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@import url(http://www.mylargescale.com/Provide...ad.ashx?type=style&file=SyntaxHighlighter.css);@import url(/providers/htmleditorproviders/cehtmleditorprovider/dnngeneral.css); Posted By Bruce Chandler on 03 Jun 2012 06:14 AM
Mike, you have at least a couple of options for attachments.
On one of mine, I just ran some square tube right through the boiler and used that for support in the front.
On another, I used some thin brass strip that I folded to the correct angle - and pinned it directly to the boiler.

Just remember to leave room for the weight.

I'm sure there's some other ways as well...


Actually looking around I see that the Ma and Pa ten wheelers (#27 and #28) each had a raised walkway with air tank under it on one side, but on opposite sides. The one in the drawing, #28, had it on the engineer's side, and #27 on the fireman's side.
Here's #27 on each side:



;

So maybe I'l make one side straight and the other bi-level.


You can see in these picture how the Annie's large boiler makes it hard to get the cab right

 

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Thanks again to everyone who has replied--it's been a great help.

More progress, more problems



Decided on a straight running board on the engineer's side. The patch came out well, and the running board does not actually go uphill--the boiler is just sitting a little high on the saddle. Vaguely 1:29-ish man is small, but not outlandishly small, next to that boiler. I will probably replace the stock Annie "cowcatcher" with a brass one I have, or maybe I'll fabricate a freight-style pilot.

One serious problem with the thing which you can't see here is that now the running gear, the valve motion, sticks out well beyond the running boards. It looks odd. I can't really make the running boards wider without making the cab wider, which make s it look narrow gage again. I don't think I can manage narrowing the running gear. Can that be done?

Below, though, things look a little worse yet



Vaguely 1:29-ish man is standing next to a gigantic air pump, something that might have come off the Titanic. And the Annie air tank/raised running board is now too wide. I think there's a Trackside details order in my future.

Predictably, this started as something that was going to be fairly simple and straightforward and has now wound up much more complicated!

 

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Thank you!

I'd probably have to add just under 1/4 in 1/1 to the running boards on either side to have them come out to cover the valve gear. I could just add a styrene strip, and maybe cheat it down, so it tapered back towards the cab. It might work--maybe add 1/8 to each side and cheat it back as it approached the cab? Then I could get away with using the Annie's stock air tank. But it would probably be too obvious a taper and look weird.

 

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Pete, thanks. I looked at it last night and thought about narrowing the saddle to bring everything in towards the center, but moving or replacing the cylinders would be a better idea. The I suppose I'd cut down the rods connecting the two sides of the valve gear, and then--as you say, here's the tricky part--hope they don't bind on curves.

I'll have to think about this. The trackwork on our layout is pretty crude, and it sees a lot of little kid action. What ever I do has to be reasonably robust and forgiving

 

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I got impatient this weekend and decided to start painting. Maybe a mistake. The paint is, for the boiler and cab, Krylon camouflage olive, rubbed all over with powdered graphite. It's not based on any particular prototype color scheme, it's based on the fact that my wife complains about too many "black steam engines."

The smokebox is scalecoat smokebox gray coated with neolube. I ran out of neo-lube before I could finish the running gear/rods.

The cab has fake rivets added using Jerry Barne's foil tape and ponce wheel method.

I like it OK, but I think the verdict I'm settling on is that it's hard to make an Annie into standard gage without reducing the diameter of the boiler and narrowing the valve gear



I have a few detail parts coming from trackside--air pump for one thing, and hand rail stanchions.

So I'm wondering--is the headlight too small? The generator? Both are from the parts bin. Is the bell too big? I have a taller/narrower stack that would fit--that might be better.

 

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Thank you again. The olive green came out reasonably well and shifts dramatically with the light, which is the effect I wanted. I need to decide if I want striping and what color. Olive green with gold was fairly common, as I understand it. But silver/white would look pretty sharp.

I'm going to have to deal with the tender soon. It needs to be shorter, lower, and narrower

 

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I ran out of neolube! Micromark just shipped me some more.

Pete, thank you-- i need to think about that some

 

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Took half a day off and it rained which allowed me to postpone the yard chores. I made some progress. The loco is getting closer to done.

The color scheme is "borrowed" from Kevin Strong's recent Tuscarora loco. The silver striping is Pactra tape. The paint is still Krylon camo olive with a lot of powdered graphite rubbed over it.

I'm fairly happy with it. It's too wide in a lot of places, and of course it needs patching and painting and lettering and a tender. But I think if the question is "can you make an Annie into a standard gage loco?" the answer is yes, especially if you're nearsighted and not too picky







The handrails were made out of stuff I had on had, and they are too small, I think. But too small is probably better than too big if I want a standard gage look. I added a tool box to the walkway on the engineer's side.

