Lionel Chessie T-1 6-18011 Mods

Thanks Allan.

That is really cool I always have loved the Chessie steam special. I have the ac motor version that I would like to upgrade to ERR and a DC motor. but have no idea where to start and I heard of timko does conversions but know nothing about them.

Jhainer posted:

That is really cool I always have loved the Chessie steam special. I have the ac motor version that I would like to upgrade to ERR and a DC motor. but have no idea where to start and I heard of timko does conversions but know nothing about them.

 

I got a Timko motor a few years ago for my AF 4-8-4. Got it off of Ebay. It was a simple unscrew, replace, and re-screw, attach wires. Our Steam Specials should be the same way since they use a driveshaft to couple the motor to the gearing. Once again, being new to the 3-rail community, I didn't know any better. I would have done the ac-dc motor conversion and ordered the ERR DC Commander kit. The ERR system is straight forward. There's YouTube videos on how to do it. The only problem is, if you want to add "more stuff" to the engine, (i.e. fan driven smoke unit, Super-Chuffer) then you need to increase the size (number of wires) of the tether wire like I did. I used the 10 wire tether from MTH, think I have 2 wires left.

I can honestly say I'm learning as I go.

Jhainer posted:

That is really cool I always have loved the Chessie steam special. I have the ac motor version that I would like to upgrade to ERR and a DC motor. but have no idea where to start and I heard of timko does conversions but know nothing about them.

Such a deal I have for you.  I have one of these that was stripped for upgrade.  It has the Timko DC motor and an MTH fan driven smoke unit all mounted and ready for the electronic upgrade.  It was painted and it's all black right now and unnumbered, but you could swap your boiler and tender shell and be ready for the TMCC upgrade.   You could even sell the all black one with the AC chassis.

The Mini EX arrived today. Already installed and ready to program. This thing is tiny!  The program switch didn't come with push on connectors, so I  soldered to the pins on and heatshrinked.  I'll be using the long antenna due to the metal cover for the coal bin, unless I can find some sheet ABS and mold it. Anybody have some ultra thin ABS?  Decals are next on the agenda.

Hand brake was installed over the weekend. Now I need to get it painted up.

Why not float the tender shell, that's the classic way to create a TMCC antenna?  Some Kapton tape and plastic screws and you have a giant antenna.

Here's the latest installment for today.

I'm always a bit apprehensive to try new things, ie. (make decals). This whole process is very time consuming. I'll list what I used at the bottom of this post. But here's the left side of the tender and I couldn't be any more pleased with the results. A huge Thank You to C&O Allie for providing the WORD document so I could make the decals. These were exactly the right size for this Mohawk Hudson Tender. I did have to use the Horse vs. train race from one set and the "Chessie Steam Special" from another set, to get what I was looking for. There were 2 sets on the same page.

But what surprised me was the tender number and the gallons for the rear of the tender. I didn't realize the reason Allan had those numbers and words with a black background. So, I removed the black background and just tried printing the numbers and words in yellow. I had everything ready to apply and I put them on and you couldn't see anything. Hummmmm...So I pulled those off before they set up and went to the sides. SUCCESS!  The sides look great! Both sides are exactly the same. THANK YOU ALLAN!

Now, back to the rear of the tender. I printed out some more numbers and letters but with the black background... I did everything the same as before. To get the quality of printing I was looking for, I used the photo setting in the printer properties and BEST image quality. I printed this decals twice allowing the ink to dry in between printings. 

But on the first reprint, I don't think I left the ink dry long enough and when I sprayed the bonding spray, the yellow numbers and letters turned orange. So, now I'm on my second reprinting and I'm going to let the ink dry until I get ready to turn in for the night and then spray. That way they'll be ready for tomorrow. I sprayed 2 light coats to seal the ink, allowing the bonder to dry in between coats.

This is what happened on the first reprint after bonding.

And this is what I'm waiting on to dry. This is before bonding.

Oh, almost forgot the hand brake is now painted.

This is what I used to make the decals. I bought these off of Amazon. Best of all, these are Made in USA. I'm very happy with this product from Testors. This decal paper is for inkjet printers ONLY. I've used 2 of the 6 sheets in this process.  You need the Bonder Spray to prevent the ink from washing off when you soak the decals. As I stated in my last posts, I'm always learning, and sometimes I use more product than necessary to do the job.

Jayhawk500 posted:

Here's the latest installment for today.

I'm always a bit apprehensive to try new things, ie. (make decals). This whole process is very time consuming. I'll list what I used at the bottom of this post. But here's the left side of the tender and I couldn't be any more pleased with the results. A huge Thank You to C&O Allie for providing the WORD document so I could make the decals. These were exactly the right size for this Mohawk Hudson Tender. I did have to use the Horse vs. train race from one set and the "Chessie Steam Special" from another set, to get what I was looking for. There were 2 sets on the same page.

