Rehab of the Missile Sponges Part the Second - Christmas Thomas

[Eric_Mueller]

Pete,

Thanks. I designed the RR to allow for relaxing evenings. Like my aquariums, though, sometimes I have to remind myself to avail of this!

As for the 4-6-0, I had to tap out the screw with a drill to get a Philips to engage. Pain… Naturally, the cut wire was not visible, so I had to pry off the boiler / cab (snap! went a detail…). A wire had broken free of the can motor:

I take cold comfort in knowing that this was a factory solder joint and not one of my own, as it means my own soldering doesn’t stink but that some other quality made-in-China joint is probably preparing to give way. Some gravel fell out of the chassis as I was opening it up, so maybe some debris was the culprit. This thing is just not sealed up like LGB, PIKO, or HLW. Once I had this solder joint fixed, I cut and re-soldered the leads to the forward truck. Things were going well, to include reassembly, then SNAP! the lower part of the chassis just forward of the tender drawbar. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-yell.gif)Let’s see how JB Weld does in hold it together. I’ll reinforce it tomorrow with a sheet of styrene.

I’m going to put this in the “win” column and then return this thread to its original subject.

Eric

[GAP]

Eric a little tip I read years ago for over tight screws in plastic.

Take your soldering iron place it on the head of offending screw and allow it to warm a little, not warm enough to melt the plastic but slightly soften the bit in contact with the screw and the screw should turn easier.

[Eric_Mueller]

Update:

Desultory puttering continued on and off since my last update but to no avail. At last check, the motor would not consistently turn. I am wondering if my misadventure with the clamp or constant puttering had jiggled something out of round. Sigh…(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-frown.gif) I watched evil-Bay all summer for a motor block and cased the “bits and parts shelf” at a train store on a business trip. I finally just ordered a complete STAINZ motor block from TrainLi. Problem solved…

We had actually acquired a pair of second hand STAINZ along the way, too. As mentioned elsewhere, both received the title of “cute,” so they entered service “as is” rather as a parts donors. These are both in excellent shape beyond a missing detail part or two, so it made more sense technically and economically to use them as the core for separate projects following GAP’s and Bill Barnwell’s examples rather than parting them out. They both live on the “ready track” with the Mack’s and Diesel Dan in the meantime getting plenty of exercise. Besides, the Mik is coming!

Update to follow when the motor block is on hand.

Eric

[Eric_Mueller]

Update:

Chassis is on hand! This long running and oft-delayed project now goes to the top of the stack. Preliminary investigation reveals I may have to cut either the new chassis or modify the old boiler/cab shell. I am loathe to take a saw to a brand new motor block, and, for the moment, I am thinking about lengthening the coal bunker. I need to spend more than 5 minutes tinkering before making the decision,

More to follow!

Eric

[David_Marconi_FOGCH (David Marconi CHHNNG)]

Eric,

Sure seems when following your threads, that even following the two steps forward means one step back adage, pleasure and relaxation still far outweigh the frustration and delays we all face pursuing this hobby we enjoy.

Tis certainly a joy reading your renditions of the happenings both good and bad as you pursue the pleasures. Some truly are gifted with the ability to share their adventures in such an entertaining way.

Thank you

[Eric_Mueller]

@Dave: Thanks for your kind words! I try to keep this light and fun, as it keeps me from taking things too seriously and, selfishly, seems to help elicit a bit more help from the community! I won’t pretend losing money on that first chassis was high on my things to do list, but I did learn quite a bit, the 1:1 crew and I had some fun trying to get it to work, and I got to test a unique bit of gear that may influence others on their own purchases. I am also finding that having these relatively inexpensive “micro projects” are good ways to test ideas, materials, glues, etc. against a day that seems to becoming all too soon when I will have the ability to take on projects that require larger commitments of time and space. In the meantime, given concern about the future of the hobby, I hope by documenting our efforts to get in as a family and just brainstorm, cut, hack, saw, glue, paint, dig, plant, and brainstorm until it works might encourage a few others to convert their Christmas Tree Express into a years-round endeavor.

Back on topic…

While I like working with the 1:1 crew, sometimes I need to just look at things in silence with their 1:24 counterparts. This is especially true when irreversible cuts may be on the line! I brought out Komaka Iki, our first m2075 rehab, to get a sense of where to sit the boiler/cab part:

Good news here is that the locomotives will sit at roughly the same height. It also revealed an area I can improve upon. You’ll note in the photo below I cut Komaka Iki’s deck plat to match “his” outer perimeter:

I plan to cut Christmas Thomas’ new deck plate a bit smaller so that the lip of the body will cover the edge and the screw holding motor block to body.

