OcCre BR 18 Bavarian Dream

[Quintillius]

 

Last January I've completed the model ship Le Glorieux of Heller.

In June I made the Napoleonic cannon of Mantua. It's now finished and on display.

 

I'm building the BR 18 Bavarian Dream from the Spanish model manufacturer OcCre. I'd like to share this project with you guys.

Lovely machines! The BR 18 was a Bavarian locomotive, built during the 1908 - 1931 time period. It was not only the biggest machine ever made for its German manufacturer, but it is also being considered as the most beautiful German locomotive.

Some of them are still active! Check out this loc from 1918.

• Scale 1:32 / G-45
• Height: 153 mm
• Width: 100 mm
• Length: 720 mm
• Wood / metal

With a length of 720 mm it's a very big model! Usually this scale is used in the garden where some hobbyists have laid rails.

I'll make a wooden stand covered with small stones and a rail track. The locomotive's wheels will not touch the rails but this have its wheels rotating by a built-in motor. Besides I'll also make a rail track so I can watch the locomotive move.

I'll also extensively make use of Arduino. This is a name for various cheap electronic boards. A computer board can be programmed by connecting it with a usb cable to the pc.A motor shield can be attached and programmed to make wheels rotate for example.I'll also add a bluetooth shield so I can control it with my phone.

I'm gonna implement the JGY-370 DC 12 V motor, a Massoth 8310101 smoke unit 5 V, LED lights and sound.

Used paint will be acryl, wood glue from Mantua, super glue / epoxy from Bison.

 

Here are all photos of my progress:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chassis with a 12 V DC motor attached:

 

 

 

 

This is what the running gear should look like (Walschaerts valve gear).

When steam is sent to the cylinders it will push the piston and transmit reciprocating power to the wheels.

This is what it looks when attaching connections rods on one side:

Oops!  That's didn't quite work. What we're missing here is that steam locomotive drivers are quartered. The crank pins are set 90 degrees apart.

This means that the crank pins on the left side of the locomotive are turning upwards and on the right side of the locomotive offset by 90°(a quarter).

 

This works for real locomotives as well. Let's bring it into practice:

 

That's better.

Enough to do! I'll keep you informed.

 

[GusMac]

Welcome to the forum. 

That's some very impressive and unusual builds to introduce yourself. Hope to see more as it proceeds. 

[DocRob]

4 hours ago, Quintillius said:

Enough to do! I'll keep you informed.

Welcome to the forum and please keep us in the loop. Metal and wood, right down my alley. OcCre rings only a bell connected with wooden ships with me, but this locomotive is really interesting.

Cheers Rob 

[harv]

Welcome ! Really like your project.  Yes, please keep posting....harv 

[Kaireckstadt]

20 minutes ago, harv said:

Welcome ! Really like your project.  Yes, please keep posting....harv 

+ 1! Welcome!

Kai

[BlrwestSiR]

Welcome! And that's a great subject. Is the kit mostly wood?

Carl

[Quintillius]

Many thanks for all positive replies! Really nice forum.

The kit is mostly wood and metal brass plates. Parts like the chimney, steam and sand dome and more are made of aluminium.

The boiler and tender (coal-car) have wooden frames that will hold metal sheets. The sheets for the boiler had to be curved. Being creative to find something with the correct diameter:

Wooden frame (notice the hole for the steam generator):

Mounting sheets to the wood with round-headed nails, representing rivets:

Next thing is priming it and applying paint. I don't have an airbrush so it's all brushed -- four layers.

That's how it works.

 

[GazzaS]

Love the intricate work!

[Peterpools]

Welcome aboard and thank you for posting a unique build, which I am enjoying.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Bomber_County]

another genre to wrap our minds around…….I’ve built 00 (as finescale EM/P4) but never 32nd in railway…..looking forward to the next instalment……..

[brahman104]

Now this is different! Great work  Looking forward to more

Craig

[Quintillius]

Thank you! I'll soon post more pics of my progress.

Check this real-life BR 18 beauty:

 

Testing the Massoth smoke unit:

You need to fill the unit with only a few ml of smoke fluid. A little heating element inside vaporizes the fluid which is a lightweight oil that will condense when it comes into contact with cool air. Really nice addition!

[Quintillius]

Using steam power and making those loc beauties is really an extraordinary milestone in history.