But what surprised me was the tender number and the gallons for the rear of the tender. I didn't realize the reason Allan had those numbers and words with a black background. So, I removed the black background and just tried printing the numbers and words in yellow. I had everything ready to apply and I put them on and you couldn't see anything. Hummmmm...So I pulled those off before they set up and went to the sides. SUCCESS!  The sides look great! Both sides are exactly the same. THANK YOU ALLAN!

Now, back to the rear of the tender. I printed out some more numbers and letters but with the black background... I did everything the same as before. To get the quality of printing I was looking for, I used the photo setting in the printer properties and BEST image quality. I printed this decals twice allowing the ink to dry in between printings. 

But on the first reprint, I don't think I left the ink dry long enough and when I sprayed the bonding spray, the yellow numbers and letters turned orange. So, now I'm on my second reprinting and I'm going to let the ink dry until I get ready to turn in for the night and then spray. That way they'll be ready for tomorrow. I sprayed 2 light coats to seal the ink, allowing the bonder to dry in between coats.

This is what happened on the first reprint after bonding.

And this is what I'm waiting on to dry. This is before bonding.

Oh, almost forgot the hand brake is now painted.

This is what I used to make the decals. I bought these off of Amazon. Best of all, these are Made in USA. I'm very happy with this product from Testors. This decal paper is for inkjet printers ONLY. I've used 2 of the 6 sheets in this process.  You need the Bonder Spray to prevent the ink from washing off when you soak the decals. As I stated in my last posts, I'm always learning, and sometimes I use more product than necessary to do the job.

 

Chris,

Not a problem - the decal job looks great!  Seeing you do your tender brings back memories of my daughter and I doing mine.  I really love that this hobby is something people can share with each other.  

That is really looking nice Chris!

Thank you to you both for the kind words! For some reason the system isn't allowing me to reply to your posts.

I have a 6"x12" .060 thick sheet of ABS coming for the cover on the coal bin. So, besides putting all of the grab irons and handrails back on I'm pretty much will be done with the tender. I did try and spray the decals for the rear of the tender last night. The black still bled into the yellow turning it orange somewhat. I do have another plan...I'll post it up if it works.

Until next time...

Chris,

Try spraying 2-3 coats of the bonder on the black decals.  I made mine pretty thick to prevent the bleeding.  I also didn't leave the decal in the water too long when applying.  I had it in there for 15-20 secs and then let it sit until the decal started sliding off the backing with just a little pressure.

Well I got it to work. Reprint again yesterday, sprayed 4 very light coats and used a hair dryer in between to ensure the decal didn't stay too wet too long. I also went to the local print shop to see if they could make something at small. He said he'd try but no guarantees. So now I have a backup plan. If the print shop fails, I now have my decals.

Okay, The print shop was a failure. Letters were too small for the printer. So I resorted back to the decals. I put the first decal on and the 16000 GALS. WATER disappeared on the black body. But yet, I can see them on the paper...DUH, I'm using clear decal paper. I should be using white decal paper so the yellow numbers and letters stand out. So, Back to Amazon....to get the correct paper.

Sorry its taken so long to get this post up. Life has gotten in the way, I bought my dream car so a total frame off restoration is in order. Now I have to paint the house and rebuild a deck before winter. Yeahhhhhh.......

But I did get the white decal paper the other day and I got the rear decals made. I'm not too impressed with the white paper, but it is what it is. I think I should be able to put a small amount of paint around the edges to hide the fact its a decal. I just wish the clear would have worked instead.

This could be my last post until the summer is over. Thanks again to GunrunnerJohn and C&O Allie for their help thus far. Thanks to everyone else for the kind words over the past few months.

Please remember to be fire safe this summer. Looks to be a mild fire season in the PNW. Hope everyone one else has a mild fire season too.

It was a long summer and things are finally starting to calm down. I was able to finish up, (sort of), on the boiler front by adding number boards. GRJ was once again very helpful in getting my brain back on track with getting the LED's wired. After some trial and error, I settled on a 8.2K ohm resistor for controlling the brightness of the number boards. These boards are connected directly to track power and won't dim like the headlight will. I still have to clean up the boiler front and repaint my mistakes. Unfortunately, when working with just a naked eyeball, things get a bit skewed. I got the boards a little crooked. I wanted to add the front marker lights, but I have to rethink some things first. I may re-do the 2101's again. I don't like how they turned out.

Here's the finished product, sort of.....

Chris, it doesn't look bad.  Even new engines sometimes have bad alignment on the boards.  

Once you get the marker lights on there, you probably won't notice it as much.

Look pretty good to me, I'd live with them unless they really bug you.

