Gerd, You like alcohol best for stripping? Do you use 90 percent? I would use the percentage key, but when I hit the percentage key I get %. Stupid keyboard.
Hmmm... 'hic-up'... Loren, Stupid keyboard? Or... Having you been drinking your 90% stripping alcohol?
I've used 91% Isop. Alcohol and it seemed to work pretty good. Robert, do you have any extra fans you'd be willing to part with? Does anyone recall Joe D' saying if MTL was making any clear beacons for the cab roof?
I use methylated spirits, so in other words ethanol 95%. The good thing with ethanol is it doesn't effect super glued on parts (if not exposed to the ethanol for more than 4 hours)
Alex, I don't drink any alcohol, but upon closer examination I came to a startling and embarrassing conclusion. The percentage sign....% really is just that, but on my screen I thought it was 96. But see, when I do type 96 it is easily recognizable. Hee Haw Embarrassed and feeling like I need to stop drinking even the water........
Hi Loren, 10 min soaked and brushed of with a soft tooth brush (don't use it after this exercise for it's original purpose )
Thanks Gerd, Ok, no teeth brushing with it, but how about scrubbing my fingernails? Thanks for the info. Do you ever strip any AZL injected shells and if so, what are the results?
Hi Loren, AZL is a different story: SD70M BNSF, soaking (a bit longer), tooth brush (a bit longer)-> paint stripped B&O GP7: 1 week soaked, 1/2 hour "tooth brushing", 1/2 hour tooth picks "detail" work -> paint nearly off , final removal with micro sandblaster.... PRR GP7: as SD70M Don't tell me that makes sense.... Fair to say the paint on BNSF and PRR was really, really thin, B&O was sticked and glued together with paint... I think Dave is using Pinesol, but I can't get the stuff over here; have tested approx. 10 other strong cleaners, but ethanol seems to work "best" for me.
On your photos, it seems that the central axle is missing on the trucs. Question : the SD40 MTL has 3 real axles trucks or just 2 axles trucks ?
The trucks have 3 axle, the wheels on the center axle has no flanges, I guess to improve running thru tighter radius
But although the center axle is flangeless I believe it's powered, on the opposite of 3-axle trucks on the AZLs. Dom
Dom, they are powered but are useless. The wheel doesnt even touch the rail. One of this days, I plan to replace them with real wheels.
Yes, it's a true 6-axle loco, but John, you are right, have to pull a truck apart and check what to do to make this axle work. The middle axle always needs to tolerate height differences on the track, but not touching....
Be careful there boys. If you force all 3 axles to be on the same plane, then the trackwork must be float-water flat. Otherwise, any high spots will lift an axle higher than the others. Especially bad if it is the middle one !!! This was an issues with AZL's earliest brass. A simple extra lift (0,005") was more than enough to keep the center idler axle from lifting the front and rear drivers off the rails ! Make sure each axle as some reasonable vertical play! .
158 replies & growing. Let's keep it growing I hope with all the repaints don't cross off the roadnames Joe wants to do. I saw a cool picture of 1984 merger partners with WP, MP, UP. It would be cool to add SP & D&RGW to the lineup. So, how well does the loco run? How many cars will it pull? Anyone tried BFS on the middle axle yet?
