H0e forest railways with H0 branch line

[Martijn Meerts]

Minor update... The part I sent to RG-Rokko to get replaced by World Kougei finally arrived at RG-Rokko last weekend. All in all it took almost a month to get there. RG-Rokko sent it on to World Kougei immediately, and to my surprise, only a few days later I got an email from RG-Rokko saying they had received the new parts from World Kougei already, including a note apologising for the wrong part being included in the first place. Remember, this is a 5 year year old kit for which spare parts no longer existed. On top of that, I didn't buy it at RG-Rokko, but they were happy to help anyway. Gotta love Japanese service 🙂

 

Since RG-Rokko will need to send back the parts to me, I figured I might as well check if there are some other items I want. Since I only have 1 H0e locomotive and only a few cars, I decided to order World Kougei's Shizuoka Railway B15 tank loco, a World Kougei tank car, and various kits by Toma Model Works, such as some box cars, open cars (both brass) and a plastic kit of some log carrying cars.

 

In the meantime I added the final detail parts to the body of the Hokutan #2, as well as some additional custom details bits I noticed were present on the prototype. I also went over it with a glass fiber brush, so now it's just a matter of running it through the ultrasonic cleaner, add the metal prep, and then prime it. The 3D printed cab interior details I'll likely install after painting the rest of the body.

 

I also added my custom 3D printed axle boxes to the WaFu22000 frame using some epoxy. I'll go over it with the glass fiber brush later today, and prepare that for priming as well. The axle boxes have some small holes drilled into them where I will install small brass cups for power pickup, which was the reason I made custom axles boxes, since the kit did come with white metal axle boxes.

[hide7072001]

Nice to meet you

I am Hide, a newcomer to this forum.

 

If you have already ordered Shizuoka Railway B15, it is unavoidable

but I think this Imon's Kiso C-type Porter is more suitable to be added to your Kiso Baldwin.

It fits chronologically, and affectionate fire-prone chimney is same : )

imon.co.jp/webshop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=130091&w=332&x=100&y=0&from=mk

More than that, you can expect more stable running with this loco that uses Imon's larger motor.

 

Hide  

[Martijn Meerts]

Hi, and welcome to the forum 🙂

 

I have already ordered the B15, but I will definitely be ordering more locomotives eventually. IMON's C-type Porter looks like a great locomotive, so I'll add it to my wish list. What I don't like about it, is that the motor is very visible in the cab.

 

For (hopefully) smooth running, I will be using an ESU Lokpilot Micro DCC decoder with the ESU Power pack mini capacitor.

 

This project is not prototypical, it's a fictional forest and mining railway. I buy the trains based on how much I like the look of them, so I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of strange combinations 😄

 

 

[hide7072001]

If the loco is painted black, the motor is not so noticeable.

This is IMON's Senpoku No.3 C Porter (Prototype specification) SF, a finished product, I bought with my poor bonus😪

 

What people think is same🙂

The ESU Power pack mini capacitor is bigger than expected.

 

I want to create a Layout in HOe and HOj blanch line, simulating the relationship between SR&RL and M.C.

in Japanese style🙂

 

Hide

 

Edited July 9, 2020 by hide7072001
photo

[Martijn Meerts]

It definitely looks good painted, the motor almost looks like it's part of the interior of the cab.

 

The power pack is definitely quite big. It doesn't fit without adjusting. What I'm doing for both the Hokutan #2, as well as the Baldwin, is remote the capacitor from the circuit board. I can then hide the capacitor in the boiler / smoke box and run some wires from the capacitor to the circuit board. In case of the Hokutan #2, I can hide the circuit board in 1 of the water tanks. The decoder will go into the other water tank. ESU did release a new version of the power pack as well, where the circuit board is slightly smaller, but the capacitor is still the same size.

