Best Of Spokane, Portland and Seattle (SP&S) 0-6-0 Project

[mmagliaro]

@mmagliaro,

Just incredible work, Max.  You are an inspiration.

Out of curiosity, how is the balance of the locomotive over the drivers?  Nose heavy, rear heavy, or balanced?

DFF

I haven't put it on a beam balance or anything to check for it, but based on how it seems to rock over a set of testing rollers, I think it's very close to balanced on the drivers.  Because I have the motor toward the nose, pointed backward toward the cab, the motor and gearhead sit right about over the drivers instead of back in the cab like on a traditional steam model.  That prevents the engine from being cab heavy.

Oh, and thank you!   

[Cajonpassfan]

I refuse to post more attaboys in this thread - I ran out!
 

Lol, same here. Incredible.
Otto

[superturbine]

Max, 

I likely did not read through your build properly ( I did find many useful tips and have enjoyed the build) but I was just curious.  The prototype your building-  is the cab roof suppose to have an overhand above the cab windows.  To me neither of these cabs appear to have it.  Just wondering?

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=34113.0

The prototype looks like this (the SP&S switcher I am making is identical to an NP L-9, albeit with a
different style of tender):

[nkalanaga]

I think Photobucket has a problem...even if I click on the picture to go to the original page, all I see is the "Please update your account" message.

[garethashenden]

I think Photobucket has a problem...even if I click on the picture to go to the original page, all I see is the "Please update your account" message.

Photobucket has changed their terms of service. They don't allow "3rd Party Hosting" on the free account or the two cheaper paid accounts. If you want to host your pictures on Photobucket and share them on forums you have to pay either $40 a month or $400 a year. I'm looking for an alternative, and everyone else should too.

[eric220]

Photobucket strikes @mmagliaro .  The amount of awesome that has been lost in this thread alone has noticably reduced the mean awesomeness of the internet.

[mmagliaro]

I have now restored this thread by moving all the 0-6-0 photos to a directory below my website stuff that is already hosted by somebody else, and then I edited all my posts in here and changed all the links.
It was tedious, and it took over an hour, but not as bad as I thought it would be.  I just got a couple of editor windows open and did a lot of cutting and pasting.

As for Jason's question about the cab roof overhang...
When I originally made the cab, the roof had a BIG overhang, and a cousin of mine who is quite observant about model accuracy noticed it.  I shaved it way back.  Now, on the prototype photos, the roof kind of wraps over the outside above the windows, but doesn't quite "stick out".    You can see that mine also bend down over the walls of the cab just above the windows.  It may not be quite a perfect match, but I rather like it the way it is, so I'm probably not going to fool with it any further.

(and thanks for being so observant!...)

(... and welcome back... again!)

[strummer]

 

How do you find the time...? Between "life" (kids, work, etc.), and answering all my annoying emails (thanks, by the way  )...how do you do it?!

Is there a Modeler's "Hall of Fame"? if so I hereby nominate one Max Magliaro for induction...

Mark in (also) Oregon

[mmagliaro]

How do you find the time...? Between "life" (kids, work, etc.), and answering all my annoying emails (thanks, by the way  )...how do you do it?!

Is there a Modeler's "Hall of Fame"? if so I hereby nominate one Max Magliaro for induction...

Mark in (also) Oregon

Ha ha... I don't always.  That's why these build projects go on for so long.
I stayed up late last night and got the 0-6-0 thread restored, and the NP W-5.  I've got a few more albums downloaded that I will fix up by moving the photos to my website's server.   It really wasn't that hard once I got in a groove for doing it.

1. Make a directory below your main web pages, one that won't normally be reachable by people surfing your page.
2. Upload all the photos for a given album to there.
3. Start going through your Railwire thread where those are used, "Modify" each post you made.   In each post, copy all the text
of your post and paste it into a text editor.  Then do a global search/replace of the photobucket directory path with
the new path to your web site's directory (where your photos now are).
4. Paste that updated text back into the editor on the Railwire page, overwriting your entire old post
5. Save your Railwire edit.

