Buy/Make Anything Cool Lately (Tinplate Version)

jhz563 posted:

Fresh from the USPS - my first tinplate diesel

It looks better than received already, after 60 seconds worth of scrubbing with a baby wipe!  Looking forward to try it out, and then converting the coupler to something a little more interchangeable.

Behemoths, like the Unique Art Rock Islands

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

Been a few Std Gauge Roberts Lines trolleys on the bay lately, but this one needs a bit tlc, just up my alley. Pretty straight and will clean up nicely. The window inserts are loose, I’ll just remove them and call it a summer trolley. Both are unpowered so the lead unit will get a Keeler truck mount motor. Another project.

Steve

Those are just too cool Steve....

Mike 

jhz563 posted:

Fresh from the USPS - my first tinplate diesel

It looks better than received already, after 60 seconds worth of scrubbing with a baby wipe!  Looking forward to try it out, and then converting the coupler to something a little more interchangeable.

Nice...

Mike 

mackb4 posted:

Greg J. Turinetti posted:

mackb4 posted:

Pretty sure it A. F. ,but what can anyone tell me.

I picked it up at a flea market for $5.00. It's of course been painted and an awful decal added, but I couldn't pass it up.

You have an American Flyer #2005 Triangle Light from 1935 - 1939.

It comes in 2 colors

Northwoods Flyer

Greg

Thanks for the information. 

So is the signal just merely a light that is for aesthetic purposes, or am I missing some sort of lock-on that controls the signal and train movement  ?

Here is the illustration and description from page 16 of the 1936 catalog. (My earlier information that the triangle light appeared in the catalog beginning in 1935 is incorrect.  It first appears in the 1936 catalog.)  

There is no lock-on needed, the light is operated manually.  I think that the only thing that you are missing is an annoying little sister or brother who needed to be kept busy changing the color of the light while you run your trains. That's why this "New popular signal is almost a necessity for your railroad." 

Northwoods Flyer

Greg

Got a great deal on a 249e and 9 800 series cars to-day, only $300! They're all either excellent condition or restored as well.

Also picked up a nice Z transformer to replace my KW.

nice score Brian

Bought a Feb. 1949 issue of "The Model  Craftsman", 100% model railroading it says on the cover. Really fun to read. Cost all of 35 cents, new, and full of ads and info. A Cleveland dealer lists some Lionel prices which seem so low but in 1949 there were a lot of people earning 90 cents per hour. A Lionel Scout set #1111 cost $15.95 with a transformer and 3 cars.  A lot f kit bashing and scratch building went on in those days so there are a lot of ads for parts. There were still shortages from WW II to deal with.

Brian Liesberg posted:

 

Got a great deal on a 249e and 9 800 series cars to-day, only $300! They're all either excellent condition or restored as well.

 

Also picked up a nice Z transformer to replace my KW.

 

Nice haul...ya done good!

Mike 

Well, I have always wanted to build a Tom Snyder inspired layout using Gargraves track, however they quit making standard preformed radius track. They only offer the flex track, and I did not want to bend my own. Tubular is not offered in O84, so I decided to make my own from STD84. I have 9 out 16 made so far. Still have some tweaking to do but wanted to share.

Joe Gozzo

Good stuff Joe

I have a few more projects coming in the mail...

 I got the 800 series freight cars for $50.. Same as always, the project pile gets deeper before the finished pile  does.

A couple of recently acquired O gauge goodies are seen in the attached photos-

A Sakai (Japan) A-48000 streamlined steam loco. Needed a replacement for a missing brush and some wires re-soldered/replaced and runs great. It also needed a broken off corner on the cab roof re-glued (fortunately the seller provided it with the loco). Like the Sakai electric boxcab loco I posted pics of a few weeks ago, this one also uses square motor brushes, so I cut one out of a big brush remnant I had in the junk box.  It has quite a bit of paint loss, so at some point I'll have to decide whether to "dab" or repaint. 

A Bing electric outline loco, not sure on the number on this one. It's also running after a little maintenance. 

