Rob, Do you need any drawings? I have some I can scan from Westcott's MR Locomotive Book. Below is a drawing I am using for my CNE #181 2-8-2. Scott
You are lucky Scott, the CNE #181 looks like a URSA design so you might not have to grind off any details from the shell, just add detail. I have to grind a lot off the Marklin shell to get an NP representation. Thank for the offer, but I have all the same drawings for the NP Mikado's. You can download all of the NP stuff free from the NPRHA site.
Rob, I am using a master my dad made for possible early Z steam. I cobbled together Marklin parts my dad had, and bought a couple others. For now I am using a new 5 pole motor. I don't want to hijack your thread, just thought you might like to see a future Mikado project. Scott
I have a spare Black 5 pole motor if you want it Scott, it's new and never used. Also I have a spare USRA tender if you don't have one. If you like, I can modify the tender to also have electrical pickup like mine, you just have to run the 2 wires to where you solder the motor to the chassis, then you will have much better electrical pickup. 16 wheel pickup is much better than 8 wheel pickup.
Honestly probably a market for all wheel tender pickup. I used the AZL ones I broke and I can say without a doubt. The tender pickup is everything
Rob, Thank you for the generous offer. I'll pass on the motor, my dad had a bag full of brand new 5 pole motors. The motor shown is brand new. As far as the modified tender goes, I'll take you up on the offer. Thanks again, Scott
Here is the progress I made at converting your Marklin USRA tender into an 8 wheel electrical pickup version Scott. You will need to get an MTL 905 coupler to screw in the back, and get a Rokuhan Unpowered Shorty to get the electrical pickup trucks. I still have to cut the phosphor bronze wipers and plastic wiper holder parts, as well as stick on truck sideframes.
Today's Progress: In order to make the Marklin Mike look closer to the NP Mike I have to compare the NP Mike to the Marklin Mike in actual size, so I uploaded photos of each to Corel, and traced over the Marklin outline. Then I measure the Marklin, and adjust the red outline to be the actual size of the Marklin loco. Then I adjust the Marklin photo to actual size: Now I adjust the NP Prototype photo to the Marklin outline. From here I will be able to scale drawings of the bell, smoke stack, domes, steam generator, etc to the required size. I can also see how far off the drivers are in size and spacing, and adjust part placement for best fit on the Marklin shell, an I can adjust the diameter of the boiler and length of the smokebox as needed: So the Marklin shell is very close, but I want to make it better. So I started by grinding all the Marklin detail off: I cut some 3/8" Plastruct tubing to fit, and I want to extend the smokebox length a small amount, so I left the tube a bit longer than needed for now. I applied model putty to hide the seam, and let it cure: Now comes the hard part, sand, spray primer, highlight defects, putty, sand, prime, repeat until I am happy. You have to let primer cure a day before sanding, so I am working on the firebox and trailing truck area next. As you can see, priming highlights defects: Previously, Texrail asked a very good, and important question "But what are you planning against the "naked" trailing truck on the loco? This obvious european design needs the typical US suspension outside." And I think I have the solution, layers of plastic firebox and suspension detail to try and give the appearance of matching the prototype. Still a bit of modelers license is required because of where the trailing truck sits. So here is the overall progress so far:
Another item I forgot to talk about was the cab. You have probably noticed the boiler appears too long: If you look closely in the Marklin Red Outline superimposed over the NP Prototype below, the outline highlights how short the cab is on the Marklin compared to the NP cab. In fact the red outline on the far right cuts some on the NP cab length off all the way to the NP cab window, and the roofline drops to boiler, truncating the NP cab almost twice as much on the left side of the cab. For all practical purposes the Marklin cab is half as deep as the NP cab. Fixing that will go a long way towards reducing the length of the boiler.
Excellent work Robert. So you’ve always been helpful maybe I can can show you something that worked for the rear trailing truck. Years ago I put number boards used N scale sw bell and I had an old 80s Bachman mikado Dead. I cut the trailing truck down middle and trimmed to shorten width. I glued the thinnest styrene piece to hold ends together and glued to top of tender connect. It worked well. got to be somewhere more of those old 70/80s Bachman parts are available. Might be another way.
Yeah Joe, that did work out well. I can cut those parts off easily enough if I can find a better trailing truck suspension like you did. So I am at a stop point on this project until I can get detail parts, in quantity to superdetail a dozen or more locos, and moved on to decoder install for now. I hot glued a DZ126 decoder on top of the motor, and soldered wires for all but the LED lighting. I used MS Paint to highlight the wire colors, because the new coreless motor has red and black wires. The Red motor wire goes to decoder Orange, and the Black to decoder Gray. The coreless motors came with something like 36awg stranded wires coming out, and the decoder came with super thick 30awg wires. The LED's I will be using are prewired 0402 or 0603 LED's with 38awg wires on them, and will get attached later on. For the decoder power wires, I just used the big decoder wires, stripped about 10mm away from the decoder to solder onto the chassis pickup tabs, and folded back to run to the tender for tender electrical pickups, and should the lowest possible resistance. Here you can see how much room is left inside the cab: I want to add an engineer and fireman looking out the cab windows, like the old Labelle N Scale ones.
Cool with engineer. Didn’t you in your first go around with the NP mikes have a glowing firebox too? And of course I know it’s off mike topic but you converted that bumble bee mogul. (One of my favorite) might that be next?
Rob That's really looking Good Double check your wiring and the direction it's running. The color code was reveres on the Marklin motors that i have. I had to connect the black wire from the Marklin motor to the orange wire on the decoders and the Red from the motor to Gray on the decoder to keep it moving Forward in Forward with out changing the CV's. David
Joe and Rob, I have been checking out trailing trucks since Texrail mentioned the "naked trailing truck" From what I've researched, they seem to be Cole-Scoville trucks. I've attached a picture and the patent pdf. Scott
Yes, firebox glow is part of the plan here too. What I don't remember was doing DCC on the Mogul, but I will need to convert it to coreless motor first. Basically, what's happening is I have decided to model NP only, between 1956 and 1957, so I can have all the early Diesel and Late Steam. The W3 and W5 Class Mikado's were Heavy Mikado's that were used on the NP Mainline, which is where Lester WA was, the NP Mainline requiring pusher help over the Stampede Pass. Years ago I modeled all years, so I could have NP, BN, BNSF, MRL GN, SP&S, and CB&Q, and ran on ZBT modules, but now that I am retired, and living far from the trains shows, I am switching to TTZ modules, and have chosen my era. I want to try for reasonable prototypical modeling too.
