Nice back door scene to your roundhouse Rick. Small detail like the horse shoe pits really add the finishing touch.:thumbs_up: Jerry
First Video of a run! Not sure why I hadn't taken any video of trains running, but with the visit yesterday, my sister took a couple. Here's a shot of the CZ (with D&RG locos, not WP) coming over Donner Pass: http://sharing.theflip.com/session/cbb4e6cc1059e55c26397a1646d93795/video/11367043 And here's a shot of the CZ going through the station. Not the best quality, but... http://sharing.theflip.com/session/cbb4e6cc1059e55c26397a1646d93795/video/11367056 (hope these links work) I also did some work on buildings the past few days. Pictures to follow later.
My first Laser-cut building set I decided to try my hand at a laser-cut set over the weekend, so got this little one to start off with. Looked relatively easy (though it has pushed my model making limits, which I guess is a good thing). I still need to add the detailing features, and weather the buildings a bit more (and even glue the two side roofs on!) This will be my mountain / mining town The assay office was a building I picked up, built, from ebay
Yard Office and Shed I also needed a yard office, for my large yard, so got the Walthers Yard Office and Shed. Put those together, and weathered Here is the shed, and the office in its approximately final position back near the Machine shop
Close ups of shed Some close up shots, to show the weathering Nice and grungy, as it should be for such a heavily used yard.
Thanks guys - I was needing to find something to do in the house, vs out in the train shed, since was feeling under the weather last week, so figured that stack of kits deserved to be attacked. I am quite pleased with the results.
I have the Walthers shed to go with my feed mill. I haven't assembled mine yet as my layout is still in the planning stage. Your's looks great. Tomkat has a similar shed so I can use both of your models for reference.
Failure -- install of decoder into Mikado I decided that on this wonderful spring day, I would finally attempt the install of a decoder into my Kato Heavy Mike (see earlier pictures). Had decided to to go simple at first, not go with sound decoder until I knew what I was doing, so went with a DZ125. Followed Bob's (PowerSteamGuy1790's) instructions to the letter. Disassembly went well, only oops was pulling the piston on one side out a bit too wide, and having the gears drop out of it. Wasn't too difficult, using the other side as a guide, to get them back correctly, I thought (see below). Proceeded to put in the 5 wires, using 28 gauge wires from flat telco wire, and fed into the tender, insulating everything with Kapton. Had a little difficulty with fitting the boiler back on, quick inspection showed the light board not pushed in well enough, due to size of solder blob for black wire (easy fix). Wired up the decoder, checked for shorts, all looked good, so placed on track. Unit started moving, but I noticed one side had a little up/down hitch. Went back, and noticed that I hadn't properly reseated the piston (from above). Carefully pulled it out (and, yes, lost the gears again), but, hey, I'm experienced now. Got everything back together, but now, I can't get the opposite side's sideboard to seat properly. OK, fine, lets just test the run, then we can deal with fit/finish. Put on track, started it up and ran nicely for about 3 ft. Then, the infamous shorting sound. Probed with ohm meter, something shorting. Removed tender, no shorts there, when not connected, so onto the body. Disconnected decoder, still shorting, so complete disassembly (getting good at this, now). Can't really figure out where, but more Kapton at any spot I suspect. Place on track (no decoder), and no shorts. Reconnect the decoder (not even bothering with the tender at this point.... short! :tb-hissyfit: Frustrated. That was about 4 hours work (going very slow), not sure if I blew the decoder, or something else. So, stopped for the day. Yeah, I need to verify the decoder first. If I did blow it out, before I get another one, any specific points I should check for shorts before installing the new one?
Rick: I sent you an e-mail with some instructions of what to look for regarding the shorts in your installation of the decoder in the Kato Mikado.
What a difference a day makes Well, the shorts from yesterday are gone. I took the Mikado completely apart, checked for shorting, and couldn't find any. Still, put new kapton tape around the vulnerable spots, and also, per Bob's suggestion, put an isolator (piece of thin styrene) between the bottom brush cap and the frame, just in case that was bouncing and causing intermittent shorting. Decoder was also fine (yay). Still have some finishing touches to do. This is my first hard wired decoder install (hey, I don't start with the simple stuff). And, at this point, I feel confident about taking apart a Kato Mike, and putting it back together again (and again, and again). Now to clean it up, and start adding the details. Also, still need to change out that Rapido coupler on the back.
Wasn't that difficult, once I overcame my fear of taking the unit apart. Care is needed. After this first one, I wouldn't hesitate to take on others. Last night, I ended up taking it all apart again, and replaced the wires with smaller gauge, which then fixed the fit problem of the of the right sideboard. That also helped alleviate some stiffness of the wires going from the loco to the tender. Once I did that, the little guy ran around the layout just fine, and even pulled a 5 car ConCor UP Heavyweight Passgenger consist.
New Photos of Zephyr over Donner The current thread on the CZ got me to take a couple of pictures, after placing some of my Architrees near the tracks. I have taller trees on order, and will need to do some real landscape planning for more realism
New scenery work Started on some more scenery this weekend, putting the road that goes around the roundhouse (over the subway track) in. To remind folks of what I started with, here's a couple views of the roundhouse and station, with the tracks still exposed Here's a first view of the new roadway being put in. Nothing has been glued into place, yet (so cockeyed piers, uneven joints, etc, plus the items on the bridge are holding it in place) The station is on the lower right, and the street that will cross above the station, in front of the roundhouse, will intersect with the roadway coming down along the side of the RH. Another road will continue out from here, across the lift out bridge. The brick wall running along the outer main has window vents, for the trains running in the subway.