Thank you to you both. Your way too kind. Yes, The number boards will stay where they are. 

At some point I'll try to get the marker lights on. I have a flying eagle I was going to put on top of the headlight housing (from the freedom train days, besides, I like it) , but I believe with marker lights, number boards, and new bell, it would be a bit crowded. What do you think?

You've done a nice job on this upgrade.  Keep up the good work.  You are just about done!

I would duplicate whatever Ross Rowland did when he added the angled numberboards and centered the headlight.  As he stated in an interview the 2101 was his engine and he preferred the revised front end over the original Reading styling.  Your upgrades are impressive.  Keep us the good work!!!

Jayhawk500 posted:

Thank you to you both. Your way too kind. Yes, The number boards will stay where they are. 

At some point I'll try to get the marker lights on. I have a flying eagle I was going to put on top of the headlight housing (from the freedom train days, besides, I like it) , but I believe with marker lights, number boards, and new bell, it would be a bit crowded. What do you think?

 

Chris - yes, it should fit and will look good.  Your eagle has a lower profile than mine did, so it should fit with no problems since I was able to put mine on.

Great work.   Fun to watch 

Thank you all for the kind words! I have all winter to work on these mods. But I mainly wanted to get it on the track. This winter. I belive I'll have to get larger curves. I currently have 36", and I think  I need a minimum of 48".

Okay, I ordered 2 - 2mm clear  Marker LED's from Lionel awhile back. Just recently I was looking to see what resistor I wanted to add to the LED's to determine the brightness. Low and behold the clear LED's are green when voltage is applied.  My question is, Is this normal?

Also, Does anyone know if the markers on the real 2101 had a green bulb or was it clear?  The pictures I have of the engine has clear lenses on the marker lights. But I don't know what color the lamps were. If they were green I good to go. If not I need to figure out something else.

 I have just place an order to Precision Scale for some pilot parts and a new headlight. We'll have to see how that works out. Stay tuned.

Thanks in advance.

Marker (aka classification) lights were a rotating 4 sided affair that contained green, red, amber and clear lenses.  If and when they were used the color chosen would indicate what type of train it was.  Some railroads chose to use colored canvas or metal flags which served the same purpose.  I believe (tho I am not entirely sure) that the clear light indicated an unscheduled train which might have been what a steam fan trip would be classified as.  Reading that the lights you received from Lionel were not as described doesn't surprise me.  You can always tint the bulbs with thinned nail polish when you decide on a color.  You can see these in the attached image. 

Jayhawk500 posted:

Okay, I ordered 2 - 2mm clear  Marker LED's from Lionel awhile back. Just recently I was looking to see what resistor I wanted to add to the LED's to determine the brightness. Low and behold the clear LED's are green when voltage is applied.  My question is, Is this normal?

 

Also, Does anyone know if the markers on the real 2101 had a green bulb or was it clear?  The pictures I have of the engine has clear lenses on the marker lights. But I don't know what color the lamps were. If they were green I good to go. If not I need to figure out something else.

 I have just place an order to Precision Scale for some pilot parts and a new headlight. We'll have to see how that works out. Stay tuned.

Thanks in advance.

Chris,

I believe they were white, but don't know for sure.  On mine, I made them white (with grain-of-wheat bulbs).  The new Lionel version and the MTH version both have green.

Thanks for the input gentlemen. I guess I'll be ordering 2 more LEDs from Lionel. Going to have them verify before shipping that they are in fact a white LED.

I did in fact order 2 more LEDs from Lionel. Both of these were green in color when voltage was applied. Yet the description says clear. Yes, it's a clear lens, but a green LED. So I'm just going to go with the green for the class lights since I can't get the clear ones I really need.

Those ceramic 2mm LED's don't come in white, so you can get green, yellow, or red.  There are two red versions, one is the "bright" version.

Lumex Ceramic LED Choices

Jayhawk500 posted:

I did in fact order 2 more LEDs from Lionel. Both of these were green in color when voltage was applied. Yet the description says clear. Yes, it's a clear lens, but a green LED. So I'm just going to go with the green for the class lights since I can't get the clear ones I really need.

I hate to say it but, with Lionel's track record for inaccuracies, I'm not surprised.  I feel that GUNRUNNERJOHN has the right idea when ordering small parts like the LED's.  Go to a trusted manufacturer / supplier.  When all is said and done I hope you post a video of the finished engine in operation.  I admire your work and patience. 

Allegheny48, yes I'll be putting up a video when I get things the way I would like them. I have an order in to Precision Scale and the front of my T-1 will look a little different before the winter is over. I like what Wowak has done with his and others, so I'm going to copy some of his work too. My biggest problem is finding the correct color of gray for the boiler front. I think the Testors Master series paints will work, they have quite a few different grays. I just realized today how much blue is in the gray, hopefully I can make something match.

