Mac's Snow Plows
If you don't already know who Mac McCalla is, you will in just a minute...
Mac is a one man show, a true artist and a good friend (even though we have never met face to face). One day Mac made up a plow for one of his killer kit bashed engines. And as it turned out, it looked so good he just had to post a couple of pictures on the internet. Again, as it turned out, it must have looked pretty good to everyone else including myself because the plow was an overnight success story. Mac found himself making copies of his plow template and sending them off to everyone that asked for one and believe me, he had many request's! Soon afterwards, Mac made another new template and then some more and... So far, everyone who wanted a plow was given one for free (you can still get one just by asking too). Mac was even passing them out at the 1999 Queen Mary show on the West coast and the Aristo Craft sponsored East Coast show on the East coast.
This page has all five of the templates that I know of, ready for you to download or print out on your PC so you can start making your own plows if you feel like giving it a try. They may need some minor trimming depending on what type of engine you put them on but I'll bet that they come out pretty darn close as they are.
The template's can be printed out 1:1 to use as a master. Just cut it out and trace it onto your sheet material. I have some grid lines to follow so you can keep it in gauge. The lines are 1/4" apart both vertically and horizontally. I have made all five of these so far and they look great. The material I used was sheet brass .016" thick. I have seen other people use different thickness' with the most common being .010" through .020". By the way, the scale is roughly 1:29.
Remember,
you can resize these if you have to before making your final piece...
You
should try out all of the template's to see which one looks best on your engine...
Keep
in mind, the grid in each image measures 1/4" x 1/4" so watch out how you size
them.
This
is the one that looks best on my GP 7 and GP38-2.
Did I
mention... To give my plows a nice curve, I roll the plows around a 2" diameter spray
paint can and they come out perfect. You can use anything that is round to help shape the
plow.
Now that you have made a few plows, how are you going to mount them on your prized engines? So far no one has brought that subject up. I know that a few people glue the plows in place with CA glue or even hot glue. I will guess that a couple of people have even used double stick foam tape. But, I'm one of those idiots that feels the need to reinvent the wheel when ever I can. Having said that, this is how I mount my plows. I've tried some of the ideas above but didn't like the results so in the end I found that bolting the plows to the engine is best. If I'm going to have a plow on something, it better be able to plow something! As I mentioned above, the plows are curved vertically and all the plows I have are bent with a 2 inch diameter (1 inch radius) curve. I found some 1/4" x 1/8" rectangular brass tubing at the local hobby shop (in truth I bought 3 or 4 sizes of rectangular and square tubing) that worked out just right for the mounting system. The first thing I did was remove everything from the front of my engines then make up the mounts so I could put everything back on when I was done.
This is a finished plow minus the paint (click on the image to make it larger). I
cut 2 sections of the rectangular tube about 1 inch long each. Then I made a template of a
2 inch arc on graph paper and traced it onto the 1/4 inch (wide) side of the tubing and
ground it out with a 2 inch drum sander on my drill press. You'll notice that the arc is
not centered on the brass tubing. The location of where the plow will be mounted on your
engine will determine where your mounting bars (brass tube) should be located both
vertically and horizontally on the back of the plow. This plow is going on a GP 38-2
so the bars had to be on the lower part of the plow. That way all of the hardware on the
front of the engine still has room to fit. The next step was to simply solder the bars
onto the back side of the plow blade. If you need a quick course on soldering check out
the December 1999 issue of Garden Railways. It has a great article on soldering plows (of
all things). After the bars are soldered onto the plow you need to find the location of
where your plow will actually be attached to your engine. Once found and double checked a
few times you can drill 2 holes in the front of your engine and then the matching hole on
each of the plow mounting bars. I had a bunch of 3/32 inch brass rod left over from my
Howe Truss bridge so I cut off a couple of short sections and threaded one end of each
then soldered the bare end into the holes on the mounting bars of the plow. I also had
some extra #3 flat washers and nuts from my bridge to use for securing the plow...
Once your done soldering, you'll need to degrease/clean the plow before you paint
it. After that, just slip the plow onto the engine and use the nuts and washers to hold it
on from the back side. Your plow is now as strong as the front of your engine. Don't get
too carried away either. My test runs proved that trouble can rear it's ugly head quickly.
I ran the engine into snow way too deep a couple of times and caused some derailments! No
damage done but plenty of embarrassment to go around. I'll update the pictures here when I
get some better photo's on clean backgrounds so you can see the detail better. Heck I
might even have some paint on them by then too!
Oh ya, one last thing. Let Mac know how you like the plows!
Here are a couple of Mac's engines pictured with some plows all done.
Click on the image to see a larger
version.
Click on the image to see a
larger version.