 

My idea is a branch line operated by JNR, that's seeing quite a lot of traffic, so it's in the process of being turned into a main line. That way I can run some of the bigger locomotives, since I really want a C55 at some point. The narrow gauge line is a fictional company, inspired by both Japanese and American narrow gauge forest and mining lines.

 

Of course, due to being very busy with work, progress is really slow, but I'll get there eventually 🙂

 

[hide7072001]

Hmm, I think you're attracted to this?

https://www.imon.co.jp/MODELS/GOODS380.MBR/c55

To the magic of IMON🙂

[Martijn Meerts]

Yes, that's the one. Although I would get the kit version.

 

I already have this one: https://www.imon.co.jp/webshop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=143771 but I haven't started building it yet.

[hide7072001]

 

So this is it.

https://www.imon.co.jp/webshop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=152132&w=332&x=210&y=0&from=mk

Even as the kit, t's a pretty good price🙂

[Martijn Meerts]

Yep, it's quite an expensive project 😄

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Not much news, work has kept me busy the past weekends and most evenings.

 

Still waiting for a reply from RG-Rokko about some of the Toma Model Works items I ordered. RG-Rokko had most of them in stock, but were missing 2 items. The inquired with Toma Model Works to see if they still have them in stock. I also asked them to check which wheel sets I need for the WaFu22000. I had ordered some before, but they were the wrong ones. Unfortunately, World Kougei doesn't list an item number, but just a general description. I ended up with a set of wheels that are probably meant to convert a 16.5mm gauge car to a 12mm gauge one. 

 

In the meantime I've been going through a lot of old ballast, sand, trees, bushes, ground cover, etc. A lot of that stuff is many years old, and really doesn't look good, so I'm getting rid of that. The stuff I want to keep, I'm storing in some transparent plastic jars rather than in the opaque plastic boxes it's in now. Slowly working towards a more organised hobby room. I'm also looking into cutting the Minitrix layout I have in the garage into sections, so I can move that up to the hobby room. I want to strengthen the frame a bit, and then install some digital components. Short term I can use it to run some trains, long term I'm not sure what to do with it. It's the last layout my father worked on, so I don't really want to take it apart. On the other hand, it uses the tight Minitrix curves, so most Japanese trains won't run on it.

 

Finally, been working quite a bit on the model train database project again. Much of the database and API is done, and I'm working on a fairly basic UI now. While I did get this far before with the project before the rewrite, I'm much happier with how it looks now, both the overal look, as well as the code. I'm hoping to have an early testable version done sometime in the next month or so.

 

[roadstar_na6]

44 minutes ago, Martijn Meerts said:

Still waiting for a reply from RG-Rokko

 

Message them on Instagram or Facebook, you might get a reply then 😉

[Martijn Meerts]

They'll get back to me when they know more, they're good at communicating. Besides, they have around 45k yen worth of items waiting to go my way, so I doubt they forgot 😄

 

[Martijn Meerts]

In my pursuit to find a good way to paint the wooden sleepers, I came across a site that used "Dye-na-flow" textile dyes to colour not only wood, but also plastic. Interestingly, on plastic they used white gesso as primer, which is what I've been trying to use to prime the pcboard sleepers used to build the turnouts. The results looked really convincing, so I decided to have a look if I could find something similar. To my surprise, I found a shop in the Netherlands that not only sells the "Dye-na-flow" dye, but also has dye powder/pigments which you can mix with water or alcohol to create your own dyes. Ended up ordering white, black, brown and burnt umber Dye-na-flow, as well as black and brown basic dye (the powder version). They arrived earlier today, so I'll do a little experimenting soon.

 

Also, my newest order from RG-Rokko, including the spare parts for the Hokutan #2 drive rods was shipped, and should be arriving tomorrow. Included in that package are a couple of H0e Toma Model Works kits, quite interested in their quality.

