Wholestick Cane Truck Build

These are the older type of cane wagons, they were loaded with the whole stalk of the cane plant, which was generally cut by hand, stacked transversely on the wagon to overflowing, then secured with a cable or chain from a winch on one end.

From the late 1960s onwards, they were replaced with cane bins transporting 8" long billets of chopped cane.
This is of course, referring to Queensland practice. Hand-cutting and wholestick trucks are still in widespread use in places like Java, Indonesia, Fiji etc.

Here's a 7/8ths scale Racecourse Mill wholestick truck kit I assembled for a mate a few years back. It's available from The Train Department in Yankeeland. Mine'll be a bit smaller, but all round similar.
Christ, look how immaculate my desk was back then! Ha!

 20/01/2016
Back in December, I placed an order with Binnie Engineering in the UK. A month later, 5 packets of wheels, axles and axleboxes arrived - enough for 10 cane trucks.
These things are one of the best bargains in garden railways. Great quality and dirt cheap. As far as I know, they are also one of the only two suppliers of curly-spoke wheels.

 
I should say just now, that I prefer to work on parts in batches all at once, so things can be completed "assembly line" fashion later on.

21/01/16

 The axleboxes are cast nylon, reinforced with fibreglass for strength and a little extra weight.
I opted for the Ffestiniog (Welsh) 2-bolt axleboxes. The casting lines were removed along with the "FR" initials, with a Dremel.
This was laborious as there are 40 axleboxes for the rake.

 
The wheels are 20mm dia. and are the same nylon/fibreglass blend, making them extremely hard wearing. Axles are ground mild steel.
Like the axleboxes, the wheels required some casting pips to be removed from the flanges. This was done on my "Ghetto Lathe" with a file (Electric drill clamped in the vice with the speed restrictor on).
Took about 45 minutes to do all 40 wheels. Back then, I didn't have a real lathe.

"Ghetto Lathe"

Now that I had the non-wooden parts to outline, I was able to make up a general arrangement drawing, to work out dimensions of parts.

22/01/16
Most of the materials have been prepared for building the first 6 trucks. (Initially, I was building them in separate, permanently-coupled rakes of 4 & 6. I ended up doing two rakes of 3, and four singles. Figured it'd give me the most flexibility)

The timber I'm using is mainly balsa unfortunately, as I couldn't find heavier timbers in these sizes - not without forking out limbs for the amount needed, anyway.

The planks on the wagons are coffee stirrers and paddlepop sticks (basswood) and will have lead sheet concealed underneath them.
The chain winches were to be made from scrap tube and packed with lead.

25/01/16
The planks for the trucks are popsicle sticks for the transverse planks, and the parralel ones are coffee stirrers.
The sticks all had to be cut to length and cleaned up on the bench grinder

 26/01/16
I'm trying a slightly different approach to weathering the wood this time. I'm soaking the parts in a thin acrylic wash for 5 minutes, then laying them out to dry. This seems to be far quicker and easier, and gives vastly better results than painting on many coats of a thicker wash.

The best part is that it naturally varies the color of the wood, saving difficult and painstaking work, the results of which I am usually never happy with..

In this case, most of the parts have dried. Some of the planks could do with another coat as they still look too new..

 
The balsa parts take the wash better than the basswood planks, which will need re-treating.

27/01/16

 The frames were made up with the assistance of a crude but effective jig.
The jig is held together with HO track nails.

 
9 of 10 frames have been assembled, using the HO track nails and PVA.
Somehow I misplaced one drag beam so the last truck is held up while a replacement is being made.

I'm very happy with how the wheelsets and axleboxes have turned out.
First I brushed on one coat of leftover Tamiya Nato Brown, which covered pretty well. After that dried, a mist coat of matt black from an aerosol can. The black was meant to represent grime, but it's also given the parts a great kinda rusty texture. They're now ready to fit.

I'm thinking of spraying a clear coat on the parts, then sprinkling iron powder on them and allow to dry. After that, spraying the parts with vinegar will result in a much better real rust texture. A matt clearcoat would seal it off.

Replacement drag beam in a makeshift paint bath at 10pm..

 Where 8 of 10 wagons frames assembled. Once all the rolling chassis are done, then it's couplings, decks, and stanchions. After that, chains, winches and cane loads..

 I have a rapidly impending storage problem..

31/01/16
After a couple days break, I assembled the last two chassis.

