Closing in on a finished B unit

Well, we are in the home stretch with the B unit. I have sprayed the body with Dullcoat to blend the new paint with the old. It has come out pretty good . This side is the one with the damaged panel that we painted and decaled. The next project, and the more difficult one, is lying behind the B unit - the A unit. 

This is the other side. I also opened up the lens on the back up light so that the bulb will shine through. 

I am pleased with the results but probably will weather the unit to further bland the colors. 

Some closer views. I have prepared the chassis, as you saw previously, and installed the lighting module. 

A closer view

Last shot. 

Ah, now the A unit. This took the brunt of the blow when it hit the floor and damaged the nose plus sprung the rear and crushed the antennae. 

On eside has no lettering left from the body work by the craftsman, Mike Mangini, who did the body work. 

I am thinking I can salvage the antenna if I can do some very careful soldering on the posts. The paint on the roof is very heavy so I cannot easily get down to the brass to unsolder everything. This is driving me to the careful soldering approach. I tried to buff f the paint but could hardly scrape it. In fact, I buffed the whole area to remove the overspray of the primer from Mike. 

The roof shows that I have removed the shine but not much else. 

This side has had the lettering essentially removed due to the work. 

The other side has most of the lettering still in place. I do not yet know if I can use it. Perhaps just the road name. 

I also buffed off the overspray on this side. I will have to rebuild the nose headlight as the internals have all been removed to allow the contours to be rebuilt. 
 

F7b Drive and Underbody

Well, as I continue to work to get the F7b back on line, I took the drive and tested it on a straight track. The engine kept jumping off. As I looked at it, I could see that one truck was skewed up and to the right. Something in the truck was out of line. So, I disassembled the truck and found that the bolster screw was bent, Probably, from the drop to the floor. I slowly tried to straighten it but it snapped. You can see the brass screw less any threads. The silver screw was used to determine the thread pattern.  Needless to say, I did not have a replacement, so a project is in my future. 

Fortunately, I have a lathe so I can make a screw. Taking a brass rod of sufficient diameter, I turned the end down to a shaft that I can cut a 3X0.5MM thread on it. 

Taking my threading die, I carefully cut the threads on the shaft.

I then test it on the truck bolster and it spins right on. Part A of our problem solved. Now I have to address the shaft through the bolster pad.

Now I turn the bolster shaft to the dimension of the original screw. Next, I get to cut off the blank with the same sized head. Part B is done.

Here is our blank with no slot to turn it with. It is sitting next to the original screw. 

I need to remove the tang from the cutoff and reduce the thickness of the head slightly. Part C finished.

Done! Now I take it to my mill and, using a saw blade, I cut a slot into the head so it is really a screw. I also reduce the length of the threaded portion to match the original screw. 

Finished screw. Time elapsed - about 2.25 hours. So, using the Government's accounting approach - this is a $50 screw. But, then, I did not have another one, so I am happy to have it. 

I reassembled the truck and ran the chassis on the layout. It was solidly on the track and ran well. I am a pleased railroader. Now, back to the body and finishing of the painting, adding a lighting circuit and reassembly. 
 

Continuing on the F7B

This is a repeat from the earlier post showing the completed rivets.

I have now painted the body where ever it was repaired and primed. After baking in the oven to harden the Scalecoat paint, i have started adding the decals. In this case, indicating a Water fill point.

Now I have added the stripe and the 600 Volt sign on the rear.  So, the body is now done, except for the Dullcoat which will even all the paint finishes up. 

 

Repairing a Key F7B Unit

Well, this is part of a longer story of an A/B set that derailed and fell off the track and went to the floor about 7 feet below. The B unit had less damage than the A unit so I am addressing it first. I had a gentleman in California repair the body damage and this is how it returned to me. The wrinkled panel has been straightened and the work resulted in the loss of rivet detail on the batten strips. I have found some Archer rivet decals that match the size and separation of the original batten strips. I have laid a decal on the bottom batten to see how it would look.

This is a close up of the decal on the body. I have cut it to size in preparation for its application. 

This is a close up of the applied rivet decals on the batten strips around the straightened panel. I have treated them with one dose of MicroSet and will put a dose of Solvaset on before I paint the panel with Dark Green locomotive Enamel (Brunswick Green) by Scalecoat. 

