Got a little more work done on this unit. All holes drilled. Speed recorder, ladders, sunshades, horn and a couple of grabs mounted. Still need to pick up some wire and polystyrene.
OK, I like well cars, particularly empty ones: the low-slung look, the open wheel wells, the fine details, the ever present dirt. Here, I've taken a couple of Walther's stand-alone well cars, stripped them (10 minute soak in Castrol Super Clean and the paint just lifted off like a skin), milled and filed away the thick ends and cast-on details, repainted, redecaled using bits of decal from the 5 unit articulated sheet from Microscale plus other bits from their Husky Stack set. added the Gold Medal Models etched detail set including the brake wheels which were dished by pressing a ball bearing down on the etched piece lying on a pencil eraser, added BLMA cut levers, MT 905 couplers body mounted, BLMA air hoses, brake line detail, end grab irons, etc. I must admit, the metal they use is relatively hard and drilling small holes is not easy and you go through drill bits quickly. I had to go through the TTX photo roster to find the right road nos.--there actually are not a lot of these cars out there. Paint fade and weathering was done with an airbrush. MT trucks were soda blasted and painted for depth, FVM wheels with painted and powdered wheel faces, painted backs and axles. I have one unfinished Walther's car (out of a box of 3) which is there at the back for comparison. These cars seem to have sold out, and Walther's isn't reissuing them at this time, so it took a bit of patience to get them at all. For all their faults, those solid metal bodies make them great runners, and you can make a very nice model out of one, if you have the patience. Richard.
Here's another project I have been working on, an SW-1. I shrunk the hood down from its HO scale cousin in the background. I also shrunk this transit bus body down from HO scale. I'm going to try to shrink the HO scale chassis down as well.
Mine too. It would be great if the Bachmann S4 chassis could be made to work with it. Randgust does a conversion if you mail him a Kato NW-2 though.
Continuing on with the self propelled weed sprayer project and maybe a track cleaner. Cut some 6.5 by 10 N scale feet masonite pads after I found that the 1/4 inch thick masonite would fit under the Kato 11-105 chassis, and has enough vertical clearance to be spring suspended. There is enough room for the trucks to swivel at full range with the dimensions used. Also beveled the leading and trailing edges of the masonite pads a bit to faciltate sliding on the track. Now to design the suspension and attachment system.
With Bruce getting going on his M&R etched car side projects, I figured I should get off my butt and knock out a few myself.
Continuing on with the weed sprayer/track cleaner. Managed to find some screws that were right. MT body mount screws and counter sunk same into masonite. Carefully tapped the 11-105 frame to accept the screws and widened out holes enought to allow a free slide up and down. Springs below are from a locksmith's parts bin and are two types one steel the other brass. If they turn out too stiff I will try MT coupler springs next. This part went easier than I thought it would. Of course there is installing the springs and then there is the test track to see what happens. Either Mr. Murphy and a whole batch of Gremlins are lurking just outside the room or I finally got lucky with the Train Gods.
Hey John! Just stumbled across this thread. That is a really neat idea to make use of these KATO drives! Good Job! Allen...
Thanks for the comments. The Little Kato drives are great for everything from a cheater boxcar or tender to a great way to power a small critter. Although they only have one truck geared it does have a single traction tire which helps and all axles are pick-up for current. I have managed to splice two of the chassis into a dual motor with both trucks geared and have that under a big railbus that pulls a trailer car. I just pulled out an old section of flex track and a 9 volt battery to make sure I hadn't managed to tap something I didn't want to with the screws to mount the pad. Got lucky there and it ran although I need the extra weight in the body shell for better pick-up which will hopefully improve things. So I may have to figure out where to shoehorn in some more tungsten putty.
I can't top John for cleverness factor but here are some of my projects: Randgusts SW-1 is nearly finished , the Erie built is nearly done. Also shown are the two new S-4 engines from Matt. The E-7 I just got off e bay for a good price (one more and I own the whole fleet) . The tank car is a custom chop job, my second. The two North Shore line interurbans are from Miniatures by Eric. I'm interested to see how they turn out in thier "silverliner" paint scheme. Randy
Doing one of CP's newly painted ex SOO SD60s, starting from an Atlas NS SD60. It's nice for a change, to do a Canadian road engine that started as a US road, and they haven't done anything obvious to "Canadianize" it! CN's purchase of ex-UP and ex-BNSF Dash 8's and CN's purchase of new SD70ACe's for delivery next year offer some more examples that don't require major surgery before detailing and finishing. I chose CP SD60 #6225 because it's one of the few that don't have an all-weather window (all the BLMA and JnJ ones are different from the small ones SOO/CP use).
Great baggage car, Russ. For me, the N scale U30CGs are nearly done, now working on the numberboards: Macro photo shows small imperfections in the application of the numberboards, in real life, looks better and I can't see those imperfections.
