WHAT’S ON THE WORKBENCH AT THE MOMENT

Oil details

Just finishing a standard gauge UP gondola.  I got this one is an auction junk box and some previous owner had converted it to O scale by soldering on truck bolsters and adding O gauge trucks.  Those came off, fixed a few broken soldering joints, painted it and now it's ready to join the rest of my UP cars.

This is how my UP 112 came to me, converted to O scale.

Converted a MTH 19th century tank car into a flat car by redecking and adding various details. Installed Wiseman archbar trucks with Weaver couplers. Finally repainted and decaled.

Tom

I like to think this was a successful weekend. Got a super chuffer installed in this TMCC Allegheny. 27 ohm element, no more AC regulator, and increased air hole.

also got a new to me VL GS-1 with some problems at a decent price. Motor mount was bent so drive line was out of whack, fixed that whistle unit looked like it was never used I don’t know what kept it from running before but checked all connections and it’s running like a champ.

To top it all of made some small PCB repairs to a LC Thomas

hand painting the inside of one of my Rich Yoder Baldwin S-12 interiors.  Trying to figure out what color to paint what...I can't find any reference photos for an S-12, so I will just wing it.  So far I like it...

@roll_the_dice posted:

hand painting the inside of one of my Rich Yoder Baldwin S-12 interiors...

what is that green color? I am trying to find something like that

@woodsyT posted:

what is that green color? I am trying to find something like that

It is Krylon Satin Jade.  Here is a shot of the can.  I had it laying around from a previous project.

**I forgot to mention that I bought it from one of the big box stores...Lowes/Depot.

OK, so I painted more...I like it.  Not sure the box would have straps/buckles on it, but I took creative liberty.  I just need to find a conductor that is sitting and glue him in and I will be finished.  First time I have painted anything in a LONG time.  I enjoyed it.

Nice work! The colors looks good to me.

But…

you need an Engineer! Not a conductor…lol😉

Tom

@Krieglok posted:

Nice work! The colors looks good to me.

But…

you need an Engineer! Not a conductor…lol😉

Tom

Good call!  

@roll_the_dice posted:

Good call!  

Actually, you could have a conductor or brakeman sitting on the seat box, opposite the Engineer…

Tom

This past few months I've been building some slab and billet carriers for my steel mill layout.  I saw a series of articles in O SCALE RAILROADING from Rich Yoder about some house made flats and gondolas that were used at Kaiser Steel in California. So I decided to take a few O27 flats and modify them for steel mill use. 

Standard flat cars are too long for use on my layout and they wouldn't look right carrying a 24 foot slab on a 40 foot car so I shortened them to around 28-30 feet.  I then added some strip styrene to widen them to 10 scale feet.

To make them more robust for heavy haulage I made new sides from 0.030 sheet styrene,  1 inch wide,  glued them to the car body and braced with more strips.

I then added new ends and glued down some I beams and solid bars to act as spacers between the deck and the slabs.

On this next car I  wanted one with more details on the sides so I made some bracing from 0.010 styrene.  I hand cut the sides to give the car a more "home built " look. This car is waiting for some rectangular tubing to be added to the deck.

Since it's winter I can't do any painting outside so these will have to wait for warmer weather.

Hope you like them.

A beaten 2035 steamer.  Just finished cleaning the motor and testing, it works fine now.  Body had so many nicks I cleaned and spray painted it flat black.  Headlamp mount was broken, just soldered the mount back on.  Later today I'll see if I have all of the missing parts after shopping at the spring thaw meet.  Another helpful OGR video prompted this task, results are much better than I expected.

This weekend I picked up a mint 2007 Williams freight set headed by a Norfolk Western J. Unboxed it and tested the loco. Lights, smoke good, no go. Opened it up so I can get the motor and it was frozen solid. Some hard turning on the flywheel, it started turning. Ends up dried adobe in the gear box is bad🤪. Cleaned it up and added some Red N Tacky and it now turns freely.

Steve

@Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

This weekend I picked up a mint 2007 Williams freight set headed by a Norfolk Western J. Unboxed it and tested the loco. Lights, smoke good, no go. Opened it up so I can get the motor and it was frozen solid. Some hard turning on the flywheel, it started turning. Ends up dried adobe in the gear box is bad🤪. Cleaned it up and added some Red N Tacky and it now turns freely.

Steve

Way to go Steve.   Good save.

I've seen the Red & Tacky mentioned on the forum......I'll have to pick some up.

I never heard it described as adobe, but that is exactly what it looks like, Steve!

I have a Williams GS-4 on my bench that is trying to be the death of me! Installed a JWA Chuff Generator and Super Chuffer 2 along with a MTH fan driven smoke unit. Verified operation, had beautiful huge puffs of smoke timed to the wheels, it was great to see. Shut it down to go get the wife so I could show it to her, now the Chuff Generator refuses to see the tach tape! The little red light just stays lit no matter what I try, Argh!

Guess I have to order a third Chuff Generator for this project, I just need to keep telling myself how awesome this loco will be when finished LOL!

