Humble, but workable beginnings!

At the moment of this writing, I have yet to decide if it will become a model of a JG Brill 10 bench open car (cars following this design operated on several small rural trolley lines in my area when they first opened for business in the mid 1890s), or if I will simply use it as a starting point for a work car to be built on a whim. If it is to become a work car, it will likely be of the flatcar variety, the idea being that in either case, the car’s design will take full advantage of being an underfloor powered unit! The components for this car are all secondhand, a pair of old O scale 2-Rail freight car wheelsets (I only had two of this type, making them perfect candidates for a ‘single-trucker’) to roll on, and a gear and motor from an HO scale Bachman New York Central 0-6-0 switcher. I bought this loco and tender in the nearest hobby shop, Pioneer Valley Hobbies, in West Springfield Mass, back in their old location. This was when I still did HO of course. It had a smoke unit, and nice looking linkage, the two main selling points for me. And $60 later it was mine. That was years ago. Sadly I wasn’t so great at not breaking things, and the wonderful little loco suffered. The fault that put her on the deadline originally, shouldn’t have killed her, but I knew very little about train repair then. One of the linkage parts broke, and the hobby shop would not fix it. They said I needed to do that through the manufacturer. And so it was sidelined. I remember once I tried to turn it into an abandoned locomotive, later a narrow gauge O scale loco, and by the end of this it was in a very sorry state indeed. It may have been fixable, but you’d likely be replacing half the loco and tender to do it. Today, I gently took the axe, or should I say screwdriver, to the little switcher, and broke her down into parts. I then pulled the wheels and gear off the drive axle, and pressed it onto one of the O scale axles. The motor and worm from the switcher will drive the gear mounted on the axle, and this should be sufficient to propel a single truck trolley car. Whatever rides on this power truck, even if I could sort out a drive to the second axle, won’t be pulling any kind of tonnage, as that poor little motor looks like it would just burn out trying to pull a single freight.

This is the rough idea of how the motor will fit into the power truck:

The angle is intentional, to allow the floor to sit lower. The bearings are made of brass pipe stock that will be sanded down to the correct length when I get further along with building the truck frames.

that’s all for now folks!

The building begins...

Well, I’m trying to model the wheelbase somewhat after the type Brill used in their 10-bench open cars. This way, it will look about right should I make an open car body for it, but it could just as easily be put under a work car, where pretty much anything goes. I’m using whatever few  bits of brass stock I can find around the house. Tomorrow I think I’ll go digging for more bits. The correct length between wheel centers is 7’, and my 1/4” scale car is going to match this as best I can get it! After much fussing about, I successfully soldered two bearings to the end of a piece of square stock, which marks the start of a truck frame! My joints aren’t the prettiest out there, but they get the job done, and I can file away any excess later. 

it’s pretty basic construction so far, true, but I’ve never built anything in this manor before! The fact I have anything remotely  usable to show for it is pretty impressive by my standards!

stay tuned, more to come.

And then there were two...

Oh boy, I shoulda known it was a bad idea to keep working on a model this late! I measured and cut another length of square stock, but accidentally made it 1/8" too long, and noticed after painstakingly soldering it, that it was longer than the other one.
 

 
And if that wasn't enough of a goof in itself, I thought I'd made the other too short! I was fretting over not having enough square tube stock to make the correct length part, when I had the common sense to remeasure the parts, and to my relief, realized that I'd made the second one too long- much easier to set right! I de-soldered the bearing on one end, ground the square stock back 1/8", and re-soldered it back on. The flux paste has been working overtime to make this project easier, compared to my usual wire soldering. But that might be largely because I'm using silver solder, and it's far less interested in sticking to my parts than the usual stuff. But it is also stronger, which takes priority over 'ease of assembly'. Also it happens to be the only usable solder I could locate.
While I was working on the second frame, I took the time to get a picture of the square stock before I soldered it to a bearing, so you can see that I've added a little notch into the end, to make it line up better with the bearings. The second image is just a zoom in of the first, since I realized the original picture might be a little too far away to see it clearly. It came out a little blurry, but the idea came through I think.

