1/29 Baldwin Shark B Unit Kit

[g-bits]

And now, in a second post, the feature presentation, "Baldwin B units I have know and sworn at" ..

First, a bit of history :

THE PROTOTYPES

In the beginning Baldwin's cab units, both freight and passenger, used the unloved babyface style. Just to add to the confusion pretty much every order was visibly different from every other.

Then along came the Pennsy and said words to the effect of "Redo those with the Raymond Loewy sharknose and we'll have some".

First came a batch of 6 axle passenger sharks and those were followed up by the first 4 axle freight machines.

Batch 1:

Baldwin called these 1500hp machines DR4-4-1500, and they're very much a halfway house, with what amounted to a cut-down passenger shark body grafted onto the mechanics of a babyface (also confusingly called a DR4-4-1500) freighter.

Batch 1 are quite a bit different from later sharks - the easy spotting feature is the body side fuel filler, but they're also 7 inches shorter than subsequent types, have thinner frames, different sand fillers, a different fuel tank, different strapping, the roof doesn't overhang at the ends, the body side door is unsuitable for anyone over 5ft tall and there's subtly different roof hatches. That's just the B units, the A units are worse.

The PPR had 26 AB sets numbered 9568A&B - 9593A&B

There was also an ABBA Baldwin demonstrator set, sold on to the EJE and later the B&O.

This is what batch one looks like..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PRR_DR-4-4-15_Sharknose.jpg
note the fuel filler, there'll be a test at the end

Batch 2 :

The internal arrangements of batch 1 weren't entirely satisfactory, so for subsequent production, Baldwin 'decompressed' the machinery room. The loco overall became 7 inches longer (but still with the same truck centres) and on the A units the nose was shortened by a foot and the cab area moved forward. Overall the machinery space expanded by 18 inches or so, and the B unit copies this pattern.

They lost the body side fuel filler and gained all the other detail differences I listed above in batch1.

Initially, there were just 8 AB sets in this style, all for the PRR, 9700A&B - 9707A&B. Baldwin still called them DR4-4-15, Altona called them something else, and later railfans seem to have invented the RF15 name to describe this combination of a 1500hp machine in a later style body. Even though its probably historically incorrect I'm going to use RF15 as being specifically these 16 units, it makes life clearer.

Now it starts (?) to get a little confusing.. As delivered, the RF15's units definitely had six cantrail grilles on each side running from the fan end to just beyond the middle, but didn't have the similarly sized bodyside grille about halfway along.

But there are in-service photos of units in the 9700-9707 series with the bodyside grille as well, so presumably it was retrofitted to some/all on subsequent works visits.

Here's 9700A&B +9701A&B at delivery, no bodysuit grilles.
http://www.american-rails.com/images/P9700ABBA.jpg
And here's 9700A in service, now with extra sauce :
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1629680

I don't know if all 16 units were modified, but my guess would 'yes'.

Batch 3 :

The definitive shark. Later style body, 1600hp, (almost) universally knownas the RF16.

Basically the same appearance as the RF15, and at least the early PRR units were again delivered without the body side grille.

Exhibit A, PRR 2001 in service with no bodyside grille
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=171196

I don't know whether they all came that way and were rebuilt with the grille later, or maybe there are phase1 and phase2 RF16's without and then with. But the majority of in service photos show locos with the grilles fitted so they probably all wound up that way for most of their lives.

I've never seen a photo of either an NYC (all batch3 anyway) or B&O batch3 shark without the body side grille, so maybe they were all built that way from new, but I can't prove it.

The Mongehela fleet were the remains of the NYC'S lot so probably all had the side grille and the D&H twins were third hand from the Mongehela and definitely both did.

RF16's were by far the most numerous, rather than retype it here Wikipedia lists the numbering :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_RF-16 (note the PRR B-units are even numbers only in all ranges - basically these were ABA sets with a couple of spares.

In summary :
PRR had locos from all three batches
EJE had (briefly) batch1 only
Baldwin demo was batch1
B&O had batch1 and batch3
NYC had batch3 only
MON had batch3 only
D&H had batch3 only

Oh, and they would all MU - here's a PRR ABB consist lead by an RF16, but the second B unit is a batch1 DR4-4-15.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=300557&nseq=38.

They wouldn't MU with non-air throttle kit, except for three units the PRR had repowered by Alco.

And now, the kits..

