Erie 0-8-8-0 Camelback Locomotive
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jdcrawler
Joined: Apr 4, 2011
Topics: 46 Replies: 65
Topics: 46
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Normally I wait until I have finished a project and then post it here.
This is going to be a long project with a lot of photos so I have decided to post it in sections as I go along.
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In the thread I just did on the brass locomotive, I had talked about getting started on trains by "kitbashing" the plastic steam engines that were available back in the 70's.
The main engine kit that I used was a model of the Indiana Harbor Belt 0-8-0 locomotive.
These were made in Italy by Rivarossi and sold by AHM.
The model kit was sold with plastic wheels and they made a motorizing kit that had metal wheels to replace the plastic ones.
Here is what that engine looked like when assembled with the motorizing kit.
Over the years I have managed to collect several of these plastic engine kits and the motorizing kits to go with them.
Using parts from a couple of these model kits, I would like to build a model of an Erie Railroad 0-8-8-0 Camelback steam locomotive like this.
These are the main parts that will be used to build the engine.
An engine boiler shell and a tender shell.
Two frames, one with the motorizing kit already on it and an extra motorizing kit for the second frame.
Some miniscules plastic parts and metal side rods and valve linkage parts.
A cast brass boiler piece for a Camelback locomotive ( this will also add the necessary weight in the back to balance the engine so it isn't to front heavy ).
A piece of plastic pipe to use for extending the boiler.
The first step is to cut the front part off the frame that will be used as the rear chassis.
Then I cut the rear part off the frame that will be used as the front chassis.
I formed this piece out of sheet brass.
It will attach the two chassis units together with the brass shoulder bolt.
The brass piece fits on the back of the front chassis frame for the pivot between the two chassis frames.
This is a view of the underside of the two frames attached.
Here are the two frames set upright.
The cast brass firebox has a stub section of boiler on the front of it.
The plastic pipe that I'm going to use for the boiler is just a little larger diameter than the stub section on the firebox so I can bore the end of the plastic pipe out to fit on the firebox.
Unfortunately, I only have the small hobby lathe so I can't put the whole boiler in it.
I cut a short piece off the end of the plastic pipe and chucked it up in the lathe to bore out the end.
This end piece now fits over the end of the firebox.
The end piece is then glued back onto the end of the boiler.
I scribed a line on the side of the plastic pipe before I cut the end piece off so I could align the two pieces back the same way.
Starting to make the mounting base for the firebox out of styrene sheet.
Lining up the boiler on the chassis.
Right now the top of the boiler is even with the top of the firebox.
You can see in this drawing that the top of the firebox sets higher than the boiler and the rear portion of the boiler flairs out going into the firebox.
Using automotive body fill, I added height to the top of the firebox and tapered it down to blend with the boiler.
Here is the finished boiler.
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jdcrawler
Joined: Apr 4, 2011
Topics: 46 Replies: 65
Topics: 46
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With the boiler set on the chassis, I drew a level pencil line along both sides where the foot boards are to go.
Then I drilled 1/16 diameter holes in both sides of the boiler.
I put brass rod thru the boiler for the foot board supports.
The foot boards are made out of diamond patterned styrene that is glued on top of the brass rods.
Here are are the foot boards along the main part of the boiler.
With the boiler turned over, I cut pieces of 3/32 styrene angle and glue them to the underside of the foot boards.
The angle piece up next to the boiler is notched to fit over the brass rods and the other piece of angle fits along the outside edge to hide the ends of the brass rods.
This adds strength to the foot boards and locks them onto the brass rods.
Here is the boiler with the side and front foot boards finished.
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jdcrawler
Joined: Apr 4, 2011
Topics: 46 Replies: 65
Topics: 46
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Bending brass tubing to form the steam supply pipe for the steam cylinders on the rear chassis.
Here is the finished supply pipe.
And how it looks fitted to the boiler.
A piece of styrene is wrapped around the center of the supply pipe for the "T" pipe fitting on top of the boiler.
Side view of the steam supply pipe.
I also finished the lower extension of the fire box at the rear of the boiler
I cut the steam dome and the sand domes off the boiler of the AHM plastic engine.
Originally I cut these around the mounting flange.
However, the thickness of the plastic boiler made the mounting flanges to thick.
