Filing/grinding the siderods to look more like an M1... I'm not scared of much of anything in this hobby, but messing with valve gear in N scale always gives me fits. I have disassembled and reassembled the Bachmann light mountain's gear enough times that I still get night terrors about it...
What's your technique?
Dave,
Here are some approaches I use, which may assuage your worries.
This got long.... sorry! Maybe I should do a video of all this.
I hope this will be helpful.
First, taking siderods off isn't too hard, but do make a little sketch or take a quick photo first before you do it,
so you put the siderod back on the same way, and so that the other links attached on TOP of the siderod
will go on the same way. There will be an eccentric crank and link attached to one of the drivers, on the very outside, and you want to get that back on in the same orientation, so make note of that.
An Xacto knife blade under the head of the crankpins (if they are metal) will usually pop them up away from
the driver. If they are not metal, I get under the ROD and pry it up with the pin a little. Do NOT pry them all
the way out like this. It will work, but they get lost too easily.
Then I like to take a very pointy, fine pair of tweezers, insert them under the head, and rock horizontally (not vertically!) left and right, sliding the tweezers in under the head further and further, which will gradually lift out the pin and have it handily gripped in the tweezer when it comes out. This is safer than trying to pry it all the way out, or gripping
it with pliers or such and trying to pull it out, which can send it flying. This also avoids mangling the head of the crankpin.
Put them in a GLASS OR JAR immediately, so they don't get lost. Don't use a plastic cup or anything else that is
light. I can't tell you how many times I did that, thinking my parts were safe, only to have the cup blow or knock
over because it is light, sending the parts scattering. Glass is heavy and it's easy to see your parts in it.
As for reshaping the rods, I use 6 basic tools:
a fine triangular jewelers file
a fine round jewelers file
a larger flat file
a Dremel with a cut-off disk
a pair of fine needlenose pliers with good, square ends and jaws that close neat and tight
a flat block of plywood to work on (or something flat and hard, but not too hard - not steel or anything like that)
For areas where a good bit of metal is to be removed, I will hold the rod in the pliers, and graze
over the area with the spinning Dremel disk, over and over. To me, this actually puts a lot less stress
on the rod than pressing on it with a file as you work the file over it. The Dremel can just
"graze" along an edge and whisk off the metal without hardly any stress. The key is to touch LIGHTLY.
For areas that have to be long straight lines (such as thinning along the entire length of a rod),
a flat file is best, but if there is a lot of metal to remove, I'd still start with the Dremel.
After you've grazed along the edge over and over with the Dremel, then you can use the flat file to get it all straight
and uniform. Carefully dress off the edges by raking the file over them at a 45 degree angle a few times - not
enough to file a bevel, but enough to take off the sharp burr edge that is left by filing.
The Dremel is also great for reducing the diameter of the "dogbone" ends of a rod - the spot where the crankpins
go. If those are big around the outside and you need them smaller, I do a coarse reduction with the Dremel,
and then use the small files to smooth it out and even it up. The flatter files around the outside are good,
and I use the small round file to make the inside-out curve where the dogbone end curves back onto
the straight part of the rod.
IMPORTANT: ONLY file or Dremel on the rod in close proximity to where you are holding it with the pliers.I cannot stress this point enough. There is a great temptation to speed up or get a little lazy and just keep
Dremeling or filing as you move away from where you are holding the rod, but this will have deadly consequences.
You can work on maybe 1/4" of area at a time, then move the pliers, regrip, and move on. Trying to apply the
Dremel or files on an area of the rod that is too far from the pliers will result in rough, messy edges and a bent rod.
You can also lay the rod flat on a firm surface, clamp it down with tiny C clamps at each end, or
hold it against the surface with a jewelers screwdriver or similar tool, and run files along the sides.
But it's hard to do anything on the curved ends this way. And overall, I find it much easier and faster to
work it by holding it in pliers.
FLUTING - or other 3D relief work.
If you need to make fluting or grooves down the center of the rod...
I just lay the rod on something like a wood block, nice and flat, tape it down at each end (just so it doesn't keep
annoyingly wander around), then hold
a steel straightedge right down the center of the rod lengthwise.
I can then run the tip of the triangular file along that edge, over and over,
cutting a V-shaped groove line into the rod. I then follow that up with the tip of the round file, which tends to
widen out the groove and make a nice slightly-round-edged valley down the center of the rod.