 

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Is that a 1:32 model of the young Bruce Chandler? What's the story on that loco? It's pretty much exactly the look I want.

Thank you all again. If you see anything that needs correcting, let me know--I might not be able to do it, but I can try. Last night I added sand lines and electrical lines and some piping. I need to extend the injector line and plumb the air pump. I always find the air pumps hard.

The loco should really have two air tanks, so I might make one.

I'm probably going to letter it for the southern. In the late 19th century up through 1912, the Southern ran a branch line from Alexandria VA to Bluemont VA. It passed within a mile of our house. The line was bought by the Washington and Old Dominion, which gradually electrified it and ran it at a loss till the 1960s. For about a decade, it leased locos from the Southern.

So I'm imagining this loco as running in about 1910, on a branch line with mixed freight and passenger service.

I know the Southern is famous for green and gold, and the websites oin the southern specific green and gold, but Baldwin made olive green and silver its standard color from the 1890s through 1910, and I'm not sur the southern used green and gold in 1910.

And anyway I like the look of olive and silver!

 

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According to Wikipedia, Spencer died in 1906, 4 years before the UK southern, according to wikipedia, went to green.

DR Rickman sent me to some excellent resources on the US Southern, which seem to suggest that the southern was using green and gold early in the twentieth century, but not the famous green and gold you see today. I need to sort this out!

 

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Thank you Dave. DK Rickman seems to have the definitive account.


Well, it's just about done, and I'm going to leave it like this for a while while I think about colors and about the tender.

In general I'm pretty pleased with it. The legacy of 1:22 is really clear in the wide running gear and the oversize details on the running gear. But on the whole I think it looks like a standard gauge loco. I'm going to set it aside for a while while I figure out how to do the tender, which has to be narrowed, shortened, and lowered. I have no idea, at the moment, how I'll do that!

 

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I remember that tender of your Bruce--it's a beauty. I like how your images make it look really easy! Sure!

The Annie tender is kind of problematic though

 

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Dave, I have four of those LS Atlantic tenders running--you're right that it would be a good fit. One behind a lionel atlantic, two behind atantics converted to consols, and one behind an aristo Pacific cut down to an Atlantic. I want something that looks a little different!

Just make it yourself--yes sure, but I don't have any styrene tube, Id' have to mail order it, and I don't know what size, etc etc. I started cutting up the Annie tender, just to see what I end up with.

I'm also thinking about cutting down an Aristo tender from a Pacific

 

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Mounting that whistle on the side is a great idea--I'll do that.

I have a bunch of aristo tender shells, and I'd just as soon get rid of them . Something like this maybe? Looks a little odd, but some of those southern tenders look a little odd to me too

 

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Hey--that might just work!

 

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Took an aristo tender shell that was taking up space and cut it down. Set it on a piece of acrylic and some trucks:

Not bad, not bad at all. Maybe a little high?

 

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Thanks very much. The trucks are just resting on a piece of square acrylic. Just now I cut the aristo frame down and set the trucks on that, and that makes it MUCH too high. So I'll have to cut some off the base.

The aristo coal boards are hard to explain--they're molded to the shell and the're no way they could be straightened. I'll have to either cut them off or live with them as they are.

 

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Posted By East Broad Top on 14 Jun 2012 05:52 PM


If there's one other thing I'd consider revisiting, it would be the front pilot. It sits far too high off the rails. I'd lower it by around 1/4", and put a proper working coupler on the front set at the appropriate height to whatever flavor of coupler you're using. Chances are good that you'd have to lower the coupler on the pilot to be compatible anyway, so why not make it operable, the right height, and bring the bottom edge of the cow catcher low enough to where the cow won't just slide underneath.

Later,

K


Curses--you caught that. I made a dumb mistake with the pilot--I cut it back and then shortened the braces ato fit, then realized that I had set the braces with the pilot resting ON the stump of the frame, rather than meeting the frame on a butt joint. Just pure hasty dumbness. I've been trying to figure out what to do about it.

 

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Tender came together quickly last night, and I was able to paint it this afternoon:

The pinstripes are gold auto pinstripes.

I like the silver better, but the gold is period-correct for the Southern Railway, which is what this will be badged for. Gold, or silver?

 

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Well I just sat the loco and tender on the breakfast table and poled my managing partners (wife and seven year old daughter). They both decided on gold. So I'll be emailing an order into Stan Cedarleaf later today.

Today I'll fix the pilot and start wiring it for DCC