Bachmann 2-8-4 Berkshire/Kanawha in stock at M.B. Klein

[victor miranda]

I have to find some time to get into the laboratory....

If I do I'll see about a few photos.

I think mine is not as bad as the one Max is ...ummm... sorting out.

mine has a hitch and it is at 6 and 12 ish o-clock,
so I am pretty sure I have a gear issue.
and mine has the #3 driver gyrating so I may solve the gear problem
and then see genuine quartering hitches.

time and tide.

victor

[peteski]

Excellent guys!  Thanks!  I just thought that photos would have been posted along with the posts going into details of what is going on. Good to know that the photos are forthcoming.

[mmagliaro]

Excellent guys!  Thanks!  I just thought that photos would have been posted along with the posts going into details of what is going on. Good to know that the photos are forthcoming.

It's just that I foolishly thought I would work on this for about a day, and then have a set of photos and steps
I could post that would show, "Here's how you fix this."

Ha.    The joke's on me.

[Mike C]

  This has been very interesting so far !! I got mine about 2 weeks ago and it probably has 20 hours of run time on it now . From the start I could tell it wasn't perfect , but not nearly as bad as it appears that some of them are . It ran OK in forward with just a slight hitch in the first few speed steps . Reverse was Quite obviously worse though . The CV tweaks that JD documented really helped smooth it out , although reverse still wasn't great . Just today I redid the CV's to his revised suggestion and it really is running much better now . I can tell that something still is off with the quartering as the rear siderod is just a bit off of being completely straight . I did try to adjust the quartering , but the drivers on mine seem to be mounted pretty solidly so I didn't force them . I thought of removing the idle gear , but really don't want to get into disassembling this unless I really have to . For now , I think I'll leave it alone and just run it . It will be interesting to see the pictures of your progress !
  The CV's I used are
 CV209    = 230
 CV210    =  30
 CV212    = 150
 CV213    =    2
 CV214    =    3

[mmagliaro]

  This has been very interesting so far !! I got mine about 2 weeks ago and it probably has 20 hours of run time on it now . From the start I could tell it wasn't perfect , but not nearly as bad as it appears that some of them are . It ran OK in forward with just a slight hitch in the first few speed steps . Reverse was Quite obviously worse though . The CV tweaks that JD documented really helped smooth it out , although reverse still wasn't great . Just today I redid the CV's to his revised suggestion and it really is running much better now . I can tell that something still is off with the quartering as the rear siderod is just a bit off of being completely straight . I did try to adjust the quartering , but the drivers on mine seem to be mounted pretty solidly so I didn't force them . I thought of removing the idle gear , but really don't want to get into disassembling this unless I really have to . For now , I think I'll leave it alone and just run it . It will be interesting to see the pictures of your progress !
  The CV's I used are
 CV209    = 230
 CV210    =  30
 CV212    = 150
 CV213    =    2
 CV214    =    3

Removing the idler gear is a big deal.  Not only do you have to pull a lot of the engine apart to get it out, but you
are left with a driver #2 that won't go around.  It just rolls along back there.  So you either have to live with that,
or drill holes in the rods and try to get #2 pinned so it goes around on the rods (what I am attempting right now).   Not easy.

It could be that I see a lot of flaws because I'm picky about the way I expect an engine to run.
It could be that I got a particularly bad one.
It could also be that I am seeing a lot of flaws because I am running this on DC with no decoder in it.
The decoder can compensate for a fair amount of bad behavior if you tune it right.    If you get that BEMF working well,
I expect that it can keep tweaking that motor voltage to keep the motor turning at a more constant speed through
the binds in the mechanism.
I really wonder if that is hiding a lot of the engine's shortcomings.

I hope that is not where we are headed: poorly built mechanisms with cheap motors, made to run well by the
electronic monitoring of a decoder.

[Mike C]

  Yes that's a whole lot more work than I'm willing to attempt !  Although I wonder if you could just remove the bottom plate and snip the post that the gear rides on ?  Drilling and pinning the rods is probably above my pay grade here too lol .
 Keep the ideas coming !  Without yourself and a few others here I would not have had the inspiration to tune and repair some of the not so good steamers I sometimes find .

[mmagliaro]

  Yes that's a whole lot more work than I'm willing to attempt !  Although I wonder if you could just remove the bottom plate and snip the post that the gear rides on ?  Drilling and pinning the rods is probably above my pay grade here too lol .
 Keep the ideas coming !  Without yourself and a few others here I would not have had the inspiration to tune and repair some of the not so good steamers I sometimes find .

If you didn't care about being able to restore it, you could probably snip away at the gear and get it out a piece at a time.
You might be able to slip a jeweler's saw blade in behind the gear and meticulously saw away at the post until you could get it out.
I don't think there's enough room to get any kind of slim cutters in behind the gear and just snip it off.

But after you do this, there's no going back.  I wanted to be able to put it back in if it didn't help.

Of course... one could find a gear with similar teeth (they are probably 0.3 or 0.4 module... I would have to measure),
a little bigger in diameter, and then drill and mount a new pin with
the new gear so it sits slightly above the center line of the two driver gears, and then the idler would work properly.

[jdcolombo]

I hope that is not where we are headed: poorly built mechanisms with cheap motors, made to run well by the
electronic monitoring of a decoder.

I completely agree, Max.  Although I am a great fan of DCC and recognize that a well-implemented BEMF circuit can do wonders for motor control, DCC works best when you have an engine that already runs superbly on DC.   If it runs great on DC, it will be out-of-this-world with a properly adjusted decoder.   But an engine that is bad on DC will never be more than marginal even with major decoder tuning.

I won't remove the idler gear in mine.  The work involved is just a step too far for my mechanical skills, and mine run "OK" with the decoder tuning I've done.  So I'll live with the ones I have.  It's just a shame - "He coulda been the champ" . . .

John C.

[peteski]

Max, I was just giving you some old-fashioned ribbin' 

I'm sure that the photos and the writeup will be excellent and informative.

[mmagliaro]

Max, I was just giving you some old-fashioned ribbin' 

I'm sure that the photos and the writeup will be excellent and informative.

No worries, man.  I wasn't bothered in the least.  In fact, it's been bugging me that I haven't put up the photos as I go along, which is my usual style.  But this engine just has me so furious at Bachmann most of the time that I am just focused on making it
into something usable.   

The resoldered rods are back on the engine.  I liked Victor's idea about double-checking the hole alignment, and indeed,
I was a tad off the first time.  Now I've got it right.  The engine runs, ... "eh"... Not terrible, but not what I'd call "good" either.
The tender wheels squeak now.  I swear, Bachmann went 0 for everything on this one.
I will let it run for a while to convince myself the rods will hold.  Then I'm going to see about putting crankpins into driver #2 to really make it functional.

[strummer]

I find it interesting (and sad) that it seems the best option for an N scale Bershire is still the one from the late '60's.

PS: does this mean that Mark "Spookshow" will have to re-write his initial evaluation? He gave it an "A", so he must've have gotten a good one...

Mark in Oregon

[mmagliaro]

I find it interesting (and sad) that it seems the best option for an N scale Bershire is still the one from the late '60's...

Mark in Oregon

You have to remember that in their time, those old engines from Rowa, Rivarossi, and Trix, were really at the top of their game.
N Scale was new, building mechanisms that small at a reasonable price was new, and they had severe limitations; just making
a motor small enough was a big hurdle.   And imagine designing and manufacturing an N Scale steam loco
without a computer to do even the most basic things like drawings!   I have nothing but respect for what those guys built back then.

And that adds to my agita when I see things like this Berk.  With all the accumulated knowledge we have now about what
makes a good steam loco model, this is what we get?

Having said that, I'd still say the LL engine is much better than the old Rowa.   

[victor miranda]

yeah ribbin'

last night I found I had 10 minutes...

this morning in my basement of many joys there is a still life.

My b-mann berk sitting on the blue foam mat I use for locomotive disections
the purple camera that takes the photos I share
all standing quietly on the table where so many things happen...
 awaiting my return.

I stopped last evening because
I did not want to start this grand adventure seeking fame and fortune.

this loco project will eat a lot of time
and once I open up this loco I will not want to button it back together
until I have it fixed with the improvements I know it will need to run well.

while I sat looking at the model engine
I decided the quartering of the #3 driver was off...
and that the pickup tabs show from under the plastic casting.

oooooof.

I set the Berk down.
there was a time when I would have been very pleased to have such a
marvelous model steam engine.
I also think I would have felt the need to fix the quartering.

what is the surprize to me is that to bring all the potential of this loco
I have a list of things that need doing to remove the issues.

.... I have another loco in my basement that needs many of the same fixes
and a few more. It has been at my place far too long.
The answers I seek to get that project done are not found in reworking the Berk.

I am not going to let my project list grow.... this time.

my comments to Max are no where near as time consuming as spending the time
building new side-rods.
he is doing the hard work...



edit to fix a typo.

[victor miranda]

Hi Max,

do you know the Rowa berk has a 5 pole motor in it?
the RR version has the RR motor.

the Rowa suffers from pick-up issues mostly
and.... I guess the plastic side-rods which seem to self destruct on the odd occasion

tough call... good looks or runability...

victor

[mmagliaro]

Hi Max,

do you know the Rowa berk has a 5 pole motor in it?
the RR version has the RR motor.

the Rowa suffers from pick-up issues mostly
and.... I guess the plastic side-rods which seem to self destruct on the odd occasion

tough call... good looks or runability...

victor

No, I didn't realize that!  I have a RR version (with a motor I replaced in it).
I have some old Rowa parts and pieces, but not a complete one, so I never saw the motor.

My hat is off even higher to those guys.