My son put me onto the risers- oh, man, what an improvement over bending plywood!! I glued them down with cheap caulk and nails to hold in place while the caulk dries.
I too, love the Woodland risers, but mine ran MUCH better after giving s slight transition/easement at the ends of them. Great luck to you!
Already have one set of these shelves and ordered another set ( 5 shelves ), due for delivery Thursday, and some LED lighting to go under 3 of them for lighting up the C&L Layout, finally, I hope. Plan is 3 rows of 3 shelves and 1 on top, that is the plan. And some tools for all hobbies Hopefully will get installed this weekend. I'm excited as I will be able to show off my plastic models and N-Scale items of all kinds, houses, locomotives, rolling stock, etc.... Or just have some rolling stock or locomotive up on them ready to switch out. Not really sure yet. Each shelf is suppose to support 40lbs, not aware of a 40lb locomotive for N-Scale
Those lightweight LED lights are quite the innovation. They are very easy to mount and put out plenty of light. I'll never look at those bulky florescent fixtures again... even with "Daylight" bulbs.
A couple days ago I won an auction from you know where and it showed up today. It took a grand tour of Washington State first but it’s now here. It’s an early and I do mean early Kato F3B in GN. Now I have worked on plenty of old Kato but they all have had brass pickups on the needle points of the wheels and a contact strip on the chassis. This one has a metal split truck which feeds the split frame directly. Since I planned on keeping this set DC and take it out for shows, this wasn’t an issue for me having an old mech… but wow, this was a really old mech. How did it run you ask? Well… like poo. It was noisy, slow and didn’t seem like a happy locomotive. It struggled just to move and full throttle was creep speed. So apart it came, some pet fur and dried grease was cleaned away, bearings were lubricated (and this has brass bearings in the worm drives) and now it runs pretty good. Not a smooth as a brand new Kato, but on par with all of my other old mech Katos. I added it to my F7s to make a ABBA arrangement and all is good, only the fans are different and the grilles on the upper shell are not silver, but really I don’t care… after all I’m pretty sure things like this happened from time to time in order to keep the real ones running so all is good.
Florescent fixtures and especially those bulb's are the worst and hope to never see them again. replaced a florescent fixture in the garage with an LED one a few years ago. No more blinking from those stupid things as they go bad, are breaking and white gas, or whatever it was, coming out. I have hated those since they came out. Can't wait to get it all installed and see if it works the way I have planned? And the lighting works for my layout. It so dark, and always has been. BTW, which is cool when I have my WS street and traffic light's on but the rest of the time, it awful. Still have a florescent in the kitchen and can't wait for it to completely go out and replace with an LED one like the garage.
DeaconKC also put me onto using the WS incline starter sets and layers of 1/2" foam insulation board to build up the terrain and ROW slope more gradually than the full 2" incline riser sets & 2" foam insulation board layers. Deacon, did you purchase less-sloped inclines for the slope easements, or shape your own? I easily see shaving the top of an incline to create the upper easement, and I guess a bottom-of-grade section too?
I smoothed out the tops of the inclines and used some cardstock under the bottom section of the Unitrack. It did help.
I assumed a flywheel because when I was running in the thing, which you do at higher than usual speeds out-of-the-box, I cut off the throttle to reverse direction and it coasted like it had a flywheel. Do coreless motors do this, as well? These things run well. They look enough like a North American steeplecab freight motor that you can make a convincing for wheel freight motor with minimal alterations. I will buy one more so that they can get few freight cars and a caboose p a steep grade. It might be suffering from zirmac rot. what happens is that the zirmac used for the power chassis expands and pinches the axles. If you remove the drivers and file out the axle slots ever-so-gently, it will run again until the chassis breaks. I had two RR heavy Pacifics show this. On the first one, I simply guessed that the incompetents at RR simply failed to cut the slots properly. I did the filing. I put it back together, taking care to have proper driver quartering and to line up the rods/valve gear correctly. It ran well for a few years until it locked up while running. I took it apart. When I pulled off the shell, the chassis split into four parts. I had another one do similarly a few years later. I pulled off the shell. I tried to move the drivers gently to see what might be the matter...The chassis tuned to powder in my hands. That is only one possible problem. Yours could be a different problem. That Kato USRA heavy 2-8-2 is pretty good power. The tender shell is a friction fit. Pull off the tender shell and add some weight to the tender to improve electrical contact. This applies to all runs of it. If it does not have the traction tire driver, add it, if you can find one. Its pulling power is not too good without the traction tire. The traction tire improves it markedly. The NYCS version is NYCS Class H-9. Only the P&LE had them. They did not often run on the rest of the Central. Unusual for P&LE steam, when NYCS went to the Central gothic font, "P&LE" was not on the coal boards. By the time that NYCS had gone to the Central Gothic font and replaced "LINES" (Railroad Roman) with "SYSTEM" (Central Gothic), the P&LE had swapped out the USRA standard tender on the H-9s for the larger tender on the underachieving H-8s. It also moved the compressors to the pilot deck and put shields in front of them. Kato never did do detail peculiarities on its power, though. The "SYSTEM" appears only on NYCS subsidiary power. NYC proper power reads only "NEW YORK CENTRAL".[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE] Yup, Zinc rot was my first thought. I'm gonna take it to my LHS next time I head that way and let him open it up. If it is, it is sad, but the shell may end up on a Kato D51. Should be an interesting conversion.
