Chris's Mann Wagon Build

[Craig DeShong]

Lots of room for coal, how about water?  Does the Mann have a water tank also?  My live steam loco uses gallons of water for a full coal bunker in the tender.

[crueby]

Lots of room for coal, how about water?  Does the Mann have a water tank also?  My live steam loco uses gallons of water for a full coal bunker in the tender.

Yes, if you look back in the earlier posts, before the cargo bed went on, you can see two large tanks hanging under the rear frame. On the undertype versions, there was a tank behind the cab.

[crueby]

Lots of room for coal, how about water?  Does the Mann have a water tank also?  My live steam loco uses gallons of water for a full coal bunker in the tender.

Yes, if you look back in the earlier posts, before the cargo bed went on, you can see two large tanks hanging under the rear frame. On the undertype versions, there was a tank behind the cab.

I had posted a question over on the TractionTalk forum about the water tanks, since I was not sure if both were water supply, or if the smaller one was a seperator/condensing tank - turns out both were water supply tanks and they split them into two tanks to clear the axle assembly.

[crueby]

While the coal bunkers are starting paint (pics on that sequence later on), I have started on the driver portion of the cab. Here are the panels cut out of some sheet 304 stainless steel:

and bent into shape - since they are 90 degree bends, these were much simpler to do than the coal bunkers. The radius was achieved by bending over a wood form with the radius cut into the edge.

Next will be to cut the floor, seat, and back wall plates to connect everything up. The front/right panel also needs an opening for the coal tray to stick through. Note that the two front panels are not the same dimensions, since the right one goes farther forward around the tray.

[cnr6400]

 

Watching for more developments! (sorry) 

[crueby]

Watching for more developments! (sorry) 

Do younger people these days even know the term Developing Pictures?!   

[cnr6400]

Some do, if they are interested in photography at all. My son (26 now) spent some time in high school in mid 2000's taking pics w black and white film in 35 mm SLR cameras and developing it in the art dept's darkroom. He did some nice work. I'm told they scrapped the darkroom soon after and declared it a toxic waste zone in the school.....sign of the times.....most of the places I worked in at various factories, the toolrooms, welding shops, plastic moulding shops, stamping press shops - even the drawing offices with their Diazo printers and Xerox 8830 photocopiers and big CRT CAD terminals would likely be declared environmental disaster areas now.

And I didn't even mention sheetmetal developments.......

[crueby]

Some do, if they are interested in photography at all. My son (26 now) spent some time in high school in mid 2000's taking pics w black and white film in 35 mm SLR cameras and developing it in the art dept's darkroom. He did some nice work. I'm told they scrapped the darkroom soon after and declared it a toxic waste zone in the school.....sign of the times.....most of the places I worked in at various factories, the toolrooms, welding shops, plastic moulding shops, stamping press shops - even the drawing offices with their Diazo printers and Xerox 8830 photocopiers and big CRT CAD terminals would likely be declared environmental disaster areas now.
And I didn't even mention sheetmetal developments.......

I had the fun of working at Kodak back when there still was film in cameras, and took classes at the company camera club darkrooms taught by some of the guys that invented new versions of film and paper, that was a blast. We could go in after hours and use the darkrooms for free, they had a big Kreonite paper processor for making color prints up to 20x30". When they tore down a big chunk of Kodak Park (industrial park, not the tree/grass kind) they had to do lots of hazardous waste cleanup. Some of the parking lots around there still have rubber membranes under the pavement to keep nasty stuff from coming up (a hundred years of chemical products manufacturing left behind a bit of a messy footprint).


For developing sheet metal shapes the CAD apps have ways to draw and unfold them for layout, but I still go old school with pen and paper - measuring out the main dimensions and folding things up to test before using the paper to trace around on the sheet metal. I remember as a kid that there were some sort of aptitude tests where they would show a picture of an unfolded shape with fold lines dotted in, and you had to say what shape it would make when folded. Those were easy and fun for me, maybe part of the sculptor in me, seeing shapes in the blocks of wood/stone.
 

[cnr6400]

That would be fun working in the photo club with the film experts/inventors at the big K. 20 x 30" prints! now that's a big photo.