  

Anyhow, pain in the butt all around, getting these parts assembled, but my hard work and careful but dedicated persistence paid off! I now have the foundations of two truck frames. The axles roll quite nicely inside them, I'm honestly a little surprised. I thought I was going to need to add some washers between the wheels and the bearings, but they don't seem to be making contact. This is a happy discovery indeed! 
Here is the "assembled" (read: test fit) truck, as it stands tonight. I'm not planning on putting in any more late night hours on this if I can help it! My work could get even more sloppy, who knows!
 

And here it is, with the motor positioned within the frames, both on the desk, and on my 3-rail layout:

 
Not too bad if I do say so myself! I'm feeling pretty proud of my first forray into scratch-building a power truck! A very basic one at that, but still I'm quite pleased with myself for making it this far. If you asked me if I ever could see myself doing a thing like this even just a year ago, I would've probably smiled, and said "I wish". I can't wait to work more on this truck! My other trolley project is kinda waiting on my contacting certain folks and figuring out some missing measurements to actually start building the trucks, so this is a bit of an aside. A project to make me feel good, build some skills, and maybe add a new car to my fleet.

{PS: For those of you curious readers out there, the car behind my 'truck-in-progress' is a Corgi 1:50 scale St. Louis Car Co PCC. It is a non operating model, GHB International was once selling underfloor units to power these cars at $150 a pair, but they do not appear to be available anymore. Otherwise I'd consider getting a set or two someday. Q-Car also has a set of trucks that can fit these cars, but the Q-Car kit will require modifying the car, wheras the GHB International ones, to my knowledge, required no modification of the model. The corgi cars are nice diecast models, and they're the most affordable scale PCC models available in O scale, there are lots for sale on E-Bay most of the time. But the cost of motorizing them makes me reluctant to get more. I got mine for a total steal at $6, they normally cost $25-$100 depending on the rarity, demand, condition, etc.}

Truckin' right along...

Instead of making several, smaller posts throughout the day, as I made progress, I thought I'd have an easier time if I simply took pictures as I went, and then compiled the day's progress into a single update over here. So I set aside the keyboard, and stayed sat at my workbench! With creating the next blog entry off my mind, save for taking pictures, I made steady progress over the course of the day. 

My first step, was to build out the beam that runs between the axles. At first, I made one of my parts too short:
 

Making one the correct length was a snap, however, and with that minor mistake out of the way, I was able to bit by bit get everything cut and soldered.
 

The joints were a little tricky, but I was able to get everything to come together more or less how I wanted it to. Certainly not perfect, but good enough that it won't interfere with operation, or stop me from being proud of my work.

At this point, I broke for lunch, and then went on a trip to the nearest Michaels's Crafts store in search of basswood for building trolley car bodies! All did not go according to plan, however. It so happened, that there was not a single piece of balsa or basswood to be found at the store! The displays were there, but every single pocket, where normally wood would be waiting to be purchased, there was nothing! The only wood they had was dowel. I did need some dowel to make poles for my overhead trolley wire that I am going to erect on my layout, so I bought the smallest diameter dowel that seemed strong enough to hold up my catenary. This was the 1/4". Most of there stock was horribly warped, but I found a few that were good enough for my uses. I also swung by the new Harbor Freight they'd built and had a look around, drooling like a kid in a candy shop. I'll admit their stuff is cheap for a reason, and not everything is the bargain it appears to be. But that's not to say you can't find lots of stuff there that will serve its purpose well enough for one's needs- the 'steal of the day' was a pack of 6 wire brushes for $2.45. I got some heat shrink tubing, and solder, since I was running low, and also bought a pack of some dirt cheap alligator clips (I'm always missing my alligator clips when I need them).
I also confirmed over phone that Pioneer Valley hobbies, my nearest 'proper' hobby shop, has basswood, so if the craft store isn't restocking any time soon, I can always go there (longer drive though )