So I trimmed the mounting flange off each dome and glued a thin piece of styrene to the bottom of each dome.
After they dried, I trimmed the mounting flange to size.
The domes are not glued on yet but this is how they will look when they are mounted.
Working on the back end of the fire box and the shelter for the fireman.
I cut the back of the fire box off the plastic AHM engine to use on this engine.
It is fastened to the back of the brass fire box with two 0-80 machine screws.
Then I made a pattern for the fireman's shelter out of cardboard.
This pattern was transferred to a piece of styrene and then cut out.
This shelter piece is then wrapped around the end of the firebox and glued to the floor and the sides of the plastic fire box end piece.
Once that glue was dried, I then cut a piece of wood to the shape of the roof and clamped it in place.
I let this set overnight to form the styrene to this shape.
Then I fit a piece of styrene for the front panel and glued that in place.
You can also see that I have put a line of "rivets" along the front edge of the fireman's shelter.
I wrapped the boiler cover retaining straps on the boiler and mounted the steam dome and the sand dome on top of the boiler.
The two sand pipes are run down each side for the rear chassis.
Three steps are mounted on each side of the boiler to climb up to fill the sand dome.
This engine had an air compressor pump on each side and four air tanks on top of the firebox.
The air pipes are run between the tanks and the pumps and two air lines are run up to where the cab will be mounted.
The three steam pressure pop-off valves are mounted on top of the boiler right behind the sand dome.
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JohnBoy
Joined: May 14, 2008
Topics: 110 Replies: 517
Topics: 110
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Wow. Just wow. You have outdone yourself sir. This one's going down in the record books.
And I'm thrilled you've chosen to show us step-by-step what you're doing. I for one have already learned some things just looking at the photos.
Question: where did you get the cab piece? Is that a mold?
Thank you jdcrawler!
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jdcrawler
Joined: Apr 4, 2011
Topics: 46 Replies: 65
Topics: 46
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Thanks John
The fireman's cab is cut from a sheet of styrene.
This will explain how I did that a little better.
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Making the cab. .....
Using .060 thick styrene sheet for strength, I drilled two holes for the area that fits around the boiler.
Then the front and rear panels are cut out.
And the window openings are cut out.
After doing the same for the two side panels, the pieces are glued together to form the cab.
The cab roof is cut from .030 thick styrene and the "rivets" are pressed in from the back side.
Here is the finished roof panel with the rain gutters and the vent cap installed.
How it looks mounted on top of the cab.
I cut two side panels out of .015 thick styrene and put the rivet pattern in each one.
These are then glued onto the sides of the cab.
The window frames are glued in place and the trim is put on around the doors in the front and rear panels.
How it looks mounted onto the boiler.
Left side. ....
Right side. ....
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jdcrawler
Joined: Apr 4, 2011
Topics: 46 Replies: 65
Topics: 46
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I've "kitbashed" several locomotives out of plastic over the years by taking parts from one kit and mating them with parts from another kit but this is my first attempt at building an engine by making so many of the parts from sheet styrene.
It certainly has been a learning experience.
The railing for the front running board is formed from brass rod.
Then I drilled holes in a piece of wood to make a jig for soldering the support bars to the railing.
Here how the railing looks on the engine.
I've also finished up the piping on the front and added the bell and smoke stack.
I'm using a brass smoke box front cover and I mounted the number plate in the center of it.
Also added the two clearance lights and the headlight then I mounted it on the front of the engine.
I also put the hand railing on the lower part of the front and along the sides of the boiler.
On the rear half of the boiler I put all the hand railings on and the two step plates on the lower part of each side of the fireman's cab.
Also put in the washout plugs along the sides of the boiler.
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jdcrawler
Joined: Apr 4, 2011
Topics: 46 Replies: 65
Topics: 46
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Working on the rear chassis.
This is what the front of the steam chest for the AHM 0-8-0 model looks like.
The steam chest is modified some to look more like the steam chest for the Erie locomotive.
This is how the side rods and valve linkage looks on the AHM model.
This also had to be modified a little to closer match the linkage on the Erie locomotive.
View of the other side.
Rear view.
This photo shows that the front steam cylinders are a larger diameter than the rear steam cylinders
They also have a square valve case on top instead of the round cylinder valve case.
