more photos

both cab doors open and shut.  here is the door shut 

I 3D printed all the cab interior parts in place on the backhead, which is held in place with magnets.  The throttle and brakes were printed as a separate piece and glued to the floor, the mechanical lubricator was also a separate piece.

the rear shots shows the rusted out and patched hole along the top of the tender, a random scatter of wood, the canvas tarp that was rolled down the back of the cab in colder weather, the rear light over the cab opening to aid in fueling in the dark, the ladder, and the sand box.  I used a photo of the real locomotive to model all the details you see, including the way the lettering fades right after the "&".  The best part of modeling from a photo is you just have to add what you see and not know why it is there, for all I know that piece of wood behind the cab was picked up and set there so the engineer could take it home and make a bird house out of it, or it had significant importance in operating the locomotive, who knows.

this side shows the sheet metal pipe (duct) that was used to drain the cinders from the base of the smoke stack.  The pipe was placed under those small pipes you see sticking out of the bottom of the large balloon stack and the caps of the pipe removed.  The large pipe directed the cinders down to the ground and off to the side of the tracks, keeping cinders off the running board.  cinders must have been an issue getting on the trucks because the MC constructed metal shields on the truck to block cinders from falling on the journals, only a problem in this truck and on this side, the running board protects the other side.  The large stack is prototypical, when the MC ordered a Radley Hunter stack to replace the straight stack the transposed a couple numbers on the order, and instead of getting a stack for a 42 ton shay they received a stack for a much larger standard gauge shay, but they made it work and is one of the signature features of #8.

here is a close up of the business part of the shay, the engine (some call them cylinders).  I set out to weather the engine to look greasy an wet.  When a shay is running this area should look like a hot mess, not all flat and rusty.  Condensate is constantly draining down from the cylinders above and running down onto the crankshaft.  every day, all day oil is being applied to all the rods, grease cups are everywhere.  This is the heart of the shay.

also, the window frames and doors were printed as separate pieces so I could first paint and weather them like wood, then AK Interactive chipping fluid was applied, over which I painted black acrylic paint.  The chipping fluid was activated and I chipped the paint off to show the aged wood below.  Then to further set apart the wood parts from the steel parts I gave then a was of dark brown to tint the black and make them stand out.  The steam pipe was wrapped with tissue paper and painted black, another prototype feature.

video link

here is a quick video, sorry about the quality, it is hard to shoot video and run the throttle at the same time.

Wow!

Very impressive!

Joe

Wow

That’s a very impressive end result, runs quite nicely too!

Now that the design work is done...

Now that the design work is done, how long do you think it will take to print out and assemble another one?   I'm thinking it will be pretty quick.  Your work has been very impressive and inspiring to me.  

I have thought that is I was

I have thought that is I was to start over i would go from modeling the C&O in HO (Hawks Nest-Hinton) to modeling the Mann’s Creek in a larger scale but much more detailed.

This engine just makes that a more vivid idea.

It look absolutely amazing.

-Doug M

Remarkable all the way around

Remarkable all the way around - design, execution, multiple redos, assembly, painting, weathering, detailing, running! Looking forward to watch the second one develop as well.

Suberb effort, and thanks for sharing your experience

Your posts on your learning curve for this project work to elevate the skill sets of all interested.

Fantastic result.  Great job sir.

Regards,

Jerry

Fabulous!

Fabulous! 

Will this be published and where can I buy the files?

Title pretty much says it all.

I too wanted to make a shay at some point but the sheer amount of work required to design one from the wheels on up is as incredible as the finished product.  However, seeing as you'll be building at least a couple of these I'm wondering if you'll be selling the files at some point?  I'd love to be able to mix and match parts to print and build my own custom shay, plus add some personal touches with files of my own.

Also, this looks like it would make a fantastic article or article series in MRH.  No idea if that's already been taken care of but I'd love to read more.

Anyway, that's a fantastic looking model and clearly the result of a lot of work.  I hope you take great pride in that engine and other's you'll build in the future.

Home Run

Out of the park! I would love to see the pile of rejected scrap parts if you still have them. It would help us appreciate the hours of research and development, wasted materials, and hours of machine time that go in to producing a fine model like this. And the patience it takes to stick with it for a year. Excellent paint and weathering brings it to life. Gold medal man!