01/02/16
The couplings are made from modified picture hooks and necklace chain from op-shops.
The couplings are blackened by heating them to red hot and then quenching them in used motor oil, then the excess is burnt off. This is a quick, durable and easy (if smokey) method of weathering the couplings.
The buffer plates will get the same treatment..

02/02/16
The coffee stirrers have been drilled at either end to take shortened track nails to help secure them to the chassis.

The popsicle sticks and coffee stirrers are held down with shockproof superglue, and clamped whilst it sets..

Three of ten wagons mostly complete.
Two more coffee sticks, the couplings, buffer plates, dummy brackets, dummy nut & bolt castings, chain winches and some lead weights need to be fitted..

04/02/16
Coupling pin holes for the permanently coupled trucks were drilled by twisting the drill bit by hand. Better control that way.

04/02/16
0.4mm thick lead sheet was cut up and glued underneath the planks. I only had enough lead to add 12g to each truck, bringing them up to a whopping 70 grams!
Needless to say, I'll need to get some more lead..

 

Once all the wagons had their couplings and load chains fitted (decided I can't be fucked with working tiny winches) I decided to to test them on my portable track (2ft radius trainset stuff) with my work-in-progress Malcolm Moore. 

 At 70 grams each, they're far too light, but they trundle around the test track pretty well behind the relatively slow 'Moore.

15/02/16
After some track work was done (it's always fucking trackwork here), I decided to test the cane trucks behind Baron.
Their gross underweight rendered them totally useless outdoors, so I posed them for some photos.
Besides this, I'm pleased with how they're turning out, and will have to get some millet brooms and more lead to finish them off.

The young mondo grass here looks surprisingly good as sugarcane. Too bad it won't stay this way for long.

28/04/16
I've finally made the loads for the rake.
The loads are sticks of millet brooms (at wholesale price, courtesy of Dave - thanks mate)

The sticks were cut from the broom, then stacked together and glued with many, many liberal applications of hairspray. The gloss sheen from the hairspray was then killed with matt spray varnish.
The loads were the single most time-consuming components of this project, taking around 2 weeks including drying time.

They look really good to my eye, and it worked out pretty cheap.
Numbers were also hand painted in white on the ends of the drag beams.

Plenty of overhang and general untidiness completes the look.
The trucks are considerably heavier now they're loaded, but more lead has been bought and awaits fitting so the trucks can be hauled unladen..

I've only JUST managed to fit all the loads with the trucks into their new plastic storage box.

23/06/16
The trucks were far, far too light, and as I couldn't hide any more wieght under them as they were, I decided to make them "full deck" versions like the old A & B class trucks of Moreton Mill.

This has allowed me to pack the undersides with lead, bringing each truck up to about 270g each.
Based on limited trials with 3 of the permanently coupled trucks, this seems to have done the trick.
That was with the slow Malcolm Moore, though. How they'll do with a hurtling steamer may be another thing entirely.
The coupling plates (essential if you're using balsa as dumb buffers, other wise the hooks just rip out) were made from bits of spaghetti tin, cut with tinsnips and blackened as per the hooks/chains. They're held on with contact cement and HO track nails.
 
As a five-hour round trip on public transport was easier than using my own track at home (another story entirely), the trucks had their "proper" test runs on the track at the AMRA Qld branch in Northern Brisbane. They did quite well, no real complaints besides numerous balsa stanchions breaking off in transit. Here's a video of the trucks in use, from a subsequent visit to Zillmere.

01/07/17

I saw Steve Malone's cane trucks at AMRA Zillmere recently and was impressed with the superior level of detail he put into building them. Common practice was to paint the outer ends of the drag beams of the trucks white for visibility, something Steve's trucks had, that I'd not thought to do myself.

A bonus of having now done this, is now the running numbers are black on white, instead of white on wood, so I can actually read the numbers on the trucks for identification purposes.

The 5mm balsa stanchions breaking off in transit continued to be a problem and a disincentive to use the wagons, so I eventually got 'round to replacing them with new ones of 6mm Tasmanian Oak. No issues since.

Now that I've completed a steam-era cane train, I'll getting started on a diesel-era version, the sort I used to see around Nambour when I was little, before the mill closed in late 2003..

EDIT 12/03/2019:
I neglected to actually show the plastic storage box for these wagons. It's just a $15 plastic toolbox. The trucks and their loads just fit without damage. The compartments in the top of the lid are handy for storing coupling chains, hooks, pins etc.


Bubble-wrap was hot-glued to the sides, while loose foam sections and the springy millet loads stop it all moving about.
This one fits nicely in a wheely bag with plenty of room to spare for other stock/tools.