I use the Z channel from ever green. one pack will last for years unless you do an outside frame boxcar. I don’t recall what size I have in my supplies but I can send you some if you need a few pieces 
Part the Third - Silver Star
Belated update…The diorama is done, so Kid-zilla and I can commence work on PCU Silver Star this weekend. Per your suggestion, @David_Marconi_FOGCH , we got some Z-channel and a sheet of thin styrene for the roof hatch (vent?). If I pick up HO scale rail, @Korm , he’ll start in on a mini HO scale layout! Got to keep the kid focused!
I think to repair the chunk of roof, I will cut a strip of that styrene and make it fast to the roof forward of the cab. That should give it a broad area for the glue to hold it in place. They, I’ll have him fill the gap with epoxy putty and shape it. The putty is easy to work with, and it should adhere at least somewhat to the edge where that chunk broke off, too. If need be, we can reinforce it on the bottom with some of that z-channel. We’ll see how far we get this weekend!
Eric
Update:
The cab was our focus this weekend, which was good, as two passing tropical storms put to rest any hope of spray painting! I am able to put more and more of this project into Kid-zilla’s hands, which is, of course, a goal. I still help with idea generation and provide safety overwatch, but it is satisfying to watch him choose materials, glues, sandpaper, etc.
He began Friday by cutting a strip of styrene and clamping it under the “brim” of the roof to serve as a base for the patch.
I helped to appley the MEK to serve as glue (He thought the idea of melting the plastic together was pretty cool!), and I helped for a CA glue fillet to hold the shape.
The next day, he filled in the gap between the styrene strip and the roof then formed a patch with epoxy putty, carefully molding it to shape.
He sanded it smooth this morning and said, “Hey! This looks pretty good!” In fact, it does!
Later today, he took to the issue of the roof vent, measuring both the rails and styrene cap by himself and cutting them to length.
A bigger chore proved to be grinding, cutting, and filing out the no-longer-needed plastic thing with the circle in it. Y.D. helped to spur him along, as she wanted him to go to the park with her!
I helped to mix some two-part epoxy to mount the rails, and voila! Ready for final surface prep, masking, and paint!
He demonstrated the hatch at dinner, and he declared it too small. That’s an easy fix, and I am sure we can repurpose the test part!
I told him that he has to mask the windows, inside and out, and make sure he was happy with his epoxy work. Then PCU Silver Star’s cab will be off to the paint shop! I should note, we also cleared some flashing from the boiler and smoke box and, after soaking the metal compressor and generator overnight in paint thinner, finally scraped off the thick, bubbly factory paint. The rest of this loco is also almost ready for paint, which is exciting!
Updates as progress merits!
Eric
Update:
Kid-zilla got the cab masked and finished the sliding roof hatch.
Yours truly got the firebox, boiler, and smoke box primed.
It was very humid last week, so I am letting it cure. We should get most of the rest of it primed this weekend.
As a reward for prepping PCU Silver Star for painting, I introduced Kid-zilla to the marvels of e-Bay. A tender is now wending its way to Oahu!
- Eric
P.S. He has an AMTRAK project in mind, @Rooster ! Fear not!
Update:
Priming continued. I got lazy, and rather than cleaning the Palm of Spray Painting, I just laid down some newspaper over the grass clippings prior to priming the domes and running boards. The wind blew the paper onto the wet primer, and, of course, grass got on it anyway. At least it was the primer!
More importantly, the new tender got an operational test behind Golden Star.
The sound system works, and it rolls very smoothly! The battery hatch / water fill hatch has broken hinges, which we will have to address. Kid-zilla discovered mounds of CA glue only go so far…
I will note that Kid-zilla also did a bit of initiative MOW work. You may recall Golden Star was hitting the loco shed seen in the background. I was going to move the siding. He installed a spacer track. Problem solved with a LOT less work. The force is strong in this one, indeed, @Rooster !
Over the next week, I will continue to prime and paint the loco. I’ll have Kid-zilla break down and clean the tender prior to sending it to the paint shop, too. The cab could use some light sanding to remove some runs, but I want to see if he notices that. He does not feel comfortable with the spray paint yet, so I will continue to do that for him. Once it is all in or nearly in paint, I’ll let him pick out and order the engineer and fireman as a reward, then we will hand it over to O.D. for lettering. As I posted quite a bit of the masking and posting for Golden Star’s rebuild, the rest of this thread will probably only catch major milestones.
Incidentally, we kept the blue-grey and flat-black color scheme. It actually looks very pleasant on the railroad, and, as Kid-zilla often reminds me “O-R-O-R (Our railroad, our rules)!”
Eric
2 Likes
Update:
More activity at the Palm of Spray Painting!
The loco and boiler are approaching reassembly and detailing. Meanwhile, the tender awaits its trip to the aforementioned palm.
Kid-zilla did this by himself, and he is quite pleased with the job!
Painting is going slowly. The high humidity makes a real difference in drying time!
Updates as required!
Eric
Update:
Kid-zilla got the paint marker last weekend and learned the hard way that masking is always in order.
PCU Silver Star earned a couple extra trips to the Palm of Spray Painting, but, other than that, the only damage was a bit of lost pride and the gain was a bit of learning. Kid-zilla is a big believer in masking now!
He has since moved on to reassembly, and, tonight, the tender rolled out of the shops.
To remind him how close he is to realizing his vision for this former derelict, I brought @David_Marconi_FOGCH 's chassis out of storage and placed it on the lanai. He was ready to move on to lettering, but I asked he hold until Oldest Daughter could lend-to on that. The letters are a commodity, and she has the steadiest hand.
I have told my boys the most dangerous phase of any project is when it is almost done. The project, whatever it is, is too big to be broken down into small, easily protected parts. The desire to see it done leads to rushing. No one wants to see a mishap just before a derelict returns to service as part of the Triple O’s vaunted Star-liners!
Updates as merited.
Eric
4 Likes
You’re teaching them some hard learned life skills Eric, well done.
Cheers
N
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
1 Like
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!