Cabeese Update!

My Trainboard friend in San Antonio, Flash Blackman, took pity on a poor soul and formed some caboose grabs for me out of .008" brass wire and snail mailed 'em to me. These things are so fine you can barely see them. Hope I get a chance to paint some and put them on a caboose this week. That should be the last thing that needs to be done before they get re-assembled...I think. I had oral surgery on Friday though, and I just wasn't up to the task this weekend! More soon!

Speaking of Cabeese Part 4 - Good Idea - B-a-a-a-d Execution

I decided to use materials that I had on hand for forming the grabs. Found an old feeder wire, stripped the insulation. Voila! Stranded copper. The copper was easy to form into the semi-circular shape needed. They looked pretty good I thought! Got the flat white spray out. Gave them a coating - All of a sudden these dorn't look so good. Stranded wire is twisted during the assembly and guess what...And that shows after painting. Looks all beaded and twisted up. Copper wire turned out to be: A BAD IDEA! Posed a query on trainboard: Grab Irons - A Problem Turns out copper is not a good metal to work with for this type of application. It's too soft, for one thing.(guess I should have known that!) Stranded copper is even worse. (and that, too!) Couple of suggestions were: Music Wire Phosphor-bronze Wire Gold Medal Models supposedly makes them - Although I did not see them on their webpages Craig Martyn of BLMA Models says they will be offering them soon Don't forget to Clean the wire before painting I've got some music wire in my Materials Stash. I'll have to see if it looks to be any where near the right size. Hopefully I can dig that out in the next day or two.

N Scale in a Picnic Basket! And It's For Sale!

I've got a friend, Jules, that lives near Birmingham, in the UK. Readers of these pages might recognize Jules as this is not his first appearance here. Jules has built two very small NScale Layouts. One in a suitcase and one in a picnic basket. If you really want to see what can be done in a small space, Go to Small World Layouts. I hear through the grape vine that No Picnic is for sale. Well Actually I had an email from Jules.... Photo by Jules Say it ain't so! If you live in or near Birmingham, I suggest you check it out, before Jules goes to EBay with it! By the way: My Caboose Grabirons - Completely Screwed - Copper wire should not be used for this....More later

Kato F7 Coupler Conversion Revisited

Back in December I did a series of posts about replacing the Rapido couplers on my old Kato F7 locomotives. I have an "A" and a "B" unit. Replaced the couplers in the "A" unit. But boy did the front of that loco give me a hard time. Still haven't done the "B" unit. Here's Part 1: Kato F7 Coupler Conversion Part 1. And Part two: Kato F7 Coupler Conversion Part 2. I also posted a series on the N Scale Forum on TrainBoard.com. This seemed to provoke a lively discussion about which coupler was best for what generation for what unit(!) This original thread Kato F7 Coupler Conversion thread has never really died yet. 3 months later. Now my friend John Sing, N Scaler Extrordinaire, has made an exhaustive study for this conversion and posted it on trainboard. Click this link to view his findings: atsf_arizona's Kato F Unit Coupler Research. No wonder my conversion went the way it did! Thanx, John! Also here's a link to John's personal ATSF pages, featuring his NScale RailRoad! Check it out! atsf_arizona's Pages

Speaking of Cabeese Part 3

This is turning out to be: "The Project That Never Ends" I decided to replace a couple of the trucks (well, two) with MT trucks. After painting and re-setting the wheelsets, the Con-Cor gave me a ration of trouble while trying to make the car bolster work with the truck bolster pin. Had to use the MT step down bushing and the washer (BTW these seem to come with almost every set of trucks from MT). Getting the bushing to work with the bolster pin about wore a bolster pin sized hole in my thumb! So that done, I got to looking at the carbodies again and I thought, "I bet I could make some grab irons that look better than the molded-on Plastic ones...At least for the car sides." Another voice inside my head said, "OH NO! He's thinkin' again! Go to Red Alert!" Now why on God's green earth would I try something like that?? But it does "seem" to be working. I'll try to get some pics up on this little piece of the project in the next few. It looks like, however, the Queen has a full weekend planned for me though, so it will probably be slow going on my "project" work. Yard work Saturday. My back yard is just destroyed. And Sunday gotta drive to Nacogdoches to pick the daughter up for Spring Break. If I got up early enough, I could probably be back to Katy just after lunch. IF! <= pretty big if.