The drive line and engine is done! During the week after work, I spent about an hour to two hours each day playing with the drive line and engine. A lot of this was just taking off plastic flashing and making sure everything worked as flawlessly as I could, with nothing catching. Well, actually, the first thing I had to do was to replace one of the gears on the rear drive shaft. See, the Handbook suggests slicing off tiny bits off the front of the gear teeth to help in the gears meshing correctly. And well, I shaved off the wrong side of the gear, ooops. Lucky, the kit had three extra gears. After that it was just a case of fitting everything and then slowly getting everything lined up properly. The first spacing is the gears, universals and spacers on the drive shafts for proper meshing at the wheels. Lucky the Handbook provides some handing starting off measurements. These help but still needed to get the proper spacing so that the gear on the drive shafts would not jump the wheel gear teeth. The engine itself is just tedious deflashing and sanding the plastic of any nubs. I went down to 3000 grit sanded wet to make sure everything was slick. Then it was a case of making sure the square profile tubes were the correct distance. At first the thing would decouple when the truck turned too much, but after some adjustments, that got corrected. Honestly though it was easier to time the front and rear trucks together than I thought. A bit of a twist on a universal and that's all that's needed to line everything up. I just realized that in the bottom picture we can see another Handbook hint, I added two 0.05mm thrust washers to each wheel axle on the gear side. This reduces the side to side play of the axle and makes sure the gear meshes correctly with the drive shaft at all times. And now for some video! First is just a slow meander down the track going forward. I think I lost a tiny bit of the slow speed performance, but still really good. In the video it is not going as slow as I could really make it. Should be even better once all the weight is on the Shay and everything is oiled and greased up (by the way, the cab and boiler are not ready, I just took them from the box and added them on for weight and looks) Second video is in reverse, going a bit faster. Whew, it's loud! Though honestly I think it sounds worse in the cellphone's microphone than hearing it in person. None of that high pitched sound really exists and is likely an artefact of the cheap mic. Now I'm really getting excited, the difficult bits are done, and it's running smooth enough for me. I mean I've seen Youtube videos of other Shay that sound and run much worse than this. Now it's time to add wires to the trucks, and then comes the time to start detailing this thing! yay!
Wow! Congratulations! The slow crawl performance is fantastic. Amazing how much work is needed to get such a kit moving. I am humbled by your patience and perseverance.
Thanks all, but don't be fooled by how slow I work! I'm not putting 4-6 hour days on this The work really has already been done for me by the Handbook, it's got all the hints and tricks to getting it running smoothly. That and taking the time to clean up all flash and nubs. I saw a youngster on YouTube, he just opened the box and started assembling the kit right off, no clean up at all. There's no way it would run even close to smooth that way. Honestly, this is child's play compared to that brass tender and Berkshire build in the n scale section! That I'm in awe of his workmanship and patience.
