Scratchbuilding a HO Hayes Bumper

[Chuck]

Just out of curiosity -- all the prototype bumpers "Hayes style" I have seen do not sit on a base. The ends of the main beams butted up against the last tie of the spur and the front members were either fixed to the inside of the rail or not fixed at all. Is the Walthers' bumper with its sled under it prototypical? It seems that a car hitting a post like the Walthers would just cause the post to slide along being unable to dig into the ground. Your thoughts and opinions are appreciated!

Chuck

[doctorwayne]

Mark -

In Canada, we're bilingual We use both metric and imperial units. I am never quite sure though whether we refer to US gallons or Imperial gallons when speaking of things like miles per gallon.....

I've always used Imperial gallons (they pre-date the U.S. gallon by a few years) and still calculate my mileage thusly. To me, thirty degrees is still what you get on a Fall day, and it gets truly cold when it goes below zero. I'm hoping for some three-digit weather this Summer, too, so you can bet I'm not speaking Celsius.

....I never understood the whole dry volume versus liquid volume measures. Because in that case, 1 US dry gallon is about the same as a UK liquid gallon (~4.5 litres).


Andrew

Yes, that's how our now "small-gallon" of paint gives as much coverage as the old "large gallon"; once it dries, of course.

We also use metric and Imperial bolt sizes, and some lumber measurements are metric, some are metric equivalents of the original Imperial measurements, and some still Imperial.

Metric makes sense mathematically, but in many instances the increments are either too large (temperature) and therefore less accurate, too small (mm cm) - awkward when referring to lumber - a 2"x4" (actually 1.5"x3.5" ) becomes a 38x89, or (km) - bordering on the ridiculous for a country as large as Canada. Measuring gasoline in litres is just another ploy to disguise the price increases - at current local prices, it's $5.85 a gallon (and, of course, that would be a bargain in many parts of the world).

One of the more useful tools in my workshop is a chart of decimal equivalents for drill and tap sizes, and part of the reason that those photos were captioned with thousandths-of-an-inch measurements. It allows me to easily determine if I need a fractional, numbered, or lettered drill bit for whatever job is at hand.

Chuck, you're correct about the real bumpers being bolted to the rail and not sitting on a "sled". My guess is that the Walthers bumpers are meant to be cemented to the ties (I leave mine loose, like most scenic details). That "sled" does strengthen the whole assembly considerably, though, and that may be a factor in its use.

Wayne

[Mr Fixit]

Oh this just keeps getting crazier and crazier by the minute.

Given we are talking measurements, I will relate a little story from work the other day.

One of the guys was drinking a can of Cherry Cola made by Coke, and as he put the can on the lunchroom table I noticed that the measurement on the side was in FL OZ [fluid ounces, dont ask me how the z got there] with ml [millilittres] next to it in brackets.

This struck me as odd because all Aussie cans are in ml, so I was curious [I know it will get this cat killed one day] as to where the can had been made, but apart from the Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta there was no other indication. Cans of Coke made here in Australia say they are made here in Australia by Coca-Cola Amatil [Aust] under authority from the Coca-Cola Company. The other interesting detail was that the dietary panel was in grams [metric].

At the time I couldnt figure out where the cans had been made apart from the US, but just while typing this it occured to me that they could have been produced in the Phillipines, but you would think that to comply with international trade agreements it would still have to list the country of bottling. I wonder if CCA [CCAmatil] still own the bottling plant[s] in the Phiilipines like they did several years ago when I looked into CCA shares?

Its all a bit of a puzzle. Maybe someone imported the can graphics to print onto the cans and forgot to change the labelling to fully show Australian manufacture? Surely they wouldnt import cans of Cherry Cola would they?


Mark

[doctorwayne]

See-oh-ell-eh cola, c-c-c-c-cola...

D'ya suppose it's not exactly that which it appears to be?

Wayne

[steinjr]

Metric makes sense mathematically, but in many instances the increments are either too large (temperature) and therefore less accurate, too small (mm cm) - awkward when referring to lumber - a 2"x4" (actually 1.5"x3.5" ) becomes a 38x89, or (km) - bordering on the ridiculous for a country as large as Canada. Measuring gasoline in litres is just another ploy to disguise the price increases

Just a mater of what you are used to. Precision is pretty much the same, utility is pretty much the same.

Temperatures e.g. - we routinely give them with one digit after the decimal point when we want/need more precision - say 38.4C for a slightly elevated body temperature. Increments of 0.1C are accurate enough for most everyday uses - the difference between 100F and 101F is about 0.6C, and it doesn't much matter if you say "hundred and one" or "thirty-eight four" :-)

Road distances - doesn't matter much if you give them in (English) miles or kilometers, or as we do - in daily life we give driving distances as Norwegian miles (one Norwegian mile = 10 kilometers). So you can give a distance of 800 kilometers as 80 Norwegian miles or as about 500 English miles. Same difference - it is about as far as you can drive in 10 hours at about 80 kph/50 mph :-)

Lumber - doesn't really matter if you call em 2x4 or 38x89 - it is the same size. Lengths can be in feet, or in meters - a 2.4 meter long board is about 8 feet long.