Yes, it takes a long time if you have a lot of posts using those photos, but once you get going and leave the editors open, each post only takes about 10 seconds to do.

[metalworkertom]

Max this is a great project. I found this thread when looking for blueprints as I am about to begin a scratch built Steam Loco myself. Learned much reading through the post. Love the slide cover trick. going to go back through and list some of the many suppliers you use . One thing I haven't been able to find is a source for the Motor , could you share that information? One thing I'm planning different is I'm going to cast parts after Styrene or other material mock ups so all parts will be brass. GREAT WORK here can't wait for the next installment.

[mmagliaro]

Max this is a great project. I found this thread when looking for blueprints as I am about to begin a scratch built Steam Loco myself. Learned much reading through the post. Love the slide cover trick. going to go back through and list some of the many suppliers you use . One thing I haven't been able to find is a source for the Motor , could you share that information? One thing I'm planning different is I'm going to cast parts after Styrene or other material mock ups so all parts will be brass. GREAT WORK here can't wait for the next installment.

Thanks!
You can get the 8mm faulhaber motor (Faulhaber 0816S) from micro-loco-motion.com (email them and you'll start talking to the owner, Eldon Shirey, and he'll get you a motor at a reasonable cost).  Eldon is the whole company,
and he is always busy, so be patient.

You can also find them on eBay at really good prices these days.  Just search for Faulhaber 0816.  The tricky part is,
while you WILL find some with gearheads on them (and that's what you want), you won't find any with a 4:1
or 16:1 (like I am using).  To get that, I had to take a higher-ratio gearhead and cut it down.  I actually
put it in my mill (you could use a lathe if you have one; it would be easier).  I cut the very back off the motor, pull out all the gear stages, then I cut the back of the case shorter so it is the exact length needed to be a 4:1 or 16:1, then you put 1 or stages of planetaries back in, and put the back on again.
If this sounds daunting, believe me, it is.  It took a lot of practice to get to here I can do this and get it back together without ruining it most of the time.

It's either that, or go to Eldon and buy a motor with the proper gearhead on it.  He can fix you up with exactly  what you need.

[metalworkertom]

Thanks for the info. I did see you cut the gearbox down , and I do have a lathe .

[mmagliaro]

Thanks for the info. I did see you cut the gearbox down , and I do have a lathe .

There are two critical things about cutting these gearheads down
1. The length of the case must be EXACT.  You will be putting 1 or 2 stages of plantaries back in (for 4:1 or 16:1, respectively), and then the case back goes on.  When you are all done, it has to be the perfectly length so that when you screw it back onto the motor, the pinion on the motor shaft extends inside the case just the right amount to engage the planetary gears without binding up against the plate for the planetary carrier.  If you make the case a little too short, you can usually compensate by putting a very thin shim washer in between the motor and the gearhead.  But you can only do this so much because the gearhead does have to thread on properly.

2. Your cutter needs to be super sharp.  The inside of the case has the teeth in it that the planetaries ride in.  When the cutter goes through the case, it will bugger up the teeth on the inside of the case.  There's almost no avoiding that, no matter how sharp your cutter is and no matter how fast the spindle runs, but super sharp with a very fast spindle are the best bets.  You will have a little bit of ragged teeth just at the very back of the case.  You can usually clean them up with an Xacto, and even so, if you get the case length just right, the planetaries will never ride in the section of teeth just at the very back of the case, so you'll be okay.

[mmagliaro]

Here's the latest update folks.  There are a lot of photos in this one as I haven't posted in a while.
Covered in this installement are a lot of "appliances" on the boiler:  sanding lines, power reverse, air brake governor, compressor, air reservoir, and more.  And lots and lots of rivets!
























































This next group shows a lot of trial-and-error, getting a compressor governor that is actually down to scale size.
It took a while, because I didn't have a drawing at first and had a hard time getting a handle on just how small this thing needed to be.

[CNR5529]

  WOW!

Truly inspiring work, as always!