PING… Time to change gears for a while. Getting burned out on the Jawn Henry project. Finally got to test out the fixture. Below is a pic of the frame glued up in the fixture. Each frame will take a bit of time for the Gorilla glue to set up. Being as I don’t have a lot of area on the ends of the sills I thought using a real strong adhesive was a good idea. The larger blocks in between the center sills are for the couplers to be mounted.
More to come…
A little more progress on the flats. After a little modification on the fixture to allow clearance for the needle beam to be installed, below pic with truck bolsters and needle beams installed. I pre-drilled the needle beams to accept the short Queen Posts from Hartford Products. One more small fabrication and installation is to add the small spacer block to the truss rod location for the air receiver tank. Then on to painting the frame and adding the truss rods and air reservoir. I do not intend at this time to super detail the underside, just the truss rods and receiver.
Bob any chance you could give us a cut list for a basic frame? Just printed out the plans for the fixture tonight, and thought I might start milling some wood one evning this week…
Bart,
The holidays have really played havoc with getting progress on this project. I did get a bit more done the last couple of days (all four of the frames are not assembled to the above picture state). I have a couple more pics to post tomorrow, I will add a PDF cut list with them. I also had to modify the fixture a bit to accomodate the needle beams, I will include a pic of that as well.
GREAT!
Bart, et al,
Here are the PDF files for the Raw Materials List:
http://www.gscalejunkie.com/GeneralPics/6000Flat/Raw_Material_List.pdf
and the bolster and needle beam:
http://www.gscalejunkie.com/GeneralPics/6000Flat/Bolster_and_Needle_Beam.pdf
Also, in the last pic of the frame in the fixture, i discovered during final assembly that I needed to modify the fixture a bit. The two blocks on the longitudinal centerline of the car where the yellow and blue (black?) clamps are near the cross centerline need to be notched to clear the needle beam. I had hoped to have a couple of pics of mine, but I have been under the weather today and didn’t have much energy for anything - even modeling. Hope thie will get you a good start.
Bob C.
YEah I can understand the weather getting ya down…hehehehehe …So just for clarification, we are looking at the bottom of the frame when it sits in the jig correct? I got wood milled yesterday for the fixture and will prolly stat layput of the pieces parts this evening…
Yes, the fixture is for car frame construction up side down. As I mentioned above I ran across one fauxpa with the needle beam stop and the center spacer. I got a pic today showing how I modded mine.
I also took got pictures of progress so far. Slow, but I keep at it when work and family don’t get in the way of hobby stuff. First picture is of the basic completed frame.
The end beam is not notched before installation to allow any coupler / mounting the end user may wish to use.
Mine is notched for the Bachmann Spectrum couplers. I have them on several pieces of rolling stock, and although they are a bit large, they stay coupled reliably. Below shows the notch cut in the end beam and the coupler clamped in place (Not ready for mounting yet).
The next group shows pre-drilling for stake pockets on the sills, and truss rods and grab irons on the end beams.
Hope these will help later.
Thats a much tighter design that what I was gonna do originally, gonna start getting this assembled tommorow and cut enough stock for a couple of frames over the weekend…
Couple of questions that occurred to me while I wwas glueing the fixture together this eveing…first of all, how critical is it that the dowel be 1 1/4 long? I may have to make a stack to get to that… also what are the dimenison of the spacers that aren’t glued in place at the end and between the side and intermediate beams? Man I can’t wait to actually get a frame building in this thing…
Nice ! …we want progress pics!
Bart,
The dowel is 1 1/4 diameter, not long, and the diameter is not critical, nor is the length - provided it is high enough to support the wedges. That just happened to be what I had around - part of a clothes pole from a closet. The main thing is that I feel it needs to be round to allow the wedges to self align when pressuring the end beams to the ends of the sills.
The ‘spacers’ as you refer to them are assembly wedges. Once the parts are placed in the fixture (side sill and intermediate sill), put a small amount of pressure on the end beams and then wedge the side and intermediate sill with the wedges. This holds everything tight and square. Look back at my September 6 post above and in the lower right hand corner of the second picture there are six pairs of wedges (3 horizontal and 3 vertical on top). If you look close you can see the angled cut in a couple of them. I could have shown them better. I will post a pic or two tomorrow evening, too late tonight to break out the camera.
If you would like, I can make a set of wedges for you for the fixture. They are the only part that is not simple square cuts. I have a tool I picked up in a garage sale I set up for the angled cut in the wedges.
For your reference I make a quick drawing of the wedges I made for my use.
http://www.gscalejunkie.com/GeneralPics/6000Flat/Wedges.pdf
The .125 dimension is the saw kerf on my thin kerf blade on my table saw.
I will also post a pic of two of the four frames I have going now.
Bob C.
OK Rooster, Updates such as they are.
Located the drilling fixture for the stake pockets.
My favorite new tool I picked up at the last train show in Tallahassee, FL. Neat little push drill that will get down to some real small drills. NOT real accurate, but works for most of my projects.
And last the four frames, ready for the next step - fitting truss rods, grab irons, strap steps and what ever else needs to me made and added. The last thing to go on will be the dado matched decking.
Off to make fixtures for some other parts to be added.
Bob C.
Looking good Bob!
Tommorrow is Shop cleanupday, continued from last weekend…I need to start making masters for car hardware so I can make some jigs up to apply them too…I experimented with shiplap joinery for flatcar decks in 7/8 scale with succcess…I have a mini router table that I think is up to the task! Heres my effort at making the fixture thus far…
(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/bart_salmons/_forumfiles/bartwerksjig01.jpg)
Looking good Bart! I might even mistake it for mine 
I am working on a fixture to bend up the grab irons. So far I have tossed two. As old Bill Cosby would say ‘Jus keep runnin’ that play til ya get it right!’. Once the grabs are done, then on to the strap steps, and hunt up Jon or Bruce’s fixture thread.
@Jon - Thanks for the vote of confidence, it is appreciated. Now if I can manage to pick up the pace a bit I might finish them before next Christmas :).
Bob C.
Christmas! Thats either a lot late for this years build challenge, or way early start on next years…
Ive built Bruces jig for strap steps and used it on both the EBT boxcars and my composite reefer builds. He also gave me a jig for bending the EBT grabs (which have an odd right angle bend in them) baasically a piece of brass with a hole in it…to do straight grabs I just flip it over and use the other side…
Dave, these cars started way back in August of last year. Four kids and twelve grand children keep me plenty occupied far more than I would like some times. Spent today baby sitting the 2 and 5 year olds for my youngest son, he and daughter in law both worked the early shift today. Maybe some modeling time this evening.
I spent the day converting a shelf board into sawdust and scale timber…got the first frame in and out of the jig and I’m really proud of it…So as not to derail Bobs thread, I started a parrallel build…
