Modifying a Ruby to operate on my OR&L road

[rkapuaala]

I started work on modifying this accucraft Ruby over a year ago. I wanted it to bare some resemblance to engine number 6 circa 1906 that ran on the OR&L.

The water tank turned out to be the hardest part of the project so far. The image above shows work I did in the summer on the domes for the water tank.

This is the goodall type valve I fabricated. I have a pipe leading to the valve so I don't have to remove any domes to fil the boiler up. As you can see from the cut away the pipe is leading to the front of the tank.

Last week (or maybe the week before) I fabricated this water tank cap. The next step is to fabricate a stem leading down to the filler pipe. It will protrude a little up into a cavity I bored into the cap when the cap is closed.

I'm very pleased with the profile of the cap. It looks close to the prototype cap.

The hinge works well enough, but I'm not as pleased with its simple construction. It works though, so its a keeper.

 

[rkapuaala]

Its been quite a while since I have posted to this thread. Frankly there doesn't seem to be much interest in Live steam here. The project has changes a little. I found it too hard to get the general look and feel of the prototype engine in 1:20.32 scale and finally a few months back I just gave up and started to convert her to 1:13.742 scale fondly known as S E or 7 8ths. I acutally have made a lot more progress on her in this scale because there are a lot less concessions to make. Some major ones of course is the track gauge which in 7/8ths is 2 feet while Kauila was 3 ft gauge. Then there is the size of the drivers which are about 6 inches smaller than the prototype, but most of the other stuff looks right on.

Here are some of the high lights on what I have so far.

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Here is a shot of how she stood yesterday. Not present is the trailing wheel because I have been putting off building the trailing wheel assembly.

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As you can tell by the pic above this one, I have rebuilt the cab from solid oak using traditional joinery, something impossible for me to do in 1:20.32 scale.

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I've been spending more time on the box headlight. It is fabricated totally from sheet metal including this damaged reflector which I hammered out after repeatedly annealing the metal. I think the next one will be perfect as I won't make the lamp cover holes too big next time.

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Instead of a single piece of metal I built and extended cab undercarriage from brass and an old piece of vg fir.

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The headlamp door swings open for access to the lamp stand. These were originally oil lamps and the fireman would open the door to fill the resevoir with oil and light the lamp from the front after sliding it back in again.

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Here is a shot I took to test the main cab extensions for clearance of the trailing wheel. All and all it is coming together a lot quicker this time. I am using the same goodall valve I used in the 1:20.32 version with a slight modification; I have silicon hosing leading from the nipple on the front of the tank to the valve. I've tested it under pressure and it works well at 60 PSI.

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[rkapuaala]

I'm makings some progress on this mod. At this point, I have made a head lamp (but I'm still working on it cause I wanted it to burn alcohol) I've added the trailing wheel and I have designed and built my own lubricator that looks more like prototypical equipment.

 

[Bunkerbarge]

Hi and welcome back! You are correct in so far as there is only limited interest in steam modelleing on here mainly as we are a scale model forum and many steam and model engineering in general is not scale modelling. That isn't to say there is not some interest, I am currently involved in the build of a steam coaster, fitted with a live steam plant, but it is inside a scale model so hence it's inclusion here.

The vast majority of modelling here is plastic kit scale modelling but I think there is a healthy interest in anything else that comes along which also fits into the scale model heading and I always look forward to seeing something that bit different to make us rethink our ideas of just what constitutes a scale model.

I think there is a lot to be gained by taking experiences from one type of modelling across boundaries into another genre, which is what I particularly enjoy doing with my steam coaster.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of your railway. can I just ask a question though, is this a live steam working model?

 

[rkapuaala]

Bunkerage, yes, it works on air right now, but as soon as I finish the throttle it and fit all the steam pipes it will work on steam. Here is an image of the back head I finished painting today. The rack is for the lubricator but I'm not going to install it till I have the banjo fitting on top of the boiler and all the plumbing in place.

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It is as close as I could get to the scale dimensions of the original prototype as it was built in 1889. It probably would not have had the hydrostatic lubricator during that time, but I must have a lubricator for my model to function properly. In those days they were using oil cups perched atop the cylinders. They would get out every 15 minutes or so and fill them up.

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