Big and Little Steam Locomotive Parts

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Dick_Morris
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2020 9:50 am
Location: Anchorage, Alaska, USA

Big and Little Steam Locomotive Parts

Post by Dick_Morris »

For the last nine years I have been involved in the restoration to operation of Alaska Railroad #557, an S-160 Consolidation steam locomotive. Of 2,120 that were built during WWII, almost all went to Europe but 12 operated in Alaska in the U.S.A. On and off for the last 35 years I have also been building a 1/8 scale model of an S-160. Two years ago the combination of free 3D modeling software, low cost 3D printers, the availability of affordable castable resins, Youtube videos on using Freecad, and Youtube videos on using printed parts for investment casting caused me to take the plunge and move beyond 2D CAD and fabricating or machining parts from the solid. My newfound knowledge has caused me to completely rethink how I made parts for my locomotive model making them much simpler and allowing detail that I had only dreamed of in the past.

For the full-sized locomotive we needed additional universal joints that are used to extend valve spindles to the handles in the cab. I drew them in Freecad, basing the model on prototype engineering drawings, printed them in castable resin, cast them in silicon bronze, and machined and assembled them for use. Wanting to test the limitations of the process I then used the same 3D model and printed it at 1/4, 1/5, and 1/6 scale and made miniature versions. The filigree valve handle at full size and 1/4 scale were done at the same time. The trunnion and bolts in the smallest universal joints in my hand are #00 machine screw size, which is .047 inch/1.2 mm in diameter. I do this for my own entertainment, but I recently cast and donated an 76 sets of castings for the small universal joints which were sold to benefit the restoration of the full sized locomotive.

Thank you to the developers of Freecad, and most recently to Mario for answering some questions on FCCircularText. I continue to be amazed. As Youtube and trial and error are my teachers for Freecad, thanks also goes to those who have created the instructional videos and posted them on Youtube.

I’m not opposed to sharing my files, but I’m still very much the learner on using Freecad. While functional my 3D drawings tend to be a bit messy.

OS: Windows 10 Version 2004
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.19.24291 (Git)
Build type: Release

The text on the valve handle in my second post was created using the latest version of the FCCircularText macro.
Attachments
Freecad 3d Model.
Freecad 3d Model.
u joint.jpg (7.4 KiB) Viewed 2991 times
Full sized and 1/4 scale universal joint and filigree valve handle.
Full sized and 1/4 scale universal joint and filigree valve handle.
20210529_230909.jpg (69.14 KiB) Viewed 2991 times
1/4 and 1/6 scale universal joints. If you look carefully the lettering is barely visible on the 1/4 scale version.
1/4 and 1/6 scale universal joints. If you look carefully the lettering is barely visible on the 1/4 scale version.
20210610_211336.jpg (70.37 KiB) Viewed 2991 times
Last edited by Dick_Morris on Sat Sep 25, 2021 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Dick_Morris
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2020 9:50 am
Location: Anchorage, Alaska, USA

Re: Big and Little Steam Locomotive Parts

Post by Dick_Morris »

For my small locomotive I also modeled and cast valve handles for the injector overflow and water cut-off valves and the associated stand at 1/8 scale. When I learned the full-sized locomotive was missing those overflow handles I modified the same 3D model to include the tapered square mounting hole, printed it at 800%, and cast the replacement parts. I was pleasantly surprised that the tapered square mounting hole which was modeled in Freecad per the prototype drawings only required very light clean up with a file to fit the original shaft perfectly. The first of the new overflow handles has now been installed on the locomotive. Personally, I'm partial to the natural bronze color, but I'm not in charge of what gets painted or the color scheme. :roll:
Attachments
Model from Freecad
Model from Freecad
OVERFLOW.jpg (27.76 KiB) Viewed 2984 times
1/8 scale valve handles and injector operating stand.
1/8 scale valve handles and injector operating stand.
injector stand reduced.jpg (44.88 KiB) Viewed 2984 times
New valve handle on the original shaft.
New valve handle on the original shaft.
overflow valve.jpg (22.59 KiB) Viewed 2984 times
Painted and installed on the Alaska Railroad #557.
Painted and installed on the Alaska Railroad #557.
DSCF4108 (1).jpg (70.76 KiB) Viewed 2984 times
mario52
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Posts: 4673
Joined: Wed May 16, 2012 2:13 pm

Re: Big and Little Steam Locomotive Parts

Post by mario52 »

Hi

good project, good works thanks for sharing

mario
Maybe you need a special feature, go into Macros_recipes and Code_snippets, Topological_data_scripting.
My macros on Gist.github here complete macros Wiki and forum.
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M4x
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Posts: 1472
Joined: Sat Mar 11, 2017 9:23 am
Location: Germany

Re: Big and Little Steam Locomotive Parts

Post by M4x »

Very interesting - keep up the good work!
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bambuko
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Joined: Thu Oct 24, 2019 12:53 pm
Location: UK, England, North Devon

Re: Big and Little Steam Locomotive Parts

Post by bambuko »

Good to see
Thank you for sharing!
👍
I am using Link branch and Assembly3
you can also download ... and try it here
excellent Assembly3 tutorials here
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