Finished: HOn30 Porter

[snjroy]

 

Hi there. I recently finished my little Porter project and thought I could share a few pictures with some text.  On a business trip a few years ago in Yukon, I passed by a local museum and saw a 1:1 Porter that ran during the gold rush years (and beyond).  A real sweetie… It was narrow gauge and I have been on a look-out for a similar HO scale model ever since. My layout (in construction) is dual gauge (HO and Hon3), and could have a spot for a Hon3 Porter. Having no luck finding one, I decided to build a Hon30 one with the help of 3D printing and an N scale donor engine.

I found a narrow gauge boiler kit on the Shapeways site and combined it with a mechanism made by Kato. The Kato Pocket line is N scale, and is apparently intended for kids (see below on my reply... sorry the pics did not show on my first post!!!). The motor is actually in one of the coaches. The mechanism is very smooth (it is a Kato after all…) and definitely goes beyond the toy category. It is a 6 volt motor, but that is fine for me as I did not want to convert it to DCC.

 

It was fairly easy to remove the boiler, cab and car passenger bodies. I then installed the 3D print on the loco. Prior to this, I had sanded the new boiler and applied a bit of putty to get a smooth surface. I converted the passenger cars to ore cars using materials from my scratch box.

 

I spray painted the pieces with rattle-can auto primer, and applied Proto paint acrylics to cover the engine and the cars. Weathering was done using black washes, with some highlights using a very light brown paint (Polly scale leftover) using the drybrushing technique.

For my layout, I want to use the loco in a quarry with an ore chute that will transfer the material from the narrow gauge line to the HO line below. This is all in my head at this point, except for the loco. So the shot below was taken at our local club, where I could pose the loco against a better looking backdrop than my unfinished layout.

 

Now all I have to do is finish the layout at home!

Simon

 

[snjroy]

Kato pocket line...

Kato by , on Flickr" alt="" />

With new boiler...

20180408_175456 by , on Flickr" alt="" />

On club layout...

DSC_0173 by , on Flickr" alt="" />

Hope this works...

[hon30critter]

Hey snjroy!

Beautiful little locomotive!

I have some HOn30 stuff too. The critter in my avatar is HOn30. It is scratchbuilt brass using an N scale Bachmann 0-4-0 as a source for the drive system. It has a twin which still awaits finishing. I bought a bunch of Graham Farrish N scale wagons and I am in the process of converting them into coal cars.

Dave

[SeeYou190]

I can't see the pictures... and it sounds like an amazing little locomotive!

.

.

-Kevin

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[snjroy]

SeeYou190

I can't see the pictures... and it sounds like an amazing little locomotive!

.

.

-Kevin

.

 

Yes Kevin, they are in the second post. The system (or flickr) was not cooperating but I replied to myself and added them.

Dave, please post your car conversions from N scale when you have a few done. I was thinking of doing that myself.

Simon

[G Paine]

snjroy

Kato pocket line...

Kato by , on Flickr" alt="" />

With new boiler...

20180408_175456 by , on Flickr" alt="" />

On club layout...

DSC_0173 by , on Flickr" alt="" />

Hope this works...

I could not see them as well, are the privacy settings set to public for these photos?

edit: the photos did not show last night on my PC, but do show on my IPad.

[rrinker]

 The boxes are just X's, and the text link does not open in anything - I think you used the URL showing when you viewed the pictures in your Flickr and not the actual link. So they will work for you since it's your account, but they won't work for others. And if I copy and paste the link URL, I get a Flickr page that says Oops, bad link.

                                           --Randy

 

[trwroute]

I like it!  Nice work!

[snjroy]

Seems like some of you can see the pictures, and others not... They are all tagged for public viewing, I don't get it. Here is the direct link for those who can't see it directly:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/156683615@N05/42720313991/in/dateposted/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/156683615@N05/42671675382/in/dateposted/

 

My apologies. I should propably explore another photo storage site...

Simon

[hon30critter]

snjroy

Dave, please post your car conversions from N scale when you have a few done. I was thinking of doing that myself.

Hi Simon,

There really isn't much to post. In most cases all I have done is remove the European style brake gear. If the car had wooden sides to begin with I just left them alone. For now, I'm not concerned with prototypical accuracy.  I have a couple of cars that have 'metal' sides, and I haven't decided whether or not to convert them to wood sides or just make flat cars out of them.

I have also applied scale couplers. They are fixed couplers so uncoupling can only be done by picking them up, but that really doesn't matter because they will be run as unit trains anyhow.

The biggest challenge was finding the Graham Farrish British gons at reasonable prices. That takes patience!

Dave

[Southgate]

Great looking little train! The proportions on the little porter look perfect. Thanks for the before and after pix. Makes me wish I had a place for a little narrow guage line. Dan 

[snjroy]

Thanks Dan. The 3D prints available out there are not all desirable, but this one is really well done. And the price was right - the project cost me about 110$ in total (3D print and Kato pocket line). And it was fun to do...

Dave, thanks for the info, I was not aware of these models. They look perfect indeed. One thing I did not mention is that the passenger cars on the Kato that I converted had power pickups pre-installed on all wheels, including the non powered car. So to improve the performance of the powered unit, I added wires and permanently connected the two gons to get an 8 wheel pickup arrangement. 

Simon

[mlehman]

That's one fine looking loco and train, Simon.

snjroy

One thing I did not mention is that the passenger cars on the Kato that I converted had power pickups pre-installed on all wheels, including the non powered car. So to improve the performance of the powered unit, I added wires and permanently connected the two gons to get an 8 wheel pickup arrangement.

Excellent. Getting good electrical contact is always the hardest part with 0-4-0s, so this is a very useful hack. Almost makes me want to start looking for some of this Kato kid's line.