Continuing Saga …

Your work really is remarkable.  Very intricate and detailed.  

You are having a lot of fun with your grandson, which is the best part!

Thanks gentlemen!

I blog this journal on two forums; this one and the World Affairs Board. I got onto that one when I was building the battleship Missouri and when completed and mentioned I was rebuilding the trains, they asked me to keep blogging this project also. Anyway, one of the readers suggested using small styrene or Plastruct angles glued together to do the radiator cores. A brilliant idea which I am going to apply.

It's all the great input I get from all of you that makes the effort to enter all this data worthwhile. I like the compliments too.

Trainman,

The pleasure is all ours reading and viewing your project descriptions.  Sounds like a good plan for the radiator cores.  I agree your transformer is a bit large for a small distribution station, but it doesn't matter on the model, the overall effect will be a winner!

The feeling is mutual. Being a bit big will make it stand out and the added details that it will eventually have more noticeable. It was convenient to use the MTH as a model for this, otherwise, I would have had to guess at the dimensions. In all my research, I hadn't found any images with dimensions on them.

Trainman,

I was looking at your ballasting work on page 1 of this thread.  While I read that the ballast was in a 50 lb. pail, what are you using for ballast and where did you purchase it?

Bill

The ballast is roofing granules. I bought it in pails at a Louisville roofing supply house. You can't get it at the home centers. They apparently make it in many colors, but I was only able to get "white". It's actually a light gray. It cost about $20 for 50 lbs so it's quite inexpensive. It's a manufactured product, not small stones. It also contains an iron compound as a mold and mildew inhibitor and therefore is SLIGHTLY MAGNETIC! This means that it can (and will) be attracted to the wheels (and gears) of locos with Magna-traction. It did this with my Lionel late-model F-3s and stopped the engines from running. If you run non-magna-traction engines it's great stuff.

For the yard ballast, I used alcohol plus India ink for the wetting agent before adding the scenic liquid cement. This dulls down the brightness a bit.

Thanks very much for the quick info.

De Nada! Well... today I had a rare Sunday work session. I was champing at the bit wanting to try the radiator fin idea. I had a partial package of the 0.080" Evergreen Styrene angle. I first scribed the center-line and then an offset line 1/2 the width of the angle's flange. I used the surface gauge to ensure it was parallel to the edge. I then clamped a steel rule to the offset line and glued the first angle to the radiator.

(Can someone please explain why this web site sometimes turns pics 90º on its own.

To make the fins symmetrical I then glued a piece of 0.020" strip stock to the other side of the angle forming a 0.080" channel forming the center rib.

I added angles each facing the center ribs so the spacing would remain consistent. I continued adding angles on both sides until I reached the edges and then trimmed them flush with the angled ends. Here's the finished product. If you're clever, you'll see that something is just not quite right here...

It really looks great! Unfortunately, IT IS ENTIRELY WRONG!!!!!

I glued all these pieces on the wrong face! Doh!

In my haste to get started, I never actually checked to see which face was getting the fins. So much for my "awesome" scratch-building skills.

Luckily, the liquid cement had not completely fused and with the judicious use of a razor blade I was able to slice/pry them all off without wrecking them. I followed the same process as on the WRONG SIDE and reattached them correctly this time.

For the edges I added some 0.040" X 0.080" stock which will serve as a secure mounting for the fans to come.

So here's the first finned unit sitting on the transformer. I added the trim pieces to the inner facing surfaces too so the units will look symmetrical. You won't be able to see the fins on the inside faces so I only have to fin the exposed surfaces. 

Tomorrow I'll go to the hobby shop and get more angle and some 0.020 X 0.080" strip too. I had to double the pieces that I used to make the inside channel since it was 0.010" stock and the angles have 0.020" thick flanges. The fins will be painted dark gray first and then I'll dry brush aluminum onto the exposed edges of the fins to highlight them. It should stand out nicely.

With the fins well in hand, I'm going to build the fans and then construct the radiator hangers, the oil manifolds and machine some flanges for mounting it to the transformer body.

This is looking really good.  It is going to be one very fine transformer.

