Look Me in the Eyes

So I'm doing a pile of maintenance on my N scale locos at the moment and a big bug bear is that when doing the coupler trip pin height, it is damned hard to see accurately their height above or below the track when you have to bend down to table height or awkwardly pick them up with a small piece of track. So...

It was time to make something. But it can't take up all of my benchspace even though it would need a good footing so as to not fall over when being used.  So out with some power tools and such and the attack of the 6 mm plywood began.  The design mutated as it went along, as they always do.  But simple should do the trick here.

So I made the shelf 42 cm wide, 42 cm high and 20 cm deep.  Pretty stable enough on its feet and light and can be put away over the top of a lot of other stuff in my storage racks when not in use.  I just used my little plunge saw and cut up the bits of ply from a small sheet I already had on hand in the shed.

I then sanded the edges and sides to remove all the daggy bits and got to gluing it together.  My old scuba diving lead weights do come in handy for holding things down.

I used some 12 mm triangle strip to bolster the joins and again used the lead to hold them down until the glue dried, thereby giving a good solid join.

Once the white glue had dried for a day, I took it outside for a good orbital sanding.

Then it was inside for a good lick of water based One Coat Clear to give it a reasonable look.  Even though it really doesn't need a coat of paint, it makes it look better to me.

Came up pretty good in fact. Should look good in amongst the stuff on my work benches.

Now, the job isn't finished yet.  I need some track to put the locos on so I can see the coupler trip pins.  I was originally going to just glue them onto the shelf I just made, but nah....

I'll make a seperate piece for the track so that the shelf itself might get to be used for other things in time.  So another piece of 6 mm ply was cut to the size of the top of the shelf - 20 cm x 42 cm.  Anyone know the number 42?

So I glued down a length of HO dual gauge track to cater for my HO and HOn3½ locos and wagons and then a piece of 9 mm track for the N scale locos and wagons.

And just so it looks better finished, I added some dirt and grass scatters.  I will ballast the track shortly as well and maybe some spots of static grass and such - what the hey :-)

So here it is in place actually being used.  My eyeballs can eyeball the coupler trip pins at a nice comfortable height.  The bench is stable and I made sure it is also wide enough that should a loco decide to go to sleep and fall off the track after being knocked by a clumsy hand, it will just lie down in the grass.

OK, now those trip pins on the couplers are now good to go :-)

A Little Bit of TLC

In January 1972 as part of EMD's Dash 2 series, the EMD SD40-2, a 3,000-horsepower (2,200 kW) C-C diesel-electric locomotive was introduced to the world. 4,175 of these beasts were built.  So of course one must by definition have a fleet of these in their model railway collection.

Mine are not quite as large as the real ones which are 167 tons and 21 metres in length - mine are N scale and hence 1:160  in scale to the real thing and are only 135 mm long. After running for a number of years it is now time for an overhaul. So out onto the workbench they go and are pulled down to the required part level to enable a little bit of TLC to be applied.

First up I apply a small drop of very light oil to the electric motor shaft bearings with a small hyperdermic needle.  I am using the HL653 Ultra-Light Oil by Hob-E-Lube.

Now to the Bogies and get those gears turning nicely. 

First up the worm gear shaft bearings get some of the same oil as the motor got.

Then the actual worm gear gets a tiny bit of HL657 White Greaase by Hob-E-Lube.  I find a small sewing needle makes a good applicator.

With the same applicator and grease, I then put a few dabs of the grease onto the gears in the bogie itself - only a few dabs, as it will spread around once you spin the gears a few times.

That pretty well does the lubing part of the maintenance.  The wheel axles dont really need attention as they are point bearings and really dont pickup gunk (real technical term).  The gear shafts are also fine, as the oil and grease already applied will now migrate all round inside the gear train (hahaha, that's funny - a gear train in a train.... hahaha, I should have been a comedian) and lub up those little shafts as well.

So we move on to the electrical bits. The main pickups of the power from the bogies to the chassis are two metal strips that get a bit grotty (another very technical term) at the actual contact point, so a bit of very fine wet and dry sand paper is used to polish those areas.

Now the motor pickups on the decoder get a polish with the same sand paper.

Of course the matching contacts on the motor itself must be polished up. So the sand paper again gets used on these motor tabs.

And while we are at it, the main power contacts to the decoder get a polish to make sure they pass the electricity and data signals along without interuption.

And that pretty much does it.  So I put the loco back together.

