had to make resistor wheelsets for 30+ cars, paint the wheels, add detaisl to 2 GP-7's, paint handrails on one GP-7, and install a decoder and LEDs in another GP-7, to be ready for the big show over the weekend before July 4. All this with working late most nights and working most weekends.
This wekeend I was highly productive. The silver paint is drying on the last 4 resistor wheelsets, all other cars are ready to go - oh yeah, installed loads in all the open hoppers, too. The first GP-7, that alreayd had a decoder, is all set witht he extra details and a super subtly tiny bit of weathering - I'm painting the wheels oily black because I think it looks better than grimy black, and a dabbed a bit in each exhaust stack on the Geeps. Gepp #2 has the details and handrails painted, just have to install a decoder. Then some test runing - this train stretches about 1/3 of the way aroudn my home layout, and load it up in my carrying box, get all my tolls organized back ont he tool box, and pick a coupel fo kits to work on while not at the show. Phew! For a while I was worried, since it was taking a couple of days to get 4 wheesets done and I had over a dozen left to go. Now down to the very last 2 cars.
ALternate power will be my other T1, last two shows I ran 2111, this time I will run 2113 to even out the mileage some. 2113 needs some tweaking, I never set the volumes in that one so it's much too loud.
I also polished up the trads on all the wheels - both to make them look more realistic and to improve the pickup for the block detection resistors. P2K wheels do ok as is, but Branchline's bleckening doesn't conduct very well. Each car should nominally be 5K (pair of 10K resistors in parallel). Prior to polishign the trads, most had to be pushed down on pretty hard to get a 5K reading. After polishing, every car that is at least proper wight reads 5K just sitting there not touched. Should have no problems tripping signals this time.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
After following your posts on this progect, and reading the amount of work you have put into it.
I wish you the best, and hope all goes well.
Some pictures would be nice.
Truck.
There will be, now that the locos are 'done' I will take roster shots and get my web site updated. I'm also planning to get lots of video at the show, I will have a tripod adapter for my phone so I can get steady video this time unlike the somewhat shakey ones I have on Youtube now.
The resistors, well, the whole idea was to make them invisible to after the solver conductive paint dries I paitn it all over with the oily black so you don't see a white/silver flash with every axle rotation. I didn't take any progress pictures because it looks exactly like the pictures on the site I used for instructions on how to add resistors to P2K wheels.
If I had full weekends and my usual Tuesday night work session time available, this probably would have been a couple of weeks project instead of a couple of months. Also I definitely need more than 1 wheel painting jig. That limited me to doing just 4 wheelsets at a time with a ton of downtime in between waiting for paint to dry enough so I could pop out one batch and start the next.
rrinker I didn't take any progress pictures because it looks exactly like the pictures on the site I used for instructions on how to add resistors to P2K wheels. --Randy
I didn't take any progress pictures because it looks exactly like the pictures on the site I used for instructions on how to add resistors to P2K wheels.
Could you share that link?
Thanks
Here:
http://www.mpmrr.net/wheels1.html
I didn;t have any more unopened packs of wheels to use the tray they come in, and I couldn;t find any place with the Busch paint in stock, so I searched on eBay and found some 18% silver paint. It's not cheap (neither is the Busch). I was thinking if I ever need more I might get the 36% silver.