That is for sure!!

Let's keep it going... I got to work on it late today and then did some rare evening work. 

I finished the fins on the other end and the trim around the inner sides of the radiators. Then I decided to mount them together in preparation for building the mounting system that will hold them to the transformer tank. 

I didn't have channel of the right size. The Plastruct channel I did have was left over from the bridge project and was just too big, so I substituted some strip stock. I knew where these would have to align so the brackets could properly support the assembly, so I placed them onto the tank and used a couple of strips of Tamiya masking tape. I did some layout on the tank and then used a small dot of old fashioned Testor's Plastic tube cement to tack the middle radiator in place.

With this in place, I did the same thing with the two outer radiators. I carefully pulled the masking tape out from under the radiators and removed the array. I then went back and re-applied liquid cement to completely glue the radiators to the back support.

It's looks like they're not spaced evenly. They're actually better than it appears since the radiators (unfortunately) are not completely square. The front gaps are much more regular.

Now it was time to start building the oil manifolds. I cut the 1/4" styrene tubing and squared the ends. The front of the manifold needed to be closed so I cut some squares of 0.010" styrene sheet and cemented it to the tubes.

While this was drying I started turning the mounting flanges that will trim up the place where the manifolds enter the transformer tank. The tubes will enter the tank about 1/4". The flanges will increase the gluing surface and make a nice strong and square joint with the tank. I'll use CA to hold the styrene to the aluminum.

\

I was running out of time so I just trimmed up one tube end and spun it on the lathe to sand the styrene end flush with the tube. The idea worked well and when painted the ends will appear as part of the tube.

As an aside, it seems that anytime I crop a picture, this site turns it 90º. I don't no what the engine driving this site sees in the image that makes it do that. It's annoying.

Tomorrow I'll finish turning the flanges (one more to go), and then start laying out and drilling the holes in the tank to accept the manifolds. I'll then build and install the mounting brackets that will also support the radiators. When that's done I'll build and install the fans. The brackets will be difficult to align and if it proves too difficult I'll leave them out since the manifolds themselves will be sufficiently strong to support the array without the brackets. They'll be difficult to see anyway.

To Trainman 2001

This is an excellent post & the photography brings it all together.

Your step by step procedures & drawings tell the "Saga"

I am only on page 3 & I have a lot more to read & look at.

Thanks for all the time you have put into this layout tour & objectives.

I love this project.  The detail you are posting is really interesting and useful.

Thanks!

This is simply fantastic!

Peter

Gary,

I found Trainman's thread last winter, and I too went back to catch myself up.  I find his thoughtful ideas as to how to solve a problem like this one fantastic.  He is also very honest to tell us about his mistakes and what didn't work.  Besides that, his documentation of his projects are worthy of publication in my opinion.  He has given me the inspiration to do the same when I start building my next layout hopefully in a year or two.

Lee,

I totally concur.  Since both of us have some background in the electric power industry, we can see Trainman is doing a great job 'engineering' his model based on drawings of the real thing.  That is what I have come to expect on all his projects.

You guys are too much! 

Trainroomgary... I received 110 eMails this morning. Yikes! Then I realized that you clicked "like" on many posts. Each "like" creates its own eMail. I am not complaining. I really appreciate the comments from all the folks that pay attention to this.

I also posted the entire construction sequence from "empty room" until wiring was complete on the Layout Design Forum under 

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...-build-thread?page=1

This thread "the Continuing Saga..." is "Part II", which—I'm hoping—will go on for a couple of more years. 

I got the inspiration to post an entire build in all of its gory details from a wonderful RC aircraft site, RCScalebuilders.com. In that site, some of the best RC builders in the world blog entire construction threads on all sorts of large scale flying scale models. Some of these threads have run for more than 10 years. I posted my construction of a 1:16 scale B-17 that I built for commission. It inspired me to continue this practice.

As I've said numerous times, it takes me about 1/2 hour to 1 hour per session to capture all the details. Besides the thinking time that this process gives me to uncover possible challenges and solutions, the suggestions and encouragement I receive from others really makes the effort worthwhile.

