Boston & Maine B15 2-6-0 Scratchbuild

[mmagliaro]

Lovely work, man.  I like projects like this, and I admire people who are willing to
build this way.  I shall be following along intently

The frame looks very nice.  Great job!

[BobRunty]

Can't wait for more. A project like this has been on my bucket list for years.

Just a quick question, any particular reason you used nickel silver for the frame instead if brass?

Bob

[garethashenden]

Can't wait for more. A project like this has been on my bucket list for years.

Just a quick question, any particular reason you used nickel silver for the frame instead if brass?

Bob

Brass has a higher heat transfer coefficient. Why this matters is that brass will heat up all over quite quickly. This means that as you add more details and parts you increase the chances of parts falling off as other parts of the model heat up. Nickel silver is also easier to solder, it doesn't tarnish as easily as brass.

[garethashenden]

Made a bit more progress, this time on the tender. The motor will be in the tender driving the locomotive via a length of guitar string, I'll show you more when I get there. What this does mean is that the tender needs to be worked on well before the body of the locomotive.

The tender trucks will pick up from all eight wheels. The way I'm doing this is to have inside frames with the same style bushings as on the locomotive. The wheels, which I'll have to make, will have integral half axles. All I've done on the trucks so far is to make the frames. Four pieces of 0.020" nickel silver (scrap from cutting out the chassis) were soldered in a stack. They were then drilled to 2.5mm for the bushings, and three sides cut/filed to size. I'm waiting on more bearings (and a couple other things), so I can't progress this much until they come.



What I can work on is the tender body.
I started by cutting out the tender floor in 0.020" ns. As seems to be my way of doing things, a photocopy of the drawing was glued with rubber cement to the sheet and then cut and filled to shape.



The body is all formed from one piece of sheet. Because of this, and the bending involved, I chose 0.010"ns. I measured the height of the body and scribed a line along the edge at that height. I marked the center and attached the cutout of the rear end drawing, followed by the two side drawings. I left extra metal at both ends as it needed to folded inside. This was then cut out and filled to size.




Finally, the body was then folded up and soldered to the floor. The middle joint isn't quite square, but most of it will be carved away to fit the motor and the rest will be covered in coal, so I'm not too worried.

[peteski]

Nice progress!  I wonder why you didn't scribe the panel lines and maybe even embossed the rivets on the very thin tender body when it was still flat?

[garethashenden]

Nice progress!  I wonder why you didn't scribe the panel lines and maybe even embossed the rivets on the very thin tender body when it was still flat?

Because they're tiny and don't show up in most photographs. I much prefer to leave off detail that to model it over-scale. That ruins the effect. I'll do the big rivets on the smokebox, but that will probably be it.

[mmagliaro]

I hear you on not doing things oversized. But in the prototype photo on page one of this thread, the
vertical staggered rows of rivets are clearly visible on the tender body, so I think it would be a good idea
to try to model them.   The smaller sizes of Archer rivet decals do a great job for things like this.  They are
very small to begin with, and since they go on under the paint, they provide a very subtle, yet precise and
visible, effect.

[garethashenden]

I hear you on not doing things oversized. But in the prototype photo on page one of this thread, the
vertical staggered rows of rivets are clearly visible on the tender body, so I think it would be a good idea
to try to model them.   The smaller sizes of Archer rivet decals do a great job for things like this.  They are
very small to begin with, and since they go on under the paint, they provide a very subtle, yet precise and
visible, effect.

Archer rivets are actually a good idea, thanks for reminding me about them. They show up really well in some pictures and not at all in others, take a look here: https://sites.google.com/site/bostonandmainerailroad/home/boston-maine-steam-locomotives

[peteski]

Because they're tiny and don't show up in most photographs. I much prefer to leave off detail that to model it over-scale. That ruins the effect. I'll do the big rivets on the smokebox, but that will probably be it.

IMO, lightly scribed panel lines are very realistic. Not deep wide and deep grooves (like the Rapido did on the meat reefers), but gentle scribings on the brass walls.  This is where the realistic model making becomes art rather than simply exact science.  Totally smooth walls of the tender will look really strange (in person and in photographs).  Not only rivets and panel lines are visible but the tender walls aren't perfectly smooth.


Here are some additional photos which show panel lines on tenders. I'm not posting photos directly not to waste George's bandwidth.

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bm/bm-s1440afm.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bm/bm-s1445ewa.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bm/bm-s1455l.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bm/bm-s1455jpa.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bm/bm-s1484ssC.jpg

I have half a dozen on enlargements of this class of loco and they all claerly show panel lines and rivets on the tender.

[garethashenden]

Made a bit more progress yesterday. I still need to clean things up, but the brakes are attached!

[PGE_Modeller]

Looking very good, Gareth.  Are the brake shoes and hangers 2mm SA parts or are they from the Gold Medal Models steam locomotive details etch?

Cheers,

[garethashenden]

Looking very good, Gareth.  Are the brake shoes and hangers 2mm SA parts or are they from the Gold Medal Models steam locomotive details etch?

Cheers,

They're GMM. I cut them in half, partly because they were too wide (designed for big N scale tires), but also to keep the frames isolated from each other.
Once I clean things up I'll be able to paint the chassis, then fit the wheels and gears.

[up1950s]

I feel like a caveman .

[mmagliaro]

Big fan of soldering the brake shoes.  That will keep them sturdy.
Now that this is really starting to take shape, some questions are occurring to me.

First, those bearings are soldered firmly in place.  So there will be no play or float to the axles?  How will this
accomodate slight undulations or irregularities in the track work?
Second, now that I see the frame assembled, is the plan to put the axles through the frame and then
press the drivers on?  So it won't be possible to "drop the drivers out" for repairs or adjustments later?

As you know, I'm working on a frame myself at the moment, and I'm thinking about all these same issues.

[garethashenden]

Big fan of soldering the brake shoes.  That will keep them sturdy.
Now that this is really starting to take shape, some questions are occurring to me.

First, those bearings are soldered firmly in place.  So there will be no play or float to the axles?  How will this
accomodate slight undulations or irregularities in the track work?
Second, now that I see the frame assembled, is the plan to put the axles through the frame and then
press the drivers on?  So it won't be possible to "drop the drivers out" for repairs or adjustments later?

As you know, I'm working on a frame myself at the moment, and I'm thinking about all these same issues.

The rear axle has the gears, so it's not going to move. The other two will get enlarged slightly, but not too much. I've built proper compensated chassis in larger scales. They work nicely, but this is small enough and with a short enough wheelbase that I'm not worrying.
The wheels have half axles and get pressed into plastic tubes ("muffs" in 2mmFS terminology). If I need to remove the wheels I can do it at the expense of replacing the muffs. Poke it with a soldering iron and the wheels come out pretty easily.

Generally speaking, I'm testing everything as I go along. If, after running for a while the locomotive needs serious repairs, it's going to be a whole lot easier to just make a new chassis. Because both the wheels and the bushings will have worn and need replacement. I could theoretically just replace those parts, but with the need to take the chassis apart to get to the bearings, plus all the paint that doesn't like being soldered, it's easier to just start over. But it will take many real miles of running before that's needed.

So the plan is to make sure it works now, and fix it now if it doesn't. Then keep it oiled and use it regularly.