Weekend Update 2/9/25

[nkalanaga]

Mike:  That's what I thought, the clip-on trucks fit fine, and at the right height, but I haven't bought any to do the conversion.  Thanks for letting us know it does work!

[apudelek]

Thanks for the tips on removing Kato skirts, everyone.  I have been looking into options to fully remove the center skirts as well, but have settled on waiting until I have access to or know someone with a milling machine to do it properly, since this was all done with a file and a lot of patience.  For now these will fit the bill with efforts to improve them down the road.

I replaced the low-profile trucks with other compatible Kato trucks. Interestingly, I am also working with some of the ACF 10-6 sleepers coming out of the new Kato Amtrak Rainbow Era set, 106-1971, and have found that these cars no longer have separate roof pieces and the trucks have returned to the screw-on version.  I don't know if this is just re-use of previous tooling from the Super Chief sets, or if this is Kato changing their manufacturing across the board.  I do not have any other cars in the set, as these were bought off of eBay for some projects.  I'm curious if the ex-PRR/PC cars in the set have the screw-on trucks and integrated roof, or if they are manufactured like the cars in my Broadway Limited sets with the separate roofs and clip-on trucks.  Does anyone have some insight on this?

[nkalanaga]

I have a "Skirt Removal Tool", made from a brass bar and some styrene strips.  The idea is, take a piece of 1/4 x 1/32 inch brass bar, about six inches long.  Take some heavy styrene strip, I used 1/4 X 1/16 inch, and make two angles from it, each about 1/4 inch long.  Glue the angles to the bar, about where the body bolsters are.

____________
|________|  |
|________|  |
                |  |
                |_|

The vertical portion keeps the bar against the underside of the truck cut-out, while you cut the skirt off, and everything stays straight.  I actually use the back of the blade, as it removes the plastic, rather than just pushing it aside.



 

[apudelek]

Interesting @nkalanaga , I will have to look into doing something like that.  Thank you for the tip.

[milw156]

At least you can use the "phase shift" function on V5 decoders so that something like a beacon and a gyralite aren't on the same beat (earlier decoders have "opposite phase" capability). That's one thing I like about Zimo decoders. All the effects have their own, separate timer.

Thank you very much for that heads up, I finally had some time to set up LokProgrammer and look into this suggestion, I had never noticed that it was available in anything other than ditch lights. Looks WAAAAY better now!
Rick

[tehachapifan]

Thank you very much for that heads up, I finally had some time to set up LokProgrammer and look into this suggestion, I had never noticed that it was available in anything other than ditch lights. Looks WAAAAY better now!
Rick

Glad to help!