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- Today
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Hi Nick, Gauge 1 is very expensive, I tried to keep costs low, everything I have built is made of wood, signals, buildings, turntables, lamps etc. Not everything was good, but I was satisfied. If you recreate things in a simplified way and leave out the details, you have already won. If you want to build all the details, you've lost. That's a matter of the head..:) Make things easy, and you'll have fun. Regards Jan
- Yesterday
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You have hand laid track AND switches, something I've never attempted. I got so frustrated hand spiking the track on the barge I was tempted to set it on fire. The second time tempted was the weathering on the sides. LOL
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I received a PM asking what the stamped printing inside the cab was. Until this pic I couldn't see it clearly.
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Mike Chaney was a true artist, machinist, modeler, designer and so many other talents. It was an honor to have had the communications with him. I printed it all have it in a folder, old fashioned way, so can only loose it if my house burns down.
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This machine has very nice wheels, low wheel flanges and fine coupling rods, I have never seen before, thank you. Regards Jan
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Hello Nick, that's exactly how it's meant to be, a wooden order with beams and boards, I don't always find the right words. That will be high, about 30 boards. With the beams I built my tracks and switches, these are the remains, this is oak. Thank you Jan
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Nice ..
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Forgot to add the cab pic, thought it interesting as each cylinder has a separate steam feed.
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Jan, was looking at your project again. How about: The large cut timbers on the bottom like you have, then gradually levels of smaller cut lumber. Like they were sending a mixture of 'cuts' like a special order.
- Last week
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Looks like lumber coming down from the mill, excellent project. Please keep us posted.
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This is the older sister of the Climax, also by Mike Chaney. Purchased it after it had been 'run hard and put up wet'. The seller sent me detailed pics of it, site glass leak and all. I tore it down to just pieces, sent the motor to Mike and he completely rebuilt it, removing the transmission 'play' that allowed it to take curves. I replaced the stock drive shafts with expanding ones like on a Shay. I treasure the email he sent stating that only two Heisler are like it, his and mine. Far too humid for plumes this morning.
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Chuck, yes just in miniature.
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Hi Chuck, very well explained. The switch motors are less susceptible to interference and can dcc with a decoder, I use feather motors in analog with 12 volts DC. Another method is operation with servo motors. For the frogs you can also take frog juicer, unfortunately there are only for small amperes. Regards Jan
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Here's the twin coils that activate the switch. The set of open contacts operate the dwarf signal. I had troubles from the start with this switch as the point for the diverging route wasn't closing properly and engines would pick it then short out the layout. This is as far as it would go. Ended up being the point rails were just a bit to long and they'd bind against the closure rails. So removed them both and sanded a bit off the ends. So I could see just how much material I was removing I just use a black Sharpie and "paint" the rail end a bit. I just wan to remove maybe half that line. I did just that and reinstalled. Now it works just fine. Okay as here the switch is working fairly well. Once I put the cover back on and tightened down this mechanism started acting up by not throwing the points tight against the diverging rail aka straight thru. They use a piece of spring steel between that "bellcrank" and throwbar. Bending that a bit to help point "close tighter" works but then that throws off the frog polarity switch setting. Here's same but switch set for diverging... This plug for controller is bad as one of the wires make intermittent contact. It's a sealed unit which is basically 4 female spade terminals encased in rubber/ plastic and non-serviceable. Believe it or not this switch is still under warranty but USA Trains service told me any switch sent in for warranty work is returned as a manual switch...yeah real nice. So I've decided to abandon this "fine" setup and convert these switches to use the Aristo-Craft ART11298 Slow Motion switch machines. I have a bunch of these brand new. Al Kramer of San Val Trains told me long ago to go this route. Infact he's trying to get Bachmann to start making them again. Test fit and run...works just fine!
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Heck that train looks great! Like a real one...well guess in a way it is real!!
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Jan, It is more noticeable on live steamers run at very slow speeds. It is also noticeable in the video of the K4.