Progress today!

All of the oil manifolds are on the radiator assembly. I wish the radiators themselves were just a bit more square. I thought that using the wood blocks internally would square them up, but they're just off enough that the tubes don't align to my liking. I glued the tubes with liquid cement and then went back and filled all the seams with medium CA.

I used the machinist square to hold the outboard end proud of the radiator by about 0.040" Before painting I'll sand the CA a bit to blend it a little better.

I then held the assembly up to the tank and marked where the tubes would go.

I drilled a pilot hole and then used the 1/4" drill in the DeWalt to slowly bore the holes. I knew there would be a problem when I was using the pilot drill. There's a 1/4" piece of reinforcement under the edge of the tank face. Drills hate to go through work pieces with various thicknesses and as soon as the drill hit the thick stuff that was about halfway across the future opening, it wandered South. The 1/4" drill followed the same course. I didn't have a choice so I finished all the drilling and would tackle the off-set and misshapen holes afterwards.

This out of focus picture shows the thick stuff and how the hole deviated from it.

I used the Dremel flexible shaft tool with a carbide mill and removed all the thick stuff blocking the hole. This created some awfully big holes. Most of them were successfully covered by the aluminum turned flanges, but two were ever bigger. I filled these gaps with a combination of medium CA and accelerator until they were sufficiently closed up so the flanges would hide them. 

The excess CA was filed to level it with the surrounding plastic. You have to be careful sanding CA since it significantly harder that plain styrene.

I tried the radiator assembly on for size.

And then established the mounting locations for the brackets that I decided I would also build.

The brackets are 0.040" sheet cut as triangles and then hollowed out with 3 small holes and then removing the excess stock again with the Dremel and the carbide mill. A touch up with a half-round file cleaned up the bumps. Here's the bracket without the edging sitting over the plan.

BTW: I figured out why this site turns the pictures. It's the way the picture was in my iPhone. Even though the picture editing software I use had it as landscape horizontally, the camera had it vertical and that's what this software is reading. Mystery solved.

I edged the triangles with 0.030" X 0.100" stock. I do one leg on each and let it dry a bit, then the next leg on each, and let them dry again. I left the ends long as you can see in the upper brackets in this picture, then clip and finally finish sand the to diagonal ends and glue on the hypotenuse. As seen on the bottom bracket.

Again, I trim the excess with the flush cut cutters and finish sand it on the NWSL Precision sander.

I then fit one in place to see if it looks right. Everything here is loose. I'm not putting the oil manifolds into place until the backs of the radiators, that side of the tank and the brackets are all painted.

To add additional gluing area, I filled the area between the reinforcement bulges with more 0.040" sheet stock.

The brackets are glued in place. Of course it was the end of the afternoon and I was rushing... I first glued them up too high flush with the top edge of the bolster, but when I trial fit the radiators, the attachment bar in back didn't align. I removed the bracket (just one) and this time actually measured where the contact point would be, marked a line and then glued them all on. Then I noticed that the one on the right was glued with the short leg against the tank. Whoops! I quickly removed it and re-glued it correctly.

Tomorrow, I'll locate the bottom brackets and glue them on. Before painting I need to lay out and add any conduits and piping that will go behind the radiators. Then it's onto the fans, control box, power bushing and build the lighting suppression system on the other side. Moving along though.

Finished preparing the radiator mounting and then built the fans and got them ready for mounting also. Lastly I built the control cabinet and mounted it to the Xfrmr tank.

First the radiator fitting. I put the radiator assembly onto the tank and inserted the bottom brackets until they aligned with the radiator longitudinal support bar. I marked this position on each end. After removing the radiators I drew a line across the entire tank and clamped a straight edge on the line and glued the three bottom brackets. This is the radiators in final resting position.

With the radiators positioned as above, I slide the flanges down to contact the tank and locked them there with a drop of CA. This means that when the sub-assemblies are painted, I just have to slide the radiators back on until everything seats and hold it all together with either CA or plastic cement or both.

Here's the flanges in their final position.

With that done, it was time to start on the fans.