One camera system I remember being super impressed with in late 1970's early 1980's  was the later developments of Polaroid's SX-70 one touch camera and colour film. The engineering of the film system to develop those really high quality colour pictures so fast must have been pretty involved. Kodak had a similar camera as I recall but I can't think of the name.

Re sheetmetal - yes the CAD developments these days are mostly automatic and pretty close, but very few CAD packages get the bend allowance exactly right over more than a couple of bends. I still check them the old way, and often find errors of a few thou. It does not matter for hand work of course, but get it wrong when designing a progressive die and you can scrap a big part of the whole tool in one press stroke.

I have noticed over the years working with many different people in sheetmetal design that you either "get it" and can see the shapes form in your mind, or you don't "get it". Same with drawing projection. As you said, sculptors have that visualization aptitude. Although the folks that did the Easter Island Moai clearly had issues with abdomens, hips and legs visualization.....

[crueby]

Back to a more normal (for me) morning in the shop today, working on the seat panels. Bent up some right angle channel to support the seats, and have the passenger side one riveted up:

Will get the driver side one to the same stage, then add on the vertical panel that goes from the seat down to the floor. The bend on the channel was done by sawing out a section on the horizontal side so the vertical side could take a normal bend, got lucky and the radius matched the panels well. The angle will be mostly hidden by some seat cushions.  Hmmm, need to find out if the elves can sew up the cushions....

[crueby]

Continuing on with the assembly of the cab parts, lots of panels to assemble and also need to put the edge banding on...

Also today my bags of coal arrived - if there were still steamups happening at clubs near here I could have gotten some there, but not with everything shut down this year. So, I ordered a couple bags of the Large and Coarse sizes from AR&M. Here is what the coarse (larger of the two) looks like, the two should look great for this scale (stuff is made for scale use at up to G scale, this model is larger so I went with the biggest they had.

Gee, coal doesnt show up well in photos, what a surprise...      Here is a closer look

Don't know the exact grade of this stuff (high/low sulfer, etc) but it does burn, and the look is right. This model will run on butane, but the coal bunkers needed some coal!

[cnr6400]

 

Nice looking coal. Do the suppliers call it "pea" or "bean" size on their packaging?

Don't let the elves stuff the seat cushions with it !

[crueby]

Nice looking coal. Do the suppliers call it "pea" or "bean" size on their packaging?

Don't let the elves stuff the seat cushions with it !

This stuff is sold in bags for model railroad layouts, for a number of scales, so they just call it coarse, large, medium, etc down to 'dust' size. They dont give an actual measurement range, so I ordered the two largest sizes figuring one or both would work.
And now at least I have the official stuff to put in the elves stockings at Christmas!   

[steam guy willy]

Hi Chris , talking about cameras and film... I have been looking at old early copies of Model Engineer.  There was a model engineering club at the Kodak factory and all their photos were really clear and and crisp and well lit etc etc  unlike everybody else photos that were quite bad so you could not see any detail lower down in the models !!!  still looking in and liking the progress...

Willy

[crueby]

Hi Chris , talking about cameras and film... I have been looking at old early copies of Model Engineer.  There was a model engineering club at the Kodak factory and all their photos were really clear and and crisp and well lit etc etc  unlike everybody else photos that were quite bad so you could not see any detail lower down in the models !!!  still looking in and liking the progress...

Willy

Kodak used to have all sorts of clubs, there was a building at the main manufacturing complex with all sorts of classrooms, club facilities, a bowling alley, even a swimming pool. Problem with that pool though, it was up on the top floor of a four or five story building, and the wieght was just a bit too much so they could never fill it. They used the big open space in the pool to make the giant photo murals that were put up at Grand Central Terminal in New York. Those were the days...  Back then they had public tours of the main plants, in film making, camera making, and glass lense making areas. The main complex was 7 miles long by 1 mile wide, had its own water plant, waste treatment plant, its own fire department, bus service, coal power station, and even its own railroad inside the complex. The locos mostly wound up at a train museum south of town. The plant I started at was cross town from that complex, where they made the cameras/film processors/projectors/copiers - that building was about 1 mile across and deep (made up of a series of connected buildings), we had bicycles and electric carts to get around inside. That complex is still there, but sold off to other companies mostly. The big Kodak Park complex is still there too, but about half the buildings were torn down in the bankruptcy and turned into big flat fields. We had over 60 thousand people working there when I started. Now, maybe one thousand at most...