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Oct. 6th, 2020 09:13 amTook last week off from work because I can. I have a couple weeks' worth of vacation time that have to be used up this year and it ain't gonna take itself. What did I do? Mostly putzing around the house. There's no lack of things to do around here. It's easier to work on the train layout when the room it's in isn't 100% hot. Can't really go anywhere anyway. I haven't been outside PA/MD since February or March.
Got the plaster cloth on the layout, and the uneven spots filled in with putty. Then comes the roadbed and anchoring the track into place. Then more testing to make sure nothing is going to derail when it's not supposed to. I think by virtue of having the plaster cloth, putty, and roadbed in place, that should smooth out any sudden incline transitions. Or at least take the edge off.
Recently, I found a store was selling some old brass locomotives for fairly cheap. The locos themselves are older than I am, were made in Japan, and were in somewhat rough shape. They work but they need tune-ups and rewiring. I'm finding they're in need of new motor brushes, and that's going to require some slight modification as new ones of the exact size can't be found. I'm also tempted to strip off the paint that looks like a spray can rush job. They have a few design flaws that have long since been worked out in newer models, particularly with the arrangement of gears, which makes these things LOUD. Did I need to buy them? Probably not. But brass product tends to be expensive one way or the other, and when the opportunity to buy them at $25 each comes up, it would be silly to pass that up.
Also, I found another Silver Streak, non-working as they tend to be. For five bucks, sure. This one was in far worse shape. It looked like someone tried fixing it a long time ago and decided it wasn't worth any more effort. The motor itself had hairline cracks and the gears seized to their shafts and broke them, further rendering the motor useless. Funny thing is, at another train shop back in May, I picked up a box of junk for next to nothing, and that came with spare Tyco motors. Yay? There was another loco listed as "won't run" but the motor just needed cleaned out. These are the sort of toy trains that were run on track on the floor so of course they were going to collect fuzz inside. The ones I played with as a kid were no exception.
I may already be at the point where I'm starting to lose count of how many locomotives I have. Certainly more than what I can run at any given time. Then there's this young bloke:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG6YK16ftML3pkHJt5BR2gw
People just... send him their old locomotives. I guess if I wanted to find a new home for some of mine, I'd have that as an option.
In other news: Nozomi's exhaust is finally starting to fail, starting with the B-pipe. Kinda surprised it lasted this long. Not looking forward to dealing with those 3 fasteners that are rusted down to nubs. What I'll probably end up doing is the same as what I did with Ai back in 2005, which is to slap on an aftermarket converter so she's drivable, then wrestle with the original parts at my leisure. It'll be an extra few hundred bucks to do it that way. Which might be worth it.
Got the plaster cloth on the layout, and the uneven spots filled in with putty. Then comes the roadbed and anchoring the track into place. Then more testing to make sure nothing is going to derail when it's not supposed to. I think by virtue of having the plaster cloth, putty, and roadbed in place, that should smooth out any sudden incline transitions. Or at least take the edge off.
Recently, I found a store was selling some old brass locomotives for fairly cheap. The locos themselves are older than I am, were made in Japan, and were in somewhat rough shape. They work but they need tune-ups and rewiring. I'm finding they're in need of new motor brushes, and that's going to require some slight modification as new ones of the exact size can't be found. I'm also tempted to strip off the paint that looks like a spray can rush job. They have a few design flaws that have long since been worked out in newer models, particularly with the arrangement of gears, which makes these things LOUD. Did I need to buy them? Probably not. But brass product tends to be expensive one way or the other, and when the opportunity to buy them at $25 each comes up, it would be silly to pass that up.
Also, I found another Silver Streak, non-working as they tend to be. For five bucks, sure. This one was in far worse shape. It looked like someone tried fixing it a long time ago and decided it wasn't worth any more effort. The motor itself had hairline cracks and the gears seized to their shafts and broke them, further rendering the motor useless. Funny thing is, at another train shop back in May, I picked up a box of junk for next to nothing, and that came with spare Tyco motors. Yay? There was another loco listed as "won't run" but the motor just needed cleaned out. These are the sort of toy trains that were run on track on the floor so of course they were going to collect fuzz inside. The ones I played with as a kid were no exception.
I may already be at the point where I'm starting to lose count of how many locomotives I have. Certainly more than what I can run at any given time. Then there's this young bloke:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG6YK16ftML3pkHJt5BR2gw
People just... send him their old locomotives. I guess if I wanted to find a new home for some of mine, I'd have that as an option.
In other news: Nozomi's exhaust is finally starting to fail, starting with the B-pipe. Kinda surprised it lasted this long. Not looking forward to dealing with those 3 fasteners that are rusted down to nubs. What I'll probably end up doing is the same as what I did with Ai back in 2005, which is to slap on an aftermarket converter so she's drivable, then wrestle with the original parts at my leisure. It'll be an extra few hundred bucks to do it that way. Which might be worth it.
