Well, now that winter is here and I’m trapped inside, I have started work on a GG-1. For those that answered my question on the dimensions of the Aristo SD-45 power block, thank you. Two of them were added to my Christmas list this evening and if I’m a good little boy, Santa just may get them for me. (With the understanding that the afore mentioned Santa will receive a nice little box from Tiffany & Co.) Funny how things work.
Anyway, here are some photos of the progress so far.
The lead trucks side frames are all glued together and are being cut on my trusty band saw.
They are then drilled out on the drill press
And finally separated.
The Photo below shows the main side frames as well as a foam body (witch I melted by not properly treating before putting polyester resin and fiberglass on it. I have since carved the same body out of wood and will post photos when I get the chance.
Until then, I hope you all are enjoying the cold weather as much as I am!
Well, this weekend I came close to finishing the new wood body for the model. All that is left now is to carve out the front windows. The wood body is definitely an improvement over the Styrofoam one.
I also was able to cut out a set of side window frames.
First photo shows boards glued up for the model.
Second photo shows the rough cut body
Third photo is the body with the nose rounded.
Forth and fifth photos are of the body with all edges rounded down and window and door openings carved in it.
Next will be to build the doors, vents and windows.
Good evening all,
I have been working on the grills and I put a coat of polyester resin on the body.
The fist photo shows the brass tubing being annealed prior to bending.
Second photo is brass being bent in shape of the grill.
Third is the brass clamped in place and being epoxied on to the screen. (I would have soldered it, but it has a styrene backing that I was afraid I might melt.
Some of you asked questions about how I planned on dealing with the articulation of the engine as well as the minimum radius turn it will take. I am copying the design from an HO scale model that does not have the two main frames pined together. Instead, the frame and the power trucks pivot on two different axis. The side frames are mounted under the body and pivot just under the last driver near the front trucks. The motor block then is attached to the side frames and it has its pivot point over the center driver.
This is a very clever design that allows the HO version of the model to negotiate ridiculously tight turns. I hope that copying this plan will allow my engine to negotiate the 10 food diameter curves of my railroad.
Well, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. No I don’t mean Christmas (although that is nice too), it’s “use or loose” time for those of us government types. This end of the year windfall has given me the opportunity to do some more work on the GG-1, as well as repairing the oven vent (at my girlfriend instance).
First I must admit to making a big mistake with the polyester resin. The coat looks good but it filled in all of those nice little carved out parts that had to be ground out with a motor tool. That took most of the morning and kind of turned me off of the project for the rest of the day. Fortunately, my memory is short and I was right back at it again the next day.
I was able to finish the side grills, give them a coat of paint, and test fit them in place.
After that, I butchered a couple of doll house window shutters to make the four vents on the side of the loco.
I have been working on the front and rear trucks as well, building them up. (I think this is where I will use the boiling water to bed styrene trick)
Finally for today, I started working on some of the roof components. This was the most enjoyable part of the project today because it did not require any special fitting or fighting with openings that have become clogged with resin.
The remainder of the days have been spent with my niece in the back yard playing “train robber” It’s amazing how easily you can convince a 4 year old little girl that trains are neat, if you allow her to look for hidden coins in the freight cars as they pass.
Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!
Joel
Good morning all,
I must have been a very good boy this year because Santa brought me a full string of B***mann passenger cars as well as two new pantographs for the GG-1. Santa also got me Aristocraft SD-45 power blocks as well but explained that the elf’s in China had not shipped them yet and I may have to wait a wile for them.
In the mean time, I have been keeping myself occupied by painting my growing collection of bits and pieces as well as adding some long rectangular marker light pieces, things…what ever they are called.
I wound up just cutting a piece of styrene, heating it, and putting a 90 degree bend in it. Once that was done. I put a sharp bevel on the side that is towards the front of the engine and glued it in place. The open area between the body and the marker light holds was then taped up at the bottom and filled with epoxy.
See the photo below.
As soon as everything dries on the body, It will be painted the proper brunswick green instead of it’s current forest green.
GG-1 Update:
Good evening all,
Well, the rain continues to fall here in northern California so I have a valid excuse for not cleaning up the back yard as I had promised my girlfriend I wound. Instead, I spent the morning at the local hardware store purchasing a dirt-cheap air brush and some painting supplies for my engine.
