GE 44 tonner Randy... I remember the 44 tonner project that you did about a year ago. Did you sell those shells and instructions for other N scalers to make 44 tonners? If you didn't... will you consider doing it? I could use one or two of them... D&RGW had a few. Randy, it's amazing what you've been able to do with these tiny mechanisms; yet, you don't have the fancy machinery that N scale manufacturers have. Atlas, Kato, Lifelike/Walthers and others have the where-with-all to make these... but instead some chose to make another copy of an existing loco (E8/PA etc) shish!!!. I figure that if any of those manufacturers made a good quality 44 tonner it would sell well... particularly Undecs... since many were used by private owners (no UP licensing issues there).
On the 44-tonner - I scratchbuilt one. Never cast it. But see railwire.net, there's a great thread over there on doing a 44-tonner from the 'disposed' resin shells of JnJ's aborted project on a Kato B mechanism. That's the way to go, and there's contact information there on how to get the shells from the buyer that bought all the JnJ resin 44-ton shells. It's taken me seven critter projects to find one that I thought was practical as a kit; 44-tonner, 25-tonner, EMC40, 28-ton Shay, 30-ton Climax, Trackmobile, 18-ton Climax A. The A is by far the best bang for the buck on the operational, production, and assembly end. I feel particularly sorry for JnJ. They put all the work into the shell, couldn't get the mechanism and abandoned the project before Kato introduced the Model B series. If there's any justice, they'll re-release the resin shell (which is as good as a resin one is going to get) to custom-fit the B mechanism.
Alister, now I can say your workbench REALLY looks like mine! Glad to see you making progress. Remember that I'd originally made the cab floor 'side to side' but for practical dissassembly purposes I cut it out under the driveshaft only. Otherwise it's a real Chinese puzzle to dissassemble the locomotive when it's glued up - you would have to reinsert the motor onto the driveshaft while the shell is partway off. With a narrow channel cut under the driveshaft the whole assembled body can be lifted off with the motor still on the frame.
Thanks for the tip Randy. I made a channel and it does simplify things. I've had it apart a zillion times until I reread your instructions - Doh!!! The pickups - rebend them and refit - perfecto! no more Mr Jack Rabbit. I'll post another picture in a bit.
That's looking real good. I like your color scheme, too - what shade of wood/tan are you using? I thought of doing one completely weathered and 'in use', but you'd have to start with some kind of wood color and age it through. I'm not sure a fully weathered one would sell, but I may try one here anyway.
If your still selling these kits i'm interested in one and a look at the instructions as well. I sent you a PM as well. Thanks, Richard
Randy's instruction book should be the model for all makers of craftsman kits. It is simply the best I've ever seen. Clearly written, complete, with copious good illustrations. There's no doubt the kit will take some work to assemble, but Randy leads you through every step. It is a superlative job! No affiliation here. I supervised the production of technical manuals for a number of years in the computer and medical industries. Randy would be prized for this effort.
climax with roof -> 85% done I've got the roof on and the under chassis driveshaft (non functional) Oh Randy, the wood colour I'm using is Tamiya Desert Yellow (XF-59), all the paint I'm using on this is Tamiya acrylic
Corrected some boo boo's. If you look really really hard you can see the handrails around the water tank!
Yeah, that's lookin' good, real good. Watching this is is great fun, and I'd encourage anybody else that's working on one to post to this thread.
climax details done All the detail parts except the grab rails are on, the water pipes, sanding lines, kick plates and link & pin couplers are on. I need to spend more time working on my camera!
Converting Kato critter to DCC part 1 Before I start my kit I wanted to see if I could convert the critter to DCC. Here’s how I was able to convert the Kato critter to DCC. I hope to now be able to fit this in the Climax. The first photo is of the underside of the circuit board of the critter. This is installed face down in the frame touching the motor leads and truck pickup strips and provide the electrical path that the current follows from the trucks to the motor leads. To be able to convert this to DCC, there are cuts in the silver traces that need to be made in order to be able to isolate the motor traces from the pickup strip traces. The picture gives you the orientation of how it is located in the frame- worm end on top, motor end on the bottom. The next photo is where I made cuts in the traces to isolate the motor contacts from the truck pickup strips (which in this case can be considered the “frame”). The red lines indicate cuts in the traces, the green line indicates where you will connect adjoining traces with one of the wires, and the blue dots are where holes are drilled (about a # 75 bit I think) through the board so you can push the wires through from the top of the board and solder them to the bottom traces. The next photo is the wires soldered in place. This is where a third hand tool comes in handy. Tin all wire ends. Insert a tinned wire end through the hole and bend it over flat against the trace- just make the bent over end as short as possible, just long enough so it will hang in the hole if you let it go. I bent mine towards the inside of the board. On the wire used to connect the traces where the green line is, just leave the end long enough to bend over and touch both traces and solder it to both traces. With a small soldering tip just touch the wire end with your solder and apply the iron just long enough to get a small bit of solder to make the connection. Obviously from the look of my photo I need to practice my soldering! Those of you with better soldering skills will use much less solder than I did. Once you have all the wires installed hold the board up to a light from behind and make sure no solder ran over any of the gaps between traces. The wires should be standing straight up from the board on the top side when you are through.