Update
More work on the cabin. The interior is painted white.
I didn't buy white acrylic paint as I have white enamel from a previous project.
White paint + enamel is really slow though...

Cabin's roofing:



Wooden base + metal sheets as usual:





Priming + wooden floor:







Varnished:



Now working on the boiler's back end where the stoker is doing it. The cabin of a real BR 18 looks like:



















Result so far:



It's not the final result so I'll leave you in suspense for now!

Any Train Simulator fans here? They have a BR 18 dlc where you can drive the actual locomotive!




More to come next time.

[harv]

Awesome work !!.....harv 

[Quintillius]

Thnx!

Update

Moving gear is now fully assembled. I really like the moving parts. It creates that kind of magic effect. Now also imagine smoke covering the locomotive on a cold winter morning. Isn't that wonderful?

 

Work on the cabin is also completed now:

 

Installed cabin light:

I've filled the gap between beams and roofing at this point:

Time to combine all parts (boiler, chassis and cabin) now!

[DocRob]

Great progress on your interesting project. The interior of the cabin looks very realistic, only the cabin light may need to be filtered a bit to the warm side, with a touch of clear orange.

The running gear is also very beautiful and is a pleasure to see in working mode. When I was young, I build a steam machine from scratch and it was always very satisfying to see the mechanic gear work with precision.
Please keep us in the loop with your locomotive build.

Cheers Rob

[Quintillius]

Thank you! Yeah I agree with you on making the lights warmer. 

Did you build a real steam engine from scratch? Mind showing some pics of the result?

Update

I have a few days off so I can continue working on the loc. I've finally assembled all parts of the locomotive:

Cabin... look at those ladders! There are also some doors which I'll put into place later.

Small parts to be attached to the loc. It's still bare now.

Yay! It's gonna look like a real loc:

I've soldered an electric plug which will be connected with the tender later. All electrics and batteries are in the tender. 

Took me some time to solder all electronics. But the result is statisfying. The loc has lights now:

Drilled some holes for pipes to be attached:

Painted and glued into place:

There're alot of pipes to be attached so that's what I am working on now.

Till next time!

 

[brahman104]

This is cool! Great work mate.

Craig

[GazzaS]

Awesome stuff

[DocRob]

18 hours ago, Quintillius said:

Did you build a real steam engine from scratch? Mind showing some pics of the result?

I build a real steam engine, when I was 16, maybe 17 in the early eighties, therefore no pics as I've left the engine stored back in Berlin, when I left.
I started an apprenticeship as a light engineer then, in the workshop of a research institute. We, the pupil and the engineers, developed a steam machine together as a model for basic engineering training for us and later sold the concept. 
The idea was to use all the basic and advanced skills you achieve, to build a steam machine, each. After the final grading, you were allowed to use the paintbooth and galvanic to improve the looks of the machine, if desired. Mine was completely black based and chrome and nickel parts, the only one, not looking like a parrot.
The final verdict about the machine was, how much pressure it needed to start to run, the lesser the better.
Later we had a similar project, constructing a tiny CNC milling machine from scratch (mind, we are talking 1982 here, were some of our CNC machines still received punctured paper tape), including a PC as a steering unit.
Yeah, I had a very thorough education as a light engineer, even complaining when there were more than four equal screws to shorten .

Cheers Rob

[Quintillius]

Cool man! Shame there are no photos.

Some modellers build real steam locomotives. They sit on the tender and use a small shovel to put real coal into the fire.

You should do a project on making this 😝.

[Kaireckstadt]

Copy Gary: amazing! 

[Quintillius]

 Thank you! Steam engines are really cool I know.

Update

The locomotive is done!! No parts anymore to assemble. Still needs a varnish coat though. Think I'll go for satin and brush gloss for some parts.
I've also redone the name plate parts using a proper dry brushing technique this time.

Right side:

Left side:

 

Time to use my smoke generating stuff:

g

 

Live action:

 

Now it's time to build the tender and connect all electronics together. I've ordered rail tracks already so soon we'll see it moving!

Till next time! I'll keep updating this topic.

 

 

[DocRob]

Cool, engineering at it's best and all visible. You built a very decorative beauty there. I would never put one of my car/plane/armor builds in our living rooms, but a wooden sailing boat or a steam locomotive like yours, would make me thinking...

Cheers Rob

[harv]

Really nice !!.....harv