RichJohnson

I measured the inside clear space of the slip tube by moving the truck to the tightest inside curve point and marked the shaft. Then measured the shaft from that length and measured the inside distance and found that I have about .228 clear space beyond the current length. If I add .225 I should be fine. Its a lot of work to accurately silversolder on shaft extensions and I was going to do it but now I guess its just not really worth trying since my RR will come up, but then again, I might find another RR with tight curves. For now, nothing matters. I got called up by the Calguard for civil support with the LA wildfires so I will be gone a couple weeks now.

I was thinking of extending the servo arm a little with a brass bar and then move the connecting rod point on the throttle out one hole and see if that gives me enough torque to close the throttle. I also measured the length of the truck slip shaft into the receiver on the cylinders and then the clear space inside the receiver at maximum and there is room to extend the slip shafts on the trucks by .225. That's quite a bit that might allow me to take the 46 inch radius I have. The bad news is last night my wife told me she didn't want me doing a garden RR again. our backyard is mostly dirt and a rickedy old patio. We never go back there because the neighbors have nasty pitbulls that bark constantly while we are back there so I just store a bunch of jeep parts and stuff on the patio. She said she wants me to tear down the patio and the broken up concrete and take up the RR track and level it and put grass in, Nice to know after I just spent a few hundred bucks on more tack stuff.... So I may be back out of this as quick as I got back into it sadly. Not sure if I will keep all the trains this time around or not. I love this live steam shay and may look for a group that does it around here. My ruby is a bit of a pain to steam so far. I don't really want to get rid of it but I have not place to use this stuff, I do something else with the money and the space. Also I bought a LGB Daisy to make into 1:20 to run my ore cars around quick and I don't need it now either lol. Ugh. oh well. I have some time so I will still putz with the shay and try to get it right before I abandon the grade.

I went to the accucraft page for this loco and found that it states the spec as min radius at 48". Well, I went over the track on my RR and found my largest radius translates from MM to 46". So unless I rebuild my whole RR, which isn't saying much. This thing aint going to run on my track. It wont go through any G scale switches because they are all like 24" radius unless I buy the really long gentle type switches that would be like a #8 or #10 or something.... Not sure what I will do now.... Also, I suspect I probably need a larger stronger servo to get the throttle valve to close tight for operation. Ugh.

Ok I just did another fire up and run. All I can say is nobody should have to put the amount of effort into a loco just to get it to run. I really am not having fun yet, and this is more an exercise in frustration than anything. Its really lucky that I know a lot about shays or the drailing issue would have driven an unknowing person insane..... So the shay does not derail any more. It tracks very nicely. Perfectly if I might add. Problem solved there. Steaming I still have control issues. The throttle valve moves full motion to steam and go up grade too, but it just will not shut off with the servo while its hot, even though it will shut off tight when its cold. I need some help here, what is going on or causing this? I have to phiscally stick my finger in the cab and pull the lever up the last little bit to get the steam to shut off. but when its cold it closes tight. Next, this shay constantly throws its slip joints. Trying to go through switches and around curves they come out every time. I burned the crap out of myself every time I tried to put the front one back in place. Also got shot in the face twice by the steam relief. I lost most of my steam through the relief valve from so much time fussing with the damn slip joints. Why am I having this problem? Is this shay not rated to go around G scale curves? I have the tightest switches I guess,(I know they make larger gentler ones) but my curve that it keeps throwing the slip joints on is not the tightest. Its at least one diameter up from the tightest. Please help me here, If I can run this thing with the track I built I am really screwed.

Ok so I changed the truck screws on the Shay and sleeved them with brass tubing and put a very tiny thin washer on top of them. Now the shay can rock side to side when I push on it. What a huge difference. Someone told me the Bmann shay derails all over if you have rough track. I took mine down from the mantle under the glass display case where it has been for 15 years and looked at it. Sure enough Bmanm made the same mistake. IT has huge bump stops on the sides allowing forward to rear rocking of the trucks but none at all side to side. I will have to pull the trucks and file the bump stops off if I want to run it around too.

Ok good to know. The Ruby is quite small but takes almost as much water as the mich-cal shay. It just seems to take forever to steam up and then didn't last but a couple minutes. I need more time firing the IDA to get accustomed to it better. I will say firing it on the ground is kinda a drag. Hopefully I can figure it out and get 15-20 minutes of use out of it. Going to the special hardware store today to search for new screws for the trucks.

