Had interesting business card size square cardboard with wheels to find values.. It could have been RS.. Looking at your card. Oh, the days of no tolerance band.. Though you might find a few in here.. Pre-WW II I taught Bad Beer Rots Our Young Guts But Vodka Goes Well . Avoided that one too!
I have the 1988 Archer Engineer's Mini-Notebook from Radio Shack. And The Basic Circuits Handbook for Project Builders from Popular Electronics magazine. Almost as old as I am but hopefully still useful.
If you are assembling resistors inline in wiring or on perf-boards, or on through-hole circuit boards, there is still a good selection of wire-leaded resistors, but composite resistors are fairly rare anymore, being largely replaced by film resistors. Some wire-leaded film resistors are numeric-, but some are color-coded. Mouser Electronics (just down the road from me in Mansfield TX) and Digi-Key Electronics have huge online selections, and sell in small quantities to private individuals as well as industrial customers. If you are assembling resistors on modern surface mount printed circuit boards, Surface Mount Technology (SMT) film resistors are by far and away the most commonly used and widely available. They are rarely color coded, and smaller ones may not be marked with a code that indicates resistance. SMT resistors are typically sold on cut tape or tape reels for automated assembly by pick & place machinery.
I still have a couple of the RS color code cards with the wheels - someplace. I long ago committed all that stuff to memory so they haven't been out in many years. Doug
I remember the pocket wheel chart but can't find it. It made it very easy to learn what was on the board.
There is a memory. I had long ago forgotten about those wheels. Had one, but it is long, long gone...
With my yard tracks in place (but not glued), I wanted to test my Kato #4s and for the most part, all is well with most of my locomotives from C-628s to 2-8-8-2s to SD-70/80 MACS, Kato PAs and units in between. There are a few exceptions, like my SD-35s (old and new series) and my old c. 1975 Con-Cor PAs which both sometimes pass through and other times derail. Wheel gauge on both is good. I may try my hand at notching a stock rail and see how it goes. The way things have been going lately, I'll probably destroy the switch.
It is interesting how the Atlas standard switch geometry became the "standard" as several other brands sold switches with the exact same geometry. Bachmann, Life-Like and now, Kato, are three I can think of. I remember when Kay-Bee toys sold N scale stuff for a while in the eighties. That's where I bought a couple of the other brand ones and discovered they were inferior to the original Atlas switches. And, with the 19" radius through diverging route, there really shouldn't be problems with large locomotives going through them. I have never had any, anyway. Doug
Well, I tried my hand at notching a Kato #4 with some success. As seen here, my locomotives were picking at the points for the normal route, so I notched that one. My old Con-Cor PAs seem happy now, as do my old gen Atlas SD-35s. However, the new gen Atlas SD-35s still derail, which is no surprise. The trucks on these rotate okay, but the trucks cannot tilt from side to side even a tiny bit. I think @Mark Ricci has the same trouble with his.
Try bending the point a tiny bit with a needle nose so it goes into the notch. I've had to do this on a couple of Pecos (notched at the factory) and it took care of the point picking.
Yes or grind out the notch more toward the frog end of the switch so the point rail nestles in there better. Doug
It's really hard to cut the notch with any uniformity because it's not in place as it's being filed. I had to file the rail, put it back in place, check it, pull it out again, file it some more, and on and on. I may remove it again and apply both y'alls suggestions so that it nestles better.
What about taking a little off the top corner of the point rail, filing the point rail a little thinner or trying to bend the point rail to fit in the notch better? It looks like there is a bit of a gap between the point rail and the outside rail that may allow a wheel flange to get in between.
Rather than pull out the switch again and starting the file/push rail back in place/check/file/push rail back in place/check cycle all over again, I took the advice of very slightly bending the point toward the stock rail. I think it did the trick -- even my SD-35s now pass through without trouble. I'll do some more testing this weekend to be sure things are right. Thankfully, none of the other three #4s on my yard ladder are causing grief. I'll have three more #4s in my engine terminal, but nothing is in place there yet.
I was careful to use only #6s on the mainline, not even allowing #4s if the normal route was straight. You may want to try for the same if space permits, plus the #4s are more expensive at ~$31 Ea vs the #6s at ~$22. The #4s come with additional track sections, so the added cost.
The funny thing about model railroad switches. You would think that, even without the notch, the point rail completely cutting off the rail behind it (on the unwanted route), you would think the wheels would follow the point rail but noooooooo. You would think the propensity would be for the wheels to follow the easiest route - the point rail but nooooooo. They always snag even the smallest molecule of material and go the wrong way! Doug
That's Great News!!! Will need to inspect the 2 #4s on the layout! Thought Kato fixed the issue with the #4s made within the last couple of years??