The fan kits are HO EMD diesel fans (late model) and consist of 6 pieces, two of which are photo-etched. I treated the PE with a dip in vinegar and then a water wash and dry. This micro-etches the surface and provides a little better "tooth" for the Krylon gray primer. After force drying it with the heat gun I got to work. The plastic parts had a lot of flash and they're delicate.

I assembled the first unit and set it on the radiator to see how it looked. It looked exactly as I wanted it to.

I constructed the other two, but noticed that one inner fan hub was missing. It apparently was missing in the package since I searched everywhere and couldn't find it, so I had to make one. I measured it to 7.0 mm and had a 7 mm drill already with the tail end ground to a "poor man's punch", so I drilled a steel plate and punched out a few. The center hole was a #52 drill. This piece faces downwards and will not be seen so the color didn't matter. 

All three fans were now prepared and set on the radiator for another look.

I laid out the spacing for the cross-bars that would secure the fans and then painted the inner fin areas flat Tamiya Nato Black since this area was under the fans and had to be painted now. 

The fan's mounting flange was very narrow, so I glued one bar in position, and with a machinist square pushed the other bar up under the fan's flange and while holding it all in place, added liquid cement to that bar. This ensured at the bars were correctly spaced to offer the most contact for the fans.

I cleaned of the paint from the gluing areas and mounted the three bars. Again the fans are just sitting there.

I trimmed and sanded the bar's ends and then sanded a bit of chamfer at the end just to dress it up a bit.

The fins and these bars will be hand-painted. I'll dry-brush aluminum on all the fins to highlight them. The fans will be air brushed Tamiya Sky Gray (along with the rest of all the electrical apparatus) and will be CA'd to the bars near the end of construction. 

I set this aside since I can't do any more with it until the added details are put on the transformer tank especially any that goes behind the radiators. But, I was able to cobble together the control box. After cutting the pieces of 0,040" styrene on the duplicutor, I added a piece of 0.010" veneer on the top and front to both hide the seams and create simulated doors. I engraved the center line seam and then etched the push-in door latches. 

From the plan I took off the location and glued the control cab to the tank.

I think I'll add a couple of snips of brass wire to the outside edges to simulate hinges and that will be that. Up next will be several things: surface details and gizmos, power bushings up top, and the lightening suppressor array on the opposite side. That's a bit complex so I'll think I'll tackle that next.

That is really fantastic!

Your craftsmanship is unbelievable. Great job.

We had a number of stations that were at 500KV.  The devices in the second photo look like capacitive coupling potential devices CCPD.  They are used to give a highly reduced sample of the power line potential that could be safely used in the substation for metering and fault detection.  The meters on a 500KV line would read on the 0 to 5 volt scale.  This voltage along with a current sample from current transformers which are coils around the bushings like donuts.  You measure the potential, current, and the phase angle between them to give the reading on the line.  We had relays that were set to trip when the current got too high at a test voltage.  We used the old I lag E vector analysis.  The last I saw of this work was in 1993, and we calculated with a simple scientific calculator.  They probably have computer programs the engineers run on laptops to test everything now.

More information than you wanted to read, and less interesting than Lee's story, but it paid the bills.  

Lee, your experience is priceless! A "Farraday Cage" sounds very exotic and a bit scary. 

Mark, as far as I'm concerned there's never "too much information". That's how I learn. My first gig after leaving public school industrial arts teaching was the training manager at Fischer and Porter. They were a well-known instrument maker. I was well versed on the other end of the measurement business and 1—5 volts was the standard analog power to do all kinds of measurements from various transducers. I worked there from 1974 through 1980 and witnessed first-hand the transition from discrete panel instruments to computer control. A 1-meg hard drive was available as an option on the computer systems and would set you back $10k. It was 2 feet in diameter and was sealed in an evacuated aluminum dome. Boy... we've come a long way baby! It looks like the measuring stack is before the primary side breakers. The tall thing that's mounted on the side of the transformer I think is the suppression stack.

