Selfishly, I am voting for the m2076, as it may inform our own project. Starting with just the shell, a year or so ago, and with a kind parts donation from Rooster, we brought one back to life by marrying it to a STAINZ as you may recall:
I am eyeballing a battery-powered chassis from Smallbrook studios for a go at our next one. We’ve gotten a bit better at modeling, and I am anxious to see what “Round Two” could produce! Need the overtime, first, to get that chassis!
Eric
I started dismantling the side rod diesel because it should be the easiest (famous last words???)
All the is required is bit of a dismantle and a repaint to get it looking like an Australian sugar cane diesel, what problems could that throw up???
As all the electronics have fallen in a heap after the double sided tape failed, I am treating this as a deep level maintenance task, repairing any faults plus the respray.
The 2076 is shaping up to be a total rewire with R/C and sound and a body configuration change.
The Garrett is sitting in the “it’s too hard” basket till I get a “roundtoit”
When the weather cools off later the sugar mill will be the main focus but that will be a major job that I will throw all resources at.
For battery power why not just re wire the chassis you have, its not that hard all you really need is some side cutters, a soldering iron and a few bits to cross to the dark side of battery R/C young padawan.
On my blog is the build log of how I did the stainz, all conversions are basically the same its just the body shape that varies.
The dark side calls (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
Howzat?
Ken Brunt said:
Howzat?
Thanks looks like I now have to think of another excuse to leave it on the shelf (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
GAP,
I should be more clear. The picture above was something we brought back from the dead already. That 2075 shell (Komaka Iki / Little Thomas) was from an LGB battery powered set I got in 1976 that I played to death by 1980!
The next 2075 shell in line is from a similar LGB battery-powered set the crew recieved in 2015. It never worked well. It barely has the torque to pull the thing through a curve. The IR controller gave out in ~6 months. The motor took on the bad habit of dislodging istelf. The loco limped along about 5 years, in and out of service, as I fiddled to keep the motor in place. To be fair, this set was probably never designed for more than a few trips around the tree each year, but, still… Anyway, this is the one that will get a battery powered chassis.
Eric
Well having finally gotten a “roundtoit” (Thanks Ken) I started converting the LGB 0-6-0 Side Rod from this;
To something that resembles this;
(https://www.largescalecentral.com/FileSharing/user_3049/GAPs%20Pictures/Cane%20Diesel.jpg)
There is a bit of scratch-building involved to change it from a US outline to something more Australian
This will not be an exact copy of the original but more in keeping with my theme it will be a “prototype” of a new loco based on another loco.
Hey its how I get around the “its not prototypical” comments on forums.
Standby for more progress pictures as they come to hand.
GAP said: This will not be an exact copy of the original but more in keeping with my theme it will be a “prototype” of a new loco based on another loco.
Standby for more progress pictures as they come to hand.
I like that approach.
Will stand by.
Some pictures of some scratch built details for the Australianised loco.
Take a Bachmann Big Hauler Headlight
Cut it down, remove the lens and replace with some flyscreen mesh
and you end up with an air conditioning unit
To make an exhaust pipe and muffler I am using a length of wire coat hanger, the barrel from a ball point pen, and a length of flexible 4mm irrigation riser tube.
The wire will be threaded down the riser and shaped to form the pipe, the riser will be threaded through the barrel before bending to form the muffler.
I have updated my blog page for the Stainz conversion
and my whole stick wagons
I am now calling them finished.
Thanks for directing me to the blog (again). This was a clean and elegant conversion! Your solution for the stack was really, really cool!
What do you get when you tell an Australian pensioner with way too much time on his hands “I do not care what you do inside your train area just keep out of my part of the garden!!!” (quote SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) aka wife);
Answer he sits in the train area drinks some beers and starts to think (got a headache from that but…)
I have been looking at how to incorporate a sugar mill complex into my existing layout then I had this bright idea; why incorporate an industry when I can just create a layout around one and interface the other one into it.
The end result of this deliberation (brain cells oiled by aforementioned beer) was this little idea; take a large amount of code 250 track sitting around doing nothing (rest of the layout is code 332) and make a sugar cane layout; then connect a line between the two because it is not too far from how cane lines and mainline interact.
I have roughly laid out the run from the mill to the “farms” which is a basic single track with a return loop about 17M (56Ft) long; the point will switch by itself as a train pushes through it; ie train goes around the loop one way and changes the point on the return leg and the next train sets the point in the other direction.
(https://www.largescalecentral.com/FileSharing/user_3049/GAPs%20Pictures/Farms%20Line%20Loop.JPG)
(https://www.largescalecentral.com/FileSharing/user_3049/GAPs%20Pictures/Farms%20Line.JPG)
GAP said:
What do you get when you tell an Australian pensioner with way too much time on his hands
That just doesn’t always happen in Australia…(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif) (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Ken Brunt said:
GAP said:
What do you get when you tell an Australian pensioner with way too much time on his hands
That just doesn’t always happen in Australia…(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif) (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
I should mention you don’t have to be an Australian or a pensioner! Also, the headache can be avoided by forgoing thinking!
Also, I am a bit confused. Will the mill’s railway be the layout? The big plantations out here had systems worthy of their own layouts. In the “Grand Do-Over,” the Triple O would be the plantation system with the interface with the OR&L / common carrier implied.
Eric
Eric,
It will be a totally stand alone layout in itself.
There will be an interchange line running off the mainline to collect the raw sugar, cane trains will not run on the mainline and vice versa.
I am thinking of running 2 trains on the main loops in opposite directions and I can run cane trains and do some shunting.
A track plan of where I am up to. Ben Hur had nothing on this production (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
The line on the left is a staging line (just have to get it under the incline) with a potential run into a storage area under my HO layout in the shed (top left).
GAP,
A belated “Thank you!” for clearing that up. This is not dissimilar in concept to but grander in execution the our own efforts. The Triple O’s “heavies” never cross onto the M&K plantation tracks. On Oahu, the mills bagged the sugar, and the OR&L took the bags to the docks in box cars. In theory, I am trying to emulate this. Empty box cars or those with supplies for the mill are placed where the plantation’s little cane locos can get them and haul them to the mill. They are pushed back when full of sugar. I scored a couple box cars locally, so maybe we will have to put theory to practice!
Eric
I have just repainted and modified an LGB 20630 US side rod diesel into an Australian sugar cane loco, amazing what happens when you get “aroundtoit”.
The changes involved a repaint, removing all the US coupling stuff off the buffer beam, adding a new exhaust pipe and rearranging the horn and air cleaners.
This what it looked like before I started;
(https://www.largescalecentral.com/FileSharing/user_3049/GAPs Pictures/Side+Rod+on+Low+Trestle.JPG)
and this is what it looks like now
(https://www.largescalecentral.com/FileSharing/user_3049/GAPs Pictures/Side Rod repaint Side View.JPG)
(https://www.largescalecentral.com/FileSharing/user_3049/GAPs Pictures/Side Rod repaint Side w cane bin.JPG)
Now all that is left is to weather it some more to make it look like it has been out in the paddocks.
But did you fix its accent?(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
Eric Mueller said:
But did you fix its accent?(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
Just fed it a couple of XXXX’s and that got rid of the accent (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
I did a bit of weathering to simulate how it might look after some time out in the cane fields.
I went a bit overboard and toned it down a few notches but it probably need some more toning down in places.
The grey things on the back buffer beam are “air con” units, they are made out of a couple of Bachmann big hauler oil lanterns with fly wire to simulate the fan grills a piece of balsa is used to highlight the fly wire/screen.
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