Full Version: ALCO from ALCO or another 0-8-0
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Hello!

Here is another adventure in brass. A few weeks ago i purchased another USRA 0-8-0 for my layout:

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This was the state as is when i get her. The only thing i did was removing the obsolete pilot deck stancions as USRA 0-8-0 never had them.
For an model made in the 1970's it is astoningly well detailed. It must be one of the first Korean brass models.

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The lacking of an boiler backhead allows to see the open frame motor.
Here you have also a look to the new made current pick ups.


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The rather crude open frame motor. One inch of wire represents the whole electricity. And there is a small gearbox made of brass sheet.

The first attempt:
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Removing the old motor and replacing it by an Faulhaber coreless coil motor.
Then replace this piece of rubber or not-so-soft-silicone with a real universal joint drive shaft.
Making an torque lever out of hard brass sheet.
Now the wiring was done, i will show this lateron.

But first:
Contemporary wiring and adding 12V DC to the motor terminals.
Rrrrrrr... Icon_twisted
Scheiße. (English translation will be censored automatic by forum software)
As you can see in the last photo the gearbox input shaft (worm shaft) is slightly rusted. This enlarges the bore of the worm shaft creating a bad mesh between worm and worm gear and resulting a noisy gear.
The gear box is made of plain brass sheet, soldered together and is an somewhat sealed unit. Of course the bottom cover is screwed, but you can't get out the worm shaft and the also soldered bearings. Questionable quality.

The next thought was a replacement by an NWSL gearbox.
For an switcher and switching duties i choose the 36:1 variant with 0.3 module.
But alas, this was no simple drop in replacement.
First, the old brass sheet gearbox had a tight fit into the frame.
Second, the boiler above the gearbox is completely modeled and closed in this area.
Third, the gearbox has to be mounted in an angle to keep the universal joint as near as possible to an straight line.
Fourth, the torque arm has to be bend in a strange shape to keep clear of the underside of the boiler.
Fifth, all axles are sprung and the torque arm must under all circumstances kept clear off the universal joints.
Sixt, it should be still a simple procedure to remove the body without a snake's nest of electrical wires.

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At first is modified my puller to accept 3mm axles. All wheelsets were out of tolerance according the NMRA standards.
The replacement of the axle gear was also done with this device. And don't forget quartering.

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The NWSL gearbox would'nt fit as out of the package.
Grinding down the gearbox case.
Grinding down a frame traverse to make space for the gearbox.
Grinding down the valve gear mounting plate.
Making a new torque arm, bending ist in strange shape to clear all narows.
Grinding down the mounting screw on the gear box for the torque arm.
At least grinding some trench into the boilers underside.

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It is tight, but it can made it's necessary movements caused by sprung action.

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Still some grinding: The original NWSL bottom gear cover did not fit here because it is too bulky. So i had to use the old gear cover made ot of sheet metal again. Due to the relative small driver wheel diameter i had to remove some brass here too to keep the gear box clear of grade crossings and pavement when street running.
A Kadee Coupler box was mounted afte some :mrgreen: grinding of the original casted brass coupler box. The Kadee box was also shortened at the rear end. The whisker #158 coupler made that possible.

Now the electrics.
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Here i tried something new.
On evilbay i found this sub miniature male and female plugs. They have 2 x 6 poles, too much for the most loco to tender connections and too stiff.
So i reduced them to 7 poles:
1: rail right
2: rails left
3: motor
4: motor
5: common
6: front light
7: cab light ( planned here for later when cab interior is complete)

I soldered a wire holder on the rear frame to keep the wires together. For optical reasons only black wires were used.
The loco tender lash was bent to Z-shape here and is no more insulated because loco and tender have the same polarity now.

The tneder was threatened similar like this one:
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Got an NMRA 8-pole socket, an separate plug for the back up light.
The light casings front and rear were drilled with an 3.2mm drill.
3mm warm white LEDs got one layer of the German equivalent of Kapton tape were inserted. Each LED got it's own 1.2 Kohm resistance.


