Thought I’d put up a couple of pictures and videos of my most recent New-stalgia conversion. And yess, I know you can get the DCC & Sound equipped BLI Water Tower for $50 online, but they don’t have SP, and I hate the random crew talk nonsense. If they had one without crew talk I’d probably get one! Besides I have 10 eBay /Amazon 9g servos sitting here I got for $10 ($1 a servo) and a few ESU Switch Pilot Servos sitting here doing nothing. I picked up a used (and ugly yellow) Water Tower as part of a $5 lot on eBay, and proceeded to free up the spout from the glue holding it on place, and cut the threads holding it upright as well. 1 large size paperclip was the right diameter for the servo horn, as well as to replace the pivot/ axle the spout rode on originally. I then carefully cracked the original glue between the wood/steel? base and the sides of the tank so I could remove it. Where the original down pipe was attached was the perfect place to get the rod coming off the servo horn out. I removed it and ran my rod out. I heated up the end of the paper clip and made a new hole on the back of the spout for a lever the servo rod could engage and actuate. Because of the angle, the servo then needed to be tilted up and barely clears the back of the Tank Shell. If I had had something more flexible at hand, that would have worked better possibly? Unlike others I have seen that pull the thread up to lift and rely on gravity to drop, mine pushes both down and up mechanically. Here is a video of it running thru the servo speed setup on the SwitchPilot Servo, you can better see the action and lever in the side view. I left it running fast for an hour to see if it would break... it did not. I stripped the tank sides with 91% alcohol and a rag, then repainted them flat white. After that dried, I hit the sides with some brown Testors panel line accent to dirty them up and reassembled. I did the pull cord ( very happy with it) with button thread. I tried running a visible counterweight just for funsies and to add another thing that moves. Not super happy with it, and may remove it, or possibly leave it but relocate it further to rise and drop between the legs. Needs a heavier and smaller weight to keep the thread taught, and steel fishing shot just is not heavy enough. Need lead but it’s NLA due to environmental concerns apparently.