The Bing loco is pulling an interesting set of brown Flyer Columbia passenger cars; a 3000 baggage car and two 3001 "Columbia" Pullmans. The 3001 at the rear of the train has the simulated round tail lights and the type III trucks (Ca. 1922-25) , the other two cars have Type IV trucks (Ca. 1924-27). The earlier car is in very nice shape, the other two have a bit of "play wear", although they looked better after I cleaned and polished them. The earlier car just got a cleaning.

what is the vintage on the Sakai?

thanks

Unknown to me- although I assume it is Postwar? The model designation is A48000. Stamped on the pickup is "Made in Japan". On the Sakai page of the Binns Road toy train website, http://www.binnsroad.co.uk/railways/sakai/index.html they note a similar engine with "Made in Occupied Japan" stamped on the pickup, but the picture isn't high enough resolution to see that. 

thanks for the info

Dennis Holler posted:

I have a few more projects coming in the mail...

 I got the 800 series freight cars for $50.. Same as always, the project pile gets deeper before the finished pile  does.

now that's a nice haul Dennis. I haven't seen an 820 for $50, let along a bunch like that.

John Smatlak posted:

Unknown to me- although I assume it is Postwar? The model designation is A48000. Stamped on the pickup is "Made in Japan". On the Sakai page of the Binns Road toy train website, http://www.binnsroad.co.uk/railways/sakai/index.html they note a similar engine with "Made in Occupied Japan" stamped on the pickup, but the picture isn't high enough resolution to see that. 

John, Sold of all my Sakai a few years ago except the A48000 and tender and also a Banjo type with no tender. Someone had repainted the A48000 and tender black. I repainted the tender, but never got around to the loco. I also had decals made for the tender.......................someday I'll get it done and sell them.

Steve

Here is my latest find, or perhaps revelation. I don't know if anyone is interested, but I have

talked about how all the Marx and AF streamliners from the 30's era all used leftover

steam type motors with spoked wheels for power, cheap, but unrealistic. For Marx this

continued into the postwar era apparently as a lot of the smaller diesels use steam type

motors. I recently saw a Marx 6000 Southern Pacific diesel and it actually had disk wheels. 

Granted it was still on the cheap type motor, but a step in the right direction. I bought one on the 

bay. I took the motor out and tried it in an AF Comet. As we used to say in my hot rod days,

it was bolt in. I set the Comet body on the marx motor aligned the holes and put the 

screw in. Hooked up the headlight, and everything ran fine. Modern motor now, more realistic

and best is an upgraded reverse unit. This mean of course that it will fit AF tinplate zephyrs

and green diamonds.

And no trains were harmed in the process.

John Smatlak posted:

Unknown to me- although I assume it is Postwar? The model designation is A48000. Stamped on the pickup is "Made in Japan". On the Sakai page of the Binns Road toy train website, http://www.binnsroad.co.uk/railways/sakai/index.html they note a similar engine with "Made in Occupied Japan" stamped on the pickup, but the picture isn't high enough resolution to see that. 

Here is a picture with the text on the pickup from my Sakai A-48000:

My loco body is in a very good condition, but the wheels were changed. 

It does run:

Regards

Fred

How did you make it  run so well?Awesome!

Sncf231e- did you put those red wheels on yourself?  Those are really nice, any idea where they came from?

I was wondering the same thing- the red wheels look really sharp. Another interesting thing about the Sakai A-48000 is that only the rear two driving wheels are powered, the third is just along for the ride.

Last Christmas Santa Claus brought a standard gauge Rich Art McKeen to our house; an awesome model but with one curious omission. All McKeen motor cars were originally built with a center headlight on their knife-edge front end. It was part of their defining visual character- adding to that Jules Verne "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" look of the thing. For some reason this was omitted from the model, but this has now been rectified on ours- a center headlight has been added along with a red marker bulb inside the rear end. Enjoy.

A photo of the McKeen as received, showing what it looked like before the nose headlight was added:

Nice, the Nevada State Railroad Museum just down  the street from me has a fully restored and

operational Mckeen car that they operate most weekends.

jhz563 posted:

Sncf231e- did you put those red wheels on yourself?  Those are really nice, any idea where they came from?

No, I did not put these red wheels on myself. I bought it like that from someone who owned it a long time and did not know much about it, he was surprised when I told him the wheels were not original. I just oiled it a bit and it went very good.

Regards

Fred

I got these really cool magnets for my AF whistling billboard.