Yes, in '93 I moved from the substations to the power station to help install a computer control system,  I didn't learn much about the VAX computer, but I tested plenty of 1-5 V or 4 to 20 ma transducers depending on how you looked at it.  Once all three 900 MW generators were converted and the bugs ironed out, they had a big layoff at the end of '95.  I then wound up at the telephone company a year later coming full circle where I had been  20 years earlier.  The lord closes some doors and opens others.  I'm glad you appreciate the information.  I thought you would.

That sounded like fun...;-). In my college years, I spent the summers working as a mechanical technician at American Electronic Labs. They were a sophisticated contractor making military communications and electronic counter-measure equipment. In their lab they had an anechoic chamber where they tested antennas and detectors where no extraneous EMF could get in. The door, like you Farraday cage, had copper fingers that made a completely EMF proof. The walls were line with those black foam pyramids (facing outwards) that absorb all kinds of radiation including sound. The room was so quiet, all you heard was your blood hissing in your ears. Now that I'm older I hear that hissing much more than I would like (too many years playing electric guitar and running engines and machines...).

Got a late start today. The days that I work out I don't get to the shop until later in the afternoon, but I did get some stuff done.

First of all, I'm doing more research on the switch yard itself and was looking for different designs of the various components and found these Hybrid units by ABB. They have the breaker, earthing switch, current and voltage transformers all built into a single, interesting looking unit. Some had 3 insulators per phase and others had two. The difference, I learned, was the 3 insulator version would span between two feeding buses and would switch to the other instantly in case of a fault thereby ensuring no break in service. Since I am not having a dual bus switch yard, and will only have one power transformer, I'm going with the simpler version.

Even though the actual building of this ABB Hybrid PASS as a model might be challenging, not having to build all the other separate components will ultimately make it easier, or so I'm hoping. These units were designed specifically to outfit substations where real estate is scare. Nothing describes a substation on an O'gauge RR better.

I'm also going to go with aluminum tubing bus bars instead of wire since I think they'll look better at 1:48 than simulated wiring. Here's the new design with my rendering of the Hybrid breaker.

Even its base is simpler since it has only two legs supporting all three phases with some channel spanning all three.

After drawing all those intersecting tubular objects to make my working drawings, I realized that I could scale the PDF and print it at O'scale right out of the printer. The ABB print showed a scale of 1:40. I assumed that this wasn't a copy of some other larger drawing. So 1:40 scaled up to 1:48 is 120%. I set the printer to output the PDF at 120% and voila! It came out within a half of a millimeter over the stated fulled size dimensions. BTW: the dimensions are all in MM. I've included the actual PDF.

I put this all aside and got back to the transformer which is far from finished. I shaped and attached the 8 lifting lugs on the tank. I didn't have strip of the correct size (0.187" X 0.080"), but I did have 187x40 so I glued the strips together to get the thickness I needed and when dry, drilled, cut, and filed the pieces. I then measured the MTH transformer lug locations and transferred them to the new tank and glued the lugs on.

When they're set nice and strong, I do some light finishing around them.

The side opposite the radiators needs an array of lighting suppressor towers that are supported by a set of brackets, channel and cross-pieces so I had to make more brackets. I won't detail this task since you all know what it entails by now. Here they are with the hypotenuse still needed to be sanded off.

When fully dry I'll sand of those little tails, locate and attach them to the tank.

I was also expanding my reference library of transformer pictures to do two things, determine the best kind of bushing mounts for the transformer, and understand what kind of surface details and simulated wiring I want to add. Some of the surface detail on the MTH transformer may work, but I not sure.

Just so cool.  A step at a time.  Just like they build the real ones!

Thanks Lee!

Today got some more interesting stuff done. I built the support system for the Xfrm lightening suppressors, worked on more primary bushing bases and turned some current transformers to go at the base of the primary insulators.

I glued some extra reinforcement ribs onto the tank to provide more gluing surface, but after laying out where the supports for the lightening suppressor towers would go, I realized that the mounting point for the bushing bases was not where the lightening towers should go. They needed to be in line with the actual insulator top tips and since the outer two are canted outwards, there tips are much closer to the tank edges. I found this out AFTER I glued on bracket in place. I got it off and added more reinforcements closer to the edge, did another layout and glued the brackets in place.

