@gunrunnerjohn posted:Well, it's a wrap! Here's the coal turbine in full flight! BOY, is it a noisy set, and it's only at half-volume! That has to be one of the ugliest upgrade jobs I've tripped over, but that's all behind me now.
" ONE OF THE UGLIEST UPGRADE JOBS I'VE TRIPPED OVER "
(Beauty is in the eyeof the beholder )
Maybe a few resistors in the speaker wiring and some heavier weight oil John. Looks impressive though . 
@Dallas Joseph posted:" ONE OF THE UGLIEST UPGRADE JOBS I'VE TRIPPED OVER "
(Beauty is in the eyeof the beholder )
Maybe a few resistors in the speaker wiring and some heavier weight oil John. Looks impressive though .
Well, it looks fine now, but for the lead unit, I had to start from scratch and rebuild everything with a new wiring harness. I salvaged the wiring harness for the middle unit, but I had to do a lot of work on it.
John, your wiring harness reminds me of making wiring harnesses for a job I had back in the late '70s. The company I worked for made devices for the automotive industry. We made 8 prototype fuel injection and idle speed controllers for British Leyland for their MGs. I was the engineer's assistant, so I had to load 8 double sided circuit boards and make wiring harnesses to connect all the sensors to the controller that we sat on the passenger seat. It was kind of cool, but another company got the contract, and a bunch of us were canned. Now, 45 years later, if I could scale down from 1:1 to 1:48, maybe I could be in business.
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Well, it looks fine now, but for the lead unit, I had to start from scratch and rebuild everything with a new wiring harness. I salvaged the wiring harness for the middle unit, but I had to do a lot of work on it.
This looks like the times I've opened up a problem child to see if I could find an issue with shorting.........the engine usually ends up being assigned to my boneyard in frustration. If only a fraction of your knowledge was available to me .....but alas. I don't think you'll have this on the workbench too long John.
( if I could just plug my buzzing non functioning ps3 board into your little finger.............🤔 I could keep another loco on the DCS rails )
@Mark Boyce posted:John, your wiring harness reminds me of making wiring harnesses for a job I had back in the late '70s. It was kind of cool, but another company got the contract, and a bunch of us were canned. Now, 45 years later, if I could scale down from 1:1 to 1:48, maybe I could be in business.
No doubt in my mind Mark.
@Dallas Joseph posted:I don't think you'll have this on the workbench too long John.
You're right, as you can see above in a previous post, it's off the bench and on the rails. I had a last minute little alignment issue with the smoke funnel I fabricated, it didn't line up exactly with the smoke unit. I had to move the smoke unit about .2" to get them working, my calibrated eyeball was out of cal. I also had to swap the smoke unit for one with slightly longer posts! Who knew that the diesel smoke units come with about four different length posts, only varying by a couple of mm, just enough to leak smoke like crazy! 
I bought a MTH Consolidated engine. In it’s stock form it’s close to scale from what I’ve read and not a bad engine. It’s got PS2 features and runs well. But it still felt a little starter set like.
So I made a few modifications.
- I painted the dials and knobs
- Removed the front trucks and made it an 0-8-0 I read that did occur
- I painted the side rods “Weathered Steel” from the Rust-Oleum aged metallic line. The inside of the side rods were sanded clean.
- Added glass to the front windows.
- I mixed some brown and yellow acrylics and touched up the bottom half of the engine and tender trucks.
- I then used water down gray for level 1 weathering (meh results)
- On top of that used school white chalk shaved into a powder. Brush on with a makeup brush.
- Finally dull coated with Krylon flat clear. This ate up most of the white chalk but can be classified as lightly weathered.
Final results aren’t bad for a first time weathering a steam locomotive. Still need to add the engineer figure.
Its not an engine but Ive been cutting the legs off of HO sitting people and last night I populated my Lionel Ferris Wheel. Did a mix of single, double, and triple cars and true to life left a couple cars empty. Happy with the results. O scale people looked goofy sitting in the cars as their heads touched the car roof so HO was the next best option I could find.
