Mickoo's American Modelling Empire

[mickoo]

Where's the "We are not worthy" smiley..??

Ah, here it is....

You're too kind,

It won't take much to adjust the under frame to suit the F7/F9 model either, the drag box would have to go at either end and the cast box section added. The F7/F9 is a full flat floor chassis so you'd need to get rid of the fish belly side frames and put the bigger longer and flatter box section in and then add all the cross braces.....because you can You may also need to jack the floor up a little so that it sits up inside the body shell a bit.

There are no convenient chassis to shell fixings so two new bulkheads will need to be added with flanged bases to hold the securing nuts to fix the chassis to. Whilst you're at it you mat as well etch up a new cab section, floor, front and rear bulkheads to hold your 3D printed control stands and other details.

You could leave a small depressed section in the middle for the motor mount and you could move the above floor side walls out quite a bit, probably not all the way to the side as the middle fixing plates for DCC and speaker become too wide.

You'd have to change the profile of the footplate up front for the nose curvature.

Once you have that then you have the basis for the CF7 when you square off the front footplate back to the GP-9 profile, not sure if the CF-7 has the same style drag boxes and pilot support plate behind with gussets, I suspect it might have. You'd also need to add the outer frame rails with the dropped centers, I'm fairly sure the rest of the floor remained fully flat though they may have dropped the engine center line to make it more like a GP-9.

It's a hard call to either go GP-9 to F9 then CF-7 or GP-9 to CF-7 then F9. I'm sure the latter would be many peoples preference but it might not be the most practical or time/energy efficient way.

This is a FT underframe, I'd be looking at something like this, except there would be bleedin great big holes for the model trucks to fit in. The FT differs in the rear draw bar was a solid link so the drag box is vastly simplified, later F units could be broken up so the drag box was modified like the front casting to take a buckeye. Note the big hole toward the rear for the 567 engine, there's no floor here yet so I wonder is a thin skin was added later or the FT engine sump was exposed to the underside of the engine all the time?

Copyright EMD archives.



I'm sure y'all can work out where I'll probably be heading with the next spin off chassis next weekend

 

[mickoo]

Mick

That is just magnificent, when can we buy one please.

Richard

Patience young Padawan, tempted by the dark side you are

There's a couple of bits I'm not happy with, the small rectangular depressed frame gussets are too messy to apply neatly, they drop into a recess to give you a fighting chance to get them square and in the right location, but the etch process is making the trench too wide, I keep dialing it back with each rendition but at some point an etch is going to under cook it and the trench will be too narrow; therefore you can't make them too narrow.

I can't think of another way around it right now, plus the floor flange plate is in three sections, the dropped bit with the two sloped fingers and the two shallow flat sections over the trucks, that means there has to be joints in those plates which is at the sloped sections, it's hard to trim just right.

If you make the whole lower flange plate section as one piece it then makes the etch longer, that's not a problem but it's so long that you effectively end up with a large strip at one end as wasted space, not cost effective. One plate is easier to bend and probably fit but you only need one or both sloped sections to be wrong and it wont fit around the drag boxes or leave a gap. It's all do able but you have no wriggle room and I don't like designing parts with no wriggle room, for there lies C'tain cock up and his merry crew in hiding.

There are some holes in the side rails for pipework, I need to find these accurately and get them added, then Mk III will be ready for a test shot.

 

[simond]

Mick, I missed this post completely. Congratulations on overcoming the CoVid but also on the workshop, it looks very good. I would raise a glass of Spitfire but my Kentish Maid wife has drunk them all. Personally I would prefer a glass of Mosquito (twice the engine power). But it would never be a very good brand name!

Paul

“Mosquito” is probably ok, after all, “Corona” doesn’t seem to have suffered too much…

 

[Jordan]

IIRC, the GP7 & GP9 wheelbase was a foot longer than the F7 & CF7, 40ft between outer axles versus 39ft.?

 

[mickoo]

IIRC, the GP7 & GP9 wheelbase was a foot longer than the F7 & CF7, 40ft between outer axles versus 39ft.?

