Blog Comments

Originally Posted by ranulf

That's looking pretty awesome so far!!! I assume they are resin printed?

The three at the bottom are resin prints. Not flawless, but decent. Layer lines are visible, sometimes the offset is pronounced. As I mentioned, the dimensions seem to have crept slightly smaller in all directions-not a great amount, maybe a millimeter plus on length, fractionally on width. They all seem a bit tall on the one E-5A chassis I have, as if sitting high on something hanging it up. I'll recheck that once the two remaining chassis' arrive. There is not a lot of 'meat' to carve out of the inside of the shells. But I'm happy to have the fleet!

That's looking pretty awesome so far!!! I assume they are resin printed?

Originally Posted by Albey25

Wow!! I have a new hero! I'm amazed that anyone would possess the skills to identify and rectify all those problems, AND be a model railroader! I have had a long standing fascination with this particular train as well as the Comet, New Haven's similar consist. I've never seen one in N scale! I truly hope you can work out the bugs.

From the experience, I've decided that the train will in fact be more for display than running the layout. When set up completely, seems it finds a short that I can't locate. But it will have a stable mate.
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I'd like to add that Con Cor once imported the Zephyr train set which was a superior runner compared to the Fine-N-Scale model I built. They are not cheap, but can be found once in a while on secondary markets. I've seen Comet bodies 3D printed, probably on Shapeways, and that would be a truly scratch builder's project.
Steve

Wow!! I have a new hero! I'm amazed that anyone would possess the skills to identify and rectify all those problems, AND be a model railroader! I have had a long standing fascination with this particular train as well as the Comet, New Haven's similar consist. I've never seen one in N scale! I truly hope you can work out the bugs.

Originally Posted by Albey25

Thanks for posting this! I had no idea such a thing even existed. Please tell us more.

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The rest of the kit has been a series of win and losses. Handrails placement is great, window inserts in the cars so-so, as the strips must be cut into individuals and glued in separately. The trucks were decent, but the orientation of the insulated wheels was causing an intermittent short that was hard to find. The second largest issue was the the "rev. "C" printed circuit board floors DID NOT match the length of their intended cars. New mounting holes were drilled to match the mounting posts cast into car bulkheads. This soon revealed that the screws provided required countersinking to clear the truck flanges for curve interference and also another source of shorting. The new holes also are located in the live electrical traces, so yet another possible source of shorting found. This hasn't been addressed with a correction yet, pending further testing.

Now, for the power car...
First, the body casting was neither straight nor square. I worked with what I had, and haven't determined a permanent fix yet. The printed circuit floor/frame also didn't match the mounting posts in the body, so new holes were drilled and chamfered. The floor is not the full length of the car body, but instead inserts into slots under the motor and frame. On inspection, the contact strips weren't consistently with the split frame (possibly DCC ready, but I'd be very hesitant about that aspect), and a short contact path was detected and corrected here. The motor and drive were found to not always meshing. Literally, I had to twist and bend and file the metal nose section to stay in drive mode. Later it has been determined that 15" radius curves are the limit; further curves disengage the gears from the drive - even without mounting the truck side frames which would virtually eliminate any curves under 36". The front windshields were supposed to fit INSIDE the shell. Instead I found it possible to fit inside the window frames, with a small gap on the fireman's side. And, I almost forgot - the nose would sometimes drag on the rails, so as a desperate step I sanded the bottom of the pilot a bit to at least not snag. I fear I went just a little further than I desired. It's position above the rails was increased when the rear of the frame was fully screwed into the car body once the screw heads were countersunk.

There are more small details to pass along, but not for now. Maybe I'll get some pictures to illustrate the problems and solutions. I will disassemble the power car again today, to see if I can why it only works when the body is not screwed onto the frame. It isn't a short this time, and not a connection issue, but simple a failure to drive. The paint and decals have suffered with all the handling (and man-handling) to correct steps along the way. I will give it one more try to prevent this model from becoming the "Hanger Queen".

Thanks for posting this! I had no idea such a thing even existed. Please tell us more.

This looks spectacular! Nice work.
Have you shared this in the regular forum?
I am not seeing it.

I tend to forget about the blog area of the site.

Great looking tree! It puts me in the mind of those "upper class neighborhood" areas where crews of guys come every month or so, to prune and sculpt so that a whole row of them all look identical. Looking forward to progress reports.

Wise decision! I built a terminal a couple of years back and I decided that to avoid that "see through" look I'd do some interior walls, etc. The whole thing got way out of hand, and it ended up taking months to complete. It came out only OK, and the inside is barely noticable.

Originally Posted by Albey25

I love scratch building. Good luck with the project. I like that you have no deadline to increase pressure on you. Are you planning any interior details?

I'm not planning for that item. In fact, to save space, the end of track posts will be only about an inch from the front of the building, as there is also a train shed planned, but far too high of an arc and only a third as long.
The tricky part is this station is also my Dearborn stand-in, and I may build the over-track canopy that was distinct to that station's departure tracks. Only if time allows, as that too must be build from scratch.
Thanks for asking, and sorry I didn't receive a notice you had written to the blog.
New installment soon.

I love scratch building. Good luck with the project. I like that you have no deadline to increase pressure on you. Are you planning any interior details?

I will amend the entry for Wheels of Time 6 wheel trucks. I've spent quite a few minutes making adjustments to several of these cars, and have come to the conclusion that anything size-wise might be mounted to these trucks. I needed to remove the trucks to grind away a lip that was hanging the coupler trip pin top on the sills, and have measured axles ranging from .541 to .562 from these trucks (six samples) while they were apart. I've also noticed that the left center axle (coupler left, looking from bottom) wheel was always dirtier than the others. Almost as if the chamfer center was lower, and making the axle/wheel ride harder. Not by much, but this will also require further investigation. Several of the cars do not roll freely, also.

If replacement wheelsets were more abundant right now, I'd just replace the lot of them. I wanted these products to be a favorite, but have lost some faith in them at this time.

Thanks!. I passed on the grouting lesson today, instead deciding to paint some window frames on DPM kits. I stopped at three. Reset my thinking, and have been masking off brick walls so I can spray the 4 buildings instead. Right or wrong, I'll go with straight lines and edges evenly coated over shaky looking unevenly brush stroked attempts.

Steve

Good read! As a fellow blogger I'll be watching for updates.

I had the same problem (sort of)
I found a solution at Berrett Hill.
http://www.berretthillshop.com/store...al-connectors/

Hope this is helpful

FYI: posts such as this would get more exposure and are appropriate under the regular forum thread topics. Blogs don’t get a lot of visitors because it’s mostly off topic.

Thanks, Steve. Looks interesting!