Against all good advice - bought a junker Jamco

[randgust]

I noticed that on my Kato mike, but never really paid much attention to it until I got an LL Berk.   It had a nasty habit of lifting the lead driver and climbing the outer rail on curves, even on a 15" radius, only under load.  It was literally jacking itself off the rails vertically and horizontally.  The drawbar was right under the cab, above the trailing truck on the frame, far back, and high.   I rebent aluminum to move the new drawbar point back to where the trailing truck attached right behind the rear axle, and it solved the problem.   It also closed up the cab to tender distance more or less by accident/observation.   

On this one it's heavy enough that's not a major issue, but that huge empty space above the trailing truck is very noticeable; on the prototype daylight can't even be seen through between the frame above the trailing truck and all the piping.    I've had the experience of climbing all over the frame of an ATSF Pacific in 12"=1' scale and it's anything but 'open'.    The challenge here was just finding a place to relocate the drawbar TO where it would work, that's stopped me cold for weeks.  I'm not sure what I need for vertical tolerances yet in operation but I'll likely close it up even more.

[randgust]

Well, last night was a landmark as I put a coupler on the tender, reassembled the lead and trailing trucks, put a weight on the tender deck, and actually ran the thing around the layout pulling a train.

It's good.  It runs, and it runs well.  And it was running better as it polished itself in a bit.   As heavy as it is, and with all those metal wheels, it's loud on the track but it's all metal-to-metal wheel noise, the motor and gearing is pretty quiet.  Running gear is smooth, no hitches even at crawling.   No derailments, which even surprised me as I was concerned about the trailing truck and the frame/tender interaction.  I haven't drawbar tested it on pull yet but I suspect it will rank just up behind my Kato GHQ L-1 conversion, probably about the same as the 4-8-4.   The known glitches on electrical pickup appear to have been solved with the new tender and 12x12 there.   Motor is surprisingly good, I just can't see where changing that is worth the effort.

With the cab attached, and the tender body on, I even tested it on my one absurd 9 3/4 industrial spur curve, and while the cab was touching the tender, it didn't derail, so even that worked.

I haven't wanted to hone in on much detail or cosmetic work until I got this far, but I think I'm there.   I did already grind off some of the cast-on piping on the fireman's side to see if I could even do it, worked OK although not easy.   The prototype is just dripping in piping detail, but I haven't wanted to expend the energy if I got this far and it's still a marginal performer.   To me the fun part is now just starting.

I've also been strugging on the color, as steam in general is a debate with me and I'm fussier about color than detail.  I 'know', intuitively, that they came out of the shop with a nice glossy engine black.  The 3415 volunteers have put that back on.  The in ATSF service shots I've got in the book show it both in 'shopped and polished' and 'run hard' condition.  Even at the end though, these were passenger locomotives and well maintained, certainly not weathered up.   Some of the more recent color shots of 3415 show that paint is oxidizing a shade into gray, not unusual.   I started out with Floquil Engine Black, but to me it was disappointing on how much detail it hid.   I did a test of a couple parts back to grimy black and I think I'm sold on that, it just shows the detail so much better.   I test-painted the cab grimy black, and yes, you can still see the rivets.  That kind of thing.   So I think I'm going for that.

My logging locomotives have all been grimy black but there it's an easier choice and the detail I've added shows well.   My ATSF steam hero, Verne Niner, ran into the same issues and most of his were grimy black, but his were 1948 versions and steam was already on the way out anyway. 

[mmagliaro]

Wonderful news, man.  All your hard work has paid off.  I totally hear you on how it feels to finally get the mechanical end of it smooth, and the detailing being the "fun" part.  It's such a relief to make parts and put them on the engine without having to worry about whether or not they move correctly!

When I could still get Floquil, I mixed Engine and Grimy Black in varying proportions, just so the engine wasn't so darn jet BLACK, because as you said, it just hides too much detail.   Either 1/3 to 2/3 or 2/3 to 1/3, depending on how "new" I wanted it to look.  While Grimy Black shows the detail well, I'm not convinced from old black and white photos that many steam locos really looked that gray.

I look forward to your continued posts on this project.

[randgust]

I do like to reinforce that my real modeling skill is that I'm just as clutzy, error-prone, and misguided as the next guy, and that I encourage everybody, regardless of experience, to give projects a shot.    That being my goal, I'll tell you about last night.

OK, so I'm trying to figure out what to attack next, and I remember, oh, yeah, the smokebox front is off and I wanted to put a headlight in there.   And figure out what to do with those amazingly thick wire handrails.   So, just drill out the headlight hole and put in an LED, rewire the handrails, should be good for an hour or so, nothing new.

