HOW TO'S

POST !:

Traction tire replacement (diesels). 

I find using my dentist old dental picks are great for putting on those troublesome rubber rings.

POST 2;

Loose pins on tubular track.

OK, I know I'm in the minority on my use of track but for us traditional (also cheap) track users, some needle nose pliers works great to close up those enlarged holes.

Also, a small hammer works great when the two tracks are pushed together and one rail sticks out farther than the rest.

Also, I find pins are easier to remove, if they are, first, lightly tapped into the rail before removing them with some pliers.

This also eliminated my engines slowing down on the far side of the loop.

I think making your own track cleaning car is the best way to go.  I have instructions for those who want to do it.  My email is in my profile.

.....

Dennis

POST 3:

making lanyards for your bell and whistle:

Lanyards added to bell and whistle.

An easy mod that was cheap and quick.

Stripped some 22 gauge wire and sprayed the strands black. Best to separate the strands before painting and leave hanging over a table top to dry individually.  Had to do 3-4 sprays by the time I finally covered all sides.

The holes in the bell and whistle arms had paint in them so they had to be re-drilled.

First I put the wires through the eye bolt on the side of sand dome and then ran it into the hole in the front of the cab, then the wire could be bent and placed into the hole on the bell arm.  Same with the whistle, only on the engineers side.

Bending the wire removed some of the paint but a black magic marker worked well on covering the brass wire.

Happy Pappy,

Hey, we'll 'run with it' and see what happens. 

If I get shot down, so be it. 

At my age, not much bothers me anymore.

===

Dennis,

Thanks,  If you want to 'cut and paste' the instructions on a post, that would be great.

post 4:

Chuffing stopped/fixed:

I was enjoying some reading with the pleasant background of a GN M-2 chuffing along when all of a sudden there was silence   

I did all the usual stuff (even read through the manual!).

Logged onto OGR and advanced searched 'no chuff' under TMCC threads.

Tried all those suggestions, nada, but still knowledgeable and good info.

Reload, reset, move chuff switch, shake real hard (no, not that!), etc

Initially, I thought the chuff was electronically controlled.

I put her on her back and started rooting around:

Found a plate on the front set of drivers, removed it and voila, two cams (one for 2 chuffs and one for 4 chuffs).

Hooked up  the ZW and TMCC to the wheels and started her up.

Some contacts inside are moving against the cams, that's good: must be something else.

Remove two engines from boiler and the two green/blue wires going to the cam mechanism are no longer attached: MMM, looks like a possible problem !

The original wires were pretty short to I added about a 3" long extension to them.  Got some 22 gauge, multi strand wire, some heat shrink tubing and reconnected everything using electrical solder. 

Tried her again and "all's right in the world again'

The original wires have a stiff insulation on them and I think that caused them to break.  I used some very flexible wires (got them from my RC plane stuff).  I also had the engines removed from the boiler, previously, to check out the smoke system so that also may have weakened them.  Obviously, this break is most applicable to articulated engines since the front engine is always rotating on curves.

I did not worry about which way the wires were originally connected as I figured it's like a light bulb (either way works).

Also, it appears the cam system feeds the cruise control because the engine would slow down on the far side of the loop when not chuffing but works OK when the chuffing is operating.

Oh, and don't be an idiot, like me and use a red wire: best to use black,green,brown: something that is less visible.

One more item: there is a short piece of wire wrapped around the wires going to the cam and head light.  It is held in place, by friction, under the two valve mount brackets, so one bracket's screws need to be loosened to easily solder up all the wires.

Don't know what number to put on my post.  Looks like they are all you.

.....

Dennis

I also use needlenose pliers to tighten the tabs that hold the rails to the ties.  This will also help with the loose pins and loose connections.  by quickly running through the ends of a box of used track using both methods, I was able to make a decent sized floor layout in my apartment without using track clips.

What about using a format like this:

Fixing a "Widget" -  Post 1

Then the next one on Widget fixing would be:

Fixing a "Widget" - Post 2

That way you easily find postings about a particular topic within the thread, and you could follow it sequentially, and it would allow for multiple postings from various contributors to the topic.

Just a suggestion

Greg

Greg,

You got it.

For post numbers, I figure we can just look at the last post number and add 1.

