Tramway Catenary

[tramcar trev]

While we are at it, has anyone got a good method for making G scale ears & attaching pull offs ?

I made mine or at least the first batch. There are pics of them somewhere onn here... A small white ( or your choice of colour) bead used for the insulator. Ok..
1) get some 28G wire single strand can be copperor brass
2) Cut off lengths around 25mm/1" long
3) with some small flat nose pliers about 2mm wide twist the wire up the sides and once around itself to form a small rectangular "loop"
4) slide on the "insulator" leaving the tails sticking up
5) fold the tails out horizontally at 90 deg to the small rectangular loop
6) with small needle nose or round nose pliers form circular loops and use the thickness of the nose of the pliers to space the loop from the insulator
7) with flush cutting pliers cut away any excess
8) finish of aligning and straightening with small flat nose pliers
9) to finish tin the whole thing with lead free solder....

To make pull offs only form a suspension loop on one side and cut the extra wire away with flush cutters.
They look quite presentable.... and when you get used to it you will find that 5 mins each is all it takes.
If I could find the pic you could see.....

Ahh seek and I shall find....taken about 40mm from the subject, this was the second one I made. Try this it's easy and inexpensive and with a bit of practise they come
out really well.
Ok try again:
http://www.gscalecentral.net/fb.ashx?m=116075

 

[Dtsteam]

Thanks for posting Trev, thats really neat, and its just the sort of method I was looking for.

 

[tramcar trev]

Oh Joy Oh rapture I have just made my first frogs for my overhead.... Talk about macro machining.... well here are some pics. I made them by milling them from brass flat plate held in place with "Q bond" which is a cyanocryalot ( spelling??) especially if it gets in you're eyes... Its an industrial adhesive and its good because it holds the brass flat to the bigger chunk ( in this case a bit of an old padlock) and allows the machining to take place then you warm the bits up and the glue lets go and presto you burn your hand on the hot little buggiers when they fall into it....
I used carbide Dremel bits to do the milling....... And surprisingly it only took about an hour to make 4, alas my eyes will never be the same. An NC mill would have been the go.... Making the traction poles was easier
Why did I do this??? well you may well ask, it was simply to satisfy my urges I guess, I know and think the LRP ones are quite superb and are even affordable about AU$2 each but the LRP people obviously have no idea that there is a big world out there and basically paying them was the hitch, if they opened a paypal account it would have been simple....

Once machined they still need a touch with a needle file. Will they work??? that is the question, preliminary testing suggests they will, its all in the positioning of the frogs over the rail.....

A couple of handy links; http://www.trolleyville.com/tv/school/catenary_construction/index.shtml < Link To http://www.trolleyville.c...nstruction/index.shtml
http://www.nmra.org/standards/sandr...7a42d4f6eb2b2652b5c9f14f0.jpg[/IMG] [/center]

 

[trammayo]

Neat bit of machining there Trevor!

 

[tramcar trev]

To me that looks rather more like a work of art than Tramway Catenary

Oh if its art then I should be able to get a Government grant ....

 

[trammayo]

To me that looks rather more like a work of art than Tramway Catenary

Oh if its art then I should be able to get a Government grant ....

... and a tax break!

 

[themole]

Very nice I have just got back to the UK Alyn

 

[tramcar trev]

To me that looks rather more like a work of art than Tramway Catenary

Oh if its art then I should be able to get a Government grant ....

... and a tax break!

Yes, I'll donate any tax break to the Greeks to help bail them out.....

 

[tramcar trev]

a pile of poles....

I've just made a batch of poles. 8 of them are the typical bracket arm type which I will use for straight sections though they will hold double ears as I'm using 2 wires on the single track. As can be seen they are aluminium tube from my local hardware @ $11 for a 3 metre length gives me 9 poles I figure that's reasonably ecconomical... the remainder are straight poles with eyes to hold the span wires and fans on corners. Most of the bits come from my local beading shop they have all sorts of goodies suitable for G scale overhead, the crimps, the crimping pliers etc... I used to form eyes with needle nose pliers, no longer I can buy them as eye pins in various sizes, cheaper than I can DIMS
So that leaves the question: what is the collective name for a bunch of poles???

 

[trammayo]

Re:a pile of poles....

Tube Mania?

 

[Lobethalbahn2]

Re:a pile of poles....

Collective name for a bunch of poles?

What about "a solidarity of Poles".

 

[tramcar trev]

Re:a pile of poles....

Yes I like it...A solidarnosc of poles... How about a queue of poles viz;

 

[nicebutdim]

Re:a pile of poles....

Collective name for a bunch of poles?

How about cheap plumbers, electricians or builders.
Sorry, I couldn't help it.

 

[Madman]

Re:a pile of poles....

Excellent work

 

[tramcar trev]

Trolley poles!!! or more specifically Trolley wheels...
Just for the halibut I set up some temporary overhead and made the following discovery: revolving trolley wheels do not work as well as stationery ones. As the revolving ones revolve they roll dirt and muck into the wire and the throat of the wheel causing loss of contact. The stationary wheel on the other hand stayed much cleaner presumably by skidding along the wire. I'm using multi strand brass wire as used to hang pictures as brass has better resistance to oxidation than copper.....

The rivet counters will need to provide their own magnifying glasses to observe this.....

 

[themole]

Trolley poles!!! or more specifically Trolley wheels...
Just for the halibut I set up some temporary overhead and made the following discovery: revolving trolley wheels do not work as well as stationery ones. As the revolving ones revolve they roll dirt and muck into the wire and the throat of the wheel causing loss of contact. The stationary wheel on the other hand stayed much cleaner presumably by skidding along the wire.

Hi Trev, that's what I found ;-see post 36!!! Alyn

 

[simon@mgr]

Reminds me of certain set of flag poles in Canberra.

 

[simon@mgr]

Reminds me of certain set of flag poles in Canberra.

 

[tramcar trev]

Reminds me of certain set of flag poles in Canberra.

 

[sleepyrider]

If this has been answered already I apologise, but can I ask what height you set the wire to please? I have a Bachmann trolley already and am in the process of scratchbuilding a European style single decker that will be fitted with a pantograph. Just trying to sort out how high to set the body on the motor block.

Cheers
Jim
Leicestershire