Keeping Busy Inside

I've been laying low while I continue to recover from my tick bite.  I'm still fever-free which I think is now the start of the third day of no fever so that is good.  I don't want to overdo it so I've been laying low inside the house.  While I'm laying low indoors, I decided to start on a long-planned model railroading project.

The particular trains I've been working on with this project are my largest trains...  narrow gauge F scale trains that run on G scale track.  These trains are quite large so are best suited for an outdoor garden layout unless you have a basketball court-sized building just sitting around unused.  We don't have that kind of real estate so we'll be setting up a small garden railroad in our backyard.

About eight years ago, I found a beat-up freight set with a big 4-6-0 steam locomotive that was reported as "not running" at a small train show.  The guy was asking for $40 for the whole set so I jumped on it.  I figured that even if I never got it running again, I could use it as a nice display on a big shelf if I cleaned it up a bit.  It turns out that I was able to get it running again but it definitely needed some upgrades and kitbashing so that is what I'm doing now.

Over the past few years, I've been collecting used G scale track for this train set.  My plan is to set up a 16' x 8' dogbone oval in the backyard around one of our flower gardens.  I'm still searching online for a few more pieces of track but this is coming along little by little.  Some of this old used track arrives quite tarnished and dirty but it cleans up well.  I don't plan to run power to the locomotive(s) through the rails as is usually done with trains so the rails don't need to be so clean that they can conduct consistent electricity.  These tracks will just need to look good and keep the train on the tracks since I plan to power the train using a large battery stored with the electronics inside the train.  I'll control the locomotive wirelessly through Bluetooth with a tablet or cellphone.

As I said, my plan is to run the locomotive(s) using battery power stored in the tender.  For now, I'm working on a Baldwin 4-6-0 steam locomotive but I plan to do the same with a trolley too.  For the steam locomotive, all the electronics and battery will be in the tender.  For the trolley conversion, all the electronics and battery will be located under the roof of the trolley.  The first part of this rather large project, however, is attempting to tackle the steam locomotive conversion.

I disassembled the locomotive so I could remove all the existing wiring, track electrical pick-ups, and electronics.  I also removed the smoke unit.  The smoke unit wasn't working when I've run this old locomotive but, when I removed the smoke unit it looked unused so I'm thinking it does work.  That being said, I decided to not install any smoke unit anyway.  These smoke units need to be filled with smoke fluid every few minutes which is rather frustrating.  I don't want to be filling this smoke unit every few minutes so I chose to rebuild this locomotive without installing the smoke unit.

I removed the "cow-catcher" that was mounted on the front end of the locomotive simply because I don't like the look of cow-catchers on this particular type of old locomotive.  I also shortened the cab end of the boiler so I can have a little more room in the cab for an engineer inside a fairly detailed cab.  So, I now have a little pile of old parts and wires after a number of hours of disassembly work over the past few days.

After removing all these parts and the wiring, I needed to ensure the motor still runs smoothly so I connected two simple power leads with alligator clips from a DC power controller to the motor...  it runs very well!  

Below is a view of the opened and stripped tender where I will store all the new electronics and a big Li-Ion battery.  Seeing the photo of this tender reminded me that this old 4-6-0 steam locomotive has a red-cranberry and silver paint job that I really don't care for in the least so I am going to repaint the entire locomotive and tender.  That is a big part of this conversion so I want to get this right the first time.  I already sanded off all the old lettering and pin-striping as well as removed most of the detail parts.  I do still need to come up with a new railroad name to letter on the side of the tender but that will be after a couple of coats of paint.

In order to make a bunch of new parts for kitbashing this locomotive and tender, I had to pull out all my modeling tools.  Below is my little Chop-It cutter for cutting trim wood.  This little tool is great for making trim out of balsa wood or basswood.

This morning's project was to do some work on the cab.  I want to "dress up" the cab with some additional details so I thought a wood ceiling in the cab would look good.  Unfortunately, I don't have the correct size of wood for this ceiling so I had to cut one large piece of balsa wood into a bunch of small "boards".  I cut strips of wood to resemble a tongue and groove wood ceiling.  I also had to cover an old hatch that is non-operative.  The cab is placed upside-down on the desk in the photo, below, making it easy to see the new unfinished ceiling.  

As I mentioned above, I'm not a fan of the cow-catcher on the front of this particular type of locomotive so I removed it.  In its place, I cut a timber bumper out of some scrap cedar I had lying around.  This is supposed to be a short-line narrow gauge locomotive and these locomotives are often highly customized and adapted.  My kitbashed steam locomotive will be no different.  

Part of the additional detailing will include additional lighting.  The cab will be illuminated which is another reason why I am adding details to the cab.  Those details will be more visible in an illuminated cab.  I also plan to install marker lights on the front end of this steam locomotive and a back-up light on the rear of the tender.  

As you can plainly see in the photo of the tender, up above, there is a big speaker mounted in there.  I'll be using this speaker for a new sound decoder which will provide this big locomotive with huge, realistic steam locomotive sounds.  It will no doubt drive our neighbors crazy.

At this point, I'm finding busy-work to do on this project while I wait on paint to arrive.  I'm also waiting on a lot of detail parts of arrive.  The paint and light bulbs are the main thing that is holding me up at this point though.  

This project is coming along as I recover from my tick bite.  And, I do seem to be recovering from this tick bite finally.  Over the past few days, I've accomplished a bit each morning and then sleep most of the afternoon.  Hopefully, I'll continue to recover and this project will continue to progress, slowly but surely.