Your recall correctly

 

[mickoo]

Finally got back to this, excuse crappy phone video but it moves. Really need a new phone that's not funked out by LED lighting or monitors, stupid banding, just like watching TV back in the 70's

Of course from the video you can't see the new trucks or frame so you'll just have to take my word for it

It's only running on one driven truck and then only one driven axle the other gears are split so I pulled them out, they'll be next on the list to sort; I didn't add my final gears but kept the stock Roco/Atlas ones as well as the wiper pick ups, these are modified to drop in the slot but just held loose at the moment.

I've used white grease for the gears, no idea if that's right or not but it's smooth enough for the moment and may get better once DCC is added.

I'm going to make a couple of tweaks to the 3D trucks and then they'll be all done, the chassis I'm happy with and the revisions are all done on the art work. I'm sure there's something I'm missing but it eludes me right now so I'm just going to sign it off anyway.

What is interesting is that the stock Roco/Atlas wheels do not like Peco points at all, no idea why that is but they sure do bounce through the crossing and check rails, possibly back to back needs sorting, the driven truck with the replacement Roxey wheels was fine.

 

[mickoo]

It's a bit bigger than I imagined



Significantly heavier too..........

It didn't come with a point pushy bit so that'll be the next recourse after obtaining some suitable steel bar stock.

 

[Rob R]

It needs to be heavy so you can use it when glueing your track down

 

[richard carr]

Mick

The internal diameter for your point pushy bit is 10.4mm

Richard

 

[JasonD]

I seem to remember the Atlas/Roco flanges are a bit thick, compared with UK versions

 

[mickoo]

Another flash buy, I'm not a big fan of ATSF steam (but I do seem to have a rather large unhealthy collection of photos ) at all but when this came up for sale yesterday (browsing whilst lunching) on Ebay for silly low money I decided to make an even lower offer, the seller met me half way and the transaction was done. The price, well, far cheaper than it should have been and about half the price they're currently going for in the US, before postage and import tax.

The initial brain burb was to convert to either SP or UP and I didn't even research anything before completing the transaction, mind for that price it would have made no difference. Turns out, not all Consolidations are alike, some SP and UP (Harriman) classes are close enough to allow a swap over with some extra work, not ATSF, in fact I know nothing about this class of engine at all.

It turned up today via 24hr Post Office, pretty good going truth be told and a quick look in the box revealed it had traveled reasonably well.









It's a Sunset 3rd rail model but that's where things start to get murky. It is by far the most detailed Sunset 3rd rail RTR I've ever seen, not your usual run of the mill just a bit more detail than the main stream suppliers for sure. Going by the box, art work and labeling it appears to be an early Sunset 3rd Rail offering, closer in detail to earlier Sunset Samhongsa imports than recent 3rd rail models.

It has some build details that are very close to the PSC 4-6-0 I picked up earlier in the year, the tender trucks are the same level of detail and fidelity and both engine and tender have pipework with stubs that'll allow you to add interconnecting flexible hoses.

I think the light weathering helps reduce the blandness with out of the box low detail RTR, I did see a 3rd rail weathered SP 2-10-2 at Kettering, it looked great and then once you got past the weathering it was just a bog standard RTR underneath, still looked good though. Anyway, it's a shame the cab and tender sides have had the weathering wiped with a cloth or something, not sure why that was done but it can be blended in with a new waft of weathering.

A couple of parts are broken and the boiler tube pilot has had some damage in the past, now repaired with what looks like extra strips of plastic or brass glued to the base, that'll be easy enough to strip back, solder up and make like original.

A quick wander through my photos reveals no direct or easy cross railroad conversion, the tender is unique to ATSF but I have a couple of spare SP and UP ones which would suit this perfectly if I could find a comparative variant.

Not sure how on earth it fits in with any of my modeling interests but it does look good and it is tempting to repair and titivate back to original, maybe a few extra pipes and leave as ATSF.

 

[simond]

Mick, what’s the periscope for?

 

[mickoo]

Mick, what’s the periscope for?

It's an exhaust deflector/cowl, quite common in the US is some areas, though in later years splitters were more the norm.

Basically it's to stop the exhaust blast ripping the roofs out of snow sheds or tunnels.

There are several designs floating around, UP opted for a clam shell or snail type arrangement, SP tended to opt for splitters and other railroads opted for the flip top bend as seen on the model.

