Garden Railway Forum

The works have recently turned out a much-needed piece of rollingstock.
No more painful hunching over, sweeping the track with a 3" paintbrush before every run.
The sweeper unit is made by a fellow named Bill, in Yankeeland. This page is where I found the sweeper, and there's a lot of other useful information there, too. It came with a few spare drive belts, and wound up a little under $200AUD after postage. Expensive, but it ameliorates a big dis-incentive to running.

As for a wagon upon which to mount, scratchbuilding would've recovered some of the total cost. But for once in my life, I decided to do things the easy way, and buy a plastic G scale flat wagon. But instead, opted for an IP Eng. open wagon, as for the same money, I get another pair of couplings and some detail castings, for use on other builds.
A spare Roundhouse headstock-mount coupling was permanently-fitted with a chain, to save fumbling for one in my couplings box for every use. The wagon sits relatively high, partly due to the sweeper being designed for the higher-decks of "G scale" stock, and because the front coupling of the track-testing loco is also quite high.
Please excuse the temporary wiring job that (being realistic) will most likely be forgotten, and become permanent. The 18650 li-ion cells are leftover from an Aldi drill battery. A charge socket and 1.3A fuse are fitted. I did think about melting down some of my lead scrap and casting some nice bricks in plaster moulds, but why start making this wagon look pretty now?
It was nice to just throw a wagon kit together, straight out of the bag with no regard for finishing, kitbashing or excess superglue everywhere.
Setting the loco at a steady pace, the sweeper works well on 7.2-8.4V provided by the two cells. Hopefully this will be of use to anyone thinking about a sweeper wagon. They're less common than I'd expect.

Regards,
Aaron

Old Man Aaron wrote: ↑Wed Aug 26, 2020 4:28 am
They're less common than I'd expect.

Well, I have seen them mentioned in various forms and I know that Rik has one and from memory its somewhere in his mega blog pages! Also a former member on here wrote about them and she got her inspiration from somebody else. Following that mention, I built one for myself: https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic ... er#p105489 .
Since I wrote that I've changed the drive belt to Delrin chain because the drive belts didn't last 5 minutes and tensioning was a problem, plus the brush had to be changed. It's actually in pieces on my bench atm for an upgrade to the batteries and another brush replacement. However tbh it doesn't get much use because it won't/can't deal with the heavy wet leaves.

Using a chain is a good idea. I too had problems with the belt snapping and, when I over-tightened it, the plastic pulley disintegrated. Mine too is sitting on the shelf awaiting a solution to the belt problem.



Rik
PS Better to have the pulley inside the frame, too. Lineside foliage tends to get trapped in the pulley or ping off the belt.

Delrin chain and chain guards. The brush is disintegrating too, so that will also need replacing.

Love the idea of this for my track, yet another project to log in the very very very long list of things to get done, lol

Meccano, the obvious solution, but I never thought of it. Creativity is not my strong point, however I can engineer solutions if pointed in the right direction, I just need to collect some bits , for a n other project

Maybe this is going to seem like a daft question, but here goes anyway...

Which way does the brush rotate?

TonyW wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 7:40 pm Maybe this is going to seem like a daft question, but here goes anyway...

Which way does the brush rotate?

So that the bottom of the brush is moving forwards, to lift debris up and hopefully clear. If it goes the other way the debris is pushed back under the wheels and sets it up for a spectacular entry into the "epic fails" thread!

Rather than using a brush maybe try a broom (no more bending down).

philipy wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 7:58 pmSo that the bottom of the brush is moving forwards, to lift debris up and hopefully clear. If it goes the other way the debris is pushed back under the wheels and sets it up for a spectacular entry into the "epic fails" thread!

Thanks, makes sense ... I did say it may be a silly question. Has anybody tried mounting the brush at 45degs across the track so the swept debris is deposited off to the side?

tom_tom_go wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 10:16 pmRather than using a brush maybe try a broom (no more bending down).

That's what I use!

TonyW wrote: ↑Fri Aug 28, 2020 4:18 pm Has anybody tried mounting the brush at 45degs across the track so the swept debris is deposited off to the side?

I did think about it, but there are several things that made me decide against trying it.
a) it makes the drive somewhat more awkward to arrange.
b) the leading end of the brush would need the frame angling to keep the bearing in line, which in turn would need the frame to be wider to allow the brush to clear on the inside.
c) the brush boom length would be increased with a greater counterbalance weight needed.
d) if the brush is deep enough to get at low lying debris between the rails, the rubbish would probably get wedged under/trapped against the inside face of the rail and we are back to the 'epic fail' again!

As for the broom suggestion, that really only works where the track is wide open to the sky with no surounding vegetation and structures.