How did you improve your rolling stock?

[Das Steinkopf]

Well I didn’t waste my time redoing the diesel soot. 

 

 

[Das Steinkopf]

Fitted Tomix 0337 TN’s to my Tomix 313-2300’s and my Greenmax 211-5000 LL Sets last night, photos of the latter attached.

 

 

[railsquid]

Slowly working through all those spontaneous purchases piling up which need attention to the detailing bits...

 

Tomix ED61 (ED61-11) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

[railsquid]

And the next one...

 

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]Tomix EF60 (EF60-42) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

[railsquid]

And another MicroAce "poor runner" acquired very cheaply passes through the Railsquid Workshops :D

 

 

 

[cteno4]

Wow! What an improvement, just lubing?

 

I imagine this workshop being a long Tomix engine shed with tentacles coming from all over the ceiling...

 

jeff

[railsquid]

4 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Wow! What an improvement, just lubing?

 

 

Yup.

 

The trick is to apply grease to the ends of the worm gear, where it sits inside the little "O"-shaped parts, i.e. the circular bit just to the right of the toothpick here:

 

MicroAce 209-500 series maintenance by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

This pretty cures the "clicky vibration" sound, which I presume is caused by the ends of the worm gear vibrating very slightly within the "O" parts. Works every time.

 

[cteno4]

Yeah same experience! Although I have one I need to do a total teardown as basic lubing didn’t work.

 

jeff

[railsquid]

Indeed. I usually end up taking them all apart to remove the residue from previous owners' basic lubing attempts as well as their assorted fibre collection.

 

The odd thing with this one is that someone had clearly worked on it before, as the plastic tabs holding the interior floor in place weren't in pristine condition, and part of the chassis had been drilled out underneath where the armature comes out of the motor:

 

MicroAce E231-0 series by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

MicroAce E231-0 series by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

I guess the/a previous owner thought the mechanism was hitting the bottom of the chassis and wanted to create some clearance for it.

[railsquid]

4 hours ago, cteno4 said:

I imagine this workshop being a long Tomix engine shed with tentacles coming from all over the ceiling...
 

 

Something like this?

 

[cteno4]

Actually I was thinking more of the Decapodiformes variety of arms and the pair of tentacles for the tough repairs to boot! I thought railsquid would think we don’t need no stinkin Octopodiformes!

 

jeff

[railsquid]

Cross-species cooperation is what it's all about.

[Sheffie]

I worked out why the koki 107 was derailing going over the crossover—and why it was so difficult to re-rail it afterwards. 

I’d put too much pressure on it, trying to get the 31ft containers mounted. (I didn’t realize that there needs to be a space between them, big enough for the central mounting nub.)

 

Not at all difficult to fix, once I could see the problem. Now running smoothly!

 

 

[disturbman]

18 hours ago, lighthouse said:

Out of boredom I put together a fictional SL train - SL C62 with ED76-522 🤣

Would be a great train today between Moruran and Asahikawa

 

Nice! Still wondering in which way this is an improvement? Are we missing a thread for special consists we sometime make of our trains? Like, "What did you ran today?"

Edited July 27, 2019 by disturbman

[lighthouse]

I think you're right, maybe we can do that as you describe.

 

[disturbman]

My comment was tongue in cheek, but I went away and created a new thread.
 

 

[railsquid]

A while back I acquired a bunch of "junk" MicroAce 101 series cars mainly for parts extraction, but they also make excellent guinea pigs for experimenting with various improvements.

 

Here the plastic "push-fit" destination headboard from a Kato 101 series has been added; it's almost an exact fit:

 

MicroAce 101 series (junk) - destination board replacement by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

though to get it in depth-wise, I needed to shorten the lighting unit prism, in the process of which I knocked off the section main headlight. It can probably be glued into place when I get round to it - it's an experiment after all.

 

The most annoying visual feature of older MicroAce units is the dark blue interior used, which really stands out; painting the cab interior in metallic green (Gundam Colour "MS Green") makes a big difference  (and also makes it easier to see the detail inside the cab, which is minimal but I didn't realise it was there at all...)

 

MicroAce 101 series (junk) - cab interior repaint by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

More to follow as time permits...

[Welshbloke]

At this rate you'll end up restoring them rather than breaking for parts!

[railsquid]

On 7/22/2019 at 9:46 AM, railsquid said:

And another MicroAce "poor runner" acquired very cheaply passes through the Railsquid Workshops 😄

 

 

 

 

And destination indicators attached...

 

MicroAce E231-0 series (Chuo Sobu Line) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

MicroAce E231-0 series (Chuo Sobu Line) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

[railsquid]

I do like MicroAce stuff, partly because a lot of the older models can be purchased by the bucketload and can be fixed up quite easily, but they do like to keep a bit of space between cars:

 

MicroAce 115-800 series by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

Nothing which can't be fixed with some Tomix close couplers though:

 

MicroAce 115-800 series by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

(Corridor connector on the KuHa is a little loose, will fix another time).

[Kamome]

Some simple pin washing with some diluted black Tamiya enamel and a little white enamel, bring out the details on this DD54.

 

You can see the difference compared to another DD54 I have.

[katoftw]

@Kamome That look great.The vents really stand out no being the mono tone red.

[Kamome]

Thanks @katoftw

 

Its a very simple technique and you have full control of how heavy or light you want to take it. The enamel comes off very easily if you make a mistake. 

 

I do think “the less is more” when weathering n scale.

[RogerMc]

Was the white used on the roof or for a subtle fade of the red? Nicely done.

[Kamome]

19 minutes ago, RogerMc said:

Was the white used on the roof or for a subtle fade of the red? Nicely done.

Thanks.

Nothing done to the roof as yet other than a black pin wash. Just the light on the photo. The white was used to outline the ladders. Any overspill can be tidied up with some thinners so you get crisp lines.

 

I will airbrush some soot once I’m clear on where the exhaust was. Lots of photos have soot covering the side as the DD54 were pretty smoky things. I’ve not found a photo of the roof to give a clear impression of where the majority of soot accumulated.