After returning home, I got right to work on the trolley truck, and started making these fun little things to finish the ends of the truck:
 

How do I even begin to explain how annoying these little guys were to make? I was using some brass square stock I dug out of my dad's old college metalworking supplies, and using a spike hammer (for handlaying track, of course, not a 1:1 spike maul ) and my vice to bend them to shape. I messed up my first one, then messed up my second two trying to match the first one, thinking it was right, but eventually I figured it out and made 4 more that were the correct shape. 
 It took a bit to make all 4, but it felt pretty good to see how they looked when they were done!
 I didn't document the next bit so well, but I found some copper bits that I was able to cut and grind down to size, to make this lower beam on the truck. They didn't come out perfect, but I did my best with what materials I had! Here are the two frames, side by side:
 And here, fitted onto the wheelsets:
 Looking pretty snazzy, eh? Hold onto your hats, because while this is the end of today's progress, tomorrow may very well have much more in store! I'm very much looking forwards to the moment when I'm able to start looking at mounting the motor, but for the moment I'm still on the task of building the truck. And don't worry about the 'tube' bearings- as I mentioned earlier, they aren't done. When it's time, I'll be cutting them down, and building some journal boxes to fit over the ends, and you'll never know there was a pipe inside 

But perhaps I'm talking too much! I need to go get some rest so I can get right back to it tomorrow! 
Stay tuned! 

And without 3D printing!

Seems like everything is drawn on screen and 3D printed in plastic. 

Wonderful to see good metal craftsmanship!

Wonderful to see good metal

Thanks Doug! I took a CAD class at my high school and really struggled to get the program to do what I wanted it to... there were so many different buttons and settings and things to go wrong that I couldn't really get comfortable with it at the time. However, I do love working with my hands, and building models, while I haven't done it much, is a lot of fun for me! Believe it or not, my craftmanship here isn't quite as flawless as it could be. I have made a few slip ups that bother me a little, but I'd need to build jigs to be able to get everything done precisely, and I don't have the patience to figure out how to build, and then build all the jigs that I would need. Instead, I've been "winging" it as I go! It's been fiddly, but fun! I'm about to post my progress for the day, I think it just about took all my prior work, and made it look 10 times better!

--Ellie--

Springing into action!

I can't help myself, the puns keep coming 

Well, I'm in bed, with a cat cozied up beside, laptop in front of me, and a good album spinning on the turntable- I'd say it's time to write up today's progress report on my trolley truck. And wow, has there been progress! Although objectively, I have't really made a larger leap in progress than yesterday, the progress I have made is arguably more interesting than prior progress, and now things are looking much more "truck" like. But enough talk, let us view the next slide please!
Today's first task, was to build the springs. I created mine with some copper wire, wrapped carefully around some stiff brass wire. I chose my materials, based on what I had to work with. 
 

Having made myself a good bunch of spring, I measured out a spring length that looked about right for the truck I ended up using as a reference (the truck under a MTS HO scale sprinkler trolley, because I could find images of it online that showed the details I needed to see, and it was simple enough to make), and then I cut them to length with the dremel. Since the 'spring' does not adhere to the inner brass wire, I soldered the end of my spring before I cut it. These springs do not actually function, they are purely cosmetic. 
 Wow! What a nifty spring we have there, eh? To prevent the tiny part from flying into the 4th dimension the moment I finished cutting through the spring, I only cut it most of the way, then bent it back n forth to get it off, then I filed the end flat. This saved me much grief, since finding a nearly 1/8" diameter, 7/8" long spring in my room full of "train junk" is probably less likely than winning the lottery.
Anyhow, now we have our spring, it's time to make room in the truck frames for them. I marked out cuts for two notches in each truck frame, after estimating some measurements that would put them where they looked 'about right'. 
 I only cut the brass square stock, not the lower copper part, but I still marked it. I first made a notch at each mark, and then carefully turned each notch into a semi-circle cut into the square stock, reaching about half way through it.
 Sadly my newfangled "smart phone" couldn't smart its way through focusing on my part, and this and a few other pictures came out blurry despite my attempts to fix the lighting and get the camera to focus. I have a relationship of mixed feelings with 'hi-tech', even though I've grown up with it.
I quickly found that soldering my spring to this part was a real pain in the butt, but here's how I did it- I rested the frame on some wooden blocks so that the un-cut bearings weren't preventing it from resting flat, then I applied flux liberally, making sure all my parts were clean, and did my soldering in three stages- I'd tack down one side of the spring, then the other, and then the part that touches the bottom beam. To keep the spring positioned in place, I pressed down on it with another small piece of wood. Crude, but it worked, and allowed me to avoid burning off my fingertips!
 

