Best Of The Overland/Wiseman brass Western Maryland Shay thread

[u18b]

Class Lights- part 2


Holding that tiny part was a problem, so I had the idea to lock it down a bit with an indentation in some wood.   Then I could hold it with my fingernail.



I discovered it’s too hard to keep a drill bit on track on this slippery round surface, so I started the hole by spinning a #11 Xacto knife.



The hole was then finished with a tiny drill bit.



The stock hole had to be cleaned out too.



Studying photos of this Shay, I then made a mark on the boiler.



And drilled a hole with a #72 bit.
It’s tough going- the boiler brass is thick.



It looked good…. But I felt the class lights stuck out away from the boiler too much.



When viewed from the front, they should just visually clear the handrails.



So I went back and trimmed the tiny mounting ring on the shaft so that the class light could go in deeper.  Stock is on the left- the trimmed one is on the right.



This was the look I was wanting.



The set above was a test set- with the fiber optics installed.  But they still have to be painted.

So I made another set without fiber optics.



I made 3 in case I lost one.  I then sandblasted and painted them.





Sorry I’m not good enough to light these up.
I guess they could light up if someone printed them in clear- and then they could be hand painted black around the lenses.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

GTFO with that 

[u18b]

GTFO with that 

Thanks Ed..... (I think).

(I had to look up what you said      )

I'm an old guy that doesn't know a lot of internet slang.

lol

[u18b]

New Motor

The new motor arrived from the UK.
It’s a 7x16mm coreless motor. 



Not only is it a good size for this Shay, but I like that it also comes with sleeves/bushings to take the 1mm shaft to 1.5mm.

I was simply not satisfied with either the little Sagami motor that was probably the stock motor nor another motor I had on hand.

This coreless motor is the same one I used on the Shay with sound.

I tried a couple of configurations but the one that worked best was to Beardenize it by removing the inner bearing, and then using the bushing as a very rigid shaft joiner.  A spot of superglue holds it on the shaft.






The motor has no screw holes, so I made a brass housing for the motor with K&S tubing as described earlier in this thread.





Wow.    This is MUCH better.    This is really a great little 12 volt motor.

I’m halfway tempted to put a flywheel in there now…. But I think I will pass.

[Chris333]

Looks like the Tramfabriek motor?

[u18b]

Looks like the Tramfabriek motor?

Yes... That's it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/283343715078
7mm x 16mm Bells Anchor Motor 12v, 2 Shaft + 2x 1.5mm Shaft Adapter

[u18b]

New sound test

Having installed the new motor and Beardenizing the mechanism, I did a new sound test following the previous guidelines:  Apple Watch 6, measuring decibels, near the rails, Shay moving at the same scale speed as before.

The decibel rating went down from a previous 69 to a new 66 peak.  Since the decibel scale is logarithmic, that means a 50% reduction in sound (about 3 db is half or double the sound intensity of the other). 

Remember, when I first built this Shay it was screaming at around 80 decibels.   

66 decibels at the rail now places this Shay in the “Quiet” category.   I’m now satisfied with the sound level.

[u18b]

Decoder Installation


I had a spare TCS Z-2 decoder and prepared to install it.

I’d rather not hardwire a decoder when it makes disassembly difficult, so I made a little circuit board, cut four traces and mounted a TCS 4-pin micro socket to it.

The motor wire colors are blue and red.  I may add some orange and gray paint to make them DCC friendly.

I superglued the board to the motor housing.

From top to bottom, the order is:
Red:  to the frame and right rails
Orange: Red motor wire
Gray:  blue motor wire
Black: to the board for the insulated wheels



I also made an extra little circuit board on the side.  This is for the LED headlight.  It uses two TCS 2-pin micro sockets.   The circuit is designed to be in and out (pass thru).  The decoder plugs into one side and the headlight plugs into the other.  (The inner posts are the blue wire and the outer posts are the white wire)



I then made a little circuit board for the decoder with the pins.   It’s important to always orient the wires so that in a group of 4, the outside wires are the track wires and the inside wires are the motor wires.   That way, if you install the plug in backwards, there is no problem.  The loco just may run the opposite direction- but no shorts.



