Workshop Wednesday

OK, some wins, some losses this week. I've posted some of these in other spots, but here goes:

Worked on my Stewart F3A. (F-unit parade) I was having trouble getting the shell to fit over the Tsunami, so I cut a new board from .040 styrene, trimmed the mounting posts, screwed it down, soldered up the truck leads, and mounted the speaker. The shell fit, and it sounded good, so I took it for a spin on the layout.. and it kept derailing. Finally figured out the rear truck was loose, so had to take everything out and remove the truck, and found it was broken:


Waiting to hear back from Bowser. I also bid on some Atlas/Kato GP7 trucks on eBay. I hope they are the same.

I have an unnatural yen for all things FM. One of my best runners is an old Walthers Roco H10-44 in UP (don't judge), so I wanted one in black and yellow. I found this one, advertised as NIB:



It ran very poorly, and I noticed some plastic sticking out of the truck, so I took it apart and found a broken wiper assembly:



I fixed it, (drill bit and some .040 evergreen rod) and cleaned the very dirty wheels, and now it runs very well, but I'm not sure if I should contact the seller and complain, ask for some money back, forget about it...

Anyway, I went ahead and made the mods for DCC as described here: http://www.tcsdcc.com/Customer_Content/Installation_Pictures/HO_Scale/Walthers/H10-44/Walthers HO Scale H10-44.htm

I don't have any tiny decoders, and the one I tried was too big . I'm thinking about a Mini Tsunami, with an iPhone speaker in the cab, but it'll have to wait until I can count my pennies. In the meantime, I thought I would remove the PRR lettering and put Frisco decals on it, but that seems to cause some heartache, too...(FM Switcher Decals)

I also played around with my home-brew DCC system, DCC++. There are several projects on line, so I started to breadboard out a throttle with a big knob:



It works, but a center-detent pot would be better, as I have trouble finding the midpoint. I also tried to make a mini version of the DCC++ base station using an Arduino Nano and shield:



It worked so well, I soldered it to a project board, and am looking for a suitable enclosure:



So I hope to replace my current set up with this, and use the current one as an experiment to drive RC airplane servos for turnouts...

 

Good one, TOM, My friend down there in Texas just received 3 of the rivet? models from Scale Trains, I believe?
No one (according to him) can have too many SD40-2's I think he said that he now has 15 in his herd!

 

Gary that is impressive. Makes me realize how dumb I really am.
Tom that is pretty funny. Sign of a hoarder? HAHA Most of us have been there at least too. I am always thankful my wife normally gets home after me, that way I can unpack my ebay boxes and put stuff on the shelves before she notices. Besides being a model hoarder I am also an old Ford truck hoarder, one day my dad asked my wife where the blue stepside that had been in the driveway at our house went. Her reply was easy..."its at your house now with all the others" HAHAHA

 

Got most of the sanding done on the Athearn BB GP7s. About ready for paint and details, now to find my decals after the move.

Here is the latest on my layout planning. Mainly, its a loop for simply running trains, but it will be possible to run some simple op sessions when the grandkids visit, it also includes a connection with the A&O, my hometown Seligman, and a generic staging yard that can sub for Spgfd, KC, Memphis, STL or whatever. The staging yard design is not set in stone.

 

Thanks for the rotation fix. Except for the staging yard it will only be 24"deep.

 

I worked on my E-6; think I finally got the gears adjusted. Just needs some break in time. I broke out another Bowser kit, and started filing. I tried to take advantage of the sunny weather to rivet the valve gear at the kitchen table:



You can see a bit of my helper at the bottom:



Got the mechanism together but very stiff. Needs more tweaking.

Worked on some hotel room models the last couple of days:



Train Miniature reefer on left. On right, trying to add fishbelly to Tichy USRA underframe. Have an idea for a kitbash, not sure if it will work.

 

Thanks for the tip. Will set me back in my pursuit of sound decoders, but I saw one at a railroad themed bookshop here and they wanted over $100...

 

Sorry a little late here! I got some paint work done on the MKT wrecker this week. Still a lot to do but this made me feel like I was gaining on it. Luckily 6 months to finish so I should make it.




This is pretty much just a mock up and it is balanced on the tires but this is kind of what she will look like.




The motor is just sitting in the frame here not really going to be that low in the end.

 

Thanks Jim!!! I swear the next truck will be a FRISCO truck. HA

 

Double what Jim James just said! I am in AWE ... speechless too!

 

Thanks Sherrel!! You are never speechless though! HAHAHHAHA
BTW in your flyover post, I never get tired of those stories.

 

Building code 70 number 6 turnouts for the club layout expansion using FastTracks jigs. See my Facebook page. Douglas J. Hughes