Originally I had planed on using dry transfers for the stripes but quickly decided against it when I found that it would cost over 48 bucks! (The folks at my local hobby shop are nice…but I don’t feel like putting all of there kids through collage!)
On to the photos:
Using the cheap air brush, I gave the engine a coat of Brunswick green. (it looks just plain black to me but I’m somewhat color blind so maybe it is OK.
After the paint was dry, the real fun began. I started by using by trusty machinists compass to scribe the lines on the side of the loco.
The Compass was also used to draw the curves at the front and rear. I don’t know how it is supposed to be done, but I just used a point at the base of the front headlight door as a starting point, pined the other end of the compass into the base of the engine and scribed a line. It seemed to look OK to me.
Once the scribe lines were in, I used automotive pin striping tape to mask the lines.
The area between the tape was then painted with a Testors brand gold paint marker.
With some luck (and continual rain) I should be able to finish the pin striping tomorrow.
That’s it for now.
P.S. Thank you all very much for your encouragement and advice. Has anyone heard anything about the aristo GG-1 release? I still want one so bad i can taste it!
Good afternoon all,
Well, it’s back to the grindstone for me now that vacation is over so that means less time to play with my model. I was however able to put the lettering and keystones on and I think it helps the modes appearance considerably. Now correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t dry transfer letters supposed to stick to flat surfaces when you rub the sheet with a pencil or blunt instrument? This was not the case for me and I wound up ruining a couple of letters. I also learned to string several cuss words into a rich and vibrant tapestry that would surely make a boiler maker blush.
Anyway, here are the photos
Good morning all, I spent a few hours last night working on the front trucks of the locomotive. The wheals are B***man and they ride in a couple of holes that I drilled in the side of the frame. After drilling the holes, I used a razor blade to cut some small notches in the side of the frame so I could “snap” the wheals in and out if I needed to.
(This will probably be necessary when I decide to upgrade the wheals to something with sold metal axils or install ball bearings.)
Below are photos of the wheal frames.
Finally, a photo with the side frame screwed into place. Once the glue dries, I will grind off the extra styrene that projects below the sides and paint the wheal frame black. I imagine I will eventually add the break cylinder but probably not until after I get all the wheals and drivers under the loco.
Good evening all,
Today I finally found something to use as insulators for the pantographs. I was looking in the bead section of my local hobby shop when I came across the product shown below. Apparently these small grommets come in many colors and sizes. I chose some dark red ones because I thought they would look good on top of the model (I’m still no purist or stickler for detail)
As you can see, the holes for the screws that will hold the pantograph in place are being drilled.
Finally, the pantograph is permanently secured.
This may not seem like much progress based on what you may have noticed in previous photos but that is because most of the details in the earlier photos; windows, doors, pantographs, side frames etc. were simply sitting on the model and had not been glued or screwed in place.
GG-1 project building log.
Good evening all,
Well, after weeks of waiting, it finally happened. The UPS guy showed up at the front door and gave me a pair of the nicest motor blocks you have ever laid eyes on. I immediately took them out back and jury-rigged some jumper wires on them and gave them a test run in the back yard. They both ran smooth and quiet…naturally they had to be torn apart immediately, so I attacked them with my trusty 4in1 screwdriver. Thanks to Tom McMahon, Bill Swindell, and Bryan Anderson who responded earlier in the project with info on the power block, I was prepared for the tapered axils as well as the lock tight on the screws and axils.
On to the Photos!!!
The lock tight was quickly dealt with by holding the wheals to a torch for about 15 seconds.
I then used a screwdriver to pop off the wheals.
The tapered shafts were then whipped clean with a rag.
The problem of the taper was quickly solved by making a trip to the local hardware store. While I was there, I found a screw extractor that looked like it could be used as a tapered ream. The sales man was very accommodating and allowed me to take two different extractors out of the package and test them on one of the Aristo wheels that I had taken with me. (I wound up buying both extractors. The one not shown in the photos had straight cutting edges instead of the spiral one shown.)
http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/ran...EXTRACTOR2.JPG
The extractor was put in the chuck of my drill press and in no time at all, I had the proper taper on the inside of one of the LGB mogul drivers.
The last photo shows the L*B driver on the power block. This brings up and interesting problem. How to get power from the axle to the tire? I’m thinking of possibly soldering a jumper wire to the tire and running it down to the center of the axle where the screw secures the wheal in place.
Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to post some more photos and give you all another update.
When I was just starting out in garden railroading (in the radio controlled Bachmann Big Hauler days) I always enjoyed reading the articles in Garden railroader that described scratch building or kit bashing projects. They always seemed like something I could do. That is, until the author casually mentions making some part on a lathe. Being a part time worker earning minimum wage while in school, the lathe was something that was always out of reach. This usually caused me to loose interest in building projects. When I finally got one, I went nuts and spend nearly an entire summer out in the garage building small stationary steam engines and a turbine with it. But I never forgot that there were probably modelers like me out there who would be interested in a project that did not require too much capital investment.
Ok, enough of the babbling and on the update.
I spent most of the afternoon reaming out the remaining L*B wheals. Before I could start though, I had to put a small amount of epoxy in the space between the driver and the original L*B shafts. Once the glue was dry, a drift punch was used to knock the wheel off of the shaft. The wheals were reamed out on my drill press and test fitted onto the Aristocraft shafts while the glue was still a little soft. I left them on the shaft until the epoxy cured and then prepared them for the wire jumpers
The photo below shows the first wheel I experimented with. Initially, I had planed to drill a small hole near the tire, solder on a small piece of brass rod and conceal the rod in a grove cut into one of the spokes.
Unfortunately my soldering iron did not provide enough heat to do this and the location of the joint precluded the use of a torch.
The second attempt shown below proved successful and I was able to grind a small grove in the back of the tire and use a propane torch to attach a small blob of solder. The L*B drivers are extremely difficult to solder wire to. Dose anyone know what they are made of, or what type of solder should have been used for the wires? I had a devil of a time getting a good joint.
Once the wire was attached to the tire, it was routed around a spoke to the axle where it was wrapped around the screw on the shaft.
Below is a photo of the finished powerblock. I was worried that the tapered holes might not be perfectly straight and the power block would wobble around like a drunken sailor on nickel beer night, but it seems to be running remarkably smoothly!
At this moment, it is happily running round and round on a 5 foot diameter loop in the back yard.
Remarkably, the small Ba**mann transformer that normally overheats if you look at it funny, is able to handle the load!
That’s it for now, gotta go out and watch it run!
Joel
P.S. If you are considering this project, You could use replacement Mikado drivers which are a little over sized but will save you some trouble.
Good afternoon all,
Yesterday the UPS guy showed up with the second set of L*B mogul drivers so I spent last night cutting the counterweights and extra spokes off of the wheels. Today when I went to solder on the jumper wires, I discovered that the new set of drivers have a brass core. This made the job of soldering the jumper wires very easy.
Now this may sound strange, but I was having trouble deciding how to attach the trucks to the bottom of the body. After walking around my local hardware store for a wile, I noticed the selection of casters and decided to use a pair of these for the attachment. After a few minuets of work with the dremel, I had the wheels off of the bottom and a nice swivel plate with ball bearings!
I spent the rest of the afternoon attaching the side frames to the power blocks. This was done in the same way as before with four “L” shaped pieces of styrene screwed to the blocks with the side frames then glued to the other side of the “L”.
In the Photo below, you can see the white “L”’s sticking up beyond the frame.
A second shot down into the block showing the screw and nut attachment.
Finally, I began attaching some extra pieces of styrene to strengthen the frame.
The next step will be to attach the blocks to the body but this will require routering out a 1” deep cavity in the bottom of the body. (WISH I KNEW THAT BEFORE I PAINTED IT!!
)
Hopefully I will have some good photos of that next time and not a horror story.
GG-1 Update:
Good evening all,
I spent the morning out in the shop working on routing out the base of the GG-1. Unfortunately, my router bit was not very sharp and as a result, the garage was soon filled with acrid blue smoke. The good news is that the model only caught on fire twice and was quickly extinguished. After the second blaze, I decided to try my had at sharpening router bits. To my delight, I found that this is not difficult to do if you own a dremmel. Once sharpened, the bit performed well and I and my neighbors were glad to see the end of the blue smoke billowing out of my garage.
The photo below shows the deepest part of the carving, complete with scorch marks.
Second photo is the enlarged cavity to accommodate the upper portion of the power blocks.
The photo below shows the body and trucks on the five foot diameter test track. It also shows that even if you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should! (Ten foot diameter curves should look OK under this beast.)