Since the reinforcements were glued in to stay, I just left them there. It's looks like they're meant to be there for some strange reason.

The brackets needed something to tie them together and act as a base for the lightening suppressors so I cobbled together a channel using three pieces of .080" X .187" styrene strip stock. I wanted people to see that this was not just a solid bar of plastic so I wanted to install it face up. But that presented a problem having the channel collect rainwater. This is a no-no when dealing with high voltage so I laid out and drilled some drain holes. I know... I know, it was an AMS recurrence. I think they'res some pills for that.

I cut pieces of the same material and built up a little pile under each place the tower should go.

It was time to get back to the primary and secondary bushings. I wanted to make some current transformer to sit on the primaries and turned them from some nice aluminum stock that I had. I machined a small taper and after checking my breaker plans figured that a 1/4" thickness would look right. I made 3 of them so far. this will cover the transformer needs. I'll need to make six more for the insulators on the hybrid breaker.

I next started shaping the outboard bushing bases. I don't know the actual angle. I just took the shape directly from the print I made. I made the first, it looked right and made the second one the same way. Here's the first bushing in place and glued with the CT on top. The CT and insulator are not glued yet.

All this time, I'm assuming that I'm using the Hillman auto push fasteners as the insulators. Even though they're not completely round, they do look the part once you move away a bit.

I need to buy more of this size since I don't yet have enough for all I need. For the substation interconnecting tower insulators I'm going with the same ones I used for the HV transmission poles. I need more of those too.

I also did a drawing of the transformer foundation. It will consist of a simulated concrete pad in a containment rectangle with a perimeter curb. I looked a lots of pictures of how these big machines are actually implanted and this seemed like the way I'd like to proceed. This area may or may not be gravel filled, but the area outside of the dam will definitely be gravel. All substations are graveled to provide the least conductive path to ground for people safety. I'll also make individual simulated concrete pads all the other equipment, but no dams. That's to capture transformer oil in case of rupture.

Tomorrow I'll continue working on bushings and everything else. As I complete each part, it's becoming more and evident to me that I will complete this project exactly as envisioned. 

Meanwhile I have to rebuild the Victorian Station's loading platform. It's still be impacted various locomotives and was clobbered by my J1-A and then by my N-S Executive F-7s. I then ripped the whole thing off and will have to reengineer it. It needs to be a 1/4" narrower on the track side to avoid this nonsense in the future. This is what it looked like when the F7s hit.

I had already pushed the loading dock back into position when I took this shot. As it stands the entire platform is disconnected from the station and the base board.

Oh my!  That is a terribly disturbing picture.  I hope the locos are okay.

Trainman,

Your transformer becomes more impressive as you proceed.  While reading, I thought of a couple of war stories.  ;-)

About 25 years ago, we had a 115 KV / 230 KV transformer that connected the two switch yards at a power station.  The transformer ruptured, and had to be replaced.  Fortunately the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac RR ran right past the station.  In fact the road went over the railroad right before entering the gate.  I was there the day they brought the new transformer in.  It was a huge one.  It came in on a depressed flat car, which was pulled onto the siding.  Then the riggers came to lift the transformer onto one of those flatbed trucks with lots of axles that independently move to the variences in the road surface.  I had seen smaller transformer lifted with cranes and others slid along rails with upside down channels between the transformer and rail.  For this one, they lifted it ever so slightly and slid sheets of plywood that they had rubbed Ivory soap all over the lower surface under the transformer.  Then they put sheets of plywood on the trailer and rubbed Ivory soap all over the top of the plywood.  Then they slid the transformer onto the trailer with the two soaped surfaces sliding against each other.

Once secured, they had to drive up a little knoll to where the transformer was to be positioned.  It took probably an hour to go about 100 yards.  Fascinating!

