Weekend Update 9 July 2007

[John]

Lets see the work ...

[pfs]

Trying to finish this GMX 38 kit. Stole a bit of time yesterday, hope to finish it and move on to the other 'unfinished' projects.

[dclyde]

Installed and configured 3 Digitrax DS-64s.  Worked on some table wiring (NTrak standards).

Just bought a Rivarossi Big Boy as part of an estate sale.  Greased it up and put it on the track.  Now I'm eye-balling it for a Digitrax DZ123 installation for next weekend.

Continued the ongoing project of converting all my rolling stock equiped with Rapidos to MicroTrains trucks and couples.

Dave

[up1950s]

Just about ready to ruin what I did , which is not as good as most could do , with paint .

UP DC-2 Rail Detector Car from the 50's from a Bachmann Doodlenoodle

[Chris333]

Richie,
That railcar looks great!  Will it run with all those wheels?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I've had a somewhat different weekend.

I ended up visiting the family yesterday and spent some time consulting with my dad on his NTRAK module rebuilding. He's working on northeast Philly around the turn of the LAST century. He's got a bunch of photos from PhillyHistory.org, and based on those we worked up this plan:







Then today Lee Weldon stopped by on his way home from Railfest and Jerry's. While he shot some of his stuff on the layout, I also shot a few photos to check my own progress.

[wcfn100]

I finally got a chance to print out some decals off my ALPS printer that I've had for three years.  I've been wanting to do a Rock Island transfer caboose based on the ones they bought from Lehigh Valley and used in St. Paul for a while.  I had to add the end porthole windows and the side window gutters (for lack of a better term).  I weathered it a bit on the heavy side due to some of the crude modeling.  I hope to do a second one and correct the multitude of problems with this one.







Jason

[dclyde]

Jason,

I have considered making my own decals in the past.  Can I be so brazen as to ask what hardware/software combination you use?

Dave

[up1950s]

Chris , thanks . The WD-40 straws I use to spread the Z wheels to N gauge offer too much rolling resistance given their light weight to roll reliably , if at all . Further any radius would cause a derail . So sadly , this can move a bit in an engine facility , but thats about all . It takes me about 5 minutes to get all 20 wheels on the rails . Now if somebody would make nickel silver Z wheels gauged to N with thin axles , I might be able to get a better roll , but I will be worm food before NWSL gives us MOW wheels . Then , and only then would I bother to try to side slot the bolster holes for better radius capability . Thats something better made by Overland which I can only dream they would do .

[wcfn100]

Dave,

    I'm using Adobe Illustrator with an ALPS printer.  No real secret to the drawing program as any vector based program should work (like CorelDraw).  I wouldn't recommend any photo editing programs, but they will work.

    I don't know how much you know about the ALPS printers, but the basics are, to the best of my knowledge:  They print off a ribbon, they can print white (and foil metal), they're expensive*, the cartridges are not being made currently and the company will no longer repair them. >

   The ALPS does have limitations to how some colors look, but when it comes to printing just white, it's really good.


   Oh, and I'm using Micro-Scale trim film.


Jason


*Not a lot to compare to because they're not like other printers.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

GE 44 Tonner:


I wanted a full sized line truck because few power companies up here use F150s. Here is a crew cab L8000 with scratch built bed.


Oh yeah, the boom works and the stabalizers extend.

[John]

I worked on a helix

[Zox]

Here is a crew cab L8000 with scratch built bed....Oh yeah, the boom works and the stabalizers extend.

Very nice!

I've been working on putting a 2.4 GHz camera on a diet, so I can use it with my articulated camera car.

Before:


This was unworkably long, especially with the power plug sticking out the back. On the bright side, there wasn't a voltage regulator hidden in the plug like on some other cameras.

So far:


Fortunately, the camera board and the transmitter board were already separate--I just had to extend the wiring between them. This way, I'll be able to articulate only the camera, and I think there's enough room in my "AVCSS" camera car to hold the board.

I still have a bit of work to "dress up" the camera part, and to build a new skate for the AVCSS to accomodate the new camera.

[bobcat]

Chris , thanks . The WD-40 straws I use to spread the Z wheels to N gauge offer too much rolling resistance given their light weight to roll reliably , if at all . Further any radius would cause a derail . So sadly , this can move a bit in an engine facility , but thats about all . It takes me about 5 minutes to get all 20 wheels on the rails . Now if somebody would make nickel silver Z wheels gauged to N with thin axles , I might be able to get a better roll , but I will be worm food before NWSL gives us MOW wheels . Then , and only then would I bother to try to side slot the bolster holes for better radius capability . Thats something better made by Overland which I can only dream they would do .

Richie,

Just a thought, but wouldn't pilot wheels from a donor steamer make do for the Z scale wheels your looking for.

[up1950s]

I think the smallest N scale pilot wheels are a bigger diameter than the Z wheels .