Over the years I know that I tend to get going on projects that are not what I thought I might get going on.

In this case, I hoped to be working on steam locomotives now but the big early summer project was working up some good trucks — quite a lot of them. Some examples are seen here. Up at the upper left are some of the first part of the project. I like cars in the collection to be on working trucks, and I had several that while they were working Nason trucks they were unpainted and also three-rail trucks. I thought though, they could be reworked, and from experience I know they potentially can roll really well and should be on good cars. So those I updated with vintage Ultimate wheelsets made for use in Scale-Craft trucks, in the process working through a number of cars in the collection (mostly with printed sides) so that every car is on working trucks.

That got my truck supply down a bit, but then the Shapeways 3D printed Scale-Craft bolsters arrived. I had parts saved from a number of trucks that had been assembled and running at some point in the past, but lacked bolsters to get them running. Which had been bothering me for years, not to mention that I had “complete” trucks that would hardly roll and needed attention.

All the S-C trucks in the photo have the 3D bolsters. The freight trucks above were built up with vintage parts, making sure that the wheels all match.

The 6 wheel passenger trucks have more of a story. I had several more sets of side frames and wheels that would work but no extra of the brass bolsters for many years. Then, in some parts, a supply of that part came but they were oddball parts in that the holes were drilled out (at the factory!) too big! You could not use S-C screws or any other screws the size that would pass through a standard S-C bolster hole.

However, 3D bolsters to the rescue, it is easy to drill them out bigger, which would allow me to use 2-56 screws to finish them off. The shiny wheelsets are Ultimate (Bud Spice) wheelsets. I find that their passenger wheelsets can only be used in the 6-wheel trucks, in 4-wheels trucks things flex too much and they end up shorting out all the time. I have completely run down my supply of these, although I do have some extra freight wheels.

All of the trucks seen in the photo are super square and roll great. And finally the truck project is slowing down, as I ran the parts supply down pretty good and have quite a number of trucks ready for cars. I have just a few more six wheel passenger trucks to attempt to work over, sideframes having been modified by a prior owner but probably can be set up still with Kemtron wheels, which I have a few of. With the other next step being some evaluation of how many trucks are on hand in relation to projects and project cars — if there are enough extras some of these trucks will end up on eBay to help some other people out.

UPDATE: I quickly gave in and worked over three pair of basket case S-C 6-wheel truck sideframes to make very workable trucks. In total to now I have made 60 bolsters from the 3D parts, they have solved many problems.