Building the Hollywood Foundry "Diablo" mechanism for the car #426 project.
The Hollywood Foundry "Lightning" Trailing Truck on the 426. (I know, I have the side frame installed upside down! I've since fixed it. Thanks Charlie Pitts)
Embolden by the successful (and easy!) build of the Lightning trailing truck, I have the confidence to take on the Diablo. I suspect that, though more involved, it should be just as easy to build.
Southern California Traction Club setup at Red Car Days at Orange Empire Railway Museum, Fathers Day 2012 with visiting dignitary Bill Bolton.
Actually, forgive me my dear followers, but I'm way behind with my blog posts. Not only has this Diablo been successfully built and installed, it has performed beautifully on the Southern California Traction Clubs modular layout and has put in some serious miles around that layout at several shows. I tells ya, these Hollywood Foundry products are what the dames call quality!
Introducing the Diablo
My full photoset of the construction of this Diablo is posted below. But because it took me so long to write this post, Hollywood Foundry has since posted two, crystal clear videos introducing and a step-by-step build of their Diablo mechanism. And that's on top of their already clear instructions!
Diablo Assembly
So the above videos and instructions should be everything you need to build your own. But if you want some supplementary photos, well then, here ya go:
This is everything, all contained in a simple pouch. Brass etched parts, wheel sets, drive shafts, and hardware. Doesn't look all that intimidating. Yes sir! Not that intimidating at all!
The Xuron Photo-etch Scissor # 9180ET is an excellent tool for cutting the etchings from the fret.
I want trouble free operation so I will take the time to file the sprue nubs off nice and smooth. They file off easily enough.
Just remember that the etched fold lines go to the inside of the fold. This makes sense right? Yes sir! This makes sense.
Here I place my pliers aligned with the fold line and apply even pressure with my finger to bend the part into position. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy.
The Main Frame requires a few folds.
The ends are bent up the same way, making sure everything is nice and square.
Hollywood Foundry recommends using the Wiha Phillips #00 Screwdriver for their parts, and I'll tell ya, its a very useful tool. Especially since many of my cars will be sporting these mechanisms, such a tool will get a lot of use. And nothing beats the right tool for the job. Yes sir! Nothing beats the right tool for the job!
The "keeper", which will keep the wheel sets in place, has a couple of tabs that the side frames will attach to that need to be folded into place.
The bearings slide on the axles, so make sure they seat properly into the Main Frame and against the wheels.
Now screw in the Keeper Plate trapping the wheel sets into place.
The wheels should spin very freely. Here I'm holding the wheels and spinning the assembly around.
If not, make any necessary adjustments to the squareness of the frame.
Pulley Frame...
Fold...
Fold...
Install layshaft...
Flip over and place rubber drive belt...
Slide pulley assembly into the main frame and proceed to feel giddy with excitement that all this is coming together so easily.
A screw in the front...
And a screw in the back, and we're all good and screwed.
The mechanism is so resistant free that suspending the truck from a pencil you can rotate the pencil and the wheels will turn freely.
Now we're ready to build up its truck mounting assy.
1st. Place the black Derlin plastic washer...
Then the Truck Mount of your choice (see instructions)...
The second black Derlin plastic washer...
Nickel Silver plain washer...
And screw it all together with a 4mm silver screw.
Now the Upper Mount needs some bending...
Bend, bend...
bend, bend.
You know... Its time like these that a bending robot would be really useful!
The Upper Pulley Frame also needs a couple bends.
Bend... bend.
Then these two parts are screwed together.
At this point, insert the Diablo through the car floor opening...
And place the Top Mount frame around it. Mine was painted with the car floor.
The Upper Mount and Pulley Frame assembly is inserted through the drive belt.
I added a washer at each end and screwed the assemblies together to the top mount frame.
Now comes the Top Pulley and Drive Shaft.
Four phosphor bronze washers are inserted onto the drive shaft, two on each side of the pulley.
Then the ball bearings are slipped onto the shaft, one on each side of the pulley.
Lift up the drive belt so that the pulley and drive shaft assembly can be properly seated into position.
The tension of the belt actually holds the pulley and driveshaft in place!
And its in there! But, as you can see, some adjustment is needed. I need to level things out a bit.
Adding washers to the Diablo lifts the truck up. Here, the thickness of two washers between the upper mount assembly and the mounting plate brings the wheels closer to the floor. So close that the worm gears are almost touching the bottom of the floor!
But with the Lightning Truck, adding washers lowers the truck. Here I added a washer at each screw mount.
And reassembled the truck.
So by lifting the Diablo and lowering the Lightning, the floor leveled out really nicely.
Next comes installing the motor. But I'll leave that for the next post.
So that's the Diablo truck assembly. Nothing to it! Building this took less than a Sunday afternoon and I was stopping to take photos every couple minutes! Yes sir! I was stopping to take pictures every couple minutes!
"Oh how dost one paint th' sill of a window so tiny! Without crooked brushstrokes, yet look so tidy?" ~ Shakespeare
I just came across a picture set I took but never posted. So I thought I would share it with you now.
Painting window sills on models is quite difficult and can make or break
the fine look of it. So I thought I would try to put as much energy and
patience as possible into the preparation rather than the execution.