Here you can see the plug for the headlight with the blue and white wire.  The yellow wire is insulated in case I ever want to use it.




I always like to make an Analog plug because if there is ever a problem with the mechanism, I find it much easier to trace problems in analog mode.

This also allows me to run this loco at my friend's house.  He has an older power pack with pulses that confuse a decoder.

The Analog plug just joins the red/orange and black/gray wires.



Here is the Analog plug installed.



The most natural place for a small decoder is in the cab/boiler opening.  But that’s where the worm is- so we need a protective barrier so the worm does not scrape the decoder.

Since I already had two screws in that area to hold the motor plate to the frame, I just created a little bridge over the motor/worm shaft.







The little bridge does it’s job.



The LED decoder wires are plugged into the side.



This worked, but proved to be a little too tall when I placed the shell on.   I had to trim the bottom of this board and lower it.

[u18b]

Headlight Re-done

Time to make the headlight modular.

The headlight circuit board has a golden white LED and a larger than average resister.  This is a steam loco, so no modern bright light.

The wires terminated in a plug into the LED board on the side of the motor.



I added a test hobby fiber optic of about 20 mil. 



Now we are running under DCC.



There is some light leak from the side.   This is because the headlight casting is very thin there and we drilled it out earlier.   You are seeing the fiber optic tube.

When the loco is fully painted and finished, I’ll go back and hand paint the side of the fiber optic showing.

[u18b]

The Final Construction Before Paint

As I’m nearing completion of this reconstruction project (excluding painting), it’s time to install the generator exhaust tube.

These almost always break off.    In fact, I have only RARELY seen a 30 year old Shay with the original tube in tact.

Here is one still present on a first run Shay which has been kept in a glass case  (although the generator tube has a slight bend to it which I did not dare correct for fear of breaking it off).

 

Because brass wire is so soft when thin, I use a .008” guitar string which is much stronger.  A brass wire would just get bent one day.

The tube is tricky to solder in place, but looks good when installed.

 


Wow.    It has taken a lot to get to this moment.
When I started this resurrection project, I was traversing new ground since I had never dealt with the crankshaft before.

In spite of the long hours of work, it is very satisfying to come to this moment.



In fact, I remember years ago when Wiseman was selling off his Shay “kits” made from surplus parts from Overland.

I bought one that was mostly finished.  However, he had some that were all parts.
After all I’ve been through with these models, I think I’ve grown in my skills that now I could make a Shay from a bag of parts.

[FlyGuyB]

Greetings Ron. Just wanted to chime in always fascinated by the work that you do on these brass models. As a previous poster stated " GTFO!" 😜🤣

[drbnc]

That is a work of art. Smithsonian time!

[mmagliaro]

Beautiful work, Ron, as always.

I have a question.  If one of the goals was to quiet the mechanism, did you consider using a Delrin gear in there, in place of one of the metal ones?  I bet that would reduce the noise considerably. 

[glakedylan]

congrats, Ron! super work as always.
it was so interesting follow this build through the thread
enjoyed it so much
thanks for sharing and for the challenges you choose,


sincerely
Gary

[u18b]

Thanks guys.

Max, I'm very open to Delryn gears- but I'm not sure how that would work out- or where to start.

The gear in the cylinder head is soldered to the cylinder shaft.  Not sure how a plastic gear would work there.  I assume the gear would have to be keyed somehow- like filing a flat spot on the shaft.

And then the upper worm gear is unique.  It's shaped like a hat with the screw in the middle.
It might be great if that gear was Delrin.   That would reduce the noise a little, but would also almost eliminate the wear on the worm.

I wouldn't have a clue how to find replacements.

On a different point, most of the bad noise comes from the bearings on the upper worm shaft and the motor itself.
My solution reduces that to a good level.