Thread: Borrowed train design

Hi Crunchie, great little trains, love the use of the radial arm saw to cut your axle housings.
cheers
pottsy

Top marks sir on a beaut station of trains....
Well done on your personalization and modifications to improve the build process and thank you for sharing your "know how"...
This forum and the folk on it are first class all the way with the support, assistance and help offered to each other!
Cheers crowie

A great batch of trains. Where are these destined for as I am sure the children will be over the moon with them especially the brightly coloured ones.

The majority of toy/model makers borrow designs or follow a set of plans so no shame in doing so. There are some that build without and I for one have the highest respect for them.

Absolutely top rate kiddies will love them.

Great trains

Well Done

Regards

Keith

Love the trains. Wish I could have the time to make them.

With the windows, while square look nice, you could speed up the process by perhaps making them round, or if you prefer perhaps a slot done with a router - either one or two horizontal, or two or more vertical.

Thanks for your comments, Dalboy. Three of these eight trains have been claimed. The original idea was for my brother's granddaughter as I thought she HAD to have a toy from wood from her Grandparents' house. My own granddaughter (2YO) saw them and said "Mine". The other was claimed by a friend for her unborn grandchild. The rest will go in time. Most are given away. I took 15 cars to church on Christmas Day and they disappeared straight away, most via grandparents taking them for their littlies.

Originally Posted by Dalboy

A great batch of trains. Where are these destined for as I am sure the children will be over the moon with them especially the brightly coloured ones.

The majority of toy/model makers borrow designs or follow a set of plans so no shame in doing so. There are some that build without and I for one have the highest respect for them.

Hey Crunchie, these are brilliant! It's inspired me to make one for my newborn.

Given how polished yours look, I was hoping you might be able to answer a couple questions for me so I can at least look to replicate the bases before making up some of the 'tops'.

1. What are the dimensions of the individual pieces that make up the bases? I drew up a guesstimate in SketchUp, but hearing your actuals would be quite interesting.
train_base_dimensions.png

2. How exactly are your wheels/axels connected on the bottom? I appreciate you describe it a bit by cutting a trench, but my novice brain is just struggling to picture what the end result of that actually is.

3. Following from the above 2 questions, roughly where are you positioning the axels in terms of the overall dimensions of the piece? e.g. in the above example that's 240mm long, would they be at 60 and 180mm?

Any help would be massively appreciated!

Wow! They look great!

I made some similar sets a good 10 years ago, but these make them look clunky. (In my defense, I was travelling around Canada at the time and my "shed" had to fit in a tool wrap that lived in an aircraft carry-on. )

The rooves are removable? Or pivotable? I wish I'd thought of that, to allow for... passenger access, as it were.

From memory, I used a 3/4" auger to make round passenger car windows, but I think yours have more appeal even if they do involve more work.

(FWIW, I don't recall if I posted pix here or not, but mine were based on small pullalong trains from childhood memory, so I can't claim any credit there anyway.)

Hi LFC, (Funny; those are my initials)

I have made a couple of templates for the train bases and carriage windows and I made a few notes on the back of a photo, so that, when I open my plans/template folder, I have an easy reference for the components.

The bases I use are 70X12.5 and 200mm long. The ends are cut at 45 degrees. I position the axles 40mm from the end and also 40mm from the 45deg shoulder. I cut a trench in the bottom piece, 7.5X7.5 with my radial arm saw to take the axles. When the two base pieces are glued together you end up with a square hole through the base.

The base template has small holes drilled to locate the dowels connectors and for the log carriage and the screw holes for the boiler on the engine. I just use a compass to transfer these locations onto my workpiece.

Similarly, I have a template with holes to mark the corners of the windows in the carriage. My carriage sides are 70X12.5, 150mm long. The ends are 40mm and just glued in, not jointed.

The boiler is 100mm long, turned from 45X45, lathed 5mm off centre to keep a flat bottom. I put a 340mm length in my lathe so that I can turn 3 boilers at a time. I also turn the steam domes and funnels in multiples.

The engine cab is from the same 70X12.5 material and the cab ends up 65 wide, 70 long and 70 high + roof.

The tops start as 70 X 14 and I have a jig to run them at an angle through my thicknesser. The engine roof is glued on and the carriage rooves have a thin locating inset under them so that they can be removed and re-located easily.

I make my wheels using a 40mm wheel cutter. I've found that decking timber, thicknessed to 14mm, seems to work exceptionally well.

I hope this helps. Lawrie.

Originally Posted by Crunchie

Hi LFC, (Funny; those are my initials)

...

I hope this helps. Lawrie.

What a coincidence with the initials! I must say my name derives from Liverpool Football Club, but given the quality of your response maybe going forward I'll say it's in tribute to you!

That detail is far beyond what I was expecting and really helps to paint the whole picture. It will be a while before I actually get a build done of my own, but I'll share the results when I do.

Edit: Realised I didn't actually say the word thanks. Massive thanks for the time and effort in that reply mate!

Thanks for the detail of how you have done things they certainly look great.

I built a train set for my grandson a while ago. Not sure if I posted it here.

Originally Posted by Flintlock

I built a train set for my grandson a while ago. Not sure if I posted it here.

Yes, that's the same base design that I used. It wasn't your post that gave me the idea though, because the one I saw had a solid block for the drivers cabin, with a hole through the side using a forstner bit.