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