Whatever they put in there for a headlight 'lens' won't just pop out, and it's inexplicably hard drilling from the back, although clear plastic something - rather dumb as it never had a headlight to begin with.   First full-size drill won't touch it.  OK, drop down to a smaller .038, try again, got one hole through.   Enlarge it to about .050, try again....BANG, the entire headlight breaks off the smokebox front and goes flying.   Uh-oh, so crawl around on the floor for 10 minutes, find it, and discover that like a lot of other stuff on this engine, a lot of old cold solder joints on those castings that easily fracture, but I found it as that's kind of irreplaceable.

 Try to drill out just the headlight casting, two more drill sizes, done.    No good way to solder that back on the casting...hmmm.     Try to drill the headlight casting only for a .020 pin/ACC joint, casting is hard but drillable, success.  Drill the smokebox front in alignment, success, should work.    Now, how to get that old handrail off?  Three stanchions on the front, soldered in.   Try to unsolder, fail, budges a hair.   Try to pry loose while unsoldering, get bottom one off successfully, allowing removal of wire that had to be .020 like sewer pipe.   I'll replace with .010, easy, right?  Lay bottom stanchion post aside, remove rails.   Bend up new handrail using old one as a pattern, go to re-attach.

Where'd that first stanchion go?  It was just here...wait, I'd heard a noise.  Did it get brushed on the floor?  That's good for another 15 minute search, this time, no good.   Hmmm.   Search more later.  Meanwhile, test new rail, it looks awful in the other remaining oversize stanchions.  Try to unsolder those too, fail.  I wonder if those are cold joints too?  Yup, can pull them right out with pliers.   Search for more stanchions in my parts drawers and find a set of good Kato ones, OK, that's a plan.    Now to put on the drilled headlight again... with the pin joint instead of solder. 

ACC tube comes apart at the seam with the tip, drowning the entire back of the smokebox and my fingers in ACC, resulting in me gluing left thumb to smokebox.  Try to wipe flood off and succeed in gluing some paper towel to the inside of the smokebox.   Remove thumb minus some skin, it's brass, so scrape skin off smokebox.    NOW I'm getting frustrated, this is getting out of hand.  Headlight is certainly 'on there' with enough ACC to fill another tube but it's all over the inside, not outside. Move on, nobody can see it.  So I'll just try to finish up the handrail test bending...hmmm, really can't do this with it loose, need to attach it.   So I'll just Goo it on the front as the lead-something casting almost fills up the boiler anyway...  OK that's on, that worked...

Oh, yeah, I never put in the headlight.   It's still laying here on the workbench.  I've glued the smokebox back on without the headlight in it, now I need to figure out a way to thread that LED in from the back, or tear off the smokebox and do it over.   What time is it?  Nuts.   I've spent two hours and all I really accomplished was drilling out a headlight hole, loosing a stanchion, and significant skin loss.   Call it a night.

Wife asks hesitatingly 'how'd it go tonight?'   "Fine, just like most evenings".

Max, yup, no doubt about it, this is the fun part!

[Lemosteam]

I do like to reinforce that my real modeling skill is that I'm just as clutzy, error-prone, and misguided as the next guy, and that I encourage everybody, regardless of experience, to give projects a shot.    That being my goal, I'll tell you about last night.

OK, so I'm trying to figure out what to attack next, and I remember, oh, yeah, the smokebox front is off and I wanted to put a headlight in there.   And figure out what to do with those amazingly thick wire handrails.   So, just drill out the headlight hole and put in an LED, rewire the handrails, should be good for an hour or so, nothing new.

Whatever they put in there for a headlight 'lens' won't just pop out, and it's inexplicably hard drilling from the back, although clear plastic something - rather dumb as it never had a headlight to begin with.   First full-size drill won't touch it.  OK, drop down to a smaller .038, try again, got one hole through.   Enlarge it to about .050, try again....BANG, the entire headlight breaks off the smokebox front and goes flying.   Uh-oh, so crawl around on the floor for 10 minutes, find it, and discover that like a lot of other stuff on this engine, a lot of old cold solder joints on those castings that easily fracture, but I found it as that's kind of irreplaceable.

 Try to drill out just the headlight casting, two more drill sizes, done.    No good way to solder that back on the casting...hmmm.     Try to drill the headlight casting only for a .020 pin/ACC joint, casting is hard but drillable, success.  Drill the smokebox front in alignment, success, should work.    Now, how to get that old handrail off?  Three stanchions on the front, soldered in.   Try to unsolder, fail, budges a hair.   Try to pry loose while unsoldering, get bottom one off successfully, allowing removal of wire that had to be .020 like sewer pipe.   I'll replace with .010, easy, right?  Lay bottom stanchion post aside, remove rails.   Bend up new handrail using old one as a pattern, go to re-attach.