Oh, and of course one last thing - clean the wheels!  Dirty wheels sure muck up the passing of the power and data signals from the track to  the locomotive.  So I put down a piece of paper towel and then apply a few drops of IPA (Isopropyl alcohol) to it and then power up the locomotive and run one of the bogies over the paper and let the wheels spin for a short while.  Swap to the other end and do the same and clean that bogie :-)

Now, where's the next loco in the maintenance lineup...

Need More Space - I Know...

 More spacial efficiency is required in my workshop area.

So I saw that stashed away, I had a WorkZone (ALDI) storage unit I hadn't managed to use and of course it was taking up space. I thought of giving it away, but then, wait, there's more...   The old incandescent bulb appeared above the old scone.

Surely I can squeeze it into use somewhere? Measure, measure and measure and duh! There's the place for it. I hadn't put a storage door on one of my metal shelves my old man made for me 30 years ago as I had a strange idea it wouldn't fit - bah!  It'll fit, and not get in my way.

So the other day I grabbed a piece of 9mm 5 ply I had kicking around that was almost the right size and trimmed it up and sanded all the edges. A good bit of labor and a good liberal coating of British Paints Prepcoat as my under coat, then a few days later a good coat of shiney white Dulux Weathershield as my top coat.

And so today, to the tunes of Vangelis, I was able to finish off the job as the paint was now properly dry. I had picked up a pair of hinges from Bunnings earlier in the week and some nuts & bolts and I already had the required wood screws.  So the DeWalt brothers got a day out and about, but had to do some hard work for me as well.  They wanted smoko even before they'd done an ounce of work!  Slackers - I don't know where they get that from...

First up the brothers and I drilled the holes in the door, then screwed on the hinges with the required wood screws.  Then we propped the door up in place and drilled the holes in the metal shelving frame and bolted them on.

Of course we needed to add a magnetic catch to stop the door opening by itself all the time.

And that gave us the door in place and ready for the next step.  Might have been a cuppa involved in here somewhere of course - I blame those DeWalt brothers - absolute slackers they are.

I then got the WorkZone stuff out of the box and screwed in the first back board. Predrilled my holes and  then wood screwed it on.

One backboard in place.

Next I loaded up some of the storage trays into position and got them how I wanted them.

I still have one more backboard left, so I trimmed it up and screwed it onto the board.  Now you will ask, "Why is there a gap to the right of the door?"  Well, glad you asked.

When the door to the right is opened, the trays of course stick out and if I made the trays on the left hand door too close to those on the right - car crash.

So a gap is left and the traffic gets around without a problem - kapisch?

A test to make sure the door actually opens when all the trays are in place - good :-)

Oh, more importantly, does it open far enough with the roller door down and the trays not clobber the roller door?  Yep - all is good.

Now to double check the right hand door opening, and all is good - no clobbering of trays is seen or heard.

Now I just have to move some stuff into the trays and all is good - now where is that next cuppa?  That's what the DeWalts are asking - I myself am raring to go...    ;-)

That damn Kiwi dog is at it again - Bugger!

Checking this article I find...  the hinges are still grey!  I will need to get the paint out again and give them a lick of white paint, won't I?

Oh and some have asked why the space at the top of the door is empty?  Well, don't, don't, don't you worry about that.  Some of these will go in so some items can be hung, hung high and hung well.

Here Kitty Kitty Kitty - Need to Turn You into a Rock

First step is to get a bag of the 100% clay kitty litty and then pulverise it up to absolute powder.

Yeh, OK, you don't crush the kitty litter, you eat it... no, no, no.  It is actually used to hold the rubber rock moulds level. So into a suitable plastic container you heap in some litter and then jiggle the mould until it is level and supported all round.

Sand would do better, but the bag I bought was wet and wouldn't mould itself very well. So while it is drying, the kitty litter will do.

Then you mix up your plaster of paris or moulding plaster or cornice cement or similar.  Pour it into the moulds and jiggle them all about a bit and the level them out and let them dry.

When sort of dry, or not, after a few hours maybe, you can pop out the rocks.

Now to go make more as the club layout needs a pile of them. We will paint them with suitable coloured washes to get them looking just right in the end.

Just a Friday Night

This Friday night we had another run over at the ex-Copper's place.  He has finally revamped his operating schedule and we were ready to give it a go.

He even added in a location for me and my M-K-T locos :-)  So I had my two GP38-2 locos out for a spin at the head of train MKT1 which was picking up box cars as well as dropping off the train at the end of the line.

Surprisingly (only joking John), it ran pretty good and not too many notes were taken down for modifications for the next time we run.

As always, a great time running trains and of course, as usual, a big gab fest by all.