Aloha All! I trust everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We did, and Kid-zilla and I used the opportunity to prep the Triple O’s Christmas Special. This involves getting out the sundry lubricants to address squeaking journals discovered during a rigorous round of 0-5-0 testing.
Meanwhile, I brought down the B’mann 4-6-0 locomotive, North Star, to ready “her” for testing. North Star, you may remember, has been our running roundhouse queen over the years, introducing us to the joys of B’mann engineering and quality control over the years (most recently Bachmann 4-6-0 Periodically Stops and Whines ). Because her lower hull had cracked at some point, we relegated the poor thing to ceremonial service. I knew that would need bracing (again), but I was shocked to see that the thender draw bar’s mount had decided to crack!
Did I miss that the last time we had her down on the rails, which was months ago, or did another year of aging cause the plastic to give way?
Not to be deterred, Kid-zilla (following my suggested field repair) cut up some bracing for the crack in her lower hull, mixed some two-part epoxy, and applied new shims to the lower hull.
While we waited for the epoxy to set, Kid-zilla measured the gap where the draw bar fits, cut a brace from a scrap craftstick, and remounted the draw bar.
You can see both patches / repairs in the righthand picture. The brace for the hull is particularly ugly.
I have considered getting a metal repair bracket I saw at the hardware store, but I am not sure I can remove the lower hull to bolt one on without further damaging the brittle plastic on this old girl. Many of the screws are stripped (my fault) from the many repairs (quality control), and many of the plastic tabs that hold the old girl together have snapped, either while repairing her or under the stress of operations. I just don’t think she’d survive major another surgery. I am, however, open to suggestion on how to externally brace her if these repairs fail.
All that being said, North Star has served well beyond her intended purpose as a once-a-year Christmas train intended to loop around a tree for a couple hours before returning to the box. She has been a laboratory for skill development, carried Christmas memories, sized tunnel portals, drawn train robbers, and earned a spot in the final issue of Garden Railways. She will pull the first train of the Advent / Christmas season as she has for a decade. We’ll run her until she’ll run no more this season, then give her a graceful retirement.
Eric
! I’ve never undertaken a project like this, and I anticipate this will be a spring / summer long project as we tweak the cab and other details then prime and repaint the lot.