 As  you can see, I had a bit of a tricky time getting that first one in 
I got It eventually! Although it looks terrible from the inside, you won't see that when it's underneath a trolley, so I made no attempt to pretty it up beyond filing away excess solder! The second spring went much easier.
 

 Worlds apart, aren't they?
I test fitted it on the wheelsets to see how it looked. I was suitably pleased, and took a picture!
 I then repeated the procedure for the other truck frame, which went about as smoothly as I could hope for.
The latter bits got much less well documented since I forgot to take more photos, plus it was very tricky and had many failures before I finally got it. I needed to connect the frames, with two bars that run between the ends of the trucks. But making the frames meet happily, without binding up the wheels, looking wonky, or getting a bad solder joint, is surprisingly difficult. it took me a while to even attach just one!
 

In the end, getting both of them on involved awkward clamping of the bearings in the vice, and holding bits with paper towel so as not to singe my fingers, while holding the soldering iron to the joints, and hoping for the best. After no blood, but much sweat and tears, I did finally manage to get everything properly in one, functional piece.
 

 after taking these pictures, I realized I wanted one from a different angle, but shot the photo elsewhere than my workbench.
 And just for fun, here It Is alongside my Pittman #510 freight trolley (although not decorated as such, It Is a 1/4" scale model of the Lehigh Valley Transit C motor, or freight trolley if you like). My #501 is a 'tinplate' version with hi-rail wheels and couplers, but when sold back in the 40s and 50s you bought them as a kit, and could get either the 'tinplate' or 'scale' version, the latter having scale wheel flanges and couplers. This car also has working pole reverse, the raised pole controls the direction of the car's travel. I am planning on making this car under construction also have a pole reverse.
 
Unfortunately, these are all the pictures I have for today! I'm super excited to continue working on the car though I'm rather busy tomorrow and may not have time for much of much. I'll still try to get something done though, I'm really enjoying my little project!

Thanks for readin', and stay tuned...

Great Craftsmanship

Hi Leaverittrailfan,

Wonderful job cutting, fitting and soldering the pieces together.

I know how hard it is to keep N joints in place while heating the newest one.

I admit I probably would have 3D printed the cosmetic parts of the truck frame once the brass motor mounts were complete.

I admit I probably would have

Yeah, I can certainly see why! I'm a bit 'old school' 
The truck frame does also serve as a ground for the car I'm building. It will be powered from an overhead wire, with the rails being ground, like on prototype trolley cars. While I could have had a non-metal truck, and made some wipers to connect a ground to the wheels, I decided that since 3D printing wasn't something I could do, it would make the most sense to build it out of metal, then to make it out of plastic. While I wouldn't suggest anyone take this route, I can't say I'm regretting my choice. Still, when I next do something like this, I'm going to be changing up my approach a little I think! Instead of working just from scraps, I plan on buying correct materials and perhaps building some assembly jigs. 

Thanks for bearing with me this far!

I know I know. That one was pretty bad too! I can't help myself, I think my dad's goofy side rubbed off on me  If you're not shaking your head yet, that's because I haven't told you about today's progress!