Paul, The Ferris wheel riders look happy to be there!! 
Steve, the engine looks great with the extra detail painting and weathering.
@Mark Boyce posted:John, your wiring harness reminds me of making wiring harnesses for a job I had back in the late '70s. The company I worked for made devices for the automotive industry. We made 8 prototype fuel injection and idle speed controllers for British Leyland for their MGs. I was the engineer's assistant, so I had to load 8 double sided circuit boards and make wiring harnesses to connect all the sensors to the controller that we sat on the passenger seat. It was kind of cool, but another company got the contract, and a bunch of us were canned. Now, 45 years later, if I could scale down from 1:1 to 1:48, maybe I could be in business.
@Dallas Joseph posted:No doubt in my mind Mark.
Thank you for the confidence in my skill, Dallas!!
Afterward our most recent visit to Strasburg, my grandson asked if I thought MTH, Lionel, or someone else made or would make open air cars like Strasburg's. I posted about it, and some good suggestions came back.
I found 3 MTH Pennsy Woodsides, complete, less trucks, on line, and not exact, but passable Premier trucks, and we went to work.
Strasburg has two versions, one with nine openings,the Hello Dolly rebuild, the other with 5 openings.
Still early in the process, here's a sneak peek at the first project
Albertstrains I love your work bench.
Almost done with this little critter. Stripped it down and repainted, replaced e-unit with a Bluenami decoder so it has full sounds now, upgraded lighting to LED's. Did the lettering with a P-touch and my USCG decals that just came in. The road number and the name are from the first Cutter I served on, it was brand new and I am a plankowner of the ship!
Semper Paratus !!!!! love the coastie switcher
Nicely done Jim M! I am relettering a few MTH woodsides for Strasburg as well. Still waiting on some decals. Stay tuned.
This is a Labelle car.
Pete
@Norton - Thats beautiful. Where do you get your decals from?
@pault posted:@Norton - Thats beautiful. Where do you get your decals from?
Thanks Paul. Highball Graphics makes most of them. They have them for 89, 90, and most of what you need for at least ten of the passenger cars. I added a few from a Microscale PRR set.
You have to contact them as the O scale ones are special order. HO are catalog items.
Pete
I'm putting seats and passengers in my Rio Grande Zephyr cars. For some reason, Lionel put tables and chairs in these domes. I replaced them with seating from Precision Scale and then used the old dome seats in the lower level. I'm also spraying Testor's transparent green on the windows.
Terry
Too big for my workbench but working on my 8.5 ft bridge. Lots of dowels from HD have been harmed in this process.
@Norton posted:Thanks Paul. Highball Graphics makes most of them. They have them for 89, 90, and most of what you need for at least ten of the passenger cars. I added a few from a Microscale PRR set.
You have to contact them as the O scale ones are special order. HO are catalog items.
Pete
I use Highball Graphics for both stock and custom decals made from my own artwork.
In addition to a quality product that is easy to apply to models, I find Highball Graphics responsive, fast and affordable. Below are photos of one of my many work-in-progress projects, repainted MTH O-27, Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (PRSL) passenger coaches being repainted and decaled with custom decals from Highball Graphics using my artwork. The decals are the lettering, road numbers and PRSL logos. The window striping is yellow graphic tape.
Randy that’s an exceptional job and thanks for the insights. My efforts are directed towards Reading equipment and PRSL when I can find them. Thank you.
Jay
@Tranquil Hollow RR posted:Randy that’s an exceptional job and thanks for the insights. My efforts are directed towards Reading equipment and PRSL when I can find them. Thank you.