Where'd that first stanchion go?  It was just here...wait, I'd heard a noise.  Did it get brushed on the floor?  That's good for another 15 minute search, this time, no good.   Hmmm.   Search more later.  Meanwhile, test new rail, it looks awful in the other remaining oversize stanchions.  Try to unsolder those too, fail.  I wonder if those are cold joints too?  Yup, can pull them right out with pliers.   Search for more stanchions in my parts drawers and find a set of good Kato ones, OK, that's a plan.    Now to put on the drilled headlight again... with the pin joint instead of solder. 

ACC tube comes apart at the seam with the tip, drowning the entire back of the smokebox and my fingers in ACC, resulting in me gluing left thumb to smokebox.  Try to wipe flood off and succeed in gluing some paper towel to the inside of the smokebox.   Remove thumb minus some skin, it's brass, so scrape skin off smokebox.    NOW I'm getting frustrated, this is getting out of hand.  Headlight is certainly 'on there' with enough ACC to fill another tube but it's all over the inside, not outside. Move on, nobody can see it.  So I'll just try to finish up the handrail test bending...hmmm, really can't do this with it loose, need to attach it.   So I'll just Goo it on the front as the lead-something casting almost fills up the boiler anyway...  OK that's on, that worked...

Oh, yeah, I never put in the headlight.   It's still laying here on the workbench.  I've glued the smokebox back on without the headlight in it, now I need to figure out a way to thread that LED in from the back, or tear off the smokebox and do it over.   What time is it?  Nuts.   I've spent two hours and all I really accomplished was drilling out a headlight hole, loosing a stanchion, and significant skin loss.   Call it a night.

Wife asks hesitatingly 'how'd it go tonight?'   "Fine, just like most evenings".

Max, yup, no doubt about it, this is the fun part!

^^^^ Said EVERY KITBASHER EVER!  Empathy abounding here Randy.  I have taught myself to walk away after the first, but sometimes the challenge is just to great to do that and I end up like an old "swear balloon" from the comics.

[mmagliaro]

I, for one, THOROUGHLY enjoyed your story, Randy!  (even though I am sorry for the frustration and pain of that evening).
It's because, as John said, everybody who has built a model has been through things like this!

Oh boy, the woes of getting ACC into places where you don't want it!

I accidentally got some RED loctite into one of the axle bearings on that brass 0-6-0 when I was working on it.
Boy, bronze on steel... red loctite likes to set up right quick on those metals.  Only quick thinking and brushfuls of lacquer thinner
kept it from curing and fusing the axle in place for all time.

[CRL]

Walking away for a while when things go sideways is good advice, assuming one hasn’t glued oneself to the table. 

[MK]

Heat can break red, as well as other colors, Loctite.

[mmagliaro]

Heat can break red, as well as other colors, Loctite.

True, but I would have been very reluctant to apply 550 degree F heat to a chassis and driver set that was all soldered together.

[Doug G.]

Heck, it sometimes seems I have as much trouble, these days, just trying to partially disassemble a R-T-R loco to lubricate it.

Doug

[Chris333]

I'm convinced that factory brass models are built using some odd type of solder, that sometimes looks like paste that you dab on then heat to set it.

And it doesn't help when something thick like a boiler is a huge heat sink.

[peteski]

I'm convinced that factory brass models are built using some odd type of solder, that sometimes looks like paste that you dab on then heat to set it.

And it doesn't help when something thick like a boiler is a huge heat sink.

I have feeling that they several types of solder (like various alloys with different melting temps), and solder paste is not out of a question either.   And I venture another guess that their heat sources include soldering irons, mini-torches, and resistance soldering equipment.  Whatever is the best suited for a particular joint.

[nkalanaga]

I heard once that some of them were put together with paste solder, then baked.  I have no idea if that's true, but did read once that some circuit boards are done that way, using a low-temperature solder.

To get the headlight lens out, if it really is plastic, how about soaking it in some type of solvent?  You'd need a new lens, but dissolving it wouldn't be any worse than drilling it out.

[peteski]

I have no idea if that's true, but did read once that some circuit boards are done that way, using a low-temperature solder.

Pretty much any of the modern PC boards with SMD components on it is soldered using solder paste going through an infrared oven to melt it.  But the currently used lead-free solder pastes are not low-temperature.

[strummer]

I, for one, THOROUGHLY enjoyed your story, Randy!

Me too; I laughed out loud, actually.   

This post alone makes this entire discussion worthy of including it in the "Best Of" threads...

Mark in Oregon