I will also have to fashion some linkage to the valve gear, as the 1:24 crew shows:

I plan to bend some wire to shape then bring it up through the deck plates to at least emulate the linkages on Komaka Iki and “real” STAINZ. This is pretty well hidden, so it only has to be “good enough” to hold that rod up and out of the way and allow it to move up and down with the rest of the rods.

The next consideration was the fore and aft fit. The limiting optic here are the little downcomers. I want them to at least look like they penetrate to the steam chests! I lined up everything to suit my eye…

…and it’ll just work!

Truth be told, I was sort of looking forward to extending the coal bunker. Next project! The MIK is coming!

Next, it was off to the box-o-bits to see what I could use for endbeams and to find my plexiglass for the deckplate. I found a coal load Rooster donated along with endbeams for Komaka Iki’s restoration, and the ever resourceful, the 1:24 gang found leftover wood from the cane car project:

Clearly, there is some styrene work to be done on the stern, possible something to imply back-up lights, and some sort of bolt heads to imply that these endbeams are held on by something other than E6000, but this should look OK. I might - MIGHT - bend some piano wire to connect the forward beam to the smokebox, but we’ll see.

Before closing, I did locate the deckplate material. I forgot I had pressed it into service elsewhere… I’ll say where in the next update! Suffice to say, I have an intermediate project to undertake to restore this plastic to railroad service!

Have a great weekend!

Eric

[Eric_Mueller]

Soooooo…it seemed the missing plexiglass was here…

…covering half of my 55 gallon tank for rather large fish. This meant that the first step to getting Christmas Thomas back in service was converting that piece of egg crate into an aquarium top, something for which I bought the egg crate a couple months ago, anyway. I used some flush cutting pliers I bought for train projects to cut the crate to size…

liberating the plexiglass for this project:

The black plastic is actually from the aquarium lid this compromise replaced. For those who keep fish, modern LED lights are pretty well sealed. I have switched over to cheaper and ultimately more durable eff crate lids to no ill effect beyond increased evaporation, something only of concern to those keeping critters requiring exacting water conditions.

I shifted my focus to MOW work after this. Corrections to my “plantation loop” jiggled every last rail joiner out of position, so trains were barely running. Kid-zilla and I applied rail clamps to the worst sections. My in-laws showed up later, and my father-in-law and I raised the mill almost an inch to level tracks so twisted by the mill’s settling over the last year that trains were derailing. There is no point in restoring a locomotive if 'trons cannot pass through the tracks to make it run!

Updates as situation warrants!

Eric

[Eric_Mueller]

Update:

I dedicated the morning to various projects. I almost fixed our homemade throttles, but the polarity of the 4-pin connectors had been obscured over time. I then discovered that my multi-meter broke. Kid-zilla and I rigged an old MRC transformer to the plantation loop, and all was well…On to this project.

Today, I taught Kid-zilla how to score…

…snap, sand…

…and fit…

…plexigalss parts. Usually, we stumble through the learning process together. Today, I actually had a skill to pass on. Yay, me! The end result looked like this:

About where you can see the reflection of my elbow, you can see one of the fastening points for the original chassis. Straight up from the reflected crest of the German Naval Academy, where I was once an exchange midshipman, is the other one. I plan to exploit both to fasten the deck to the boiler/cab. I will fasten the rear of the deck as we did Komaka Iki, with a block of wood held to the inner tank walls with E6000 to receive wood screws coming up through the deck plate.

We now had to examine the new chassis. Of all the STAINZ in the stable, most are the old “clamshell” style. Komaka Iki has a Maerklin one, but it is apparently a bit older. Kid-zilla took this one out to the tracks for test, and…nothing…There are two sets of pins coming out of the motor block:

Jumping across each pair did nothing. I thought about jumping across pins from port to starboard side, then decided against destroying a second motor block on this project. I’ll find the diagram first! It may be I have to get the circuit board to finish this. Oh, well…

We decided not to let the 'trons ruin our spree, so we studied how best to mount the boiler/cab to the chassis. As you can see, the rear coupler extension will be an issue that we didn’t have with Komaka Iki, who got a block of wood to serve the purpose:

I thought about cutting the projections on the motor block flush and then cutting the coupler extension. Cutting the new piece seemed a bad idea, since a.) I’ve no confidence in my ability to cut a straight line, and b.) you can’t uncut things if you screw up. The plan, instead, is to cut holes in the deck over the triangular extensions as we did for Komaka Iki. The simulated rods from the valve gear can then pass up through the holes that accommodate the triangles in the center. I’ll get the stern to settle over the coupler extension by cutting slots to accommodate the walls of the coupler extension. The whole lot will secure to the motorblock by tapping holes in the deckplate and using the existing screws to simply fasten the deckplate to the motor block. At worst, I am out a piece of plexiglass.