Jay
Jay:
Thanks for the kind compliment. My layout, due to space constraints, is rather "old-school". It has tighter curves and we run "semi-scale" locomotives with selectively compressed passenger cars. The only PRSL P-70 coach models were full scale and would not work for me. I like MTH RailKing\Rugged Rails passenger coaches. They are well detailed and include interiors rather that the old-style window silhouettes. The prototype P-70 coaches had the older clerestory roof but were not heavyweight coaches. They had 4- wheel trucks. The closest that I could get to the look of the P-70 in MTH RailKing was their Madison style, heavyweight coaches with 6-wheel trucks. So, my PRSL coaches are going to be heavyweights, much to the disdain of rivet counters everywhere (and we have a few in the PRSL Historical Society). Below are photos of the prototype exterior of the coach I am emulating, the interior of a prototype PRSL P-70 coach and my interior.
The posters at either ends of the of the model interior are reductions of actual Pennsylvania RR ad posters for service to the New Jersey seashore. Lighting for the coaches is being converted to LED.
I would like to photos of your modeling. So, please post some.
You have a great body style with interior....what about Lionel "Baby Madison" 4 wheel trucks not quite PRR 4 wheel trucks but better than 6 wheels
Ed Samsen
It looks great, Randy!
@Ed Samsen posted:You have a great body style with interior....what about Lionel "Baby Madison" 4 wheel trucks not quite PRR 4 wheel trucks but better than 6 wheels
Ed Samsen
Ed:
Thanks for your kind words and suggestion.
I don't know that the 6-wheel trucks are even PRR style. The MTH O27 heavyweight coaches come painted and lettered in more than a dozen different road names. The actual coach is exactly the same no matter what the livery.
I did have this borderline brilliant idea of ordering a set of MTH 4-wheel passenger trucks for their O-27 streamlined passenger coaches assuming that MTH, to save money on tooling, would use the same chassis for both coaches. Well, silly me. The trucks for the streamlined coach have a shorter coupler than the Madison and the hole to mount the 4 wheeled trucks is not in the same place as the Madison mounting hole. Drilling a second hole will not work because the two holes slightly overlap. So, 6-wheel trucks it is!!!!!!
Been working on a battered Lionel 253 for the last few weeks. Cosmetically, the main problem was that most of the tabs holding the end pieces onto the body shell were broken. I'm not one for stripping original paint, but a solder job was the only permanent solution contemplated, and that required some or all of the paint to be removed. Tried a number of suggested recipes for paint removal, but ended up using a chemical stripper (another thing I'm not real fond of). That got about 99% of the paint off, so we got the shell soldered back together this week and a test fit back onto the frame (which will just get a good polish):
A bit more bending/straightening was required to get it to fit back onto the frame, and it's a tight fit, so some concern that the stress might pop the solder...we'll see. It'll get some rough handling during the next step (a final cleaning to remove the last bits of paint, then a thorough wash to remove absolutely every trace of chemical stripper) so a good test of the repairs. Presuming everything holds, it'll be off to the paint booth.
A big thank you to my solder-master friend for the work. I'd have burned a hole through the sheet-metal trying to do this.
PD
Missing is a container of "Kitty Treats"
Haven't had much train time lately. Honeydoo's have kept me busy.
I got a a few hours at the bench this afternoon and was able to bring life to my first of two MTH S2's that I'm working on. I bought the PS3/2 stacker boards a while back and had installed them, but several of the wires were too short and had to be extended. So the soldering station and the heat gun were warmed up and the work began.
I had to extend one set of wires from the pick ups- so I took the factory splice apart (wire nuts are very bush league), and replaced them with proper soldered splices.
Next was the front motor. Instead of doing 2 splices, I removed the wires from the motor and extended them from the harness. Could they make the wiring tabs on these can motors any smaller???? 
Finally, I installed the new speaker and wiring harness. The electro-couplers need to be checked. The rear has a short and chatters when power is applied, and the front doesn't work at all.
I put the engine on the track and SLOWLY brought up the power. NO MAGIC SMOKE!
