Macton Waggon Diorama

michael mott

Western Thunderer
Hi Tim the calculation that I used is this .070" = 1 inch so standard gauge being 56.5 inches I multiplied .070x56.5 =3.955 inches so I rounded it up to 4 inches just to make life easier. it is not as if I will be running anything on anyone else's layout. Although it would be simple enough to cut .045" off the inside edge of the gauge or to just make another. But at 4 inches it is hardly noticeable, and life is too short for me to worry too much about
45 thou. at this scale. When scaling up drawings in the scanner some of the lines get to be less accurate than that at this large a blow up.
That said I am trying to be reasonably accurate with the general overall appearance and general building practices. This for me is mostly to be able to build a large model of the sorts of things that might have been going on in the workshops at the early part of the 20 century. giving me lots of scope for making details. and a group of large loco models without going down the model engineering route. A long winded answer but I hope the rationalization makes sense.

Michael
 

michael mott

Western Thunderer
I have filled in the rails on the outside portion of the works with the base foam and it has been glued down with the foam cement.
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The loco still runs well enough at the moment. but to take a break I have started to build one 12 ton mineral wagon to be able to recreate the scene in the Crewe works book where the wagon is being transferred from one part of the works to another in the 18 inc gauge tramway. I have started to redraw the drawings that are in the Railway Clearing house site
in order to be able to set up a decent scale drawing for my odd scale of 27/32 = 1 foot scale, the good news is that because I am following all the dimensions that are in those drawings at full size in Autocad Lt 2000 (which is the Cad program that I have and is good enough for my needs) I can now scale the drawings to any size I might need in the future. I have started with the timber frames for the 12 ton mineral wagon. I have begun by cutting the wood for the frame from some old clear fir that I salvaged from an old solid panel door which looks to be old growth and extremely fine grain. The actual frames were probably oak but even at this large scale the wood would not look right because of the coarseness of the grain. The fir looks good as it has a scale look to it. here is a scan of my Cad file I will continue to redraw all the drawings as I continue the build of the wagon as it suits me. I can post the DWG files as I draw them is anyone is interested that are drawn as I mentioned at full size in Cad.

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I will add some pics of the timbers later today.

Michael
 

michael mott

Western Thunderer
Here are the promised pics of the timbers under preparation, first the wood was stripped up and cut to the cross sections then the various lengths.
Next I set up a couple of tenon cutting jigs. The Angled one first.
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I used a waste piece to set up the parameters of the jigs positions.

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The slot for the timbers was a tad too wide so I used some tape to fill up the gap it was easier to lay the tape onto the whole space rather than try to add the strip along the narrow edge.

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next the notches on the outside of the tenons were cut on all the rest of the square ends that needed them. The center part still needs to be removed, I will do that tomorrow.

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A temporary look at the layout.

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ADSCN1294x1024.jpg fter the tenons are completed the holes for the various fixings and metal components will get drilled.

Michael
 

michael mott

Western Thunderer
the tenons are now complete and the cutting of the mortises has begun, I made a mortising chisel out of some drill rod first. then did a couple of test mortises in my test piece.

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Thinning down the timbers to the final size with my little block plane thickness planing fixture.

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setting out the mortises with the exacto knife and pencil
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the central cross timbers were prepared with their mortises first, these have the large mortise on the outside face and the smaller one on the inner face.

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The first one took a while to get the feel for it , then it got easier as I progressed. The four ends slot into the buffer beam


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Here is a shot of some drawn 2 5/8 tube cut into blanks for the wheel tyres.
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time for tea.

Michael
 

michael mott

Western Thunderer
Hello Overseer? Thank you for you kind comment. Yes I will have to set up the mill and I have been pondering The best way to drill through the various timbers without causing any wandering because some of the holes are quite small. the 11/16 holes are only .048" there are a lot of 13/16 holes and quite a few 15/16 holes as well as some 9/16 ones. I have the drills I need, but it might be best to make a brass jig first for each timber. there are also plates that have the bolts extending through the end beams. In the railway clearing house site this quote " Albert Wright, who built wagons in the 1930's has written about the manufacturing sequence: you can find it here." I think I need to have a good read of this document by Albert Wright because I am doing the same thing only in miniature.

Michael
 

michael mott

Western Thunderer
After reading through the narrative by Albert Wright, and noticing his sketches and that he was writing about his work that was done in 1939 I noticed that the long tie bars and cross tie bars were located differently that the drawing of the 12 ton mineral wagon that was drawn in 1923. I am going to assume that Albert worked to a different diagram that the one I am building the model from as the information doesn't completely match.

