Nn3

[Scottl]

This is all super cool.  I am really enjoying this build and thread.

[Chris333]

Well lookie here... 3 months after I ordered it.





No spout included. It was printed at an angle with lots of sagging. I could have done better 

[randgust]

FYI on readers of this - Chris' RP work is rather astounding - the N (not Nn3) version of the Porter 0-6-0 into my Porter 0-6-4 version is well underway with mechanism testing, since I got the full actual drawings of the locomotive from the Porter collection in the Canada museum.  It's a go.  His frame is running around on the Hickory Valley with Toma N wheels, gears, and motor, and I'm designing the locomotive around it.  Dimensionally there were some surprises as mine is officially a Porter oddball apparently never repeated (got the Porter book to prove it).

But salute to Chris, this is rather incredible printing and tolerances and part finishes.   I knew that RP would progress to this, it's now in my hand.

The only thing I'm doing to marginally add to it is my own metal casting, we'll see how that goes.   I want to get this little further along before I blend it out to my own build thread here.

But when he says 'he could do better', yeah.  Go back 55 years and Walter Brennan had a repeat line in a western that applies.   "No brag, just fact".

[Chris333]

So Nn3 is small and I got pissed trying to do the 42Ton Climax in brass.

Just playing around here

I always liked this photo form the PA logging books.


I asked AI to enhance and colorize the photo:


Then I asked for an aerial view, trying to get something like a trackplan:


Holy crap I want to model it.

Hey AI give me a higher view.


OK AI either works or it doesn't.

What if this part was a shelf layout with a loop going around behind a backdrop?


Too many other projects...

[Chris333]

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These are only 1.5" long

[wm3798]

Will you be refining those couplers?  With all the splendid details on the rest of them, they look like sausages.  I imagine some black paint and a touch of weathering will do a world of good, but even so...

Also disappointed you couldn't get the brake shoes to operate.

I really like the logging camp module concept.  Very similar to Randy's.

Lee

[randgust]

If you are going eastern logging, and Nn3, you are working way too hard as Showcase already has the eastern log buggies in Pewter, Tom Knapp design.

I've got six of them myself and three more on the way.   Work fine.   Cast metal so you've got at least enough weight they don't derail.

https://www.showcaseminiatures.net/n_scale/nn3_scale/5011.html

Those log bunks are more of a western design.   Good design and fantastic as usual, but not eastern.

And that sawmill is not typically eastern.  Pretty much every mill out there, even the little ones, was two story, machines underneath, cutting deck on top, small log pond, elevated decked runways with rails out the the drying piles with gravity carts, rail spurs inbetween for outbound shipments.    Bigger mills got bandsaws instead of circular saws, which made the elevated center cupola for saw sharpening.
My mill area was heavily influenced by the PA Logging museum in Galeton and studying more photos.   My dad was a lumberman, spent time as a kid with him in the mill.

Logs were a lot shorter and smaller than out west, it's a whole different world in PA, WV, NY, and the preferred loader was the American and Barnhart, travelling car to car on those rails, even in narrow gauge.

I love that original photo with all the privies but still puzzled as to the location as I have the entire library of PA logging books from Taber, Casler, etc. and don't recognize it.

I'm not sure what that mill is or where it is but it sure doesn't look like a regular sawmill, more like a kindling plant or shingle mill.

[Chris333]

The photo is Leetonia PA. In the far distance is a tannery and behind is the saw mill.

[Chris333]

https://lumberheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Thomas-Tabor-Book-Chapter-4.5.pdf

While I would say those log cars you list with rails for the Barnhart loader to ride on are eastern. I wouldn't say mine are western. Western cars seem to be much longer. My car is scaled down from a HOn30 model I made that is modeled after those on the Surry Sussex & Southampton railway in Virginia. Similar cars were used on the Manns Creek RR in West Virginia. These similar cars are from North Carolina: https://modelrailroadersnotebook.blogspot.com/2019/03/cradle-of-forestry-logging-cars.html

They would load a car and then pickup the next car, swing it around the loader, put it back on the rails, and load it. Over and over.

If I took the stakes off of my cars they'd look like Climax log cars built in PA.

[randgust]

Yeah, I just sent you that same link, I have the hard copy books myself as well.

Problem with log bunks is always loading, that determines the cars used.    There were a couple PA operations that had McGifferts that were a static site, and crane the cars around and under them and load them in a fixed location.   But at least in PA, probably 95% were Barnharts and Americans.   Western railroads like the entire concept of spar trees, cranes, and second generation wheeled loaders.   Moving a McGiffert was a nightmare.   Remember most PA loggers were dead and buried by around 1928.   My fathers operation lasted until 1934 by logging railroad.

Down in Cass they had more conventional flatcars with rails on them, and what looked like a modified Barnhart (internal combustion?) with a tong set that drove on the top of the flatcars which were closer to 40' cars.   

Oh, and the other modeling nightmare is that very few if any eastern guys had either air brakes or knuckle couplers.   Even to the last, my dad's operation was link and pin, with slotted knuckles on most of the steam.   Nothing bought before 1900 even had an air compressor on it.

That Leetonia town area shot is a hoot.  The only thing I remembered from that chapter is the good shot of the bark cars, I used that as the inspiration for my bark car conversions on Bachmann old-timer flats.

[Chris333]

Well the coupler needs to pivot. I tried mounting MTL true scale couplers.




It works around curves with no weight added, but that 00-90 screw looks huge and rubs the brake beams. Plus the true scale couplers don't really work with any other couplers. I guess the next move is to print my own couplers, but still need to screw them on... 

[Chris333]

If you look straight down from the word "BATTERY" you can see my rail joiner 

[peteski]

There are 00-120 and 000-160 screws available.

[randgust]

Here's the best eastern logging video from the 1920's you'll ever see.

And done by the 'safety director'    Watch the American loader swinging the cars around to load.

See loading at 9:51.

Sheffield was the largest operation in Pennsylvania, Central PA Lumber Company, 10 miles from me.

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Narrow gauge Tionesta Valley Heisler working the mill at 13:50.   Possibly the only video ever made of it running.

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Yes, it was typical for men to ride the saw carriage and logs to load.   Remember this was done by the safety (!!) director

[Chris333]

The Barnhart loader seems much easier to model.