Monthly Archives: March 2020

A new tool arrives at the Charlottetown Car deptartment- a brand new Cricut Maker.

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I have a confession.

Out of the many aspects of this hobby I absolutely love, some of which are pretty niche in nature, there’s one prevalent practice that I abhor: cutting styrene.

I could say I don’t know why this is problematic for me, but I do.

I’m a perfectionist to a fault. I need my parts to be identical, my cuts to be perfectly straight- the same measurements every. Single. Time. I will not accept less; it’s just built into me- and it’s not only within the bounds of the hobby.

The amount of time and materials I go through to get the perfect cut and fit is incredibly frustrating. Even with lots of practice, and I’ve had a lot of practice, it’s just not something I enjoy.

Until now.

An employee rewards program has allowed me to obtain a brand new Cricut Maker and Knife Blade attachment at a very reasonable cost.

I’ve had a few chances to use it, and I am absolutely thrilled with its performance. This machine will be an absolute game-changer for me, and I can’t wait to explore its abilities in more depth.

Of course, I will blog about my process and findings as I put this new machine to use on my workbench.

CM

Scratch-building CN’s 40′ Wood End Bunker Reefers PT:3 [Fabricating Fishbelly Centre Sills and Z-Bracing]

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After a brief break from the CNR Wood Reefer project, this weekend seemed like a good opportunity to get back to it; with the recommended social distancing and all. Might as well use a not-so-good situation to have some fun at least, right?

The next thing I needed before proceeding with the underframe of the car was Z-Bracing. The general arrangement drawings show two lengths of Z-bracing running end to end of the car. The problem I faced here was that Evergreen does not make Z-angle small enough, but I didn’t want to mail it in and use just a plain old strip in place of the Z-angle.

Luckily, while cruising around the internet looking for pictures of scratch-built fishbelly centre sills I happened across Chris van der Heide’s blog. Lone behold Chris had run into the same problem as me at one point and took the time to detail how he fabricated and used a jig to create his own Z-Angle stock in this post. I decided that this is how I would proceed.

The jig made from scrap styrene.
Feeding the three strips of styrene through the rear of the jig.
The three strips are glued together with Tamiya Extra Thin Quick Drying cement as they exit the jig.

The jig was not at all hard to make and the process of feeding the three strips of styrene (HO scale 1×3″ on the top and bottom and 1×2″ as the web) through the jig was made easier by brushing a little bit of powdered graphite into the hole as a lubricant.

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The final product.

As you can see the finished product is just as good as anything you could buy on the market. Thanks for your help Chris even though you may not know you helped! LOL. Make sure you check out his blog post for a better explanation of how this was done.

With the Z-Bracing out of the way the other major component needed for the underframe was the fish belly centre sill.

First, I used the scaled-down general arrangement plans as a guide to drawing the general shape of the sill plates in TinkerCad. Then, I used my Cricut Maker to cut the fish belly sill plates out of .030″ sheet styrene. The great advantage to using the Cricut for this purpose is that all of the sill plates will be accurate and of the identical measurement. One disadvantage is the cutter does create a bit of a burr around the cut but it is easily cleaned up by carefully using a single edge razor blade to slice it off. The Cricut Maker is an amazing machine and deserves a post of its own. I see a lot of potential for this machine in the hobby of model railroading…

Freshly cut sill plates. I used a Sharpie pen to flow some ink into the cuts so I could better see.
Pushing the sill plate against the 1×6″ strip and a machinist square.
Finished sill plates ready to be assembled.

After the sill plates were cut and cleaned up I added 1×6″ Strip to the bottom of the plates by pushing the strip and plate against 1-2-3 blocks and gluing them together. Then, I added 1×4″ strip to the top of the plate as well as 1×3″ along the bottom of the plate where it meets with the 1×6″ strip.

After all of the sill plates were built, I glued the tops of them to a piece of 2×12″ strip to create two full fish belly sill assemblies- one for each car. When the glue dried, I wedged strips of 2×12″ styrene vertically between the plates to prevent them from warping inwards. I trued the edges up with my NWSL true sander.IMG_1327.jpeg

One of two completed fishbelly centre sill assemblies.

