Well made some progress. Have one of the solid ends on and ready for other one. The sides are from a ships rail that was included in a Shapeways ship kit that were totally unsatisfactory for that use. They have been laying in a parts box waiting for the right project. These cars get a face and are for the Thomas train. For the wood load I probably will harvest some dead Azalea branches and cut and split them. Azalea branches make some great N scale wood loads. 100_1279-3 by John Moore posted Aug 27, 2021 at 6:30 PM
Well except for going out and harvesting a few dead Azalea branches one car is nearly done for Thomas to pull. 100_1280-1 by John Moore posted Aug 28, 2021 at 6:47 AM 100_1281-2 by John Moore posted Aug 28, 2021 at 6:47 AM Been a few years since I almost totally scratch built a car. A modified underframe and modified trucks, plus some artist board and some left over styrene and parts and I have a 2 axle pulpwood car with a face. The 2nd car gets a shapeways face now in production.
Well I might change the face on the one. Been cutting Azalea and Dogwood dead limbs for the loads.\ 100_1282-1 by John Moore posted Aug 28, 2021 at 6:41 PM
Pulpwood loads have been installed and I changed one of the faces. Now to work on that ones eyes a little. 100_1283-4 by John Moore posted Aug 28, 2021 at 8:53 PM My stripes arrived in the post this evening so tomorrow I will be applying stripes.
Well the stripes have been applied to the last cars for the the 2-6-2T Thomas engine. Added brake wheels to the pulpwood cars so they are done to go behind the 0-6-0 Thomas. The last three cars to the right are awaiting faces from Shapeways then the 0-6-0 Thomas will have a 7 car mixed train. One round face and two square faces are on order and should ship this week. 100_1284-1 by John Moore posted Aug 29, 2021 at 8:10 PM
Well my homebuilt extra cars for Thomas are done except for some decals I am still waiting on. The five cars on the right are my versions and the two coaches are Tomix's that came with Thomas. 100_1294-1 by John Moore posted Sep 5, 2021 at 5:31 PM Now if this danged covid mess ever stops I can have the Grandkids over.
Well to conclude this thread I will do a bit of a review on the Tomix Thomas. The last time I checked Spookshow had not reviewed any of them. Out of the box it ran well with no hesitations forward and reverse. The little 0-6-0T will pull 5 cars up a 3% grade from my port area to the mainline. It handles the 8.5 and 7 inch radius of my mainline and turnouts. On the mainline, which is a water level route, it handles 12 40 foot cars with no issues. After about 8 hours of run time it really smoothed out and has good slow speed creep in forward and reverse. It is powered by a small can motor. Does not have a lot of detail but that can be added if one wants. Nice paint job and striping. The shell comes off by inserting a very thin screw driver blade in either side and then rocking the shell. Trying to put DCC in this model will be a challenge the only room seems to be the cab. So far the only issue is the wheel flange size. The flanges are extremely shallow and makes code 55 look large. Because of the thin and shallow flanges this loco has a tendency to once in a while derail. I think I have solved that issue by adding some tungsten putty in the smokebox area and the cab area to add weight and so far it is performing well. I have had it on the track for about 3-4 hours today working out coupler issues and weight issues on the cars. I am running a mixed train consist with the two coaches and 5 cars which I built for the train. 100_1295-1 by John Moore posted Sep 6, 2021 at 4:57 PM And the 2nd train arrives. 100_1297-2 by John Moore posted Sep 6, 2021 at 6:4 PM 100_1298-3 by John Moore posted Sep 6, 2021 at 6:43 PM
