Weekend Update 11/18/07

[Bob Bufkin]

I spent all week reading the 0-8-0 thread on Atlas 

Interesting readingbut I do thing some of the people need to go a couple rounds in the square ring. 
Bob

[qantaqa]

I typed up a quick inventory of my locos and cars -- 107 total, 52 still need MT couplers, and I only have 12 pairs. d'oh

spent a few hours sat and sun at the Great Train Expo in puyallup, wa.  bought just a few things, 4 red caboose coil car kits for 20 bucks, a glow-in-the-dark toxic waste car for $5, and some other stuff

finally have all the track power feeds run, still need to decide how to attach the control panel...  i'm thinking of using an old desktop computer case with the panel mounted to the top, using 25 pin serial cables to hook into the panel...  hmmmm

i ordered a bunch of figures from walthers, and an nmra track gauge so I can start attempting my hand-laying adventure pretty soon, too.

cheers!

[Chris333]

I decided to boycott the Atlas forum for the rest of the year. Not because I don't like it, just that I waste too much time there reading re-hash threads ...

Funny Atlas decided to boycott "de rebel" for the rest of the year as well. 

[DKS]

I spent all week reading the 0-8-0 thread on Atlas 

I decided to boycott the Atlas forum for the rest of the year. Not because I don't like it, just that I waste too much time there reading re-hash threads ...

Funny, I decied to boycott all forums except Railwire, for exactly the same reason.

[3rdrail]

I spent some time playing with my early Christmas present:



I didn't realize until I took this photo this afternoon how far the tender is from the loco, but I fear shortening the drawbar will cause problems with the wiring harness.

Another view:



And here it is pulling the 15 cars some deny it is capable of pulling...



Shortening the drawbar and rewiring is a long way down my "to do" list.

[central.vermont]

Where did you get the decals ???
I want to redec my NW2's in the black scheme

John,

Those decals on the bicentennial unit were cut one stripe at a time!!!!
The decals on the black unit are from Micro Scale but unfortunately they
are no longer producing this decal!!!!! > >

Jon

[Mark5]

I spent some time playing with my early Christmas present:



I didn't realize until I took this photo this afternoon how far the tender is from the loco, but I fear shortening the drawbar will cause problems with the wiring harness.

Wow! That is a big gap. And that harness! That looks like it will be the biggest challenge in adapting this loco for my use ...

[wm3798]

Generally speaking it's a handsome beast...  Isnt' the drawbar equipped with a second hole (or pin??) to shorten the distance there?  I thought that was fairly common practice on N scale steam...

Lee

[Chris333]

This draw bar only has one setting, but it is wire free so something like a brass bar could be made into a new draw bar. It's just a bar with 2 holes.

[Mark5]

There's gotta be a better way than that harness ...

[Denver Road Doug]

Not a great bit done...

-Tried reorganizing my paint supplies.  Realized a big part of the problem is not enough places for everything to go so I need a new paint storage solution. (short Floquil spray and standard small paint containers, mostly)  If anyone has any clever/cheap solutions I'm all ears.  Right now my supplies (brushes, etc.) and the small paint containers are in one of the plastic art supply "lunchpails" and the bigger cans are in a open top plastic rubbermaid-style tray.  Simply buying another lunchpail is my plan, but I wouldn't mind finding something bigger that could hold everything.

-Worked on installing some switch machines, but got no further than drilling the holes.

-Attempted to "reverse weather" some MDC FPPX Thrall cars.  MDC made them brown, but they're actually green, but they weathered to almost the same color as the brown.  So my thought was to just drybrush using a faded version of the green.  The EFFECT was perfect.  The problem was the application or more likely the paint I was using.  (el cheapo acrylics...it was the only thing I had close to the right color)  The other bigger problem is the gawd-awful tooling...bleyuck!!!!  I don't know why Athearn cannot redo the N tooling like they did in HO.  I am guilty of saying I was happy they were re-running them anyway, but after further assessment, I retract that.  The good thing about it, though, is I don't have to get hell-bent on the weathering job, since I will never take (nor allow!) close up photos of these cars.

-Continued to refine my freight car/locomotive roster spreadsheet, and started the process of matching any remaining Rapido-equipped stock (~10% of my roster) with the M-T database to figure out what I need to order for converting the rest.

[railspike55]

3rdrail,

Nice looking NKP.
Thanks for posting your pic, I just found out why I could not get my ash pans back in.

I was a bit cought up in that 21 page post about this loco, and after reading it to many times
decided to pic the best parts out to save.

I have two and right now I am taking a wait see to buy any more.  These do run sweet and look vary good. And they seem reliable sence I have had mine apart severl times and it still runs.
Yes some miner issues for me but it seems to be my layout related. To high of a grade.

These were disagned for yard work and thats where mine will be after I build the yard.

Ron N.

[Mark5]

Looking forward to mine next year, gonna try to bash it into this:



Moving the headlight should be interesting ...

Angling the cab hopefully will be relatively simple.

Looks like the tender will need a little vertical extension.

Gonna go for changing the obvious spotting features to get it "close enough".

In HO they offered different tenders "road specific" - have they done this in N or is it the "one version fits all" ala the N scale Berk?

[Erik W]

Speaking of shortened drawbars.  Here's what I did to my first run LL Berk a while back.  I tried to make it look a bit like a stoker.  While I was at it, I hard wired the tender to the loco as well.



Erik

P.S. -  This loco is still for sale if anyone is interested.

[Mark5]

Nice work Eric.