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 Posted - May 25 2017 : 1:05:32 PM
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Hey Y'all;
An 80 year old fellow in our little model RR club in our rural county seat burg is trading me an ABBA set of Rock Island Rocket F9s for my doing some work on his HO trains; adding Kadee couplers to cars, painting flat car decks, adding LED lights, Kadee couplers, guys in the cab, to locomotives; and other odds and ends.
So, here's kind of a photo story about tinkering with them.
I'll write more later in following posts, comments, or whichever the proper word is.
And, yes, it is a string of 14, I think, pictures.
Will comment now on a couple of the lights; 5mm LED for headlight. True, is nothing like the 2 bulb Gyralight on the real deal but I want a bright light. Since the plan is to eventually drawbar each AB set instead of couplers and some F's had a backup light I'm going to fabricate something for a 3mm LED. Will have to look up some F references to see who put that light where; or, since RI never had these locomotives in this livery anyway, and had a reputation for adulterating F unit headlights, I may just say screw the rivet counting and put it where I would if I were running a real one.
... and the last 2 photos; those ladders were damaged by the packaging, (Bill had barely if ever had these out to run) one broken off, one cracked, and looking at thickness of shell behind them I'm thinking about carving off triangular gusset and drilling flush with ladder back to add fine music wire as support against the force of errant fingers when handling locos.
“There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good.” — Tom Mueller, SpaceX, 2012
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Posted - May 25 2017 : 7:39:22 PM
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Nice work, I especially like how you shortened the coupler box and fitted a Kadee.  Fitting couplers is such a challenge on F-units when you also want to reduce the spacing between the units.
-Thomas
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Posted - May 25 2017 : 7:44:19 PM
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I agree, very nice work. I'd like to hear more on the coupler work too.
http://tycodepot.com/
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Posted - May 25 2017 : 8:25:13 PM
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Thanks y'all!
I'm not going to be able to produce a doctoral thesis on the coupler mods, it was a "Well, that looks about right" kind of thing - I don't even own a micrometer!
Used offset shank short couplers of some forgotten Kadee number and filed off the ears as photo shows.
Have long used that to make semi-radial couplers for my freelance On30.
Underset shank brought them to within a cat hair of dead on Kadee height gauge.
Held coupler to truck tab to see where screw needed to be and how much could be sawn off with rear end of coupler shank just a hair forward from rubbing on truck frame.
Marked plastic for drilling via a still nearly hypodermic sharp end of navigation dividers Dad gave me in late 1970s. Pivot was worn so they didn't lock reliably. I took them apart and for decades now have had a pair of grandly useful scribers.
Did sawing with a fine tooth razor saw blade while not using the handle.
Then with some size bit in a pin vise drilled pilot hole through tab on truck, which forms bottom of box, snapped sideframe piece on, it overlaps and forms top of coupler box, drilled through bottom hole to align make pilot hole in top of box.
Disassembled truck.
Enlarged hole in bottom to clear a nylon or delrin 2-65 screw which came with some other couplers.
Tapped top for the screw.
Reassembled truck.
Slipped coupler in, with centering spring in it, mostly to keep it from sliding back in box after installation. And somehow at same time slipped screw in.
Tightened screw just enough to allow coupler to swing without binding.
Cut off protruding excess screw with sprue cutters, reinstalled trucks, and called the job done.
“There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good.” — Tom Mueller, SpaceX, 2012
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Posted - May 25 2017 : 8:33:28 PM
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Oh, front couplers will be frame mounted since that will connect to frame mounter passenger car couplers and they will have more similar displacements on curves than would talgo coupler to frame coupler.
Intend to eventually frame mount couplers on one end of B units.
Initial plan is to us ABBA set on passenger train and so I figured the loco to loco couplers could all be left on the trucks to make for less effort applied.
also eventual plan is to drawbar each AB set for close enough connection to use someone's diaphragm set marketed for use on Stewart's F7, F9 locos.
Then I will cut out end doors between each AB set to run wires for electrical pickups to be added to the dummy B unit trucks, which are power trucks with no innards.
While it is not a universal absolute that more is always better in all of life, when it comes to locomotive electrical contact with current conducting rails, 16 beats 8 any day.
Ya know, with an ABBA set jumpered together, it would be 32 ...
“There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good.” — Tom Mueller, SpaceX, 2012
Edited by - southwestforests on May 25 2017 8:42:40 PM
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