Have any of you guys seen or built Randy Gustafson's kit of the climax? It's a jewel of a kit, and tonight I tried to start my kit. but I need a good well lit place to work, and dont have it yet. I live in a 4 bedroom house and the wife has to have all the bedrooms in case her kids decide to come visit, and they all live in town. Damdest thing I ever saw. I had to put it up til I can get a workbench good light, and some outlets. Her tables are all oak, and she doesn't want a scratch on em. In the instructions it says to bend a couple of motor leads so the motor will stay in place, well, mine won't stay it keeps jumping back up so no contact is made electricly. Has anyone else built one of these neat little kits? I think I'll get a hot glue gun and glue the motor down that way. If any of you have built one of little gems, let me know how you did it please.
Hey, I'm right here if you need tech support, just email me at the address on the website. Jumping back at the front or back? It's designed as kind of a force-fit, but when you put the water tank on it will hold the motor down. If you glue it down you won't be able to get the boiler off, or the contacts out for adjustment, or a bunch of other minor maintenance irritations later. If you want to test the mechanism just temporarily tape it down. It won't kill you, but its kind of an 'oh crap...' down the road. Probably the easiest thing to do right now is put the water tank on it to hold the motor on. I'm custom-building three of these as I speak, so if you need better shots of the back to show how to bend the contacts that might be a better idea, too.
I bought two! The first one I shunk to Z scale. No motor, but it looks pretty good. I also have an N scale motorized Climax that is the pride of my fleet. Great models and kits. Hot wax? Not sure that is in the instructions. Jim:thumbs_up:
Randy, I was just wanting to see what eveyone else might do that worked. I sent you an email also. The motor, front, comes up, I tried bending the leads as you said in the instructions, and it did not hold the motor front down, it just jumps back up. If I turn lose of it to add the water tank, It will jump up before I can get the water tank on it. How about double sided tape underneath the motor, will that mess anything up? I have great big hands, and fingers to match so it's not easy, but I'll get it one way or another. This is such a neat kit I want to finish this one, then get another or two for my layout. Once I get this one figured out I wont have to bother you so much. Just call me fumble fingers. Thanks sir.
Randy, I was just re-reading your post, and in looking at and reading your instructions, the front of the loco, the motor end, right? The water tank would be on the rear, non powered end? Maybe I'm all mixed up? The pic on your post looks cool and I guess I better start over and see what i'm doing wrong, looks like I'm all messed up.
The 'force fit' is between the floor (the back end of the boiler/floor casting) and the clips in the back. So if that doesn't turn out to be a force fit that holds the motor steady enough during assembly, you can always try a little tape. You may need to add some shims inside the water tank to hold the motor down as well, depends how you shape the front of the tank which is luck as much as anything. Make no apologies for asking for help on these. And I sure don't mind helping. I get more frustrated when I hear or see one with trouble and I wonder why I was never asked for help. The kit is as much about learning skills as assembling something, and I really want to help people loose the fear of making stuff in this day of 'empty the box' modeling.
The water tank should hold down the motor: But if it does jiggle, do like Randy said and add some shims. A Dremel helped a lot to get the water tank opening fit right for the motor. I converted mine to DCC, putting a decoder in a hollowed-out space underneath the chassis: So I have the grey & orange wires soldered directly to the motor (no clips). Where I ran foul was playing too much with the contact strips (and milling & drilling too much with the chassis around them) along the chassis. Once you start playing with those, it is VERY difficult to get them back into shape. They act as both pickup and spring action, and you need both! So I got to about here: And realized I had tweeked the chassis beyond reliable operation. (I had also broken one of the trucks with enthusiastic cutting-off of the couplers, and tried to glue it, but I'm sure electical pickup suffered as a result). Luckily, I ordered two 11-105 units when I started, so I can save the frame and just redo the chassis. The key to success with Randy's fab kit is to BE VERY CAREFUL!!! Take your time, read the instructions multiple times, and file, cut & glue slowly & surely. This is not a project to hurry! And the less you mess with the mech, the better As Randy said, this is also a learning process, and I'm glad I learned what I learned. When I get back to finishing the project with the second chassis, I know I'll get it spot on and have a fabulous Climax for my Turn-of-the-Century Columbia River layout. Good luck!
Thanks guys, I'll try again tomorrow and see if I can't get things to work. I'm out of patience tonight. A dang heart attack left my hands shaky after a few minutes of messing around. That is supposed to change pretty soon, at least it's getting better. I shall win, and I have a second unit in my box as it is.
Hi, I have built two so far. Great kits! I used a different approach to keep the motors in place. I drilled two holes in the chassis either side of the motor contacts and bent a single piece of wire up through both holes. I then bent small hooks into the ends of the wire that grab onto the notches on either side of the back of the motor. The back of the motor easily clips in to the hooks, and then the motor is pushed down at the front and is kept in place by the circuit board. This has worked well for me and I don't need to screw the Climax bodies to the chassis at all. The trick is to drill the holes as close as possible to the contacts and motor to reduce the amount of the water tanks you have to carve out with the dremmel, but not too close that it shorts the motor contacts. Peter
Work Place Hi Railnut, After quite a few different attempts to come up with a good solid, portable work area that is quick and easy to set up or store, here is a little work table I came up with. The legs are a walker that has shortened the legs an relocated the wheels. The top is a noodle board I made from a scrap of 3/4" plywood and a lath strip. It is scalloped in the front and sized to fit a good size cutting mat. I cut a scap of vinyl flooring to fit and work on the bottom side of the flooring. I like the nice non-glaring light gray surface.The top is held onto the legs with a pair of bungee chords. If I want to work at the dinning room table I use the work surface without the legs. I put the cutting mat under the work suface to keep it from sliding. I wipe it off first just to make sure nothing will scratch the table. The organizer was bought off the internet. It wasn't cheap, but worth every penny. I searched for a little while and found a retailer that had if for about half the price of some others An alternative would be to use a set of small plastic drawers instead and some scraps of foam or plastic pipe to hold tools in. I've seen where some guys will take scraps of PVC pipe and arange them Gatling gun or Pan flute style on what I assume is a sheet styrene base and glue them together. I've also tried different lights for this. I like the LED Ott light because it is cordless and bright, but the battery life isn't that great. A good alternative is a pulg in knock off of a folding compact flourescent Ott light. I just did a search for the light I have and found this LED lamp that is battery or USB powered. http://www.meritline.com/18-led-fla...lamp-plastic---p-69934.aspx?source=nextaghdac I haven't tried this lamp but it should be able to run off a USB phone charger.If I take my tools on the road everything except the walker and table top fit into a large cardboard boot box. Hope this helped John
