The Carolina Sandhills Lines in HO Scale

[davefoxx]

I found some diamond roof shingles that are almost perfect for my SAL station.  The custom decals that I made for the original roofing worked great in N scale but, scaled up, just looked too flat in HO.  These should add that needed texture that was lacking.  I’ve just barely started, but I already like it.



DFF

[davefoxx]

That's one pack of shingles down.  Probably two to go.  Please ignore the ugly cuts of the shingles at that hip; I haven't installed the ridge caps yet that will hide the sins.



DFF

[keeper]

That's coming along nicely.

 

[Hawghead]

Looks great Dave, looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Scott

[GaryHinshaw]

Nice.  The colour and texture both seem really good.

[wm3798]

Superb.

[davefoxx]

I took a break from the SAL station roofing project, because I received some parts to repair to a couple of locomotives:
1) new wheelsets for the Proto2000 GP30, to fix the cracked axle gears, and
2) a replacement Athearn Genesis motor for a dead Athearn FP7.

About the FP7, it just up and died one day several months ago.  Sound and lights worked, but no go.  The 21-pin LokSound decoder functioned perfectly in another locomotive, so it had to be the motor.  I could not find the exact motor that I needed, but I located an Athearn Genesis motor for an SD40/SD45.  In the photos, it appeared to be the exact same motor and only the motor mount differed.  But, it also looked as if the motor mount attachment screw holes were in the same location, so I could hopefully just swap motor mounts and be in business.  Thankfully, this turned out to be the case.  Here is the old (bottom) and new motors, comparing the motor mounts:



A perfect fit back into the frame after the motor mount swap.  It may not have looked like much, but the motor mount of the new motor being off by just a few millimeters would have prevented this motor from even fitting within the frame.



An interesting side note.  On my first attempt at installing the motor, I failed to properly seat the driveshaft in the front end.  When I tested the F-unit on the programming track, it threw a fit, sputtered, and popped.  I thought I had really screwed up and possibly wasted $50.00 for a new motor.  Then, I noticed the driveshaft had popped out of the universal on the lead truck.  Whew!  That’s an easy fix.  But, that’s when I found a broken power wire on the lead truck, which I wouldn’t have found otherwise, and that would have relegated the engine to six-wheel pick up.  That repair required two steps backwards to replace the wire, which had actually broken about 1/2” from the end all of the way down behind the sideframe.  This was not just a failed solder connection.



A new wire soldered to the sideframe:



A trip back to the programming track proved all was well again, so I put it all back together.  This time, I struggled but got the headlight and Gyralight wires better concealed, so it didn’t appear that there was a huge black snake draped across the control stand in the cab.



This is the first time that this pair has run together in many months.  I’ll need to tweak the speed match after the motor is broken in, because this FP7 runs a little faster than the other unit now.  No biggie and totally expected.



DFF

[oakcreekco]

I took a break from the SAL station roofing project, because I received some parts to repair to a couple of locomotives:
1) new wheelsets for the Proto2000 GP30, to fix the cracked axle gears, and
2) a replacement Athearn Genesis motor for a dead Athearn FP7.

About the FP7, it just up and died one day several months ago.  Sound and lights worked, but no go.  The 21-pin LokSound decoder functioned perfectly in another locomotive, so it had to be the motor.  I could not find the exact motor that I needed, but I located an Athearn Genesis motor for an SD40/SD45.  In the photos, it appeared to be the exact same motor and only the motor mount differed.  But, it also looked as if the motor mount attachment screw holes were in the same location, so I could hopefully just swap motor mounts and be in business.  Thankfully, this turned out to be the case.  Here is the old (bottom) and new motors, comparing the motor mounts:



A perfect fit back into the frame after the motor mount swap.  It may not have looked like much, but the motor mount of the new motor being off by just a few millimeters would have prevented this motor from even fitting within the frame.



An interesting side note.  On my first attempt at installing the motor, I failed to properly seat the driveshaft in the front end.  When I tested the F-unit on the programming track, it threw a fit, sputtered, and popped.  I thought I had really screwed up and possibly wasted $50.00 for a new motor.  Then, I noticed the driveshaft had popped out of the universal on the lead truck.  Whew!  That’s an easy fix.  But, that’s when I found a broken power wire on the lead truck, which I wouldn’t have found otherwise, and that would have relegated the engine to six-wheel pick up.  That repair required two steps backwards to replace the wire, which had actually broken about 1/2” from the end all of the way down behind the sideframe.  This was not just a failed solder connection.



A new wire soldered to the sideframe:



A trip back to the programming track proved all was well again, so I put it all back together.  This time, I struggled but got the headlight and Gyralight wires better concealed, so it didn’t appear that there was a huge black snake draped across the control stand in the cab.



This is the first time that this pair has run together in many months.  I’ll need to tweak the speed match after the motor is broken in, because this FP7 runs a little faster than the other unit now.  No biggie and totally expected.