This is what I've been working on this weekend.... Well, not that! that's the sad excuse for a firebox that's provided with the Shay kit. It's basically just a billboard that sorta kinda hides the gearbox and the back of the engine. The Handbook goes on about a white metal replacement firebox that's supposedly available as a replacement, but here the thing - it's no longer available, and any old new stock can't be found, and I suspect has not been available for a couple decades. So I went and made my own! This is iteration #2 of the firebox, the first being far less detailed and really only existing to test that the dimensions I used for test-fitting the box underneath the frame (yeah, it did not fit, but was close!) 3D printing is amazing, I love it, heh! So how does this one fit? Well, better, but there will be iteration #3. I've never seen that white metal casting of the firebox, but I do know that it used the screws for the engine and the gearbox, sandwiching those items between the frame and the firebox to attach the fire box to the frame. I did the same thing, but only using the engine screws. The gearbox itself stays bolted directly to the frame - this way the firebox is only attached from one side of the frame, but it seems more than secure enough. I also molded in the queensposts (a new term I learned!) right onto the side of the firebox, and various bolt heads. The third iteration is coming to better centre the access ports for the electrical pickup wires and the driveshafts. They are just slightly off and I think I can do better. As for prototype, well, I kinda just invented a lot of this, but based myself a lot on this picture... Credit: Stout Lumber Company Shay, from the Shay Modelers Handbook Series "Class B Shay Model" by Single Shot Gallery - 1983 Here's the thing, I now have three different books with Shays in them, and two of these books from the series Shay Modelers Handbook, "Class B Shay Model" and "Class C Shay Model" have dozens upon dozens of different Shay pictures. I swear, not a single one has the same firebox! However, this picture of a two-truck Shay is a wood burning type and that's what I want to model, so I used it as a guide. The bottom of the firebox seems to flare out, but only on one side (the front). I happen to make it flare out also on the rear, but that's because I've seen other Shay pictures where they flare out on both sides. As for bolt pattern? I dunno, I just went with whatever looked good to me - again pictures are never good enough to really figure out what it should be like. Also, I am kinda trying to model two Shays that existed in Fossmill in Ontario, though I am taking some liberties. Umm, call it "Protolancing" if you must hehe. They had two wood burning Shays, one a two truck, the other a three truck. The book I have called the Fossmill story has a few pictures of the Shays, but none are really good enough to see the firebox. As for the modelling the Fossmill Shays, the reason I will making changes is simply because the owners at Fossmill appeared to be the cheapest outfit you could imagine. The three truck Shay had NO head lamps (either front or rear!), had no air pumps, no air tanks, and the one picture of the left side I have shows no steam jamb on the side of the firbeox. LOL, they bought the basic package and that was it. Heck, even the smoke stack is a narrow thing, not a big diamond stack like most wood burners. But, well, I like head lamps, I like the look of the air pumps, air tank and the steam jamb, so while I will be numbering them #51 and #54 (with no other markings, the Fossmill Shays had NO lettering on the side), I will be adding the details because I just find them neat. So yeah, I'm not really modelling the Fossmill Shays, but I am, if that makes sense. Now off to make edits for iteration #3. I'm also thinking whether I model in the steam jamb directly onto the side of the firebox instead of using the kit steam jamb - might be easier to model it in.
By the way, there's a neat video of the Fossmill logging company on Youtube... That video and the Fossmill Story book bascially got me hooked on Shays (as an aside, I just noticed that in the video, the Shay does in fact have an air tank on it's side, it must have been added later than the pictures I have in the book - still no headlights though)
That's a great job on the firebox! Yeah, the printer takes a lot of the sting out of a dwindling parts supply... CAD is a hurdle, but when one realizes that most modeling parts are just stacks of cubes, cylinders, cones, etc., that barrier goes away.
Wow. I have seen and heard some really jerky grinders. Yours is exceptionally smooth and actually very quiet. Nice work!
Thanks! Well, I went further than I really thought I might with this steam jamb and the firebox This is the third iteration with the final fixes for fit, and as promised, a modelled a dinky little steam jamb loosely based on the picture I posted earlier. Instead of trying to make some rods and pipes that would immediately break soon as I looked at them, I tried something different. For the rod, I just modeled a hole right through the cylinder, and then I added holes underneath. I think the piping underneath are the steam pipes that allow the umm, jamb? not sure what it's really called, to apply pressure and extend or contract the rods that apply the brakes. I wasn't sure I'd even be able to do that piping underneath, but I figured I'd give it a try. I used 0.015" phosphor bronze rods, cut them to size and soldered them together. There may or may not have been cursing involved! Afterwards, CA'd the piping to the holes in the cylinder, and painted the whole thing flat black (Rustoleum camo spray paint) to protect the resin from further UV damage... I'm happy with this! I'm not sure I'll connect the brake rods to anything, but if I don't, I'll just trim them down a bit so they don't catch on everything and anything. Now I'm leaving it alone for 24-48 hours so the paint cures real hard and will fit it in place. I think I'll work on the pilots or something in the meantime.