Q: how many observation cars is enough??

A: do not know yet…har har!!!

This was a K-Line ESE obs now being converted to Colorado & Southern (nee: CB&Q) SILVER STREAK which brought up the markers for the DENVER ZEPHYR from 1936 to 1956, and the TEXAS ZEPHYR from 1957 to I forget.  The real SILVER STREAK resides in Austin, TX at a place called Texas Compound.  I pose the question above since this is the third obs I have converted for a single train.  If I ever get my hands on a GGD Empire State Express obs, then number four will hatch.

Last two weeks I've been working on adding a couple Menards trucks to the layout. The LED's are way too bright with the 4.5v wall wart I'm using. So thanks to @chris a I bought some DC buck converters so I can dim the led's down so they look like the lights are on, but not blasting like a couple of lasers.
I also will take the opportunity to redo the accessory and building lighting that is LED. I have an old HO transformer that I will use for the DC supply. I can also move some of the loads off of the 14vac terminals on my KW to the AC accessory power on the HO transformer.

These are variable output from the blue potentiometer

The camera doesn't do it justice but the first photo at 4 vdc is pretty good to the eye.

With the shop lights on

and the truck on the layout (before rewiring)

To be continued......

Bob

Bob, the lights look great!!

Picked up an undecorated corrugated auto carrier. Unpainted base was molded orange, so no primer. Doors and top were gray.

Another addition for the Oriole train. Painting done and reassembled, just waiting on the “retired number” decals to be delivered.

@Krieglok posted:

Converted a MTH 19th century tank car into a flat car by redecking and adding various details. Installed Wiseman archbar trucks with Weaver couplers. Finally repainted and decaled.

Tom

Tom I’m always impressed with your Craftsman ship. Great job!

@third rail posted:

This past few months I've been building some slab and billet carriers for my steel mill layout.  I saw a series of articles in O SCALE RAILROADING from Rich Yoder about some house made flats and gondolas that were used at Kaiser Steel in California. So I decided to take a few O27 flats and modify them for steel mill use.

Standard flat cars are too long for use on my layout and they wouldn't look right carrying a 24 foot slab on a 40 foot car so I shortened them to around 28-30 feet.  I then added some strip styrene to widen them to 10 scale feet.

To make them more robust for heavy haulage I made new sides from 0.030 sheet styrene,  1 inch wide,  glued them to the car body and braced with more strips.

I then added new ends and glued down some I beams and solid bars to act as spacers between the deck and the slabs.

On this next car I  wanted one with more details on the sides so I made some bracing from 0.010 styrene.  I hand cut the sides to give the car a more "home built " look. This car is waiting for some rectangular tubing to be added to the deck.

Since it's winter I can't do any painting outside so these will have to wait for warmer weather.

Hope you like them.

Very nice Bill

Been restoring another All Nation car from the Collection I bought many years ago. This time I had to redo the sides because of water damage and I’ll be changing the metal sides with some I found at the bottom of the box that day when I bought them.The under carriage is a Weaver and the Trucks are Vintage Atlas. I’ll be adding Kaydee couplers as well.

This video popped up on my YouTube feed this afternoon......

Some of this still applies today. The vintage 1940's video and narration are always amusing to watch.

Thanks Lee. You are doing a great job on the restorations. They look amazing with very exact finished work…

Tom

@lee drennen posted:

Been restoring another All Nation car from the Collection I bought many years ago. This time I had to redo the sides because of water damage and I’ll be changing the metal sides with some I found at the bottom of the box that day when I bought them.The under carriage is a Weaver and the Trucks are Vintage Atlas. I’ll be adding Kaydee couplers as well.

@RSJB18 posted:

This video popped up on my YouTube feed this afternoon......

Some of this still applies today. The vintage 1940's video and narration are always amusing to watch.

That’s pretty cool Bob, the film even crackles in the beginning.

@RSJB18 posted:

This video popped up on my YouTube feed this afternoon......

Some of this still applies today. The vintage 1940's video and narration are always amusing to watch.

Thanks Bob.

I'll admit that I learned from this film

Due to clearance issues the NYC like many northeast roads never ran dome cars, most modern streamlined sets included vista domes for variety.  Here I have 3 MTH RK and a Lionel awaiting roof replacements.  The RKs will be direct replacement and should be completed shortly, the Lionel will need to be sprayed satin black.  Today was the first warm day in about a week but the wind put the kibosh on any painting so that one will have to wait.  The last picture is a nice comparison shot between the RK and Lionel traditional streamlined cars.

Okay so 3 out of 4 are done.  Stated with the RK Lightning Stripe.  Boy those 4 little hooks holding the roof on gave me more trouble then the Lionel Baby Madison windows holding those roofs in place.  Next my ESE dome finally lost its second level.  I put the new roof on and I've got a horizontal black stripe.  I thought I didn't have it seated properly but the edge of the silver roofs were black, the undersides gray.  I don't get but metallic silver sharpie to the rescue.

Now if the wind will stop I can paint the last roof and some other items waiting for satin black.

