Stuff I shouldn't have to do..

I try to buy higher end tools not just because I like using them, but you usually get what you pay for.
I really can't afford to spend over $1500 on a fancy rotary tool such as an NSK electric or similar. So I did what most modellers do and bought a Dremel.

The basic thing any rotary tool should be able to do, is spin true. Well my most recent Dremel purchases, fail in this regard.  I bought one of the new Dremel Micro's a year or so ago and a Dremel 7300 a bit after, because the Micro had terrible run out. The 7300 was better, but still not what I was expecting.

The run out was so bad on the Micro, drilling with it was impossible. (which is what I bought to do)   I ended up leaving a wire brush in it, to clean paint off wheel sets.  The 7300 was better, but still not what I would call acceptable.  One day I got pissed off and took them apart.  The problem was easy to figure out.  Inside the motor shell halves, is a groove for the spindle bearing.  Well the groove  is much bigger than the bearing diameter. The bearing can be moved by hand about 0.010" in its bore in each direction. The pocket is basically 0.020" to big. I fixed it by adding styrene shims to the bearing pocket in the motors shells. The green knife is pointing at one of the shims.

Problem fixed.  I did this to both.  The Micro is still not as good as the 7300, which I account to the the 7300 having a shorter shaft which means less vibration from flex or whatever..

Now why Dremel can't make the bearing bore close to the right size is beyond me. The parts are injection moulded with glass fiber filled thermoplastic.  This process can yield highly accurate parts. So much so, that the bearing pockets shouldn't need 0.020" clearance, may be 0.002 tops..

I broke at least a few $20 drill bits because of this manufacturing issue.

About the chuck and drill bits I use.

I use the Dremel keyless chuck (not shown in the picture), so I can hold 1mm shank Cobalt drill bits from Richards Micro Tool. These are higher end drill bits, much better than any wire drill bit you can get from a hobby supplier. I get mine from McMaster Carr.  Here is a link..

Cobalt Inch Size Drill Bits with 1mm shank

With this combo I can drill hundreds of holes in resin in a fraction of the time I can by hand.

Don't try it on styrene though, the Dremel's lowest RPM is still to fast, to not melt the plastic with a #79 drill.

RPO Part 2

Over the weekend I made substantial progress on the RPO.

I scratch built new sides from Evergreen styrene sheet and strip.  Commercial sized strip was used to keep things simple.

In the first photo you will see some finger clamps I constructed to assist in the process of making the sides. I saw these over on Joe Smith's Blog and thought they were just great.  Mine are made of mild steel with a piece of Tig welding wire pressed into a drilled hole.  They are basically a mini finger to hold things while your gluing etc.  What great idea and now that I have them, I can't live without them!!  Construction is done on plate glass set against a metal scale.

The first layer is made of a piece of 0.010" thick material with 0.060" quarter round on either end. The second layer is all made from 0.010" strip of varying widths.  A piece of 0.100" and 0.080" strip is attached along the top and bottom of the sides respectively.  The top and bottom of the three doors are made with 0.080" strip centered on the pencil lines.  These are made longer than actually needed.

Here is a close up of the side as described above.  The strips are set 0.010" off of the top and bottom strips to leave room for upper and lower door sills.  The top of the side is against the scale in this photo.

Next I applied the mutton's to the upper half of the door to frame door window openings.  The mutton's are 0.040" styrene and the outer edge is 0.080" which will be covered with a 0.040" quarter round door jamb that will leave a 0.040" door boarder to match the mutton size.

Here is both sides with the doors and windows all framed up. 

Next the remaining areas were filled with 0.010" sheet to complete this layer.

The third layer starts by adding 0.040" sheet on top of the second layer using individual pieces followed up with 0.010" x 0.040" strip set vertically at the top and bottom of the door openings.
Unfortunately I didn't take a close up photo. Finally I added the 0.040" quarter round on either side of the door to form the door jamb.

Next up is to cut out the window and door window openings, followed by adding the belt rail and letter board using 0.010" strip.  I will fill any seams with putty and sand if needed before mounting on the car floor.

New Workbench

Since attending the Chicagoland RPM(and recovering from an overdose of train stuff), I've not done any modelling - save for Sculptamoulding a section of my friend Pierre Olivers Wabash Layout.

But that's not to say I haven't been busy.

Over the last couple of nights I have built a new workbench for modelling.

My former bench was built over 20 years ago when I was in University and was designed with wood working in mind.  It was deep (36") and had dog holes and a large wood working vise on the left front.  Its heavy and rigid, good qualities to have on a bench designed for holding planks of wood while hand planning etc. 

