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Aug. 5th, 2020 04:36 amThe $7 locomotive that needed a wire fixed? I put it on the layout for an operational test. It made a couple laps around and then smoke started pouring out of it. I'm honestly surprised that didn't set off any smoke alarms. After letting it cool down, I took the motor apart as far down as I could, cleaned off all the old grease and sludge that was slathered on the gears, then put it all back together with a couple drops of light oil. That seems to have helped a lot. In successive runs, the motor didn't become a fire hazard.
The good news is fixing old Tyco engines isn't very hard, because there's not much to them in the first place. The bad news is once they're fixed, the end result is there's still not much to them. They have what are known as pancake motors, which means the motor armature is much smaller than a can motor and is a lot weaker as a result. They weren't made to last and even when they were new, they might have been able to pull 10 cars around a flat layout.
In building this layout, I used self-drilling wood screws with Torx heads. And a lot of them. More than I expected, whole boxes of them. I'm quite pleased with how easy they were to work with, and I'll use them again in future projects.
The overall theme of the layout is all over the place because that's how I roll. There's gonna be modern stuff, old stuff, stuff that's out of place on a train layout. Did Conrail or Chessie or BNSF ever run trains past the Rabbit House from GochiUsa? No but they will. There are a bunch of other models I've either built or ready to build: A "country store" that looks suspiciously like a Stuckeys, a vintage Dairy Queen, a restaurant that looks like an old Howard Johnson's, and a modern travel center that was designed to not look like anything in particular but reminds me of a Speedway. I also have an old Union 76 pre-built gas station. Actually 2 of those; one is almost pristine and in the original box and the other is beat up and missing parts and would be a good candidate for the closed and abandoned look. The travel center was a bit of a surprise in how much area it could take up, so I might make an add-on diorama for that.
Anime convention stuff: I would have been to Otakon last weekend but nope. AUSA just announced they're canceled too. When I first started going to conventions all the way back in 1995, I was going to 2 or 3 per year. Now for 2020 it's going to be stalled out at 1 (which was Katsucon). So it goes. Otakon did an online-convention thing via Twitch, but it's not the same. It was a nice gesture though.
AUSA may have canceled due to the hotel having problems. The hotel had been closed since March, and it's now very likely that it won't reopen. Part of it was already turned into apartments, so there are probably plans brewing to do the same with the rest of the building.
Maybe Anime Weekend Atlanta is still on. They haven't given much info about what they're going to do. It is in Georgia and that area of the country seems to lack common sense as a whole. Perhaps in better times I would have attended. With what's going on now? Oh hell no. I like anime conventions but not enough to subvert my sense of self-preservation.
What did I do with the weekend that would have been Otakon? I got Ai's annual state inspection done. No dings, nothing was flagged as a potential concern. Another year good to go. More specifically, another 13 months. I've taken to getting her inspection done early in the month, then when that's due the next year, I'll push that off just enough into the following month. There's a 10-day grace period that enables this. (Having a second car is a big help if/when this trick does not work as planned.) Ai's inspection used to be due in April, now she's up to August. Eventually I'll settle for October. By that point she'll have hit or will be close to 600k miles, or almost 1 million kilometers.
Anime: "Last Period". It's an anime that's based on a mobile game, which is likely why it took me 2 years to get around to watching it. I regret taking that long, because it proved to be a funny show that breaks the 4th Wall, builds up another one, then breaks that too. The crossover segment with Higurashi no Naku Koro ni really put it over the top.
The good news is fixing old Tyco engines isn't very hard, because there's not much to them in the first place. The bad news is once they're fixed, the end result is there's still not much to them. They have what are known as pancake motors, which means the motor armature is much smaller than a can motor and is a lot weaker as a result. They weren't made to last and even when they were new, they might have been able to pull 10 cars around a flat layout.
In building this layout, I used self-drilling wood screws with Torx heads. And a lot of them. More than I expected, whole boxes of them. I'm quite pleased with how easy they were to work with, and I'll use them again in future projects.
The overall theme of the layout is all over the place because that's how I roll. There's gonna be modern stuff, old stuff, stuff that's out of place on a train layout. Did Conrail or Chessie or BNSF ever run trains past the Rabbit House from GochiUsa? No but they will. There are a bunch of other models I've either built or ready to build: A "country store" that looks suspiciously like a Stuckeys, a vintage Dairy Queen, a restaurant that looks like an old Howard Johnson's, and a modern travel center that was designed to not look like anything in particular but reminds me of a Speedway. I also have an old Union 76 pre-built gas station. Actually 2 of those; one is almost pristine and in the original box and the other is beat up and missing parts and would be a good candidate for the closed and abandoned look. The travel center was a bit of a surprise in how much area it could take up, so I might make an add-on diorama for that.
Anime convention stuff: I would have been to Otakon last weekend but nope. AUSA just announced they're canceled too. When I first started going to conventions all the way back in 1995, I was going to 2 or 3 per year. Now for 2020 it's going to be stalled out at 1 (which was Katsucon). So it goes. Otakon did an online-convention thing via Twitch, but it's not the same. It was a nice gesture though.
AUSA may have canceled due to the hotel having problems. The hotel had been closed since March, and it's now very likely that it won't reopen. Part of it was already turned into apartments, so there are probably plans brewing to do the same with the rest of the building.
Maybe Anime Weekend Atlanta is still on. They haven't given much info about what they're going to do. It is in Georgia and that area of the country seems to lack common sense as a whole. Perhaps in better times I would have attended. With what's going on now? Oh hell no. I like anime conventions but not enough to subvert my sense of self-preservation.
What did I do with the weekend that would have been Otakon? I got Ai's annual state inspection done. No dings, nothing was flagged as a potential concern. Another year good to go. More specifically, another 13 months. I've taken to getting her inspection done early in the month, then when that's due the next year, I'll push that off just enough into the following month. There's a 10-day grace period that enables this. (Having a second car is a big help if/when this trick does not work as planned.) Ai's inspection used to be due in April, now she's up to August. Eventually I'll settle for October. By that point she'll have hit or will be close to 600k miles, or almost 1 million kilometers.
Anime: "Last Period". It's an anime that's based on a mobile game, which is likely why it took me 2 years to get around to watching it. I regret taking that long, because it proved to be a funny show that breaks the 4th Wall, builds up another one, then breaks that too. The crossover segment with Higurashi no Naku Koro ni really put it over the top.