Finally, I took the model back inside, screwed the blocks in place and stepped back to take a look. Hmm, not bad, but the next step will be to mount the front trucks to the main side frames and then work on the cow catcher, and then put in the windows, and then build the ladders, and put on the horns and…etc. (Guess I’m not as close to being done as I though!)
Until next time,
Joel
Good evening all,
I spent some time this past week fabrication a set of frame extensions to go under the front and rear trucks. Once that was done, I was able to attach the trucks and test the loco out on a short section of 10’ diameter track. With the trucks in place, it looks like my model has negotiated it’s last 5’ diameter loop of track.
Photo below shows the frame extensions that go under the front and rear trucks.
The mounting location for the trucks is just a stack of styrene glued together.
The truck mounting bar is attached to the trucks
The whole thing is placed on a section of track to check clearances. (The front and rear wheels are very close to the frame!)
Finally, I gave it a couple of back and forth runs on a 5’ section of track.
Hopefully I will get a chance to give it a try this saturday!
GG-1 Update:
Good evening all,
After spending the better part of the day with my significant other, I was given permission to play in the garage for a little while. I began work on the cow catchers (I’m sure there is a more technical name for them, but you probably know what I mean.
I started by gluing up some steps and attaching them to a strip of styrene that stretches the length of the body.
I then bent a peace of plastic to form the main part of the cow catcher.
A quick trip to the hardware store yielded a ½” PVC pipe coupler (cost $0.15) that was large enough to make both parts,
Once the rounded nose was in place, I glued on some pieces of ¼” styrene tubing to simulate MU plugs (they still need to be ground to the same length).
Finally I cut out a slot to accept a Kaydee coupler that I scavenged off of one of my passenger cars.
That’s it for today.
GG-1 final update:
The cow catchers (pilots) have been attached to the front of the GG-1’s frame, 4 ladders have been attached to the sides and a new coat of clear gloss finish has been strayed on the model. It is now officially ready for it’s first revenue run in the backyard.
Like many electric modelers, I have chosen to use the “No See-Em” brand of catinary equipment manufactured by “The Emperors clothiers Inc.” The salesman told me I would be a fool not to recognize the quality of this overhead system.
Below is the last video of the completed model making it’s first revenue run on the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Far Western divisio
http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/rangerjoel/last%20gg-1%20video%202.rm
I could have spent more time on this model and really detailed it, but in the end I decided to jut let it alone. It looks just fine from ten feet away, and many other modeling projects are beckoning me. It looks like the next project will be the Pennsylvania Railroad’s P5-a (modified) This was the predecessor to the GG-1 and to my knowledge, no manufacturer has plans on producing one any time soon. I learned a lot from this first engine build and I’m looking forward to applying some of that knowledge to the next project. One idea that interests me greatly is the though of making rubber molds of the main body parts and frames and casting them in resin. If any one has experience that they would like to share on this matter, please post a reply. If you remember my first post about the melting blue foam block, you know that I can use all the advice I can get!
Finally, I would like to thank all of those listed below for their words of encouragement, technical knowledge and sound advice.
My Large Scale On Line Guys:
Bryan Smith, Bryan Anderson, Dave Winter, John Lilly, Bob Pero, Rod Hayward, Peter (cephas), Jon Foster, Bill Swindell, Stan Cedarleaf, Charles Bednarik, Brandon (Moscow PA), Josh Updike, Vance Bass, Jason Kovac, Ken Johnson, Mark Lewis, Paul Young, Grant Minor, Landon Solomon, W. Charls Ronolder IV, Rene (Australia), Richard Smith, Rick Carson, and “Cougar Rock Rail”
The Aristocraft Forum guys:
Lewis Polk (who made this all possible) 
, Ron Wenger (always encouraging) , Nick Peluso Jr., Mark Oles, Aankus, Llyn Rice, Frank Butler, Larry Cooper, Paul Norton, D.J. Gallaway, Chris Petka, Polk Martin, Jon Foster, and Joe Sova.
Richard Miller, who gave me the power blocks for Christmas (THANKS DAD).
Hillary Meaders, my girlfriend who has been infinitely patent with me!
Also a big thank you to those of you who took some time to read my post. (sometimes, just watching the number of hits on the page was enough to motivate me to do a little more work.
Joel