The engine didn't react to my RC, but it worked in conventional. After getting the speaker installed I was able to reset the boards and now it works with my RC.
Still more work to do, and I need to get the birds nest of wires under control.
Bob
Very nice Bob!
@RSJB18 posted:Haven't had much train time lately. Honeydoo's have kept me busy.
I got a a few hours at the bench this afternoon and was able to bring life to my first of two MTH S2's that I'm working on. I bought the PS3/2 stacker boards a while back and had installed them, but several of the wires were too short and had to be extended. So the soldering station and the heat gun were warmed up and the work began.
I had to extend one set of wires from the pick ups- so I took the factory splice apart (wire nuts are very bush league), and replaced them with proper soldered splices.
Next was the front motor. Instead of doing 2 splices, I removed the wires from the motor and extended them from the harness. Could they make the wiring tabs on these can motors any smaller????
Finally, I installed the new speaker and wiring harness. The electro-couplers need to be checked. The rear has a short and chatters when power is applied, and the front doesn't work at all.I put the engine on the track and SLOWLY brought up the power. NO MAGIC SMOKE!
The engine didn't react to my RC, but it worked in conventional. After getting the speaker installed I was able to reset the boards and now it works with my RC.
Still more work to do, and I need to get the birds nest of wires under control.
Bob
As the esteemed Dr. Frankenstein exclaimed, “It’s Alive”. You have soo much more patience, and talent, than I.
Jay
@Tranquil Hollow RR posted:As the esteemed Dr. Frankenstein exclaimed, “It’s Alive”. You have soo much more patience, and talent, than I.
Jay
That's Fronkenstein........
@RSJB18 posted:That's Fronkenstein........
Haha. In that case I'm Igor
Pardon me boy is this the Transylvania station?
Experimenting what I asked Walter M to do a long time ago....
I just had to do it. Change my Rolling stock to kadee couplers. All new rolling stock is getting the scale look. Those big huge ugly monster claws just destroy a good looking car. Plus coupling goes so much smoother. No more banging cars together I just am in love building trains in my new yard. 
My Forney StdGauge GP style loco is finally moved up on the to do list.
Upgraded my Williams J class with adding a cab unit from a Lionel workhorse J class. Perfect fit and it covers that can motor. Added firebox glow as well. Added classification lights to the tender. Yes, the outside lights are red, and clear in the middle. This one also got a MTH ps1 smoke unit, and a postwar front pilot that looks much better. 
looks great! Do you have a video of it smoking?
Here ya go. This was before the other upgrades.
@Jim M Sr posted:Dallas Joseph,
Realy nice looking job Jim.
Where do you get your decals ? 🤔 They look great.
Thank you.I made the decals from pictures I found on line. Copy and paste into “Word” then adjusted the size. Used ink jet printer, so they had to be sealed before wetting and applying.
Engine numbers on the side are dry transfers.
Jim,
I'm intrigued by your custom decals. Do you also make your own dry transfer decals? I'd be interested in more details and advice explaining how you make them (and seal them), and maybe showing pictures of the process.
Why? My family homesteaded in central Nebraska (just outside of Eddyville), but the farm was on the Union Pacific branch line that ran from Kearney NE, out to Callaway NE. So, I grew up in the final days of that line before it was decommissioned in the late 1980s (I still have the crossing sign from our road). That line originally started out as the 'Kearney & Black Hills Railway' in the late 1880's and was then absorbed by UP later on. The line started out with a couple of 4-4-0's, and then transitioned into several Baldwin 2-8-0s (w/ Vanderbilt tenders). My dream is to model this branch line (before becoming UP) but would need to make my own decals and your guidance would be really helpful (knowing I'd be taking liberties with my own interpretation of lettering/imagery on locos and freight as aren't many detailed pictures from this era.) The other problem I have is finding good loco prototypes in O or S Gauge in a condition to where I won't feel guilty altering them from the original build.
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