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Steam & Excursion > Kalamazoo Handcar PrototypeDate: 09/21/16 20:43 Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: webmaster Today we dropped Mason off at Cal Poly Pomona where he enters the mechanical engineering program there as a junior. I am using this opportunity to share his handcar manufacturing project during the past year. Mason is in the process of launching the 2017 model year of the Kalamazoo Standard Handcar model that hasn't been offered since the 1950's. He is now the Kalamazoo Manufacturing Company that went out of business decades ago.
Earlier this month he completed his prototype car and we put over 100 miles on it across the Nevada Northern Railway, running it through trials to ensure it was safe. This is an entirely built from scratch car. In a week or so I am going to post a travelogue of our week in Ely, but for now here are some photos of the project. Todd Clark Canyon Country, CA Trainorders.com   Date: 09/21/16 21:01 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: webmaster Mason's previous handcars were built using machined and welded parts. The wheels were bought used and motorcars hubs and bearings were repurposed into the drivetrain. The previous cost of a handcar ran close to $10,000 in parts which is just too expensive. Mason will be selling complete kits, except for lumber for less than $5000 delivered The kits will come with all the parts, including fasteners. All the builder needs to supply is the lumber, including the machinery and wood working expertise to build it.
Mason has a total of 12 kits, only 5 will be sold. The remainder will be retained for assembled cars that will sell for around the twice the price of a kit. The kits will probably be available towards the end of the year as Mason will need to finish up the project when he is home on Christmas break. Mason will never reissue the cars once the kits are gone. The project turned out to be more expensive and full of hassles than envisioned. Next time around the cost of wheels and gears will be at least twice the price, making the kits so expensive that it would be difficult to sell them. Even as it is, there won't be a huge market for the cars at $5,000 The first order of business was to create foundry patterns for many of the parts. These intricate patterns were built from plaster copies made from an assortment of borrowed parts from various cars across North America. Photo 1: Mason's pattern collection. Some were made from donor cars, while others were made from wood. Each pattern has two sides. He probably has 300+ hours into the pattern project. These were not simple patterns and some like the pump handle had seven parts. Photo 2: A pallet of acceptable pump handles ready for boring. Photo 3: The foundry scrap pile of pump handle messups. Probably 50%+ did not turn out. This was possibly one of the most complicated patterns the foundry has worked with. Todd Clark Canyon Country, CA Trainorders.com    Date: 09/21/16 21:19 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: webmaster The large 18.5 inch drive gear was one of the more challenging and expensive tasks. The gear blank came from a car from the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum in Campo. Mason filled in the teeth with clay. To account for shrinkage he put a band around it before making a plaster copy. The plaster copy was then used to make a negative, then a positive out of resin. The iron foundry poured the blanks and then they went to a machine shop with a huge mill to face the sides. Finally, they went to a gear cutting plant where the teeth were cut. Off the shelf gears of this size are not available, and the one that is close is heavy and expensive in the neighborhood of $1000, not including machining to make it usuable.
Image 1: Pile of completed gears Image 2: Gear installed on car Image 3: Unrelated, pump handle showing raised Kalamazoo lettering. Mason's cars will always be identified by this marking that is not found on older cars. There is perhaps only one other person in the world that would be able to identify the handcar as not being from the original run. Todd Clark Canyon Country, CA Trainorders.com    Date: 09/21/16 21:43 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: webmaster One of the most unique parts of the handcar is its wood centered wheels. During the 1800's and early 1900's a sizeable portion of handcars were delivered with wood centered wheels. Wood wheels were used to ensure handcars did not shunt signals. Later, when insulating material became available steel wheels became the standard, though wood centered wheels were offered through the late 1920's as an option. Mason went with wood centered wheels because it would be cost prohibitive to manufacture all steel wheels.