The other story concerns the dam for spilled oil.  We didn't have any.  One day a 115 KV capacitor bank blew up.  It threw debris everywhere.  Also I spewed mineral oil in probably a 50 foot radius.  This when they still had oil with PCB in it.  They had to hire a crew to come in and remove all the gravel, the earth about 2 feet deep, the debris, and the concrete pads.  This was taken to a hazardous material dump.  Then they scrubbed all the adjacent steel, breakers, etc down with something to neutralize.  Then they had to rebuild everything.

As before, excellent modeling.

Yes it is.  If they are damaged, Trainman will make them as good as new.

Do you see the crates that were thrown over into the parking lot, one hitting a car.  ;-)  My brother always teased me when we were kids that I should stage train wrecks like Gomez Aadams.  That is a terrible thing to joke about.

I hope your faith in my skills is not misplaced. The locos were fine, but I need to do major work on the loading dock. Thanks again to Ashe Rawls for convincing me to never glue building into the layout. All I have to do is disconnect the two leads for the lighting and the entire structure with its base lifts right out. This lets me make any repairs at the work bench instead of laying across the layout.

I'm gong to have dams. I don't want any PCB spills on my layout.

Today, while it wasn't a particularly long session, but did see some progress. All the primary bushing bases are installed and I'm doing some work on the lead input ends of the insulators.

I wanted to add some aluminum doodads on the insulator lead ends. All of the ones I've viewed have some kind of aluminum structure to hold the primaries and guide them into the insulator. I turned down the tapered end of the "insulators" to a nominal size about 1/8". It's Delrin (or some other engineering plastic) and doesn't machine really well. Regardless of the final size, I just select a drill that fits. I use my number drill gauge to final size the turned end so the finished cap just presses on.

I turned the bushing tops down to about .265" which is the o.d. of the "insulator". I face and drill one end. The depth is measured directly from the turned end of the insulator. I tried making a formed cutoff tool that would both cut the piece off the aluminum stock and also impart a domed top. This didn't work so well since it kept binding and stalling my little lathe. So I used my regular cutoff tool and just stepped it towards the headstock a couple of times as I was penetrating the work so the final surface had the look I wanted.

I finished two and the third is still in the lathe waiting to be finished. I think I'm going to leave the insulators black so the discontinuous nature of these body screws is less noticeable. What to you guys think?

I'm going to do the same thing to the breaker and suppressor insulators. I'm also going to add aluminum rings at two locations in the lightening suppressor stack. Having a lathe is great! I'm also thinking about getting a new air brush compressor. My current one is 37 years old, and is a simple diaphragm compressor with no pressure regulation or reservoir. It's done yeoman service, but it's really not sufficient for the kind of work I want to do. I also want a spray booth. Santa's going to be busy this year.

Hopefully PCBs are a thing of the ancient past. 

Looking good!

Wow, it looks great!  This is fantastic.

Thanks Lee!

Because #2 grandson needed something to do in the shop, I had a chance for a rare Sunday work session, a stone wall over Serpent Gulch. He molded it and today he painted it. It's the wall in Clifty State Park (Madison, IN) over which my wife's cell phone flew. Now we have to find some folks which we can modify with the shock and disbelief my wife and I had when the phone was on its way to doom.

While he was painting I finished the last bushing cap for the transformer primaries and then started working on the lightning suppressors. They'll require three GM push fasteners each (I currently have 6) and I'll need another 6 for the hybrid breakers. I cleaned out two Lowes last week and tried to find them on line, but it's not as easy as it seems since the Hillman Part # doesn't even come up on the Hillman Fasteners site.

Here are the three bushings complete with their current transformers and caps.

In looking at lots and lots of pictures I'm finding that most bushing sheds are gray and the lightning suppressors are going to be red brown. 

For the suppressors I'm making mine according to this illustration. I'm building the tallest one and will attempt to model the corona shields too.

I wanted to make a facsimile of the intermediate separators so I was back on the lathe. Because this piece has two tapers coming from different directions, I was precluded from using the compound feed on the lathe, so I ground another form tool to make the tapers. One end of the tool has the right side taper and the other end the reverse. I'm keeping the maximum diameter the same as the insulators; 0.265". To make the tapers I carefully plunge cut using my slowest RPM. I also cut the gap a little wide on the inside taper and then feed the tool to the right a bit. The tool is ground with a radiused indentation on top (top rake) for cutting aluminum. If I was cutting brass, the top of the tool would be sloped towards the work piece (negative rake) since you don't slice into brass, you scrap it. If you slice, the tool digs in a makes a mess.

