DalaGStanator's Customs, Mods and Experiments

The four layered sleeper design I had in mind for my zip tie track looked good, until I found a minor issue with it: gluing the half sleepers at the ends would be difficult, since the sides are thinner than the treads and they would break off too easily. I kept the two layered rails since they're (naturally) more durable and keep their shape better once bent.



I then switched back to a flat design like V2; still made of four layers, but by gluing two next to each other. A third layer (outlined in image #6) was briefly added to make slots for the rails, which didn't quite work since the rails didn't "lock" into them. I'll have to find a better way to do it. Furthermore, the inconsistent widths of these ones led to a gauge that was smaller than before, and the plastic coaches that happened to fit on the one layered rails were now too wide for the above straight.



My last curved track jig wasn't very good due to how the rails were held in, and the pieces made with it tended to warp as a result of pulling their ends out (and also the rails being made of one layer). To rectify this, I tried making something more like a scaled down, tight radius version of BumBin's curve jig (see 4:40). That one is basically a frame with grooves to bend the rails into shape and hold them against the floor/other surface while gluing the sleepers on the bottom. It's more effective since it produces far more consistent pieces that don't lose their shape when released, and the same applies to my version even though it was put together differently. Due to their length and angle, it would take three more pieces to get a full circle than what I got from my previous technique.



As before, the narrow flanges on the aforementioned plastic train made it derail easily even though the gauge was correct this time. On one or two pieces, however, the coaches ran fine. Any of my own stock for such track would have broader flanges anyway.



Another option I tried for the rail slots was using matchsticks, which would've perhaps worked better had I glued them with superglue instead of hot melt (due to the excess between them). Even so, I had tough luck trying to file and burn the gaps to make them deeper. After that, I also tried cutting plastic tubes and aluminium strips (not pictured) and they too couldn't be tightened enough. My idea was to create a prototype/"master" sleeper I could mould and cast after making sure the slots worked. For connectors, I'd like to modify the half sleepers in a way they could meet and interlock; preferably with male and female at both ends since they can't be flipped over. It turned out a hole punch was able to penetrate the hot glued zip ties and "make" perfect male connectors, so I'll have to buy my own punch to avoid jamming/otherwise damaging the one I used.

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I've had the smoke equipped 4-4-0 on the back burner for too long. Being short on DC motors with non-broken/poorly repaired brushes, I wanted to revisit the idea of replacing the smoke fan with a piston for a puff effect. To see how the drive motor would handle it, I removed the smoke motor and attached the piston to a rod on one of the crankpins (which would've been hidden behind the coupling rod on that side). Due to the placement of the drive motor, there were no good ways to fit the mech with the loco's current design.



Looking at the above photo of a wheelset from a Krupp-built loco that had inside cylinders (credit to Keith Braithwaite), I noticed it had an irregularly shaped axle with its own crankshafts to allow the motion to work. This gave me an idea for a more viable way to drive the pump/a similar mech from an unpowered axle: bending a metal rod so it would have a protrusion in the middle, effectively acting as a crankshaft for the arm. Apart from not having to be attached to coupling rods or valve gear, it would also control the smoke and even give the illusion of steam being vented (like when the cylinder cocks are opened when moving from a stop). Definitely more practical than what I tried to do with gears and another fan before adding a separate motor. I currently don't have good metal rods to make the (final) axle from, so the one I modded was originally from an old pull back motor. Aluminium bicycle spokes should work since they might be easier to bend. If so, I could do away with wooden axles/shafts and upgrade existing models to prevent cracked wheelsets.