Monday this week was a work day, then I pulled the pin for the next few weeks – more Long Service Leave. On Tuesday the boss and I went for a bus and train ride and walk around the city. We checked out the new casino and the sky deck. That was followed by lunch in town. When I got home, I cut the large beams above the sliding windows (lintels) in the Station Masters office in the Cassino Station building. These were then painted and let dry overnight. I however fitted the sliding windows in the breezeway end of the Station Masters Office.
Tuesday was Tuesday Nighters so I took the model to show the rabble. I also took possession of some N scale double LED lights that PK acquired for me. One of these is going into the Kyogle platform lighting when I find time. I have since drilled a hole in the baseboard from underneath and fed wires from the LED light down through the hole. Now I have to remember what gets wired to where.
Wednesday morning I fitted the beams above the large sliding windows in the Cassino Station building In the afternoon, I cut out the 12 pane windows from the AMRI station kit and used 0.020” x 0.030” styrene strip to replace the windows making them 9 pane windows, as per the prototype. These were painted and allowed to dry.
On Thursday I installed the 9 pane windows on the Cassino Station building. That just leaves the windows above the doors and the many toilet windows to build and fit and then the back platform side of the Cassino Station building will be complete. So I then made the window above the sliding door. That was scratch built, painted and then installed. On Friday I built the windows above the doors. These were also painted and allowed to dry. They were fitted on Saturday. More work will occur next week.
The next Thursday task was testing my $1.50 motor. I added a resistor in line to see if I could slow down the extremely large RPM from the motor at 3V. A 33 Ohm resistor works, as does a small 10 Ohm resistor. More testing to come. So I might order some of the small 8mm x 4mm motors that I can see online. My plan is to mount these on the bogies of the QR 2050 railmotor I am scratch building. I don’t have to pull 40 coaches with this method of propulsion. I only need to pull the railmotor. I am thinking that this might help me qualify for the Master Builder of Motor Power AP. I’ve had some input from Laurie McLean MMR, Gordy Robinson (President of the world) MMR and a few others. More work will follow here.
Late in the morning on Thursday I received a package from IDR Models with my QR SX set inside. In the afternoon I placed the wagons on the layout. They look very good. I think they look much better than the myriad of 3D printed ones at the Club. Don’t get me wrong, the 3D ones are nice models and have a place in the hobby, but these models are much better. I have not been able to compare them to scale. They will occur in the future. However, the IDR SX cars are very light. I added some weight to mine. I also noticed that some wheels were under-gauge for 12mm, when I compared them to some existing 12mm wheels I had laying around. The IDR models SX set has trouble running through a 12mm cross over without derailing. The couplers lack swing. This was adjusted and thus their performance improved markedly. Following more running, I’m not that impressed with their running ability.
I was thinking about it on Friday night. I decided to head over to Modeller’s Warehouse and see if he had some 12mm wheels and some 3D printed SX bogies used under the 3D printed SX cars. I acquired two sets for a trial. When I got home I swapped the IDR wheels and bogies out and replaced them with the 3D printed ones. There was some adjustment work to the 3D printed bogies, but that was 5 minutes work. They now run immensely better. Go Figure! I think I will buy some more 3D printed bogies next Saturday and replace the whole set’s bogies with Wuiske wheels and 3D printed bogies.
Most of the work on Friday was track work related in Clapham Yard. While running the SX cars through one set of points, they kept derailing. So I did a bit of work on the kitbashed HO points with a third rail for 12mm track through them. So I relayed the third rail (on track 4 - the dual gauge track) and they now run much better. However, while checking out my work, it dawned on me that where I leave my 4 car carrier wagons in Clapham Yard, is just not long enough to fit between a set of HO crossovers (tracks 3 to 4 – standard gauge) and a set of points at the end of the yard fan out. So I decided to move the crossovers back to the other side of a 12mm set of points on this dual gauge track. So now I have another 157mm to play with and the car carriers fit perfectly in this section. I had no idea why I had not thought about this previously. So I then re-attached all my power droppers to the rails in tracks 3 and 4. You guessed it – a short! So this was tracked down to the third rail in my recently adjusted HO points. The third rail was too long. That was adjusted by 1mm and mow it is all good.
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