Monthly Archives: March 2018

Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) F22 Flatcars & Naval Gun Load

Posted on by

Several weeks ago I posted about the N Scale Architect’s new kit for a set of Pennsylvania Railroad F22 Flatcars & Naval Gun Load.  This kit, which was still in development, was announced at the Amherst Railway Society Show 2018, in West Springfield, Massachusetts.

And I spoke about it again two weeks ago as the sample came to the Bournemouth N Trak convention here in England.

Well, this kit is now complete and it looks amazing.

Here is what the N Scale Architect has to say about them:

“The Naval Gun Load kit is based on the Mark VII Naval Gun designed in 1939 and first used aboard Iowa-Class Battleships during World War II.  Measuring 16” in diameter, these guns could fire a 2,400 lbs projectile up to 24 miles. Each of these 68 foot guns weigh nearly 270,000 lbs and were shipped (breech first) across two(2) heavy weight flatcars with a third flatcar used as an idler. Many of these guns were manufactured by Bethlehem Steel in Pennsylvania and transported via the Pennsylvania Railroad across three(3) F22 flatcars. This kit comes complete with Frosted Ultra Detail (FUD) 3-D printed parts, full-color illustrated instructions, sixteen(16) inches of phosphor bronze rod and a ‘DO NOT HUMP’ placard sheet.

The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) F22 Flatcar 3-Pak Kit builds three(3) of these wood-decked 30 foot heavy-duty flatcars which had a loading capacity of nearly 200,000 lbs when upgraded to the Crown 2F-F1 cast steel trucks modeled in this kit. These flatcars were originally designed in 1913 and, at their peak in the 1940’s, there were over 100 in use on the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) roster with some of them surviving into the 1960’s. This kit comes complete with Frosted Ultra Detail (FUD) 3-D printed parts, full-color illustrated instructions, photo-etched stirrups & cut-levers, brass car weights, Micro-Trains brake wheels & body-mounted couplers, Fox Valley metal wheel sets and a PRR F22 decal sheet that features nine(9) verified road numbers, pertinent car data and prototypical reporting marks.

The ‘Naval Gun Load’ kit (#20100) retails for $39.95, the ‘Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) F22 Flatcar 3-Pak’ kit (#20101) retails for $69.95 and the ‘Box Set’ (#20102) retails for $89.95… a $20.00 Savings !!!  These kits are available exclusively at the THENARCH.COM.  Additional 3-D printing material options are available at our Shapeways Shop: https://www.shapeways.com/shops/the-n-scale-architect.”

This was a project I really enjoyed working on as it’s such unique load. It was great to get everything correct from the trucks to the length of the gun barrel. The lack of restrictions, which are often caused by donor chassis and other parts that I have to use when designing a locomotive, are what made this easier to do. Only the wheels and couplings are bought in items.

As The N Scale Architect says the kits are available direct from their website or via their Shapeways shop if you want to order them in Frosted Extreme Detail (FXD).  If you do purchase a kit from Shapeways don’t forget to contact the N Scale Architect via their website (THENARCH.COM) or e-mail (thenarch.com@gmail.com) to obtain the additional pieces and instructions needed to finish the kit.  Be sure to include your name, mailing address and Shapeways order number in this message. These items will be mailed to you at no additional charge (including international orders). Please allow 7 to 10 business days for delivery (international orders may take longer).

For me it’s back to the virtual drawing board and on with my current projects, and I hope next week to have some more progress to share with you.

Union Pacific Rotary Snow Plow 900081 – Part 3

Posted on by

In this week’s post, as promised last week, I’m going to share with you a bit more progress on with my UP 900081 Rotary Snow Plow kit.

A major part of a rotary snow plow is the fan at the front and for my kit not only do I want it to be functional but I also want it to look right.  And the UP 900081 has a very complex fan.

The red sections look smaller than the silver parts, however, they are the same.  Each blade has wings which fold out to alter the size of the blade.  All the red ones are folded in.  In the close up photograph below you can see the wings on blade number 6.  Blades 5 and 7 have had the wings removed.  You can also see the circular chute the snow is forced down behind the wings. The chute slopes away from the center of the fan towards the back of the fan chamber.  As the blades cut the snow it’s forced down these chutes and as each chute reaches the top of the rotation the snow is blasted out through the hole on the top of the fan chamber.

It would be very easy to simply make a flat disc and add details to the front but I wanted to replicate this detail as closely as I could, particularly the blades and the circular chutes.  3D printing gives me the ability to make this complex shape and maintain strength at a 1:160 scale.  In brass at this scale it would be a very difficult task.

The fan will be printed in one piece with a shaft at the back.  This will pass through the shell bulk head and be connected to a gear which will be driven by the motor.  The fan will also be a separate part from the main body to allow easy painting of both the fan and the fan chamber.  In the render below you can see the fan located in half of the body shell.

The exit chute is directly above the fan.  Above the exit chute will be the directional cover which will force the snow either to the left or right.  This cover will probably be made from etched brass as a 3D printed part will appear to be too thick. The actual wings on the fan haven’t been drawn yet either but I do intend to add this detail.

Because the fan is modeled fairly closely to the original you will be able to see the end of the circular chutes through the exit chute.  However in order to retain strength the circular chutes don’t go back as far as the original.  As a compromise I have added a cut out detail in the side of the fan which you will see as it rotates.

My next task, once the fan and exit chute is finished, will be to work out a reduction gear system so the motor speed is reduced in order to spin the fan at a slower speed.  And in order to do that I need to complete the power chassis and that’s something I’ll share with you in a later post.

Follow-up on New Releases

Posted on by

Again this week’s post will be a short one.  Although I was at the Bournemouth N Trak Convention over the weekend I have a sprained wrist, having clumsily falling over in the snow, so things are moving a bit slower than intended.  But I’m hopeful that I’ll make a full recovery soon and then I’ll be back to modeling and 3D printing as normal.

Due to my wrist I didn’t take any photos this year at the N Trak Convention but there was one item that I wanted to share with you.  A few weeks ago I showed you the N Scale Architect’s new kit for a Pennsylvania Railroad’s F22 flat car set and Navel gun load.

Well, it made an appearance and did several laps of the Black Diamond’s layout behind a UP S2.

I will have more on this kit soon and will share a link once it is available on the N Scale Architects website. (These photos were kindly shared by the N Scale Architect.)

Although I won’t be there myself if you are in the Abingdon area of the UK this coming weekend you can see my club’s US N Scale layout, Solent Summit, at the Abingdon Model Railway exhibition.  A link to the exhibition can be found here.

Next week I’m planning on showing you some progress on the UP Rotary Snow Plow project.

New Axles for a Bachmann HO 4-8-4 Northern – Part 2

Posted on by

Last week I shared with you my designs for a set of replacement Bachmann HO 4-8-4 axles as shown below.

The locomotive was tested and ran smoothly with new axles fitted: the set of four axles are available in my Shapeways shop here.

One thing which I wasn’t sure of last week was one of the original axles has a square center section rather than circular as the other two.  I have since been informed by a fellow modeller that the orignal version of this locomotive also had smoke but the smoke unit had a section which was driven from this square axle to create the puff effect.  As the model was improved this feature was removed but the square axle was never updated.

This coming weekend, 9th to 11th March 2018, is the N Trak convention in Bournemouth, England and again it’s at The Trouville Hotel.  You can read a bit more about last year’s convention here and the 2014 convention here.  I’ll be there over the weekend if you are in the area and want to come by and say hello.