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I want to take what I have done so far for the incline and make it a more collaborative effort. I was modelling it after of the Duquesne incline. Its a cool idea and I don’t want the project to got to the place where LUG projects go to die. However, making it work for a long period of time without failure is proving to be a technical challenge to me.
My original vision for this project was that the top would sit at the top of one of our LUG tables and the bottom would come down to the floor. I thought having the top and bottom buildings anchor it down and having two trestle like midway supports. This would alleviate having to create a giant brick-built hill.
I want to take it over to Josh’s house and schedule a time where several of us could come over and brain storm/ work on it. I think with enough technical ideas and group making the buildings, the project could come together fast if we can avoid making a giant brick-built hill. Any thought on timing for when this could work for us?
I am willing to take a stab at either building, especially the one at the top and ESPECIALLY if it has a snow covered roof. 🙂 (I’m NOT banking on that though.) I would probably have to load up on sand green 1×4’s through LUGbulk to do the top building … of course, it sounds like you want the project to be completed faster than that.
I <3 this project and will help if/when I can, although I doubt I'm going to be the one to come up with the groundbreaking innovative solution to making it run consistently.
I’m in for this one as well!! After we discussed it on Saturday, I actually started pulling down some images of the cars and the upper and lower station buildings off of the internet, have started thinking about ways to build the incline and the cars at the 30 degree angle, and to make the hillside as “modular” as possible for transport/display purposes. I’ll continue to work thru these and try to have some rough builds together for when we meet. As for the mechanical, that’s not my strong suit either, so I think “this looks like a job for Superman” (aka @tfdesigns) if he’s interested and willing!! Right now the rest of the Saturdays in January are wide open for me.
The upper incline building looks to be a similar color to the Old Fishing Store; both buildings appear to have the same horizontal siding exterior.
The upper incline building looks to be a similar color to the Old Fishing Store; both buildings appear to have the same horizontal siding exterior.
True for the upper building, but the bottom building is brick (see below). Looks to me like the medium dark flesh brick will be a close enough match for that one.
Looks to me like the medium dark flesh brick will be a close enough match for that one.
Or dark orange with dark red trim. I don’t know if Lego has produces arch pieces in dark orange yet.
dark orange with dark red trim
agreed; it would be really nice for the general public to see this in LEGO 😀
I’d be happy to help as I usually build these type’s of MOCs… at this point most weekends are pretty open for me…
I’m happy to see there is so much interest! I’d like to schedule a build weekend at Josh’s house. He has said it was alright. I want to make sure what dates work best with his schedule. I am free (as far as I can tell now) most weekends Jan 20th and beyond. If its Ok with Josh’s schedule, let’s schedule the first build Saturday the 20th. Can anyone be available then?
That’s a week from tomorrow. Also, it seems like Walter, Bob, Neil and I are the only ones who expressed interest in building. What could be accomplished online in advance of, or even in lieu of a meeting in Bethel Park?
Here’s what I envision the workload being:
1. Brainstorm a better/ more reliable mechanism
2. Top Building
3. Bottom building
4. Complete track mechanism and incline- This is partially done. @tfdesigns has donated a bunch of yellow old-style 2×2 windows that will look much better than what is in there now.Open questions:
Can we use LUG brick to complete the project?
If so, do we need some kind of approval?
What can we do to make this easy to transport. If done well, this should be at a lot of the LUG displays.
@greg If there are four of us interested, that’s a really good start! I think the mechanism, test and build should be a group effort. since the top, track mechanism, and bottom need to align, there is some value/ necessity in all of us meeting. It also might be fun. Ahead of the meeting, We need to decide who is taking the lead on what.Walter, the final SWR install is next Saturday also, are you not coming to that one? Or are you gonna do your incline meeting afterwards?
a better/ more reliable mechanism
I have an idea for a simple mechanism based on the “drop” ride that I brought to Q4 last week.
Walter’s original drive mechanism (correct me if I get it wrong @whitesidewjw) used a link chain with one dozer tread link. The chain was on its side relative to the track. The one tread link would pull the car up the track, then back down. The other car was attached with string over a pulley at the top, so its movement was opposite of the “lifted” car.