Imperial or metric work out about the same in terms of precision and utility. Main difference is that metric is a little easier to use for some calculations, since conversion between different units mainly consists of moving the decimal point. 2.4 meters = 24 decimeters = 240 centimeters = 2400 millimeters. 2.4 liter equals 24 deciliters = 240 centiliters = 2400 milliliters. As opposed to multiplying or dividing by 12 or 16 or whatever when you go from one measure to another.

But it pretty much boils down to whatever you are used to.

Anyways - thank you for the measurement pictures of the Hayes bumper!

Smile,
Stein

[doctorwayne]

But it pretty much boils down to whatever you are used to.

Yeah, you've got that right. I grew up using Imperial measurements but also learned the metric system. I think, besides my familiarity with the former, I have a resentment for having metric foisted upon us by the government. Their arguement was that the rest of the world was going metric, and that we needed to change in order to not be left behind. Overlooked was the fact that our largest trading partner, the U.S., didn't seem too interested in switching. So what we ended-up with was a bastardised system that's neither metric nor Imperial, but a mix of both with a large dose of Americanisation thrown in. Nothing against my American friends, but if we were to have a mixed system, I would have preferred our original Canadian (Imperial) content.
In our household, the temperatures are Fahrenheit, our cars get so many miles per gallon (Imperial of course), their power is measured as horsepower and foot/pounds of torque, and we know that if you give someone an inch, they'll take a mile.

Wayne

[steinjr]

In our household, the temperatures are Fahrenheit, our cars get so many miles per gallon (Imperial of course), their power is measured as horsepower and foot/pounds of torque, and we know that if you give someone an inch, they'll take a mile.

LOL :-)

We live with some of the same mess.

My wife is American, I am Norwegian. So we measure stuff in the kitchen in both liters and cups, our stove show temperatures in Celsius, as does the thermometer used when the kids are sick, but the one showing the outside temperature shows Fahrenheit - making it necessary for me to just count on my fingers when I wonder how cold it is outside - ("about 30F is about 0C, and there is about 5C for every 10F, so 60F - about 30F above freezing is about 3 x 5C above freezing - call it 15C"), the car effect is measured in horsepower (nobody has a real relation to what the number means anyways - more is better, as long as the car doesn't get too expensive), gas is measured in "tank is down to half full -time to top it up", we still call lumber a 2x4 (even though the shelf is saying 38x96 or whatever), and we also use (in Norwegian) the same expression - except we say "if we give someone your little finger, they will take the whole hand".

Anyways -sorry about hijacking the thread - looking forward to seeing some Hayes Bumpers. And I think I will try to pick up a couple of them in Minnesota next week - almost time for our summer vacation on the west side of the pond :-)

Grin,
Stein

[Russ Bellinis]

all of the Hayes bumpers that I've seen around here are bent up from old rail, and welded to the rails at the end of the track. They also don't use a strap going over the top, but have two more pieces of rail welded to each rail going up in a triangle to where they are welded to the bent rails just behind the "bumper." I think I suspect that the railroads find it cheaper to use either left over rail, or old rail that has been replaced rather than buying structural steel to make bumpers with. The only piece of structural steel I've ever seen on a Hayes bumper here is the flat bumper pad that lines up with the coupler. I thin if I were going to make a Hayes bumper, and I suspect I will be making a bunch of them, I'd just cut and bend up code 55 rail and solder it in place, then cut the rails just in front of the bumper and fill the cut with plastic bread clip material to insulate the tracks. A small square of brass soldered to the end of the rails would make the bumper pad itself.

To go back off topic briefly, my biggest complaint with metric as a retired mechanic is that there is no international standard for metric hardware! Japanese metric is a different thread pitch than European. SEA hardware has fine and coarse threads. Metric has fine, coarse, and medium thread pitches, but hardware stores here generally only stock two out of three. When congress mandated that American manufacturers switch over to metric, the manufacturers "got even" by using odd sized bolt heads and nut sizes. I drove and worked on European sports cars and small sedans before the Americans switched to metric, and the Mercedes, Izusu, and Kubota diesels used in transport refrigeration equipment was all metric. I used my 8mm,10mm, 12mm, 13mm, 14mm, 17mm, and 19mm wrenches a lot, but always wondered why a set of metric wrenches included 15mm, 16mm, & 18mm wrenches. I never found a bolt head that size until the Americans started putting metric hardware on our cars! I think if the American manufacturers could have found a whole metric size between 12, 13, &14mm for the heads of screws, they would have opted for that size bolt head instead of being forced to go with the rest of the world!

