Occasionally one needs a little diversion from other model railroad projects.

The picture below represents one of those diversion projects, actually it shows two. The truck and trailer will be a cement bag hauler. The cab over truck is an Athearn product. The trailer is a kit bash from two different trailers. The idea behind the cement trailer will be a cement distribution diorama with several cement storage silos with a railroad siding.

It looks like the On30 modelers are generating some steam here. So in the spirit of scratch building something other than a "critter" which seems to be boring some people I thought I'd do a rolling stock scratch build.

This blog is based on a three part article that Dallas Mallerich III wrote about in the April, May & June  2001 Model Railroad Craftsman, "The Basics of Resin Castings".  Wow, 12 years ago. No 3D home printer available then.

ell I've had a hankering to do a structure. Getting a little burned out on modeling motive power. Since I'm building the twin critters, but not building an On30 layout, I thought a diorama in O scale 2 1/2' gauge would be nice. Besides I need some place to photograph the finished models, plus I'd like to be able to eventually take them to local train shows. So right now I'm experimenting.

While rutting around in one of my railroad cabinets looking for a certain item I came across a project I had forgotten about. A set of Stewart FT's, A-B-B-A set that I had modified the B unit on following an article in Railroad Model Craftsman. Unfortunately I can't remember the year and I really don't want to dig through 40 or so years of magazines at the moment.

Just what I need, another project. A friend of mine asked if I would build him a crane for his portable engine terminal which he takes to RPM shows. Of course I said OK, what are friends for. He got me all the items I needed. So I thought I'd share with you the building of the third Athearn wreck crane. I'm going to go about presenting it a little different. I'm going to make a series of videos as the build proceeds and add a bit of humor to it also. So here goes.

Bernd 

Since several members found the animation of HO & N scale work interesting I've reposted the video from the Ring Engineering thread and a second one.

I started a web post a while back looking for more information on an Australian company called Model Torque and their unique drive system they called "Automatic Torque-control Couplings"  After a few months of research I have come up how they did it. It is based on the eddy current phenomenon. If you're still with me then take a look at what Wikipedia says about this phenomenon.

After taking pictures outside with my unfinished diorama a close look at the pictures shows very little depth of field, I discovered I had my F stop setting wrong. I had forgotten that a large F stop number closes the iris down for better depth of field. I also discover that the Cannon Power Shot SX20IS only has a max setting of F8. Hardly good for great field of depth. So off I went searching for a Stack focusing program. I found one here.

The New York, Vermont & Northern Rwy. Co. maintenance department wasn't to happy with the first two turret drives of the 200 ton wreck cranes it had ordered. So the shop guys decided to call in the shop guys of the Kingstone Locomotive Works to see if they had a better idea. The NY,V,& N Rwy had a criteria that the drive fit inside the turret well and that the motor be the same as for the boom and hook. Here's what they came up with.