I got my order of lost wax casting from the new owners of Precision Scale. I bought the Commonwealth side frames for the tender trucks. I had to wait a month for them to be cast. The quality of the casting from the new PSC owners is very good. It appears that PSC is in good hands.
This is a very nice upgrade for the tender. Below is the truck with PSC side frames next to the original Lobaugh truck.
I attached the side frames together with a piece of sheet metal which was designed to hold the pick up roller and chuff sensor
I've added TMCC to the tender using Electric Railroad boards from 3rd rail.
I've screwed a piece of 1/64" sheet metal to the sand cast tender frame. This provides a heat sink for the motor driver board and a place to screw down the speaker and other components. The Lobaugh tender is large and provides plenty of room for all the TMCC parts.
The antenna is in the coal pile. The coal pile is made from 1/4" plywood from my scrap box. It was the first piece in the scrap box I found that was about the right size. The bottom has two wood strips glued to each side with a piece of sheet metal in the center for the antenna. The wood pieces keep the metal antenna from touching the sides. The top of the coal pile is painted black with real coal glued to it
Here is the coal pile in the tender shell