DELIVERY :

I originally targeted mid-April, but with so much time lost to various things that isn't doable any more. So I'm going to say shipping at the end of May and hope to actually do it significantly earlier.

CONTENTS :

Each kit consists of :
one bodyshell with selected options,
appropriate fuel tank,
appropriate chassis,
etched grilles and corridor connection pieces,
4x cast footsteps
precut glazing

The ends of the chassis are a flat plate and do not have any direct provision for coupler mounting except lots of space and internal metal reinforcement you can drill into/through for a solid mounting. The bodyshell end is NOT strong enough to mount couplers on, it'll likely pull clean off.

The chassis is designed to take un-modified Aristocraft B-type trucks. These are not included, but I have some stock and can supply them at extra cost if required. First come first serve.

BODYSHELL OPTIONS :

Type 1:



Represents a batch1 DR4-4-1500 machine. Slightly shorter than the later types (about a quarter inch in model terms), lots of detail changes.

As you can see this one hasn't made it to a full prototype shell yet, the photo only shows outer bodysides, which incorporate most of the unique features. Most of the changes are no problem, but at the moment I can't find any shots of the real thing with the cantrail grille plates fitted, they all have acres of horizontal slats. I'm sure I've seen photos with grilles like the etched ones, but..

So for now this is going on the back burner until I've got a solution for the cantrail louvres I'm happy with. Since most of the real things were the other two body types I'm guessing most of the kits will be too.

Type 2 :



(Not finished, but nothing left to do is any way different from the original red one, so I'm happy to proceed)

This represents either an 'RF15' or an RF16 without the bodyside grille. As far as I know this makes it PRR only, but the choice is yours.

Type 3 :



An 'RF15' or RF16, this time with a hole in the bodyside to suit the optional grille in Rob's original etch. This hole and the attendant changes to the strapping are the ONLY difference between this and a type 2.

End Options :



At the moment I'm doing two end options, PPR (on the left in grey) and NYC (on the right in red).

I don't know what the ends of the Baldwin demo and the B&O units looked like - if anyone can document it I'm quite happy to look at doing them as an option .

Minor options :



A) as supplied, the A unit kit came with the backup lights represented as a solid dome. You can have it that way to match, or hollow (above) to make it easier to fit an LED.

B) there's a minor mistake on the original etch, and in his demo build Rob cut away part of the brass to suit. Again, you can either have the B units the same as the A, or I can make a horizontal cut (roughly where the pen
line is) to accommodate the brass without modification.

The photo shows a PRR end, but these can apply to NYC too, it's just that the backup light is in a different place.

So buyers need to choose between :
Type 1 / 2 / 3
Ends PRR / NYC
Lights dome / hollow
Slot yes / no

For reference, the A unit kit is basically a type 2 with NYC ends, plus optional etched parts to convert it to a type 3 if required. I'm quite happy to advise, or work out the required options from a supplied photo, or whatever.

That's basically it. Kit bodys and fuel tanks will come in grey primer unless agreed/noted otherwise. The other option is red primer. Extra A unit chassis will be held back a little bit, like the type 1 body, so as not to distract from gettting the main batch started.

There you go, scraped in before midnight, the photos were ready this afternoon, but this took forever to write.

Jonathan
g-bits

 

[Jerry Barnes]

Well I ordered a B unit from Jonathan. Nice guy to deal with and very helpful. He said he's had few orders, so guess not many will be made. I would think anyone that got an A would get the B. Never have seen many pix of any completed A units. Like to see others.

 

[g-bits]

The revised chassis metal work is now built up into a full chassis, so here's a bunch of shots showing how it goes together..

The bare chassis - in this case upside down. Also shown are some M4x10 hexhead setscrews with brass washers , there are about twenty of these used to hold everything together. Making a cameo appearance is a 7mm nut-runner, which is absolutely the best tool for the job - I'll put one in with each kit. As you can see the chassis casing is mainly black styrene, with some white section where it's needed. I haven't primed/painted it because the way the trucks rub on the underside just means that they'll score the paint up and restrict their own freedom, plus the resultant dust would likely get in the motors. But there's nothing to stop someone putting a coat on all the non-bearing areas if they want to neaten things up.



In the photo above you can see a sort of raised central area with four fixing 'towers' near its corners. That's for the fuel tank - the rectangle helps guide it and setscrews hold it on. The screw centres are different at each end, so it'll only go on the right way.



