Steamtrains Wrote:I checked the gear mesh like you mentioned, and it's OK. The noise is not coming from the drive train...It's from heavy iron rolling on steel rails...
I checked the weight of the engine as it is right now...1 lb.-6 oz. Now that's heavy...
I'm thinking of isolating the boiler from the frame to reduce a little the "sound box" effect the boiler might have...Or milling out some of the material from inside the boiler to bring the weight down some. I don't need so much weight since my "normal" trains won't be but 6-8 cars at most.
I'll do some tinkering today and see what works best....
If the locomotive is well balanced, be careful when removing material from it. You might not only lower the weight, but throw it out of balance as well. Having the weight balanced over the drivers is probably one of the most critical parts of getting a model steam engine to pull a train.
Russ and Wayne...Thanks for the heads-up on weight & balance. I had that in mind when I was planning the "milling" operation. The stock boiler seems to have the greatest concentration of mass forward of the driving wheels (2nd. set of drivers-front to back). That front end is nearly all solid with the exception of a couple of openings for the light bulb and the screw that fixes the boiler to the frame at the front. In any event, I started my attempt at removing weight in this area. And that's as far as I got....Started....
I spent close to 20 minutes trying to drill a hole into this mass of material. I'm using a brand new set of titanium-coated drills, and managed to cut about 1/4" into the boiler. That zamac is HARD..!! My idea was to "honeycomb" this area by drilling into it, but that idea has to be shelved....I don't know what I'm going to do in order to drill holes for the mounting pins of a couple of the details...
Anybody have any ideas/methods to do this..??
Gus!
Try a drop of oil on the tip of the drill. If this works frequently oil the drill tip. And avoid to drill with high speeds. Thus can melt the zamac, depending on its alloy and the melted zamac will clog the channels of the drill. A drill with clogged channels won't drill, it just turns "in his own juice".
Also frequently clean the channels.
Yes in those day zinc alloy was really zinc alloy, hard, durable and heavy.
Today it is an aluminium alloy with some zinc in it. The reason of the "lightweight" of todays locos.
I'll just add.....the balance point of the loco without tender, should be at the center of the "driver wheelbase", in this case ( 2-8-2 ) between the second and third driver sets.( If the frame had fully equalized suspension, it would balance at the center of the total wheelbase )
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Schraddel Wrote: Gus! Try a drop of oil on the tip of the drill. If this works frequently oil the drill tip. And avoid to drill with high speeds. Thus can melt the zamac, depending on its alloy and the melted zamac will clog the channels of the drill. A drill with clogged channels won't drill, it just turns "in his own juice". Also frequently clean the channels. Yes in those day zinc alloy was really zinc alloy, hard, durable and heavy. Today it is an aluminium alloy with some zinc in it. The reason of the "lightweight" of todays locos. Lutz
Lutz has given very sound advice.
I would add one more thing ... an obvious thing, but something many do not think about ...
... make sure the drill bit is sharp!
I never considered that detail myself until I couldn't drill through a piece of sheet metal
while fabing up new floor boards for my "Pocket Rocket Project Car" and realized that
the drill bit was dull! So I purchased a "Drill Doctor" and now each of my drill bits
have enjoyed a sharpening session and are now all very sharp.
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
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One more thing you need is quality drill bits. If your drill bits bend instead of shattering when they fail, they are not hard enough to do the job! Harbor Freight as well as the "big box" stores have cheap drill sets that they sell for customers who buy totally based on price. If you need to drill into something hard, you need to buy a drill or drill set based on quality of the material rather than the price.
You've got that right, Russ. I bought some Walthers drill bits because the LHS was out of the sizes I needed in my usual Maxon bits. While they worked well enough to finish the job on which I was working, they were flexible enough to drill around corners, and they didn't stay sharp for long. I also found hobby-sized bits (and numbered ones right up to #1) at a local tool supply store - prices were comparable to those at the hobby shop, but cheaper if you bought a 10-pack of one size. They're of good quality, too, and will cut dozens of holes if I don't snap them off.
Sometimes if you are just drilling small holes in styrene for a grab iron, the softer steel bits work fine. But, being more flexible, they have the advantage of not breaking as easily.
-- Kevin
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Sometimes you can get machine drills that are ought to be used in PCB drill machines etc. at a low price when on sale. ebay is sometime a good source for such occasions. They have a thicker shaft and they are much harder but are also much more refractory and will break easy. Get some spare ...
"Bendy" bits are fine for styrene and will probably last longer if they don't bend which will cause the end to wobble when trying to drill. If you are trying to drill something harder, you need stronger bits. The problem is that the harder the drill bit, the more brittle it will be. We used to have a problem at work with special hardened flywheel bolts breaking when we tried to remove a flywheel from the diesel engines, and both the bolts and the crankshaft were hardened. The company was too cheap to buy good drill bits, so it was a real pita to drill out the broken bolts!
Hey guys..!! Thanks for all the tips. I finally chucked my titanium "coated" drills, and reverted to my old, trusty drill set. They did the job quite nicely. So the super-dooper drills will be used for drilling wood only...
After drilling out most of the front-end weight, I managed to remove only 35 gr. of weight from the boiler. The greatest portion of the weight comes from the overall wall thickness which is almost 1/4" thick. And there's no way I'm going to try to thin those down. I'd need a professional milling machine to do that, and I don't think I want to start down that road...
The weight I removed did make a small difference in the noise department, but is still quite loud when run on ballasted track. I'll just have to live with it....
My visits here will be quite curtailed for the next few days since my #1 PC bit the dust 2 days ago, and I'm now using the old rig which can't run at anywhere near the speed of the stricken one... :cry: Hopefully I will have it back up & running by next week...
Just a quick update so's you'll know I haven't been "bumming" on this project....
I've finished pre-installing all the goodies this baby is going to have, (there's a compressor that will go on the firebox, but I busted the mounting pin , so that will be "surface mounted")....I'll move next to do the piping and painting. I got a bunch of other "goodies" ( about $50 worth, plus shipping)...to dress up the engine some more (hoses, number boards and a couple of other things for the tender), that won't go on until she's finished....
Question....Is there some kind of piping going to the generator...?
There's usually a steam line running to the generator and an electrical line running back to the cab - The former is often hidden under the boiler jacket and lagging, and the latter may be under the jacket. There is an exhaust pipe for the spent steam, although on most castings it's fairly short. I re-drill some of mine and use a length of wire to extend it above the cab roof.
For your air pump with the broken mounting pin, simply cut off the "stump", then drill for a suitably-sized wire to create a new pin. Depending on how you plan to fasten the pump onto the loco, use ca, epoxy, or solder to secure the new pin into the pump.
Thanks for the info, Doc. I was thinking of doing that with the CW pump, to install a more realistic pipe leading down and back towards the tender. I'll do the same with the generator to clear the cab.
I failed to mention in my previous post :oops: that Doctor W. has provided me with a wealth of information on the piping required for the FWH and other associated functions....
and they didn't stay sharp for long. I also found hobby-sized bits (and numbered ones right up to #1) at a local tool supply store - prices were comparable to those at the hobby shop, but cheaper if you bought a 10-pack of one size. They're of good quality, too, and will cut dozens of holes if I don't snap them off. 
, so that will be "surface mounted")....I'll move next to do the piping and painting. I got a bunch of other "goodies" ( about $50 worth, plus shipping)...to dress up the engine some more (hoses, number boards and a couple of other things for the tender), that won't go on until she's finished....![[Image: 10112007_015.jpg]](http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/doctorwayne/locomotives/10112007_015.jpg)