I'm not exactly sure as coreless motors come in brushed and brushless. If brushless I can see how it can coast after cutting the throttle. I don't know which ones Kato used. Kato sells the power module separately. I don't remember the exact model number but one of these steeple cab threads either here or on TRW mentioned it. This gives you an alternative to the cab if it doesn't fit your needs.
I did pick up a couple of Intermountain N scale D&RGW 4 stripe F units, and F7A and F7B. IMO, the Intermountain N scale F's are pretty nice. One of the members here sold me two of the single stripe D&RGW F7's but so far I'm having a heck of a time finding any single stripe F7B units.
I ordered two lumber loads for my rapido 73' NSC centerbeams I received a few months back. I'd requested to order these shortly after I got my centerbeams but completely forgot about them until the shop that sells them sent me an email last week about having some in stock. According to the gentleman who sent me the email these are handmade loads using scale plywood. They are made for the red caboose cars so I just wanted a couple to start to see how they look in the flesh and if they fit the rapidos. If they work out I'll order more for my remaining 9 cars. I'll be sure to update with pics when they arrive.
Amazon shipment arrived at 9:00 PM Me happy! Will add lights later. Everyone has seen the shelves! Anyone know what some of the items are? A thick Emory board and the one with the file? Light kit looks awesome just have to open it later! Sweet stuff for working on N-Scale layout and plastic kits for all hobbies, train and other. And who can't use another plastic container Light kit is awesome, plugged it up to test. Really cool! Now to get it all installed soon? Anyone know what these are? 2 X double-sided polished bar. What the heck is a Polished Bar? And what do you use them for?
I'd be VERY surprised if it is a brushless DC motor in an N scale locomotive. Those require commutation of three phases of provided square waves, e.g. an additional electronics package and motor phase sensors (which are usually embedded in/on the motor, but would add to cost.) I suppose a custom DCC encoder could commutate 3 phase DC for a brushless DC motor (but still needs rotational phase info from motor,) but I don't know of any that do, at least available on the open market for N scale. Brushed DC motors require only two wires, whereas BLDC motors require 6 (three commutation signals and three power phases.) Other aspects that could be provided with a brushless DC motor/decoder combo include very accurate, absolute motor speed info for speed control. But BLDC motors/controls are more expensive than brushed DC motors/controls, thus requiring the specific qualities of BLDC (longer life, higher performance, etc.) to make it worthwhile. Just look at the evolution of rechargeable portable power tools from brushed to brushless motors for higher performance and extended life. I don't believe model trains fall into that calculus (to favor BLDC) at least in smaller scales.
Zinc rot was my first thought. I'm gonna take it to my LHS next time I head that way and let him open it up.[/QUOTE] There is only one screw in the steam dome of RR Pacifics and mikados that holds the shell onto the power chassis. Removing the shell may or may not tell you anything. At times, trying gently to move the wheels might. Either that or you can take off the panel that holds the drivers to the chassis from the underside and try to pull up on a driver. If it gives, that might prove that it is not zirmac rot. You would have to try either one on every driver as all that it takes is one driver to hangup for it to lock up. You do not have to remove the drivers completely unless you intend to file out the bearing slots and run the thing for as long as it will run before it discombobulates. Do make sure that all rods and valve gear are properly aligned and that all drivers are in quarter. Either of those also can cause the locomotive to seize. Frequently, when you cut a part from a sprue, even if you do use the Xuron sprue cutter, there is a nub on the part that you must file or sand down. I am guessing that the Emery board is for that purpose. I use files, sandpaper, sanding sticks for that purpose, as well.
Before Christmas, this followed me home from the LHS. I might try out a WvD adapter board for the DCC conversion.
I have the exact same one and now want the Midnight Blue one! You like it so far? One of my best running locomotives but I don't have many Gotta love the P42, I think it is?
I have both of those Amtrak Units, going full tilt on sound and lighting on all the Anniversary schemes.