Now we've got the fuel tank upsidedown, you'll notice a a cutout on the left-hand end, I'll come back to that.

Next you plug a pair of Aristo trucks into pivot/wire holes provided and flip the whole lot over.



How the truck pivot fits is pretty self explanatory, and it's capped by a little bridge across the three pins to stop the truck falling off again when you pick the chassis up. Those bridges are held down by three small self-tappers, I've had to do it that way because of the design of the Aristo mount, but they're the only self-tapers in the whole kit - otherwise it all bolts/unbolts to allow easy servicing in future. Given their tendency to act as drills rather than fixings, I've not driven these self-tappers home for now since I expect to have the trucks on and off this chassis a few times yet.

Now it's the right way up, you can see this end of the chassis also has an 'R' on it, for 'Radiator' (also the roof fan end of the loco) - it would take some violence to get it in the wrong way round anyway, but this should make certain.

Now the whole thing..



From an assembly point of view the other end is basically the same. Also shown in this shot is the blanking plate for the sound grille, that fits on with four more M4's in exactly the same way as the fuel tank, except this time from the top. At the moment my inclination is to supply a couple of spare blanking plates which people can use for custom speaker mounts. My offer of cutting a custom plate/box to suit your chosen speaker still stands as long as I'm given dimensions to work from. Anything I supply will plug into the same 4 screw holes as the blanking plate.

When you've done all that, another eight M4x10's are used to bolt the chassis up into the bodyshell.

I said we'd get back to that cut-out in one end of the fuel tank, and here it is the right way up.



Cruelly enlarged and out of focus, but basically the issue is this. The prototype tank/battery box assembly wasn't quite central between the trucks' pivots, it was offset by about 5 inches. The model copies that, and in 1/29 the offset is 4mm (say 5/32"). Combined with that the Aristo trucks are close, but not quite the correct pattern. All in all, that means that at the radiator/fan end of the loco where things are tightest, as the truck swings the extreme end of the brake gear wants to run through the same airspace as the end wall of the battery box. Hence the cutout. (This also applies on the A-unit, in which case 'R' also conveniently stands for 'rear'.)

That's it for now. I did take shots of the whole thing, and end to end with Rob's built-up A, but they ALL have cameo appearances by my thumb, so I'll redo them tomorrow. Assuming the sun comes out.

Jonathan
g-bits

 

[Jerry Barnes]

Looks good! May have to order a frame like that for my A unit.

 

[g-bits]

Here's the photos that were missing yesterday owing to excess thumbage.

Fully populated chassis with the bodyshell installed. This is the pre-production Type2 shell, still missing it's various roof details at this stage - I prefer to get the curve smoothed out and any filling done before installing that, it's easier than working around it.



You can see how the fuel tank is much closer to one truck than the other.

Close up of the B parked in line with Rob's A-unit testbuild. The intention was/is to show that the rooflines match. Now I've seen the photo on a big screen it looks as though the bodysides are a mile off. They aren't, I've just double checked everything with a micrometer, it must be some quirk of the close range and angle.



Last one. Set square balanced on top to show the minimal difference (about 10thou) in standing height. I've also cross-checked the height vis the prototype (14'6" rail to roof, excluding vents and panelwork). That works out at 152.25mm, and I measure the B at 151.75mm, 0.5mm difference, or about a scale half inch, well within prototype variation and tyre/spring wear. I'll put in shims people can use to fine tune the height with if they wish.



Somehow that picture also makes the bodyside profiles look as though they're different, so I got paranoid and got out the micrometer... Everythings measure up right. Here's one last attempt, taken with a phone while I was writing this post. This time of an unpainted A shell (left) lying on it's side end to end with the B (right). Better, but still looks misaligned in a way they aren't really. This is obviously beyond my skill as a photographer, I shall go back to hacking up styrene.



Jonathan
g-bits

 

[Jerry Barnes]

I made my A unit chassis as Rob did, so I guess the B should line up as well as yours did in the pix.

 

[g-bits]

I've been talking to a couple of people about A unit chassis, and also whether the B-unit will line up with existing A-units, hence the post above..

This afternoon the penny dropped on how to double check this the easy way.

If you have ordered a B, or are thinking about it, drop me a PM with your postal address and I'll send you a rail-to-roof profile template of the B which you can then stand on the track and compare with your A.