UP snail type



I'm sure I have drawings and photos for the clam shell type too but can't find them right now, reasonably sure clam shells were fitted to SC, CSA, 4664 and 4884 classes, snails were probably fitted to other heavy horse power engines like FTT and TTT.

SP splitters were common on Cab forwards and I've seen them on other classes, again I seem to have lost my reference information.

 

[mickoo]

As a by the by, the only ATSF Consolidation photo I have is of 1990



Copyright unknown but the border and format is probably a screen grab off Ebay.

 

[PhilH]

Its a Sunset ATSF '1950 Class' - that is Sunset before it became Sunset 3rd Rail. According to the Brass Guide they were produced in 1991, 100 unpainted and an unknown number painted, original cost $800.

​

The date is perhaps a bit out as I bought mine in November 1990 from LSWR Models in the UK. No information on the builder, the box just said 'Made in Korea'. It was unpainted and I had it painted by a professional painter who advised that the ATSF painted their motion black (?).

​

I think its an attractive loco and I rather like 2-8-0s, but I sold it on some time ago.
Never got around to fitting the "periscope".

 

[simond]

thanks, never seen such a thing. And remote control too!

I can imagine a whopping great 2-8-0 with a big load on a steep climb might have rattled the planking a bit.

I don’t think we had any snow tunnels in the UK, I certainly don’t recall seeing reference to any, but I guess they were common in the US / Canada.

Were covered bridges only for road traffic, or did they do them also for railways?

 

[AJC]

thanks, never seen such a thing. And remote control too!

I can imagine a whopping great 2-8-0 with a big load on a steep climb might have rattled the planking a bit.

I don’t think we had any snow tunnels in the UK, I certainly don’t recall seeing reference to any, but I guess they were common in the US / Canada.

Were covered bridges only for road traffic, or did they do them also for railways?

Up on the West Highland line, I think?

Adam

 

[mickoo]

thanks, never seen such a thing. And remote control too!

I can imagine a whopping great 2-8-0 with a big load on a steep climb might have rattled the planking a bit.

I don’t think we had any snow tunnels in the UK, I certainly don’t recall seeing reference to any, but I guess they were common in the US / Canada.

Were covered bridges only for road traffic, or did they do them also for railways?

More detailed information here:-

Smoke Deflectors on Union Pacific Steam Locomotives

Information about the use of smoke deflectors on Union Pacific steam locomotives.

utahrails.net

Drawings and photos of UP applications here:-

Smoke Deflectors - Don Strack

Drawings and photos of smoke deflectors on Union Pacific steam locomotives. (Read more about smoke deflectors on UP)

donstrack.smugmug.com

Note, UP use different terminology to the UK, for us a smoke deflector is the familiar plate like structure along side the smoke box, the UP calls those smoke lifters. Smoke deflectors sit on and around thew chimney and I've seen them called blast deflectors elsewhere.

 

[mickoo]

Its a Sunset ATSF '1950 Class' - that is Sunset before it became Sunset 3rd Rail. According to the Brass Guide they were produced in 1991, 100 unpainted and an unknown number painted, original cost $800.

View attachment 165433​

The date is perhaps a bit out as I bought mine in November 1990 from LSWR Models in the UK. No information on the builder, the box just said 'Made in Korea'. It was unpainted and I had it painted by a professional painter who advised that the ATSF painted their motion black (?).

View attachment 165434​

I think its an attractive loco and I rather like 2-8-0s, but I sold it on some time ago.
Never got around to fitting the "periscope".

Well that makes more sense it's certainly more detailed than more recent 3rd Rail models I have and as noted, closer to their previous work with Samhongsa.

The box however is certainly 3rd rail.



It's almost certainly their cross over period between bespoke brass imports and the less detailed RTR range, I wonder how many more from this era are sneaking by me under the radar, I've always dismissed Sunset 3rd rail as less detailed toy like models, the Challenger and Mikado certainly are.

I'm not an overt fan of the Consolidations, much preferring the Mikado arrangement or bigger Mountains.

 

[Jordan]

much preferring the Mikado arrangement

Of US Steam, I like Mikes the most; the rear truck makes the loco look more 'balanced' to me than a 2-8-0. The other big attraction is that 2-8-2 was almost unknown in the UK.
Yes, I know, "almost" - there were a handful in the UK, LNER if I recall? But it wasn't very common at all.