I don’t like to make major moves on the fly when I am unsure of the direction (MIK’s excepted!), so we backed off to sleep on it. At that point, O.S. joined us for MOW work, installing railclamps on troublespots. I had picked up ~100 second-hand on business trip to CONUS some time ago, (You don’t say “No!” to SplitJaw clamps at ~70 cents each!). Now, to find screws locally to finish the job.

Errands and a beach run later, it was time to just run trains. Kid-zilla took a perch at Deadman’s Curve, the historically most troublesome part of the mainline…

…for an evening when European iron horses got to stretch their legs…

Someday, I will learn how to focus the camera on my tablet. it’ll probably be about the time I consistently remember to stop trains before photographing them!

Have a great week!

Eric

[Eric_Mueller]

Update:

Blustery winds made diving impractical, so I gave over a good part of the weekend to this project. I had measured out and sketched my cuts earlier in the week, then used a grease pencil to mark where they should go:

While the 1:24 gang finished their coffee and got their tools, I set out some motivation, to include Oma’o and the MOW train loaded with rail clamps and tools should a break be needed:

Most of you know I tend measure 54 times and screw it up anyway, so this time I measured a 55th time…

…and, as they say, 55th time is a charm! Unfortunately, it was just a tad short (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-frown.gif), and the motor block screws didn’t quite line up with the deck. In addition, there is a bulge in the motor block lid, so the deck won’t lay flat. The gang shows our plan, which is to use some washer, a slightly longer screw, and brace the deck in place:

Not having longer screws, I went on to some styrene work. Somewhere along the line, I deployed rail clamps until I ran out screws. Anyway, the “bow” and “stern” got patches. I used piano wire left over from Diesel Dan’s handrails to make the small piece of electrical conduit. I was especially proud of that one.

I have since patched the large hole over the coupler, too. Also, I dug out the beams for the end beams.

Meanwhile, back on the lanai, E6000 served to mount some scrap wood to the interior:

I actually set them flush to the edge of the tank, then carefully pressed the deckplate up into the blocks to ease them to the correct height. I even located the washers and wood screws, all left over from the cane car project of last year, to moung the boiler / cab to the deck. At this point, I decided to let all the glue cure, put Oma’o an the MOW train on a siding, and let 'Olu’olu (Red) pull the local for the rest of the day. Rudy Railbus wasn’t having it, so “he” came off the tracks, Diesel Dan took over, and all was well…at least after “his” box car took a nose dive into a gully to deprive itself of its brake wheel, thus making it consistent in appearance with like all our other box cars.

Sunday came and after church the boys and I stopped by the hardware store to look at screws and washers. Much to the relief of the staff, we found them without mixing up too many of the drawers! Exchange HSB engineer Hans Josef looks on as the gang installs the deck:

The nylon washers are a tad thick, causing the boiler / cab to sit too high. Of course, I didn’t notice this until AFTER I assembled everything!

I raided (with permission and oversight…I was to take nothing good or expensive!) CINCHOUSE’s jewelry making supplies to find something for the valve gear. I settled on earring posts and small beads…

The earring posts will hold their shapes once bent, and the beads will keep the things from slipping from the rod. Or so I hope…I will tinker with this once I’ve painted the chassis flat black and effectively finished the rest of the project.

I wish I could say I assembled what I had to carefully check the fit. In fact, I assembled everything I had simply to see this loco underway, making weigh for the first time in over a year. The 1:24 gang got into their work caboose, Hans Josef brought up steam…

…Kid-zilla ambled out to take the throttles…

…and video proof I should have started with a STAINZ chassis to begin with: Video of Christmas Thomas Underway on His Own Power.

We are now where we should have been in March, back when the kids still had interest in the project. There is still some styrene work to do, end beams to make, painting to complete, coal to load, headlamp to power, signage to print (gotta get that CRICUT!), and weathering to apply, but I feel like this project is over the hump…at last…Christmas Thomas, if nothing else, will be ready for duty in December when the Christmas tree arrives on the lanai!

Updates as progress merits.

Have a great week!

Eric

[David_Marconi_FOGCH (David Marconi CHHNNG)]

Looks like a nice productive week was had

[Joe_Zullo]

Eric,

I can’t get your video to work.