Fitting the case:
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No, it would not fit straight. Curse

DANGER!
EXTREME TERROR SAWING!
Do not read further if you are anxious. Eek
Or the EMS unit stands directly in front of your door ready to make an emergency depart. Popcornbeer


























































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As the Faulhaber, a 1724 type, is a little more wide than the old open frame, i had to cut off two stripes from the underside of the firebox.
Now the body will fit.

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The missing boiler backhead was temporarly replaced by an simple plain brass sheet glued with 2 drops of CA.
You can also see the electrical connections between loco an tender. The plug has still 12 poles, but the wires are reduced to 7 ones.
The female was glued onto the tender bottom.

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The wage of the work is an very smooth running brass 0-8-0.
As smooth as you can expect with an Faulhaber coreless coil motor and an NWSL gearbox.
Even in analog mode it is impssible to exceed yard limit speeds.
I plugged an ESU Lopi V4.0 in and after optimizing the CV parameters it runs still smoother.

The complete work is still not done here:
- bridge between loco and tender
- complete boiler backhead and cab interior details
- some details at the exterior
- a load of coal
- painting
- decalling

Lutz
I like it, Cheers Nice work on the 0-8-0. can't wait to see it painted.
And a little bit more done:

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That is were i began. A small sheet of brass with safety thread pattern and some 0.5mm brass wire.
One lenght of the wire was solderes to the edge of the sheet.
And from two small pieces i made hinges.

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Two small bore were drilled into the rear plate. The hinges were inserted and soldered.
Note the bore of the hinges were extra large, more than really necessary.
Remember the whole loco will be painted later. And paint will also get there beween the hinges and as a result the hinges will not move freely after painting.
The cab floor was also raised by inserting a piece of brass sheet with safety thread pattern.
Now there will be one level of cab floor , bridge and tender floor.

Note this is still a temporary boiler backhead simple made of plain sheet.

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Some plumbing was added too, here i was not satisfied with the result and reworked the injector valve rods.

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A close up view of the bridge.

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And the worst case of bending possible. This is the reason why i made this rounded shape at the rear end.

Lutz
Now the tender:

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At first a picture with removed shell. I have mounted there an NMRA 8-pin socket. On the very front, in the photo left side, is the 12-pin socket which receives all the wires leading from the loco. All wires are black as this device was pre-fab. The colored wires are according to the NMRA Standards for DCC wiring.
To have the possibility to remove the tender shell complete, i have mounted this 2-pin socket on the floor. The wires are leading to the warm white LED in the back up light and because it is an LED there is the 1.2 Kohm resitor. The black tape is a safety device for insulation.

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The underside of the tender as was.

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By comparing the underbody with other USRA 8000 gal tenders i found details not quite right mounted. So i soldered it out.

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At first in made a working 3-point suspension. Original there were relative wide thick 1.0 mm washers between bolster and truck frame.
On the front truck the washer was replaced by an as small as possible ring bend out of 1.0 mm brass wire. This truck can now rotating and pivoting on all three axes.
For the rear truck i soldered 2 short 1.0 mm brass rods as shown. This truck now can rotate and pivoting on the pitch axe.

Lutz
Nice to see a good-looking brass loco made into an even better-looking one, and its performance upgraded to match its looks. Thumbsup Cheers Thumbsup

Wayne

jwb

I don't know how many USRA 0-8-0s had that style of tender -- the only ones that come to mind right offhand are L&N.
Thank you for the reply and feedback.
jwb, these 8000 gal USRA tenders were modeled "as delivered". The full width coal bunker was an bugbear for switching purposes as the engine crewe has to lean wide out of the cab windows to get clear rear sight.
Many roads altered the coal bunker for more visiblity backwards. In most cases the bunker was rebuilt to an narrower shape creating a visbility channel for the engine crew.
175 original USRA 0-8-0's were built, but about 1200 copies of this design were built afterwards, the last ones as late as 1953 by N&W. Most of them had narrow coal bunkers.


Yesterday i was getting nuts about a movable braking gear. My first attempt to do that.