 This is an overview of the unit. It has some of the original Dullcoat rubbed off by handling during the repair work. I am counting on that disappearing when I respray it with Dullcoat after I finish the repainting. I will show that in the near future. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Adding a new Industry

Well, I have to get some customers for the railroad so the Real Estate Development group went out and was soliciting new industries. They came up with a nominee for a large building in Shamokin. The Temple Stewart Company had closed down some time ago upon the death of the owner and the building was vacant.  A new, upcoming company, Halbert and Sons, has entered the market and was looking for space, so we converted the old factory to a space for them. I used a Power Point program to make the signs to fit. I used regular paper and tried a few different fonts before I settled on this one - easy to read for the switching crews. 

So, here we see the large trackside sign. This is actually my practice sign so just held in with tension on the frame. I printed a final once I saw that this looked good. It is sized to fit within the existing frame and held on with contact cement. I may do a light weathering spray on it to integrate it more. 

This is how I masked the side of the building to spray the contact cement onto the frame. I also sprayed the back of the sign itself. 

 This is the view of the front of the building with the company name spelled out. This is the final version of this sign. The company is located in Shamokin and will be placed there shortly. 

 I am anxious to find out how to make more signs with power point, using other colored papers. Lacking white ink is a problem. 

Finishing the ramp upgrade

Well, it took me a while to find the ballast I had used in this area as I have about 4 ballast types on the layout. Here you can see the ballast has been added over the magnets and I have to spray them with water and then drip on the glue. I covered the area around the ramps with paper to shield the undisturbed areas.

Ballast in place and ramp area sprayed. Glue has been added and absorbed. 

I initially tried putting the water in place with an eyedropper but that disturbed the ballast and did not look as good. The track at the top of the picture shows that. It motivated me to get out the sprayer.

A closer look at that area.

 Here is the main line, now ballasted and glued. As an ironic touch, I used an old Micro Mark catalogue as my source of paper for the masking. 

Upgrading Older Magnetic Ramps

As I operated the layout, it became apparent that some of the early magnetic ramps were set too high and caused the glad hands of the couplers to scrape the tops of the ballast over the magnets. You can see the lighter color as a result of the scraping in this picture. On the main line, I was also getting false uncoupling as the strong magnets drew the cars together. 

So, I have to remove the old magnets and reset the screws for the magnets to get more clearance and a slightly lower strength. You can see that I have rewet the glue that holds the ballast over the ramps. You can see the heads of the screws after I removed the magnets. 

I then had to go back and clear out the old ballast once the water evaporated and the ballast was loosened. You can see the depth gauge that I will use to reset the screws. This was not a major problem because it was essentially setting the screw tops even with the subsurface material under the track. I used the broken toothbrush head as my scrubber/broom to clean out the area. The old magnets are lined up along the right side of the picture. I cleaned them up once they were removed and reused them. I was surprised that some had started to rust so I am hopeful that this process was only short term. 

This is a finished installation using the old magnets awaiting paint on the tops of the magnets. After that dries, I will insert replacement ballast and then glue it all down. 

Here are a couple more installations on the main line. The top ballast has been removed and I am about to tighten the screws down and clean out the old ballast. 

depth 

Here are a couple of views as I use the depth gauge to ensure that all screws are the same before I place the magnets back in place. 

A closer look of the gauge engaging the top of the screws. 

A finished installation of the ramp awaiting a top coat of ballast and glue. The magnets have been painted rail brown to avoid seeing their silver color. 

This whole procedure is a multiday process due to waiting for the paint to dry and then the glue to dry once the ballast is replaced. I am going to have to spray paint the track to try to blend the new ballast with the old. 
 

Another source for a tender

So, a more recent model than the 50 year old US Hobbies I1, is the Sunset I1. It has a short tender, the 90f82 as well. It, too, is a bit deficient in its details so I had to rework one. This is an overview of that tender with some pictures to show the difference. I had to move the hatch rearward, add details to the deck and rear, very similar to what I did to the older tender. 

It also did not have any water valves so they were added. 

The rear conduit was improved, a class plate added, and new markers installed. This body was nicer in that there is no rear seam in the body.  

I could not do the applique as easily so I had to forego it. I had a more difficult time with the grab irons up the back of the slope sheet. Drains were moved to the correct location as was the water hatch. This left me with a very large hole in the tender deck which required quite a patch job. 

I added the steam/water lines to the dog-house as well

Here is a comparison of the stock (painted ) Sunset tender, with the improved tender. Quite a change for the better.

The look in the rear. 

I am showing that I milled out the opening in the side of the frame for the lower water valving. 

Here you see the water valves on the top of the legs of the tender, which are missing on the original model.