As my drawing of the timbers was drawn in Cad the dimensions are able to be read in decimal or fractions The interesting thing about working to a scale that is considerably smaller than the full size minute differences even in the width of a pencil line can compound with dramatic results.
I found this out with regards to the timbers as I was preparing the mortises and because I am working with fractions on a steel rule I thought that 1/64 is about as close as I can see reasonably well on long pieces without going insane. I decided to set the measurements on the re-scaled copy of the full size to fractions and the length of the sole bars between the buffer beams is 188 inches on the full size, that works out to 13.160" on the reduced drawing and because I have imperial rules with incised lines I thought that 1/64 was a reasonable tolerance for my 10 inch table saw cutting using a table sled etc. well the compounding errors of the cad working to the nearest 1/64 plus my physical errors due to the limitations of pencils and rules, I discovered that I needed to shorted the sole bars by about 7/64th because they were a little long. I am glad they were long and not short.
I did lay the sole bars next to the cross beams before cutting out the mortises for them.

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then did the same for the buffer beams

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every thing was feeling good, now for the proof

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A little nerve wracking and time for tea, I will tackle the other end tomorrow.

Michael
 

michael mott

Western Thunderer
The first axleguard was drawn up and stuck to a piece of .051" cold rolled steel after I had heated it up to dull red then let it cool down slowly.
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2 1/5 hours and 3 blades later I finished cutting it out.

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now a bit of fun

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That's the difference between 1:76 (16.5mm gauge) and 1:14.2875 (100mm gauge)

Next was to put the required offset onto the axleguard I used a couple of pieces of the same .o51 "

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squashed in the vice.

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and it looks like it needs to be a little bit tighter on the bends.

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so next will be to flatten it out and try the bends again with the spacers re-positioned, Also I think I need to make the offset just a tad more so will use some o62" as a spacer, the offset is drawn as 1 inch on the plans which would be .070 the options are to mill up a bit of 14 gauge which is .075" down to the .o70 or to see what the o62" looks like with a bit of .008" shimstock.

Michael
 

michael mott

Western Thunderer
Well I had to flatten it three times before getting the bends sorted, but now I know how to do it. so the next three should be a lot easier. After cleaning it up and drilling the holes the first one is now finished. to get the right look I reheated it to a dull red and let it cool slowly and now it looks like wrought iron which is what the originals were.
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Michael
 

michael mott

Western Thunderer
Thanks for the likes and comments so far.
The axle-guards are definitely not fast things to make. the cutting is still around 2 hours for the initial fretting out with the jewelers saw and the number 5 Scies brand from Grobet USA blades last about 2 inches before they need to be replaced so about 6 blades per guard. so with breaks to let my arm rest and the drilling of the holes and the bending and heating to get the scale colour they take a day each.

The one on the far right was the first one, and the middle one was completed today.
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One more tomorrow then the rest of the odd plates and fixings for the sole bars. I think if I were making a rake of these i would look into getting them laser cut, but as I am only making one. hand cutting seemed the best way to go.

Michael
 

michael mott

Western Thunderer
The axleguards are now all made, and the first test capture bolt-plate has been roughed out.

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I first turned the bolt diameter to .060" and threaded 0x80 UNF, then turned a section that was .095" for 5/8" then annealed the 095" and flattened it with a couple of pieces of tool steel and a hammer. it needed three annealings to enable the flattening to the correct width which is .140"

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I then cut the flat end to length in the small jewelers clamp dog

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Next will be to make the rest before setting up to drill all the holes.

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Michael
 

adrian

Flying Squad
This is a proper erecting shop - I love the joinery.
I then cut the flat end to length in the small jewelers clamp dog
I've not seen a clamp like that before but it looks extremely useful and very simple to make one. Any chance of a few more photos please. I presume the additional holes are there so you can move the clamps around for different tasks. Also it seems to there is a strip of metal underneath, is it mounted on a little bit of angle or something?
 

Jon Nazareth

Western Thunderer
Now the frame is resting on the trestles, time to start getting some of the ironwork sorted before drilling any holes.

Michael
That is looking very good indeed. I wish that I could make a frame like that but it would be too much for me even i to a scale of 13mm:12", which is what I work to.

Jon
 

michael mott

Western Thunderer
Any chance of a few more photos please.
Hi Adrian I will take a couple of extra pictures of the clamp today, it is mounted on a piece of aluminum channel 1x 1 1/2" there are two sets of holes to move the steel Allen head bolts up through the maple hardwood (it was handy, and close grained hardwood is good) the thumb screws were from the hardware store. The Allen head screws are threaded up from the bottom and tightened so that the top screws can be opened and closed easily. I also put the v groove in so that I could hold 1/8th diameter rod or tube. The u channel has three Allen head cap screws on the bottom leg of it so as to be able to clamp the whole thing to the edge of the desk.
pictures later today.

Michael
 

michael mott

Western Thunderer
Jon thanks for your kind words, I have spent a lot of time following your work since joining this Forum. I also enjoy working with styrene and have done some work in the rather odd scale of 30mm = 12 inches. this allows me to make models that are 18 inch gauge to rum on 45mm track here is a picture of Dickie which still needs a lick of paint it is run by 4 x AA batteries and is pretty much all plastic with the wheels turned from rigid PVC
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Just another of the various projects waiting to get finished.

Michael
 
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