So ever need a power drop for your Unitrak and don’t have any? None in your LHS, or online, or maybe just don’t want to spend $8 on one set? Well I have a simple so,Union for you… make your own! Lemme show you, they are actually pretty simple. First off you need Unijoiners. Take them out of the tracks if needed. Next you need to take them apart. This is pretty easy, there is a little tab on both sides that holds the metal and plastic together. Using a small screwdriver or pick, push in the tab lightly while pushing the metal up and out. You only need to do one side to get them apart, and you don’t have to push the tab in very far. Make a pile of metal and plastic and get ready for the next step. Plastic Pieces, we will be back to these later. To prevent you from burning yourself get a piece of rail and something to hold it. Put the metal parts of the joiners on the rail like you see below. I’m using a C clamp to hold everything. Next put a tiny bit of solder flux paste on the underside center of the joiner. Look at the pic below, you will see a dab of paste on each piece. Next tin the joiner with a small amount of solder Don’t go crazy on the last step, it will make putting everything back together more difficult later. Now strip about 3/16” of wire and tin with solder. I then soldered them flat to the joiner and pulled it off the rail piece. Set aside and finish the rest. And lastly reassemble. Make sure the little metal tabs stick out just slightly, and bend the wire 90 degrees, feed the wire into the center hole of the plastic piece and snap the metal and plastic back together. I know there are methods to make these without solder, but the friction fit distorts the plastic a but which could lead to issues. Hope this helps someone out there!
Another project on my workbench is getting my T-Trak station modules finished. I needed a stairway from the platforms to the ground level. This is a default model from the Tinkercad program that I sized to fit what I have already printed.
I built some paper buildings I've had for over a year, and weathered a bridge. Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk
I HAVE A SHOP AGAIN!! Well mostly, I still have too much stuff and can’t store it in my trailer yet because it’s still show season, but I got it cleaned up enough where I can use it just by moving a couple items. Next up was T-Trak work. I was teaching a friend how to build a module and he accidentally put the top on the bottom. This meant the leg supports were too far up to be able to adjust the module properly. So… I made new supports and glued them in place. Tomorrow I will remove the clamps and redrill the holes and reinsert the threaded legs and this module will be ready for decorations.
To decal, it is all Tru-Color paint. Tru-Color now has Frisco Orange BTW. And hopefully Frisco Red and Freight Car Yellow soon. This paint lays down every bit as good as Scalecoat. EveryWhereWest Model Painting
The last couple of decoder installations I did were on SP&S locomotives. BLI is not aftermarket decoder friendly. lol.
That's a great "how to". I did the same as you did on my railroad and made a bunch. Once you get the hang of it, it's easy.
Excellent technique! I've seen variations of the same process, except never saw the idea to use a piece of rail to hold several of the metal unijoiner clips while soldering. Fantastic idea! Just curious, but how often do you install powered Unijoiners on your layout? Every joint? Every track piece? Every N track pieces? Every N inches? I don't think there's a right or wrong answer; but I value your opinion...
I usually put them every 3 to 5 feet or after turnouts. Kato turnouts are power routing, which allows you to run multiple DC locomotives almost as easily as DCC. Because of this you have to be careful about where the power comes from. I also solder the unitrack after I am sure everything is good , leaving every 5th joint unsoldered for temp changes.
About every three feet or so where a spot is convenient. I don't solder the Unitrack though. My layout is in a temperature controlled space and I don't seem to need that step.
I live in a state with wildly different temps throughout the year, and my layouts live in a drafty double wide so…
Great! Those guidelines are all in the same ballpark (except soldering the track joints, but I can see the logic WRT climate control or not.) Not every unijoiner needs to be powered, but powering every ~3' or 3rd unijoiner seems about right. Where I have multiple short track sections to make up an exact length I need, I plan to cut down a longer piece to fit anyway. The train room/home office is climate controlled year-round, so I don't think soldering unijoiners to rails is necessary for me. I've got an 8 pc run of viaducts/bridges that will need some modifications to piers/viaduct housings to route the power wires, but that shouldn't be much of a fuss.
Using XTrackCAD, I ran a train around my folded dogbone mainline and the local industrial loop. XTrackCAD logged 585 inches of travel. This does not take into account industrial sidings or yard trackage. But for the mainline and industrial loop, placing powered unijoiners every ~36" would take 16 powered unijoiner pairs. Then I need 16 more powered unijoiner pairs for yard/industrial trackage, not included above, to avoid power un-routing by their respective switches.
Central pneumatic makes an air eraser that works really well for small sandblasting jobs. For using baking soda, the holes have to be enlarged on the gun, but it’s easy to do. I still use regular abrasive for brass however.
I just finished this old Kato/Con-Cor E8. I milled out the rear of the frame a bit, and designed a special large-volume speaker case. I used my Dremel bit in my drill press with a heavy vise to mill the frame. I put an OWS 9x16mm speaker on the case which fits over the rear gear and shaft. The speaker case fits without milling the frame, and held down with double-sided tape. LOUD. I milled out a hole for the decoder and lined the hole with Kapton tape. I used an 0402 white SMD LED with a 2.2kOhm resistor for the headlight- very bright. The decoder is an ESU Loksound 58816 with a 51993 plug. I removed the wires that were not needed, then loaded the 0583 sound file after everything was in place. If you want to use my case design- https://www.tinkercad.com/things/6cRVAyHspIf-speaker-cabinet-for-concor-e8-n-scale It is open for non-commercial use.
Who needs Micro-Trains when you've got a beat-up ancient AHM reefer, lots of extra PFE paint and decals, and questionable sanity?
The old reefer is on its way to being a proper R-70-11. Incidentally, I'm really impressed by this old car's ride height. It's actually lower than lots of much newer cars are out of the box.