 

Finally, I've started looking into the IMON ToRa6000 and WaMu50000 kit. I've started doing some measurements and quick research into turning those into true 12mm gauge cars, as in, make sure the undercarriage looks like it was made for 12mm gauge, rather than 16.5mm gauge. This means doing some custom 3D printed bits and some fairly minor adjustments to the existing kits. Just waiting for the WaFu22000's wheels to arrive, since those will be my template for the ToRa6000 and WaMu50000.

 

[Martijn Meerts]

And here's a quick test of the Dye-na-flow brown. I'm already quite happy with these results.

 

 

The experiment was basically putting a little bit of the dye in a small cup, inserting a couple of sleepers, and then leave them in for various periods of time. Interestingly, the sleepers were only submerged in the dye for about 1 to 1.5 cm (they're around 6cm give or take) but the wood sucked up the dye pretty well. 

 

The image shows sleepers that were submerged for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 minutes, but there's no way to tell the difference. I checked the penetration of the dye into the wood, and it's pretty much the same for all of them, and definitely better than previous dyes I tried. I did run some sand paper over these after dyeing, hence why some are nearly blank again.

 

I might try a mix of brown with a little burnt umber for a very slight red-ish hue, possible also some white to dull it down a little bit, but I do think these are pretty usable as is.

 

I also need to try brushing the dye on instead of dipping the sleepers in the dye, although dipping them is a lot quicker of course 🙂

 

[Martijn Meerts]

The 13 ton Shay kit by Toma Model Works came in. I got both the frame kit and the body shell kit. I've not had a good look at them, just took the various bags with parts out of the box to give them a quick look. Most parts are 3D printed using a resin printer. Some quick inspection of some of the parts would suggest it's done on a very high quality printer, a lot of the parts can be used almost as is, with just some very minor sanding.

 

This is the frame kit. It comes with everything needed to build a rolling frame. Of course all the gear come as separate bits, so they'll need to be glued onto the axles. This can be a little bit annoying, but epoxy tends to do the trick 🙂 There's quite a lot of tiny moving parts and various gears to make sure the pistons on the side of the loco move. There's actually more parts than I expected, especially since I thought the motorised bogie was pre-assembled. I'll need to find some good glue for resin to resin and resin to metal I guess.

 

 

This is the shell kit, obviously a lot less parts. The boiler and much of the boiler details are all printed as 1 piece. Some of the detail on the boilers looks really rather fragile, so I'll need to be extra careful. I did also order a really small finishing file from Toma Model Works as well, which you can insert into a pin vise, so that should give some pretty good control when working on the boiler. Interestingly, they actually gave me the file for free 🙂

 

It'll be interesting building this thing, I think it's going to be quite a bit more complicated than I initially thought it would be ...

 

Edit: Forgot to mention the building instructions. They don't come with the kit, but there's a URL / QR code on the boxes where you can download a PDF. Instructions are actually really quite detailed, and the ones for the frame also have English texts. The shell is Japanese only, but it'll probably get English texts at some point as well, they frame's been available longer than the shell, so more time has likely been spent on the manual.

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Been a while since I've really done anything to this project. The N-scale layout has been taking up most of my time recently, but I'm waiting for some things to arrive and track to become available again before I can really continue.

 

So, picked up the WaFu22000 again, figured I'd work on the body a bit. For the most part things are going quite well.

 

 

Soldered in the support structure for the shell, which allows it to sit on the frame. Just wanted to do a quick test to see how it looks. It's a bit strange without the wheels, but I still need to work out how to do power pickup somewhat reliably. I still think the 3D printed axle boxes with brass cups glued into them is the best option. I need to optimise the design for the axle boxes a little bit though, so they have a little more area for the glue to get a good bond.

 

 

Seeing as soldering went quite well, I decided to add one of the ends, and start adding details. It's pretty finicky, but using a decent set of tools, I actually managed to solder in all the details, including all the hand grips and everything. For tail lights, the kit does include clear red lenses, but the 2 disc shapes that the lenses go into are solid. I've tried drilling a small 0.4mm hole into 1 of them, which actually worked. I'm thinking that installing an LED on the inside of the car in front of the little hole should give enough light for the lens to light up. Considering the era I'm aiming for, the light doesn't need to be very bright at all, so hopefully it'll work somewhat.

