In the Beginning--Climax Build

Class A Climax build

At some point, I want to have a working Class A Climax on my future HOn30/HO railroad.  I’ve never scratch-built anything other than a boxing ring and punching bag in HO, and done a few kitbashes.  Hence, I hesitate to use an expensive working locomotive, and currently lack the funds to buy the Mark Rollins kit, or the desire to risk ruining one until I polish my skills.  So, to freelance scratchbuild a small Climax, both to have something parked on a siding, and to practice scratch-building.

I started with Mark Rollin’s pdf plans for a Class A Climax, found here: http://mrollins.com/climaxpix.html, an assortment of Evergreen styrene, brass wire, miscellaneous other stuff, and some old n-gauge freight cars with metal wheels—purchased to become HOn30 rolling stock.  I can tell that some Archer Transfers rivets, bought at Springfield, will be VERY useful.

Progress on Climax A #1, March 29, 2013

After comparing the wheelbase on Mark Rollin’s plans, I chose the caboose as my first victim.  Victim chosen, I cut a piece of styrene to the size of the deck—then another one, as I failed to get the sides paralell.  Success there; I put it aside.  (I might not use it in the end; I might go with a real wood deck.  But—best to get cutting plastic instead of planning forever—this is an experiment.  I did the deck first because everything must fit on it.  If she sizes of other pieces are a bit off, well, there were different variants of the Class A—but they have to FIT.

After cutting the deck and putting it aside, I went on to the next step—the tank.  I brought the plans with me to Ace Hardware, and bought a piece of PVC pipe a bit smaller than the tank.  I made the tank using the boiler techniques in Kenneth Rickman’s article, “Scratchbuilding a Steam Locomotive, Part I in the June 2012 issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist.

Not having the article in front of me, I didn’t boil the plastic quite long enough, but it did the trick.  I then layered another identical piece on top, and repeated, to get the correct thickness.  Plastic glue between the layers held them together, though tape was definitely needed to keep them together until it was set—boiling for the recommended 5 minutes likely would have made it easier.  I also discovered that my ACE hardware has brass and aluminum tubes, strips, and sheets

I superglued a quarter to a sheet of thin styrene, and let it dry.  I then uses a hobby knife to cut around the quarter.  I removed the quarter and glued the resulting disk to the top of the water tank.  400 grit sandpaper sufficed to smooth it down nicely.

At this point, I have the basic tank and the deck.  I bought a dowel the correct diameter for the boiler (about ¼ the price at Michaels compared to at ACE)

I cut it to length, and will try using that as the boiler bottom.  (I want to experiment with different materials.)  If this fails, I’ll try another way—brass (expensive) tubing, perhaps.  There’s no PVC in the correct size, or even close.  The stack will be brass tubes I already have.

I’m not sure how I’ll do the place where the boiler tapers to become the stack—perhaps hunt up a tiny funnel or an Estes rocket nosecone.

Any thoughts for a novice scratchbuilder will be MUCH appreciated.  (Also, any thoughts on how to make this blog easier to use. 

Too much detail? Not enough?

(Hopefully, this discussion will be intense, and build to a grand Climax!)

Pictures

..... would be helpful.

Nothing to picture--yet.

So far, all I've got is the tank, which is just above the right hand end of that piece of standard gauge track, the cut dowel, and the donor caboose.  I neglected to take any pictures of the tank being assembled and built, unfortunately.  The base for the locomotive is the flat piece of white styrene sitting on the track.

I'll photograph every step of the way after this, though.

Thanks for looking and commenting!

Definitely need pictures!

For the tapered top of the boiler, I would suggest using a small funnel if you can find one.  They're a bit tricky to cut straight, but there are ways to do it, depending on your skills and tools.  Another option would be to make the cone out of a flat sheet and roll it - brass might be easier than styrene for the purpose there.  Or, consider making a female mold using a countersink drill bit in a block of fine-grained wood, MDF, or plastic and then casting the cone in epoxy, resin, plaster, or metal.

It's a bit late now, perhaps, but there's no reason to use thin styrene for flat sheets that don't show, such as the top of your tank.  Make them thicker and save yourself a lot of headaches, unless you need every last bit of space you can get.  I use thin sheets only where I need to bend them, or where I need a thin edge.  If I can, I'd rather heat-form a thicker sheet, and use brass for the really thin stuff because it's a lot stronger in thin sections.

A suggestion

If you take plenty of good photos (lighting and focus are important), you might be able to convert this blog into an article later on.  That's what I did with my Consolidation.  I'm sure there would be an interest in an HOn30 project, and writing the article will give you a chance to review, comment on, and improve your methods, as well as possibly providing a little extra hobby money.

Running gear

What are you using for running gear?

