WHAT’S ON THE WORKBENCH AT THE MOMENT

@Jim M Sr  Looks great.... #5 Brooks Robinson one of my all time favorites!

@RSJB18 posted:

You'd need a fleet for the Yankees.......

Yes, I would think they need to start putting three digit numbers on the backs of their rookies and prospects!  😄

Just wrapping up my first diesel conversion to full Legacy.  A couple more LED's to install and it's testing time.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Just wrapping up my first diesel conversion to full Legacy.  A couple more LED's to install and it's testing time.

Hey John....

Was this a pre-configured kit or something you were able to cobble together using available parts from Lionel?

I'm guessing one would have to have a pretty hefty background in electronics in order to custom assemble such a kit?

@Junior posted:

Hey John....

Was this a pre-configured kit or something you were able to cobble together using available parts from Lionel?

I'm guessing one would have to have a pretty hefty background in electronics in order to custom assemble such a kit?

Junior, Thank you for asking John for some more details.  I can say this, I worked 43 years in electronics, and I’m a neophyte when compared to John!!  👍🏻👍🏻

@Junior posted:

Hey John....

Was this a pre-configured kit or something you were able to cobble together using available parts from Lionel?

I'm guessing one would have to have a pretty hefty background in electronics in order to custom assemble such a kit?

This was just a collection of parts from my parts stash.  I had to make all the wiring harness myself.  Some valuable reference material is Bruk's excellent Legacy documents that are posted in this post: Bruk's RCMC/BEMC/RSLITE Documentation.

I had previously made my RCMC tester, I was able to sort out all the boards I had and see what was good and not good.

Building a Lionel RCMC Board Test Fixture

Since I now had known good boards, I decided to do an upgrade or two with them.

@gunrunnerjohn...

You never cease to amaze!

Finally finished the interior of my Baldwin S-12...I hired an Engineer he jumped in to work!  The engine is in the background.  The figure was hand painted by a gentleman that I bought it from at the 2 rail Chicago show.

This little gadget popped up in my Youtube feed last night. I'm going to get one for sure.

https://www.efixx.co.uk/tools

Good grief!   $22.50 for a plastic clamp and a little bit of solder???   I think I'll keep my money!  I've soldered hundreds of those LED strips without one, and I saved $22.50.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Good grief!   $22.50 for a plastic clamp and a little bit of solder???   I think I'll keep my money!  I've soldered hundreds of those LED strips without one, and I saved $22.50.

True- I could actually do the same thing with a couple of small spring clamps......

I'll spend the $20 on more important stuff.

I just use a long metal bar, I lay a few strips on the bench and old them down with the metal bar, then I just go to town soldering them.

Bar: $0.0, came out of my scrap pile.

Bench: $0.0, already have one.

I just finished a NE5 caboose in the older Boston and Maine colors. It started life as a Lionel New Haven caboose. The different roads used very similar cabooses, including, I believe, the PRR. Photo documentation was difficult to come by. I wanted the older “end of steam” era paint scheme of red on red with the black roof.

Lionel did this model in the scheme I desired, but they are nearly impossible to find, plus I wanted a model with the smoke Jack further away from the cupola than the Lionel version had

I disassembled the car and instead of stripping the entire body, I was able to gently sand down the old lettering and apply a coat of dark red to the sides. The end panels were a slightly brighter red. Decaling was done using some K-4 B&M coal hopper sets, mainly to obtain a close to proper size Minuteman logo. The caboose went back together with repainted handrails.

The caboose was modeled to go with a B&M 2-6-0 I recently painted…

Tom

Opened up a Williams BL2 and changed it to series wiring. Since Williams used JST plugs, I just pulled the pins out of the plug bodies and used a small piece of wire to connect them together. Easy to convert back to parallel in the future should the need arise.

Added a P-touch label to the bottom so that my empty head doesn't have to try and remember......

Bob

This Atlas dining car offered by Berwyn’s Trains needed a few modifications to make it more closely match a FW&D diner. It was devoid of roof details, so a few items from Precision Scale were added. The decals are Microscale.
@CBQ_Bill

@Rob Leese

That is a very nice looking FW&D diner !!!

CB&Q Bill

Workbench updates.  I showed this photo of a K-Line gondola with the accessory high ends and floor after I painted them and added them.

Well upon closer inspection with the floor installed the high ends rode a little higher than they should have.

The underside of the floor shows why.  These little "feet" had to go. 

A few quick strokes with a razor saw and we have a better fit.

The foam cradle had to be altered

Joe, that’s a really neat looking car!

@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!

So I couldn't come up with any appropriately sized pinstriping tape so I had to paint the stripes. I found a chisel tip paint marker and like Bob suggested I masked off the rest of the car.  But Like I said had I tried to spray the stripes after masking those stripes would have bled into places they didn't belong.

I was happy with how the stripes came out and pulled out the 7012 vista dome that I replaced the roof with a coach roof to compare how they looked.  Well the stripes passed visual inspection, HOWEVER, the following photos show coupler height issues that will almost certainly lead to uncoupling cars on anything but perfectly laid track.  I guess nothing ever leaves my workbench.

The 6-16xxx series passenger cars are LTI early 1990s production.  The 6-35100,Manhattan vista dome #7012 is Lionel LLC late 2000s production.  I guess one should expect these discrepancies in cars manufactured almost 20 years apart but the height difference between the 16021 and 16041 are from the same production run.  Does anyone have any suggesting on how to rectify this situation, or at least prevent uncoupling?

CBQ Bill,

Nice work on the FW&D diner.

RAY