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Thank you Chuck and Nick for your warm words, this was our last cat, we had 6 in 35 years. These were all Turkish Angora, the name is Wada.Today I cut, sanded and glued a few ice sticks....a life's work, there are still 10 on it, all together 400 pieces....:) Regards Jan Forgot, sorry, Nick I only have this car with link and pin.
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Would be interested in hearing from anyone concerning lubrication and cleaning of the motor of a aristocraft 2-8-2, electric version that has been sitting since 2002. this engine sounds ok but has poor puling power and will blow a on board 5 amp fuse that is on to battery board, Thanks Bill
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Great, the machine has to work properly, there is no automatic control for speed, as in real life. My first DC locomotives also ran like this, in a curve they slowed down. Well done Nick ! Regards Jan
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Here it is with the new Skelton cars, the loads won't even pass the 10' test. Throttle is very low to enjoy the rod action, and can see it strain to pull that first heavy car through the turnout.
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Nick, Yes on the shim afterthought but the Aristo switches are still the only ones available that match the U.S. tie spacing in code 332 rail. Could buy Sunset Valley switches but then the code 250 to 332 mismatch happens. It's a wonder somebody hasn't filled that void. Why the arcing with the USA switches is a many faceted problem with the major flaw being how the frog is wired. Maybe a better way to put it is the engineering behind how power is routed to the frog. Here's the underside of the twin coiled switch machine housing. Twin coiled makes me think all that they did was copy the Atlas HO & O scale track switches. Never mind the 6 piece capacitor bank on the left with the 2 black and 1 red wire as that's to fire the solenoids. To the right of that cap bank is the microswitch or cherry switch with hot glue that routes power to the frog and has red, black & green wires. Here shows the red wire going to outer diverging stock rail, green wire to straight stock rail and black going to one point rail. Then black jumper wires going from each point rail to the closure rails. Here shows more black jumpers going from closure rails to the frog. So the micro switch is powering the points, closure rails and frog. Problem is the micro switch will "trip" and change polarity of all that before the points have a chance to move. Crappy design I say. In the past what I did was change that wiring so that micro switch only powered the frog as I isolated the frog from the closure rails as they touch. So remove those rails and shorten them a bit then reinstall using bits of styrene as an insulator. That's all good and fine but the switch machine solenoids need 18V ac to work and that power tends to melt the dwarf signals and burn out the bulbs. Like this as can see how the cover has started melting after maybe 8 hours of use. This one the bulb for the top green aspect has already burned out. Tomorrow I'll post more pics of the crappy solenoid machine design.
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Jan, Sorry about your loss. 21 years is quite the run! Cars look great too!
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Chuck, yes I do have some of those shims that Aristocraft sent to switch buyers as an after thought. The arching is very plain, and strong enough to burn the rail, wow. Not something one want's on the rails, and the effect on the rolling stock isn't a good idea either.
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Jan, I am very sorry for your loss, and he/she looks like a sweetheart. Our companions become part of us, I morn the loss. We have a saying that we will be re-united with our companions on the other side. I do miss all of mine. Car looks great, I knew you would find a way. and THANK YOU for the further translation. Really interesting, I'm going to have to look for a similar book here. Maybe the name of the logging company and location will help, you already gave me that information and there was something at the bottom of one of the pics. Looks like you are going with the Link & Pin couplers on this run of cars, yes??
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Hi Nick, no problem, on Thursday our cat died, 21 years old, we are all sad. I translated some of the text, the skeletons also transported boards and beams. I still found beams made of oak, had built track with them. I think they can carry the stacks of boards. Provisionally cut here, think that's possible. The felled wood was brought by forest railway to the sawmill of Pino Grande and processed into boards and beams. These were then led by the forest railway to the cableway, where the "log cars" were decoupled and loaded onto the cable car. On the other side of the valley, the wagons were taken over again by the forest railway and led on to Camino, where a large sawmill and planing plant stood. In 1949, the Cableway suffered another fire and was no longer built. The timber transports were moved to the road, 2 years later the forest railway was also abandoned. I sawed the oak beams to 8.8 inches. Between the bars come spacers for the right width. Regards Jan
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