My idea is to take the chain and turn it to run parallel to the track. It would be above the track going up the incline, then wrap around under the track on the way down (like a roller coaster chain–this also eliminates the need for the open channel runnning the length of the track allowing a much stronger track.) The chain would need to fit between the track and the undercarriage of the cars. The car would have something on the bottom to catch the dozer link, in turn lifting the car to the top. When it gets to the top, the dozer link goes under the track, releasing the car, allowing it to crash to the bottom, right? Build an identical lift on the other lane of the incline, with the dozer treads at exact opposite locations in the cycle. Keep the cars attached with the string-and-pulley. While each car is lifted, the other is slowly lowered by gravity.
The real benefit to the design is that the drive direction is constant. Simple = more reliable, right?
I have an idea for a chainless operation also, but that one would need to switch direction. This could be accomplished with a timing mechanism and transmission like the “round up” ride I also brought to Q4. This solution has many more moving parts. I prefer the first solution, if it works.
I’m available on the 20th to meet at Josh’s house. I agree with Walter’s points that the first meeting should be together to work out the items he mentions, and that we should see what we can do to use LUG brick wherever we can. After that we can divvy stuff up as to who works on what parts.
I’m glad to hear that Tom has donated some old style yellow 2 x 2 windows, because those look to be one of the hardest components to find.
I’ve started playing around with a way to build and support the incline tracks while still making it modular enough to transport and assemble. I’ll have something together to look at before next weekend.
Bob, do you have ideas for how to scale the buildings? Are we going to use minifig scale, ex. the height of each brick is roughly 1.5 feet? Should the size of the incline car be determined first so that the buildings can be scaled proportionately to it? I can start digitally designing either building once we know what size it has to be.
Bob, do you have ideas for how to scale the buildings? Are we going to use minifig scale, ex. the height of each brick is roughly 1.5 feet? Should the size of the incline car be determined first so that the buildings can be scaled proportionately to it? I can start digitally designing either building once we know what size it has to be.
Greg, I think the size of the cars needs to be determined first, plus the spacing between tracks, and then the buildings scaled around them. Here’s a couple of pics that I grabbed off of the internet for the cars. I’m thinking 8 x 16 for the floor area of the car at a minimum. I think Walter already has a couple of cars rough built, so maybe he can chime in on what size they are. I was also going to play around with something before next week.
Don’t forget that the upper building has to also house the mechanical equipment (drum, pulleys, motor, etc.) that we come up with.
Here’s a design for a uniform input/oscillating output mechanism. The important part is the rocker arm/slide portion.
This would run like the actual incline. Install at the top of the incline, tie a string between both cars, and wrap the string around the output. You’ll want to step down from motor -> slide and step up from slide -> output so you can get the cars completely down/up in one movement of the slide.
I built it to run loaders on a spacey blast furnace, but it should work for you guys too!
@randomdan I like this idea. I think it could work.
@legoman270 @rcgrier3406 @pete @greg @tfdesigns @tfdesigns @timf @philmatt24 Let’s plan on meeting at Josh’s house this Saturday at 1:00. I cleared it with Josh and he is good with those plans. I will bring over the parts to my the incline that I have made and some various motorized parts that we could try using.
I can’t do this Saturday, but keep me posted for future build days!
Your friendly neighborhood cross-threader, for your reference:
http://www.steelcitylug.com/forum/topic/what-is-your-dream-moc/#post-23741 (Bob mentioned the incline, several more posts follow, with some good discussion)
http://www.steelcitylug.com/forum/topic/awesome-pittsburgh/ (at least most of this thread is inclined toward discussion of the incline project, with some good technical details and banter about how to do the mountain, etc.)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/33202035@N06/albums/72157666652994893 (my scouting trip, with photos inside and around the top building… this was a year and a half ago already. Wow!)
Open questions:
Can we use LUG brick to complete the project?
If so, do we need some kind of approval?
What can we do to make this easy to transport. If done well, this should be at a lot of the LUG displays.LUG Brick – I think so. We could even submit to TLG for project support, although I’d have to read up on that to refresh my memory on how it works…
Approval – 5 person approval vote conducted on forum, right? Should be easy for this one. #nobrainer
And yeah, it should be at at least as many displays as Greg’s PGH Bridge…Could you make the incline freefall to the bottom just like the drop ride.
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