I'll also include a couple of different types of pre-cut shim on the B-unit -
1) ones that can go between the chassis and the body to jack the body up a bit if wanted; and,
2) some that go in between the truck and the chassis to make up the difference if the truck mounts have been cut down (the chassis only stands right if used with unmodified trucks). If you got new trucks you won't need them, but if they're second hand - something like Rob's mod is also done to drop the ride height on Aristo FA and FB units - they'll fill the gap.

Jonathan
RDE

 

[j garry]

Sounds great I will send you the PM. Jack

 

[g-bits]

Shark Pit...



Progress so far.

Bodyshell cores all done for confirmed orders. If you can't see a unit with your name scrawled on it, I haven't made one so shout up. Next they'll all get what seems like 500 yards of bodyside strapping, followed by a coat of primer to check the roof contour. Once the roof is fully smoothed out, I can then add the details there.

I'm also ordering all the bought in bits today/tomorrow - etchings, steps, chassis plates etc. There's scope to change the quanitites on those orders for about another week, but after that any extras will be a second order with attendant extra costs.

While that lot's all drying out (there's a distinct whiff of solvent hereabouts) I'd better sit down and make half a dozen fuel tanks.

Jonathan
g-bits

 

[g-bits]

Time at the bar..

Just a heads up that I'm finalising numbers on the bought in parts Friday this week, so if you want to join the party, now's the time.

I'm obviously no going to destroy any of the files and tooling, so I can always do another one some time in the future, but it'll wind up bearing all the extra costs of one-off component orders instead of those being shared out like they are now.

Jonathan
g-bits

 

[g-bits]

Lousy dull day for photography, but a large consignment of shiny brass bits arrived today.



It being cold and wet, I could do with something nice and warming off the grill..

...Coat, hat...

Jonathan
g-bits

 

[Jerry Barnes]

Looking good Jonathan, can't wait!

 

[j garry]

Jon any updates. Jack

 

[g-bits]

Jon any updates. Jack

Sorry, slow progress. The fuel tanks have taken way more passes of fill/sand/prime than I expected to get them the way I wanted. Here they are just prior to what I hope will be their last coat of primer. For some reason these have brought home the mass-production thing more than the bodyshells did - maybe because they're all identical, no options.



So I'm getting there, but I'm definitely on the slow bits now.

Jonathan

 

[j garry]

Cool

 

[j garry]

Any more updates. Jack

 

[Jerry Barnes]

As of June 16 I had these pictures. 29 June he said that Next he was fitting the fans and roof vents. I see he posted the fuel tanks. Just have to be patient, since he is basically building these, not as the A units were done in a big mold. Might have, but few of the B units were sold. Doubt there will be anymore. He might have one left if you want one.

 

[g-bits]

Hi Gents,

Sorry for both the slow reply and slow delivery. The former is because I wanted some half-decent photos for the posting and than means reasonable weather to take them in, and the latter is 'cause the production batch is taking WAY more messing to get things like the roof profile nice and smooth than I bargained for. Must have got lucky with the prototypes.

Here's the current state of play on Jerry (front) and Jack's (back) units.




Fans fitted, roof/cant-rail profile pretty much cleaned up, roof vents and other details to go on next. After that they need the corridor connections and end details doing which is mostly square section and 'should' be less painful.

Also in the shots are the the step castings which were directly copied from the 'rear' type on the A's and look good.

So we are getting there, but it's taking a while and there's going to be less and less visible difference between each successive picture I post.

Thanks for your patience,

Jonathan
g-bits

 

[j garry]

Thank you for your quality craftsmanship. Jack

 

[g-bits]

Thanks for the vote of confidence - I hope you all still like them when the parcels arrive.

Sorry for the lack of updates this last fortnight, it's been one of those months. I came back from a weekend away to have the main CAD machine go kaput - not the end of the world, the data was all backed up and its intended replacement was built but not up to speed, but it would have been nice if the old one had waited a little bit longer..

Cue picture of the current state of play - The units have had their roof centre panels installed and pretty much detailed, the only thing now missing from that area is the main exhaust port. If you squint and know where to look you can see a pilot hole for that to the right of the trapezoidal vent. The fan recess is now also all tidied up and has its cross stretcher in and sanded down to main roof profile, so the next step will be to fit the 6 vents either side of that. I'll use one of the new etched grilles as jig to make sure they all mate together right.

Jonathan