DFF

Nice work Dave. Always good getting a "head scratcher" on the rails and running.

Was the broken truck wire solid or a stranded type?

[davefoxx]

Nice work Dave. Always good getting a "head scratcher" on the rails and running.

Was the broken truck wire solid or a stranded type?

Stranded, if you can believe it.  The funny thing is that I noticed the other FP7 stutter at a turnout when I MUed them and wonder if it has the same problem.  I could have just checked by lifting the end of the locomotive. 

DFF

[oakcreekco]

That's crazy. Stranded usually works well, it's the connections that usually show their ugly side for me.

Glad you found it. Run time.

[davefoxx]

Here’s the other locomotive project this week: a twenty-five or thirty-year-old Life-Like Proto2000 Seaboard Air Line GP30.  This thing’s so old that I worried about whether it was DCC ready.  Thankfully, it was, so I didn’t have to isolate the motor.  However, cracked axle gears were considered a possibility and were found to be a reality.



The first step was to gut all of the ancient electronics and incandescent bulbs.  You may notice that, under that weight, these early Proto2000 locomotives resembled blue box Athearn construction.



Attempt #1 was a LokSound V5.0 21-pin decoder on a Decoder Buddy Mini.  It worked, except it was too tall to allow the shell to be seated on the frame correctly.  Back to the drawing board.



Get out the hack saw!  Attempt #2 would be a LokSound V5.0 decoder designed to replace a stock Athearn circuit board.  But, this decoder would be larger and leave no room for a speaker.  The blackened area of the weight in the following picture is what has got to go.



It all fits, and I added LED lights.  I was able to just secure the rear LED on top of the speaker with Kapton tape.  I would have to be more creative on the front.  Testing the LEDs:



For both front and rear headlights, Life-Like had clear plastic light tubes that included the numberboards and headlight lenses in one plastic chunk.   I cut those up, because I did not want the numberboards to be lit by the headlight LEDs.  If I decide to light those numberboards someday, I’ll add mini LEDs to each numberboard and will be able to control them independently from the headlights.  For the front headlight, I glued a styrene tube into the ceiling of the cab for the LED to slip in.  This allows light only to come out of the headlight and not into the cab.  Some careful filing/trimming of the styrene tube allows it to fit tight to the front wall of the cab behind the headlight casing.  In the following picture, I have already painted the tubing black to minimize light leaks.  Not shown here is the liberal application of black paint in the rear shell and over the rear numberboards and class lights to stop light leaks there.



Success!  The front.



The rear.



Not shown here, I fixed the broken axle gears by just ordering four new Walthers Proto2000 replacement wheelsets.  This also addressed some bearing issues I was experiencing in the trucks that were causing binding.

DFF

[ChristianJDavis1]

A little late now, but you could have used the WVD board we use in N scale instead of the ESU 58821 board as it's a lot smaller and still has many of the function pads.


 versus


I've used them before in small HO locomotives like RS3's, and you can just solder to the pickups where in a Kato locomotive they would just press up against them.

[davefoxx]

A little late now, but you could have used the WVD board we use in N scale instead of the ESU 58821 board as it's a lot smaller and still has many of the function pads.

[. . .]

I've used them before in small HO locomotives like RS3's, and you can just solder to the pickups where in a Kato locomotive they would just press up against them.

Ooh!  I didn’t think about that.  Honestly, I used this 58821 board that I may have stolen from another locomotive in the fleet when you all were out of 58429 decoders.  But, as pointed out above, that was moot, because the 58429 was unusable in this loco.  I’ll keep your suggestion in mind, though, the next time I find myself waist-deep in a project that is cramped on space.

Thanks,
DFF

[davefoxx]

After all of these recent locomotive projects, I like to think that I’ve earned some time to JFRTM, so . . .

It’s the spring of 1967.  The merger of the Atlantic Coast Line and the Seaboard Air Line is still a couple of months away.  So, it’s all Seaboard Air Line motive power in this photo, as the Seaboard Coast Line does not yet exist.  Here, we’re witness to second generation power only as SAL SDP35 No. 1114 and GP30 No. 506 have the honors on this southbound mixed manifest roaring through Southern Pines, North Carolina.  Within the hour, this train should reach Hamlet Yard.



This picture is an example of how some of the recent decoderizations on older HO scale models have allowed me to turn back the clock to the SAL years.  I will go back in and redo the upper headlight housing on the SDP35 for a Gyralight and a red emergency light.  But, that’s a project for another day; I have a station that needs more roof shingles first.

DFF

[davefoxx]

The reroofing project on the Seaboard Air Line station continues.  The laser cut diamond shingles from Bollinger Edgerly Scale Trains (Best Trains) are working really well.  Two sides of the roof are almost finished, and I am working on the ridge caps up the hip between them.  They’re going on one cap at a time, so this will take a while.



DFF