It doesn’t look right. What does come up on my desktop is the picture of Kid-zilla at the throttle.

https://bn1303files.storage.live.com/y4mEiNQ_56NIaD4UGkYsGFQSQ-wdyzJObtntJS-GpU5_SjEIKhcMOPCnKHpk9_tnjUnB2_wxMoZUoC1u-_dgj5eCuWa1usq2hX8hST-ejnvNsZwHJIFKojDGrRGA_tkEiNOEsZ-WDeeOCDX5-L3wbMBX2sRlwiMoNj_W6ZSH8EwFXc7gd-1jZKLecUWi6gu1hKK?width=256&height=256&cropmode=none

[Eric_Mueller]

@Joe: Video has always bedeviled me. I forgot to make sure I pasted in the right link. I updated my original post to see if I can get it to work.

[Eric_Mueller]

U

…and video proof I should have started with a STAINZ chassis to begin with: Video of Christmas Thomas Underway on His Own Power.

We are now where we should have been in March, back when the kids still had interest in the project. There is still some styrene work to do, end beams to make, painting to complete, coal to load, headlamp to power, signage to print (gotta get that CRICUT!), and weathering to apply, but I feel like this project is over the hump…at last…Christmas Thomas, if nothing else, will be ready for duty in December when the Christmas tree arrives on the lanai!

Updates as progress merits.

Have a great week!

Eric

[Eric_Mueller]

@Joe: All I managed to do is accidentally erase the end of the original post. I reposted that paragraph above. Sorry.

[PeterT]

Eric,

Tried to make sense of your link, but the onedrive link doesn’t work as an embed.

[Eric_Mueller]

@Pete. Thanks. I cannot remember how I did it before…Maybe just a straight link? Here’s to trying: Video of Christmas Thomas Underway on His Own Power.

Eric

[Ken_Brunt]

That one worked.

[David_Marconi_FOGCH (David Marconi CHHNNG)]

I like how Thomas appears out of nowhere (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

[Eric_Mueller]

@David: Yeah, that was a good trick! No idea how that happened…

I figured I’d use my latest update to try out the new software. I had to burn a vacation day, so I took Thursday precisely because no one ever takes Thursday. After getting out of bed, I settled on the lanai and started worrying over all the various holes still in Christmas Thomas. Chief among these was an unsightly gap between “his” smokebox and the new chassis. I had to see how I addressed this with my first STAINZ/m2075 hybrid, and I remembered I had used a block of wood. Back into the scrap box I went, and, following some Dremel-ing, I made got what I needed. Then I had to turn to the scrap plastic bin to cover a hole over the forward coupler and fill a gap just forward of that newly installed wood. This process may have been better had a photographed the tinkering as it was going on…

Anyway, Hans Josef shows both the wooden block and the plexiglass shim:

The next shot shows the final fit:

As an aside, that drag-and-drop photo posting thing is magnificent!

Today, after an unsuccessful attempt at diving, I fieldstripped the chassis and gave it a good coat of flat black primer. Hopefully, by tomorrow, that chassis will be back together and mated to the boiler/cab piece. Then it’s off to fun stuff like the end beams and the coal load. Weathering will wait until after “he” gets his M&K Sugar Co. markings and road number.

Speaking of company markings, the local craft store had a sale. CINCHOUSE gave me my Christmas gift early - a CRICUT Explore Aire 2! Looks like Christmas Thomas has a few new lessons to teach us!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Eric

[Eric_Mueller]

Update:

Today, after troubleshooting our homemade power supplies and throttles, I turned to with the 1:24 crew to get this over the hump.

After much sanding, I made a little plug to mount the forward end beam:

E6000 holds the plug in place. Rapid Fuse holds the end beam in place. The result was not too bad…

…but it would benefit from some bold heads to make it apparent what hold it in place! We’ll see what the hobbyshop has, and I can peruse the hardware store, too.

The lads decided that we needed two beams in the stern…

…and, again, it would benefit from some bolt heads. I may try to cut some steps forwards and aft, too.

After that, I cut Rooster’s donated coal load to shape, giving Christmas Thomas some fuel, wired up “his” headlamp to a battery pack hidden in the cab, and, hey, presto! this long running project is finished in terms of construction! The 1:24 crew knows that the real glamor shop cannot come until after “he” gets marking for the M&K Sugar Co., but, nonetheless, we all felt a shop photo was appropriate.

Not done, but this is a pretty far cry from where we, 1:1 and 1:24 alike, began early this year. As a reminder, this was our starting point:

Updates to follow as we apply the finishing touches, but all the major engineering is under the keel and astern of us! With Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas just around the corner, I need to keep the lanai clear of major projects, so this milestone came just in the nick of time.

Aloha and thanks for the tips along the way! More to come as we finish this out!

Eric