David, It's coming along quite nicely. This is going to be a big loc. Just out of curiosity, how did you remove the gear from the Marklin motor? Dan S.
....overall i think it's still going to turn out ok.... David, that's brilliant work! I'm happy to assemble some kits propperly, this is big modeling!!! I have a couple of crippeled BR 03 around, I might try it too, but I'm quiet sure it will be not as good as yours!
i used a small gear puller and pulled the armature off the shaft. once that was out and the little do-dads stripped off the only thing left was the gear on the shaft. i really DIDN'T want to have mess with pulling the gear off, i just don't have the workbench tools to do it right. i was thinking along the lines of punching the shaft out with a nail or drill or something. ugh! what i ended up doing (and it worked just fine) was to put a small nut on the shaft under the gear (to pry against and not marr the gear). i held the shaft in a vice-grip with about 1/16" of space between the nut/gear and the vice-grips. from there it was easy to pry the nut/gear off with a screw driver. really quite simple and easy. the hard part was getting the gear to fit tight on the shaft (the new motor's shaft has a smaller diameter). i had some pieces of tubing that eldon shirley (motor man) had send years before so with some drilling, fitting, and squeezing i got the tube inside the gear and a good enough fit on the motor shaft, that a tiny bit of CA sealed the gear to the shaft. if you try this yourself, be sure to get some THIN stainless tubing for the transition. (don't know where eldon is ... still no reply to email (micromo.com) or phone. i hope he's not ill, he's about the only source i know of for these tiny motors and parts -- esp. for model railroading)???? dave f.
Awesome work on that M-68! Wow! Simply Grande! BTW, you should really get one of these: http://www.nwsl.com/Brochure%20Pages/broch%20454%20Tools.htm
Ahhh All the details bring it to life! Excellent work! So did those new drive rods work David? I have seen them cheaper, but I bought this gear puller on e-bay: http://cgi.ebay.com/Micro-Mini-PINI...1QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247 If you buy the NWSL puller you might need to make your own 1mm pins for it. http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=49427&SearchTerms=gear,puller
David very very cool stuff! I can't wait to see the finished product! You and guys like Chris are simply amazing with your skills. Just more motivation for the rest of us! Super job!
i got some more done on the M68. the pilot was a challenge, as the prototype had two compound pumps mounted on the nose. i used old details west N scale ones and they were remarkably close to the correct size (just reduced them in height a little). i thought the metal housing around them would be tricky, but thin clear styrene worked fine and will look even better once painted. M68s had their pilots remade in their later years, removing the bars from the pilot and making it solid. in order to get the details to fit securely, i removed the front of the pilot from the original Marklin part in order to attach it to the boiler (with the ladders) as one assembly. now the "shell" is one unit and the details securely tied together. i still have to add the coupler bar and handrails, but the handrails will come after some painting has been done. obviously the boiler front has yet to be applied. the ladders were going to be a problem, so i used the K&S brass mesh (1/16" i believe) for the ladders, doubling them to give depth and strength. it's the only way i could see making decent ladders. i think they'll be ok. the picture below shows the piping had so much trouble with. i think you can see why. it's fastened securely and is proportionately correct, just not as good of a job as i had intended. a few more little details (like marker boards) and she'll be ready for paint. the tender is as fine tuned as i can make it. wheels roll pretty well and have electrical contact. i put some lead in the center of the chassis for a bit of weight, and soldered the leads to the trucks and then to a micro connector. this way i can connect the locomotive's pickup with the tender's, and still disconnect if necessary. ok, here's the plan. the tender is long enough and tall enough to house the Digitrax sound module and speaker. i put mesh in the tender coal compartment, over which i will loosely attach "coal" (hopefully thoroughly enough to look full but sparse enough to allow sound to come through). the tender has an inside width of 1/2" -- exactly enough for the smallest 8ohm speaker that fits the sound decoder. if it all works well enough, the tender will be the sound module and the locomotive will have the DCC board. it seems a bit ambitious, but it's all very doable. (sound module is about $48). don't know how good a sound it will produce, but a lot of n scalers use the 1/2" speaker and seem to find it acceptable. it would be neat to hear her chugging past on a module at a show and see the people's reaction. i could wait on the sound for a later install ... but why? it will all fit very easily. so that's my progress to date. still a lot to do, but once i have the mechanism running smoothly, the rest will be paint and assembly. not long now, i don't think. fyi. i look everyday at chris's berkshire conversion (on this trainboard Z site) and appreciate his help and provision all-the-more. i'll get an all-up weight when the mechanism is running right. if she is anything like chris's berkshire, she should pull very well. dave f.
The shell rely looks cool Dave. It makes me wane try to make me another one my self soon also. Brass work is so nice looking and it's almost a shame that they have to be painted in the end.