The difference in the diameter of the cylinders is because the rear cylinders are for high pressure steam and the front cylinders are for low pressure steam.
The steam from the boiler is piped to the rear cylinders first.
Then the exhausted steam from those cylinders is piped up to the front cylinders so the same steam is used twice.
Starting with another steam chest from the AHM 0-8-0 plastic model.
The round valve cylinders are cut off the top.
The two PVC pipe fittings will be used to make the larger steam cylinders.
A groove is cut into the side of each PVC fittings so they can slide over the steam cylinders.
Then pieces are cut out of another PVC fitting to fill in the gaps.
A square valve case is made out of sheet styrene and glued to the top of each cylinder.
Pieces of styrene with a diamond plate pattern are glued to the top of each valve case and to the area in-between the two steam cylinders.
The cylinder end caps are also made and glued on and a side plate with rivets is added to the outside of each cylinder.
Here is how the new steam chest looks when painted.
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jdcrawler
Joined: Apr 4, 2011
Topics: 46 Replies: 65
Topics: 46
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There are a set of steps on the frame in front of the front steam cylinders.
I cut four pieces from a piece of brass with the diamond tread design in it and bent up the edges on each piece to form the step plates.
Then I cut two strips of brass and formed them to make up the side plate for the steps.
Here's how the steps look all soldered together.
These steps are fastened to the sides of the front chassis frame.
How they look with the steam cylinder mounted in place.
Two linkage pieces are soldered together to form the right angle reverse lever.
I glued some pieces of wood together to make a jig to hold the brass rod so it can be soldered to the reverse lever.
Here is the reverse lever with the rod soldered to it.
The reverse lever and operating linkage rods are mounted on each side of the boiler.
Made up the lower pipes that run to the back of the engine, out of small copper tube.
Here is how they look when mounted in place.
That finishes up the engine and it is ready for painting.
This model does not look "exactly" like the real locomotive, but it is very close.
This is my first attempt at building with flat styrene sheets and I'm satisfied with the way it turned out.
As I was progressing on this, I found some better photos than what I had when I first started building this engine.
I then realized that early on I had made a mistake in calculating some dimensions and this caused me some problems later in the build.
By the time I realized my mistake, I was too far along to be able to go back and correct it without removing several of the added parts.
If I was building this out of brass, it would be easy to just un-solder the parts and make the correction.
However, once this styrene is glued, it is hard to remove something with out destroying it.
..... Now it is time to make the coal tender to go with this engine.
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jdcrawler
Joined: Apr 4, 2011
Topics: 46 Replies: 65
Topics: 46
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I'm using parts of the tender from the AHM plastic engine kit.
First thing is to fit a set of Archbar trucks to it so it is setting at the right height.
Then I took part of the front section with the coal door in it and glued it on.
The tender for the Erie 0-8-8-0 locomotive had a wider coal bunker than what the AHM tender did.
I cut the sides for the coal bunker out of .060 thick sheet styrene and glued them to the top of the tender.
Wax paper was put on the inside of the tender before I set the top piece on it so when I glued the styrene pieces on they wouldn't stick to the insides of the tender.
This allows the whole top section to be removed.
These coal bunker sides that I just glued on are setting inside of the sides of the tender but the sides of the coal bunker on the Erie tenders were flush with the outside of the tender.
I cut two more coal bunker sides out of .030 thick styrene and put the rivet pattern in them.
These two sides are then glued onto the coal bunker so that the outside of the coal bunker is now flush with the outside of the tender.
The top edge of the coal bunker is trimmed with a thin strip of styrene to hide the seam between the two pieces of styrene and give the top edge a flat surface.
A piece of wood is cut to fit inside the top of the coal bunker.
This is trimmed on all four sides to form a hump in the center.
Wax paper is placed on the inside of the coal bunker and this piece of wood is set in place.
Then I mixed up some automotive body fill and spread it over the wood.
Some O-gauge " coal " was pressed into the body fill.
Once the body fill was dry, I sanded the sides smooth and painted it flat black.
This is how it looks as a load of coal in the tender.
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jdcrawler
Joined: Apr 4, 2011
Topics: 46 Replies: 65
Topics: 46
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I came across this old post card that has a colorized photo of the Erie 0-8-8-0 camelback locomotive and decided to paint my model with gray and black.
Here is the finished model.
Progress: