3 Railing another Lobaugh

Neat!  Don't forget the MTH coaches.  They are plastic, but match the LaBelle cars.

I forget - do you use scale flanges, or just go with the prewar Lobaugh flanges?

bob2 posted:

Neat!  Don't forget the MTH coaches.  They are plastic, but match the LaBelle cars.

I forget - do you use scale flanges, or just go with the prewar Lobaugh flanges?

Dave cuts his own tires/flanges...

I usually cut my flanges 0.065" on drivers and 0.075" on leading and trailing trucks

Well I turned 4 new steel tires for my drivers.  They have  that have 0.075" flange height which yields reliable operation and looks better than a typical lionel flange.  The next challenge was the frame.  The milled slots for the axle bearings were too narrow.  This was also case with my Lobaugh berk.  I milled them to the width of the axle bearing using the distance between the side rod holes to determine which side of the bearing slot to remove material from.

Once the wheels were put in the frame it clearly sat too high.  The axle  slots were milled deeper to lower the frame.  I found photos of built versions of this locomotive that have smaller drivers than the ones in my kit:

Here is the frame and drivers that came with my kit:

Was the frame machined for the smaller drivers??  I milled the axle slots deeper to compensate.  Fortunately the larger drivers also appear to match the old photos of the engine posted above.  While working on the axle slots I also enlarged the gearbox opening so I could upgrade to a NWSL 0.6 gearbox. 

The photo also shows new cylinders.  I started to clean up the sand cast cylinders that came with the kit.  Here they are:

The cylinders are too far apart.  The main rods were further away from the frame at the cylinders than at the drivers.  Also the cylinders were too thin.   It looks like too much material was ground off.  I felt that fixing these issues would be more work than making new ones.  I chose the make the new ones in PVC:

In the photos of the actual locomotive the double row of bolts in the cylinder saddle stand out.  I added Grandt Line bolt castings to model these.  The cylinders were drilled out to accept the Lobaugh cylinder ends and guides.  

   Here is the frame and mechanism:

You can see the NWSL gearbox and Mabuchi motor.  I wanted to use a 8000 series but I couldn't make it fit and still have a cab interior.  More and that latter.

I found some photos of the Lobaugh 4-4-0 on ebay.  The open frame motor fills most of the cab and elimates the cab floor.  With the cab's large windows this is an eye sore

The fire box detail is just a couple pieces of sheet metal

I wanted to get the fire box and the part of the boiler that extend into the cab modeled.  Here is a photo of the actual loco.  The valve hanger is also significantly different than the kit

Here is the new fire box, cab floor, and boiler in the cab

So now there is a fire box with rivets and stays.  Extending the boiler into the cab hides the motor and allows for some cab detail

Work has continued on the new scratch built cylinders.  The have lost wax lubricators, valves, and Stephenson valve gear from Precision Scale.  The valve gear support that came with the kit was a crude sandcasting.  It also does not resemble the one in the photo in the last post.

 Some additional work has started on the detail parts.  On many mode the appliances seem to just be stuck to the locomotive.  The support brackets don't get modeled.  Here are the Precision Scale turbo generator and air compressor with brackets made from brass strips.

The sandcast boiler front was turned on a lathe and reshaped.  Nut bolt castings and boiler dogs have been added.  I still need to make hinges for the door

Fascinating project, and beautiful work.  I envy the amount of fabrication you're doing. 

I am impressed! I wish I had the ability to build models like this. I am the guy that just sticks parts on, no brackets needed. 😜😜

Do you have any problem with dissimilar metals touching? I thought mating brass with sheet metal would result in corrosion, just like aluminum and steel.

I've never had a corrosion issues with different metals touching.  I will solder brass to tinned steel and I've never had it corrode.  If our models were out in the elements there could be problems but inside on the layout I haven't had any.  I do attach white metal casting to brass also with out issue.  The rods on this model and the cross heads are the original sandcast bronze Lobaugh parts.  I electroplated them to make them look more like steel.  For builds where I make the rods they are usually made from aluminum and rotate on brass crank pins (again with not issue).  Valve gear I generally use nickle silver again for the color.  

What kind of electroplating equipment do you have?

I've got an inexpensive Caswell kit.  It works (if you actually read the instructions).  Joe G. of O Scale trains recommended a book called 'Building in Brass" by Ken Foran.   Foran covers electroplating in his book.   While Foran does not build trains he does make beautiful models in brass of cars and WWI aircraft.  For Bob2, you know nearly all of what Foran teaches in his book.  For anyone else who has started building in brass this book has a lot to teach.  Below are some aircraft engine parts Ken build for one of his WWI aircraft

I do recommend this book and if you search on line for Ken Foran you can see more of his work.

Here is the photo of the Lobaugh rods and crosshead.  The are cast yellow brass and have been plated. 

The tender

The sandcast frame is warped.  It also doesn't look anything like the photos.  

Normally I'd clean it up on the mill but with the warping I decided to make a new one with 1/4" square brass rod and a 1/32" brass deck.  The deck will be drilled to accommodate Electric Railroad electronics.  The truck are from Scale City Designs and were described in another thread on adding pickup rollers to them

The green color is a primer

Next is to work the tender upper

There are more kids of tender steps than I can count and no matter how many are available from PSC, Stevenson, and Wiseman I can't ever seem to get the ones I want.  Well this loco has front steps I can't find and I only have photos.  I started to draw from the photos and use those to estimate dimensions.  Here's a photo with the step:

my tender is different from this one but the step next to the man in the straw hat is the same.  Here's the first piece:

The top and bottom parts are cut half way through so I'll get a clean bend:

You can see the drawing in the background.  Here they are with the side pieces soldered on:

While this is a complicated part for me I still look at some of the last wax parts like air compressors and turbo generators and marvel at the work.  Hopefully one day I'll learn how to do that.

This locomotive will be getting ERR TMCC and will need and antenna.  The coal load will be the antenna.  The coal bunker on this tender is very shallow  so the load and antenna will have to be thin.  First a piece of 1/16" plastic is carefully cut to fit the bunker

A thin piece of brass sheet is glued to the plastic away from the edges so it is electrically insulated from the tender shell.  The small screw in the center of brass sheet will project into the shell and will allow an antenna wire to be attached to it.

In the above photo you can bottom of the antenna with the screw sticking out.  You can also see a hole in the coal bunker that the screw can fit through without touching the metal sides of that hole.  Now that we have a functioning antenna the next step is to make it look like a coal load.  First automotive Bondo is used to cover the top of the antenna and its given the rough shape of a coal load

Some scotch tap was put on the back wall of the coal bunker so the Bondo would not stick to it.  Next the Bondo was painted with black primer.  Once dry the upper surface was coated with a thin layer of Goop (a clear contact cement) and a thin layer of real crushed coal from my local hobby store was pushed into it.  Once that was dry more crushed coal was put in the thin spots and white glue thined with water was used to hold it in place.

All that can be seen of the finished item is the thin layer of coal

I've painted the tender and have installed the ERR TMCC boards

This is a very small tender.  Notice the metal bracket suspending the sound board over the speaker.

The locomotive frame has been painted and reassembled

The boiler has been painted and I'm in the process of attaching all the piping and other details.  Hopefully thia can be done over the long weekend

Great thread and model-work - really enjoying it. Thanks! I also looked up Ken Foran's models. They are breath-taking - beautifully done.

With all the components now painted I've assembled the  model

Instead of the cab filled with a large open framed motor the cab now has a floor, back head and a fire box under it

Some tender front details have been added

Some cab and boiler detailed shots

The completed smoke box door, scratch built cylinders, and value gear details

The locomotive needs some light weathering and then it will be completed.  Then its time to start the passenger cars

Absolutely beautiful!  Any thoughts of adding brake shoes?  To me those drivers look a little bare without them.  I'd love to see how you added pickup rollers, and please share a video so we can see how it runs!

I've never included brake shoes.  I'll have to think about that.  Their are 3 pickup rollers on this loco.  Each tender truck has a roller and photos of those trucks were posted on another thread https://ogrforum.com/...ller-in-tight-places.  There is one pickup roller under the locomotive rear driver.  I used an Atlas diesel roller.  They are the shortest roller I know of.

The engine is a good runner.  I tested it several times during the building process.  I can't run it now because our club layout is closed.  Hopefully the city will allow us to reopen soon.  I'll take some video once we get back in

David O'Connor

Angeles Gate HiRailers

Wow, Dave!

That turned out great!