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N-Scale Steam Engines - Page 2 |
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Click on an image to see a larger version of it. |
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Drawing of simplex style valve gear. I build my valve gear using small numbered drill bit shanks from broken drill for the sliders and piston rods. Brass shim stock and wire are used for the most of the other parts. |
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Drawing of Walschaerts style valve gear |
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Click on picture to view a larger version |
Drawing showing how to modify a pair of Bachmann 4-4-0's to produce a 4-6-0 and maybe a unique
display engine for your station park or some other public location. |
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This engine is in the process of being finished. I t was built using an old Atlas (Rivarossi) Pacific which was repowered with a Sagami 1020 motor. The boiler shell is a shortened Bachmann N&W 611 type streamliner shell. The tender is an unmodified ConCor Hudson Streamlined tender. For extra weight in the boiler shell, I use modellers clay which is much friendlier to use than low temperature metal or lead and is easily shaped and packed into the shell empty space. There was plenty of room in the boiler shell for additional weight without hacking into the shell. I think the next one I make I will use one of the new Japanese Pacific steam engine made by Micro Ace in China. |
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One of my earliest rebuilds was a 4-8-4 built in 1977 and it is still going strong today and it has sound. It ran at the Dearborn '78 Ntrak show on the layout for almost all of the show pulling 85 Kadee box cars around the layout. At the time having sound in an N-Scale locomotive was unusual and so cause a bit of a stir with the visiting public and modellers alike. It was made from an old style ConCor (Kato) Hudson with the solid split frame. It was repowered with a the new style Kato motor from more resent versions of the engine. The old pewter wheels were replaced with the newer nickel silver type. I cut the chassis of two engines apart taking the front two drivers from one and the rear two from the other. Then splicing the two pieces together, making sure to maintain the correct spacing between second and third drivers across the splice so the gearing worked. I used ACC glue to join the two pieces and then ran jumper wires across the bonded joint to carry the power for all wheel pickup. The plastic boiler shell was also cut and spliced to cover the longer engine. The tender is a heavy Pacific tender shell riding on the ConCor Hudson tender frame and trucks with pickup on all wheels. A *Kadee pilot was added and an Esco type feed water heater was hung off of the smoke box top front after removing the shrouded feed water heater on the original shell. (*Kadee here means Micro Trains today) |
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This is a Royal Hudson that was made by taking the Del Prado Publishing 1:160 static model of the 2860 as she is currently decorated and operating in Squamish B.C. Instead of Canadian Pacific on the Tender is says British Columbia and the pilot it has British Columbia Canada sign boards. I put a Con-Cor/Kato Hudson chassis under this model and I modified the tender by shortening the floor. The trailing truck was modified to shorten the hook for the tender right up behind the rear axle of the truck and the No. Am. Hudson valve gear was exchanged for the valve gear from a C-62 Japanese Hudson. We modified the nose to include a fibre optic for the head light and mounted a bulb in the boiler weight to illuminate the fibre optic. An article on the conversion will appear in the NTRAK steam handbook Andendum for 2009 and possibly in the Newsletter in early 2009. To finish this model I need to find a bell to mount on the fireman's side just ahead of the cab on the casing above the hand rail. |
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The original Micro Ace 9800 class engine before modification
The original engine
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The picture at the left shows a Japanese Baldwin built Mallet
0-6-6-0, one of two such engines ordered and delivered to Japan in the
early part of the 20th Century. These engines ran on cape gauge track
(1067mm or 3ft 6in).
So they were narrow gauge engines. In N-scale almost all of the models made
in Japan are built to a scale of 1:150. All but the Shinkansen high
speed trains operate on Meter Gauge Track in Japan. This model is made
by Micro Ace in China and is a really nice running engine.