You should pull 50 cars with ease. Your boiler is about 1/2" longer with more weight inside. You have the same type motor and tender pick-ups. Should be bullet proof. If you want to go nuts you can drill out a hole through the LoTemp and slide a tungsten cylinder in there : )
NOW you tell me! i was thinking about tungsten, but can't find any in our little town. i looked at all the area golf stores and either they were stone-walling me, or they didn't know much about golf club building and repair. a tungsten cylinder, i didn't know they made. where do you get them? on second thought, we use tungsten studs in colorado in our snow tires (an option). they come in a clip like bullets and the tire guys just shoot them into whatever snow tire is made with the holes to receive them. i could easily get one from one of them to fit in. at this point, however, i would be man-handling the boiler too much to drill it out and would probably destroy too many details. if she pulls 40 or 50 cars as is i'll be happy! i don't get to go to shows with a module: 1) because there aren't any other Z module types in Colorado that i know of, and 2) i work on sundays when most of the shows are still running (i tried to convince my church that it was against my religion to work on sunday, but they felt the pastor needed to be there anyway -- so what can you do. ha ha ha). NTS in Anaheim was the first time i was able to attend a show and run trains in Z. it was so great. i think about it all the time and wish i could do it again. i envy all you regional city types who have the reality or the potential of a module "club" to hang with. if i were living in denver i'd surely round-up some others, but for now i just build. it's all i have time for anyway right now. well, i'll get this baby finished and running and that will be fun enough. dave f.
Hey Dave. Boy have I been asleep at the wheel. This is the first time I checked out this posting. Between you and Chris, big steam is making a come back. Boy, I wish we had the resources to provide some of these to the general public, but the cost is out of sight! We looked at a medium sized engine and it would have take up all of a years development budget and then a whole lot more. I guess you are seeing what is involved first hand just to develop a prototype using an existing frame. Ground up...Holy (please forgive me) Boiler Tubing Batman... ) Great work as usual and I can't wait to see it chugging down the track. I was looking at putting the motor in a Vandy Tender with an articulated shaft in one of my designs and then filling the boiler with a Diecast slug for uber weight and traction. On paper it caluclated out as a brute, but all the wheels would have had to be driven and contacted for smooth operations. Joe MTL
Impressive! David: WOW! I'm most impressed with your Z scale loco!! As far as the Green for the boiler jacket, I would suggest G.N. Green. That's what was used on this IHC 4-8-2 (HO scale) Keep up the Grande work!! Paul Liddiard
I got tungsten rods from this guy on e-bay: http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZmetallectric He doesn't have one listed now, but he has one auction where he list various dia.'s and he will cut them to length (A must, you can't cut this stuff) So say you want a 1/4" round piece that is .448" long... You could e-mail the guy with what you want, but I don't think you NEED tungsten. In the second half of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfRZUyCIL4I my Berk is pulling 37 cars around 8.5" curves. Even if you don't have room to pull 50 it will pull 15 with ease and the weight helps keep the wheels planted for electricity.
Also keep in mind that tungsten putty is less dense than lead, you want the purest tungsten you can find. Like a welding rod. Tungsten putty 7.9g cm3 Lead 11.34g cm3 Tungsten 19.25g cm3 Gold 19.3g cm3 But again I don't think you NEED it, just posting figures.
well i've finally gotten to a point where i can show the progress. for all intent and purposes the locomotive is done, though i still have to add the DCC decoder. the first picture below shows the long tubing that gave me such fits to duplicate. the fireman's side shows my make-shift elesco heater. the piping is as correct as i can make it. the top view shows the scratchbuilt details. there is a strange figure eight tank on the nose of the M68. i haven't seen anything like it before. i joined two pieces of stryene tubing with a spacer in between and added some squadron putty. everytime i tried to smooth it the bond would break and i had to reglue it again and again. the number boards were something of a challenge, especially putting correct numbers on them that small. the front view shows chris's amazing etched boiler front. TINY parts here, but SO worth it. behind the rounded posts on the front pilot were dual compound pumps. the light is small brass tube with styrene support, sides, and front bottom plate -- which meant three more small number boards. it was painted separately and added to the nose after painting. a rod of fiber optic is threaded into the boiler where an LED mounted to the frame will (hopefully) illuminate it. it took some "tuning" to get her to run right, but she's now running smoothly and getting better. the tender is painted, but i'm still trying to install the sound board. everything will fit, but the tiny speaker i used (from a cellphone) is not loud enough. maybe some DCC settings will help that, or i may need to try another speaker. having met the challenge of shoe-horning the components into the tender, the lack of sound volume will make it a deal breaker. there is a long wire connected coming out the cab which joins the electrified pickup of the tender with the pickups of the locomotive. still, there must be a better way to do that. i hope you like the loco. if i can i'll post some photos of it running ... but that will be later, if at all. dave f.