My hands are still pretty steady, but not steady enough to attempt painting all these window sills with a tiny brush. That would be tedious. And tedious = not fun. A much better approach would be to do all the work up front, at my leisure, and then blast it all with and airbrush! Now thats fun!
Start by cutting a length of masking tape to the height of the window sills. Then I measured off a scale 3" and marked it with an exacto.
Squaring off by matching the top of the ruler with the top of the mask, cut at the 3" mark.
Bingo! Straight and squared.
Use the knife to place the piece...
and then the point of the knife to nudge the mask into its precise position.
A small screwdriver is used to tuck in the mask into the corners.
The smooth, rounded end of a paint brush can be used to burnish the mask so it will hold its position.
Repeat above steps until all the posts are masked.
Then mask off the rest of the car that will be in the line of fire of the airbrush. Now only the sills are exposed.
Now I can blast away with the airbush, shaky hands be damned!
I love this part. Peeling off the masking, revealing nice straight lines and smooth paint.
And there you go! Took some time investment, but the results are worth it. And its so much easier than trying to paint all those sills with a tiny brush. Yes sir! So much easier than using a brush!
The lesson that Thomas Kinkade has relentlessly banged us over the head with time and time again with each successive painting is that light glowing from windows gives a building a very warm and inviting look. However, we are not painters of light. Actually quite the opposite. Us modelers have to paint where we don't want the light to emanate from! Judging by the iridescence of the plastic that this tower is printed from, I'm guessing that this building would glow quite brilliantly when lit from inside. So to help eradicate this problem, I have painted the cupola an undercoating of Floquil Engine Black inside and out.
I'll let that dry for a day.
Back to primer grey. Colors would have a heckofa time showing up over that black. So the tower is recoated with Floquil Primer. I was sure to paint every surface since the printers caution that the print material is sensitive to UV light. Somehow I managed to bust off the ball final on the roof. So now I have to find a way of replacing that.
Let this dry for a day as well.
Floquil Rust is one of my favorites in that its a pretty good color for replicating a mahogany color. These towers were built during the age of when mahogany (or similar) was a common building material for streetcar interiors. So I'm willing to bet these towers had this type of interior.
Again, a day of drying.
Masking off the cupola, the ironworks are painted Floquil Pullman Green.
To prevent the mask from adhering to the previous layer of paint, or chipping the new layer of paint, I pull off the mask as soon the paint begins to set and is still somewhat flexible.
Another day, another dry.
The ironworks and interior are masked off for a nice coat of Floquil Depot Buff.
Well hey there handsome! Oh wait! I forgot something...
Some Floqul Brass for the gong. We can't forget the bling! No sir! Can't forget the bling!
Drilled her from behind and shoved a rod up in her, that straightened her out real nicely.
This warping seems to be inherent with 3D printing. Two different 3D printing companies, exact same warp. So I've got to see what I can do about it.
I laid a pair of pliers on the post and left it overnight to gently persuade it back into alignment. This actually straightened out the tower long enough to drill out the post:
The tower was modeled with a hollow post for a conduit for the wires for the lighting. But I had to widen it out a bit so that I could fit a brass rod up through there. I could actually feel the tip of the drill bit making its way up the fragile post, so I kept pressure on it so I could feel if the bit threatened to dig through the side.
The brass tube fits nice and snug. It will help provide the strength and straightness as well as a conduit for one of the wires and act as the return (ground) for the other polarity.
Ready for some paint now that it is standing straight and tall. Yes sir! Standing straight and tall!
Made adjustments to the dimentions and now the tower is correct for H.O. scale!
Here is how the tower looks straight from the printers. Some cleaning up is required.
This time I had the tower printed at i.materialize. Their "Primer Gray" isn't quite as rough as Shapeways "White Detail". There is still a texture, but ya got to be pretty close to see it. We'll see how noticeable it is after its been painted.
And there is that warping again! Exactly the same as the Shapeways model. I don't know if there is anyway around it. A few readers of this blog suggested printing only the cabin and base and use either a brass or plastic rod for the post. The post scales out to almost an 1/8th inch, so that is a very doable idea.
Okay, I'm off to the workbench to fiddle around with this model some more and we'll see what can be done with it. Yes sir! We'll see what can be done with it!
It's here! All the way from the Netherlands, My first 3D Print!
I don't remember the last time I felt this excited about finding a package left by UPS. Lets tear it open!
Whoops! I goofed on the dimensions. This is actually the right size for O Scale, not HO. No wonder is cost so much! Despite that flub though, this is very exciting. I've built hundreds of objects in the computer over my 20 year career, but this is the first time I've actually held one in my hand. The detail is all there, and it smells exactly like dirt! But unfortunately, as you can see, the post is warped. And I'm not sure why this happens or how to prevent it with future prints. Maybe the smaller (HO scale) size will eliminate that.
Here you can see the texture inherent in the layering process of 3D printing. This model was printed with Shapeways "White Detail" material. Costs twice as much but it has a better finish than "White, Strong, and Flexible".
Okay, I've scaled the 3D drawings to the correct scale, and made some adjustments. There is a 1mm minimum thickness requirement, so I had to thicken up some of the details. This time I sent it off to Volkmars weapon of choice: i.materialize in Belgium. So we'll see what materializes. Yes sir! We'll see what materializes!
