# Scratch Built G-Scale Bogies



## Sweet Dreamer

Just wondering if anyone else has built G-scale bogies from scratch. I'm just toying with the idea right now. But I'm toying with it pretty seriously. I've actually found a vendor for all the metals I'll need to build these. 

The wheels are aluminum. They will be cut from 1.5 inch round stock on a lathe. I haven't drawn in the axles yet but they will be 1/8 dia. stainless steel rod pressed into the Aluminum wheel, with 1.4 nylon insulators which they will also be pressed into. 

The leaf springs and chassis parts will all be made from brass. All the bolts are 2-56 screws. And I added a couple coil springs in the center box for looks. 

I still have a lot of work to do on these drawings. I'm only just now learning how to draw using Sketchup. It took me 3 days just to figure out how to draw those coil springs just right. 

In any case, these drawings don't include the axles, or the coupler or tongue. But those parts will also be included before all is said and done. 

Here's my rough sketches:

Some Dimensions









Top View









Front View









Perspective


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## santafe158

Your initial ideas look good. I'm not sure you're going for total accuracy or not, but there are several discrepancies in your design vs how a rail car truck actually is assembled and works.

This definitely looks like an interesting project.

The way your design is now, the suspension springs wouldn't actually have any purpose other than looks. The bolster beam you have running across the top should be sitting on top of the springs rather than on top of the main truck frame or else you'll simply have a rigid frame truck with no suspension and decorative springs.

This image is the closest I could find to showing that. You can see the bolster beam is actually below the upper truck frame member on each side.











The bolts you have holding the frame together on each end where the axles enter the trucks would pass right through where the axle bearings are supposed to be. The style truck you seem to be going for would have plain bearings with a journal box on each end of the axles. A bolt on either side of the box would hold the frame together as well as pass through holes in the journal box castings to hold them in place as well.

This drawing sort of shows what I'm talking about with the journal box bolts









Again, I don't mean this as judging your work, but I spent a Sunday a few weeks ago disassembling a real one, so the workings are fresh in my mind


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## Sweet Dreamer

Hi Jake,

Thank you very much for taking the time to post the photo and drawing of an actual bogie. I do appreciate seeing what the real details are like. I'm also just starting with this project so I'm not exactly sure where I want to go with it. 

My main motivation is to build my own rolling stock eventually. Mostly just operational flat cars (flat cars that can dump a payload), gondolas, and maybe eventually a caboose or even a passenger coach. I'm modeling in old-time steam era. Although, I'll cheat like the dickens if it will save time and work. 

I designed this first bogie from looking at a Bachman train I have. The Bachman bogie is just molded plastic. Although it does have the details molded in that appear on your actual photo. 

My reconstruction of this bogie is designed around simplicity of manufacturing.  Something I can actually build with minimal effort, cost, and time. I'm fully aware that the coil springs on my bogies are not functional at all. In fact, rather than spending money on real springs I'll be just winding some heavy wire around the screws to give an appearance of springs. This keeps the cost down and will look good. I've already wound some wire around a 2-56 screw here and it looks perfect. 

To build the actual bogie as in your drawing would require extremely tiny screws. It is true that my single 2-56 bolt goes right through the center of the axle block. But on the model I'm building this is not a problem since the axle block is wide enough to accept a hole for the axle without hitting the bolt. 

If I wanted to go for more accuracy in detail I suppose I could just shorten the springs to half as tall and place a block above them. The 2-56 bolts would still go down through the center of them, but at least it might look more accurate to the knowledgeable eye. 

I didn't really notice that detail, but now that you've mentioned it I do see that this is how Bachman molded their plastic. Their springs are only half way up in that box too. So I guess I better fix that detail. May as well get it as close as possible. That particular detail won't change the cost or assembly work much. But changing over to tinier bolts could be a problem. Then there's the cost of all those tiny broken drill bits when I go to drill those extremely tiny holes. 

I'll think I'll stick with the 2-56 screws. I really don't want to go any smaller than that. 

I'm thinking more in terms of cheap mass production than in terms of extreme detail. 

I'd like it to be close. But it doesn't need to be perfect. 

But yes, I may as well change that center box to at least look right in terms of spring height. But having the 2-56 bolts go right down through the springs is so nice. That's actually what will hold them in place.

~~~~~

This first drawing was just a rough draft. I was learning how to use Sketchup as I drew this. The drawing has a lot of tiny mistakes anyway. So I'm going to redraw the entire thing from scratch. When I do that I'll make the new spring box to look a bit more realistic. 

I'm going to work on the coupler arm and coupler first. This Bachman bogie has the coupler attached to the bogie. I think I'll do the same. This way when I make my rolling stock I won't need to deal with the couplers. Just grab a couple bogies and the coupler will be on them. 

I've got to design an easy to fabricate coupler now. That's going to be a bit tricky I imagine.


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## wingnut163

i only have one thing to add on your build. you are mixing a lot of different metals to gather.
some do not get along to gather well. and being "G" scale you may be using them out side.
so think on that.

but nice build. interesting. like to see more


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## Sweet Dreamer

Hi Wingnut,

Thanks for the tip. Actually, I'm building mainly with brass assembled with stainless steel screws. I could use brass screws, but I thought I'd go for some contrast for interest. I think the stainless steel screws will be stronger as well. 

The only aluminum so far will be the wheels. 

I've been re-drawing the whole assembly from scratch. It's much better this time around. I'll also be changing up the coil springs as suggested by Jake. I'll post the new drawings when finished.


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## Sweet Dreamer

Here's the new drawings. I changed the springs up so they actually work. There are still a view things that need to be tweaked, but this is basically the finished bogie. Except it still needs the center hole for attachment to the rolling stock. But I'm also going to add an arm and a coupler to this. Trying to figure out how to design an easy-to-make coupler is going to be a real challenge. I'm going for pure utility, I'm not going to worry about trying to replicate anything on the coupler. As long as it works is the important thing. 


Perspective

This is the new design where the cross-member actually rides on the springs. 









Side Dims











Top Dims










Front Dims










Parts

(I didn't bother drawing the screw threads)









Perspective Parts

(I forgot to poke holes in my nuts)
The Cross-member needs to slide into the coil spring box too.


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## Sweet Dreamer

It's going to take me a month to design a decent coupler. But I have started in on that. I'm also learning more about sketchup. I'm learning how to use colors and textures. So I thought I'd post a couple recent drawings of the bogie on track, with tongue and coupler. But the coupler still needs a lot of work. On the bright side it looks like it's going to be doable in a way that might not be too hard to manufacture.


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