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While the fishbelly isn’t glued to the car floor in this photo, this shows how it will look attached to the car.

I’m very pleased with how the fish bellies turned out. Once they are glued to the model a strip of 1×3″ strip will be glued against the car floor and the side of the sill plates to create an “L” channel with the 1×4″ plate on the sill.

I will use MicroMark surface decals for the rivets and I’ll likely apply them to the sill before gluing it to the cars (with the exception of along the previously mentioned 1×4″ strip.)

Next time I will glue the centre sills onto the car floor, install the z bracing and fabricate and install the cross ties/cross-bearers. After that, it will be time to install the underslung heaters and install the brake rigging (my favourite!).

[Worth noting: the underslung heater may become a project in its self, 3D printed part which may end up being molded and cast as a precaution- I don’t entirely trust the chemical stability behind Shapeways’ Fine Detail Plastic. We’ll see.]

Thanks for reading,

CM

Special delivery… (70 Tonner decals)

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Just wanted to poke my head in and give a little mail-day update..

Backstory: Last fall I designed and 3D printed a accurate footboard assembly for my long-stalled Kaslo 70 Tonner project. This was a detail that had been bothering me for some time and I just couldn’t seem to get it right by scratch-building with styrene. This 3D printed part gets me over that hump, but in order to finish the project I still needed decals…

Test print of my HO Scale CNR 70 Tonner footboards. The 3D printed parts will be used as a master for casting.
CN #30’s pilot at Exporail. Steve Hunter photo.

Receiving the test parts from Shapeways was the inspiration I needed to finally get off my behind and get decals made so I could finish the project.

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CNR #38 at the Moncton, NB diesel shops. CSTM Collection.

Shortly before Christmas I began talks with Bill Brillinger from PDC.ca to make a custom set of decals for the ‘simplified’ second iteration of the green and gold livery the CNR 70 Tonners wore. I mailed him some reference material and to work he went.

After a few weeks of back and forth, I was very excited to see the PDC.ca envelope full of 70 Tonner decals arrive in my mailbox today.

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As you can see, the decals turned out beautifully. Bill is an absolute joy to work with and he nailed what I was looking for. The decal set will do three locomotives with the ability to label any unit on the roster, although not all of them got this paint job.

While my super-detailed 44 Tonner will see lots of action on the layout, 70 Tonners were just as common and I’m excited to finish this project so I can run 70T #38 in mixed train service.

CM

Finding inspiration from a later era

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Loading potatoes at St. Peters Bay, PE – Late 60s 1970s? Jim MacKinnon collection.

While looking for photos of tractors on The Prince Edward Island Railway Facebook page, I came across this photo of a reefer being loaded with potatoes at St. Peters Bay.

The author of the post incorrectly labelled it as the 1950s, but as we know by the noodles on the boxcars, this is post-1961. Further, the American reefer car’s presence makes me believe it might even be the late 60s or 1970s.

While this photo isn’t within my era, it really strikes some inspiration. The railway on PEI had many public sidings or team tracks- but not many of them had permanent loading ramps. The public siding at Vernon River did not have a loading ramp.

This scene might as well be Vernon River. It would be a very similar scene. The farmer or merchant backs truck or trailer right up to the car, plywood ramp bridges the gap, potatoes are transferred across- probably a lot of the time “hand-bombed

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I am very grateful to find this picture. It will be used as a direct reference to develop the scene and the public siding.

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I’ve in passing begun to research era-appropriate vehicles for the layout. My first purchase was an Alloy Forms 1947 Clark Forklift, which will live at the Co-Op Warehouse… I just need to figure out the proper colour to paint it.

I’ve mentioned this before to friends, and you may disagree, which is fine. Still, I really find that too many vehicles are the easiest way to break a layout’s realism. Luckily for my era, Route #3 wouldn’t have been nearly as busy as it is today, hell it probably hadn’t even been paved to long before- there won’t be any vehicles on it, and that won’t look out of place. I’m thinking a car or two parked at the station, a truck parked at the warehouse, a tractor and potato trailer along the siding and maybe an abandoned truck in the corner of a farmer’s field will be sufficient.

CM