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With the exemtion of the brake cylinder all is recycling stuff, left over of 0.2 mm brass sheet from an etching frame, pieces of .1 mm copper foil, and several stubs of 0.5 mm and 0.3 mm brass wire.

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You can see then burned gold laquer, soldering the brake cylinder and his pedestal needs soldering with an torch. The smaller parts could be done with an electric soldering iron. And at least i decided to glue the train line and the air line to the cylinder so avoiding damage of the electric parts inside the tender.
At least it was not possible and impractical to have a movable brake gear here in this case.

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That is all what you can see in the best case when model is on the layout.

My resumee:
Yes i can made brake gear at scratch. It is even possible to make it movable. But very time consuming to build it also.
At least it is impractical. It is better you buy an lost wax brass casting of this device. Or if you need a very special brake gear built it rigid from beginning on.
My 2 cents.

Lutz
Lutz,
nice to see "your" improvements to this brass model. I respect your courage with soldering at loco and tender and I know that I have the greatest stomachache doing same at my models.

However you should try to get better results with brake detailing by simple changes. Add real small klamps to rod ends which you can made also from brass sheet or strips. Drill a hole at bottom of such an U for inserting the rod and drill two more holes through the long ends. For better fixing you can form a small head similarly to a nail head and fix this rod from inside of U through the clamp (and solder again). Second make small "nails" (pins) again for a correct mechanical connection of rods and levers through three metal layers. So you must not solder these connections, you can fix the pins by a drop of ACC at undersise of clamp and you will see a fine small head as connection. Compare my pictures where I build brakes and you will see the diffence - and I'm sure that everyone can build these small parts. What you need are small drill bits for the holes and a small hammer for forging the heads, and small knifes for shorten too long ends of pins.
I'm sure you can do this all and the view will be better yet - if you will look the model from below.

Here a picture yet on one of my last brake modifications and you can see the small pins in position how I would do it.

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Do'nt touch until it smells:

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So it may rest here for the next week until the paint is complete dry.
That was the very last of my old school paint i used here for the 0-8-0. And i had to put a lot of thinner into it to get a smooth surface so it will last a while until it is dry.

@Bernd
Yes i know, i cannot reach to the level of your skills. This was an first attempt for me to do so.
And what i mean: In this specific special case for an H0 brass loco tender the brake gear can be build in a rigid manner and all parts soldered together. This will fit with the style and level of details of the rest of this loco model.

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This will be one of the next projects. In this case the brass loco manufacturer has mounted a well detailed brake gear out of lost wax casting. Here i missed only the pedestals for the safety bow, the connecting rods to the trucks and the air lines.
On the tender of the 0-8-0 was nothing such else, only a misplaced brake cylinder without any connections. I had to do something and i made a try with building this brake rigging out of scratch.

Lutz
Still stinking:

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Today i cleaned the wheels ands pick ups, put loco and tender together, lubricated all bearings and the valve gear and made some break-in runs.
I have shooted this photos because under the harsh flashlight conditions you can see clearly every shiny brass spot not covered by paint.

Lutz
Good inspiration here!

I'm currently mired in building masters for a resin boxcar kit, but looking forward to doing this sort of stuff on my Oahu Railway 2-8-0 bash when I get a chance.
A little step further:

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The cab windows were glazed with thin sheets of clear styrene.
In preparation of decalling i painted the lower cab sidewalls ans some of the tender sides with Microscale gloss laquer.
With flashlight there is some brass still shining thru. Under normal light conditions there will be nothing to see.

Lutz
Nice post Lutz.

I've updated running gear on brass locomotives (gearboxes, quartering and some side rod work), but don't currently have the courage for "EXTREME TERROR SAWING!".

Got a chuckle out of that, because it's true!
Fluesheet Wrote:Nice post Lutz.

I've updated running gear on brass locomotives (gearboxes, quartering and some side rod work), but don't currently have the courage for "EXTREME TERROR SAWING!".

Got a chuckle out of that, because it's true!

Yeah, but like they say, "The first cut is the deepest." 24 Misngth Misngth After that, they get easier and easier, and eventually become routine.

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Wayne
Wayne....That picture sent shivers up my back.... Nope
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