It did falter as a modelling bench though.  It was to low, had no room for my legs to stretch out and was too deep for me to reach the peg board on the wall without getting out of my chair.  It was time for a new bench.  So I moved it out to the garage with the rest of my wood working tools.

Before work started on the new bench I came up with a wish list for the new one.



Higher off the ground to better match the draftsman style chair I use.

A Pegboard that I can hang tools from.

Narrower so I can reach the tool pegboard when seated.

An overhead shelf to mount a light under and store Plano boxes with parts on top. I also need to be able to reach the shelf without standing up.

Built in Power Bars on both sides of the bench.

A solid top, with a support structure design such that I can clamp stuff to both the front and sides of the top.

A foot rest to put my feet on while seated.

An increase from 5 to 6 feet long.

The ability to store a garbage can underneath.

Somewhere to store scales and rulers. (I am always misplacing them under what ever mess is on my bench.)

A pegboard on the ends of the bench to store less often used tools or other stuff like a dust pan and brush.

Somewhere to clamp reference photos so they are not propped up on the bench surface taking up valuable modelling area..

Easy to construct.



A big wish list but nothing earth shattering.

Here is what I came up with.

A simple bench constructed with 2x3's and a a Bamboo Top 72' long by 25.5" deep.   The cross brace underneath is at the perfect height for me to rest my feet on while seated.

I found a LED strip light for a reasonable cost, which was easy to mount with the included double sided tape.  The light valance also acts as a place to clamp reference photos.

As for disappearing scales?  I solved this with a magnetic tool strip.

Now back to modelling!!!

P.S.  A keen eyed observer can figure out what I'm working on, besides checking out Chris Adams Blog!!

Tool Box Tuesday #3

   A recent trip to Lark Spur Line in Merrickville ON provided me with a new tool for the toolbox.  I came away with an old PanaVise.  I should have bought one of these years ago.  It makes the task of working on the end of a car a pleasure rather than an act of frustration.

  I have tried using cups, angle plates etc. for this task, but this thing makes it easy.  The previous owner added some dense black foam to the jaws and mounted it on a nice piece of wood, complete with rubber feet.  This older model also seams much heavier than the current PanaVise offering I checked out at a train show a while back.

 So what's in the Vise?  A Wabash 12 Panel Boxcar from Yarmouth Model Works.  This is a Resin kit, that also features etched metal detail parts, Tichy brake sprue, Kadee Miner Brake details and Kato ASF Trucks. Of special note are the ladders.  They are made up from etchings formed into a angle iron with holes and individual rungs made from Tichy grabs glued on.  They are great looking and were easy to build, following the kits instructions. 

For gluing the rungs I used Loctite 430 Metal Bonder CA.  The instructions suggest using Loctite 496 which is Loctites Industrial strength General Purpose CA.  It should work fine also, but I had the metal bond version so why not use it.

 Do yourself a favour and go check out Loctites Industrial website.  They have dozens of CA glues and even a special primer that you can put on slippery plastics like Delrin and PTFE(Telflon) to join them with CA.  I tested some of this on a PTFE to Derin joint at work and I was surprised how well it held.

Here is a picture of my progress on the Wabash Car.  Its hard to see in the photo, but the sides have simulated warpage from the welded panel joints.  My wife who supports me in the hobby but has little interest in trains herself, noticed this right away after seeing it painted on my workbench.  She even asked if was supposed to be weld warpage.  She, like me is also an engineer and finds enjoyment in the details of manufacturing.

I used Tichy stirrups instead of the etched ones in the kit.  Not that there was anything wrong with the excellent kit ones, but after I installed them I promptly put the car down on them and bent all 4 stirrups.  They were pretty much fubared.  I hope to get it dull coated and weathered this week.
 

Tool Box Tuesday #2

Its been a while, over 2 months since my last post.  I have been Tendon to other things.  No I didn't spell that wrong, but I have been dealing with an on going issue with a Tendon in my arm.   I have pretty much had to shut it down for a couple of months to let it heal.  Its still not 100 percent but getting better slowly.  Anyway, thought I would try to do some work last night and I pulled out my newest tool.  A 5" Hold an Fold from the Small Shop.  I bought it as a Christmas present for myself.  Its used for bending photo etched metal parts.  What a great tool.  Much easier to use than a metal scale and razor blade.  Heres a picture of it along with some Plano running board parts I formed using it.  It comes with both a razor blade and custom made long metal bending blade.