Rich

None--it's a dummy

This is a dummy locomotive, using an old Bachmann n-gauge caboose.  It's an attempt to practice scratch-building on the cheap, and hopefully get a nice scenic element out of the experiment.

It may not have to be a dummy

You might be able to use an N scale diesel mechanism to power the model, or one of the powered chassis available from Kato, such as this one on ebay.  The seller has a number of other drives available, and I'm sure there are many other sellers with similar items as well.

If you do decide to power the model, you might conditioner buying the drive now,so that the rest of the components ca be designed around it.

Wagon top boiler

Thanks for the thoughts everyone

I'm not buying a mechanism now, because mosrt first scratch-builds are not great--and besides, I don't yet know how to add a decoder.  In addition, at the moment, this is essentially a no-money outlay project, just using on-hand materials.  (Think Chainsaw...)

Additionally, if it IS a good model, then it will work nicely in a shop scene I have planned.  As for being a difficult first project, I'm not too worried.  There's no valve gear and the like, and subassemblies carry over nicely from my battleship-modeling days way, way back. 

As the article on scratch-building a locomotive mentioned, it's just an assortment of simple shapes.

I hope to have some more work done later today.

A Caboose No More

Friday, I removed the shell and platforms—and weight—from the Union Pacific N-gauge caboose that’s the donor for the new locomotive.

On Saturday, I decided to do a second tank; a second look at the drawings showed that the cover doesn’t overhang; there’s a band slightly lower down.  So, I started another tank shell using the same technique.  OOPS!  It came loose during the boiling process, with these results:  (See center of photo)

When wrapping plastic around PVC and boiling it, it’s important that the tape goes all the way around the work, so it’s stuck to itself.  Tape does not stick to styrene well enough to hold under boiling water!

Boiling the thin styrene plastic for 4 minutes works better than two; 5 was too long.

I plugged the top of the tank with a rough-cut piece of plastic, then filled it with plastic putty.  Tomorrow, I’ll add more, then smooth it nicely.  After work, I’ll sand it nicely.

Well, the tank top did not come out smooth—somehow, I need a way to get a nice smooth circle.  I’ll be trying to use a nickel as a template to cut around, glue it onto a tank, and sand to fit.  How do you get nice circles in styrene?

I sanded the boiler-to-be smooth (400 grit again) and painted it with 2 coats of gloss paint, hoping to fill the woodgrain completely.  When it’s completely dry, I’ll sand or steel wool it, and if needed, paint it again.  I’m also considering getting another (thinner) dowel, and repeating the technique used for the tank, but on the dowel.  I’ll weigh it down with PVC, so it’s completely submerged.  (Will post if I use this, and how well it works.)

I started work on the flatcar portion yesterday; I’ll have a post on that tomorrow or next Friday, along with betert pics

Making circles

I have two favorite methods.  The easiest is to use a compass with two sharp points in it, so that one sticks in the center and the other carves out a circle. That does leave a center divot or hole (which can be handy sometimes!), so if that's a problem I'll print out a circle on the computer and use that as a pattern to carefully cut the styrene.  Sometimes, I'll just print straight onto the styrene, other times I'll glue a printed sheet of paper to the styrene and cut them both at the same time.

Continuing the project--LEGO!

I have decided what to do for the tapered boiler cone:  Lego! 

They are so useful for so many things.  While I'm waiting for them to arrive, I'll be working on the frame/flatcar portion.  I'll either use one of them as the tapered boiler, or as a form to bend brass or plastic around.

Thanks for the advice on the cone and using brass for some parts.  I'm using thin styrene for the top of the tank because it's easy to work with, and strong enough for what it needs to do.

Also, thanks for the comment on the wagon-top and bending styrene--that should work well!

More pics of the frame tonight or tomorrow.

The flatcar frame was easy

The flatcar frame was easy, at least for a first, rough try.  I used 1/8” x 1/4" basswood strips for the frame; they scale out to 1 x 2 feet.  I then used 1/16 x 1/8” strips for the deck—6”x12”.  This may not be perfect, but is a good, solid base for a heavy locomotive.

I cut the pieces to length with the Northwest Short Lines Chopper II—I LOVE that tool.  I then used Legos to keep the frame square as I gl;ued it together with white glue.  Nothing complicated.  Then I glued the deck onto the frame.

I also discovered a prototype photo of a class A Climax with a flat top to the boiler instead of the cone leading to the stack.  So, I don’t NEED to make a nice cone.

More progress

I found a perfect boiler; Life Like Trains makes a vertical hoist with just the right sized vertical boiler.  It came off the skid with no problem; it wasn’t glued, so I have the gears and skid for a future project. 

