John you have the right idea, make a test first. Also look through a book like one of Kalmback's engine photos and notice how many had dark rods. When an engine came in it had layers of road grime, mud, dust, weeds and oil all over it. All this had to be removed before it got into the bearings and did ugly things. The engines were washed with hot Oakite to clean off grease, dirt and bug splat, which also cleaned off the rods. The rods were more prone to rust than blacken. If we were assigned to an oiler crew, we also had to remove any leftover rust flakes, which were wire brushed, chipped, or scraped bright again, then coated with journal grease. Twice on new engines the fluting on the connecting and drive rods was painted black, but the rest of the rod was sanded bright and greased. Within a few days that grease would have collected the dirt and bearing oil from along the right-of-way, and had changed to whatever the dirt color of the country was. In Oklahoma the dirt is red the color of rust, in Kansas it is Hershey Chocolate brown, see? If your engine is new out of the shops, it is going to look like a new Lionel, but if you have weathered it to look like a poorly maintained weather beaten old mud hen, then the rods are more likely to be baddly rusted, with black #120 weight High pressure oil runs around each bearing. Try a Marks-A-Lot, wipe some off with a Q-Tip then apply Brown and wipe some off, then Rust color and wipe some off. Then spray lightly with dullcoat and see how you like it. Make sure the rest of your engine does not look out of place. The Con-Cor news letter covered the Train show in Europe and had an article about the new 2-6-6-6 coming out. The heavy fluteing on the side rods looked so deep, I guessed the side rods are now going to be injection molded too. It would be too expensive to forge them, or mill them, and die cast pot metal wouldn't hold up. So, my guess is more plastic at nearly $500.00 for you to re-paint, re-power, re-gear, and change couplers and add weight so you can run the ready-to-run "What-is-it" thingy.
Watash, After all this talk about the side rods I still may just leave them alone, hence the saying : "Leave Well Enough Alone". And make it look like my roundhouse crew loves their loco's and be done with it. My whole idea of the side rods was to just get rid of that blinding shine on them but not to do anything that wasn't done. Even if I do paint them as you said Watash, i'll have trouble in one way I lightly lube my rods with a drop of light oil to keep them from squeaking. So it would take any paint off the rods that I would have put on them. I'd be fighting a lost battle in that acount, so i'll let them be and keep from doing more work then I have to. As for the side rods on the Rivarossi 2-6-6-6 I hope to god they aren't plastic!!!! That would make that loco more or less junk!!!!!! All the Rivarossi steamers I own have nickel side and connecting rods. I'm not much for plastic ones like the ones that are used in G scale. If they are plastic on the 2-6-6-6, I wouldn't be spend any money in that loco!!! What will happen here is, i'll buy a 4-6-6-4 and rebuild it a 2-6-6-6 (like I rebuilt my 4-8-8-4's into 2-8-8-4's EM-1"Yellowstones") All I need is skill to do it (which i'm sure I have) and begin a new project!!!!!! But still that might be lots of fun but good "I LOVE THE CHALLENGE" [ 28 March 2001: Message edited by: 7600EM_1 ]
7600_EM1 and Watash, this whole subject of side rods and crosshead came about because I bought a couple of Proto 2000 0-8-0's with blackened side rods and boy did they look good. I began to "blacken-it" another engine and, WOW it really looked good. But like I said in the very beginning of this topic, it is a matter of personal taste!!! If you want another effect then go for it!!!. Since I am 1300 miles away from home this week I can't give you a pix of a set of rods.( I'm at a shooting tournament and am using my daughter's laptop). I'll try and do it when I get home. But I am giving the camera I used to take the shot of the tender to my daughter here in FL so even that may be a problem. See ya' guys
Has anyone tried P-B-L Neolube? It was written up by Marty McGuirk in the April Model Railroader (page 118). It might be graphite powder, since Marty says "it does a great job ... without hampering power pickup". Hank