Converting Kato critter to DCC part 2 Reinstall the board, and be careful to make sure the motor contacts don’t slip out of their slots and come together or you’ll have a short. Make sure they are fully in their slots and under the tabs that hold them down. Reinstall the driveshaft and motor. Wires should be clear of the driveshaft. I will not be using the cover since I’m going to be putting this in the Climax kit, but for testing purposes I installed the cover, which has been modified with a hole drilled in top for the wire to pass through. Push wires through the hole from the bottom when installing the cover, just try to make sure they don’t interfere with the driveshaft. I first tested things out on DC by just connecting black/grey and red/orange together to make sure the modifications worked. Success! Now for the final test. I used a Digitrax DZ123. I cut back the blue, white and yellow leads since I won’t need them. Connect like colored wires together, put on your program track to test. Hopefully that’s it and no problems with shorts. This one works fine. It’s a little abrupt starting but that’s probably due to the lack of a flywheel and the light weight of this thing. It’s an on/off type start but not fast- one speed step it’s still, the next speed step it moves. I’ll try playing around with CV’s later to see if it can start a little more smoothly. This is not a difficult installation at all. The most difficult part was just figuring out where to make the cuts in the board so I could keep the wires centrally located and out of the way of the driveshaft. There was no frame cutting to do so this was one of the easiest wired decoder installs I’ve ever done. The hard part is yet to come- trying to arrange all this in the Climax cab! I’ll keep my progress with that updated- hopefully it will work out. Richard
Where does one buy these "critters". I checked the kato website and had no luck. Randy, if you ever do kits for your first Shay I'll take two. How did you do the rivets in the brass, or were those parts allready available? Thanks, Craig
Walthers sells them as part 381-11105, 11106, and 11107. All are out of stock at the moment. N scale Supply has them in and sells them about as fast as they get them: http://www.nscalesupply.com/KAT/KAT-b-trains.html BLW has had them too. http://www.blwnscale.com/Kato Power Chassis.htm One Ebay store; Plaza Japan, has had them regularly, along with the Tomix chassis. At the moment, I'm completely cleaned out of Climax kits and parts myself, but that's a temporary condition. The rivits were from flat photoengraved stock I had in the junk drawer - old kits - just used them as thin wrappers. I have no plans to do the Shay, but I do have plans to do some other projects here, not going to say just what until I get a little closer in on them. The Climax B was a nightmare to get the mechanism working right - I just love it, but its not the kind of thing that's easily reproduceable by me or anybody else. I hacked up parts from no fewer that five other locomotives to build it, and it pretty much 'had' to have a Faulhaber motor in it to get the frame-shaft dimensions right - there's $50 in the motor alone.
thanks for that info. I need a Climax Band a 2 truck Shay for a static display. Do you know of any companies that make castings or static models of these locos? Thanks again, Craig
Welll... Before the Atlas Shay, Small Scale Logistics was doing a resin-cast Class B shay that went on a Tomix mechanism. Didn't work well. I bought one and gave up on it, sold it back to Ebay. With the mechanism, they were pretty pricey. I see on his web page that he's no longer producing models (this would include the photoengraved 44-tonner) but is liquidating his remaining parts. I'd contact him to see if he has any old Shay parts laying around, they would be dandy for a static shay model. http://www.smallscalelogistics.com/ As far as the Climax B, nope.... The new Climax book from Oso publishing has a whole chapter on derelict Climaxes, including some beauties of abandoned Class A's. My kit would fit just on a flat sheet of styrene over some freight car trucks if you want a derelict A, in fact, I even have some leftover Kato frames I'm not using.