I also started to build an engine from bits Evergreen  strips and tubes, based on a picture of the actual engine.  It won’t be perfect, but it will give the impression of a small, complex engine with pipes and valves and gears.  I’ll use some of the gears off the vertical hoist to complement it, and some more tubes and brass wire.  Rivets will go on at the end—Archer Transfers.

Here’s a pic of everything done so far, placed where it will go.  I’m beginning to see the ghost of a locomotive trying to come out.

As always, thanks for watching—and any comments and advice would be MUCH appreciated!

Progress

I've done a bit more work on the tiny locomotive, and hope to have photos tomorrow or Wednesday; it's starting to look like something intended to ride the rails.

Progress of sorts

I have used Weather-It to give the flatcar base a bit of age, and then I used some Floquil Rail Brown on some thin pieces of paper.  I cut that into thin strips and fastened it to the corners, as reinforcing straps to keep the locomotive together.

I cut a piece of Evergreen tubing and glued it to the top of the water tank, then made the lid of the fill port by using a paper punch on some thin styrene, and glued that in place.

The drain tube is aluminum tubing from the scrap box; it is easier to bend than brass or styrene.  (Even when heated, I couldn’t get as sharp a curve in the styrene, and it didn’t look right.)

I added a crankshaft to the engine itself, and a few more pipes and tubes to create a general impression of an early steam engine.  The vertical pipe to the whistle will come later, but I’ve drilled a hole already.

So, with the various sub-assemblies set in place, here's what it looks like now.  Roof suppurts and the wood bunker are next.  The coach in the back is an old Roundhouse standard gauge car, included for scale.

I also ran out to Michael’s and got a couple of strips of 3/32” square basswood that scales to about 6x6 for the vertical supports.  I have some scale 2x12’s for the sides.

As always, thoughts, comments, constructive criticism are always appreciated.  I hope that my beginner's efforts will have some insight for others.

I like it

Nice work!  I'm curious, are the trucks offset from the center on purpose?  I've never really paid much attention to that specific detail on a Class A Climax.

The boiler is looking great, by the way.  Nice job on all the styrene and plumbing work.

Just placed loosely

Right now, the trucks are not in the correct place.  (None of the subassemblies are secured in place, but posed for looks.  The trucks are the bottom of an n-gauge caboose, and the flatcar portion is just resting there.  They will be centered, and possible a bit farther apart, when it's done.

I can only take part credit for the boiler; it's lifted from a Life-Like HO scale vertical hoist.  Everything else except the trucks comes from Evergreen styrene, basswood strips, and brass and aluminum rods.

More tonight or tomorrow, I think

Days off are wonderful!

Looking good

Irish Rover, looking good...if you don't mind a bloke who's part-Scots telling you! I think you have a lot of the challenges well thought out, and will have an interesting model as a result. One thought, that would make a great load for an HO flat car!

'Lifting' stuff from other sources is great fun and can really add to your model, glad to see you making use of that. One of the advantages in HO and O, you can steal from both larger and smaller scales as well.

Watching progress with interest!

THANKS!

I don't mind advice and comments from anyone with an idea.  Using it as a flatcar load isn't a bad idea.  One alternative to that is a shop scene--front or middle of the layout depending on how she comes out.  As my first scratchbuild (other than the boxing ring) I'm still wondering how it will look in the end.

Thanks for the thoughts--and all ideas are appreciated.

Credit for found parts

In my opinion, sometimes it takes as much skill to see the potential in an existing model or object as it does to make your own.  Just because it's not scratch built does not mean you should not get credit for finding and adapting it.  I didn't even know Life-Like made a vertical hoist, let alone that it had a vertical boiler.

Keep up the good work!

Found some pictures

IrishRover,

I came across some pictures of a Climax on my other computer I didn't know I had. I believe it is a Large Scale engine, LGB size, but looks close to what you are building. I also found more pictures. If you are interested I can post them.

Hope you like them.

Bernd

Finding...and materials used

Thanks!  I'm always looking for useful pieces, both in models and elsewhere.  I have a box with things like tabs from spray cans that look just like hatches, odd shaped bits, and such.

Here's the materials used so far; the most expensive thing was the vertical hoist ($9) and the caboose ($4)

Materials used so far:

1 old n-scale caboose (trucks and wheels)

Life-Like Ho scale vertical hoist (boiler)

Basswood strips in various sizes

Basswood HO scale 2 x 12’s

Evergreen sheet plastic

Evergreen tubes and rods

Brass rods

Aluminum rod

Unusual tools

Paper punch

Short section ¾” PVC pipe (mold for water tank)

Will also need a pair of couplers and some natural wood for the fuel load

Everything else was either very cheap, or already on hand.

I should have another pic or two later today