 

[marknewton]

Martijn, your WaFu looks very neat and tidy, it's going to look good when complete. You mention the tail or marker lights - Some time back I bought some LED lighting units for brakevans. I think they were made by Cosmic? I'll have a look when I get home and check.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Could be interesting if there's some sort of unit that would fit. I'm not so sure though considering the car has no power pick up at all, and it's not easy to retrofit once the kit has been built I think.

 

I've checked some LEDs, and the 0402 ones are small enough to make something work. I can 3D print some small boxes to contain the LED, and which can be glued onto the end of the lights. The 0402 LEDs are so small, they'd even work for the lights on the balcony end without looking weird. Of course, gluing them in means that if a LED fails, there's no easy way of fixing it 🙂

 

[roadstar_na6]

Use some glue that can be removed through either applying heat again (hot glue?) or water (tacky glue).

[Martijn Meerts]

Tacky glue might be an option, hot glue is a bit too messy for such tiny areas. The glue does also need to block any possible light leakage, but I'll see. I'll need to get some LEDs to test with first anyway, design some sort of housing for the LED, and then work out where to go with the wires and all that.

 

Anyway, some more progress. Things were going rather well so I figured I'd continue working on the thing. Even started looking a little bit into some scale wood to do the interior with 🙂

 

 

Worked on the end with the little balcony. Quite a few details were added here. The manual brake, the hand grips, light fixtures and various other bits. The light fixtures are placed a little bit weird, but I have seen pictures of the prototype with the fixtures light this. Another option would be down a little bit and further apart, and while that would be possible with this kit, it would require some rather accurate drilling of holes. In the end I decided to just go with this option. Also, added the couplers, frame, roof and roof details as a quick mockup to see what it looks like.

 

 

 

Also added the final details on the other end, as well as the door and the hand grips on the door.

 

I still need to put together the other door, add a couple of additional detail bits, and then install the white metal parts. I'll also need to figure out how to install the roof. You're meant to solder it in place, but that means the only way to add interior detail would be through the small-ish openings in the bottom. Not fastening the roof at all isn't really an option either though.

 

 

I've made some adjustments to the axle bearings 3D model, which I'm hoping to 3D print tomorrow, so I can test fit those as well. Have to say, I'm quite pleased with the progress the past couple of days, and I'm starting to get pretty confident I can start working in the IMON SL9600 soon (finally ;))

 

 

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Made some more progress again. I added the final detail bits as well as the white metal castings. White metal is still a pain to solder, even with all the right tools. Considering how much white metal parts the SL9600 kit has, I really need to get better at that 🙂

 

 

Everything apart from the roof is now done. The green bits near the wheel are the 3D printed axle bearings. They are based off of the included white metal ones, which I didn't want to use because it would make power pickup a nightmare. I still need to finetune the wheels a little. The hole inside the axle bearing that'll fit the brass cup is a bit too shallow, so the parts with the bearings and leaf springs are sticking out a bit too much. I've also noticed that the brake shoes on 1 side of the wheel are closer to the wheel than the other side. A minor detail, but I'll need to check if there's a reason for that.

 

 

Shot from the balcony end

 

 

Shot from the side, clearly showing the translucent green axle bearings 🙂

 

 

I have to say, installing the wheels and putting the thing on some track for the first time felt quite good. Next up is of course some more fine tuning, checking for solder that needs to be removed, cleaning up the inside a bit so there's no tabs or anything sticking out that might cause a short once a decoder is installed, and then my least favorite bit, preparing everything for painting.

