Patience, Risk, Reward

 

Work on the "Putnam", the 2-8-0 kitbash I had begun a couple years back and recently resumed, had stalled.  The nature of this hobby and the flow of my daily life during the summer had conspired again to remove me from the workbench and shift my focus elsewhere.  But truthfully I wasn't in the mood to do wiring, or really anything, on this engine.  

That's okay.  This isn't a race to some finish line, though I find competitions challenging and deadlines helpful now and again.  This is a hobby that can breed patience if a person sticks with it.  I may groan a little about projects that have been on-again-off-again for years but at the end of the day I don't mind.  As long as I'm engaged regularly with model trains in a hands-on way, I'm content.

Getting back to work on the engine meant tackling a risky wiring job.  I needed to splice in a micro-connector in order to install the headlight and separate the boiler from the chassis.  I've installed DCC decoders before and have done similar work with tiny wires, but this case was particularly risky.  I needed to strip and solder the wires and I only had so much wire to work with.  Thankfully the procedure went as well as I could have hoped, with no hitches or hangups.

The reward was not only a successfully wired connector but a return to the workbench, to a stalled project.  I once asked a fellow modeler how he managed to create such exquisitely detailed steam locomotives.  He replied, by sitting down at the bench and doing something - drilling the next hole, adding the next part, step by step until it is done.  Even if all you do that day is install the smallest rivet, count it as a victory and do it again the next day.  Eventually you'll have a completed model.

I would add one thing to this advice, a step that's crucial for me in overcoming inertia and restarting the modeling momentum.  The locomotive on the bench wasn't sitting idle alone.  All the parts to do the next step were out and ready.  The soldering iron, solder, flux, extra hands with magnifier, micro-connector, wire stripper, side cutters and heat-shrink tubing were all there too.  Setting out all these parts was a vital step, a necessary prologue.

Kit-Mingled 2-8-0 - Fit Check VIDEO!

After gluing the cab floor and boiler backhead into one unit and adding styrene strips to the cab walls to hold it in place against the frame, I decided to do a fit check of the whole thing at this point.  So, I reassembled the loco and took it for a quick spin.  As I suspected, the longer Aristocraft boiler and cab closes the gap between engine and tender by approximately 1/8".  Even with the closer spacing the engine will still successfully navigate my 15" to 16" radius curves.  YES!!  That means I don't have to make a new drawbar.  I also decided I'm going to add a plug to the headlight wires so I can mount the light up through the boiler into the headlight housing and not have to fiddle with jamming it up in there each time I reassemble the engine.

Okay, enough blabbing.  On with the video:

Like, Subscribe and all that jazz, because when this thing is done I'll be making a follow-up video for sure.  I'm just tickled with how this project is coming along.  After the struggles of the 2-6-0 project, this one is a breeze.  On to the detailing.

Kit-Mingled 2-8-0 - Backhead

Here's the backhead and cab floor just set in place, not glued to each other, to test the fit.  The boiler and backhead will be glued to the floor.  This unit will remain loose, unattached to either the frame or the cab.  When the cab and boiler are set down over the frame it will effectively sandwich this in place and hold it there.  Then, if sometime down the road I decide to add more detail, I can remove it to make that work easier.  Currently I'm deciding if I want to add a plug inline with the headlight wires to make it easier to assemble and disassemble the engine.  The best part is no part.

Kit-Mingled 2-8-0 - Frame Work

This update is really Part 2 of the last post on screws.  I finally finished the frame extension and mounting plate for the boiler screw.  I've been working steadily on each, but the marvelous gray goo I'm using to weld the parts together takes time to cure.  Still, I'm very pleased with the progress at this point and looking forward to the next step; creating a boiler extension inside the cab and mounting the backhead casting.  After that it's just a matter of adding details to the boiler until I'm happy before painting, lettering and weathering.  This isn't a firm date, but I'm shooting for finishing this engine before Halloween.

There's a nut "welded" up above the brass plate in the last image.  I didn't get a shot of that before I put it in place in the boiler, but I used liberal amounts of the Loctite Weld to secure it to the brass bar.  Getting the headlight LED fed through the smokebox up into the headlight housing might be tricky.  I bought two nuts so that I could have a spare if something didn't work, but also I can use one to hold the cylinder saddle in place when the boiler isn't attached.  This has turned out to be a challenging project, but very satisfying working steadily, step by step.

