49 Class and 80 Class Experiments and Decoders Everywhere

After last Saturday's trip to the Club and test run of my white metal 49 class, I decided that I would try and add extra pickups.  PK had some phospher bronze wire and Greg provided an article from his blog that showed how he installed extra pickups on a Lima 44 class.  My 49 had pickups on only two wheels on one side of each bogie.  Not very good.  So Monday night I installed the extra pickup wipers on the bogies.  I had 2 wheels one side and 2 other side of each bogie that I connect to the motor.  This gave pickups on 5 of the 6 wheels on each side.  I put it on the track and she ran perfectly.  Truely amazing when comparing how it ran last week.  I used hot glue to mount the phosper bronze wipers in position.  So the additional wiper experiment was a success.

On Tuesday I paid a visit to Toy World in the city and picked up a can of Freight Rail blue spray paint or near enough to have an experiment.  It wasn't until Friday afternoon that I attacked my white metal 80 class shell and removed the old decals and some of the paint. I then masked it up and hit it with my yellow etch primer for the yellow areas of the loco.  They looked good.  I was doing this before I did the Freight Rail blue spray.  I left the yellow etch to dry over night.  On Saturday morning I tried to spray the Blue.  Well it did not turn out as I had hoped.  It was very shiny.  Far too shiny.  So out came the trusty dull coat and now the loco is much more prototypical in blue colour.  It still needs another spray of dull coaat and then it will really need some heavy weathering as there are some really bad blemishes on few panels.  When it is finished I will post some photos.  I think it will end up being numbered 8011.  Knowing my luck we will find out the 8011 was never in Freight Rail blue colour scheme.

PK also dropped off my new Tsunami sound decoder at work on Tuesday (I think).  On Friday afternoon I also installed that into my Trainorama 4425 in tuscan.  It was a very easy install.  I then hooked up the existing lights to the 12V supply and they are way too bright.  But I haven't got a resister of the correct value to make them dimmer - not that I know what that is.  This are driving me crazy.  They won't light on the 1.5 volt circuit and on the 12 V supply from the decoder they are too bright.  I had decided to leave the bulbs that come with the 44 Class loco installed, as I do not have any white 3mm LED's left.  LED's are so much simpler to wire.

On the way back to the Club on Saturday, I went via Austral Modelcraft and picked up a 4 pack of NCE decoders.  Today one was installed into the mechanism for the white metal 80 Class I have been trying to paint up.  Yesterday I also received an order from one of the members to install a decoder into his Powerline dual motor loco.  Wiring the marker and ditch lights is going to be a pain but I will do that as well.  Hopefully I will pick up another 80 class loco from Darren on Tuesday night and I will also install a decoder in that loco next weekend.  While at the Club, I installed two decoders into two 44 class locos belonging to the 81 class owner.  As they were drop-ins, it took longer to remove and re-install the KD's in the 44's than it took to put in the decoders.  We also had someone else want some more decoders for their Aussie locos.  That cleaned out the Club shop of drop-in decoders.  Looks like another trip over to Austral next weekend for more than a dozen decoders for the shop.  I also showed a new prospective member at the Club yesterday how to program his two DL class locos which had NCE drop in decoders.  While at Austral on Saturday, Ray also showed me an ALCO version of a sound only decoder from MRC.  I might have to do a bit of a Google on that decoder this week as it could be an option for my next 44 Class or even an 80 class in the future.

I think I also need to order a bulk order of 3mm white LED's this week from somewhere.  See ya next week.