have been engaging in a little experiment to see if the original brass gear that rotates around the screw in the original model could be improved so that it spins true to minimize noise and wear.  At this point, since the Delrin replacement gear works so well, I would say it is the best solution because it will always be quieter than brass-on-brass, and is something that a lot of modelers could do (buy a gear and drop it in).

But Ron felt, and I agree, that showing the work we did on the brass gear could be useful information of interest to other modelers, so I took some photos of how I did it, especially for people who do not work with a lathe or other machine tools.  Lathe sharpies out there may cringe at some of the methods I used, so feel free to (kindly!) point out better ways to do this.  But I will say that I did get good results this way, at least considering that the lathe is just a hobbyist tool with run-out tolerances in the .001" to .003" range.

Here now, the photos:

My first attempt, which did NOT work (had too much eccentricity in the rotation), is shown first:


Realizing the folly of using commercial tubing (and two sleeves), I regrouped and redid it as follows.  Ron has not gotten this second attempt back from me, as I just completed it today.  But I think the result is very promising.
There are 11 photos showing this process, as follows:





















Now, I realize that the brass sleeve and brass gear will wear over time (another reason a Delrin gear is probably better).  But it may not wear much, considering how slowly this gear actually rotates.

[Chris333]

That must be one tiny boring bar! 

[davefoxx]

This whole subject is boring.