Back again with NYC streamliners.  This time the Lionel traditional ones.  While waiting for appropriate weather to paint the replacement roof for the above vista dome I pulled out some of my older 16xxx series streamliners and somrthings missing.

Yes sir, the white stripes above and below the windows. Ah I have some white pinstripe tape! Nope too wide.  Oh wait that white artist drafting tape!   Nope too wide!  I've got to figure this out because I don't think I'm steady enough to paint them.  I've got two more in another box.  So finish 3 projects, come up with 5 more.  This is great!

@coach joe posted:

Back again with NYC streamliners.  This time the Lionel traditional ones.  While waiting for appropriate weather to paint the replacement roof for the above vista dome I pulled out some of my older 16xxx series streamliners and somrthings missing.

Yes sir, the white stripes above and below the windows. Ah I have some white pinstripe tape! Nope too wide.  Oh wait that white artist drafting tape!   Nope too wide!  I've got to figure this out because I don't think I'm steady enough to paint them.  I've got two more in another box.  So finish 3 projects, come up with 5 more.  This is great!

Thanks for the info on where you ended up getting the roofs and how fast you were able to get them.

On the white stripes for the passenger cars..................... how about getting some stripe DECALS  instead of painting them or using pin stripe tape Joe ?   

Power chassis for a Lionel 2333 postwar Santa Fe F3 that has motor issues, one is running much slower at typical running speeds.  Going to do a full service before condeming the rear motor's armature which looks to have been run a bit hot from the burning between the communtator segments.  I think the gentleman ran it after buying it without a proper servicing on it.  I will get the old girl back up to snuff for him shortly.   Before that I serviced one of my prewar Lionel OO Hudsons.  No pics at the moment though.    AD

Dallas, some type of tape would be my first choice.  After I posted yesterday I hit Advance Auto Parts, Autozone and O'Reillys for pinstripe tape to no avail.  I was really hoping to find some so I could get these done.  Today may be a good day to paint that roof and some other things that are waiting for some satin black.  I've got some old Pactra Trim Tape, yellow and orange, no white of course, that has many different widths in the container.  I may have to search the interweb and see if Pactra still produces it.  If not maybe some sort of paint marker rather than a brush.

@coach joe posted:

Dallas, some type of tape would be my first choice.  After I posted yesterday I hit Advance Auto Parts, Autozone and O'Reillys for pinstripe tape to no avail.  I was really hoping to find some so I could get these done.  Today may be a good day to paint that roof and some other things that are waiting for some satin black.  I've got some old Pactra Trim Tape, yellow and orange, no white of course, that has many different widths in the container.  I may have to search the interweb and see if Pactra still produces it.  If not maybe some sort of paint marker rather than a brush.

Joe- If you are painting anyway, why not mask off the car and spray the stripes on?

Tamyia tape is supposed to be very good at leaving a crisp edge.

Bob

Bob, I can't say that I'm an accomplished painter.  Brushes, air brushes, spray cans, I've had some good results and some horrible so for little details like this I don't really like spraying.  I'll have to mask the hole car and with the windows and rivet detail trying to get the edges burnished down tight around the stripes will be tricky and doing 5 cars worth I know I'll ruin at least one.  Really hoping to find some pin striping.  The problem is the stripe ledge is only about 1/16th of an inch so I believe it's going to have to be a modeling tape and not readily available pin stripe tape.

Joe, your cars are really looking great!  I agree with Bob that masking and painting the stripes is a good way to go.  However, I am with you in that I have never had great results with painting something that fine. I hope you find an excellent material for the stripes.

This might have been covered before as the original idea for this came from @SIRT a couple years ago.

I made replacement tires from heat shrink tubing. This was my first attempt and it went pretty good. It took a little trimming once on the wheel but the engine ran well. The “3/4” inch size was perfect for fitting over the wheel. I didn’t shrink it at all. Just cut it and put it on pretty much like a regular tire. How this holds up over time is anyones guess  i bought the double walled version and it is thick  

I expect to get better at this but first time wasn’t bad. A 4 foot tube cost $7.

So the weather yesterday was nice enough for the paint booth to operate.  Here's some before and after photos and what they were used for.

K-Line gondola high ends and a Lionel traditional stream liner roof

Some desiccant canisters out of medicine bottles getting ready to joint the O-gauge drums.

The K-line high ends and floor were purchased years ago for use with existing gondolas I already had.  I figured with Lionel, K-Line and MTH gondolas, I could this kit on one of them.  Alas that was not the case.  Not wanting to buy a $50 gondola to justify a $9 purchase years ago this open kit was destined for re-sale.  Thanks to Trainz.com I got this K-line Classics die-cast NYC gondola for a really good price.  As for the roof.  Since the NYC didn't run dome cars the Manhattan is no longer a dome.

@coach joe posted:

So the weather yesterday was nice enough for the paint booth to operate.  Here's some before and after photos and what they were used for.

Nice work done on these  Joe.   Great photos.

Looks like you had a good day for the work .  What was the temperature outside ?     What does your paint booth look like and how is the overspray drawn down ?