Back to Business: Snowplows Again

The Dunsel Line shops are predominantly (literally) a virtual operation at this point. Naturally, most work done there is done on the computer.

I’ve decided to take a brief break from designing the Form 5 coupler and go back to an earlier project: the Q scale (1:45) snowplows for the 3200s. Previously I had stated that I would produce the snowplow “blades” from cardstock and glue them to the 3D printed frames I’d produced. I’ve decided to scratch that idea and just have the whole thing printed as a complete piece. This opens up the product for anyone else who would desire to reequip their MTH 3200s and/or 2-rail them.

On Sunday I went back in and added the blades and accompanying parts.

I think they look pretty good. And, better yet, they pass the tests for Frosted Ultra Detail. They’re ready to print!

Not so fast. Wait a minute… Where are the nuts holding the blade to the frame? They’re in my 3D model and they’re of a size that’s printable in FUD.

This is Shapeways' preview image. As you can see, the nuts pictured in the 3D model are not present here.

This is really starting to piss me off. This is the third time parts have gone missing when I've uploaded a model to Shapeways. (I am not blaming Shapeways for this error.) Somewhere in the conversion from the .skp file to .dae (done in Windows via "File" > "Export" > "3D model...") parts go missing and I still can't figure out why.

I'll delay printing until I solve this constant issue.

But in other, non-virtual, news I've begun fabrication of the car floors for the 3200s. I'm using 0.060" Evergreen styrene.

The holes drilled in the floor mark where the trucks will be mounted. If you have a sharp eye you've noticed that one of the holes doesn't line up with the line drawn down the length of the car body. This is not an error. The hole is correct, the line is off on that end by about 1/16". Since I won't be reusing the trucks the cars came with, I'll have to build my own and I'll be purchasing a set of wheels from NorthWest Short Line soon.

The 3200s are equipped with 28 inch wheels. In 1:45 scale, this comes out to a diameter of 0.622 real inches. 30 inches in O scale comes out to 0.625 real inches. The 30 inch wheels will therefore be 0.003 inches too wide, but I'm willing to settle. Once I get the wheels, I'll acquire a pair of cheap trucks for the floors to sit on while work progresses.

The Visit to the Museum

No, this isn't a thesis on the short story by Vladimir Nabokov. (Which is a great story by the way. You should read it.) On Sunday I went out to the Illinois Railway Museum. The purpose was to take measurements on the underbody equipment of the 2400-series "L" cars, the bodies of the 2200-series "L" cars, the body of the CA&E 400-series (Pullman) car, and the trolley beam on a North Shore Line car. I wanted these measurements as I plan on using the 2400-series underbody as a stand-in for the 3200-series equipment so that I can correct the horrible job MTH did on the 3200-series cars. The measurements of the 2200-series and CA&E cars were to facilitate the creation of O scale models of each. The North Shore trolley beam was to attempt a scale trolley beam with dangling gravity shoe for my recently acquired North Shore coach.

In an overzealous attempt to maximize my time, I left my house around 7:00 a.m. and arrived at the museum a few minutes before 9:00. It should come as no surprise that I was the first person there. The day can be summed up by saying the best part of the whole trip was a sight in the diner, captured in the picture below.

Things did not start off well when I noticed, shortly after my arrival, that the pair of 2200-series cars had been moved away from the 50th Avenue "L" station and spirited away to some unknown location. I later found the cars, but as I am not eleven feet tall, the lack of that high-level platform really knocked down my ability to take measurements of the heights of things. Many of these measurements are omitted in this set of drawings from the CERA bulletin.

The CA&E Pullman was not in the barn (it was running on the main line) so those measurements were out. I did go to town on the 2400-series cars and on a North Shore trolley beam. By 4:00 my patience with the task was utterly spent and I had developed a severe headache, so I left.

Upon returning home I immediately set about trying to plug my new found knowledge into my computer, only to discover quite rapidly, that I had, in fact, missed a few crucial measurements. I hastily checked and rechecked my intricate, scrawled notes, came to the same conclusion, and proceeded to spout a stream of profanity and pronounce a lengthy malediction.

This did not improve my headache.

Frustrated though I may have been, the trip was not a total loss. I did acquire some useful measurements on the 2400-series underbody equipment and I did get some measurements on the 2200-series cars. These should serve as a good starting point. I also checked out the snowplows on the 2400-series car and their design is simplified from those on the 2200s. A trip on the Ravenswood yesterday confirmed that the 3200s use the same design. I have since updated my 3D model accordingly.

Some parts have been exaggerated to accommodate the minimum size specifications for printing in Frosted Ultra Detail.

Corrections by Computer

The recent purchase of the St. Petersburg 2000-series cars has left me a little low on funds for the month and, as such, I have refrained from spending money on any of my projects. (More delays...)

I have, however, been pushing forward with work on the 3200-series cars. (The best part is that it doesn't cost a dime.) Taking a page from CTA O Scale L Layout I've been doing some 3D modeling with the intent of having them 3D printed by Shapeways. While the 3200s generally look good, MTH made some rather glaring (to my eyes) errors with these cars and I intend to fix as many of them as I can. Some changes I intend to make are to modify the cars with appropriate Skokie equipment and 3D printing should work nicely for all aspects.

One of the first things I'm going to tackle are the snowplows. As seen in the photo, the cars as built come equipped with snowplows. They actually don't look terrible, but they do have drawbacks. For starters, the snowplow is mounted to the truck instead of the car body. This was done to accommodate the tight turns the cars are built for (they're tighter than the 90-foot radius curves the prototype can take). Also they've got to be able to work with the gargantuan knuckle coupler that the cars are fitted with. Convinced that I could do a decent job, I took some measurements from the preserved 2200-series cars at the Illinois Railway Museum on a recent trip with my father.

This was the result. I think it looks pretty good. Better, in fact, than I had anticipated and so I started adding details I hadn't originally planned on. This, unfortunately, left me with a few missing dimensions that I'll have to get on my next trip out there.

The vertical and angled pieces are actually "L" shaped on the prototype. I haven't attempted to duplicate that in the 3D model for strength concerns on the printed product. If everything goes well, I may try to fix this. What had been designed is just the frame. The snowplow blades themselves will actually be two pieces of cut card stock which will be glued to the frame and then a strip of styrene (or a 3D printed piece) will go over the front. Once painted it should look pretty close this.

Another thing I've been working on are the seats. Just about everything under the floor of the car is wrong (the third rail equipment is actually really good aside from the fact that both trucks have provision for sleet scrapers) so my plan is to replace all of it. The model is equipped with seats in a pretty accurate arrangement, however, this is what they look like.

Doesn't seem like it could be possible, but they're worse than the seats in the bowling alleys! Since they're attached to the floor, they'll get replaced when everything else does.

I think what I've come up with looks pretty good, however, I'm not totally satisfied. I think the angle of the back is a little too shallow (I eyeballed it). The next time I'm on the "L" I'll have to take a protractor out and get the exact angle. Work continues!