Patience is your friend young Mueller.
Update:
Kid-zilla started a sidequest over the weekend, re-inventorying all our B’mann bits and discovering we do, in fact, have the requisite parts for another loco.
Hmmmm…clearly I had to refocus him. On the upshot, he did make the necessary observations, to include testing motors, inspecting gears, etc. to truly triage things into projects and parts. He also was able to sort things by type, discovering not all gear boxes fit across all 10-wheelers. Learning!
I commenced refusing him on this project, and he cut the hole to recieve the polarity selector and the smoke generator switch.
The smokebox had been glued to the boiler at some point in this locos life, so getting those switches screwed into the back of the smokebox door was a four-handed, two man effort!
Next, we inspected the smoke box. Somewhere along the line, one of the filaments broke. We stripped some wires, rewrapped it…
…took it to the lab…
…and smoked our ersatz filament, which was, I believe stainless steel. Replacing this filament with a bit of copper wire tripped our power pack. I am assuming that it has so little resistance it is effectively a short circuit. Incidentally, this also blew the fuse on our homemade power supplies ( Switching Power Supplies – Safe for the Trains? - Electronics / Power and Sound - Large Scale Central). I am glad I installed those fuses as a guard against inadvertent destructive testing!
The smoke generator is below:
There are no shorts across the two metal halves. If we were to solder a resistor in line with our copper filament, would that solve our problem? Or should we just get a new smoke generator?
Once we get this figured out, we cab close up PCU Silver Star and proceed to lettering and final detailing.
Eric
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…alternatively, is B’mann’s current smoke unit ( Smoke Unit - (Large Scale) [G81001] - $12.26 : Bachmann Trains Online Store!) generic enough we should be able to put the old one out of its casing, insert this, and get going with this project?
Eric
Nope, sorry. The wire is most likely nichrome (heater wire). Need to source some that’s the same, which is gonna be a big ask in your neck of the woods, or look for a new one.
Cheers
N
Thanks, Neil. Guess we’ll peruse the B’mann page and see what else we need to make the shipping worth the effort!
Eric
Eric,
do you guys on hawai not have electrical heaters?
if you can find a broken one, inside of the heater"pipes" you can find some curly wire. (looks similar to the springs in ballpens) that is the kind of wire you need.
btw - if you see that the wire in the heater is broken, just hook the ends together and the heater works again (untill you kick it around again)
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In almost 30 years of living here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one for sale. Of course, I’ve never had call to look for one, either! I am sure that on Hawaii and Maui, where there are settlements at higher altitudes, folks have them. I am sure I could disassemble a toaster, but, at that rate, I may be better off ordering the part from B’mann!
Eric
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Update:
Smoke generator and an engineer on order from Bachmann. The shipping was actually reasonable, and the figurine was on sale, so all is well. Lesson learned…be careful storing those smoke generators!
Eric
Don’t ever have one turned on with no smoke fluid (mineral oil) in the vessel. I WILL burn out the coil.
Eric I have some USA smoke units I have pulled out of locomotives, I will send them and you can hold on to them, test them tear them apart , whatever you want… if you want them
Pete,
I was thinking the same thing however I didn’t want to turn him into a G Scale Orthodox myself so perhaps …ahhh never mind it was a joke!
if i had known half a century ago, that there exist places, where one never needs any heating, i would not be, where i am now.
Awesome! We had one project we didn’t get to this year that could use one, and Kid-zilla found the foundation for a second project! I think you have my address. I will PM in a moment!
Eric
Thanks. We’ve almost had to learn this the hard way, too!
Update:
The smoke unit arrived today, and we got it installed. We then partially closed up the loco to enable safer storage, as we have to put projects on hold for a bit to attend to other duties. We did forget to wire in the headlamp in our haste to get the smoke unite safely inside the smokebox, so that will take some creative wiring and soldering later. Fortunately, we noticed the missing headlamp before Kid-zilla, screw driver in hand, began buttoning the chassis and boiler together. As I said above, we are close, and we need to be extra careful to not rush as we bring PCU Silver Star closer to completion.
Eric
I’d like to the smoke unit that sucker goes into!
a disturbing thought, indeed. specially if you want to power that thing via trackpower…
but really, smoke units should not be a problem.
