HOME | DD

Description
To see the moving mechanism check the tour of the shop here
(skip ahead to 5:40 if you don't want the whole tour): Visit to Brasstrains.com Headquarters in Ocala, Florida - YouTube

This is a detail of the one quarter actual scale wood model of the Shay Steam Locomotive compared to the HO scale brass model train I copied it from. The Shay trains were driven by vertical pistons turning a drive crank which drive the geared wheels rather than the forward backward pistons we are used to seeing on the typical common steam locomotives. They gave much more strength for hauling logs from the steeper mountains, but they were really slow moving trains as the trade off.

I copied everything from the HO scale brass model and extrapolated every dimension and made everything in the carpentry shop. I purposely used only the HO model as reference, no blueprints, drawings or photos of the real train. My goal was to replicate how the small HO scale model is cast, shaped, soldered and assembled as if we're looking at an HO train through a magnifier. The wood model is about 24 times larger than the brass miniature model train. All of the working bearings inside are roll up garage door parts so they roll really smooth. They turn the center crank and the rocker arms go up & down. The bolt heads and welds are rounded and filled on purpose because the tiny brass model was made with castings so I wanted to imitate it as an enlarged HO model rather than a reduced real train.

The white Universal Joints are just cut from PVC drain pipe and the silver 'nubs' are just carriage bolt heads. The rocking and self correcting of the Universal Joints are just loose fitting nuts on the inner threads of the carriage bolts. With just enough slop there's very little resistance in it and they rotate quite nice.

Overview of the entire train model>

Description
To see the moving mechanism check the tour of the shop here
(skip ahead to 5:40 if you don't want the whole tour): Visit to Brasstrains.com Headquarters in Ocala, Florida - YouTube

This is a detail of the one quarter actual scale wood model of the Shay Steam Locomotive compared to the HO scale brass model train I copied it from. The Shay trains were driven by vertical pistons turning a drive crank which drive the geared wheels rather than the forward backward pistons we are used to seeing on the typical common steam locomotives. They gave much more strength for hauling logs from the steeper mountains, but they were really slow moving trains as the trade off.

I copied everything from the HO scale brass model and extrapolated every dimension and made everything in the carpentry shop. I purposely used only the HO model as reference, no blueprints, drawings or photos of the real train. My goal was to replicate how the small HO scale model is cast, shaped, soldered and assembled as if we're looking at an HO train through a magnifier. The wood model is about 24 times larger than the brass miniature model train. All of the working bearings inside are roll up garage door parts so they roll really smooth. They turn the center crank and the rocker arms go up & down. The bolt heads and welds are rounded and filled on purpose because the tiny brass model was made with castings so I wanted to imitate it as an enlarged HO model rather than a reduced real train.

The white Universal Joints are just cut from PVC drain pipe and the silver 'nubs' are just carriage bolt heads. The rocking and self correcting of the Universal Joints are just loose fitting nuts on the inner threads of the carriage bolts. With just enough slop there's very little resistance in it and they rotate quite nice.

Overview of the entire train model>