Before:

After:

George

The Mickey And Donald billboard might date from the time of the Civil War Centennial.Note Donalds Reb kepi and butternut uniform.

beardog posted:

Nice, the Nevada State Railroad Museum just down  the street from me has a fully restored and

operational Mckeen car that they operate most weekends.

Yes- it's awesome! I visited in 2011 and got to ride it, and I also visited while restoration was underway, what a project that was. Way back I also saw the McKeen body once when it was still inside the local hardware store! NSRM is a great museum.

Hmm, they must have repainted it, it is burgandy now

For anybody looking to make custom 2814R reefers like my Goetz car, MTH has listed a few from new old stock on eBay at a very reasonable price with free shipping. There are a couple of club cars and a Lionel decorated car. Also great for parts or if you just want to run a long consist of tinplate.

George

Now adding ties to std42.

TrainLover160, I'm new around here so forgive my ignorance but, where did you get those ties? Did you make them yourself or are they commercially available?

Mike   

I have a suggestion on adding ties. Measure your ties, then get weatherstripping that is closest to the 

dimension, cut the weather stripping to length, stick it to your layout and set the track on top of it. 

Another option, cut scraps of wood to the size of your ties, soak them in ordinary RIT dye for a day or two.

Then hot glue them to your track. Both these options are pretty cheap and look good, especially if

you ballast the track. 

Trainlover160 posted:

Well, I have always wanted to build a Tom Snyder inspired layout using Gargraves track, however they quit making standard preformed radius track. They only offer the flex track, and I did not want to bend my own. Tubular is not offered in O84, so I decided to make my own from STD84. I have 9 out 16 made so far. Still have some tweaking to do but wanted to share.

Joe Gozzo

Joe, if you run out of ties, the USA Track guys make a similar product  with different radii.

Jim

Dennis Holler posted:

Dennis Holler posted:

Jim Waterman posted:

George S posted:

Dennis Holler posted:

Got a couple of cars to repaint, sorry, I needed a 2814 Reefer for my new Goetz decals, much like the one George created. Now I just have to find the paint.  Haven't located the Krylon Georgia red clay color locally yet!

I got the Krylon Covermaxx Gloss Georgia Clay from Amazon.  Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/Krylon-...eorgia/dp/B013LT5BYQ

only one left in stock!

George

So is that 'Georgia Clay' color a good match for 'Boxcar Red' (what Floquil used to call that brownish color that many boxcars were painted in the 40's and early 50's)? Anybody got a good rattle can match for PRR Tuscan Red (or Brunswick Green for that matter?)

Jim

Judging from George's first reefer repaint, the Georgia clay looks to be a pretty decent flat brown/red like as used as boxcar red or reefer red.  On the PRR colors, I've still not seen anything real close.  I do have some of the FLoquil colors for the red and green but have yet to try and air brush them.

Maybe all the PRR nutz out there could talk Harry Henning into working up colors for both PRR red and green

I use the Scalecoat PRR Tuscan and Brunswick Green paints - good match to the prototype.

Jim

beardog posted:

I have a suggestion on adding ties. Measure your ties, then get weatherstripping that is closest to the 

dimension, cut the weather stripping to length, stick it to your layout and set the track on top of it. 

Another option, cut scraps of wood to the size of your ties, soak them in ordinary RIT dye for a day or two.

Then hot glue them to your track. Both these options are pretty cheap and look good, especially if

you ballast the track. 

Duly noted BearDog. Great suggestions. I'll probably try both and see which I like best...

Mike 

LoadMaster posted:

TrainLover160, I'm new around here so forgive my ignorance but, where did you get those ties? Did you make them yourself or are they commercially available?

Mike   

Loadmaster,

I bought the ogauge ties new  on ebay. 48 new ties with insulators for $23.99. I made O84 radius from USA STD84. Repurposed std ties on my std42 ti strengthen it. Kirk at USA TRACK will sell you std ties and insulators. I bought extra insulators since I do not like reusing them. Good thing as most of them were ripped.

Hope this answers what you needed.

Joe Gozzo

Thanks Joe, that gives me another option. Thank you for the information!

Mike 

Always glad to help, my train buddy found the new ties on ebay. Saved me from destroying other track.