Where I left you yesterday, I had made some simulated springs for the truck frames, installed them, and joined the frames to make one truck assembly! What I forgot to mention, was the addition of little washers to remove excess play in the axles. But that was then, this is now. And today was the day I tacked those rather unappealing bearing ends! Ahhh, there's my silly little joke! If you look back, nearly all my updates have started off with awful puns, and I intend to keep it up as long as possible!

But back to the bearings. My plan was to build the journal boxes, and then if I had time and energy afterwords, I might work on some additional springs to be modeled. Spoiler alert- I didn't!
Since I was working with limited materials, I didn't have anything that would make a properly scale sized journal box. I did have a nice length of brass square tube stock that would do the job though! Although rather oversize, I figured that it wasn't the worst thing in the world. I'd rather have oversized journal boxes than no journal boxes!
 As you can see, the stuff needed a little cleaning up after being stored In a cardboard box in a very drafty barn with several missing windows. Still, perfectly usable by all accounts! Note the 'spring in progress' I started, in case I'd be needing it later today.

Well, I had my stock ready to go, but before I did anything, I needed to take the excess material off of the bearings. So one by one, I cut the ends off, and ground them down to just a hair above where the axles ended.
   And so there we have It!
Now time for the journal box construction to begin!
My plan was to cut two notches in the journal boxes, so that they could fit over the beam that the bearing runs through. Initially I thought I might have a hard time keeping them in place while soldering, and thought it might work to cut the notches in the stock, solder it in place, and then cut the part from the stock. In practice, however, the stock acted as a massive heat sink, making it impossible to create a good solder joint.
   That last Image showed things as I had just gotten set up to cut the part off. But the joined failed  so after I cut the part, I ended up holding it in position with a piece of wood while the truck was held in the vice, and soldering it that way. Worked like a charm! 

  After doing my best to get rid of all the bits of metal covering the thing, I decided to go ahead with a move that may confuse the heck out of you folks.
Now, I'm not sure how many of you folks have ever had the chance to look inside a real, 'old fashioned' journal box, or know what's in one, but I have, and can tell you! Inside a journal box, which has not been upgraded to a roller bearing, there are some babbitt castings that serve as the actual bearing surface on which the axle end makes contact. There is a top and a bottom casting. And then, there's a sort of reservoir around it, filled with oil-soaked "waste". This would be scrap fabric/cloth typically, though the bearing I went inside, was stuffed with old fraying rope. This stuff serves the purpose of helping the bearing retain oil, so that it is less liable to go dry and cause a 'hot box'. In addition, if a hot box occurs, then a trail of smoke coming from the burning waste in the overheated bearing would make the issue more noticeable before irreversible damage occurred.

I decided to incorporate some waste into my bearings, like on the prototype, for the purpose of retaining oil. But also, beyond that, because I could. The way my bearings are designed, the waste goes in those gaps between the journal box and the actual bearing. Only a tiny bit of waste might touch the very end of the bearing, but it's not actually going to properly touch any moving parts. So before you tell me how foolish I am, keep in mind I did think things through first!

Here's my waste (made of paper towel) packed into my first bearing! 

And here's bearing #2 packed as well!

I then took care of the other 2 bearings, and now had the task of making covers for the front. I decided to go the simple route for now, and just solder a flat brass plate over the front of each journal box, since I could always make it look nicer at a later date.
 

 Soldering on the bearing covers went rather smoothly, as I made sure to clean all surfaces to be soldered, and made sure I got flux everywhere I needed it. I finished most of the filing work needed to clean up my joints afterwords. Still a little more to go though!
  And unfortunately, that's all I was able to get done today! It was still a blast, and I'm feeling pretty excited about getting the truck built up enough that I can finally begin to work on mounting the motor! 
Because I use toy trains a lot, and ideally want to use this car on my 'tinplate' layout as well as in a more scale setting, I plan on seeing if I can make some unobtrusive 3rd rail pickups for it, I had a neat idea for making a pickup roller that can be retracted out of view for use on 2 rail track, but who knows if I'll actually be able to build something like that. We shall see...
oh, and by the way, the chassis rolls very smoothly, so yes, no waste-born issues!