Kit-Mingled 2-8-0 - Cab Screws

Recently Marty McGuirk over at his Central Vermont Railway blog wrote about removing a switch to get around a derailment issue.  This quote grabbed me:

 "...I fretted over this for a few weeks, but the fix didn't take more than a couple of evenings."

How often has that been the case for me?  Oh the hours I've wasted wondering what to do - or rather, not wondering, but simply avoiding the issue!  Too many times I have worried about the problem instead of thoughtfully pursuing a solution.

Yesterday I fretted over screws.  I was hunting for #00-80 (or 0-80 depending on where you look) 3/16" flat head screws.  I need two to attach the rear of the cab to the frame extension for the 2-8-0 kit-mingle I'm currently working on.  Remember the old days, when you could walk into a hobby shop and buy a little baggie of Hob Bits or Walthers screws for a couple bucks?  You'd get no more than a dozen usually and that's all a person typically needs.

You can still get those little baggies but now they're five bucks plus another five to ship it.  Alternatively you can get an assortment of 75 screws of varying lengths, all brass, flat head, 00-80, (with 25 nuts!) for $20.  While the assortment is a better deal on a per-screw cost, what am I going to do with the other 73 screws?  Sure, they come in a nice case but now I have to store it.  And I'm not going to pay $10 for 5 or 6 screws.

I trolled eBay for screws for far too long and this is after I had cogitated (fretted) for a few days prior to looking.  What saved me was that old ad slogan for the Yellow Pages - I let my fingers do the walking.  Setting aside political differences, I called my local Ace Hardware.  Yep.  They've got 0-80s.  So this morning I purchased four screws for the princely sum of $1.29.  Behold - the source of my worry, now solved:

P.S. - After checking the main boiler screw from the Athearn frame, I realized I now need a 5/8" 2-56.  Back I go to Ace...

Kit-Mingled 2-8-0 - Boiler Swap

Oh my poor Shifter.  This little 0-4-0 has been put off for over 12 years now through moves and shifting locales and all sorts of reasons.  I had claimed in my end-of-year goals that this time would be different and for sure I'd finish it by Christmas, but alas, it may not be so.  One thing I've learned about how I approach my hobby during lockdown is to follow the muse and pursue the passion even at the cost of delaying a project yet again.  Momentum is precious when the anchor of settled inertia takes so much effort to weigh.  Best to change tack and sail with the wind.

No, I'm not building a ship - lest the nautical references mislead you.  I'm swapping a boiler and cab to create a unique locomotive.  John Allen, of Gorre & Daphetid fame, was fond of heavily modifying locomotives to make them different from everyone else's.  I have always felt the same way.  The 2-6-0 I modified last year got a shortened tender and a high headlight; for fitting on a short turntable and to give the engine a 'family' appearance, respectively.  This time I'm applying a boiler and cab from an AristoCraft/New One 2-8-0 to the smooth running mechanism of an Athearn (nee MDC/Roundhouse) 2-8-0.  

The donor boiler is slightly longer than the original but offers a few features that make the conversion worth it for me.  Not visible in this image are the open cab doors on the front of the cab - a thing often seen in real life but rarely on the model, something I've always wanted to include on a model engine.  Like the 2-6-0, (and the Shifter) this engine has an auxiliary dome just in front of the cab and a side-mounted whistle (family likeness, again).  I also like the brass detailing already built-in and will be featuring that in the finished model.  

I'll be borrowing the backhead detail from the original boiler using Oyumaru thermoplastic and superfine Miliput to make a copy.  The great thing about this thermoplastic material is that the mold can be remade if it doesn't turn out well on the first try.  I was fortunate and got it right first time.  Here you can see two castings in Miliput.  I'll use the top one but it will need a little more Miliput to fill a couple imperfections.  It smooths easily with water.  The little side tabs will be cut away before it is installed.

I'll have to make a boiler segment for inside the cab along with a rudimentary floor and of course a place for a skinny engineer to sit.  The fireman may end up living on the deck behind the cab.  We'll see.  Brass for the bits to attach the new boiler to the old frame (or is that the other way around?) has already been cut and shaped, and I have all the detail parts I'll want to use.

More on this project as I hit new milestones.