More details; bracket under the cab that holds injector, stoker motor behind that, about half of piping done all on left side. I figured i'll do one side at a time to keep it easier. On top bell, turbogenerator and headlight bracket on smokebox door:
Few more details done; big pipe to Worthington water heater and headlight:
Some more piping to do that connects to the compressor behind water heater (i'm still figuring out how the piping should run). Sand lines from sand box and hand rail stanchions with hand rail to do.
Not much to report here. Besides working on the layout, i did start on the engineer side of I1 with details. Put in the power reverse unit and started on the piping:
I had two choices on how to run the piping. Some units had the pipes on the outside of large air tank just like 4587:
Picture by Jim Shaughnessy from "Pennsy Power".
Others had the piping hidden behind the tank just like this one:
Not sure of the unit number, but since the air tank is integrally cast with the boiler and it would be difficult to run the piping behind that, i chose to model it just like on 4587. Second picture is by Ken Schumacher also in "Pennsy Power".
Back to work on Pennsy "Hippo". Some more piping added on the left side between cab and compressor:
Here is the real thing and the only survivor of the clan:
Pipe fitters nightmare
Mine will have few differences, and this is the hard part; what to leave and what to fit in. This 4483 has a compressor on both sides as some machines did have that. Seems most had only one compressor generally on fireman's side and that's the version i'm doing.
Working on Pennsy "Hippo" today. Started on replacing the old DC71 open frame motor with a nice NWSL #18367-9 which i had laying around for just an occasion.
First visual approach with a flywheel from Athearn blue box diesel motor. Will have to shave a bunch of that flywheel before it fits.
After some initial shaving at about 15° angle, which proved a litte too sharp. First i adjusted the knife to about 13° which was still a little too steep.
After adjusting the knife to about 11-12° that was looking good:
Here the whole assembly is about the size of original DC71 with worm gear. Now i have to figure out how much of the main frame to shave off, to lower that worm gear to the main gear, i have about 1mm to go:
That's a Big AZ caveman motor! Bigger even than the KATO motors in my Narrow Gauge Diesel conversions though those have room for a flywheel on both ends. Should be a great puller if you can get enough weight in it! Fun project! Cheers: Tom
That's a Big AZ caveman motor! Bigger even than the KATO motors in my Narrow Gauge Diesel conversions though those have room for a flywheel on both ends. Should be a great puller if you can get enough weight in it! Fun project! Cheers: Tom
I want this thing to pull 100 car trains on train shows by itself. It's already very heavy with that proper size boiler on it. Plus all accessories will be metal. Prelude to my Lehigh and New England decapod which is next in line.
I guess i can call this "Part Deux" in a comedy of trying to fit the huge "caveman motor" (thanks @747flier ) in a decapod body. Anyway the rear mount is on and the motor is mounted on it. I just have enough play between worm gear and round gear on the axle.
I will definitely have to come up with a bracket in front of worm gear, to keep it from bending away from main gear.
It took a while to make space inside the locomotive body to actually be able to put it over the running gear. I just figured out what the burrowing tool is for
Quite a bit of metal had to be disposed of from the back head, but in the end i did it:
I can probably make a styrene model of back head and CA it into that empty space to hide the bracket and the motor.
Late last night i managed to to do some break in runs with the "Hippo". Still lots to do, there is a lot of noise probably because the can motor is directly touching the main frame. I'll have to shave the frame just a bit and stick double sided tape between it an the motor. I will also have to fine tune the front bearing which is holding the shaft, as that didn't exactly came out as i wanted. Anyway here it is pulling its other half by a wire:
It is also my best tracking steamer so far, contrary to how long that stiff wheel base is. There are practically no derailments in complicated trackwork. While having that thing apart yesterday, i've made a simple spring suspension at the front driver, which allows it to drop about half millimeter down in crests and switch frogs.
A lot of fine tuning today, rescrewing and unscrewing along with some screwing up. Besides the locomotive, i had to get a major operation done on the long distance tender. The trucks on the model were too far apart. So i made a simplified frame and brought the trucks closer together.
And a comparison with the L&NE mikado (former Pennsy)
Had to take the decapod apart several times to get the bearings corrected on the worm shaft. Tomorrow i might make a short clip of it running. One inclusion i made on this one was working suspension of the front driver set, and this is the best tracking steam loco in my stable right now. Penn Line/Bowser as well as pretty much all cast metal steamers are very stiff and considering my layout of ups and downs, this was an excellent idea. I'll have to incorporate the front end suspension to all my steamers.
Some more Pennsy I1 testing, this time with its tender properly coupled.
Tender got a new subframe if i can even call it that. Originally the trucks were mounted too far apart and there are only two mounting points for the trucks, as the whole tender body is one casting. I grabbed rectangular shaped brass piece and after drilling two large holes in it, i screwed it to the bottom of those truck mounts. This gave me free room to make mounts for the trucks themselves.
Turns out that the tender is almost two scale feet too short as per drawings. So the front truck mounting was improvised-somewhere between as per prototype and what the model allowed. I chose to mount the rear truck at proper distance from the rear wall of the tender:
Last small details of flywheel and worm gear shield:
Busy day yesterday and besides fine tuning the Pennsy I1, i've had to work on the car during the day. Thankfully finished as it was getting dark (replacing heater fan blower motor inside the dash). Dinner in the evening and i figured to take on a little less demanding task. Grabbed that Bowser 4-8-2 mountain and after checking if it even worked (it works), and i mated my Vanderbilt tender to it. Both Chesapeake and Ohio had that setup, as well as Baltimore and Ohio. Also Union Pacific and i believe Espee used Vanderbilt tenders behind their 4-8-2s. Here it's in all its glory and it's one of the finest performing steamers on my railroad:
It's not a pure C&O, or B&O, as they used different cabs. This cab looks more like something on CB&Q.
The tender is from Bachmann "Mountain", which in pieces cost me all of $10 at a recent train show in Monroeville (how i love junk boxes on train shows).
That front end is definitely B&O or very close to it.
After hee-hawin around with easier stuff, back to the Pennsy "Hippo" and more details on the boiler. Stuck in most of the handrail stantions on the side of the boiler, as well as sand lines from the sand dome. Sand lines turned out to be weird on most I1s. Seems most I1s had sets of two on each side, with fewer having sets of three. I chose the easier route and did two on each side. Also looking at the pictures all pretty much had sand lines going to the front set of driving wheels...but after that, second sand line on firemans side went to fourth driving wheel, while second sand line on engineers side went to the third wheel on his side. Needless to say most of the pictures show that exact setup.
I will run the handrail through the stantions when i'm sure that there's no more details going on the boiler.
), and i mated my Vanderbilt tender to it. Both Chesapeake and Ohio had that setup, as well as Baltimore and Ohio. Also Union Pacific and i believe Espee used Vanderbilt tenders behind their 4-8-2s. Here it's in all its glory and it's one of the finest performing steamers on my railroad:
