Northern Pacific (NP) W-5 Mikado Project

[Cajonpassfan]

Thanks for the explanation Max....makes sense.
Looking forward to more....
Otto

[Mike Madonna]

Max,

Your techniques are straight forward and very helpful... not to mention impressive and inspiring! 

[carlso]

Max,

Very nice work and tutorial, thanks for the sharing. Do you treat the PB and brass wire with anything before painting them ? As far as that goes, is it necessary to treat the pewter ?

Carl

[dnhouston]

Drool 
Damn impressive Max.

[mmagliaro]

Thank you, one and all.  I wish to stress that your compliments, and constructive criticism are
always helpful, and always an honor.  Boy oh boy, I just love building steam locomotives. 

Carl, When I have painted brass or pewter engines in the past, I just soaked and gently brushed them with
warm soapy water, maybe some vinegar, and then rinsed with water and let it dry for a day or so.
It's always worked for me, so that's what I'll do with this one.

Air brushing will be done with Floquil or Scalecoat solvent based paints.    I won't be baking it in an oven, even if I decide
to use Scalecoat, because of the epoxies and occasional bits of ACC here and there.   Most likely, I will be using
Floquil Engine Black and Floquil Weathered Black in some mixture.   It will be tricky brushing Neolube onto the smokebox with all
those pipes.  I am expecting that I will do it, and then touch up any faux pas on the piping with a small brush and a little
of the airbrush paint mixture, held out with no thinner for that purpose.

When that's all done, I brush a little glosscote where the cab numbering and lettering have to go, decal, and then the whole
thing gets some overspray of Dullcote. 

But we're a long way from there.   I have about 10 items on my engine "work list" yet, and there is still the tender to do.

[mmagliaro]

And now, the final "push"...
This installment will finish all the piping and boiler details, the tender, and take the project all the way to being ready to
paint.  I'm starting to get excited now!















































































Next time... I hope to have it painted, and do the final details like the bell rope and cab glass and curtains.

[Cajonpassfan]

Max, she's beautiful, I am speechless, again.
.006 wire, are you kidding?? Looking at the photo, it's difficult to realize just how tiny some of these parts are.
You've outdone yourself, and that's saying a lot!
In awe here, Otto K.

[arbomambo]

STUNNING...AMAZING...just INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!
I've been watching this build since the beginning; and am just blown away by the workmanship and attention to detail! Truly a gem!
~Bruce

[Paradise275]

mmagliaro

Do you know where I can get decals for a Pacific steam loco for the Northern Pacific Alton route?
There is one supplier on line that I have tried to get them from twice and twice no response. He took the money twice and twice Pay Pal has had to refund it.

Rick

[peteski]

Max, thanks for the next installment of this wonderful projects.  Couple of comments about the rear headlight:  First, I would be afraid that at some point in time the bare LED soldering pads/wire will contact the metal casing and create a short across the LED. I know - highly unlikely, but still possible.  On my projects I usually coat the exposed electrical metal areas with CA or epoxy.  Since your LED is already installed, maybe dropping some epoxy into the headlight cavity would solidly affix the LED above the metal casting, assuring that it will never short out.

Since you are running DC power I like to also warn you about not protecting the white LED from exceeding its reverse voltage. These LEDs are very delicate and often their max. reverse voltage is 5V.  Running in DC, the track voltage will possibly be up to 12 V, then there are also voltage spikes from the motor windings when the locomotive momentarily  loses contact with the track. Those can be much higher than 12V.

That is why in many factory-installed white-LED headlights the forward and reverse LEDs are wired together , parallel in reverse with a single resistor. That way, regardless of the polarity, one LED will be lit (with about 3V across it). That voltage clamping action protect the other LED from exceeding the reverse voltage.    In your case you could either wire up a standard silicone small signal diode (like 1N4148) in series with the circuit, or hook it up reversed in parallel with the LED. That way it will clamp the reverse voltage applied to the white LED to about 0.7V.  The last thing you want to do is to replace a blown LED on a finished model.   Protecting it with a diode is a very cheap insurance. 

The other comment is about the resistor.  You have obviously have graduated to being comfortable with SMT technology and you even use PC board strips to hold the components.  Yet, you still use leaded resistors.  There is no need for that. Using SMD resistors (either 1206 or 0805 size) makes for so much neater and easier installation on the PC board.  The leaded resistor seems awkward and bulky (even though I know how small 1/8 W resistors are).  SMD resistors are pennies each so there is no good excuse not to start using them. 

[Chris333]

One of these photos needs to be a screen saver, but I can't pick just one! 

[mmagliaro]

Thanks all!

That .006" wire is brass "pipe" from Detail Associates.  I have never been able to find another source quite like it.
It is simply drawn brass wire like any other, but good luck actually finding it that small in a convenient package.
So I hunt down the packages of DA.   I know, it's mighty darn small.  But in N Scale, .006" is still about a 1" pipe.
So it is probably still oversized for fine things like that electrical conduit up to the taillight.  I would bet that is
a 1/2" pipe.  But the important thing is that it's smaller than the handrails, grabirons, and other pipes, so at
least there is a sense of proportion - i.e. it is smaller than the surrounding pipes.

Peteski: Yes, I could use SMD resistors.  But I'm doing this project with my eye on two things - my own engine,
and also somewhat of a build tutorial for the GHQ W-5 kit, which Gregg Scott may still release if there is enough
interest.  I'm trying to make things as general purpose and simple as I can.  Not everybody is going to want to solder
SMD components (which includes that tiny LED in the taillight).  They may end up using a larger LED inside the
tender and a piece of fiber optic tubing.  Heck, I even considered that myself.  So yes, SMD stuff is small and neat.
But I've got a lot of room up inside that tender, so I used it to keep this simple.

As for the LED shorting against the housing, I did include a shim of .005" styrene against one side
of the LED so that the magnet wire and the LED pad cannot touch the housing on that side.   I didn't show it in a photo,
but I thought I mentioned it in the captions somewhere.

TANKS for reminding me about the reverse protection diode.  I need to get that in there!
Funny I forgot that.  In the #626, I reverse-wired a Schottky diode across the SMD LED.  Those are nice because they
have such a fast switching time.  But I somehow just forgot about it here.

[mmagliaro]

mmagliaro

Do you know where I can get decals for a Pacific steam loco for the Northern Pacific Alton route?
There is one supplier on line that I have tried to get them from twice and twice no response. He took the money twice and twice Pay Pal has had to refund it.

Rick

I thought "Alton Route" was GM&O.  That's my total extent of knowledge about it.  I can't help with decals, sorry.

[North Bank Road]

Hi Max,   Your modeling just amazes me! I really appreciate the way you present it here on the web in tutorial mode.

It looks even better up close and personal. Thanks for sharing.

Rick

[SAH]

Thanks for the really good tips on forming wire Max.  Very clear photos and text.
Oh yeah - The steam loco build is pretty good too.   
Not really.  It's an AWESOME piece of work!  Thanks for taking the time to document the process too.
Looking forward to seeing the finished product.
Steve