I'm using some heavyish brass rod to connect all the pieces so I through-drilled the aluminum and corresponding holes in each plastic "insulator". Here's two parts assembled. The pointy end will the corona mounting cap.

Each stack will be three-high with another aluminum flange at the bottom with a single taper. Tomorrow will be more of the same. The top cap on the suppressors is tapered also and has a mounting surface for the corona ring. I'll take suggestions on how to form and what material should be for the corona rings. Since it's going to have to drill with 0.020" holes for the support wires, it can't be too tough.

   Trainman2001 Body shop supply stores, dealerships and body shop's around you should have those door panel push pins. Choo Choo Kenny

Oh my!  Well, that place has special memories for you and your wife.  What a wonderful time to have with you grandson!

Your transformer is looking so good.  The attention to detail is fantastic!

Ken, that's an excellent idea. I will check out some sources here in town. Meanwhile, Home Depot doesn't carry any of these kinds of fasteners whereas Lowes has them, but I'm not sure how often they're restocked.

Thanks Lee. I'm trying... There's lots of second level details that I may or may not attempt to include, i.e., rivets, screw heads, access panels, plus I'm not sure how much weathering to include. Most images show pretty clean units, but then, I'm getting the pictures from Siemens and ABB sites so they're showing newish installations.

I still haven't attempted to take my own pictures locally. I get worried that I would be targeted as a terrorist taking pictures of power installations.

Yes, I don't take photographs of much of any man made structure or railroad any more.  All I take are of scenic or tourist attractions.  Power facilities are definatly on my no-no list.

just......wow!!!!!

Peter

Thanks!

The lightning suppressor stacks are for all intents and purposes complete. I finished making all the aluminum doodads (that tech speak for insulator spacers), and fixed the height problem by shortening the bottom insulator. I primed it and while drying starting working on conduits and cable runs.

In this picture, nothing on the suppressors is glued so they're very floppy. After painting the finish gray coat on the insulators (I'm leaving the doodads bare aluminum) I'll assemble them in some V-blocks so they'll be aligned and nice and straight.

I left the brass rod that holds it all in place long at the top to serve as a place to attach the aluminum hi-voltage conductors from the field and terminating at the primary bushings. 

I thought it best to prime the insulators first since they are some kind of engineering plastic, and after removing the aluminum parts, held them together with the 1/16" brass pins. I drilled some more holes in a piece of scrap wood, put it on the lazy susan and shot it with Krylon gray primer direct from the can.

Next session I'll air brush them with Tamiya sky gray which is the color the transformer will be.

For conduits, I'm using 1/32" brass wire, bent to shape with a pair of surgical loop forming pliers. They make it very easy to get precise bends exactly where you need them. MicroMark sells these pliers and while not used a lot, when used are really helpful.

First I just got the pieces in place.

Then I went back and made some junction boxes with pieces cut off of .080 X .125 styrene stock to make little square boxes. Before cutting to length I drilled the holes to accept the brass. The horizontal holes go clean through, and the vertical meets them. The blocks are glued to the transformer tank and a piece of styrene tubing with a 1/32" hole already formed in it, served to terminate the conduit at the control box.

For clips to hold the conduit near the surface, I'm using wine bottle lead (or whatever) found around the corks of wine bottles. You can cut it with a scissors and it conforms to surfaces very well. It's held in place with CA.

Next time, I'll continue adding lines from important places (radiators, radiator fans, conservator, Bucholz valve, etc.) until the piece looks nice and intricate. I also have to make the secondary bushings and don't expect any difficulty with that. There are also access panels that can be added if I feel like it. Then it will be off to the paint shop and final assembly.

I knew you would make all the details, conduit and junction boxes, control boxes.  It is looking great!  Maybe the power company would give you a job.