[torikoos]

Ha ha, I know what you mean Russ. To make matter worse, even here in Europe, there's now a tendency to use bolt sizes that are even numbers. Where in the past it was let say a size 13mm, they now happily make the same bolt with a size 14 head, etc. Suddenly 13, 15, 17 etc are out of fashion....
It's almost like that with a lot of other fasteners, every time someone thinks of a new fastener head (let say torx for arguments sake), some one comes up with a torx with a pin in the middle, or goes triangular .... enough to drive me 'nuts!' or should that be 'bolts'......

[shortliner]

In our household, the temperatures are Fahrenheit, our cars get so many miles per gallon (Imperial of course), their power is measured as horsepower and foot/pounds of torque, and we know that if you give someone an inch, they'll take a mile.

LOL :-)

We live with some of the same mess.

My wife is American, I am Norwegian. So we measure stuff in the kitchen in both liters and cups, our stove show temperatures in Celsius, as does the thermometer used when the kids are sick, but the one showing the outside temperature shows Fahrenheit - making it necessary for me to just count on my fingers when I wonder how cold it is outside - ("about 30F is about 0C, and there is about 5C for every 10F, so 60F - about 30F above freezing is about 3 x 5C above freezing - call it 15C"), the car effect is measured in horsepower (nobody has a real relation to what the number means anyways - more is better, as long as the car doesn't get too expensive), gas is measured in "tank is down to half full -time to top it up", we still call lumber a 2x4 (even though the shelf is saying 38x96 or whatever), and we also use (in Norwegian) the same expression - except we say "if we give someone your little finger, they will take the whole hand".

Anyways -sorry about hijacking the thread - looking forward to seeing some Hayes Bumpers. And I think I will try to pick up a couple of them in Minnesota next week - almost time for our summer vacation on the west side of the pond :-)

Grin,
Stein

Stein - the quick way for Celsius (Centigraade) to Farenheit - in the temperature range that most humans find reasonable) - is to double the C figure and add 30 - it gets you accurate enough for government work! hock: so 15C = 30+30 = 60F

[Mr Fixit]

I am so glad to see that its not just an Aussie thing to stuff up perfectly good systems with home grown 'improvements' which invariably screw everything up.

Like I say 'we are a stupid species' how we ever evolved beyond the other apes is beyond me.

That is assuming we are actually more evolved than other animals. We may just be doing all this work for the benefit of other animals. Which particular species will all depend upon which theory you subscibe to via which movie.

The Torx with the pin is a security fastener, well at least until Torx with pin bits and sets become readily available at your local hardware supplier or supermarket hardware section.

I do like the sound of making Hayes Bumpers from old rail sections as a Maintenance dude I find myself reusing various things for different purposes. A round galvanised fence post with a flat bar welded on has become a lifting spreader bar for lifting outdoor seats with concrete bases to cycle through the workshops for rejuvenation. It was available [and free], in the right length, at the right time and with a bit of lateral thinking it was reusable for a different purpose.

Mark

[BR60103]

Topic B on this thread:
There was supposed to be a "soft" metric conversion followed by a "hard" metric conversion.
The soft conversion was labelling the old quart jars in microlitres; the hard conversion was when the containers were rebuilt to round metric sizes.
When I ask what the speed limit is, my wife converts the sign to mph and the I have to convert back to the kph on my speedometer.
I still can't visualize coach lengths in tens of thousands of mm.

[Mr Fixit]

Topic B on this thread:
There was supposed to be a "soft" metric conversion followed by a "hard" metric conversion.
The soft conversion was labelling the old quart jars in microlitres; the hard conversion was when the containers were rebuilt to round metric sizes.
When I ask what the speed limit is, my wife converts the sign to mph and the I have to convert back to the kph on my speedometer.
I still can't visualize coach lengths in tens of thousands of mm.

Try using Metres and decimal points thereof.

If a coach car was 90 Feet long in the old money dividing by 3 feet to the metre [approx] gets you 30 metres.

If it was 85 feet long then divide by 3 again gets you 28.33 metres.

An 8 by 4 sheet of plywood is nominally 2.4 x 1.2 metres. In actual millimetres it would measure [depending upon supplier] 2440 by 1220 millimetres. Some boards particularly plywood are 2400 x 1200. There are 304 mm to the foot and 25.4 mm to the inch. Wall studs are 90 by 35mm and door studs 90 by 45mm.

Decimetres dont exist in Australia.
Centimetres are used for measuring humans and clothing and retailing of furniture.
Metres and millimetres are used in building, and the associated trades.

Some students at school have trouble in Design Technology because they have only ever been exposed by the education system to centimetres. I cant cut up their wood using centimetres, well I could but they have to understand that I and the rest of the building trades work in millimetres.

Mark