I decided to try to run my IDA, which is the saddle tank version of Ruby. Its about 15 years old but I only ran it a handful of times on bench rollers. Well, seems like it takes forever to get steam and then only goes to the end of track about 40 feet and then I stop it and try to reverse it and no more steam or the fire goes out and I have to re light it, then it still wont get any steam. Basically all 4 attempts sucked. Im starting to think the small steam models are just novelties to run around a circle at waist height at a club or park rather than try to run on a backyard RR. Kinda think I got sucked into something Im not going to enjoy....

I have figured out why the shay tracks so terribly. Like a lot of On3 bras shays, especially ones built from the kemtron kit, the trucks are too rigid. I have built and fixed a lot of On3 shays and if the trucks are too rigid they derail and cant rock over the track. That is the case here with the Mich Cal #2. First, the trucks screw springs are way way too tight. Two, the truck sits right on its bolster bumpers on each side, third, the truck screw is very long, and the wide head is seated inside the lower portion of the truck bolster, which acts like a vertical anchor into the truck and does not allow the shay to rock on top of its trucks. I need to now replace the truck screws with short ones, preferable without tension springs. Need a trip to the specialty hardware store for some metric screws. I cant recal how many locos in On3 and hon3 I have fixed by removing or severly lightening the tender or shay truck springs so the weight of the loco can ride on the truck and rock over top of it.

Well, first steam up down and man did it suck...... If its like this every time I can see why it got sold. I know the cylinders have to heat up before it really gets working good, but seems like its geared really high for a shay. Kinda like the 3 rail shays that run at break neck speeds..... I really wanted to switch back and forth with it, but it might not be good for that kinda work. So my throttle wasn't responding very well. my full open was a good speed, but I wasn't able to get it close all the way with the servo. (it did when it was cold) The valve was lagging on the servo while it was hot where as it moves smooth and full to close when its cold. The pressure gauge didn't come up at all for a while until it started blowing the safety, which it did constantly because I was fussing with it constantly.... A brake would be awesome on this thing but it does reverse very well I will say that. It doesn't track worth a shit.... IT derailed constantly and, the slip drive shafts kept coming out on the tighter curves.. My RR aint much, so its tight but not the sharpest out there. IT also derailed on a lot of the switches too. ITs a mess right now, lots of dirt on the trucks, crank and in the slip shafts. I sprayed it down with 409 and the hose on the bottom but not the boiler since its still kinda hot. I need to move my control rod out one notch on the throttle lever so I can get more leverage, but that will take away from top end throttle. But we'll see what will happen. So far, it was just a big PIA that was not fun...More learning curve ahead..... I was so busy fussing I didn't even get any pictures.

Good to know. No I haven't fired it yet. Waiting on my accucraft oil. Im hoping 40% of a turn will be enough. IF not I will have to go to robot shop and get some gears and chain. A slightly bigger gear on the servo and smaller on the throttle will open it a lot.

I got my servo mounted under the chassis using a mount that I fabricated to bolt to the chassis using the Accucraft data plate screws. I will glue the data plate elsewhere on the undercarriage. I am able to get about about 40% of rotation on the throttle valve. Really hope that will be enough.

Wow, 2/3 of a turn is way more than I get garner out of a servo. So top speed will not be attained. Thanks, I will use the full extent of the servo arm and attach close to the center of the throttle arm. Though. I belive I will only get about 1/3 open or so. Not even close to half way. Will it still move under that low of steam?

Apparantly Johnathan has gone out of business.

Ok, I ordered my oil and that filler bottle for the goodall valve on my boiler from accucraft. FOr now I will just use their oil. I got some more work toward my RC system done. How far does the throttle turn to open to full? I assume that its not far and a servo can pull it all the way but that too far will flood out or something right? Next I need to look into the guy you recommended might have a whistle adaption available. Got a hand full of Bachmann side dump cars and looking at converting them to LnP. Either with Wiseman or Iron Creek shops. I got a price list of tons of stuff he hasn't put on his website yet and he has lot of LnP types and parts available.

Cool, that looks like something I would make.