 

With regards to marker lights, does anyone know if both marker lights were always turned on, or were there situations where only 1 marker light would be used? Considering each marker light will get its own LED, I can wire it up so that I can digitally control each of the 4 marker lights separately.

 

[marknewton]

I'm sure that once the van is painted you'll be happy with the result, Martijn. It's looking very good. 
 

I can think of one situation when only marker light is illuminated, that's when the train is in a refuge or crossing loop and another train is overtaking it. The marker light on the side that the overtaking train will pass on would be extinguished. That gave the crew of the overtaking train visual confirmation that the other train was fully within the loop and not fouling the points/turnout. 
 

All the best,

 

Mark.

[Martijn Meerts]

That sounds like both a situation that's not necessarily very common, but at the same time would be interesting to model 🙂

 

[Martijn Meerts]

I added the power pickups today, of course I hadn't really thought things through entirely. I installed small brass cups in the axle bearings, and the ends of the axles of the wheels slot into those cups. A small wire is soldered to the cups, and the wire is routed to the inside of the car where the decoder will be. The problem however, is that the axles are a single piece of metal, and 1 of the wheels is isolated. Having installed the axles with the isolated wheel on the same side, I was getting power from 1 rail to all 4 of the pickups.

 

Luckily, there's a fairly easy fix, just swap 1 of the axles around, so that basically the front of the car picks up power from for example the left rail, while the rear of the car picks up power from the right rail. This does mean power is only picked up from 2 wheels instead of all 4, but the idea was to add a power pack / capacitor to the decoder anyway, so the lights should remain constant.

 

 

I also gave my Hokutan #2 a quick check. The shell still needs to be painted, but is otherwise pretty much done. One issue I came across though, is that the screws that hold the gears in place were coming lose. That means I need to take part of the frame apart again, and refasten the screws, this time with a little bit of thread lock most likely. It sounds easy, but it means removing some wheels, so that's going to be fun 😄

 

[Martijn Meerts]

On 1/2/2021 at 10:13 PM, Martijn Meerts said:

I also gave my Hokutan #2 a quick check. The shell still needs to be painted, but is otherwise pretty much done. One issue I came across though, is that the screws that hold the gears in place were coming lose. That means I need to take part of the frame apart again, and refasten the screws, this time with a little bit of thread lock most likely. It sounds easy, but it means removing some wheels, so that's going to be fun 😄

 

So, today I figured I needed a break from working in the evenings, and decided to pick up the Hokutan #2. It was surprisingly hard to find some loctite here that's not meant for the automotive industry, and eventually ordered a small bottle of purple loctite from Germany. I took apart the entire frame again, checked all the gears and bushings, and then screwed them back into place using a little of the loctite. This should hopefully prevent the screws from loosening themselves again.

 

Once back together, I also added the final part of the drive rods. Those are the parts where 1 of the originals I had wasn't the correct one. RG Rokko got me a replacement from World Kougei a while ago, but just never got around to installing them. The small pins you push into the wheels were a bit small so they had the potential to fall off again, so I added a tiny bit of solder to the pins, and that seems to have worked.

 

I installed a decoder for testing, and while it runs, it does seem to be binding a little bit, especially going backwards. I'll need to fine tune it some. It's also making a bit of a squeaky noise, which I believe might be coming from where the axles contact the frame. I can't add oil there, because it's also the power pickup, but some powdered graphite might work. I also still need add some oil to the motor on some of the moving parts of the drive rod system, and then add some grease to the gears.

 

The paint on the frame held up really well. I did handle it quite a bit while taking it apart to re-do the gears and then assembling it again. There was no damage to the paint at all. So my current method of cleaning with styrene cement, then painting on metal prep, then a coat of regular grey paint to act as primer, then 2 thin coats of JNR black, before a coat of clear seems to work.

 

I probably won't paint the shell anytime soon, I'm just too busy with various things to be able to sit down and take my time to paint it right. Same goes for the WaFu 22000, which is also waiting for the frame to be painted.