I'm sure some will get out of order due to multiple posts at the same time but it will still get referencing in 'the ball park', plus the last person's number that may be out of order, can just edit it for corrections.

Any additions or improvements to an original post, a Letter can be added:

ie  post 1-A

    post 1-B

    etc.

This way, all like posts can be easily referenced and the relationship.

Obviously, posts only refer to "how to's" and not general statements, like this post.

Why lump things together in a general thread?
I think these ideas are going to be lost because of the general title.

Want to post about making bell lanyards? .... then start a thread with a meaningful title about making bell lanyards, something like "How to make Bell Lanyards".

Of course, this is just my opinion.

There's all kinds of HOW Tos around the forum, but they are in their own specific threads, usually in the specific forum that they pertain too.

Burfle,

You have a good point.

Like I said, this may not work, time will tell.

I'm figuring individual ideas will eventually be on page infinity and maybe difficult to find.

I'm also hoping those who may not post a completely separate post for a suggestion, thinking "it's too minor" that they would be encouraged to post it here.

As old as I am, there's lots of things that I don't know or didn't think of, and every person has something unique and interesting that they have thought of that would be nice to share with others. 

Also, a 'newby' to the hobby may not want to ask questions and this would provide answers that he didn't want to ask or didn't think of.

I'm hoping this will be kind of like a reference book, new posts will keep it current and on the first few pages.  One can then do a search on this post, and, hopefully, find what they want. 

Hey, like I said, this maybe a bad idea.  Try it and see what happens.

I'd rather try something and fail than sit and do nothing.

I'm not defending this thread or promoting it: it's just an idea that I posted and we'll see if users like it or throw it in the 'crapper'.

This very successful forum must be almost fifteen years old. The oldest member listed joined on May 3, 2000. The current format works well. Still, there is always room for improvement. Good luck to you.

POST 5:

switch mods:

1.  Sometimes there no room for the motorized portion of the switch.  It can be mounted under the table but I was too lazy.  Some wire and a few screws makes a crude, but effective, ground throw.  Some more scale like ground throws can be had from caboose hobbies.

2.  These are only toys, not antiques, so some cutting (used a band saw) of the turnout and rotating the cut off piece allowed the next spur track to be much closer to the straight track route.

Also, unless you post an index and have them sticky it to the top numbers are of little use. If you're looking for something specific like it has been said before, use the search feature.

If it ain't fixed, don't break it.

Jerry

By all means, keep posting your tips here, Dennis.  And in the thread title, edit it to include the date of the latest posting so readers will know when new material has been added.

POST 6:

JB weld versus soldering:

The front center return steam pipe on my articulated broke in half and, instead of soldering, I used JB quik weld.  These 2 part epoxy has metal impregnated into it and the 'quik' version dries in minutes versus the 'regular' jb weld that takes overnight to dry.

I had to removed the front engine from the boiler, first.  The return steam pipe (center of front engine) was broken.  The solder joint holding the two pieces of return steam pipe broke.  I used JB quik weld on these two parts.  Plenty of surface area as one piece of the pipe is solid and the other hollow so slopped the jb weld on both parts and let them dry. I used this method over soldering so I wouldn't have to re-paint the part.

NOTE: I had to do more PM on the front engine and the return steam pipe broke on me.  So to fix it right, I drilled a hole in the end of the front solid brass piece, used JB weld again, only put a piece of piano wire in the hole between the two pieces to give it a lot more strength than just the original surface area strength.

Lifting up the engine, that front set of drivers hanging there can put a lot of stress on this part.

POST 7:

Track power isolation (low tech but functional!).

For the yard, I wanted to be able to shut off each engine, if not in use.  Also good to turn off a post war engine while operating with DCS and/or TMCC.

Some wire, on/off switches and track lockons are all that's needed.

In this case the turnout got an insulating pin on both center rails.

Some wire (good ol' lamp wire from home depot) to connect the center (hot side) rail before the turnout to the center rails after the turnout via some on/off switches.

Connected the 'before' turnout center rail wire to, in this case, two on/off switches.

The wires on the output side of the on/off switches, then connect to each center rail on the track spurs.

A voltmeter on 'R' let me know which way was off on each switch.

Took about 15 minutes to isolate the spur tracks to shut down each engine's power.

To be even more cost effective, just solder the wires to the track!