This conversion has no specific engine prototype in mind. I wanted an engine to work with my Shay engines as a transfer engine to move raw logs to the mill from the interchange with a major trunk railroad and to carry the finished wood products produced by the mill back to the interchange. Since the engine is already a 0-6-6-0 is fairly easy to convert it to a 2-6-6-2 configuration. It is a Baldwin locomotive so already has the feel of a North American engine. So my intention in this conversion is to produce an engine that says I was built in North American and am as American as Apple Pie hiding it origins from all but the most knowledgeable N-scale modeller. |
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Top picture to the immediate left (fig 0) is the
unmodified Micro Ace class 9800 engine one of two variations made by
Micro Ace. In Row 2 is the 2-6-6-2 mallet which I
converted from the Micro Ace N-Scale 1:150 Japanese Model. The
model is of a meter gauge
0-6-6-0 Mallet supplied to Japan National Railways by Baldwin Locomotive Works. It is the
only Mallet type to see service in Japan. The pictures above (Fig 0) are the "as
received" additional views of the model, plus a picture of the real
engine in Japan. The original
tender is a three axle tender. (Micro Ace is also know as ARII in Japan) My conversion uses 2 x #1042 pilot conversions from Micro Trains Ltd. This pilot conversion was intended to convert a Rivarossi built and sold by Atlas/ConCor/Dimi Trains 0-8-0 to a 2-8-0. The existing pilot is removed from the low pressure cylinders on the lead engine by cutting off with a new sharp blade on an xacto knife. It is done as a series of fine cuts rather than horsing it through in one pass. I then modified the saddle between the cylinders to accommodate the shank of the conversion pilot in much the same fashion as is done for the Rivarossi 0-8-0 and described in the cut sheets from the Micro Trains Line Co. coupler conversion reference book. The area between the two low pressure cylinders has to have some material milled or filed out to allow the square shank on the conversion pilot to fit into the space below the bar between the low pressure cylinders without lifting them from there original height and above the cover plate for the drivers. There is a screw that goes through the engine cover plate through the shank on the pilot and into the low pressure block and into the engine boiler above to secure the front end of the boiler. I modified the front pilot truck wheel set shank by heating it with a soldering iron to allow it to bend and drop about 25 to 30 thou required to get the wheels on the track. (see fig 7) The shank has a ridge on it just out from the wheel flanges and this is where I made the bend (see fig 8 for profile of the shank). This ensures the front pilot wheels are actually touching the track. The movement of the pilot truck is restricted by the presence of the coupler pocket between the wheels. This does not affect their operation at all on my model. Check the photos in Fig 7 and 9 where you can see the soldering iron marks on the shank of the pilot wheel truck under the front pilot and the unmodified one on the tender draw bar. Next I cut the stairs/ladder and platform/porch and side railing from a damaged Y6B pilot that was in my scrap box. (fig 4, 5 & 6) I glued the left and right side to the top of the low pressure cylinders with a .020 thou styrene shim between the platform and the cylinder top on the Micro Ace model leaving space between the cat walks on the side of the smoke box to clear the porch on the cylinders top when the engine swings out on curves. Then I glued the guard rails and stairway hand railing to the inside of the porch on either side. The hand rails come down to the front of the pilot on either side of the coupler pocket. From the second 1042 I used just the pilot wheels. I used the wheel assembly for the trailing axle on the rear engine set. (fig 8 & 9) The engine model has four traction tires on the rear engine which is articulated, and the center driver set on each engine is blind (ie without flanges). Pick up is on all drivers of the engine and tender on the original model and the conversion model. The tender used in this conversion comes from a Kato USRA Mikado. There is no reason why another suitable tender could not be substituted if desired. I modified the draw bar from the Mikado Tender using part of the draw bar of the original tender as a pattern so the Mikado tender could be connected to the Micro Ace Mallet and utilized the pickups from the two draw bars. (fig 9) The trailing truck is mounted to the draw bar. Because the shank on the pilot wheel set is too long to mount it in trailing configuration I drilled a 00-90 taped hole in the draw bar behind the trailing axle location and extend the arm forward to place the wheels under the cab of the engine. In this case the draw bar keeps the wheel set in place as it rides between the wheels. |
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