Stay tuned, there will be more to follow.

I made a  little progress with the boiler front lighting. I was able to get all the lighting into a single header, and made up a small PCB to limit all the wires internally. These lights are connected directly to track power. I turned off the bar light from over head to take these pictures, these LEDs are not as bright as they seem. I'm going to touch up the gray paint as best as I can and move ahead. Once painted I'll put in the class light lenses.  Sorry for the poor quality picture, but I think you can get the idea.  I'm still waiting to receive my hard parts from Precision Scale.

I got to looking at photos of the real 2101 and realized that Lionel didn't finish the paint job on the vermillion orange stripe on the cab. They had stopped the stripe at the forward edge of the cab. So I busted out the airbrush and, Got 'er Done! I painted the whole stripe, Not just the cab. After the paint fully cures I have to clean up a couple of spots where the paint ran under the tape but it's no big deal. My hard parts showed up today from Precision Scale. So that process will start shortly. Stay Tuned.

I also hired an Engineer and Fireman to run the engine in my absence.

Kudos to you, sir.  You have done a magnificent job with a sharp eye to the details.  You will have a one-of-a-kind engine when you are done.  Maybe you can decorate your newly acquired engineer figure to resemble Ross Rowland.  He would be proud.  Also, the front end lighting effects are spot on in my opinion.  Keep up the good work and I am looking forward to a video of the finished engine. 

I've followed this project from start to finish, and compared it to the real McCoy, and Sir, I give you an A+ on your effort, and the finished product.

Also an A+ to all of those helpful suggestions...

I'm having Frank Timko do an engine swap on a Lionel 6-18000 0-6-0 Switcher for me soon, and I think you will like the deal that Gunny offered you, and will save  you some bucks...................................Just Sayin!

I've spent all morning working on the "cow catcher". As I said, my hard parts came yesterday and I couldn't wait to get started. I'm a little impatient on waiting for the scotch weld to dry, but All-in-all I believe I captured the front of 2101 pretty well. I still have to connect the lift bar to the coupler, but the links are there. (Once again waiting on the glue to dry.)

The photos are in progression as I put this all together. Shame on me...The lighting in my computer room is very poor, which is another reason for the time consumption.

I ground off the hokey front coupler Lionel had on there.

I eyeballed and hand drilled the holes for the stantions.

Glued on the stantions and the new front coupler.

.020 Stainless Safety Wire creates the lifting bar.

Hand made the center yoke assembly and added the lifting pin. This took some time.

Added the front air hose w/ valve.

Hand formed the lift bar to resemble the real thing.

Links added to the coupler. Just need to attach to pin, somehow.

Below are pictures of the real deal. Think I nailed it..... Just need some paint after I get the links connected to the pin.

Looks great, this will be the best detailed example from that model!

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Looks great, this will be the best detailed example from that model!

Thank you John!

There will be more to follow. Next up I have to take a leap of faith....... Stay Tuned.

Allegheny48 posted:

Kudos to you, sir.  You have done a magnificent job with a sharp eye to the details.  You will have a one-of-a-kind engine when you are done.  Maybe you can decorate your newly acquired engineer figure to resemble Ross Rowland.  He would be proud.  Also, the front end lighting effects are spot on in my opinion.  Keep up the good work and I am looking forward to a video of the finished engine. 

Brandy posted:

I've followed this project from start to finish, and compared it to the real McCoy, and Sir, I give you an A+ on your effort, and the finished product.

Also an A+ to all of those helpful suggestions...

I'm having Frank Timko do an engine swap on a Lionel 6-18000 0-6-0 Switcher for me soon, and I think you will like the deal that Gunny offered you, and will save  you some bucks...................................Just Sayin!

Thank You Both for the kind words. Stay Tuned, more to come.

Jayhawk500 posted:

Allegheny48 posted:

Kudos to you, sir.  You have done a magnificent job with a sharp eye to the details.  You will have a one-of-a-kind engine when you are done.  Maybe you can decorate your newly acquired engineer figure to resemble Ross Rowland.  He would be proud.  Also, the front end lighting effects are spot on in my opinion.  Keep up the good work and I am looking forward to a video of the finished engine. 

Brandy posted:

I've followed this project from start to finish, and compared it to the real McCoy, and Sir, I give you an A+ on your effort, and the finished product.

Also an A+ to all of those helpful suggestions...

I'm having Frank Timko do an engine swap on a Lionel 6-18000 0-6-0 Switcher for me soon, and I think you will like the deal that Gunny offered you, and will save  you some bucks...................................Just Sayin!

Thank You Both for the kind words. Stay Tuned, more to come.

You should for sure make the engineer look like Ross Rowland.   Great job man.  Super fun project to watch.