Hope you folks found this installment interesting, and can't wait to be able to show you more progress!
Much to look forwards to, stay tuned...

Your wheel bearings

A bit late to the party here. I'd like to suggest an alternative to those brass bearings you are using on your power truck. They make bearings small enough that your axles could use a set of ball bearings for freer rolling wheels.

You can find such items on Ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10pcs-681ZZ-Miniature-Mini-Ball-Bearings-Metal-Open-Micro-Bearing-1x3x1mm-BWHQP/254287205768?epid=11007224063&hash=item3b34b2d588:g:WmwAAOSwJjNcb1YX

Bernd

Neato!

 Those bearings do look very cool. Unfortunately, due to the way I built my truck, incorporating them into my design at this stage wouldn't really work. I would have had to have planned for them in my design from the start. Since my bearings are a structural part of the truck frame, removing them might destroy my truck.

However, there's really no need to replace my bearings! They actually roll very smoothly. While roller bearings would make a difference no doubt, mine are low enough in friction that it shouldn't have any adverse effects on operation. That said, I very well can see myself using those roller bearings on my next car!

Sorry for the pack of updates! Been a little sketchy lately

another pun! Long story short, I was busy with finals at community college, and also lacked suitable material for a specific part of the trolley truck. Today I got back from a trip to the hobby store (I don’t really like the one I have to go to, the folks aren’t particularly warm or friendly, and their prices aren’t all that brilliant- either as good as or more expensive than elsewhere. I generally only go when I need something that they carry and it’s easier than getting it elsewhere), with some brass stock to help finish up the truck. No promises I’ll have anything done tomorrow, but it is my birthday and I’d love to spend it working on my car. Until my next update, here’s a sketch I’ve been making of what I’m thinking the actual complete car will be built as.

as planned, she’s going to be a flat motor. I haven’t decided yet if there will be a rear cab, or just a front one. Either way I’m sticking to a single trolley pole. Note the box sketched in to represent the motor. The way it works out now, the very top of the motor will be barely below the deck of the flatcar. But that’s all I have to report for now! Stay tuned!

Sorry for the delay.. brace yourself for this one-

I was very busy over the holidays, and did not have the time to do much work on my trolley truck, though I did find some time here and there. However, some work went undocumented due to storage space issues. But the long and short of it, is that for *most* intents and purposes, the truck is now complete. While it isn't entirely done in all respects, it has reached a stage where I no longer am working on a trolley truck- I'm working on a trolley car. So this will be the final build post on this blog installment. Have no fear though! I am covering as best I can, the build of the complete car. It will have its own blog entry, and I'll link it here when I post it!

But back to the trolley truck. There wasn't actually a terribly large amount of work to do to finish off the truck before beginning the installation process. I used some brass rectangular tubing I bought at the hobby shop to make the beams at the top of the truck. Soldering them was a little awkward at first, but I figured out a system and got them pretty much how I wanted them without too much fuss. Later, I took some square rod, and used it to make braces (Aha! That's where the joke in today's title comes from!) which finish off the truck details for now.

  I purchased a few acrylic hobby paints from the hobby shop when I was there, and decided to give the truck a coat of oxide red (my current plan for what to paint the car in). It looks really nice to me! I think I want to sand/file a few more spots, before I call it 'good'. 
   And there we have it! The truck is basically complete, and it's time to move on to the trolley as a whole. I made a slight design change that means the motor will mount flush underneath the car floor, so stay tuned to see how . everything all comes together!! I hope folks have enjoyed watching my modeling process, and that it's inspired someone to attempt something of the sort themselves!

See you over In the new blog entry (when I get It written)!!

New Blog Post

For anyone who has read this thread, and wants to see the next step, here is my blog post on the built of the full work trolley:

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/scratchbuilding-a-trolley-work-car-12214622

enjoy!!!
-E. Rozalia