Weekend Update 11/23/25

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I've been spending a bunch of time in the basement trying to clean out some stuff and organize things.

But one thing I'm afraid of is that I might have too many B23s. Hmmm.

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Oh, I've also spent some time having fun playing with https://www.befunky.com/

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[haasmarc]

That's amazing for brushed!

Do you have a link?  Searching on Amazon yields a million hits but nothing exact stands out.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPGCJQT4?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

[chessie system fan]

I finished the decals for this car this morning. Since I hadn't done any decaling in about 15 years, I elected to not buy the special decal set made for these cars just yet and instead found some ancient Walthers stripe decals someone had donated to me (that are probably 6" not 5") and the Micro Scale diesel decal set.  I'm glad I did because I needed a warmup practice car.



Now it just needs a clear coat and then it's done!

[altohorn25]

I finished up the Fairbanks-Morse H10-44 that I was working on this week.

Decals are custom printed from a buddy of mine as well as some items from Circus City Decals

Polyscale and Modelflex paint.

3D printed shell on an Atlas VO-1000 mechanism.  I replaced the factory Atlas wheels with Kato geared wheelsets (had to grind down a bit of the needle point contacts in order to fit in the Atlas truck sideframes). 

TCS drop in non-sound decoder.

It still needs to be weathered.


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[InterurbanModels]

It's peak ERIE here, pre-merger.
Producing a batch of "Thru Line Coaches" gives me the opportunity to reunite a big number of those cars normally I don't have.

[up1950s]

I've been spending a bunch of time in the basement trying to clean out some stuff and organize things.

But one thing I'm afraid of is that I might have too many B23s. Hmmm.

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Oh, I've also spent some time having fun playing with https://www.befunky.com/

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Me thinks if a body sent you a personal shot of their own layout and you did a rendering like what you did here in a 12 x 18 inch or so signed printable link for downloading , printing and then framing in exchange for bucks you could become model railroaders Norman Rockwell. ..... Christmas cards , letter heads . Very nice Ed .

[Wlal13again]

I've been spending a bunch of time in the basement trying to clean out some stuff and organize things.

But one thing I'm afraid of is that I might have too many B23s. Hmmm.

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Oh, I've also spent some time having fun playing with https://www.befunky.com/

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It is not possible to have too many B23`s.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Me thinks if a body sent you a personal shot of their own layout and you did a rendering like what you did here in a 12 x 18 inch or so signed printable link for downloading , printing and then framing in exchange for bucks you could become model railroaders Norman Rockwell. ..... Christmas cards , letter heads . Very nice Ed .

I mean, I DO have that big a$$ printer...

[Dave V]

I mean, I DO have that big a$$ printer...

That's great, because I often wish I had the capability to print big a$$es.

[vermonter_railfan]

Finally got around to working on one of @samusi01 42000 series DODX flat cars. It was painted using TruColors TTX yellow and K4 decals for the decals. I still need to add a few detail parts and the numbers but otherwise the car is nearly ready for service. I plan to use some Npossible Medium shanks for the couplers and the car also features brass handrails.

[crrcoal]

I only see 3. That's too many? 

I've been spending a bunch of time in the basement trying to clean out some stuff and organize things.

But one thing I'm afraid of is that I might have too many B23s. Hmmm.

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[peteski]

I also found a chrome paint that works good called Fusion Firm Ultra Shining Fluid Silver Foil.  You can brush it or spray it.

This is brushed:

More of these types of paint seem to be offered to the modelers. There are ongoing discussions about all the various "chrome" paints or coatings on automotive model forums.  Most of them look great but quickly dull when handled, and adding a clear coat will also turn them into plain silver paint.

That is a problem when using it on bumpers or trim on a 1:24 scale model car, but I guess when used on a 1:160 model which will be placed on a layout and never handled again, the fragility of the "chrome" coating is not much of an issue. 

[PiperguyUMD]

A few small victories last week are starting to get the model railroad juices flowing again. Nothing like a few quick wins to get you motivated to tackle some languishing projects.

I picked up a Micro Ace Japanese 0-10-0 almost a year ago thinking that I could quickly crank out a Western Maryland I1 decapod. These weren't the famous monster decapods, but the small Russian decapods. A Bachmann USRA short tender is basically dead on, and printing the boiler and pilot were pretty straight forward as well. The cylinder saddle and the pilot are all one piece and slide over the front of the Micro Ace Frame. Kato GS4 cylinders (which are scary close to the right size!) slip onto shoulders on the side of the cylinder saddle.



The pilot truck is a slightly modified Bachmann 2-8-0 pilot truck and was a simple add. To have adequate clearance, it had to be turned upside down and have a new "lid" to hold the axle in place.



Where this project really bogged down was the amount of milling the frame and swapping out the motor with something that would fit inside of the cab. On a whim I picked up Bachmann K4 motor, which to my surprise had the exact same worm gear as the Micro Ace motor! A little trial and error, and I was able to print a sleeve for that holds the motor securely in place and holds the back end of the frame together - since I accidentally milled through the frame where the screw goes 

At any rate, I needed to get some laps in on the mechanism to see if this is going to work. First I had to Spectrumise my tender. I had a left over set of Spectrum tender trucks which after a modest amount of fiddling dropped in place. I milled openings in the tender floor and added cooper pick up strips (I think from an ancient Atlas RS11). While I was at it, I got rid of some of the molded on details which will be replaced with metal parts later. Again, with only a modest amount of tinkering, everything rides nice and level and the N possible coupler has plenty of room.



So to find out if all of this would work, I temporarily soldered the motor leads to the tender pickup and setup my T-Trak modules in the floor of my office.



I'm happy to report that after I realized the drawbar was upside down and thus, holding the lead tender truck off the rails, that this thing runs like a top!! And there is no pickup coming from the motor, only the tender!

So, up next - DCC and sound and figuring out how to electrically connect the engine and tender. The part that I suck at! Once all of that is taken care of, detailing, paint, and decals will follow in short order. Now that I've proven Bachmann has a motor that fits inside of the Russian Decapod, I'm sure they'll be announcing a production run any day now!

[reinhardtjh]

I've been spending a bunch of time in the basement trying to clean out some stuff and organize things.

But one thing I'm afraid of is that I might have too many B23s. Hmmm.

Just in case you *don't*...  HOGTRANZ is having a "Black Friday" sale on DCC Sound equipped for $159.99...
https://hogtrainz.com/shop/product-category/black-friday-n-scale-hogwild-deals/ (Golly, the site sucks...  the link for the loco just reverts back to this)

[delamaize]

This looks awesome, But I can't help but think how it would be an absolute home run with Brass handrails.

I finished up thehttps://www.therailwire.net/forum/Themes/default/images/bbc/email.gif Fairbanks-Morse H10-44 that I was working on this week.

Decals are custom printed from a buddy of mine as well as some items from Circus City Decals

Polyscale and Modelflex paint.

3D printed shell on an Atlas VO-1000 mechanism.  I replaced the factory Atlas wheels with Kato geared wheelsets (had to grind down a bit of the needle point contacts in order to fit in the Atlas truck sideframes). 

TCS drop in non-sound decoder.

It still needs to be weathered.


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