The wheel rim is spun from a 3/16 inch steel plate and mounting holes for the wood centered are water jet cut into the rim. The profile is based on a late 1890's Kalamazoo wheel profile. It turned out to be an incredibly difficult project as many of the wheels had to be reworked to maintain the proper profile. The wood pattern was copied from a surviving 1890's spoke that was given to Mason by a handcar owner. The hubs are machined cast iron, and the backs that sandwhich around the wood center are water jet cut. As it turned in testing the new handcar the machine was a rocketship. We had never had a car perform as fast as the prototype. The new car was amazingly smooth and quiet. The wheels tracked perfectly and straighter than any steel wheel, even ones on previous cars that were new old stock. We went up the Nevada Northern Highline at 10 mph, with the need for few breaks. We completed a round trip between the yard and the top of the line in less than three hours. This is a distance of about 24 miles. I will share some really cool videos next week of the handcar in action. We still have one more handcar in the garage that needs to find its way to completion before Thanksgiving for a Canadian customer. That car is built from ipe which is one of the hardest and most durable woods in the world. It is incredibly difficult and will destroy a standard bandsaw blade in seconds. Todd Clark Canyon Country, CA Trainorders.com   Date: 09/21/16 22:16 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: px320 Incredibly good work. congratulations!
Date: 09/22/16 00:32 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: wp1801 Wow!!!!!
Date: 09/22/16 06:26 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: NKP779 Wow!!!
Date: 09/22/16 08:35 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: Thumper You Todd as Dad and perhaps mentor must be proud!
Mason has experience in a favoured project which shall keep him in good stead throughout his life. He can look at one of the hand-cars later in life and know it was birthed/arranged/ thanks to his ingenuity and efforts. Bryce Lee Burlington, Ontario Canada Date: 09/22/16 10:25 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: callum_out Beautiful work and a credit to both of you, not only for the masters and the work but also for getting the parts run
in this day and age. Martin or Perfection Gear would have run those large gears but I'm sure you'd be in the $2500 range in the quantities you'll use. As an aside I used to go to the horse shows at Cal-Poly on occasion, was a neat campus. Out Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/16 17:19 by callum_out. Date: 09/22/16 11:30 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: kevink Very impressive! I see a bright future in engineering for Mason.
Date: 09/22/16 12:43 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: Kimball Awesome! Mason certainly won't be like many of the new engineers I work with who basically have no idea how things are actually made. I recently heard some new guy talking about "lathing" a cylindrical part!
Date: 09/22/16 12:46 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: iliketrains Very nice. It came out well.
Date: 09/22/16 12:56 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: dcautley Ya don't get that kind of education in school. Awesome project.
Posted from Android Date: 09/22/16 13:59 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: nycman Good for both of you. As others have said, Mason has a great future in engineering.
Date: 09/22/16 17:06 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: Frisco1522 Excellent work throughout!
Date: 09/22/16 19:44 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: Harlock Very, very nice all around. Hope to see one in person one day.
Mike Massee Tehachapi, CA Photography, Railroading and more.. Date: 09/22/16 23:09 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: webmaster Thank you for the nice comments. One last remark I should mention. The paint job you see on this was not how they were delivered back in the day. Handcars were typically delivered with crappy linseed oil paint that was tinted using iron to give it that familiar red color we are familiar with. The car has 4+ coats of automotive polyurethane. More time went into the paint job than the wheel building. Yellow is a miserable color to work with as it takes many coats to get adequate coverage. I got a couple of interest requests so if you want to be notified when the kits are ready drop me a note.
Todd Clark Canyon Country, CA Trainorders.com Date: 09/23/16 23:03 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: pmack I also work in an industry that does a lot of one off equipment. We just got a wire EDM and are excited to start exploring its capabilities. I wonder if that could have helped with that large gear. Anyway, 100 miles on a handcar, don't forget 'leg day'!
Date: 09/24/16 10:37 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: callum_out The manufacture of the big gear is not a problem, it's just the dollars involved. We converted several all gear reduction
drives in the mines to timing belt drives for less money than required for just the large gear. Out Date: 09/24/16 15:33 Re: Kalamazoo Handcar Prototype Author: highgreengraphics I just have to say that is a beautiful thing! === === = === JLH
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