Best Of The Stephenson Rocket

[peteski]

Unfortunately I'm pretty much stuck with my Android phone . Using Hotspot with my computer is slower than dial up used to be. I did attempt it the other day. Using the above methods and it wanted me to jump through some other hoops I didn't understand. Supposed to have internet net service here in December. I'll catch up at some point.
Edit I can see earlier photos of Max's apparently a recent update screwed the pooch for me best I can guess.

If you cannot see Max's photos in this thread, hosted on his own (insecure site), but you can see his photos in the past threads, it is  likely that Max uploaded those earlier photos directly to the Railwire gallery (they are locally hosted on this secure site).  Yes, some not-so-recent web browser update blocked insecure contents on secured sites, but it is likely not anything very recent.

When you see Max's photos in older threads, do those have Railwire watermark on the lower left cornet?

[mmagliaro]

Yes, sometimes I have uploaded photos to the Railwire gallery and posted them from there.  But for all the Rocket project,
I've been collecting them and hosting them in a directory under my own website.
And if anybody is wondering, in order to convert my site to use https, I would have to buy a certificate for about $100/year,
which I really don't want to do.  If it was a one-time thing, that would be fine.  But the certs have to be renewed every year.

[Maletrain]

Speaking of photos.  Max, yours are excellent!  What are you using to get such great depth of field that close to such small objects?

(Maybe you should answer my question in a separate thread in the photography section, because I suspect it could become a large thread drift that might detract from this really special thread.  And, besides, who would later find macro photography tips buried in a thread titled "The Stpehenson Rocket"?)

[learmoia]

Disregard.. it's an android thing for me... On the PC, I can see the amazing photos!.

[mmagliaro]

Speaking of photos.  Max, yours are excellent!  What are you using to get such great depth of field that close to such small objects?

(Maybe you should answer my question in a separate thread in the photography section, because I suspect it could become a large thread drift that might detract from this really special thread.  And, besides, who would later find macro photography tips buried in a thread titled "The Stephenson Rocket"?)

These are all shot with a Canon PowerShot G12, which is a circa 2011 "prosumer" camera - not a DSLR, but has a bigger lens and sensor than your typical compact point-and-shoot, and it has manual exposure controls.  All I'm doing is setting it on manual, with maximum f/stop, which is f/8.  It's on a tripod, and well-lit on a white background (most of the time).  The light is just an overhead fluouescent but I put a white piece of paper between the light and the subject, so it spreads and softens the light.
I get as close as the camera will let me get and still be able to auto-focus, which is usualy about 1 inch.
Sometimes, owing to the awkwardness of getting the camera and object positioned, I have to set the camera back about a foot, and actually use the optical zoom on it to get closer.  Again, I zoom as close as the camera will still auto focus.
Ideally, you should not do this, as using the zoom introduces focus error and barrel distortion.

Oh, and I use a distortion correction in GimP on the photos to straighten out any "bent banana" effect that one gets from the barrel distortion at such close distances.

[Simon D.]

Your gearbox is brilliant.  Did you know the 2mm Association has just produced a 30:1 gearbox?  See item 3-352 on this page: http://www.2mm.org.uk/products/shops.php?shop_num=3.  Not sure it would have worked for the Rocket though.


You have to be a member to buy them, but the cost is not that great to join and their overseas shipping costs seem very reasonable.

[glakedylan]

Max, the design and building of that drive train is such a feat of craftsmanship.
this is coming together so well
i so enjoy following your builds and other work

thanks for sharing . . . top notch!

sincerely
Gary

[metalworkertom]

Excellent work Max . And such a resourceful line of thought. The gearing work has so many other possibilities in projects.

[mmagliaro]

Thanks, guys.  One of the nicest things about this is that all those geartrain parts are standard Kato parts:
the axle tubes from the SD40-2 mid production, and the bearings from the GS-4.
The worm could also have come from an SD40-2, as it is also a mod 0.2 worm (and so are the truck gears and worm from the Kato GG-1).  But the Kato worm is a little bigger in diameter, and I would have had to cut out a bigger relief in the brass plate to clear it, so I opted for some smaller diameter mod 0.2 worms I had sitting around here.

A trick wil be hiding the motor and gear.  I plan to make a curvy wurvy "blanket" that I can cover with a coal load, and make the whole thing removable as a drop-in unit so I can get access to the motor.  The coal load in this engine is probably going to be piled a little bigger and higher than what people are used to seeing in photos of the Rocket, but I haven't been able to find a single photo that shows the coal load anyway, even on operating replicas.  I would have thought there would be a pretty decent pile in there, since the space for it is so small.  But maybe they only run it a mile or two, so they don't need to carry much.

[nickelplate759]

I believe the Rocket burned coke, but coke looks pretty much like coal.

[learmoia]

I assume there are not many (if any?) photos of locomotive in service.. and the coal loading may be limited to the track weight capacity.

Photos of replicas, I'm guessing they just put enough coal in the loco to run it for the day.

[metalworkertom]

I believe the Rocket burned coke, but coke looks pretty much like coal.

In my experience with using both coke and coal. Coke is more gray than black and much lighter in weight.

[mmagliaro]

Yes, it burned coke.  I just glossed over it and said "coal".  Coke has a more silver-gray color.
Now... to find any actual photo of the Rocket, even one of the operating replicas, that shows any fuel load in the tender...

[Mark5]

Now... to find any actual photo of the Rocket, even one of the operating replicas, that shows any fuel load in the tender...

Probably an uphill climb to find any photos of the original, as photography was in extreme infancy back then (there are some fakes out there though).

Here's a photo of a replica showing a small amount of "load", allegedly circa 1920: https://www.prints-online.com/george-stephensons-rocket-pre-1923-replica-11575321.html

Mark

[mmagliaro]

Thanks, Mark5.  Yes, I see that little pile in there.  I wonder if that's all they typically needed.  It is a very small boiler, and that wine barrel (yes, that's what they used) doesn't hold much water either, so it may have been that they had to stop for water anyway, and just didn't carry a big heaping pile of coke in there.

Notice there is no stop across the front of the tender.  So they must never have planned on having much of a coke pile in there, because it would be spilling out the front all the time.  They built it to be easy to climb in to grab a few chunks in a shovel, or even with your hands, and toss them into the firebox.  If you look at the tiny access door to the firebox, no way would a shovel go in there.  So they were probably just shoving grapefruit size (or smaller) rocks of coke in there by hand.

Well, in the interest of hiding the mechanics, mine is going to have a heaping pile there.   
I also plan to put a low board across the front edge, something that wouldn't be much more than a 2 x 6 in real life, which will make a pile in there a bit more believable.

It's too bad there really are no actual photos of this thing from the 1830's.  I know that photography barely existed then.
I also wonder if they ever hung an oil lantern on the front as a bit of a "headlight" just so they could see a little bit if it started to get dark while they were out on a run.  That is a perfectly believable thing they might have done.  It would give me a cheap excuse to put a tiny SMD-illuminated lantern hanging on a bracket somewhere.