1 - all these double plus cheap locos, be it on plastik track, or bump and run type, have integrated 6 volt smoke generators. complete with fan and a little motor.
must be twenty or thirty years ago, that i installed one in a tender, using bendable straws to lead the smoke into the stack of a dummy-loco.
that dummy-loco smoked more, than any LGB loco ever did.
2 - for years now, i am Devoning over a project to install an E-cigarette and a fan into a loco.
Update:
Full court press to get PCU Silver Star on the rails this weekend! While we came up short, we…are…almost…there!
Some elements were decorative. We printed out PCU Silver Star’s number in several font sizes until we found a font that fit on the number plates. After a bit of contact cement, we put them in place.
With a bit of practice, we might get good at this in time!
A good part of Saturday was spending time doing battle with the head lamp. Because we cannot remove the plastic smoke box cover (the previous owner had glued it fast), we had to find an accessible point to solder the leads. We settled on this circuit board far in the stern.
This thing is for the sound machine in the tender.
Naturally, we blew up the bulb in the process, so I had to find one in our stores. We had an LGB bulb, which, just as naturally, did not fit in the B’mann lantern! One of Kid-zilla’s buddies came over, so I augured out the hole to make it fit.
Somewhere along the line, Kid-zilla prepped and tinned the leads…
…resulting in a perfectly lit headlamp…
…on a smokebox / boiler we could no longer mount because his parent had selected too short leads!
Schimpf!
Not to let bad parenting stand in the way of good modeling, this morning Kid-zilla spliced in longer leads.
His soldering is actually quite good! I may let him do it all the time!
This cleared the way for a successful - and parent free - reassembly.
PCU Silver Star only awaits a few detail parts to fit her out and O.D.'s steady hands to letter her up! Kid-zilla wanted to take PCU Silver Star to the rails tonight, but he agreed to hold off until the old loco is pau.
Updates as progress merits!
Have a Great Week!
Eric
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Update:
This was the weekend to drop the “PCU” (pre-commissioned unit) from Silver Star. We ransacked our parts bins…
…and found an uncoupling lever for the tender, completing its restoration.
At some point, O.D. helped letter this awakening ka’a ahi iki (little fire coach) to help complete its transformation from generic toy to personalized model. After which, Kid-zilla set-to fixing any paint runs and chips.
Finally, it was off the mainline for a few drops of oil before the test run that would bring PCU Silver Star into service as Silver Star.
The company brass boarded the coaches, a steady hand went to the throttle…
Video: Test Run of Silver Star
…and a locomotive entered service as a Triple O Starliner as a project slipped into history. The 1:24 gang, justifiably proud of their work, posed on the trestle for the traditional acceptance photo.
That will bring this thread to a close after a campaign of learning that began 147 posts and 6 months ago! I have done my best to convey the ups and downs of this experience through words and pictures, but what I really wish that I could share are the palpable waves of pride that emanate from Kid-zilla as he stares at a shelf full of three locomotives that he converted from trash to treasure over a half year of trial, error, learning, failing, more learning retrying, and, finally, succeeding! I have taken great joy and pride myself watching his growth as a modeler and human being, and I would ask all who’ve read these posts and cheered him on to bask in that joy and pride a bit, too.
Many helped, but there are a few folks who deserve a special “Mahalo!”
- @Bill_Barnwell , who has gently prodded me over the years to make this sort of a step
- @David_Marconi_FOGCH , @Rooster , @freddy , @PeterT , and @Pete_Lassen who kept the parts flowing when we ran up against logistical walls.
- The late Tom Trigg, who, from his vantage point in the dome of the Wabash Cannonball, is able to see we are still outside, we are still getting dirty, and we are still having fun.
End of the line for this project! Thanks again for all the help and encouragement along the way!
On Behalf of Kid-zilla,
Eric
P.S. But wait, there’s more! It looks like the 1:24 gang got hold of more parts and has plans for 2025!
Kid-zilla has a plan and is up to the challenge. But first the Mik! There is always the Mik!
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And to me that is the most important bit. Great job K-z you have shown great strides in your abilities while finding a path to a lifetime of enjoyment. Just never forget the KISS method that has held this railroad endeavor on the right track for apparently generations.
Eric, thank you for sharing these family moments through both words and pictures. It is great seeing the youth come into their own while sharing with their elders.
A special note to O.D. for the impressive lettering work on both engines.
And to CINCHouse (did I get that right), for mandating that all be included but none must.
A real joy all around. 
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