These are very simple parts and could be formed with just tweezers but I wanted to give the new tool a test bend.  Another really useful tool is the Xuron photo etch shears.  Cutting photo etch, especially stainless ones with them is a joy.  Sometimes when cutting the photo etch parts a small tit will still be left on the part.  In the past I would use a file to remove these tits but found the tits get caught in between the teeth of the file, making it difficult to generate a smooth stroke with the file.  I now use a hard tool makers stone to remove these tits.  Stones have no teeth, so there is nothing for the tits to catch on.   Stones can be purchased from Falcon tool company, McMaster Carr or Gesswein.  The 1/8" x 1/4" cross section stone size are my favourites for moddelling.  They come in grits from around 80 up to 600.

So what's the running board going to be installed on?  My latest rolling stock addition, more on it in a later post. Here is a photo of the running board held down with a machinist parallel while the glue dries.

LED Headlights

 
I recently finished installing LED headlights into Algonquin RS3 401.  It was my first time using Ngineering Micro LEDs.  These things are small (1.6mm x 0.8mm).  Small enough to fit into the Custom Finishing Models headlight casting I used on this locomotive.  The picture above shows the Ngineering LED in the RS3 as well as AGN 502.  The 502t has a regular 3mm barrel LED installed in place of the bulb the RS-10 came with.  Even though its small, the micro LED is super bright. 

Below is a picture of the all the tools required to solder leads to the Ngineering LED's.  Not shown is liquid flux which I also used.  Ngineering recommends using their soldering fixture and so do I.  Trying to solder leads to the micro LEDs without it, would be almost impossible.  Its worth the $10 bucks.  I followed the soldering instructions on their website and had no issues.  The LED is the small yellow spec just in front of the tweezers.  The bulb I am replacing is just above the LED.   I also recommend getting a 1/64 inch tip for your soldering iron.  The solder is Ngineering low temp silver bearing solder, but is made by Kester.

Rather than solder the LED to magnet wire as Ngineering recommends, I was lazy and just cut off the 1.5V bulbs from their respective leads and soldered the LEDS to them.  The bulb leads are bigger than the magnet wire but I was still able to easily solder them to the LEDs.  Here is a picture of the wires soldered to the LED.  I also added some Micro Kristal Clear to the wires/back of the LED to insulate the wires from each other. The insulation on the wires had melted back a bit when I soldered them.  To install the LED's in the headlight casting I just pushed them in and added a dab of Micro Kristal Clear to hold them in place.

This last picture shows the Locomotives from the other end.  The LEDs in both locomotives are the  yellow glow type but from different manufactures.

Tool Box Tuesday

I thought I would start a new weekly blog entry.  I figure it will help me make more regular posts to the Blog.  Some of the blog's I read have a Wordless Wednesday and recently a Freight Car Friday was started.  So here's my contribution.  Tool Box Tuesday.  I will try to post something each week, about something in my tool box (Ok tool boxes to be correct).  I will confess I am a tool hound.  I have yet to find a type of tool I don't need.  I'm always on the look out for new and better tools for both my hobbies and professional career.  So to start off, I thought I would show a few vises that I have in my collection.

At the top of the photo below is a small hand vise.  It's is actually a vise/handle for Swiss pattern files.(Or needle files).  It is show with a file mounted.  The clamp screw has a hole in it as does the handle to allow the file shaft to fit down inside.  I got it at Lee Valley Tools. I rarely use it for holding files but when you have a lot of material to remove the handle does help with the ergonomics.  I usually use it to hold small parts while filing them.

In the middle of the photo is a small 1 inch wide vice I made.  Its great for holding small parts to be cut with a razor saw, or clamping parts for gluing. I also use it as a mini press to push parts together.  Such as pressing locomotive wheels into axle gears.  I sometimes put it into the machine vise on my Mini Mill to hold small parts that could easily be crushed by the larger machining vise.

At the bottom is a Starret hand Vise along with a table clamp to turn it into a mini tool makers vise. (The wood handle unscrews) This was my Grandfathers vise.  Years ago the table clamp was misplaced.  I called Starret and they replied with the part number to order a replacement.  Even though the clamp and vise were made about 70 years apart, they still fit perfectly together.  Starret is my favourite tool maker.  Everything they make is high quality, and parts are available for just about any tool they have ever made.  Here is a picture of the Starret vise in Table mount mode.  They are not inexpensive but will last several generations or more.